Plowing, Sowing and an Occasional Harvest

...a little roping

2012-01-29T22:16:00.000-06:00

I have really enjoyed getting to watch W.D. learn to rope. He tries so hard. Blue gets a workout every time he rides, because W.D. doesn't catch every throw. But his confidence and riding ability has greatly improved. I rode at the Go Texan on Friday night and Saturday. I sorted and did team penning then when we got home at three Saturday, W.D. and Tanner decided that we needed to go rope some calves. We unloaded horses and clothes, then loaded new horses and went to rope. I was very tired but it was really fun. Today W.D. decided that we needed to go again after church. We took our photographer and number one fan, Mom. She enjoyed it a little I think, beside freezing sitting on the pipe fence. Fun times.

...our first week

2012-01-22T16:43:00.000-06:00

In July, we had let everyone know before Kolya came to live with us, that WE WERE LEAVING TOWN! Most folks, who are familiar with foster and adoption procedures, know that this is not a great time to be delivering any child to the foster home, much less an angry, frustrated, nine year old Ukrainian. We couldn't have made it any clearer, this was not good!

Those of you who show animals, know that to go to any show can be an ordeal. Especially to the parents who spend a week before getting ready and work like a dog during the show keeping up with classes, patterns, technique, etc. It can be a stressful time for everyone. We have two kids showing horses in 4H. When our oldest was showing, she was fairly self sufficient. With the younger ones showing this is not the case. In 2011, Mallory, not only rode with the Brazos Faith Riders Drill Team, but also showed in Working Cow Horse and Team Penning Events along with showing our three year old mare in the Three Year Old Futurity. This event consists of four classes. Will was also showing in Team Penning and Drill Team. This was going to be a scheduling night mare all by itself. But now we added the little twist of carrying along a little fella who had only been in the U.S. for three weeks. Sometime during the second week he had been taken from the home that he thought that he would be living, for at least to the age of eighteen, due to his "uncontrollable outburst".

I suspected what "uncontrollable outbursts" meant and was very aware that if it was going to occur, I predicted that it would occur in the most inopportune time. That is hilarious to think about now. You know that there are things that happen in every family that are absolutely horrible at the time, but over time they get a little funnier. This was one of those times. We packed up and went to Abilene for the week to the 4H State Horse Show. It is a huge deal for kids all around the state. Just to let you know the level of competition, just the week, I read an article in Horse and Rider Magazine featuring one of the young men that Mallory had to compete against. This isn't a rag tag event.

The first two days were fairly easy. Kids were making practice times and were getting ready to start competing on Monday. Monday rolled around and we noticed that things were beginning to get a little tense with Kolya, but nothing really any different than a normal nine year old boy would be feeling. Especially one who just had to "keep up" with the fast pace that had been escalating. Keep in mind, he couldn't speak hardly any English. My biggest fear was that he would break and run, in which he had absolutely no idea where to go, or who to go to. Or he would just wonder into the crowd and get lost. He just barely knew our first names. He sure could not communicate to a complete stranger who we were or where to find us. Heck he may just want to disappear for all I knew. He could have told any police officer that he had been taken from his home. All of these scenarios were running through my head, while I was telling him, firmly, that he has to keep up with me.

Looking back on how we raised our kids, I think about how we were like the shepherds in the Bible. We trained them to know our voice. They know my whistle. When I whistle in a crowd, I see them peer above the crowd searching for me. By no means would I compare a child to an animal, but I would use an analogy or two to make a point. Even when I train my working dogs, I can whistle if I need to or most of the time I can verbally, quietly, tell them to "get in here". And without any hesitation at all they will be at my side or behind my horse. Well having this kid in a foreign land, away from anything familiar, I had zero, nadda, zilch, controls on him. It was more like taking a young puppy into a capacity filled arena, at a Jason Aldean concert, and expecting him to stay by your side without a leash. New sites, new sounds, horses everywhere, distractions at every step. It was stress on steroids.

I was having to walk with my head turned sideways so that I could keep one eye on Kolya and keep the other on where I was going. I was constantly telling him to "keep up with me", "don't lose me" and any other words I could express to him that he really needed to watch for me. I had to go from barn to barn, to the trailer, to the bathroom, to the trailer, to the show pen, to check water, to the truck to get numbers, oh my goodness. It was crazy. Will and Mallory probably could have done it by themselves, and for the most part they did I guess. Mallory just couldn't ride her horse for one class and drag the other for the next class. And with the drill team, there was of course make up and costumes. The thought of it still makes me tired.

Well on Monday, we had our first breakdown. I know you might be wondering why I would be writing an entire entry over some kids melt down. All of our kids have them from time to time. Several things about these meltdowns became extremely critical in our relationship. The first meltdown came because he was exhausted. We were about a hundred yards from the trailer and he decided that it was a great time to balk. Pretty much set up like a stubborn mule. In the middle of the driveway, with trucks and trailers trying to get by. Unfortunately for him, I have a stubborn streak myself. I literally had to drag him by his arm to the trailer. Being the intuitive person that I am, I decided to close the gates behind me, just in case he tried to disengage his hind end and make a break for open territory. I bent over to get down on his level, and when I did, he popped me in the eye. Well being instinctive and a little trained from being a house parent, I restrained him in my trailer...For Thirty Minutes. I have wrestled 350 lbs calves with and with out a rope hung on their neck that couldn't fight any harder than this little guy.

Without sharing all of the details, he finally began to relax after he realized that I don't quit just because he can yell loud and fight hard. We had a pretty good understanding when the party broke up. I hugged him, told him that I loved him, and that I was responsible for taking care of him. He seemed to get it. We made it through Tuesday with no blowup. Then Wednesday morning rolled around. And as I predicted, we were getting Mallory for her last futurity class on a horse that had been pushing HER buttons and of all things it was her trail class. The horse was/is terrified of a wooden bridge. I knew this was going to be a frustrating class for Mallory and the horse. At this point we just wanted to make it through as smoothly as possible. About ten minutes before the class, Kolya decided that being sassy and not following me to watch Mallory show was going to be cute. At this point, I just wanted to go watch Mallory, load horses and get home. He wouldn't follow me so I coaxed him closer to the trailer by being funny and trying to make light of the situation. He kind of laughed and then started losing it. Seeing it build, I knew that I had to get him in the trailer. I put him in the trailer had him sit on the hay, and when I turned around, from closing the gates, he met me with my stool trying to whop me upside the head. I restrained his upper body, but every bucket, box, hay bale and feed sack had been undressed by his feet. I told Dayna to get our friend, who was very trained and experienced in this field, over to the trailer to help me restrain him but also to "witness" this for me. We were in the trailer for 45 minutes with constant screaming. It was so loud that the director of the horse show came to the trailer to make sure that everything was under control. I assured him that we were not hurting Kolya (as he could see that we were not), then he asked if I needed anything. All I said was "water". He brought three bottles and left.

Meanwhile Mallory was making her final run. I missed the whole stinking thing. But she had to perform with a screaming Ukrainian in the parking lot. We got him cooled down and under control. We sat for another 15 or 20 minutes talking. My friend, Kolya and I. We were all ringing wet and exhausted. Here is the lesson for me in sharing this event.

Fostering and Adopting IS NOT FOR SISSIES! Life for these kids has been very normal in their eyes. Your vision of normal is very far from their vision of normal. If you are fostering or adopting to say that "I am doing a good deed", you will be in for a long disappointing road. Fostering and adopting is and can be one of the hardest events to take place in a families life. There has to be a grit in your belly that over powers the tough and even physical times. Not only are you dealing with a child who has been use to survival at all cost, especially older children, but also you have to immediately find out where you stand in leading this child who has just come into your family. As you can see by the events of the first week of our story, we made if very clear that "we aren't going to hurt you", "I am not scared of you", "I love you", and "I want you". The last was probably the hardest for me to say and has taken the longest for him to accept.

I knew that this was going to happen. This is a normal series of events really. My desire was to have them at HOME and not in the middle of a horse show in Abilene, TX. As I have talked to families who have adopted older kids from the Ukraine, I have been enlightened that if they come out of an orphanage in the Ukraine, generally they are tough physically. You know what? I believe them.

There is some great news though. After our boundary lines were established, our relationship with Kolya has deepened even beyond our wildest imaginations. He is a great kid. Smart. Soft hearted. Loving. Compassionate. Mean. Protective. Tough. Caring. All of these traits are great. We just had to rearrange his mode of thinking. We had to provide a safe, loving, strict environment for him to become less defensive and more productive. He knows that none of our family can be bullied. But he also knows the any of us will go to the mat on his behalf. He is not just a young kid living in survival mode any more. He is a child of God who we pray for daily to recognize his need for Christ. I would love for that barrier to broken sooner than later, but giving where he has come from, I know that there is still some mending in his heart that has to occur (in his own mind) before he will turn loose of the pride that is keeping him from turning his heart over to God.

Just another piece of the puzzle...

...drama in our home 2011

2012-01-08T18:32:00.000-06:00

In 2010, you may have read about our keeping two young boys who were well on their way into our states CPS system. We kept them for six or seven months, helped get them straightened out and sent them back to their mom. Boy that sounds simple when only looking at a couple of sentences. Meanwhile, the call came at a time when I was in Haiti, on a mission trip. The boys got to our house at 11:00 pm on the night that I had gotten home. Well the summer of 2011 was no less dramatic.

This year our oldest daughter went on a month long mission trip to Ecuador to work in an orphanage there. She was there with an awesome family who have made a commitment to work there for several years. Another family, who had gone to serve, had adopted several kids from the Ukraine. MLN was being exposed to the Ukrainian personality and culture while in Ecuador. In the early to middle part of July, we got our now becoming, annual phone call. And it seems like that it always starts with, "Y'all have a wonderful family, would y'all consider taking another child?" It was another life changing phone call.

As the situation developed, we were informed that not only there was a young boy who needed a home to go to, in order to keep him out of CPS, but that he had only been in the United States for a couple of weeks. He and his sisters had just been adopted by the same family. The little fella had a melt down and the parents had a very difficult time controlling him. Not only were these parents having to deal with a young boy who was rough, tough and in survival mode, but also they were having to deal with girls who were trying to get acclimated as well. There was a lot going on in a very short period of time for this family. I will not make any judgments in my blog. I just want to tell our story and I do believe events happen for a reason.

We had committee meeting after committee meeting along with Skype and conference calls to Ecuador in order to make for dadblamed sure that every member of our family was in 100% before we let anyone know that we would take this boy into our family. Originally we had thought that this would be like last summer. We would do our "thing" with this little fella, give his family time to adjust, then send him home a different kid. That was the funniest thing that I had thought of. No, No, No. This was a hard enough case that the parents did not want him back. So as we got closer to the deadline time it became very clear that they were expecting us to adopt him. We hemmed and hawed and raised questions to everyone involved wondering if this is what we were really supposed to do. We even went as far as trying to ignore the issue all together. We wouldn't talk about it for days hoping that the issue would just work itself out and the parents would call and tell us that "it's all good!" Never happened.

Why do these things happen when we are overwhelmed? MLN was not here, my career was stinking it up this summer due to the drought and economy, therefore there was/is limited funds. We were studying different options on what I was going to do for a replacement career. All of this time I was wondering, how in the world we were going to have another kid in our family? Then my fears went from financial to emotional. Were my biological kids really going to be able to handle just cutting out a spot in our home and be able to say, "this is my brother", or "this is my son"? All of the rights that comes with being a Nichols child was now going to be this 9 year old Ukrainians. Was my biological son going to be able to handle sharing his mom and dad with another boy? Was WD, I mean REALLY, going to say, "this is my brother" and REALLY be proud of that? Was this 9 year old Ukrainians personality going to mesh with ours? Was he going to embarrass us? Was he going to embarrass my kids while they were out in public? Was he going to have a melt down where everyone could see?

I find it very interesting how God uses, simple, broken people to show how compassionate, caring, powerful and loving that HE is. When we are at our weakest, or maybe even our proudest, God can use us to share HIS Gospel. When we are at our proudest and we aren't living humble compassionate lives, our lives can be broken apart and others will be exposed to HIS power. But when we are at our weakest, our lives can become the tool that God uses to share HIS love to others. Even today, my practical man, just wonders how in the world is this going to work. Am I supposed to do something out of the ordinary? Do I change what I am doing? Or do I just keep forging ahead and let God work out His plan in our lives?

Let me take a quick detour and tell you what I wanted my plans to be. There is no doubt that God has preparing each member of our family for missions of some sort. Each daughter has had a real desire to take care of kids. It is natural for you to think, well aren't all daughters, or girls, geared for wanting to be teachers or mothers? Not really. Each one of my daughters have taken different paths to come back to the same path that each one of us seem to be on. My first two daughters can speak Spanish. They both have been on mission trips with our church. The oldest was as tough as a soccer player as anyone would want to see. She was/is very competitive. She had made it to the point where she was offered a scholarship to a Texas school. But just before she could commit, her knees gave out on her. No one could really tell us what was wrong. They wanted to do exploratory surgery, but the doctors were not sure at all that they would find anything. So soccer was done. My second daughter grew up dancing. She has been to New York, Houston, Dallas and has danced for events around our county for years. Each time she dances, her love for Christ shines. She has become very confident in who she is and doesn't bat an eye when it comes to sharing about her Lord and Savior. Then my third daughter, from the time she was little, has had a unique relationship with young kids. Kids are drawn to her. She is a great horseman and works harder than any girl I know. She is showing signs of being a great, mature leader among her friends and even in our family.

The explanations are brief but it is easy for us as parents to see how each one of their hearts are drawn back to taking care of kids. Then there is our son. I have been surprised at his soft heart. For those of you who know WD, generally know him to be mature, strong, tough and with hands of leather. But he has Savior in his heart who has molded him to be very compassionate. You might think that he loves babies or younger kids. He does to a degree, but he is more sensitive to kids who are close to his age. He truly cares about where they are going to spend eternity. Like the others, he is not afraid at all to address the issue with anyone who he feels needs to know that God loves them.

My limited plan for our family was to take in some foster children or work with foster parents and get everyone back to where they belong. I still feel that there is room for this but little did we know that God had been gearing us up for taking in a 9 year old Ukrainian boy. You see, I began to really understand what the Bible means when it says that we are "adopted". Whoa! I do know that God loves me. I know that He truly wants what is best for me. But when you really think about our messed up sinful lives and to really think that God took us in to His family in spite of our sinful lives, I really began to realize how selfish I was. Yes, God had a plan to clean us up by sending Jesus for our salvation. But just to think that He took us with no questions. He took us in even though we weren't perfect. He didn't look at how good or bad our mom and dad were before He took us in. He just took us like we were. This hit me over the head. Taking in a 9 year old Ukrainian boy put this at the forefront of my mind. There was not much perfect at all with this fella from a worldly standpoint. He had really had no person ever say, "you are mine no matter what".

I had mentioned having to search for an alternate career. I have always loved horses and working cows. At the beginning of the year, I started taking in outside horses to train. This has been a life long dream, but because I had always swept the desire under the rug due to my insecurities, I had not ever pursued the dream. When I needed extra income I kicked the rug off and put my name out there. I had my first client in January and went through the whole year keeping at least one horse per month to train. This is nothing earth shattering in of itself, but what it did do was focus my heart on teaching and training. I really believe that God used this hobby to help me put together a system in my mind that allows me handle kids from broken families. God has shown me a way that I might can help patch up broken kids and prepare them for their biological family or a foster family. I have developed a passion for helping parents, foster parents and even adoptive parents, navigate the relationship with their kids through my relationship with horses.

Like many things in life, this is an adventure. I will pick up next time with hopefully some very interesting stories.

...Our lives in overdrive

2012-01-05T21:49:00.000-06:00

I haven't forgotten how to blog, I just have not had time nor have I been clear on what I should say about what has been happening in our family. Primarily because we don't know from day to day what will be happening. I am going to try to write about our lives from July of 2011 to the present, in a series of posts. I am not sure how many posts but for the most part they will be entertaining. When you bring (very loose interpretation) a 9 year old Ukrainian boy into your perfectly settled All American household, there is bound to be some funny, stressful, angry and frustrating moments. I have tried to write down stories in my journal so that I don't forget anything, but it is not easy keeping up. Both Dayna and I say all of the time that "we need to blog about that". Well I am going to blog about "that". As you can see, we have a new member of our family.

...first time in a hackamore

2011-12-11T22:31:00.001-06:00

This is the first time in a hackamore for Zip. I have been been riding with her in just a halter. She is still just a little insecure at a lope, but she will get there. Pretty smooth going into the lope and naturally taking the correct leads. When she starts bobbing her head or slinging her head I begin putting pretty good pressure on her sides. You can't really see it in the video until she wants to kick up her back end a little. This horse is going to be very nice.

...the time where Harvest seems to be small

2011-09-14T17:15:00.000-06:00

This is a period in time that either we or our children will have a story to tell. We are living in a different time. I am one who thinks that "global warming" is the biggest hoax that one man could dream up. It seems though that it has been the hottest summer on record or for sure the summer with the most days over 100. But I do believe that there is nothing new under the sun. I remember back several years, hearing about all of the wildfires in California and how dry they were. Then we see on the news about how much rain and flooding the central U.S. has had and how the Missouri and Mississippi are flooding farm land. Five years ago the Gulf Coast was demolished due to two hurricanes, Rita and Katrina. Last winter we had two snow storms in Bryan, TX. The year before we had two snow storms and three or four years ago we had a blizzard in April on Easter weekend. We were working calves that day. My hands were frozen with blood. It was miserable yet absolutely amazing at the same time. There are seasons that we go through both physically and spiritually. There are things that happen that are beyond our control. There is one thing that seems to be happening in Texas that is very interesting to me. We are all hot, we are all dry, we are all running out of surface water, most farmers and ranchers have sold most, if not all, of their cattle. But there is one other thing that appears to be happening, there seems to be a spiritual awakening taking place.

There is very little cotton to harvest, the corn crops dried up, unless they were irrigated, hay crops had no chance and now the calf crops will be probably half of what they were this year. There are fires that are engulfing our rural communities, Bastrop State Park looks like burnt match stick stuck in the ground. We just remembered 9.11.01 with its ten year anniversary. Our country has been at war for as long as my son has been alive. There is not a whole lot to get excited about when we look across our great State and Nation.

But I am nostalgic. I love remembering about when I was young. I love remembering about the stories that my dad and mom would tell me about when they were young. I loved hearing stories from both of my grandfathers. I love looking at pictures from when I was young and telling my kids about what was going on in the pictures. I love remembering the hard work of fixing up my grand dad's old dairy barn for Dayna and I to live in for our first home. I love remembering the Fall smells of East Texas. The burning of brush, the smells of damp, fresh plowed ground, the smell of diesel being emitted into the air from those John Deere tractors. Each tractor had a different smell. It makes me just plum excited when I hear my son tell me that he loves the smell of diesel exhaust. I love the smell of those pine trees after a long soft rain. I love to listen to the rain in the woods dripping off of those big heavy Red Oak leaves. I love the smell of cutting fire wood from the big Red Oaks and Post Oaks. Then I remember the smell of Friday night...not so much the locker room, though that smell never changes, but the smell of the fresh cut grass, the popcorn, smoke from some jake leg smoking a pipe or cigar. The smell of the concession stand cooking hot dogs, chili and coffee. I love the smell of the horse barn, the horses, the leather and the feed. Believe it or not, but the smell of chicken houses even hold a special place in my heart. There were some good, fun and stressful times that came along with that smell.

There are so many things that remind me of good times. I believe that is why we enjoy certain smells. We associate that smell with good times. I can tell you with each one of the smells I listed above, about an experience that I had in my childhood. The years that we plowed ground to plant peas, corn, beans and potatoes. The years that we would go into the woods to cut firewood. The times that we would go camping with our group of friends in high school. The countless hours of playing football in the back yard with my brothers and my dad. The years of pulling up to that diesel tank beside the barn to get ready to plow, cut grass, bale hay, plant corn, plant coastal, plow up ground that just had been clear cut in order to convert it into pasture. The years of freezing temperatures, sleet and occasional snow. Having to cut pine trees so they wouldn't fall on our house. The year that we lived in our living room because we didn't have electricity and the only heat was the fire place. There was even one year where Dayna and I were living in Martinsville and I had to shoot the top out of a frozen pine tree so that the tree would not break and fall into our bed room. The long days of getting hay baled in order to beat the rain. I loved getting off of the tractor at dusk, when the dew was starting to settle on the ground. I believe it is good to remember the events that have shaped and molded you.

Then as my kids came along, my focus was on them. I have set my mind to creating special times with each one of them. Yes I said CREATING special times. In this day in time it is so easy to let things just happen. We sometimes get stuck in a job that we have to put up with, we get so busy making our living that our kids do not really know who we are. I have seen families get so busy chasing the kids around that they forget to be a family. Sometimes we think that our kids don't really give a flip on who who we are or what we have seen or experienced. This is a continual process. It is OK to make your kids sit down and be still. Do nothing. Sit in the peace and quiet. For example, sit and clip and clean their finger nails. When my kids were little I would use my knife. Two things would happen, they would get to sit close to me for an extended period of time so I enjoyed it and the other thing was they didn't get their finger cut off. Just kidding...a little. I would use anything that would cause us to be together. As they got older, we used sports to connect, then horses. Absolutely huge transformations have taken place in the maturity of each one of my kids. We love to work together. Work cows as a big family. WD, Mal and I build fence, weld, work cows for other folks, train horses, haul hay, and so many other jobs. Mal and I get to ride horses. She has such a great way of handling these young colts.

Then they grow up. I have one that has started college and is about plowing her own field now. That is what we have trained her for. We want her to feel comfortable in leaving and spreading her wings. I have my second daughter who turned 16 today. She is ready to go get her driver license and start driving all over the Brazos Valley and beyond I am certain.

I have often wondered what I wanted to do when I grow up. I guess I have been in the corporate world, working for the large companies. I have worked for the small companies, the family owned business'. I have started companies and closed them. I have been in sales, production and even a one man show. I have been in commercial roofing sales for 12 years. Since there is no rain, not too many folks want to spend money on something that is not leaking. This drought caused me to get out of my comfort zone and try a lot of different things. I have dreamed of being able to take in outside horses in order to train them. This year it has happened. Not enough to technically go professional, but it has been a blast. So if I were to pick one thing that I wanted to do, I guess owning a company with my son that would provide cattle work, ranch design and horse training, would be it. But I have noticed, not only in my little bitty world, but in many other peoples world, that a career is NOT what makes us.

Many of you read about our two boys that were dropped off at our door step last year. We kept them for six or eight months and sent them back to their mom. As far as I know, they are doing fine. This all happened the night I got back from Haiti. This year something similar has happened. A friend who knew of a friend who had just adopted a boy from the Ukraine. There were some issues and an agency was trying to step in. The bottom line became that this family needed help with this boy. We got the call, this time while MLN was in Ecuador serving on a mission trip in an orphanage with a family with the last name of Nichols who had adopted several kids from the Ukraine. Very much designed and interwoven by the Holy Spirit. This was no accident. We have taken him in. I will let you in on the story as I can.

But here is the thought. James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
We all go through the desert experience; the loss of work, the loss of life in our family, the loss of a home by fire, the loss of a home due to a storm surge because a hurricane, the injury of a son or daughter due to war, the destruction of divorce and even the blatant rebellion from ourselves toward God. In working with these kids, I have realized that things that have made and shaped my into the person I am today are severely missing from the lives of generations behind me. I have begun to realize that kids like my kids are very small in number. Within the realm of the church even, my kids, to have done what they have done and seen what they have seen are small in number. My hat goes off to any parent, who is willing to stick it out with their biological kids. Especially the divorced parents who aren't giving up on raising their own kids. I can only imagine the stress of dealing with those issues.

I deal with broken, messed up, young, silly horses day in and day out. There are articles, movies, TV shows, training videos and youtube videos about anything horse. There is how to videos on any kind of animal. There is the horse whisperer, the dog whisperer, the cat killer...or whisperer, you get my drift, but there are very few who have really put their life on hold to help families succeed in adoption or fostering. Oh you can read the books but it is a different game to go through the process. What I have started to notice is that there are many similarities between these horses, who come into surroundings that they are not familiar with and who are just hoping to survive. A young horse or a problem horse typically has not been loaded onto a trailer before and sure has not driven 70mph down the road. She has not been dropped off in with a bunch of new horses to fight it out for the pecking order. She may or may not have been handled much and most of the handling has been rough or not fun to say the least. Therefore, dealing with a hard headed, deliberate, cowboy is not her idea of a relaxing time. But in a matter of a few days, she realizes that she is being fed on a regular basis, she has a place to sleep and eat. She is protected from the hot sun. She doesn't have to fight like she thought. She realizes the trailer is not a monster that is going to eat her. She realizes that the old, hard headed, bald cowboy isn't out to hurt her. She realizes that it is OK to sit quietly to get her feet trimmed and hair brushed. Shoot, I know women who pay money for that. Before long there is a relationship that is built around consistency, gentleness, firmness, discipline and above all trust. I draw the line at "loving" an animal. The cold hard truth is that they come and go. But when these are applied to one of the foster kids, the result is a loving, healthy relationship, that points their soft, tender hearts to Jesus.

People are looking deeply into their lives right now. Our big ol' world of Texas is being turned upside down. We don't know what is going to happen tomorrow! We don't know who will be with us or if we will have a place to call home! What I do know is that God said that He would never leave us or forsake us, just like He told Joshua when Moses died. Joshua was scared to death. He was having a rough time and needed some encouragement.

I know that not everyone can foster or adopt. I am not even really trying to push the concept. I do however believe that we are called to take care of the widows and orphans. I think the real lesson to take to heart is when we lift up our heads and start looking for people to help, God will put them on your doorstep. You won't have to look far.

...such a long time between posts

2011-09-06T21:58:00.001-06:00

So many things have been happening since I last posted anything. My daughter has made it back from Ecuador and has not slowed down any. She has started college. As Dayna reminded me, college kids do not like to sleep except when they are about to pass out from exhaustion. But this stage in life is fun to see as a parent. I am very proud of my daughter and who she is becoming. What a leader for her sisters and brother.

The other kids have started there school here at home and are in a new co-op. WD had been in this co-op last year and Dayna liked it so much that she signed Mir and Mal up for this year. They seem to be enjoying the coop.

WD and I have been helping local ranchers sell cattle. It is such a depressing sight to see men who have been ranchers for years and years, who have made much of there living raising quality cattle year after year, in the hard times as well as the good times, just to sell out. Throw in the towel. Sell cattle that produce an above average calf crop each year. Not only has it become the norm to feed year round, it has also become the norm to get calls of cattle wondering out of their pastures, no matter how big the pasture or how good the fences. Now don't get me wrong, you can sure find out where the weak spots are on some of these fences.

On the bright side, I have been able to put a lot of miles on some young horses. I am very excited about our three year old and our two year old. I believe that the three year old is going to make a handy ranch horse. Mal has already taken her for her three year old debut in Abilene at the State 4H Horse Show. Mal is becoming a great horseman. After she had a major wreck at the District 4H horse show on her older horse while competing in the Working Cow Horse event, she sucked it up, got back on and went ahead and competed on the three year old in the Three Year Old Futurity, then finished by making an appearance in the team penning. She had to finish if she was going to be able to compete at state.

Though Mal didn't win in the Three Year Old Futurity at state, she won third at district. Because her older horse didn't make the trip to Abilene, because he was still hurt, Mal rode the three year old in team penning. Mal, WD and Megan F. teamed up to compete in team penning. They did great. They had sorted two calves out and were working on the third, when the one trash cow, that had slipped by, WANDERED into the pen. Who would have thought. It is such a hard job to get any calf to go into the pen and this one just walked right in without any pushing at all. Kind of frustrating. WD was p-r-e-t-t-y upset. We sure can't control everything. Back to horse for a second, she is really showing that she has plenty of "cow". She has a really big motor for such a small package. I have named her "Cat". She slips around and she will not let anything slip up on her. Make sure you are sitting in the middle at all times.

The two year old is going to make a very nice horse as well. I can't wait for Mal to show her in the Three Year Old Futurity next year. What a soft, pleasing, competitor. She has a very nice stop and very smooth gate. I am ready to start showing her.

There are plenty of other things going on in our life. Mainly trying to keep things going in such a slow time. For some reason, folks don't think that they need a new roof on their commercial buildings when it is not raining. I don't understand why they don't want to spend money on something that they can't see. They would rather spend money on something that goes fast or hauls heavy loads, you know something cool. We have sure depended our Faith this year. Though it has been hard financially, it has been pretty cool to see how big our Heavenly Father is.

A Rancher's View: Texas Wild Hogs: A&E New Show American Hoggers

2011-07-18T21:06:00.000-06:00

A Rancher's View: Texas Wild Hogs: A&E New Show American Hoggers: "“A&E Network presents 'American Hoggers,' a new original real-life series that follows the Campbell family and their struggle to rescue..."

...she is gone for a month

2011-07-03T21:30:00.004-06:00

There are many things in a father's life that makes him proud of his kids. You know the walking, talking, when they can tend to themselves in the bathroom, winning soccer games, learning to drive, learning to pull trailers, learning to ride horses, learning Spanish, Salvation, going on mission trips with the church and so many more. But then they grow up.

I am very proud of my daughter who is following Christ's leading in her life by going to Ecuador to serve in an orphanage. Yeah it is pretty hard on us to let her go off without us but I am excited to see how her life up until this point has come together preparing her for this trip.

I have seen some pictures of the country side, the hill that she climbs to get to her cabin and the kids that she loves to minister to. I can't wait to hear the stories over the month.

...R.I.P. Tip.

2011-06-13T18:16:00.009-06:00

This year has been pretty tough on my animals. Tip passed away two days ago.

I purchased puppies five years ago in order to train for working cows. They exceeded my expectations. However, there was one that stood out. There was very little foolishness when he was a puppy. He was an escape artist. As you can see, getting out of his pen was no big deal. He would stand on top of this board for minutes just checking things out.

He became an awesome working dog. He hated to be disciplined, even just raising my voice got all over him. He was a natural. As many firstborns, he wanted to do things right the first time. I could talk to him and he knew exactly what I needed. He would wait in the heat, cold, rain or snow in the trailer just in case that we might need to go pen cows somewhere. We would load up horses to go to drill practice and we would have to check out the trailer to see if he had slipped in and was sitting up at the front being real still so that would would over look him.

This year, he has become invaluable to me. I have seen him handle fighting cows with extreme pressure, like grabbing their nose and hanging on as they tried to sling him to the sky. I have seen him handle baby calves just as gentle as possible, he would not make a sound. He would just keep bringing the calf through the woods so that WD, Mal and I could put a rope on him. Many days I would go to feed and could not find him. He would be directly behind me following at my feet and I would not even know he was there. As I said before, he did not give out any foolishness. If he wanted petting, he would patiently wait for the circus of the other dogs to disappear then he would ease up to my leg and just rest his head at my knee. I would just rub on his head for few minutes and he was done. He would just ease back to the trailer or barn and mind his own business.

When he heard me come out of the house with my spurs on and head to saddle horses, that is when things would change. He was looking for work. We are going to miss him. I have two males from his last two litters. They are proving to follow in their dad's footsteps. One is loaded with energy and speed, the other is going to be a force to be reckoned with. At the the age of nine months he rules the roost. He will fight any of the other dogs, including Cooter. I can't keep him away from me when I saddle a horse to go for a ride. I can't wait to see what is coming in the future for these two. Little Ann seems to be just getting better with age. She has made an awesome lead dog. With the years of working and training, I see that each dog has his strengths. Kind of like people, when we let them excel in their strong suit and not try to put each one in the same box of work, they tend to love what they do.

I sure am glad that I have gotten to spend the past five years with such an awesome dog. I am grateful to have worked with and to have trained such a willing Catahoula.

Here are the "replacements". They have some serious standards to live up to. Boss is standing up and Buster is taking a water break.

Boss is coming along nicely. He has plenty of speed and loves to bark. He is a fun dog to watch work. Plenty of energy. He may develop some aggressiveness to where he will work on a cows nose, but he will bay all day long.

Then there is this guy. The one that was taking a water break. Buster. He was having fun on this day. Hanging on the calf's tail. Maybe he will get the hang of it.

There. This looks a little better. This was about at six months. He has grown since these pictures. He has great conformation and color. I really like him. Tonight he met me at the truck and was jumping up on my leg while I was sitting there messing with my phone. I started petting him then quit. He proceeded to try to jump up in my lap. Such a great personality with plenty of grit. He has started working with me . He will sure 'nough bark.

...things that make you say "WOW"!

2011-06-03T14:55:00.009-06:00

There are several things that typically happen during a life time that just make you stop and think "WOW"! This was one of those days. I have been doing all types of work lately in order to make ends meet. I have been training horses and doing a good bit of day working. At the last minute, I had been called to go work on a ranch here in Brazos County that was on the Brazos River. The guy told me that it was rough country with plenty of dangerous areas due to the thirty to forty feet wall of the river. He told me about his dogs needing water and the only water on the place was in the river. I don't know exactly how fast the river speed is measured, but I do know this, if you are in the river you have to swim for your life to get to a bank. This water moves very fast. His dogs almost got washed down the river because they were exhausted.

I had a clear visual of the danger and lack of water on the place. I don't know if it hit 100 degrees yesterday but it was very close. The main reason that I was called is because of my dogs. The guy told me that the cows are very spoiled. This was an understatement. They would fight the dogs, horses, people, each other or what ever they wanted to. They could jump like deer and they didn't mind sliding down the banks of the river just to see if you would follow.

Needless to say we started early and finished late. We crammed two days of working into one.

The following series of pictures was the second event that happened that made just shake my head and say "WOW"! We were working a set of heifers before we went to work out in the real heat. These pens were under a barn where there was this load out chute. The working chute unloaded the cows in "tub" to where they could load out or go right or left. This particular cow didn't want to go right. She decide that she would jump the short gate and run to the top of the cat walk. I guess that she would have jumped had the board not been rotten at the top. She fell through. We all stopped working, grabbed our cameras and phones and started taking pictures.

After the AWE had worn off we had to figure out how to get her back down without breaking her back legs. She helped speed thing along by flipping over onto her back like she was going to do sit ups. We broke out the railing on the side and pulled her back legs out to the side. With ropes we pulled her down to the bottom, took the ropes off and helped her up. She got up like nothing happened. Crazy.

Now this is back out in the rough country. This was my solution to making sure my dogs and horses had plenty of water. I loaded a water trough into my trailer and filled it up. Yes I lost some water while traveling but not as much as you might think. My dogs thought they were in heaven. The guy that I was working with put his dogs in to take a swim after we had finished penning as well. The only other picture that I should have gotten was the waiting line of horses that were waiting there turn to get into my trailer to get their water. It was classic.

And this was the first thing that I saw that made me go "WOW"! What an awesome site.

As you can see, there was plenty of views of the river. There were only a couple of places that were open. This was where my dogs jumped up the cows. When I came through the brush and after making sure my dogs had all of the cows together, I had to get my camera out. I just sat there taking it all in. This area doesn't just die into the river. The cows couldn't go down to the water because of the 15 foot sand drop off that then went to the beach along the river. They had to get to their trail to go to the water and the dogs were preventing that.

This was about 6:30 in the morning. The green on the white sand up against the colors of the bank of the river was pretty much breath taking. I know that there areas all over the world that are beautiful, but there are still areas here, close to home that are ever bit as beautiful. We worked hard and long, but I enjoyed meeting new people and living the cowboy life.

...getting ready for work

2011-05-20T19:21:00.004-06:00

I was able to sneak a couple of pictures before W.D. and headed out to work cows. We were waiting on a phone call I believe so that we could load up and head out. This kid is growing up to be quite a man. I love working with him. He is great help no matter what kind of work we are doing.
I finally flipped by my blog and saw the picture that has been up since February and thought that it might be time write a new post. How better to transition from one good horse to another than to show off her near identical twin. The only thing missing is the A&M brand on her hip. I never would have dreamed that I would not only end up with a three year old but also her two year old half sister.
I found the pair at a cutting horse breeder's place and the breeder was needing to move some of her younger horses. I called my brother to see if he wanted in on them and just like that I have two more horses to train. They are coming a long very nicely. Both are very athletic.
Mal is showing the three year old this year in the 4H Three year old futurity. She has made through the County Show and she is getting ready for the District Show. WD has laid claim to the two year old and hopes to show her next year.
We are excited to get into this summer so that we can show our young horses. Both Mal and WD are competing in sorting and both are doing really well. Mal has picked up another partner, her best friend. They have had a blast riding together. It is fun watching these girls compete.

...in the blink of an eye

2011-02-13T22:01:00.002-06:00

Just two weeks ago she was pulling my kids on the hydro slide, over the snow in our back yard. Saturday I worked cows with her and she was having a ball sorting in the pen. Though she was not human, she was probably the most willing horse I have ever owned. What ever I was doing, she was up for the fun.

Saturday I had to make a tough decision to put her down. She got tangled with a feeder and exposed the joint at her hock. After a thorough investigation by two vets, we decided that without spending a fortune and a very high chance that she would not be able to dodge serious infection, that it was time.

I sure had fun and we are going to miss having her around. She went out with her boots on.

...Our annual snow storm fun

2011-02-05T20:17:00.002-06:00

We had an awesome time entertaining. I took advantage of the training ground that presented itself. "J" hasn't ever had to drag anything so I took advantage of seeing how she would do. She was excited to get out of the stall for sure. I didn't do a good job of warming her up...as in I didn't warm her up at all. I saddled her and tied on and hoped for the best.

"J" only bucked a couple of times. It had nothing to do with pulling, it had all to do with the excitement of the snow and getting to do something productive. She is a very fun horse to ride. I haven't seen anything that she was bad at.

Going from 4 wheelers to horses caused a little concern for Lack of Speed on the hydro slide. I had to show them different. We had a blast. So thankful for the time that I got to spend with the kids and all of their friends.

...getting ready for Christmas

2010-12-22T20:41:00.011-06:00

Just FYI, the "C" is hand bent the old fashion way. Heat, Hammer and Anvil. No roll former or any mechanical assistance. The "3" is a 2 7/8" drill stem cut to a 1" band, split in half, welded in the middle and formed to make the "3".

We have been getting ready for the big day. Making sure that we have all of the gifts purchased and made...yep. Made. I married a very talented girl. She can make anything. She has also taught our kids how to practice their talents. Mir and Dayna made about 50 or 60 gifts to give family and friends. Maybe not 60, but it was a whole lot.

WD and I made some fun gifts for grandmothers (can't tell you yet). We also made a branding iron for our pastor. At our church, we have had a Christmas program every weekend during the month of December. Grady has done an amazing job. This past Sunday Grady put together a very impressive program with six Grand Pianos with twelve pianists. Very cool program. For the grand finale, Grady talked our pastor into playing chop sticks. That is the only thing that our pastor can play on the piano. Brother Chris was a good sport and played. The pianists had put together a Christmas carol melody composed around "chop sticks". Amazing.

To perform on stage, Brother Chris was wearing his cowboy hat, Wrangler's and new boots. This is a new look for him. For those who know me, know that this attire is all I wear to church. Not to get away from "dressing up", it is just simply what I wear all of the time, therefore, I do not have slacks, coats and ties. Well I have some but they really need to go to Goodwill or something. They are way out of date. After the program, we talked to Brother Chris and he was showing me his new hat. He asked me how I liked the shape of his hat. I told him that it looked good and that I was impressed with his new look.

At this point, he told me that he was buying a cow. Not knowing if he was really serious, I said, "oh that's cool". He said that he was going to keep it at a friends place, feed it out then process it. He then told me that he needed a brand though. When I realized that he was serious, I said, "oh that's cool". He said that he wanted one to be "CCC". I am sure that I looked very blanked face. He said that it was for Central Cowboy Church. We have around 4,000 members at our church. It is far from a cowboy church. But I said, "oh that's cool". Quickly my wheels started turning and I told him that I would make him one. I am certain that he was thinking, "yea right". But he said, " you do that" and we parted ways.

After seeing many brands through the years, when you put three or even four letters or numbers together, the brand gets very large especially on a heifer. You have seen the four sixes, 6666. Though historic and well known, it is very big. So I condensed the C's into C3 brand. My family has the C-, the C4 and the C6 brands. The C3 wound up looking pretty good. I knocked it out the other night and got it painted. I hope that I get to him before he reads this.

I made WD a brand as well. He has been wanting one so I thought that this would be a great time to give him his own brand. It is a broken W (\ N). I can't figure it out on the key board but has an W with the first leg of the W separated leaving the N. I will show pictures after Christmas. WDalso made three or four Christmas gifts for his mom and both grandmothers. That boy has gotten really good at welding. He helped me weld at Papa's while building a new working chute and it was fun watching him work on his technique.

...How we view our children determines how we disciple them

2010-12-15T12:23:00.002-06:00

How we view our children determines how we disciple them

This was forwarded to me and I thought that I would share. You gotta love Dr. Huxtable.

...Our big story of 2010 Part 5

2010-12-06T17:58:00.003-06:00

This is my last "planned" installment to cover the boys, however, as things pop into my head I am certain that I will write them down. For sure as I am getting older, I can't seem to remember things for long periods of time.

On November 11th we had the final court date. This date was a regularly scheduled court hearing. Leading up to this hearing, however, was much anticipation. For the fall, Tyler had been playing football and at each one of the football games, the boys parents came. This was planned and ok'd by us. CPS and CASA both, were good with the parents getting to see the boys for an additional day during the week. This also allowed grandparents and cousins to visit with the boys in an atmosphere where the kids didn't have to be quite and still. They could rip and run without us having to keep our thumb on them.

We were good with it as long as everyone could keep it peaceful on the sidelines. They did. The boys really enjoyed getting to see their parents in a somewhat normal setting. Not just in the confines of the CPS office. The parents were very easy going. I would add here, that I was very clear to the mom and the dad, at one of our first meetings, that I would not put up with any foolishness and I did it in a way where they didn't have to read between the lines or guess what I had told them. They "saw the light". I just couldn't take a chance on them interrupting our system or even my family. It turned out to be a good thing for the parents to see how we handled Tyler and Ayden in a public setting.

I was able to sit down with the dad before one of Tyler's football games and discuss with him how to discipline the boys, how to reward them and even how when we have done some bone headed things in our life, God shows mercy on us and will extend us Grace. I even was able to try to explain to him how his boys would always love him and that they would forgive him. I am not sure how much of this got through, but I told him that he still had the ultimate responsibility of raising his own kids even under the direction of the court. His time may be limited with the boys, but it always would not be! He has to maintain a relationship with them, support them emotionally where he can and the ultimate kick to the teeth (in his mind), he may even have to support their mom in making big decisions for them.

I am making a statement based purely on my observance of people who are divorced or people that are very close to getting divorced. I have never seen so much hate between two people. If I had the answer to FIX this hate every time I see it, financially I would have it made. Unfortunately, we are not only dealing with stupid, brainless mistakes that can be overcome with time, we are also dealing with personalities that are very, very selfish. I could line up the Bible verses to support my observation, but I think that will wait. I guess my point in saying this is when kids are involved, I would hope that parents could "pull it together" until the kids are grown at least. These kids deserve more. Unfortunately divorce is a part of our society, but just because it is a part of our society doesn't make it any easier. This family situation has done nothing but bring this to light for me.

As this November 11th date grew closer, our family began to get really nervous and anxious. See we had no idea what was going to be presented at court. We didn't know if the judge was going to go against CASA's recommendation to allow the boys be placed back with their mother. The mother had done everything that the court had required her to do. She wanted the boys to come home. CPS, typically, does not send kids home any earlier than six months. We were right on that threshold. No one could give us any idea how the hearing was going to go.

You wouldn't think that this would be such a big deal, well it was. We didn't know how to plan for the Holidays. We didn't know what to tell the boys. We didn't know how to prepare mentally. I couldn't even plan how many more 50 lbs bags of cereal to buy. This uncertainty caused mental anguish for at least two weeks. The boys sensed that something big was going on. I wasn't quite sure what CASA and CPS had been telling the boys at their family visits on Monday afternoon. I am certain that the mom was injecting thoughts so that she could get some feed back so that she would know if they even wanted to come home. The boys were ready.

From the time that the boys set foot into our house, we have prayed with them. I would pray with them, I would read Proverbs to them and I would answer their questions. Ayden always wanted to pray. Tyler was very reserved for much of the time that he was here. Ayden was not inhibited at all. Like any young child praying, his view of God was so real. Ayden wanted God to heal everything, help the dogs sleep, let his mom and dad not fight, help Cooter sleep good, take care of us when we die, take care of Uranda, Matson, Mallree and Will. We loved to hear him pray. Tyler did come along and start asking questions. I did get to share how much that God loves Tyler. If Tyler was the only person on earth, God would still have sent His Son to die for Tyler's sins. I got to share how that Tyler was special and that God put him on this earth and even with our family for a reason. It may have been that Tyler could even teach me. Who know's what this turn of events will bring. Over the last month or so, Tyler wanted to pray. He started asking more specific questions about the Bible. He also loved to sing in the church kids choir.

But as we were getting ready for this court date, that we had know idea what really was going to happen, I began to try to figure out how that I was going to leave my relationship with Tyler. I knew that Ayden would miss our family, but I knew that he couldn't understand everything that I wanted to tell him. But for Tyler, I knew that this moment in time could be "IT". This could be the last serious relationship that I would have with Tyler. Heck, this could be the last time that I saw Tyler. This could be the last Christian relationship that Tyler would have. How would I leave something for him. Like most of us, I knew that he might forget most of our conversations. I thought that he might remember some of the highlights but it was the details that I really wanted him to be able to look to.

I typically don't get up at 4:00 am on most Saturday mornings. But the morning of November 6th. The opening day of deer season. I woke up at 4:00 am and not to go deer hunting. I felt lead to start writing. Just a week before, Tyler, WD, Ayden and I were up in their room reading the Bible and some how the topic of "what is in a name" came up. We started looking up what each boys name meant. Ayden's name means something like "on fire". Tyler's name means "tile maker". He thought that was not very interesting. But I was able to show him that his love for building and designing made his name a perfect name for him. He and WD loved to play war. So I wanted to present to him a war plan or a certificate that he could go back to in order SEE what he had accomplished. When I was done, I knew that the Holy Spirit had directed me to write this:

TYLER

(tile maker; warrior; builder; worker)

As the leader of the Nichols family, I declare that Tyler has completed his training and education but not limited to the following: self discipline, service, leadership, basic communication, reasoning skills, animal husbandry and strong muscles.

Self discipline: As with every person on earth, we all have to continue to learn. You are a totally different person from the little boy who came into my home just over 5 months ago. You have learned how to control your thoughts, your emotions, your body, your breathing, your muscles and your mind. Just like every good warrior, each part of your body must be able to be controlled by your heart and by your mind.

Service: You have learned how to serve others. You help with feeding your brother, animals, and even help cook. You have learned how to give to other people before taking things for yourself. You have just begun to realize that life is not all about yourself. When a leader is great, you can look at how well he serves other people. He will put others before himself. Jesus came to serve and to love us and He is the example that we should model our lives after.

Leadership: You have begun to take a leadership role with your brother. There is a huge difference in bossing and being a leader. When you came here you liked to yell at your brother and tell him what to do. You have started developing the skill of asking and then showing him what to do or how to act. I know this is hard. You may even feel like that you haven’t changed much in this area. It is evident that you have changed by your actions.

Basic Communication: You have developed the skill of sharing what you are thinking. You have made great strides in telling me what is going on in your head. You are so much more confident in how you speak. You are not afraid to talk to older people. You meet people and introduce yourself proudly. You actually draw them into conversation instead of just stating your name and nothing else. Another sign of a great leader is when he is compassionate toward people and sincerely wants to know what they care about.

Reasoning Skills: You have begun to develop reasoning skills. You have learned how a few things work. Cause and effect. Action and reaction. As I stated before, we all never stop learning, but you have made great strides in thinking for yourself. Instead of asking, expecting to be told what the next step will be, you have just started being quiet, listening and “thinking” through the next step. This is fun and exciting for me to see in you. It means that you are starting to mature as a man. No great warrior has to be told his every move. He will think and reason in his own mind, with the direction of the Holy Spirit, his next strategic move.

Animal Husbandry: You have a desire to take care of and love on animals. You love to take care of my dogs. Since I like my dogs, I enjoy watching you run and play with them. As your self confidence continues to grow, so will your ability to train animals. Will has done a great job in showing you how to take care of animals. You love to feed them. They depend on us for their food and water. You have done a great job at taking care of them.

Strong Muscles: You are still growing. But you are finally developing some strength. You could not move feed sacks around when you first got to my house. Now you can slide them to the back of the truck for us to unload. You can lifts fence posts, fire wood and other things. I don’t know if you realized your greatest strength test yet, but just you and I unloaded a whole trailer full of firewood. You would throw the wood off of the trailer and I stacked it. That is pretty good for an eight year old. Here is the secret to strength. It is ALL in your heart. If you don’t believe in your heart that you can move something or endure something, then you won’t. But when you believe in your heart that something will be done, you can make it happen. Never Give Up!

This certifies that TYLER is growing up. It is my desire and the desire of the whole Nichols Family that you continue to grow, under the direction of Jesus Christ, into a strong, loving, caring, serving, Godly, young man.

I love you.

Matt Nichols

Servant

As the court day arrived, we found out that the boys were going home. The judge called Dayna and I up in order for him to ask us if what CPS and CASA were recommending was good. We told him that we thought that if the mom had completed her requirements, that it was probably best for this family to be together. The boys needed their mom in our opinion. We could argue about that, but we, Dayna and I, want families to stay together.

You may remember me mentioning us having a little riff with CPS on us being able to home school the boys. We went before the court early on and told them that we could not continue to keep these boys if they would not let us home school them. It was an unprecedented decision for Brazos County CPS anyway, the judge, let us home school. He also said that, he wanted it to be written as a Court Order that not only the Nichols can home school but no one can remove these boys from their care unless this court says so. Now granted this was the "religious" judge, but it made a huge impact on all parties involved.

When we stood before the judge this last time, after he had finished questioning us, the CASA worker, spoke up and said to the judge, that she thinks that we should be commended and that "the Nichols have worked a miracle" in this family. This judge was pretty much dumbfounded. But the CASA worker was pretty much balling, the mom was crying, the mother's lawyer was choked up and the CPS worker who we had dealt the most with, was crying. I tried to tell that lady that it wasn't us who worked a miracle...but it was such an emotional event, I think that all I said was "thanks". I knew that if I tried to say any more I would loose it. I guess my point in telling this little bit of information, is so that I can give Glory to God for what He has done through us. Maybe these folks were able to catch a glimmer of Hope from the way that we took care of these little guys. Maybe they realized that there are normal everyday people in this world who care about people and especially kids, who for whatever reason, don't have a mom and a dad.

It came time for the boys to leave. We told them that they were going home to their mom the following day. Tyler was so excited. He was excited enough that it curbed our emotions. I was expecting a crying session deluxe but it never came. I read and presented Tyler with his certificate and I gave him a brand new Bible that I had bought him. I couldn't have given him anything else to make him more proud. The boy was beaming. We knew that we had started a foundation that he could build on. He knew how a family should work. He may not have it easy in his childhood but, what if he remembers there was a bald headed cowboy that taught him that God loves him, how to show love toward God, how to love his wife and how to love his kids.

...Our big story of 2010 Part 4

2010-12-03T20:30:00.002-06:00

As I have been reflecting on the past six months, going back and looking at old Twitter and Facebook posts, and with my limited memory, I have gotten tickled at some of the funny things that have happened with two extra boys. For example all six kids, in my bedroom, trying to hold me down to tickle my feet, the potty training adventures, the gun fights in the living room, Tyler's laffy taffy jokes that were horrendous, the farting contests, the burping education and even the war zone that would be set up in our living room.

When the boys first got here, they wouldn't just come out and laugh out loud. After I had gotten my bluff in over the first month, I started lightening up on them and started trying to make them laugh. WD, the girls and I wrestle quite a bit. Well I should say that we used to. WD is as strong as a bull and the girls have grown up, therefore I don't wrestle with them much any more. They can NEARLY take me down. My week spot is my feet. I literally come unwound when they try to hold me down and tickle my feet. Well one day, I was laying in the floor in my bedroom (conference room) and I started tickling Tyler and Ayden. Of course WD was not going to sit out and watch so he jumped in trying to distract me from Tyler and Ayden.

I took them all down and was tickling the fool out of them. The girls heard the ruckus and decided that this was probably their best opportunity to take me down and tickle my feet. The fight was on. The boys stayed around my arms where I could keep tickling them and the girls started trying to take off my socks. I was kicking and laughing, Tyler and Ayden couldn't catch their breath, they were laughing so hard. WD had turned into a Pit Bull and would not let go of my legs, no matter how hard I kicked. All three girls were pulling the hair off my legs trying to peel my socks off my feet. They got them off and started tickling my feet, with me yelling at them that they were fixin' to get hurt! They are ALWAYS willing to take their chances.

I have never felt like that I was out of control before, but I was at this point. I couldn't breath because I was laughing so hard but I started kicking like a mad man. Only one of the girls got a black eye, not really, but I whopped one of them upside the head on accident. The boys were ready to bail so they did get knocked out and I finally got MLN and WD pinned down where they were screaming for mercy. Whew. That was funny. Tyler and Ayden sure did not know WHAT to think after that. But that was the first time that I remember them getting silly tickled.

I am embarrassed to say that my boy thinks it is just hilarious to fart or burp, even though I remind him that he is in a house full of ladies. When Tyler and Ayden got here, the action picked up. But Tyler told Dayna the had never burped out loud. That is the funniest thing I had ever heard. Every little boy knows how to burp! He really didn't know how. One day, WD's loud burps got the best of Tyler, I guess, so he took it upon himself to figure out to burp out loud. He did, and he was very proud of that moment. Unfortunately he got really good at it. Ayden however, could burp well, toot loud and really, really could stink up a house. Thank goodness he learned how to go on the pot. I have never been around a kid that could stink up a house, not just a bathroom like this boy could. The girls would get real busy when Ayden would ask them to wipe his hiney. You have seen the AFV videos of the men with respirators on while cleaning their kids up? and gaging? We wanted those respirators while cleaning up Ayden because this was definitely a gaging situation.

Tyler and WD absolutely loved playing Army Men in the living room. They would build wood forts, wood buildings and bunkers to fight from. Tyler had his base and WD had his. WD has watched the military channel for years. So his concept of building mock DZ's were pretty amazing. Tyler didn't take too long to learn why you build certain ways, why you put your sniper's amongst the bowl of decorations on the coffee table or on the hearth under the fireplace, why you put your grunt's on the front line and on and on. They would play for hours until Ayden would deliver the atomic bomb by walking through the war zone and there were so many casualties that it wasn't worth rebuilding. Then it was on to something else. If they had not of found something else to do Ayden would have been "strung up" by his ears I believe.

We always have a steady stream of people through our house. One day there were some other young boys that had come over after home school coop to play. Tyler was not sure if they were just coming over to play or if they were coming to stay. He had not really put together who actually lived here or who was just passing through. Tyler felt obligated to take them on a tour of the house. He showed then where every one's rooms were, where the restroom's were but he couldn't figure out where these boys were going to sleep. He thought if "you came over, you probably were staying". He wasn't too far off. The girls always have kids staying over so he thought all of their friends must just live here. It was cute to watch him show others where he lived.

We had some fun times with those two.

...Our big story of 2010 Part 3

2010-11-30T18:32:00.007-06:00

WD really wanted to play football this past year. He has played soccer for five years and since I have watched and coached soccer for fourteen years, I felt like WD is pretty darn good. He is a vicious defender. He may not always get the ball but the person who he was defending, will not have it either. They could just as easily wind up on the ground. His mindset of playing soccer helped me decide that he probably was ready to go on and play tackle football. Our schedule really never became clear to allow us to sign him up for tackle football back in the summer. This was a huge log jam in our plans that allowed the boys to fit in to our family.

WD was pretty frustrated at me because I didn't sign him up until we found out that the boys were coming to live with us. We settled for playing Upward Football at the church. It is a flag football program. We asked Tyler if he wanted to play as well and he was all over it. So WD and Tyler played football for the first time. The football was a much slower game that WD had been used to in soccer. Tyler however, had a great time. From what I know, Tyler had never been the oldest in the sports he had played. I had only heard of him playing baseball. But this season in football, he was the oldest on his team, which meant he was the tallest and the most mature. Wow! think of that! This boy was the most mature. He did great. He scored a couple of touchdowns, he played quarterback and he even made a lot of "tackles" playing defense.

But watching him play and practice, I began to realize that he really was not passionate about anything. My thought is that he had been beaten up emotionally in everything he had ever tried. Some of this could have been self imposed due to the fact that he knew that his family was pretty messed up and he felt that he was the one under the microscope. I feel like that if there was something that he did succeed at, something would happen at home that caused him to reel any amount of confidence in and tuck it away. Around adults he pretty much knew all of the right things to say or how to act, but I never could really find anything that caused him to get excited. He and Ayden however would get very excited about food. You might be thinking, "what is wrong with that"? "My kids never stop thinking about food either"! This was something that I had never seen before.

They could be in the back seat of the truck riding with me and, in the early days, they would spot the Golden Arches, Chik-Fillet or Burger King before I could see anything. One time, they had only been with us for a few weeks, we were at the District 4H Horse Show heading to the hotel. Before we got to the hotel, the boys both yelled out "McDonald's". We were about a half of a mile away on a very lit street with plenty of cars. The restaurant was a block over from the street we were on and there was no "tall" sign and none of us could see the restaurant. We had to go around the curve in the road to find it. I didn't pull in just in case you were wondering. We don't do McDonald's very well. This became a huge red flag for us. We quickly realized that eating, not just food, but eating food all of the time was the addiction for both boys. Just to ease your mind, these boys were not starving. It was just the constant question of "can I have this?" all day long. I knew that something was very wrong in the way the boys had been raised. I didn't know what ALL had gone on in their house but our speculation was that the parents would babysit them with food, TV and games while they were passed out or maybe even just sleeping.

We realized that we were going to have to help the boys adjust to eating only three times a day with two or three snack times in between meals. They could not understand why we couldn't keep them hooked up with a cereal feeder with running milk! I have never seen anything like it.

Ayden never pushed away from food. He would eat as long as there was something in front of him. Well except for mashed potatoes. We saw them go in then we saw them come back out. We all decided that that was one food we were not going to fight over. Mashed potatoes became the food that my family got silly tickled over. If you want to see grown kids scramble...just put mashed potatoes in front of Ayden. It was very funny to watch.

Eating became our constant battle. If there was one thing that was a continuous grind this was it. From the day they came here to the day they left, eating was always the topic. I finally became a better shopper. Notice I said "I". Dayna would go buy proper foods and it would cost quite a bit but it either wouldn't last a day or it would last a week, as in left overs. So I started buying those real big bags of off brand cereal just so that they could have snacks on hand. Not only did I have to start buying the "off brand" for the volume but also because Ayden started eating the Special K with strawberries. He and I nearly had to arm wrestle every morning for the strawberries.

When he couldn't wake Tyler up at the crack of dawn, Ayden would come stand at the edge of my bed and say, "misto Matt,' ould 'ou get me a bowl of ceweal pease". There were plenty of days that I would just pick him up and put him in our bed. Sometimes I just put him in bed so he and I could just talk. He would tell me how pretty the day was. He would tell me that he was going play outside. He would tell me how much fun playing with Cooter was. He would tell me "I wuv 'ou misto Matt". Wow! .......then he would always tell me that he wasn't tired any more. AND THEN he would tell me just one more time (in case I didn't know why he was in my room), "I want a bowl of ceweal". After he wore me down and I fixed his ceweal, I would get ready and go feed then to work. Ayden would still be in his pj's but he would meet me the door with "his" (about 4 sizes too big) boots on and yes his cereal would be GONE!

He would say, "misto Matt, can I go feed wiff 'ou". I would shake my head and he would follow me out the door. His job was to keep the horse from eating the hay in the tack room and then he could feed Tip (my cow dog). Tip eats by himself away from the other dogs just because he is special I guess. But Ayden didn't have to fight the battle of getting the other dogs fed when I just let him feed Tip. You see when you have six dogs to feed, there has to be a system as well. Pour feed fast, without spilling it and yell "get back" loud and often.

Tyler also liked to feed. He stuck with it enough that when WD was gone and Dayna was just with Tyler and Ayden, he would get everything fed correctly. That was such an accomplishment because when he first started he really didn't see the importance of doing anything correctly. He didn't think that anything or anyone deserved more than "Tyler". It took me a while to start breaking that little hang up down.

Insert Wisdom Here: Some of you are going to think that I am just talking about single parents, but just know that even married parents can migrate to this parent myth. IT IS NOT YOUR JOB TO BE YOUR KIDS BEST FRIEND! This is such a hard concept. I hate it as much as the next person to have to get on to my kids. It hurts me to see them hurt. Our responsibility is to be the parent, the leader, the grown up. I just want to encourage you that you can do it. Your son or daughter will have more respect for you, sooner than you think, when you put your foot down and be consistent with chores, discipline or any activity that you feel is important for that child. Most of us know this but due to friction between spouses or work or even grandparents still trying to parent adults; all heck breaks loose. Then we typically want to throw up our hands and go hide behind "something". We have got to dig deep and view this job as an endurance race and not a sprint. If you do the ugly work early, maybe (no guarantees) the later years should go a little smoother.

Consistently, we began to encourage Tyler's gracious behavior and we would drop the hammer on his selfish behavior. I didn't cut him any slack. We encouraged him to let us be the parents so that he didn't have to be the parent to Ayden. I would say that with in two months, the angry outbursts, yelling, fits of rage, pretty much disappeared. Then it became, from my perspective, normal sibling squabbles. But the outburst were much more manageable. I would carry him to work with WD and I to build fence and many other summer time jobs. I didn't expect him to "know" everything when we would work, but I never let him throw his brain into neutral and let his ignorance of the job keep him from participating. I treated him like one of my own kids. I expected him to try. After a few times of working with us, the complaining decreased and the sweat increased. He also didn't know how to use his muscles. I don't think that he had ever had to lift something heavy. I did give him a fit on trying to lift or pull or push. God gave us muscles, use them. I really wanted him to find out what his limitations were and to find out how he had to adjust to make something move. This sounds ridiculous, I know, but it seemed to me that he had never had to push his body because he had been in front of a TV screen for years. In his mind he could move mountains, but he had never tested his body to see what mountains he COULD move or in this case what fence post he couldn't budge. A definite distortion of what was realistic.

I don't know a specific day, but at some juncture, close to this break through, Tyler started gaining all kinds of confidence. With the working, feeding and playing here at home, then throw the accomplishments of football on top of it and he became a different kid. He was so proud to talk to his mom and dad to tell them what he was doing or what jobs he had gotten done. He began to walk with pride and purpose. That is when I could see the results of the lessons that we had been showing Tyler. That is when I knew that I could finish MY job.

When I would listen to Tyler tell his dad about all of the jobs he had done, my mind was drawn to the fact that kids want to grow up. They want to be like their dad or mom. It is the way we were born. When Tyler would talk of his accomplishments, he would beam. He would speak with confidence, he would get excited and start talking faster. Besides the food, the one thing that I saw him get excited about was seeing worth in his own life. He began to realize that he could work. He could accomplish tasks. He could work with his hands. Maybe he wasn't such a drain on the people around him. And, by golly, someone would recognize his accomplishments when he would tell people about them. Shoot, animals depended on his very existence. He had to provide for them and even protect them. It was cool for us to watch that transition.

This is another interesting concept to me. Kids want to grow up, but parents sometimes keep pushing them down. Do you realize what our parents were doing at age six through twelve? For you readers that are my age and have parents in their 60's on up, more than likely, they were working with their parents learning a trade. It may not have been the trade that they use today or one that they want to remember, but by golly they know how to raise a garden, milk a cow, operate a dairy, raise cattle, mix their own feed for their animals, can vegetables, make fresh cream style corn, possibly even handle a team of mules, trim a horse, grow cotton, dig potatoes, mend fence, run a grocery store, deliver goods, process their own meat and so many other jobs. Many of these jobs have disappeared due to that fact that they are not needed anymore. But my point is, our parents were working. They had expectations put on them. Though the thought of going back to the "good ol' days" may not sound so good, there were some real truths that came out of that era that we are not going to be able to get away from if we want our kids to thrive.

I learned from my dad, whether he knew it or not, a specific concept that has worked on my kids along with two extra boys. If a kid wants responsibility give it to him or her. Do your part in training for the job and let the kid earn more responsibility. Don't assume that "they are too young". When do you take away the responsibility? When they abuse it. From my experience, a kid will want to gain your trust back. They typically don't just say "well I tried, I am done!" If they have any desire in them at all they will fight to gain your trust back. The only time I have seen this concept not work is when a kid is young and the dad or mom or both, keeps telling the kid that they are too little or too young or it is just not safe. If your three year old wants to help you put up dishes, you let him. If he breaks something, go get a new one and let him try in again. If he wants to put his own jelly on, you let him try. When he drops the jar of jelly, let him help you clean up and go get another one. If he wants to help you trim your flowers, you let him. If she wants to drive the riding lawn mower, you let her. If she can't draw a straight line on a piece of paper, much less the yard, you need to get over your OCD. One mistake does not constitute ultimate failure.

This was a hard lesson to learn for me in the early years. Poor MLN took the brunt of my stupidity. Oh I kept letting her try but when she DID spill something I would make her clean it all up and then try it again. I am embarrassed to recall how hard I was on her. But you know what? Now she can pull a 24 foot cattle trailer loaded with cows or horses in her truck and I don't even have to do anything. She can drive any tractor in most any situation, mow the yard, feed cows and on and on. She forgave me for my harshness. I think? It was trial and error on the first one but on the others I became much more precise in my direction.

You do remember that I said, "do your part in training them for the job". We don't want to forget that little piece of information. But you get the idea. Now I know there are some that are so overly protective that just the thought of this concept sends chills up your spine. I really do respect that "feeling". However, it becomes very unhealthy for that kid when we try to keep them in their little glass box. They have to get scraped up emotionally and physically. Unfortunately, that is the quickest way for them to learn. This is what started happening with Tyler and Ayden. They started thinking in the vain of "how can I help others" more and more. That was exciting for me.

Let me make this clear. This is more of a documentary for me and our family. It helps me process the lessons that I have learned and tuck away the memories of a point in time in our life. If others can benefit from our lessons, great. Thanks for your comments.

...Our big story of 2010 Part 2

2010-11-29T07:14:00.002-06:00

As we took on our assignment, I wanted to know what the end goal was. Were we going to need to adopt these two boys? Were we going to pass them off to a "qualified" foster family? Was there a possibility that we could reunite them with their mom? What if we could even help reconcile the marriage of the parents and they would go home to a mom and a dad?...wait that was dreaming too big, sorry.

No one could really explain to us what we had to look forward to in the early days. If any of you know my wife, that is not a real good thing. She likes plans. She likes lists. She is one of the most creative, organized people I have ever known. I like organization, I like for things to be moving forward, I want to see some action, but I don't live and die by the list. So we became a pretty good balance to each other. It became apparent that really no one knew what was going to happen. The mother had a court ordered set of goals that had to be met before she could even think about getting the boys back. The parents were divorced, but the dad began to show an interest in the boys. So he had a list of court ordered set of goals that he had to achieve before he could even think about getting time with his sons.

To hear CPS explain the process and requirements, there was no way that them mom could accomplish what needed to be accomplished in order to get the boys back due to her past history. Let me inject here that I know CPS sees some crazy stuff. If you want to take a day and go sit in family court, you can see why they pretty much give up on any person who walks through the door. I have never heard such. It is almost like you are at the auction barn, but the judge has to read through every lie and make his best guess as to where some of these kids will sleep THAT NIGHT! Not next week when things cool down...no, in the next few HOURS. People are on standby to get orders to go to a different city, where the kids are, jerk them and what little stuff they have out of the foster home that they are in and send them to the next foster home or relative who the judge has ordered. So a kid maybe getting ready for bed and someone shows up to pick him or her up and they will be across Texas (somewhere) to finish their great night of sleep. These kids do not know up from down. Get off that soapbox...

So for our family to even to be in this situation was to say the least was Divine Intervention. CPS dropped these two off at our house at 11:00 pm without knowing us from Adam. They were strictly going off of the recommendation of the eight year old's 2nd grade teacher's plea for help in holding these two boys together and not letting them get thrown into the "foster system funnel". This is not done. How did this happen? I don't know. I am not even sure who had the authority to make it happen. I believe that God caused some person in CPS to take a chance and to SEE something that was not normal in site of man, make it make sense and act on it.

Not too many days had passed, before we had our first court hearing in front of a VISITING judge from Houston. Everyone in CPS was panicked. They didn't know him. All that they commented to Dayna and I was that they had heard that he was religious. I liked to have fell out of my chair! Religious! is that the only thing that they were nervous about? As if that made him retarded or something. By golly, this guy spoke with sense! Normalcy! True concern! This was the craziest thing that I have ever seen. CPS presented their case, the mother's lawyer presented his case. The judge had us stand, and he asked who we were and had we lost our mind? Not really to that degree, but he did want to know what angle we were playing. Because a married couple with four children and a happy home does not walk into family court and become willing to step into a chaotic situation as to take two boys whom they have never laid eyes on. After all didn't we know what the had gone on in that house?

I knew that when the judge started asking Dayna questions, that God's hand was all over this. The judge felt a peace, we felt a peace, the mom sure felt relief, and CPS stood there with their mouth wide open trying to figure out how they were going to fit the judge's orders into their little box. Though they had gone along with the boys coming to our house, we soon found out that they (CPS) were not totally for our arrangement. Because it had been court ordered though they had to put on their happy face and try to figure out how to make it work. Keep in mind this is the summer time. Kids are out of school. Those of you who know us, know what the next point of contention would be. Public school or Home school? Oh but we had a month to figure that little situation out. We dodged that confrontation on this hearing date.

CPS fit us into their Kinship box. That worked for them so they became our friend again. The boys were fitting in to our family though as I stated before, it was hard. You know, we work so hard to get our kids raised. We think we have success and life begins to level out. We think ( I thought ) "dang, I am pretty good at the kid raising stuff" this won't be hard to take a three year old and quickly get him into shape so that when I at least asked him to come to me that he MIGHT look up. At least with a new born you don't have any expectations. But with a three year old, you would think you could bet on him being potty trained and maybe know not to unroll the entire roll of toilet paper into the pot. Just a slight expectation I had. That is a hilarious expectation in case you were wondering. This is pretty much when I knew that I was going to spend the rest of the summer going back to the basics of parenting. It also was when I realized how old I had gotten.

We worked diligently on the potty training for about a month. Finally it started to click with the little fella that maybe it would be easier to poop in the pot instead of standing beside the pot with his clothes on. When I think back on the whole ordeal, it was pretty funny for me. I was wondering why my kids and Dayna would laugh at me! They quit laughing when I told them that it was their turn to clean up. It was such an undertaking that I knew that Dayna or the girls were not going to be able to get it done by themselves so they began to use me as the scare tactic. They would put him on the phone when I was at work to make him tell me that he had pooped in his britches. As time went along they would put him on the phone to tell me that he had gone in the potty. And like we all did with our kids, I cheered him on. I really believe that he was just that hard headed. He was not scared of nor did he respect women. This goes to the lack of parenting, so I will be respectful. He learned to quickly though.

The eight year old tried to be an angel. He had been told that if he was "good" that he would get to go back home to his mom. All he wanted to do was play the Wii. We don't have any real fun games or systems, like XBox 360 or anything. We just have Star Wars and a few competitive games for the Wii. He couldn't understand why he couldn't just move his toys to our house so that he could sit in his room and play games. You know, that way he would be out of every one's way. He could live in a world where if he didn't like something, he could just blow it up! He sure could hide from his brother, where he didn't have to be the parent. Yes and eight year old parenting a three year old all day in a house where the parent would be passed out and live in a world of no pain and no expectation of having to parent a eight year old who was parenting a three year old. A life of hiding and living in a fantasy world.

Insert Wisdom Here: If you know a single parent and if you are a Believer, do not pass them off as "having it together". We, so many times, think that we don't have time to inject ourselves into the lives of someone who is going through the trials of not only stupid mistakes but going through parenting without a helpmate. Good grief, I couldn't do it! We choose to go hide in our room and play our easy game of Life so that we don't have to look around to find the people who are pretty much showing us that they would love some help. No they typically don't ask for help, because that is not the American way. They just let us catch glimpses into their life with the hope that we as Christians, would have enough gumption to go out on limb and ask how we could help. Their are programs in place that can help you help people if you don't have a clear direction on going it on your own. You just have to have a willing heart.

Those of you who know me, know that sitting in front of the TV of any kind when there is work to be done outside, drives me nuts. So it didn't take long to put restrictions on the amount of time that the boys could play the Wii. WD, the girls, and I tried to teach Tyler how to feed the animals. He really began to show an interest in my dogs. He liked the horses but was very intimidated by them. He loved Cooter. You may have heard about Cooter the wonder dog. I have written several posts over the years of some of our adventures. Cooter loves kids, especially little boys. WD and Cooter used to wrestle. Like WWF style. Body slamming, pinning on the mat, head lock, choke hold kind of stuff. I wish that I had video of it. Then they got too big and started hurting each other. I think a truce was reached between them both. "You don't hurt me and I won't hurt you" or something to that effect.

Dealing with the animals became Tyler's way of dealing with life and finding his purpose in this part of his life. I will fill you in next time.

...Our big story of 2010

2010-11-28T13:01:00.007-06:00

Going back to June 16th. Dayna called me while I was in Haiti and asked me if we could take in two brothers. I asked her how old they were and she told me that they were eight and three. She really didn't know much more than that other than that the oldest boy's 2nd grade teacher REALLY wanted the boys to stay together. The teacher had gone on mission to find someone in B/CS that would take these boys in so that they would not be sent to Austin and split up under normal foster care operations.

I told Dayna to tell whoever it was that she was talking with that we would take them in. It was very interesting that while I was in Haiti, the group that I was with had been talking about how we felt about adoption or fostering. Dayna, the kids and I have talked about it for years. I have swept the thought under the rug because of the age of my own kids. I never wanted to take a chance of messing up my relationship with my kids. Over the past year or two, my kids have been going on mission trips to Mexico, working in orphanages and have really developed a heart for kids. They have been asking when we could adopt kids. Over recent months my answer became, "whenever some kids come along who need a place to stay". Pretty much if they are dropped off at my front door.

Boy did I not know what that was going to look like. When we were sitting around the tents talking about my phone call, everyone was amazed first of all that we had been talking adoption and this phone call came, then secondly that we were not qualified under the state. It is un-heard of for CPS to just drop of kids to a family who has not been approved by the system. We learned that we didn't know anything about this bureaucracy that is very proud of the job that it performs. Let me say this. I know that CPS has given kids all over the US as second, third and more chances at somewhat a normal life.

Insert Wisdom Here: There are so many families that are qualified to be foster parents or even adoptive parents. Try to imagine what would happen if our churches became where people who were having trouble would come for help with kids. There would be no need for depending on government to take care of our orphans. We have become so scared of our government bureaucracies (some with good reason) that we just run away from what burden God has put on our hearts. Here is the step we took: if God brings two little boys to your door step, take them in and He will provide a way for it to work out. Everyone would ask "how are you going to do this?" "How in world am I supposed to know! I didn't make this plan! Uh, I guess just take one day at a time is all I know to do."

I returned to my house from Haiti at about 9:30 pm on June 18th. At 11:00 pm, two CPS workers showed up to our house with Tyler and Ayden. The boys were very polite, tired and deep down they were very nervous. In a matter of a day, Dayna had let a few people know what was going on and friends responded with car seats clothes, bunk beds and a ton of prayers. So when the boys got to our house, they saw Tyler's 2nd grade teacher, the lady who had lit a fire in order to keep these brothers together, their room was ready with sheets and bunk beds. WD had graciously let us set the boys up in his room. It was neat to see how receptive he was toward the boys. As crazy as people thought I was for allowing two other boys to come into our home because "WD might think that I wouldn't love him as much" or "WD might feel like his time with his dad would be limited", though a concern, this fear never seemed to materialize. We were very clear with our kids and especially WD on how things would work. We just didn't have a clue as to how long we would have these boys.

I knew that WD couldn't last long with the boys in his room. We had an extra room that college students have set up shop in over the years. Of late it had become a play room but mostly a junk room. Good night! this room had become a cluttered waste of space. After the boys had been here for a month or so I got high behind and cleaned out the room so WD could have some privacy. Not so much for privacy sake as much as it was finding a way to protect all of his stuff. WD had wanted little brothers for years. Now he had his chance.

As we got past the "honey moon" stage of this little adventure, we began to learn about each of these boys. Ayden was a fairly typical three year old. His exceptions were that he had had a pretty rough first three years, he wasn't potty trained and he was as big as a four or five year old. So when I talked to him I had to remind myself that He Is Just Three. Tyler, being the oldest, had seen way too much for his age. He was a hard nut to crack. He could blend in as good as any kid that I have seen. He had great manners. So I definitely knew that he was a "pleaser". He couldn't handle getting in trouble well. It bothered him deeply. He would get very insecure, almost shaky. But we were very regimented in the discipline that we were allowed. I didn't let either of them use their weakness to manipulate us. It became funny as to what they would try.

Insert Wisdom Here: With your biological kids, I am going out on limb here, do not be scared to spank them. If you want Bible verses I would be glad to list them on here. All I wanted in our home was peace and order. If you are yelling, then you don't have either in your home. I am at a place to where we can do a lot of talking to our kids. All the "hard" work was done when they were young. The youngest is 9. We can move on to deeper things in life. Like taking care of some other little boys.

I found that I had to make some major adjustments on getting a handle on two boys who had never seen any type of discipline. It seems that I had to really dig deep on getting control. I had to creatively integrate two boys into our system without breaking their spirits or crossing any lines that had been placed on us by CPS. I felt like a college football coach. I am not going to lie, it became a challenge (like a game) to me. I had to go back to square one, where I was 17 years ago (the age of my oldest child). I love to train horses and dogs. I have not always been good at it. But when I started getting good results in raising my kids, I found that my animals reacted to the same type of pressure or most of all, the release of pressure. Because of the limitations put on us on how we could discipline I began to use pressure and release of pressure. It was pretty amazing. This would be an area that I could spend some time on but I don't want this to be the main point of my blog. I just want you to know that it was not easy and if you don't have pretty good control of your own kids, this could be a rough go. The boys began to settle in and we all learned how , our system would work.

I know that all of you wanted to read how great each day was. I know you wanted to hear that this adventure can be for anyone. I know you wanted to hear how this is a great way to be in ministry. If you don't have a just a little grit, determination, creativity and most of all selflessness, this job may not be for you. Until next time...

...it is sad when you blink and another year is about gone.

2010-11-14T19:06:00.006-06:00

It is so hard to believe that it already November. Almost Thanksgiving.
I have done a pitiful job of keeping up with my blog. I have plenty of
stories to tell but I have chosen to not share them until after a certain
time frame. Probably after Thanksgiving. I am sure that you are sitting
there shaking your head but just trust me that I will be glad to share some
tales with you.

It has been a very busy past six months. I love to see my kids growing up and excelling in activities and life in general.

These two guys have been a major part of our change of pace. I will fill you in later.

...The Boys of Fall

2010-10-01T19:24:00.004-06:00

Pop got to come watch WD play football. We were really glad that he got to come and see WD catch a two point conversion pass. I think that Pop had fun even though it started getting a little hot.

WD is playing flag football this fall. He decided against soccer for the first time in five years. Keep in mind he is nine. Our family has had someone on the soccer field since 1997. I am excited about this adventure with WD. He is having fun.

I drove to Houston last Friday. On my way home, I drove down Hwy 249. I drove past exits that we have driven down for seven or eight years now. There were Saturdays and yes, even Sundays, that we would leave the house at 4:30 or 5:00 a.m. to go to soccer fields. Dew all on the grass, soccer cleats and soccer balls that were soaking wet. The smell of fresh cut grass and a chill in the air. Even rain, cold, lights, bright green fields with white lines. When I listen to Kenny Chesney's "Boys of Fall" I get plum excited.

I remember those days of being at the field house hours before the game. Watching lights being cut on. The smells of cool, clear nights. The smells of the concession stands getting hot dogs and popcorn ready for the hundreds of people that were about to show up. I remember being surrounded by a bunch of guys who were getting their game faces on. No matter how different we were off the field, on the field were ready to take on an enemy.

That is what I love about sports. It provides a place to allow kids to grow up. It teaches them how to get a little tough. I have really enjoyed watching my kids fight through pain, heartache, victory, happiness and uncertain justice. Gotta love referee's.

DLN and I were asked to speak at a conference for parents and daughters. DLN spoke Friday night to the mothers and daughters and on Saturday I spoke to the dad's and daughters. Saturday the girls had a date with their fathers. I really enjoyed getting to share some of my thoughts that I have toward raising kids and especially daughters. One of the illustrations that I used was from Kenny Chesney's song "Boys of Fall". When he says that they meet in the middle of the field and the referee says "call it in the air, yes sir we want the ball".

So many times we want to put off decisions that effect our kids lives. Sometimes it is easy to take a wait and see approach to raising our kids. I have always taken the approach of "wanting the ball" first. I have never differed to the second half. Don't get me wrong, I know that are plenty of areas that I lack a perfect record. One thing about it though, I may make mistakes, but I make mistakes going 100 miles an hour.

If we wait to the second half of our kids life to make those tough decisions, it is probably going to be too late. Hang in there and take responsibility early in their lives.

...Happy Birthday Sweet Miranda!

2010-09-13T17:56:00.005-06:00

My where does the time go. My sweet little Miranda is turning 15. She is going to get her permit so she can start driving us around. This past year has been busy, but it has been amazing to see Miranda grow up into a beautiful young lady.

I was looking at some old pictures the other day as I was cleaning out the room up stairs. What a sweet little blond hair daughter I have. There were so many fun pictures of her dancing, playing, riding four wheelers, swimming, riding in the boat and loving on her dad. She was so mad at me when I sold the boat. She used to love to fish and go riding on the boat. We used to go to the coast and fish at Matagorda. That was Miranda's favorite vacation spot.

She has made the Company Abundance dance company this year. We are looking forward to watching her perform this year. She is an amazing dancer. I love watching her expressions show what is in her heart.

I love watching her playing with her sisters. She is such a supportive kid. She encourages and helps with anything that needs to be done. She is so funny. She keeps us laughing all of the time.

She is such a help when we are working cows. She keeps us all organized. She organizes the ear tags and even puts them in the calves ears. I appreciate all of her help. I have an awesome kid.

...I refuse

2010-09-02T15:18:00.003-06:00

I refuse to get old. Just because I am in my forties, doesn't mean anything. I would like to think that I haven't lived even half of my life yet. I know that is not for me to determine, but I sure feel like I can go another fifty years.

Well that is my attitude anyway. Tomorrow I will be 42. I am sure that I will get old and hard headed. Oh wait, my kids and wife may already think that I am already hard headed. Anyway. I know that I am NOT.

It is going to be a fun three day weekend.

...Happy 17th Birthday

2010-08-11T16:42:00.007-06:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Good grief, where does the time go? No matter how hard I work to keep up with my kids and inject myself into their lives on a daily basis, I find each one of them growing into adults too quickly. The hours turn into days, the days turn into weekends, the weekends turn into "seasons of the year", you know there is summer and then there is the rest of the year. Before you know it, my oldest is seventeen.

She has always been a leader. Not only in our family, but on the soccer field, at church, when working and any other area of her life. She is plenty of tough, whether on horse back, in the chute pushing calves, hauling hay, hauling horses or on the tractor. We never really have to wonder very long what she is thinking. I like that. Deep inside she may care what people think of her, but she does not wear her feelings on her shoulders. She will persevere and do what is right.

But what I have enjoyed the most is seeing her grow into a beautiful young lady, who has an enormous heart for kids. She has worked in the orphanages, taken care of kids at home, she has taken care of kids at church. One thing about it, no matter what color of skin or what language a kid speaks, she is going to let that kid know that he or she is loved. It is amazing to see her nurture the kids that she is around. Her heart is huge. All of our kids are this way. They want the underdog to have a shot in life by knowing that they are loved.

I love all of my kids with all of my heart. We have two more girls who aren't far behind. I am very proud of MLN and the example she is to her sisters. She loves the Lord and is seeking His direction in her life. I like that. She will have some huge decisions to make this year and I know that she is up for the ride.

...State 4H Horse Show

2010-07-29T20:42:00.010-06:00

MLN was in the first ever 3 year old Stockhorse Futurity for the State 4H Horse Show. There were four classes: Trail, Pleasure, Working Cow Horse and Reigning. Her older horse has been hurt for 5 months now so J Lo had to pick up the slack in Team Penning. Both MLN and J got a serious workout. They were exhausted. Both of them were very good even though they didn't bring home any hardware.

This is what we were looking forward to. WD, Mal and MLN are on the same Team Penning Team. They won at the County Show, then they got fourth at District out of 21 teams. They knew that they were going to have their hands full. MLN had to finish up her reigning class so they had to be bumped to the bottom of the team penning. We thought that they were going to be the first to work on a new set of cattle. That didn't work out. They were the 7th to work on their set of cattle. It wasn't pretty and was frustrating. Oh well, we can't win 'em all.

WD spent quite a bit of time warming up his horse. He didn't compete in anything else except the Team Penning. He was a trooper. He did a great job taking care of Blue.

He did a good job of getting his horse use to the arena that they were going to be working in. I am not sure where he gets his competitiveness, but don't think for a minute that it passed him up.

The two on each side of MLN are from Walker County. This is what 4H is all about. Getting to know folks and making friends. We met them at District and were able to develop a friendship that has proved to be quite fun. They did a great job with their three year old horses.

The Drill Team competition was great. Mal and The Brazos County Faith Riders got 4th in the speed drill. This is the highest placing that they have ever won. They worked really hard on their drill and it paid off. I was so excited to watch this team perform. There were several teams that were a good bit older but this team worked hard to compete against some teams that have been competing together for years.

...a Great Lady went Home

2010-07-08T20:22:00.004-06:00

Nana was 79 years young, when on July 7th, she went home to be with her Heavenly Father. It has been pretty somber around the house, but there has been some funny stories, laughter and smiles along with the sadness.

We all knew this day was coming, you just never REALLY expect to happen. It took us all by surprise. There is good that will come from our loss, but I think that it will be revealed with time. Right now it is hard.

Pop is going to miss her. He has become my inspiration once again. He has been the one taking care of her day in and day out for many years now. He loved his bride and literally did what ever it took to make her last years as easy on her and the family as he could. This is the way it should be. Sometimes we go for convenience. Not Pop. He stuck by Nana's side til the end.

We will sure miss Nana with her laughter, joking, cooking and wisdom. I will definitely miss her "norn". When I was little I would say "...more norn Nana, more norn". She would keep her special cream style corn coming. I loved her cooking to say the least. She loved fresh vegetables from the garden. She and I enjoyed eating fresh tomatoes, corn, onions and cucumbers in vinegar with sugar. Purple hull peas with her relish was always a treat.

Good times and lots of love came from being around her table. Not just for us, but anyone who came through her door. No one ever went away hungry. Just a few memories...

Adventures out of the ordinary 3

2010-07-01T19:56:00.005-06:00

I am not sure how he spells his name, but I spell it "Darindorf". To follow up on my previous post about Haiti, I want to tell what God allowed me to be a part of.

We get so wrapped up in our day to day lives that we forget or maybe have never known, how God wants to use each of us. There are the basic expectations of course. If you are a parent, you raise your kids according to the scriptures. You pray over them, you teach them, you discipline them (some more than others), you love them and provide for them.

We work hard, as a general rule. We get up early and work late. We try to provide food, shelter and "toys" for our kids as well as for ourselves. Mainly for ourselves, if the truth be known. Now before you think that I am going to beat up the American way of life, I will assure you that I am not. America, in its greatness, has provided us the OPPORTUNITY to make a good living. However, there is a shift in our government that elected officials think they know more than the rest of us and they believe that We The People, will allow them to make decisions which ultimately decrease our freedoms. I don't want any more government intervention, I don't know how to make that any clearer.

There is always some guy or gal, that has a "brilliant" idea that they want to try. It nearly always is a way for "someone" to put a bunch of money in their pockets. This is what has happened in Haiti. The government is corrupt. They take everything for themselves and just leave the majority of the folks to scrap for themselves. There is no money in Haiti. So when someone has a skill, they can make a decent living for their standards. They don't live to work, they work to live. The Haitians enjoy each others company. They smile a lot and are generally happy folks. This is all from a whole seven days in the country...these are my opinions based on what I saw and experienced. I am not a social psychologist or anything. I just am trying to express the pulse of what I was exposed to.

After the third day of working, I had gone back to our tool shed to refill my water bottle. As I went toward the tool room, I noticed a young boy that I had not seen before. I said "hello" and went on inside. As I was filling my water, I got to thinking that I had not seen him before, but the main oddity was that there was not another living sole around. I thought to myself that this was unusual! There were normally kids waiting like vultures at our corner so that they could play with us or try to talk us out of some water bags or something.

I went back outside and there were still no other kids around. I sat down beside him and we began to converse. Me in very, very limited Creole and him in very, very good Creole. He didn't know a lick of English or Spanish. I asked him "como u willie"? No I know that is not how you write it, but that is how you say it. What is your name? He told me that his name is Darindorf. I told him my name then I asked where he lived. He pointed. I got the feeling that is was in another neighborhood (if you could call it that). We sat and chatted for a little bit, then I asked him where his mom was? He pointed to the same direction as he had pointed when I asked where his house was. I then asked where his dad was? It was at this moment that I knew that God had set up this appointment. Darindorf folded his hand and laid his head on them...I knew what he meant. His dad was dead. I asked if it was the earthquake? He said, "yes".

This little guy was the nicest, well mannered, ten year old kid that I had met in Haiti. I immediately knew that he was soft hearted and broken. I could tell that he was close to his dad. I was speechless. We sat there and didn't say a word. I was praying very quickly, searching for anything profound or comforting that I could say, besides "what's your name"? I pulled out my little Bible that GWN had given me for being in his wedding a long time ago and I opened it to Psalms 46 and just began to read. Eventually kids started showing up. I kept reading until they were too distracted. When we left that day, I told him to meet me back there the next morning. We showed up the next morning and he met me with a smile.

We worked that full day and he maybe left for an hour or so, that whole day. We kept it pretty light hearted, I guess. Most guys can understand, just working and not needing to say a word. You can sure tell a lot about some one's character when there is very little talking and a whole lot of working. I knew this kid was a worker. I started seeing signs of him trying to think a head of me. He would bring me the level or trial or mud. I started putting together that I was filling a void in his big heart. I knew that God was using me. I knew that this was my "one" person to connect with in a country that I could only say "como u willie"?

The last day, he met me at the area where we had been parking. You remember that I told you that I thought that Darindorf lived in another neighborhood. Turns out he lived at the corner where we parked every day. He caught me as I got out of the Range Rover and grabbed my arm and said "house" and he pointed. We walked over to this wall that was block but it had been stuccoed. It was nice. We walked up to the huge steel gate entrance and I was thinking, Wow, this is nice for this neck of the woods. I wasn't sure what I was going to see when he opened the gate. What I saw, made my heart sink. In this compound there were 3 or 4 citrus trees with hammocks hanging from them. There was nothing else. I could tell where a house once stood but had been cleared. It was clean ground. The ground being cleaned caused me to realize that this family took pride in what they had. There was nothing clean where we were working. The rubble was stacked to the hilt around and in most of the tents. There was nothing but swept dirt where this families house had stood.

He then looked at me and asked, "my mom wants to know if you can build me a house"? I couldn't respond. I just shrugged my shoulders and smiled. I couldn't help him at all. I knew at this moment, his dad had been a brick mason. I knew that the wall was probably his nicest work. I knew that they had "money". I knew that his dad had not built the house. I knew that he had built this nice wall around a house that had been built in the Haitian way. In other words, it wasn't built well. I knew that this is where his dad was killed in January 2010. I knew that I was to bridge that gap for this young man.

We went back to work. He didn't leave my side. He mixed mortar, he never let my mortar board get dry. He leveled block. He filled holes. He reminded me of WD or me working with my dad when I was young. I could tell that his dad didn't have to tell him much. I knew that he loved his dad and wanted to please him by working hard. I could see him getting excited when I nodded my head in approval for his hard work. He knew what "good" meant.

I mentioned bridging a gap, I wanted to invite him to the church that we had gone to at the orphanage. That became my mission on this day. I wanted to get Jimmy to interpret for me. Jimmy runs the orphanage.

It was getting close to lunch and we were beginning to clean up tools. Derek suggested that we pray over the house that we had been building. I grabbed Darindorf's hand as Derek prayed. It was one of those moments that you know that God was going to bless the work that had been started. Not only what we had done, but the orphanage, the church, the missionaries and this community. And though we had only been there for 6 days, I knew that God was STILL able to use me, a broken vessel, who has made plenty of mistakes. It helped me to see that in spite of my imperfection, I am very usable to a Perfect God. He doesn't need me! But if we are willing to be used, He will use us.

After this time of prayer, I was determined to find Jimmy. I told Darindorf to not leave yet. I found Jimmy and was able to get he and Darindorf together. I told Jimmy to tell Darindorf about church, what time it started, where it was located and that I really wanted him to be there that next Sunday. This was Thursday. Darindorf assured me that he would be there. I then told him that I was so sorry about his dad, as I was chocking back the tears. Then I told Jimmy to tell him that I loved him and I would not be coming back the next day. I gave him a hug. I gave him the rest of my meal bars and Derek gave him his pocket knife. I hate goodbye's like this. I know that I will never see this kid again. I hope that he grows up to be the Billy Graham of Haiti. Who knows what God will do in his life. Here is what I do know. It doesn't matter if you are Haitian, American, black, white or brown, if you don't surrender your life to Christ, it doesn't matter what you do on this earth, there will not be eternity for you. Jesus said, "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through Me". I know that Darindorf will have to make that decision. My job was to plant the seed. I hope that I did that well.

As we started to get ready to leave, we sat and ate a last peanut butter and jelly sandwich while the kids at the orphanage played with everyone. The kids had already been fed. Some of our guys got them to singing "Old McDonald"; now that was a hoot. It finally came time to leave and I gave Darindorf one last hug and I got into the Range Rover.

As we were leaving, there was not a word said until we got on into town. All I know is that there were several of us chocking back tears, sniffling and others were very somber. It was one of those times that you know you just experienced a "life changing moment", and that it would not fully sink in until some time later.

There was this one kid that God put right in front of me to see if I was listening...

...Adventures out of the ordinary 2

2010-06-23T20:14:00.007-06:00

One of the comments on my blog was from a friend and fellow blogger, the Panhandle Poet (Chris McClure) who wanted to know what God was doing in Haiti and what God is doing in my life through this experience.

I guess I want to tell more about what I see God doing in Haiti through willing people in this post. There is a strong influence of voodoo in Haiti. It has been very hard for Christianity to grab hold throughout this beat up land. It had gotten so bad for missionaries and even government workers around 2004 and 2005 that our Government had declared Haiti a Red Zone. The IMB (International Mission Board), ordered the missionaries to leave Haiti. Based on what I saw, the work that the missionaries had started, their work had not gone forgotten. The Haitians (some) had carried the torch in spite of the pull out. I am certain that there was a decrease in the number of Christians, or maybe a surge in the combination of voodoo and a watered down Christianity.

Corruption of the Haitian government is the norm. There is a major chess match between anyone offering help and the new government. I say new, because the old government was pretty much crushed in the earthquake. The mode of operation doesn't have seemed to changed. The officials are on the take. All of the food aid and Buckets Of Hope are either in the hands of the government or on a ship waiting for someone to pay an ungodly "tax" so they can be offloaded. Just something to keep in mind as you read on. People are willing to help, our prayers need to be that the government would step aside and let folks help with out the "tax".

Then in January 2010, along came an earthquake. Immediately the IMB and other mission organizations lifted the band and sent missionaries, that had been stationed there previously, back into Port Au Prince. The missionary couple that we were staying with, is a registered nurse. She told a story of a friend who told her that they needed help at the hospital downtown. She went to help and the missionary told us that it was worse than any Civil War scene that we could imagine. There were folks who were maimed, bleeding, broken and dieing. They pretty much had to line them up in the floors and work on them where they sat. The doctor that was working in the hospital left when the missionary nurse showed up. Got on a bus and left the country! The missionary nurse was left by herself with a Vet Tech to work on these folks. The veterinarian in training became the pharmacist. Baptism by fire.

From what I observed, I see that God has created an opportunity to turn a voodoo nation into a Christian nation or at least, allow the Gospel to be spread deeper and further than it ever has in Haiti. I am not saying that peoples lives are going to be healed immediately, but there is a young generation, 5 to 12 year old kids that are under the care of orphanages who consistently provide food, shelter and sound Biblical teaching. I believe that THIS is where the future of Haiti will be transformed. Thousands of adults were killed leaving Thousands and Thousands of children on the streets. I use the term "streets" loosely. Dirt roads with rubble. Some were just walk paths that were "public".

As I am writing this I tend to get a choked up watching the kids at the orphanage sing with joy to our Lord. I was able to see young men lead worship and read from the scripture and even old men earnestly praying. There was no "high and mighty" preaching going on. The kids sang their stories from the Bible, because there are not enough Bibles for the folks of Haiti. The Bible was not translated into Creole until 1998. This was the first edition. Beyond imagination! The "preacher" would read from the Word. There was no adding in commentary to get his point across. It was the Holy Spirit that impressed His message on the folks in the church. I couldn't understand a word that they were saying, but I was able to see that they believed in the same God that I do and they know He is at work. Go read Psalm 46 and then put yourself in the midst of destruction. It literally takes on new meaning. This is what the pastor read for his sermon.

Kids are seeing young men who believe and the kids will be impacted for life. The IMB, the SBCT and others are working with local churches to rebuild church members' homes. This is solidifying the importance of the church and causing folks to turn to the church for help. This is where groups like ours come in. The IMB has committed to build 1000 homes in the Port Au Prince area through the local churches. We went to provide labor to the missionary who is responsible for getting these houses built. There is a process to know who is getting houses and the key is being a widow with no way to provide for her family. This is the bottom line of where the help starts. They encourage the men in the community to get involved in helping their neighbors.

We were just a drop in the bucket. I didn't go over there expecting to fix a city. I went over there to see if God could use me to have an impact on one or maybe two people. There was one kid and I was the one that was changed. Until next time...

...Adventures out of the ordinary

2010-06-20T18:20:00.003-06:00

For those of you who know me, know that going into foreign lands has not been high on my priority list. I have taken a pretty conservative view on going to another country and leaving my family. I certainly take the view that my first and foremost job is to raise my kids and make sure that they are taken care of.

I have always been reluctant to go out of the country, until my kids were old enough to know that if something were to ever happen to me, it would be in God's Will. I don't ever want them to get bitter toward God. All of my kids know Christ as their Savior. My older two have been on mission trips themselves. DLN has been overseas on a mission trip, so when the opportunity came for me to go to Haiti, I carefully agreed to go. Yes I was nervous. But I wanted to be changed by trying to help folks in a time of hopelessness with no strings attached.

I have worked three hurricanes and have been able to help people, but I have also made a living by selling roofs. I have seen destruction. I have seen trees through houses, houses on the ground, water pouring into houses, roofs off of buildings, tree stacked in streets, people displaced, folks camping and cooking outside to survive. I have never seen before what I saw in Haiti.

I saw destruction beyond anything that I have seen before. When something happens in the United States, there is access to equipment, labor, generators, electricity, insurance and money (generally). We all saw the collapsed buildings on TV, the tent cities that went up over night, the people displaced and the death.

What you can't see is the desire of the Haitians to survive. They try to sell anything that they have if it makes them money. Their rubble on the side of the road possibly can be for sell. They know where their pile of rubble starts and stops. They barter for food or supplies. Most of them have a smile on their face. The earthquake took a bad, poor country and basically took their houses away. There is now even more trash and more concrete sitting on the side of the road. There are virtually no buildings in downtown Port Au Prince that are inhabitable. Everyone was pretty much forced into the streets, into a pasture or park. Any area that has room for tents.

I can't put smells on your computer screen, but the dust, diesel fumes, carbon monoxide, animals, burning plastic, burning wood, banana trees, citrus trees and so many other smells that I would rather not mention. I was truly amazed at how primitive it is. They drive vehicles just like we do, but when something stops running, that's it. The move it to the side of the road and it gets to be a booth for vending or something.

I mentioned that the people were happy. Of course there were some that didn't give a flip if we were there or not, but for the most part folks smiled and said "bonjour". Creole is a mixture of French and Spanish and it was easy to pick out the Spanish but that was about it. They had fun teaching me words in Creole. Kind of like talking in Spanish with my East Texas drawl, they got a kick out of my trying to talk Creole.

I will try not to get too wordy with my stories, but there will be more to come later.

Sports Camp

2010-06-19T10:45:00.002-06:00

Sports Camp Roping Video from Central Baptist on Vimeo.

I was asked to speak at sports camp this year. I wanted to have a video to go along with my talk, since I couldn't bring horses into the gym. I asked Mir to video WD and I as we vaccinated my calves.

This is what we came up with. Thanks to Brittany and her super cool skills and editing ability, this is what the finished product turned out like. I was excited.

...better "Sooner" than later

2010-05-25T20:36:00.004-06:00

I have seen the worst hail in my career. I don't know if that is saying much but it is bad. I saw a church today with clay tile roof, old school clay tile, that looked like a bunch of men had gotten up there with sledge hammers and had broken each piece of tile. It was amazing.

There are plenty of roofers here as well. It is getting comical trying to see how many roofing trucks that have started swarming the streets. I am with a friend that I had worked for in Florida years ago. Now he works with United. It is funny how things change I guess. Our industry is small in many ways. I always try to stay friends with folks I meet because you never know what twists and turns life will take. And so here we are working together again.

I have a real problem giving up driving to ride with someone else. But I gave in today to ride with my friend, mainly because he has his computer set up in his truck, on a rack, like the police have. His GPS is his computer. He had each POI plugged in and had a route shown on his computer. I thought that I could help look for damage while he got us to our next location. He happened to make a statement as we were pulling out of the driveway this morning, saying, "I drive like an old man, but I have never had an accident". I think that came about the second or third time I took a deep breath and he felt the temperature starting to rise in the truck.

I did good, I thought. I didn't complain or gasp or anything like that. I just had to remind him to STAY IN HIS STINKIN' LANE. Several times. I had to remind him that the light was green. You don't have to stop on a green light, especially in a busy intersection. I really don't remember telling that he needed to stop on a red light or even go faster through the next intersection when the light is yellow. I just remember a lot of honking behind us because he was DRIVING LIKE AN OLD MAN! His driving was way against the Nichols driving academy rules.

I tell you that to tell you this. This driving irregularity had worn me out all day. I had become a little exhausted trying to keep him focused on driving without having his first wreck of his life with me in the truck! We finally made it to a building that our company had been contacted to look at. We got off of the main street onto the side street, with minor grunting and huffing from my side of the truck. We stopped in the middle of street to wait on a trash truck to move from our parking spot. Or at least so we could get into the back parking lot.

I could not see behind us and at this point in the day I didn't WANT to see behind us. Every time I looked behind us there were any where from 1 to 10 cars lined up. So we sat in this side street, looking at the computer screen, planning our next stop when all of a sudden"WHAM, WHAM". Both of us jumped but there was no movement of the truck. No one rear ended us. I began laughing at my buddy, trying to catch his breath. The trash truck dumped the dumpster into his bin. We laughed for a good 5 minutes. As I am writing I am laughing really hard thinking about my friend holding his chest. Needless to say we got out of the street. Thank goodness there was no one behind us.

We are splitting up tomorrow. Or at least I am driving my own truck.

...Catahoulas ready to go

2010-05-17T12:55:00.004-06:00

We have 6 puppies out of Daisy. They were born on April 5th. They are weened and ready to go. I have not given them their first shots yet. They will be dewormed this week. There are 4 males and 2 females.
I haven't tried any of my dogs on hogs but I have no doubt that they would bay. I just have not wanted to use my good cow dogs on hogs. I am asking $150 but that can be negotiable. If anyone would like a grown dog that is ready to work, I would consider that as well.
The two blue ones are males and are marked nearly identical to Tip. My plan is to keep one out of this litter. There is a problem though. I want to keep the blue one and my kids want to keep "Flash". The one with the wide white gap between his eyes. We shall see how it goes. I may have to put the final decision off until I prove to the kids which one has more grit. I watch them eat, I know!

Flash>>>
Don't tell my wife, but if someone offered my the right amount of money I would even sell Cooter the hog finding, cow baying, duck retrieving, snake finding, scorpion killing, kid wrestling, babysittin', rabbit chasing (notice I didn't say catching), cat treeing, Labrador, wonder dog. I could be sleeping on the front porch if I sell that dog. I guess with any animal, some days they are cheaper than others...

...invaluable help

2010-05-02T19:35:00.006-06:00

Several years back I bought 3 Catahoula's from a cowboy friend of mine. I raised them and trained them to work cattle. Since then we have had two litter of puppies. Out of the first litter, I kept one female. Daisy has turned out to be a gritty, hard working dog. We had a breach of security and have a new set of puppies. They are flashy. The kids already have the one they want picked out. I am not big on color. I more inclined to look at disposition and conformation. They are a little young for the disposition yet but I like the kids pick SO FAR! I reserve the final decision. We will be selling the rest.

From time to time I get called to pen cows for folks around here. Especially if there are woods, rough country and cows that like to hide. My granddad's brother, called me a couple of weeks ago to set up a cow working. The game plan was to have the majority of the cattle closed up in the front pasture and I was supposed to bring up the rest from the back of his 2,000 acres. I needed some help so I hired WD and Mal to ride with me. I am so glad I did.

We arrived at the agreed on location a little early. For those of you who have worked with us know that things can start early if you are right on time. I always arrive early. When we got to the back I called my uncle to see if they had the other cows in the pens. He angrily informed me that the cows had just broken down the gates and were heading toward us. That really made for a strategic dilemma. There were three of us 4 dogs and over 300 head of cattle plus calves that just broke out of jail. They were heading for the woods and creeks.

I had no idea how many riders were coming to help. I just knew that I had the only dogs and probably the best horses and two kids that had never been on this place before and that they were scared to death of getting lost. WD was the most vocal about being nervous but I knew that Mal was nervous as well, she just doesn't vocalize her fear. They knew that they were going to have to step it up a notch and step it up they did. They handled their horses like they knew what was going on. Before the jail break, I had pointed across the bottom pasture and pointed out several trees and openings that they could use as land marks and told them just to head in that direction and take as many cows as they could keep together with them. J Lo and I were going to have to cover a lot of acreage. This would be the second weekend in a row that she would get an education. As expected, she exceeded my expectations.

We made it to the front trap with 1 cow and 2 calves. As I looked behind me, back where we had started, I saw the cows that had escaped. We went back to start over. We "started over" 2 more times, each time bringing more cattle. I knew that there were quite a few more cattle still hiding in the woods, but my uncle was ready to pen and start working. We penned the 250 or so that we had and began sorting and running them through the chute. After getting finished with the first group, we went back to our "starting place" and penned another 50 or so. After lunch, at 2:00 pm, we decided to call it a day and leave the last 10 pair.

DLN came early to pick up WD for his first soccer game and she was able to take a few pictures of us waiting to go pen heifers. By the time we got home at 3:30, we were knocked out. My dogs were ready to take a nap and the horses just wanted to be turned out into the pasture to roll. We had no sooner gotten home before we had to go to WD's soccer game. There was no rest for us. It was a very exciting ride with my kids. They are gaining so much confidence in their riding ability.

You are seeing right...I used Cooter (the bird retrieving, hog tracking, rabbit chasing, cow dog) to help. Since I was down a cow dog (due to puppies) I figured I needed as much help as possible. I can just change his collar and he knows what his job will be (ha). Everyone got a kick out of watching him work. You just don't see a Lab that will bay cattle everyday. I will be posting pictures of the puppies soon.

...another blue ribbon picture

2010-04-30T15:28:00.004-06:00

Another First Place photo. Mir took some more photos for the District 4-H Round Up and won first place in the black and white division. Of course I like the photo just because I lived the story but mainly because I love "working" pictures.

This one didn't win anything, though I think it should have, but it is a cool picture with the dust kicking up behind the horses.

...The road I am helping build

2010-04-07T19:08:00.004-06:00

As I watch my kids grow, I find my heart getting heavy. There is so much uncertainty in our world today and it makes me sad to know that my kids may not have it as good as I have had it. I find myself wondering how much conservatives can recover from the damage that has been done to our country by imposter's in our government. The battle is not over.

When I get up in the mornings and when I go to bed at night, I find myself savoring every moment I have with my kids. I find myself hunting, searching, seeking and creating opportunities that allows me to spend as much time as I can with my kids. This road that we are headed down is not easy. As I go through my day to day activities, I hear of so many people that are hurting, frustrated, angry, broken, defeated, sick, jobless, divorced and beaten up by life. When I hear about other peoples heart wrenching stories it makes me realize how important my job is as a father.

It is my job to prepare my kids. I want to BUILD a road that is well traveled, safe, purposeful and specific. A road that my kids know that they can come home on. One that generates love, strength, friendship, stability and happiness. We try to teach our kids to be dependent on Jesus for their strength. We we want them to know that they are NOT going to get consistent satisfaction from people, even their parents. Only our Heavenly Father can provide the consistent love, peace and joy that we all crave.

I don't try to hide my pain. My kids see me struggle, scrap, make mistakes, love, cry, get angry, be hurt, get happy, ask for forgiveness, PRAY and be vulnerable. When we are helpless, we seem to be most dependent on God. You think, "oh Matt, this is easy for you to say". Man oh man...If you ever have time, I don't know if I can "out story" you but I can share a roller coaster ride that makes me tired just thinking about it. I look back and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has had His hand on Dayna and I. Does that mean it has been easy? Heck no.

Life isn't easy, as we all know. I just want to encourage you Dad's to be purposeful when training up your kids. It is so easy to just think about what is going on right in front of you. It can be more difficult to think about where you want your kids to end up. They are not just going to appear there one day! Oh I guess they will just appear their one day, as I am seeing how fast life is moving by, but You have to put yourself in their life EVERY DAY. I try not to dwell on the trouble that will come to my kids life. Dayna and I try to teach them how to deal with it when it comes their way.

These are tough times. But I know that my Heavenly Father is in control. I don't say that lightly. These tough times cause me to focus on my job as a father and husband. I can't control what happens tomorrow. I can try. But if there is one thing that I have learned, my best laid plans may not be what God has in store for me. This moment is where I try to live.

...we needed all kinds of help

2010-04-03T19:39:00.004-06:00

This little girl won grand champion in 2009. And was able to pull of 14th place with one of her pens last weekend.
We showed eight (8) pens of chickens this past weekend at the Brazos County Youth Livestock Show. When you show chickens, you need three people for each pen to go to the show ring. Several of our pens were grouped the together, therefore many people were needed at one time. It got very tense trying to get that many folks lined up to hold as many as 12 chickens at one time. I am so grateful to all who pitched in to help.
Daughters, fathers, sons, dancers, sisters, brothers, Marines, uncles and friends. That is who you see coming to help do the dirty job of holding stinking chickens. I worry for my kids, I hope that they don't run out of friends before they finish their showing career.
This is WD's first year to show. It was tough for him because the thought that his wonderful personality along with his hard work was supposed to get him to the very front of the line. Well it didn't. We only had one pen that made the sale. The chickens just didn't grow like they did last year. We had a high mortality rate during the 6 weeks of growing them, unlike last year.
Saturday night, before the show, our dancer had a great performance. It was a fun time to go and see every one's hard work being displayed. She is an awesome dancer and an awesome daughter. I love getting to watch her perform. It so fun getting to watch her go from dressing like a star to showing chickens or working cows or working around the house.

Then WD decided to that he wanted to have his picture made. He told Dayna how he was going to pose. He wanted to make sure that she knew that he wasn't going to be looking at the camera. It was funny listening him give her directions on how he was going to pose.

I have a great family. My parents, Dayna's parents, brother and sister-in-laws, my kids, nieces and nephews. They all make me proud.

...Dayna's special day

2010-03-16T19:19:00.006-06:00

Well you see about two years ago, Rascal Flatts was coming to the HLSR to perform and I had tickets for Dayna and I. A very bad storm blew through about the time that we got to Prairie View. I made the choice to turn around, to the Major disappointment of my wife. Turned out, that on the way home, we heard on KSBJ that Rascal Flatts had just canceled. whew! I wasn't in as much trouble as I thought.

So this year I tried again. I bought tickets for everyone and we made a day of the rodeo. These guys were the purpose of the trip though (well besides the sorting). We all really like their music. The girls are at the age that if I would have not brought them, they would have been really mad. They just topped of the Armed Forces day.

I think that I scored some major points on this birthday present. We may have to make it an annual event, who knows. I love being with my family.

...Armed Forces Recognition at HLSR

2010-03-16T18:28:00.004-06:00

You know that there are no flyovers at Reliant Stadium. When you are at an Aggie game and the flyover takes place there is an unbelievable sense of patriotism and awe. When you have a covered building and an event that is honoring the Armed Forces, a very cool twist is to have four guys repel out of the ceiling while displaying the American flag.

Though Central Baptist Church has done something similar, this was one of the most moving experiences that I can remember. The crowd was about 20 to 30 percent military. My brother in law was there as well. He has been out of the Marines for several years now, but knowing the sacrifice that he made was awe inspiring. Two tours in Iraq and the second tour getting hit with an IED causes this war and our Patriotism to very real. I was very glad that WD and the girls were able to see this event.
The First Cav from Ft. Hood did a demonstration. It was very cool "old school" riding. Sword demonstrations, formations, downed soldier pick ups. It was fun to watch.

DLN caught us all leaving. The fog was horrible. It had developed just as we were getting out of the rodeo. We got home at 1a.m. or so. I haven't stayed up that late in a long time. It was worth it though.
What is that boy fixin' to do? Thank goodness he cleared it.

...Spring Time!

2010-03-14T18:11:00.005-06:00

(updated) I knew that DLN had some spring pictures somewhere. Here are a few.

You would have thought that I would have pictures with this post. Maybe later. We went to the Houston Livestock Show on Wednesday. The purpose was two fold. First I would make my wife's birthday turn out just right. She loves Rascal Flatt's. They didn't get the memo that they were supposed to sing her happy birthday for some reason.

The second reason for Wednesday at the HLSR was to watch Team Penning and Sorting. We have been sorting here of late so we were excited to find out that some of the people that we have been riding with were riding on Wednesday. The rides that we got to see of them were not the best but I think over all they at least made some money back. The kids had fun watching AND Learning.

We had lunch with the group from Brazos County who were showing steers. The ladies had cooked several pots of soup and they had invited us to join in. They didn't have to ask me twice. Hmmm, save another $60 for a meal??? I was all over that. We DID have fun visiting with them and laughing with them on all of their stories.

Last year at this time we were at the HLSR with the girls trailer. Well they didn't have time to get that together this year. I did miss having something to show there. If we do fairly well at our local show we might consider showing chickens down there next year. We shall see. We may not even make the sale this year, who knows. All four kids are trying their hand at chickens since Mal and Mir had such a good run last year.

A fun tid bit of information, for those of you who are not my friend on Facebook. MLN, Mal, WD and I went to a sorting. MLN and I got second in the Open Division. Mal and MLN won the Youth Division. That was exciting to me because we paid all of our entry fees. Since we are not doing soccer anymore I am afraid that sorting will be our new sport. At least this way we all get to ride. WD is even competing. He and Mal are in a buckle series. They are competing against each other but they will make it.

I sorted on J Lo Friday night. I worked her about 5 or 6 times. She did really well. I had several guys asking me about her after I rode. We are getting ready to show her in the 4H shows. County, District and hopefully State. I hope to get some pictures added soon. I HAVE to finish my taxes tonight. I am know why I didn't study to be an accountant.

...what a difference a week makes

2010-03-02T22:34:00.003-06:00

It is really hard to believe that just over a week ago our place looked like this. Some of you get snow quite often during winter. We get it ever so many years. One year we got a snow storm at Easter.

We had a ball playing in the snow behind the four wheelers. The dogs had more fun trying to bay the four wheelers than anything. It was funny to watch them. Pop even got out to come watch the kids get drug around...not drug around drug around...on a WATER knee board. It was cool.

...new seasons

2010-02-28T21:29:00.003-06:00

Because I haven't posted in a while, I find myself having to trim down the activities that I want to post about. I have been telling DLN that I need to post. I actually have things that are worth posting but I never seem to make it to a computer in time. Their is snow that I could talk about, there is cattle sorting that I could talk about, there are chickens that I could talk about.

To be honest, I make it to a computer, I just never have time to do any writing. As most of you can tell, I like pictures and if I am not at the correct computer, I don't get the pictures to go along with my stories. My goal is to have access to DLN's pictures. I can cover some ground when her pictures are doing the talking. Well I am not on DLN's computer, so I will write a little and post pictures later.

We finally got our chickens for the Brazos County Show. We are good to go. They are growing like crazy now. I turned them out into the full pen since it finally warmed up a little. Many of you might remember that Mal and Mir did really well with chickens last year. Mal won Grand Champion and Mir got 18th in 2009. This year everyone wanted to show. We bought 125 chickens. That should be enough for each kid to show 2 pens each. WD and MLN wanted to get into the action (money) this year. They saw how the other two did and so they figured that they could do the same.

I figured that we needed to give one more year to the county show before we try to hit the big time and tackle San Antonio, Houston, Ft. Worth or Austin. We are going to have to build a full blown chicken house if we add one or any of these events. I just want to make sure that I know how to raise a big chicken consistently before we hit the big time. My biggest fear is that we won't even make the sale in Brazos County. THAT would be a kick in the gut. Either way I guess we would just have a lot of chicken to eat. I will find some of the pictures of the chickens and post them later. They do always look cute on the first day. They sure don't now.

...annual meetings

2010-02-09T21:43:00.007-06:00

Dayna did an awesome job once again, taking pictures. This is one of my favorite pictures. WD worked very hard in the chute pushing calves. He is growing up way too fast.
We had a good team on the head gate in Shady Grove. MLN and Mir had it going on. Ben and Jason I guess did some work as well. When the heifers would come through I would go help MLN and Mir. When the bulls would come through, well I had other operations to take care of.

MLN and Uncle Ed pushed the cows into the chute. MLN and her horse got a good work out. Below I am getting directions from Papa.

Again, Dayna did an awesome job with the pictures...not because they were of me. I like the light fog with a blue horse and my dogs ready to go to work.

Getting ready to ride. Mal has upgraded this year from Buck to Wrangler. WD gave him up so that Mal could ride him in the 4H Drill Team. Mal and Wrangler make a pretty good team so I think that they will be together for a long time. Take a look who WD is on. Several weeks ago WD rode Blue for the first time. When he was riding him in the arena, he told me that Blue was his horse now. Good with me. Blue is a very versatile horse and can take care of who is on him.

Yep...here is J Lo making her debut. Good night she is going to be a COW PONY. Super quick. Loves her job. I rode her in Appleby just trying to see how she would react in a pen of cows. Lets just say that she has plenty of grit and if you are not sitting in the middle of the saddle, she will drop you on the ground when she moves with a cow. No I did not hit the ground, but it was very fun riding such a quick horse.
We typically don't brand very often. Only when we get new cows. We use ear tags for the calves. Gregg and Reece bought cows this fall and so we had to brand them. What a great weekend. If you want to know what I like to do with my family...this is it. What a great teaching ground for our kids and bonding time with family.

...Go Texan Team Penning

2010-01-30T16:22:00.003-06:00

We had a great time getting to be a part of the Go Texan Team Penning Team for Brazos County. The girls had a good chance to make it to the finals but they tried for all three calves. They should have just penned the two that they had cut out and make it to the finals. When you take, for sure, two competitive girls, who want to win very badly, it is hard not to go for it all.

What great girls. With MLN having to give up soccer because of her knee, we are finding a little more time to play with the horses. Riding is not the greatest for her knee, but it is not a constant pressure like playing 90 minutes of soccer.

It was stinkin' cold though. WD had to bundle up. We did have a little heater that the kids were able to sit around.

Mrs. Pam does have a nice trailer that the kids did get to stay warm in before the girls had to ride. WD is pretty good entertainment. These two sure like to play with him.

We did find a Buckle Series in Team Penning and Sorting that we are going to join up with. I am ready to ride for some competition myself. We will see what happens. Ol' Blue was on standby just in case one of the girls horses got sick or something. I can't seem to get anyone else to get on him. WD told me that Blue was too jumpy. I told him that I wanted him ready to MOVE, I don't need him to sleeping on the job.

...continuing education

2010-01-12T19:55:00.005-06:00

I have awesome kids. Each one is special in their own way, but one thing about each one of them, they will work til their hands bleed and will keep on rollin'. Each one can drive ALMOST anything or they sure aren't scared to try. Mal is a great driver.

We got a load of hay in from South Dakota last Wednesday just ahead of this cold spell. We unloaded and loaded back up 300 bales of alfalfa. We put the horse grade hay in the horse barn and loaded the rest on the trailer and backed it into Pop's barn so that the rain wouldn't get on it. We finished just after dark and it had started getting REALLY cold by the time we finished.

The dogs had fun playing in the barn on the hay. They were full of it. Tip (green collar), Little Ann (with WD above), then Ranger (hiding on top of the hay) and Daisy (below) are great dogs. They have gotten very good at working cows. I just wish they could work everyday. They wear the horses out when there are no cows to work. I have debated on selling them but it would be real hard to let them go. DLN probably wouldn't mind but I think WD would have a tough time.

Back to what I was saying about my kids, I couldn't operate without them. MLN is an awesome tractor driver. When she is around to help run equipment we can get things done much quicker. It sure saves me from having to get on and off of the tractor so I REALLY like it when she can help.

I often wonder what God has in store for my kids. I know that the girls are all mission minded. Mir has a servant's heart and will help anyone anytime. She is such a great teacher to young dancers. MLN loves kids who are not as privileged, especially orphan children. Mal loves kids and they ALL love her. She gives her time helping in FM 252 every Sunday morning. I love watching my kids develop and serve. I have no idea what they will grow up to be, I just enjoy seeing them grow up to serve our Lord.

Then there is WD. What a soft heart. He just doesn't understand how people can NOT know Jesus. The Holy Spirit is so evident to him. He compares nearly everything to what God says in His Word. He loves what God has made. He knows that God is capable of everything. It is amazing what statements come out of his mouth. He can keep us laid out laughing. He can keep us thinking. He his strong beyond his years. Each one of those bales of alfalfa averaged 75-80 pounds. He never gives up. His hands are like leather. There MAY be an ounce of fat on his body. He is very good with animals and has been for as long as I can remember.

He asks me often, "Dad, what do you think I should be when I grow up"? I give the answer I know he needs to hear. "You be the man God wants you to be, He has a plan for you". But in my mind I am thinking "boy you can do what ever you want to", based on his physical ability. I have learned though that the God given talent and ability can also mess up our relationship with God if you are not careful. I hope that WD sticks to the soft hearted, God searching way of life no matter what field of work he chooses.

...J Lo getting it done

2010-01-01T19:09:00.003-06:00

Well my wife and kids don't like the name of our new horse but it has stuck. The more I ride her the more I think it is the right name. She had only seen the Dick Freeman Arena at Texas A&M until I brought her home. I have been riding her in the pasture, in the woods, through the water and most importantly, around the cows.

Yesterday, I had to separate a heifer from the bulls and a pair, in my granddad's working pens. I tried to push the heifer by herself so that J Lo could see what it was like to have a cow one on one. The heifer figured out that J Lo was moving a little slow (due to the horses uncertainty) so she was able to get away from us. So I took the pair (cow and calf) along with the heifer to the pens. Worked beautifully.

I closed the gate on the cows while still on the horse. That is very important. She has got to learn how to work the gates. She is getting there. Anyway I started trying to separate the heifer so that J Lo could get an idea of what she was bred to do. She figured it out. We separated the heifer and pushed the pair back out into the trap. Leaving her in the pens, I went to back the trailer up to the chute so that I could load the heifer.

I went back and got on the horse and started pushing the heifer up the chute. I let J Lo have her head and she laid her ears back and went to the cow. It snapped in her head. She came alive and finally started having some fun. We pushed the cow up the chute and I jumped off and started running behind the heifer so that I could close the trailer gate. I made it the the trailer, closed the gate and when I turned around J Lo was right behind me. She had followed me up the chute (about 50 feet). I was shocked and was waiting for her to lose it. She just stood there.

I climbed over her head, over the saddle and hopped down behind her. She was as relaxed as she could be. Not nervous, not jumping around. I just gave her a little push and she loaded up in the trailer behind the cow. In all my days of messing with horses and cows I have never seen anything like this. I guess the biggest reason that I have never had this happen is because I have never had a horse that could fit in a cattle chute with a saddle on.

I am very excited to see her learn and I could have done a cartwheel when she watched the cows and moved on them without me having to push her. I am still trying to get used to a small horse though. I know that there won't be an roping off of her.

(A side note): My dogs were so mad at me. I made them stay in the trailer so that I could work my horse. They just couldn't understand...I know that they were thinking that they could have had the work done in no time. Oh well they got over it. I typically let them do the the dirty work.

...A Christmas Memory

2009-12-23T19:33:00.002-06:00

My friend, The Panhandle Poet, posted about a Christmas Memory. It got me to thinking about some of my early Christmas years. WD is continuously asking me to tell him stories from my childhood. I will start a story and he tells me "yeah, yeah, I have already heard that" so I have to think a little harder to remember more stories.

Probably the most memorable Christmas/Winter that we had growing up was either 1981 or 1982. In Appleby, TX, it snowed, as I remember, close to 8 inches. It stuck around for days. Living in rural East Texas meant that when ice, snow, or even major wind and rain storms hit, we didn't have electricity. This storm shut down Nacogdoches.

We had motorcycles that we rode all over Appleby so when the snow hit we had a ball. We hooked up plastic sleds to the motorcycles to pull the younger brothers around. I still can't believe the balance we had on such a slick surface pulling each other around at very high rates of speed. We didn't know what a four wheeler was. At that time we didn't even have a three wheeler. We were firm believers in good ol' Honda XR Dirt bikes. We rode the wheels off of them. It is probably a good thing that we didn't have four wheelers because I feel certain that the person on the sled would have gotten seriously hurt.

Our cousins lived down by the railroad tracks so we would ride our motorcycles down to their house to add people to the fun. They had motorcycles as well. They also had more terraces in their pasture which made for better jumping with the sleds. We made snowmen, had snow ball fights but mainly we burned tank after tank of gas in those motorcycles.

We were fortunate enough to have been snow skiing the year before so we all had our snow suites on. You know the old bib overalls. They were very much in style. I think my mom still has them in the attic just in case our kids might want to wear them one day. I have tried, in a nice way, let my mom know that I don't think those clothes are in style any more, heck the feathers inside of them may be deteriorated.

We have had a wonderful life. The life that my parents provided for us four boys has been amazing. The work ethic, the cows, the chickens, the opportunity to experience some fun, we even got to the lake water skiing on an occasion. That is a whole nother memory for another day. Wow, the stories and laughs at the lake. Talk about RED NECK.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas with your families. Do not, do not underestimate the impact you have on those around you. If you have a chance to be a blessing to someone this season, don't pass it up. This is a rough time in our country. I used to think that we were pretty insulated from hard times but I am running into more and more people who have had a rough go. Now is the time to put your belief's into practice. Look for someone to help this Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

...TAMU Whittle Jewel

2009-12-20T21:02:00.005-06:00

Mal and WD rode horses with me the other day. There are so many things that we get to do together but working cows and riding horses are at the top of my list. Seeing how far these two have come over the past year is really fun. WD would hardly ride a year ago. Mal would ride but she was overcoming several "wrecks", therefore her confidence is really growing. She is ready for this next show season. We are going to see if she can be ready to do working cow horse this year.

Wrangler USED to be MLN's horse. She has put a whole lot of time in on this horse. He is a big ol' paint, not registered and not a bred cow horse. She rode this horse in the 4H Drill Team this past year. MLN has worked cows on him for the past 3 or so years. She got ousted when WD started wanting to ride. He was very clear that Wrangler is his horse.

WD has even been thrown off of ol' Wrangler. I can't remember if I told that story. We were at the Kasse's and he did not warm his horse up very much. He decided that he would go cut a cow out and he started running. The horse started bucking and threw WD off. WD didn't cry. He walked up to his horse and I helped him back on. He had an audience, one of which was a little girl. I knew that he was mad. He was gritting his teeth and was fighting back tears. When we did get in the truck, he told me that he wanted to beat the crap out the horse. We had to talk that little issue through. They seem to have a pretty good understanding now.

It hasn't slowed him down. He is getting very brave. He "ran" in the arena yesterday. Not just loped. He was sure to make me watch him make his horse run down the arena. He will ride with me in the pasture now.

Here is our newest addition to the string. We went to the A&M Disbursement Sale and found this Whittle Jewel. She is a two year old and is bred for cutting. We will see about that though. I have been riding her every day since we got her. MLN rode her yesterday and both of them seemed to get along. We are going to try to show her this spring. I hope to have her ready for several Stock horse classes and maybe even some working cow horse.

...Splendor of Christmas

2009-12-18T21:26:00.003-06:00

Dancing once again. Mir along with several of her friends who dance together, were asked to be a part of the Splendor of Christmas at our church. MLN got roped into dancing a little as well. MLN was also "Mary" and K1 was "Joseph" .

It was a great show and both of the girls had a great time performing. Mir never ceases to amaze me when she gets on stage. She comes alive. It is really fun to watch her.

These are just a few of the pictures DLN took. There were many. We have had fun this Christmas Season watching all of the performances, Christmas In The Park x2, Splendor of Christmas and some other little performance that I got clearance to miss. All of this has been to Glorify our Savior and for us to remember the Hope that we have in Jesus. It is just fun to watch the kids share their Faith through dance and performance.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas.

...she was born yesterday

2009-12-17T12:51:00.005-06:00

Typically this is not that big of deal or sure not blogworthy but this is one of the heifers that came off of my dad's place in Nacogdoches. I have been raising this group of heifers for over a year now.

All of the kids have had the chance to work with these cows. We have hauled them to work out horses and I did most of the training with my dogs with these heifers. Heck they helped MLN get 3rd in the District 4H Team Penning. I guess it has been a family event taking care of them and to see them actually get their babies on the ground is fun.

We are waiting on 5 more heifers to have their babies. We have been fortunate to lease 40 acres just down the highway from our house. We bought the older cows that were on the place to go along with my heifers and with the age of the other cows, I am going to have to raise another group of heifers this coming year.

I sure enjoy getting to work with with my kids on a fun project.

...last weekend, we finally got it done

2009-12-17T12:14:00.004-06:00

Everyone pitched in to get the tree decorated. We always have fun once we get started. I think I would do better putting up this tree every two years. It is a special time getting to see each kid help on the tree. They enjoy getting to look at each ornament and see how it applies to them and our family.

Though I complain some about handling the tree, as a family, we really love the Christmas Season.

My wonderful wife has put together an "event" for us this year. She has been encouraging the kids to perform Random Acts Of Kindness. That has been pretty fun to see the kids look for different ways to bless the folks they come in contact with. We even bought a random family lunch on Sunday. That was fun watching them try to figure out who bought their lunch but it was even more fun watching the waitresses try to figure out if this was a joke or not.

I would encourage everyone to perform at least one Random Act of Kindness this season.

...Dance Revolution

2009-12-06T15:19:00.003-06:00

I made it this year. It wasn't easy but I used my ability to travel a lot of miles in one day to get to Dallas in time to see Mir perform. I have heard about Dance Revolution for many years now and I was told that I really, REALLY needed to come watch Mir dance. I had to go to Houston first then I drove from Houston to Dallas. DLN thought that she would be cute and take pictures from her lap. I knew that she was taking them I just acted like I didn't. Mainly because my baby was sitting in my lap, I didn't really care that the people behind me couldn't see.

Alot of practice...I only watched a little of that. I just wanted to see the "show".

Here is the Friday night Ball. I missed that. But I made it for the Saturday night show. She did an awesome job. I really enjoyed getting to watch her. She is a special girl and her love for dancing and Christ shows through.

...getting ready for winter

2009-11-15T17:42:00.004-06:00

I sure wish that I was more consistent in blogging. For something that I really enjoy doing, I find myself writing less and less. That is a shame on my part. I started this blog to document the activities of our everyday lives, believe me, our everyday lives are happening, I just don't get to document the events like I wanted to.

I found a guy who lives in The Woodlands during the winter months but he is from South Dakota and goes up there in the summer to raise alfalfa. I am not sure exactly how or where I found his number but I thought that I would try some of his hay for my cows this winter.

I scheduled my load of hay several months ago, but in the mean time I started helping a friend manage his cattle. For those of you who don't know, we had a serious drought this summer and so it has been a little struggle to get some of the cows caught up. They got used to eating the grass down to the dirt. I talked my friend in to using some alfalfa to get his cows back in shape. He decided to let me try it. I am here to tell you, it worked. I would have given anything to have before and after pictures. These cows have slicked off, filled back out and look great.

This was the second trip and I got my hundred bales from this load then took the driver on over to unload the second half of my buddies 400 bales. I also got 50 "a" grade bales and I started feeding them to my horses. We will see how that goes...so far the horses really like the hay, I just don't want to mess the horses up by feeding them too much or not enough. I DO know that they eat it like candy.

I had everyone rolling. They were so excited to unload square bales (that's really a joke). Alfalfa bales make coastal bales feel like air. 60 to 80 pounds made it where the kids had to double team the bales or roll them. Taylor, the driver gave WD and Mal some hay hooks. They thought those were cool. They could hook on to the bale and drag them.

This guys trailer was a 53' trailer and my driveway was the only drive that he could fit in. We had to unload the hay on the side of the driveway and I loaded them onto another trailer to take them to the barn. We shall see how the whole process works out this winter. The kids may hate feeding by the spring time. Feeding cubes and round bales is not be nearly as intense.

The downside is that round bales and cubes are more expensive than buying alfalfa from South Dakota.

I love watching my kids work. I need them to know how to work, drive, ride and take care of animals. They are good at it. MLN is a junior this year in high school. We have already started looking at colleges due to her soccer situation. I knew that time would fly. I have spent the past 16 years trying to create a place where my kids would learn who their Savior is, learn to love each other, enjoy spending time with each other, and enjoy the wonders and challenges of farming life. They have seen just about everything to see around farming and ranching. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

There is definitely a legacy being passed down. I want my kids to be well rounded. Life is hard and I want them to learn how to be dependent on Christ for all things, but I want them to know how to "get a little mean" and push through mental and physical obstacles. Life on the farm can be a great teacher thus...it is the enviroment I have chosen for my kids to grow up in.

...getting to play/work with my family

2009-11-01T16:05:00.009-06:00

What a Halloween. There was nothing scary about it. It has been quite a while since we have not had much happening on a Saturday morning. Pop needed his cows worked since he had 23 calves on the ground. So I decided Friday night that we could get that done for him. Papa was coming to Bryan anyway and MLN didn't have to be anywhere so I would have some good help.

We penned the cows with no problem. We separated the calves and were ready to work them. Our plan was to take the calves to Uncle Bobby's place and use the squeeze chute to make it easy on all of us. Some of the calve were small so we just started with the new babies so we wouldn't have to haul them. We kept going until the calves started getting bigger and bigger.

MLN got in on throwing a couple and she did well. Papa and I decided that when were half way through that we would take them on the the squeeze chute. We aren't as young as we used to be. And the kids aren't quite old enough to get in there and throw the calves by themselves. Needless to say it was much easier down at the pens.

Before we were finished with the cows WD had to go play his soccer game. They play in an U-10 age group which is an age group older than when they are supposed to. They have a really good team and each boy works to be good. They smoked this 10 year old team 4-1.

I went to work some neighbors cows while MLN played her soccer game. But after I finished and after MLN got back, she and I went to catch up with the others to go on the trick or treating hay ride. We had a great time and the families were great to spend time with. Jess and Mal worked hard all day. Jess kept our ear tag gun filled and Mal kept the shots full. This is critical when working calves whether you are throwing calves old school style or whether you are working them in the chute.

I love my kids friends. WD and Luke are best buddies. From playing Marines, to working cows, building fence, playing sports, feeding animals, riding horses and even killing snakes. These two are fun to watch. They are thinkers and they will make things happen (in a good way). Luke is always willing to learn and jump in to what we are doing. EXCEPT, yesterday. He drew the line. I started castrating the first calf. Luke had never seen that process. When I made the cut, he looked at WD and said, "Oh, Will, I don't think I can do this!" He went to work the gate after that.

...here is a funny story

2009-10-13T21:04:00.002-06:00

This morning at 5:30 (that is A. M.), I sat straight up in bed. I heard a truck start up. Now I am the only one who ever sees 5:30 AM in our family. Even if we are going to work cows or travel somewhere, I have to be the alarm clock.

Last night I was in bed waiting on my daughters and wife to slow down enough so that I could go to sleep. During that time of dissertation, my oldest daughter casually mentioned something about getting up early to go decorate a car for some kids birthday. I was more concerned about the weather and sports I guess. I know I shouldn't have been, but I was.

Back to this morning and the truck. The truck didn't sound like a diesel. It sounded like Chevrolet, gas burner with pipes. I can tell you this because when I woke up, I was immediately in tune and going through my truck knowledge. I went to the door and looked out the glass, hoping that I was hearing the neighbors. I saw a dually driving off. I threw on shorts and a shirt, went out to the car port to find the truck gone. I was shaking my head, racking my brain trying to figure on what to do. I couldn't remember AT ALL, the story of MLN going to decorate a friends car for his birthday.

So head out to the highway with my gun. Enough time had past the I couldn't find the truck. I headed toward town but before I left I thought that I heard another truck going away from town. I gambled on town. I went to Kroger hoping to catch them at the the intersection. Nothing. So I picked up my phone to call MLN, BEFORE I CALLED THE SHERIFF. I called her and she said "hello". I said, "where are you?" She said, "heading to decorate that truck...I told you that last night!" I said, "now I remember...don't draw or paint on the paint...keep it on the windows." MLN said, "OK." I said, "bye...be careful." I came back to my bed and tried to sleep for a few more minutes.

My wife and kids have just had the biggest laugh. I told them that they better be glad I try to take care of them and their "stuff". I know the story is getting out so I thought that I would tell my side before it got too crazy.

Oh the stories as my kids are enjoying their teenage years. I am not wrong very much (ha), so my wife and kids are taking full advantage of this little mishap.

...Happy Birthday Mir!!!

2009-09-21T19:26:00.005-06:00

We quit birthday parties about when the kids were 10...or less. Mir had one request to her mother this year, "I want a surprise party". As we laughed and laughed at the idea, the oportunity presented itself as we got closer to the big day.

I, of course, was not very excited about the idea and DLN was even less excited. We decided that this would be a great oportunity because Mir didn't have a clue that it was coming. Like any get together at our house, the party idea went from 3 or 4 girls to about 40 kids and adults.

All of us worked very hard hiding the idea and we didn't start cooking or anything until Sunday afternoon when Mir left for her church events. It was very fast cooking fajita's. A very helpful angel came through with rice, beans, cheese dip and I am sure some other items that I can't remember. The kids helped finish decorating and kept things lively.

Kakki brought chocolate sheet cake and I bought Mir's favorite, cheese cake. MLN did a great job keeping Mir from the house until we had everyone in place. Mal and Uncle Jack had the taxi service working, dropping people off at the house and taking all of the cars to Pop's barn. When Mir and MLN drove up there were no cars around. They walked in the back door as normal, rounded the corner into the dining room and SURPRISE!!!

One of the most exciting surprises was when the Nichols cousins from Nac showed up for the big party. They even stayed over on Monday where the girls could catch up and eat Wings and More.

...take advantage of high tech stuff when you can

2009-09-15T07:18:00.007-06:00

I have never pushed anything on my blog. Typically I use it for logging our family events. This post will be a little different.

If you use the internet (ha!), there is a new browser that you can go to to set up your personal information, Facebook, Hulu, Email, stores you shop from, such as Target, Wal-Mart, Starbuck's just to name a few. There is way to information for me to explain.

I will say this... if you have an organization, not for profit or otherwise, sign them up and they can make money by sending people to this site. This would be an excellent PTA fund raiser or Baseball Team fund raiser or Youth Group fund raiser. Or if YOU want to make some extra money, check it out and you can get in touch with me if you have any questions.

Go to my web site. This is going to be huge.
Watch the trailer. Fill in the information and I can get back to you.

You can also go to see a sample of what it will look like.

The browser doesn't go active until September 27th but this is mine and I thought that you could just see what it could do.

...Trying to keep up

2009-09-02T21:59:00.004-06:00

A little soccer,

A little fence building,

and Mal got her a new saddle.

These are just a few things that we have been up to.

...just trying to keep up

2009-08-23T19:51:00.002-06:00

I keep thinking of all of the things that I need to blog about. Then I check my FB, feed animals, feed kids, go to practices, take kids to ride horses, tend to cows, try to adjust to the new school schedule, try to sell a few roofs, build fence, sell a few more roofs then maybe I get to look through some blogs but I don't have time to write.

I thought that I would get to post some more pictures of State. Since then we have been getting into soccer and school. This year DLN has picked back up on the co-op. She has spent most of the summer getting things prepared for the kids to get back into school and for the co-op. Basically she has put together a small private school just to give you an idea. The kids seam to love it. They are all very focused on what they need to get done.

This weekend was the first soccer tournament of the year. MLN 's back has been hurt so she didn't get to play. WD, however played two games today. The first game was ugly. They played boys a year older. We got smoked. The second game was much better. We played boys our age and we smoked them. WD played defender most of both games. There is no doubt why they like him to mark players. He is not afraid to go up against some pretty big boys.

He did get to play some forward and was able to score him a goal. He tried to tear the net off of the post when he hit the ball. The goalie got a hand on it but couldn't stop it. Very fun weekend. I even got a few more post set on my fence project. It seams that I have a continual fence project here lately.

I will try to get some pictures posted soon.

...4H State Horse Show

2009-08-02T19:33:00.008-06:00

Warming up at daylight in the rain. I sat in the truck as long as I could then I had to get out and coach. I didn't figure DLN and WD cared anything about what I was saying inside the truck, after all they weren't riding!

Working Cow Horse!

Finishing 12th in the State out of 102 riders in her first year...not bad.

Precission Drill!

Mal and MLN both did an excellent job with their teams.

The Big Dance!

I will add the team penning pictures and the Speed Drill pictures later. It is time for me to go to bed. I am very proud of my girls. Our family doesn't have any problems when it comes to competing. We get up for the game. Both Mal and MLN did that for this show.

...enjoying long lost cousins

2009-07-15T19:33:00.008-06:00

We have had the privilege of having cousins through our house this week. Our two oldest have disappeared for the week, to their grandparents in East Texas. Part of the week has been a "learn to nurse" week and starting tomorrow will be their Cowboy Camp.

For those of you who are new to Plowing and Sowing, WD, our youngest, when he was around four or five, he started saying that he wanted to go to cowboy camp. We were not exactly sure what "cowboy camp" was or who was putting it on. He said, "you know, I get to stay at Papa's house and work". He said that he could learn to ride horses, help with the chickens, bale hay and work cows.

We thought that would be a grand idea. Now every year Ninna and Papa have Cowboy Camp. It gets a little crazy trying to get 12 grandkids scheduled out over the summer. Every year we get it done, but we may have to start putting an age limit on kids because I don't think we can keep up.

Back to the cousins. Megan and David live in Georgia and have come to visit Texas for a couple of weeks. They have just had to join in because things have sure not slowed down. Well this is my version of Cowboy Camp. There is not nearly the work at Papa's to do but there is plenty of horse riding.

Mal had 4-H Drill Practice Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday of this week. This was a great opportunity for Rebecca and WD to get some riding time in. We rode and I coached. They did great.

WD finally got up enough courage to make Wrangler lope. He had been trotting him around, getting braver but yesterday he finally pushed him on up into a lope. It was exciting watching him get excited.

...another third place but different daughter

2009-07-11T18:44:00.012-06:00

Third Place. They were the first team to pen anything. They had one penned in just over a minute. Second place penned two and the first place team penned all three.

I was able to give my baby girl a "high five" before she got her award.

They won halters that were mongramed.

I love this picture. She was very excited that they placed.

Look at this cut. She separated the calf out and was able to keep it out of the herd.

Reece, Ross and I had more fun than anyone. We settled the cattle before each run. That meant that we were on horse back the whole time.

...Cow Horse Events at the Dist. 9 Horse Show

2009-06-22T19:51:00.006-06:00

My previous post showed the pageantry of our trip to Katy, but the cow events were my favorite. Before we could get started though, we had to get the horses some air in their stalls by hooking the fans up. It was some hot.

WD and I had to run extension cords. It got a little complicated. I didn't have nearly enough "three ways" to plug all of the extension cords into. Our neighbor was able to help. We were grateful.

Mal and her little team looked very serious coming into the arena. They did good. Mal's helpers didn't work into the herd with her to push the calves. The calves were plenty spoiled and would just circle. Mal got each calf separated but they couldn't keep them toward the pens. She made me very proud in the way she rode.

Before the team penning, they had the Working Cow Horse Competition. This was MLN's first time to try it. We will have to practice before state. The object is to "control" the cow, showing the judge that your horse can push the cow while not losing control. The cow controlled MLN. She should have called for another cow immediately. We didn't know that we had twenty seconds to do that. This calf came out running to the other end of the arena and would set up and play the game. It was a great experience.

MLN, Ross and Preston made a great team. But MLN and "Coyote" worked their butts off. MLN separated all three calves. The last one was the hardest. Just to give you an idea of how competitive my girls are, I asked MLN what she was going to do if they separated two out, she said, "...go back for the third, we can't win with just two". She knew that they couldn't win unless they penned all three. There were only three teams who penned all three and MLN's team was the third. The whole place was going wild. They drew a tough set of calves.

This is the third calf. He could fly and he wasn't scared to put MLN to the test. I love this picture. Look at Coyote. He is in the dirt, turning on this calf. She had to cut him off coming down the fence. He was running full speed she was able to stop him and turn him out.

I am not a women's libber fan by any stretch of the imagination, but watching my girls ride, made me very proud. Working cows for years now, caused them to shine in the team penning. Both Mal and MLN were very aggressive and they knew what they had to do. Neither were intimidated at all.

I can't wait til State in July. I think that the kids know what to expect and should pick up the pace.

...District 9 4H Horse Show

2009-06-18T18:16:00.008-06:00

I know my daughters are beautiful. Mir has her dance recitals and dance events. She gets dolled up more times during the year that Mal and MLN, but this weekend was about dancing on horse back. It was a blast watching them.

Mal looks like an angel. This was for her. She wanted to do 4H Drill Team and so we did. We will be heading to the State Competition in July. It is going to be fun. Mal is on the Faith Riders Too drill team. They are a young group who pour the hearts into their work. They weren't in the top three but they gave it their all. They will do better at State. She has plenty of competitiveness in her. It tore her up that they didn't do better. I don't like to see them upset but I do like it that they will scrap to win.

There are two drill's. One is "speed drill" and one is "precision drill". Every team performed the same drill in the Precision Competition but the Speed Competition allows for the imagination.

It has been fun meeting new friends. We have been in the soccer scene for so many years that coming to the horse scene has been quite a change. It has allowed us to make friends while still growing closer to old ones.

For those of you who know us probably would never imagine this. MLN being in a ball gown. Maybe the only way is by being on horse back. The Faith Riders did awesome. Still not in the top three but we thought it was good. Ol' Wrangler did an excellent job performing as well.
Here is the entire team waiting on their Fifth Place award. Their coach was telling them how good they did.

This has been a new thing for us. We have really enjoyed getting involved. My next post will show where My heart is when it comes to horses. Working Cows!

...Fun pictures, thanks to Mir!

2009-05-27T18:55:00.002-06:00

The next generation of cattlemen and women.

...just a little catching up

2009-05-27T17:22:00.005-06:00

We got to do some pretty serious cow hunting. Notice the wet horses and dogs with their tongues hanging out. This was the first cow working for this pony. Little Jerry Reed. He is bred out the wazoo to cut. He can do that, but he has never really been outside of the arena. It was fun to see how fast he could adapt. Deep East Texas woods, water crossings, crazy cows...it was fun. He got to do some "working cow horse" work in the pasture.
Man time has been cruising by. I didn't realize how long that it has been since I have blogged. I play on Facebook nearly every day, I guess because it doesn't require quite as much thinking.

We have been busy. We finished up Upward Soccer this past weekend, of which we were not at the games. I coached both Mal and WD, I won't do that again...one at the time. We went to Nacogdoches for the first part of Memorial Day Weekend. We were able to "pour on" cattle. The flies have been getting bad...it's that time of year.

We also helped my dad get most of the hay in that he had on the ground. It turned into a race to beat the rain. We probably wound up leaving around 20 to 30 acres on the ground for my dad to finish. We got caught by the rain Saturday afternoon.

Mir finished up her dance for the year two weekends ago. She had her recital. Nothing like being in 80% of the dances. We definitely couldn't take a nap. We got to watch Mir do her thing. It was a very fun time (not just making that up). I love to watch Mir dance. She makes it look so easy, especially to someone who can't dance a lick. I missed that gene.

Mal has started riding her horse in the 4H drill team. She has done very well learning how to ride. Her horse is doing good also. She also is doing team penning. This will be a site. We are going to the District 4H horse show in Katy in a couple of weeks. They will perform their drill but also they will do their team penning. Mal is teamed up with two other little girls. I can't wait. We have been practicing as much as we can. MLN will also do team penning and the working cow horse competition. We have Got to practice that. She will be riding my horse for that. Since she is making the trip, the Varsity drill team needed a 12th person...guess who is now on the Varsity drill team. Her first practice is tomorrow night. Oh my...talking about jumping in with both feet. It's either going to be really funny or really good.

MLN also will finish her soccer season this weekend. Her team didn't make it to State but they are playing in the "Shootout Tournament". This is a big deal for Junior and Senior girls. Colleges from across Texas and the nation will be in Houston to watch girls play and show what they got. The girls will be fighting for scholarship's at the several schools that the girls would like to attend. We will see how that plays out. I am proud of MLN's hard work and her willingness to stick with it. If nothing else she will have learned how to "get a little mean" and work even though things aren't "easy".

It is a different world these days. There are less and less kids who are willing to scrap for positions or put in extra time or battle on ANY field. Many just want to have a life of A/C, TV, Cell Phone, Video games, and anything else, without having to find out what they are made of inside.

As of today, tomorrow may reveal something different, but today, all of my kids know how to work and stick to it. Each one makes me very proud in their own way.

...first "horse show"

2009-05-10T16:54:00.005-06:00

Those of you who keep up with any or all of our activities know that we love to work cows on horse back. We love to farm and ranch. We ALSO let our kids play sports, they are involved in church, they play with friends, one dances, three play soccer, all home school and now a "horse show".

This is our first time. Our oldest is fifteen and the closest that she got to a horse show is when Shorty put on a bucking exhibition in a pen full of cows. MLN rode him for two or three hard jumps and finally came off. Mal has come off a couple of times, same horse, Shorty. We no longer have Shorty, we have Wrangler, Blue (XS Megabite), Buck and now (for a while anyway) Little Jerry Reed (a cutter). Dadgum...

Because Mal has been wanting to get into the horse world, we have decided to let her perform on the local 4H drill team. We have some close friends who do that so we thought it might be a great place for Mal to find her niche. Boy has she. Old Buck and her have formed a pretty quick friendship. It has been fun to watch her confidence grow. From working cows to drill and now showing in the ring.

Mal and Buck won a few ribbons yesterday. Not because of Buck's fine quarter horse physique either. She got rewarded for her willingness to get out, leave her pride in the truck, and try something new.

Because we try to do as much as we can as a family, we were all at the county show. MLN won some ribbons and two trophies. Because this was our first show, I let them try it all. Their horses were worn out. The did halter, showmanship, horsemanship, speed events. The definitely decided that working cows on a horse or running very fast in arena was much more fun than the "pleasure" side of things. They have an appreciation for the work that goes into it now, but I don't believe that I will be spending money any time soon on a Western Pleasure Horse.

We had a great time together. The Drill Team will be performing at District in June. They also have Team Penning. Our girls or going to be doing the team penning. Maybe MLN will do sorting since she doesn't do drill team. I can't wait.

...getting to ride

2009-05-07T15:53:00.000-06:00

Thursday nights around our house get a little crazy. Everyone, well, all kids, have some place to be, therefore "everyone" has something to do. DLN and I do the driving to all of these events. A couple of more weeks and Thursdays will slow down tremendously. We have three soccer practices, one about an hour and a half away, two here and a long night of dance practice.

This past Thursday, WD, Mal and me finished soccer around 7 or so. Pop's cows have needed their fly treatment. With this rain we have been having and the really warm weather, the horn flies have gone crazy. They are covering the cows. Mal and I saddled up our horses and headed to pen the cows along with my five catahoula's. We sent WD on the four wheeler with the medicine and equipment.

We rode to the pens and got all of the gates set so that we could put the cows into the working pens without putting them into the holding pen. We were way short on day light, but it was very cool outside. It was a very nice night to pen cows.

We took the dogs and got on around the cows. The dogs bayed for five minutes or so. My newest puppies, Little Lou and Daisy, have really started to come along. They were in there doing their part. Due to time, I pushed the cows on toward the pens faster than I normally would have. Because it was so cool out, the dogs were more than willing to work a little harder.

Just as we were getting to the pens, one cow broke out of the herd. All of the dogs went to her. The dogs stopped her and bayed her while Mal and I held the rest of the herd. I called the big dogs and they came back and helped Mal and I push the cows on into the pens. The puppies never left the one cow. They held her, Mal held the herd with just her horse, I loped back to the one cow and by this time she was eager to go to the pen.

We put the cows in the working pens and quickly started pushing through the chute and pouring on. WD was "whoopin' " cows, poling the chute, and turning out. Mal was on her horse pushing cows into the chute and I was pouring on. We only had one bull calf to work and we did that just at dark. We rode home under a near, full moon. It was awesome. I really enjoyed getting to work with Mal and see her learn just a little more about having to ride a little harder. There were no options, she had to get the job done.

...a little relaxation after some hard work

2009-05-03T15:02:00.000-06:00

Since we have built the house, I have not finished the back yard. I just let the grass grow instead of putting in a flower bed. Over the past few years I wanted to create a place that we could go outside and sit and visit. Also having a slab, instead of a flower bed would move the water on away from the house. We had kicked around a few ideas in the past, but timing and practicality kicked in and this is what I wanted.

There is a guy in our church who does concrete work. I got him to come over and give me a price on doing a 20 x 45 porch. We worked out the details and he had it scraped, formed and poored in a half a day. We wrecked the forms and I started hauling dirt. WD and worked very hard on the dirt hauling. I just want to make sure that he knows how to use a shovel just in case the school thing doesn't work out. I am just kidding, he does very well in school.

Since the dirt that I had added up against the slab was obviously bare, the dogs, wind, kids, bugs, anything that could move dirt seemed to be moving the dirt into our house. The fastest way to solve the problem was grass. I ordered two pallets of hybrid bermuda. A couple of days later, went and picked them up.

With my crew, we had the grass down in no time. They were in need of some cooling off, so they started playing in the sprinklers. I guess the fun part of this was that I decided to do it when DLN was gone to East Asia. She had no idea that this was going to take place until the day before the guys showed up to work. Actually, when the guy came to lay it out, she asked me what was going on. We have had fun, and because DLN wasn't here to take pictures of the stages, we pretty much just have the "fun".

...what a hunt

2009-04-28T19:38:00.002-06:00

When you go fishing after a big rain, usually the fish are scattered and it is hard to track them down. Well when the rivers flood out of their banks into low areas, hogs and deer get trapped in the pastures where the hills are, more than likely.

Yesterday afternoon, after the heavy rain, I thought that it might be a good time to make a round hog hunting. With my Suzuki 500, I got to cross some pretty deep creeks. I made it to the back and it was getting a little dark. It was hard to judge just how much light I had left because of the cloud cover, so I was moving on. I rounded a bend, looking down into the bottom and I saw what I thought was cows. As I moved a little closer I realized that they were large hogs. I slammed on the breaks and threw up my AR, looked through the scope to see one very large boar.

I was about 175 yards from the pigs. As I was getting fine tuned on the large boar he stepped behind one of the smaller ones. I had the shot on the smaller one, so I took it. He dropped and the others circled back into the brush. They didn't break and run like I thought they would so I got on it and tried to close the gap. As I did they moved toward the creek. I caught up with them on the other side of the brush but they didn't stop. I looked at them in the scope just before they went under the fence. I made it to the fence to see how swollen the creek was. I saw them on the other side of the creek and then realized they had to swim the creek. That would have been an awesome site.

Tonight, WD went with me. He was a little reluctant, because the Wii game that he was playing was pretty fun and he wasn't quite sure what I was going to get him into. I had told him about the deep water.

It has rained all day. The Brazos Valley has flooded. A Day In The Woods will give you some idea how much rain that we have had. Houston has had 7-10 inches and I believe that we had 4 or 5 inches.

When WD got to where I shot the hog last night, I couldn't believe what I saw. Water everywhere. Running like a river. Every creek and low area was running as fast as the Wickson Creek could take it. The very area that I was chasing the hogs in last night, was about 2 to 3 feet under water. As we walked down the hill side I saw a sight that I have never seen. I don't even know if I have seen anything like it in a movie. Maybe on Lonesome Dove when they were crossing the rivers.

There was a heard of hogs wondering through the brush, some were up to their backs with the water. They would sink then find a high spot. As they got closer to the creek I could see about 20 hogs of all sizes. WD I moved just a little closer before laying down in the wet ground. They were a site to see. I should have waited to see if they would come a little closer before I took a shot. I didn't. They had stopped at a crossing, but there was so much water coming out of that crossing that they could get on across.

I thought that may try to swim that area based on what I had seen last night. I squeezed off a round and they scattered. I didn't find the pig that I shot at. I felt like I nailed him but it was around a 250 to 275 yard shot. I didn't compensate for the distance at all. I wanted to see if I could hit him flat. Don't guess I did. WD and I waded through the edge of the water. We wanted to see if we could find the hogs in the other corner of the place. All we did was find ants, snakes, more snakes and deer. Before you start thinking we were doing a lot of wading in dangerous moving water, we weren't. WD did get up to his thighs. He thought that was pretty cool after he realized that it was "ok". We knew the lay of the land so I knew where the low spots were.

The whole trip was pretty spectacular. I need to do a better job of carrying a camera. My small camera just doesn't reach out there. I guess I need a big camera. I could have had an unbelievable picture of a Copper Head. We didn't kill him because were on the trail of much bigger game.

We made it home with a great memory.

2009-04-24T20:29:00.002-06:00

We had the Country Fair at the church last weekend. We had a fun time visiting and watching the entertainment. Mir did a great job with the other girls from Suzanne's performing for the spectator's.

Monday afternoon, WD and I were fortunate enough to get to help a friend work his cows. Any time that we get to work cows is good. Our friend needed to sell some calves that were older than the others. I was going to buy some at the sale so that I could work my horses. Instead I bought his.

Wednesday, we had some company that stayed with us. The Smith's are family friends that I have know since early high school. RLS used to be my youth minister and he used to live with us while he was going to college. He is like another brother. He and his wonderful wife along with their fourth son spent the night.

I took advantage of him being here and decided to work my new calves. I had to cut two of them. We had the horses, so we decided to rope them and stretch them out. MLN had never been on a horse with a calf tied to the saddle. It was a good time to learn. We roped the two bulls. It was fun to watch MLN scramble with the rope for the first time. It didn't take her long to get the hang of it.

We had a good time talking about things that we had gotten into while working cows in years gone by. We also were able to go riding after supper at Frank's. My neighbor let us ride horses on his place. He has about 2000 acres. We had a great visit.

...the long week

2009-04-23T20:20:00.005-06:00

I have been wondering for some time now, how I would get through this week. A few months ago, my wife, was asked to go on a mission trip over seas. Actually, directly on the other side of the earth. This would leave me to handle the duties around the house, the ones that require a parent to be in charge. I wasn't really sure just how I was going to deliver kids to activities and still work.

I have tried to be as supportive as I know how. I mean, even though I worked on a flat at 1 a.m. the morning that they were leaving, ON THE VAN THAT THEY WERE GOING TO HOUSTON IN, I stayed pretty collected by my standards. Those of you who know me, know that I have this inherited personality that does not allow me to be very excited (happy) and most especially when my wife is going away for eight days. There are plenty of things that make me happy, don't get me wrong. Most of which, are the things that I do with my wife and kids. Now some of you (ladies) may think "what a vacation". "I can get away from my kids and husband and just be with my friends". "We can do GOOD things, share the Gospel, see some different country".

Though I really understand the sharing and ministering part, I have to work to get excited about my wife leaving for such a long time. As selfish as this seems, in today's society, it is really hard to jump up and down, do cartwheels and cheer. My kids have always wanted to see me do that. I have really worked on this, the getting excited part, not the cartwheels. Mainly my reactions, my verbalization's, my facial expressions. I know that I don't do very well with hiding the way I feel, especially the facial expressions of frustration.

I have had a lot of years of practice. Before we were married 19 years ago, my wife, then girl friend, wanted to go on a mission trip. Just to Florida. She went and stayed gone for about a month, I believe. May have been longer. I didn't do very good back then. I sure wasn't an encouragement back then. Maybe I did and will do better this time.

We have had so many people offer to help me out while DLN is gone. I really appreciate it. I don't have a real problem backing out of things in order to streamline the schedule. I don't have a problem accepting help from our friends. I don't have a problem running all over the country hauling kids. We do that every week. I just like to having my family together.

I am not the type that "takes a vacation". I would rather stay home and work/play around the house or at least be doing something with family. My dad tried to make sure that we went on vacations. We went snow skiing every year for about ten years, we went water skiing. But there was never anything more fun than working together on the farm. That was what made us all happy, Dad, Mom and us four boys. I haven't changed.

Though DLN is off on the other side of the world, which I really am fine with, I hope my kids look back and say that their favorite times were the times that we were working as a family. DLN does a great job of keeping us balanced in so many ways. She is a great mother and a wonderful wife. I can handle the "pushing the kids" but she is a great organizer, teacher and friend.

I will sure be glad when she gets back home.

...my good deed for the day

2009-04-13T19:23:00.003-06:00

As the facebook crowd knows, I have been on the road today. First to McClean then to Abilene. McClean has nothing to offer. It is on the old Route 66 and it reminded me of the town in the movie Cars. All it needed was Lightning McQueen. The only thing there is their school and that is what I went to look at.

From McClean I drove to Abilene. I have never been through the Four 6666 Ranch. Talk about nothing around but the school, wow, Guthrie, TX is all about the ranch. I haven't done my research to know how many acres they have but from the North Camp to the South Camp had to be 50 to 70 miles or so it seamed. My friend, The Panhandle Poet I am sure will get me lined out. I am going to just make a wild guess of 20 to 30 thousand acres. I will do some checking.

Some where about 80 miles out of Abilene, I noticed a nice set of black Brangus cows with new calves on the ground. As I drove there was one baby, two to three days old laying fairly close to the fence by the highway. As I drove by I saw a coyote crouched down in the wheat. I started not to stop, but I couldn't stand it. A mile or so down the road I turned around and went back. By the time I got back the coyote was already about 15 to 20 yards and he was moving in.

The mama was not interested in the situation at all. She was across the pasture. I stopped and the coyote turned and started trotting off. I would have loved to taken a shot at him but I might have been in the "big house" somewhere. I did drive down the County Road to make sure that he was gone. I couldn't find him so I got back on the highway.

I had fun seeing some new country. If you don't believe Texas big, just jump in you vehicle and head out. I saw a lot of history today, I just wish that I had time to spend with the locals to get the scoop on all of the little places that we fly by on the interstates.

No wonder you panhandle folks get claustrophobic when you get into East Texas. There is nothing but sky and land...and fires. I did see one grass fire, but it was contained in the median.

...ready or not it is time to hit the road

2009-04-12T20:44:00.002-06:00

I have been able to stay at home, for the most part, for the past month or so. Not any more. Hail season is starting up and I have several leads that are a long way from home. Unlike years past where the leads have been down south, these are north and west. I have several school districts to talk to. We will see if I can dodge the fires in order to get to the panhandle.

How about this for old pictures. Good night, they are growing up fast.

...We Brought Home Some Hardware

2009-03-30T14:53:00.011-06:00

2009 K&N AG MECH TEAM

Showmanship judges were first on the scene. The girls did a great job walking the judges through the trailer building process.

The girls hard work paid off. They took what they had learned at the Houston Show and 'wow'ed these judges. They were first in showmanship.

That was Saturday. Sunday was chickens. I never knew how stressful managing four pens of chickens could be. We had to get them grouped and to the check in station. Call it dumb luck or what, but we were able to all of the birds to the check in station without having any major hick ups thanks to Papa, Will, Maddie D., RN and AN. It was a circus.

I really wasn't thinking about getting the girls to practice holding chickens as a part of their daily routine. Hind sight...that would have been very wise of me. I wasn't very wise. On the other hand, throwing them to the wolves, so to speak caused them to not be able to second guess grabbing chickens a going.

Mir, RN and AN were first up. I am so thankful that cousins were here. They jumped right in, with a little help from me. I didn't give them an opportunity to back out. RN and AN broke in their new boots very quickly. They were such good sports.

Mir didn't place with her first pen of chickens but she got up the Eighteenth with her second pen. We were pumped knowing that she was in the top twenty and we still had one more pen to be called up. We were at least in the money.

Mal showed her first pen and got 37th. She was in the money. With her second pen in the last call, I tried to be very pessimistic to myself. There couldn't be any way that we could win this thing. After all, several of these people have been showing for years. Several have won Grand Champion at Houston, how was this eleven year old girl going to win?

This was the final pick. Look at my face. I was looking at Papa, thinking, what has just happened? He barely gave our birds a second or third feel.

Ninna and Papa were a little anxious as well.

Do you think we weren't happy? RN wasn't sure what was going on I don't think. She thought that this is the way it is done. No big deal.

The judge let the girls judge each others chickens. This was it. Grand and Reserve. After giving the girls a chance to feel the birds, he asked each one whose was the best. Mal, after some serious contemplation, said "mine". The other girl of course said hers were. Then the judge pulled one bird out of each pen and told them to do it again. He then asked them again, "which bird is the biggest". Mal pointed at her own bird. The other girl pointed at Mallory's bird. The judge said that he was in agreement. Mallory had won Grand Champion.

It was awesome. I really appreciate all the family being there in support and the Woods family for getting us through our first year of chicken showing. If there hadn't been such a crowd around, I believe that I would have broken down. Not because of a dang chicken show, but I was sooo proud for Mallory. She has been searching a little, trying to find her "thing". She did it big. And on her birthday weekend.

Ninna and Papa had to work very hard to even make it to the show. I was very excited that they were there. After a full weekend of attending grand kid events, they made it to the chicken show.

The cool part was, MLN had walked up to the show ring just as the judge had announced that Mal had won. We (the whole family) were there to support Mal in this big win. Mir worked her tail along with everyone else, she was so excited for her sister.

The girls all had a special weekend. We had some hardware to bring home. I just hope we have some $$$$ to bring home from the sale. 100 chickens can eat a whole lot more than four horses. Now we will be ready to have a poultry processing class at the farm. We should be set for a while on chicken.

...getting ready for another show

2009-03-26T21:31:00.002-06:00

This weekend is going to be busy as well. Last weekend we were in Houston showing the trailer. We were the only 4-H group (that I could tell) showing in the Ag Mech show at the HLSR. This weekend we are showing at our Brazos County Show. There are only 4 or 5 trailers in the girls class. Again, we are the only 4-H group showing.

I am sure that it will be a tough class. Especially when we are going up against FFA groups. I am probably more excited than the girls.

Sunday, Mir and Mal are showing chickens. We shall see about this project. It won't be because lack of effort nor insufficient facilities that cost us. The girls and WD have worked hard trying to keep these birds eating. We kept them under full light, and we have walked them til they don't even get up when we walk in. They are worn out. They are so big, they can't stand up for more that just a few minutes. I will be glad to get through the show. Hopefully, all of the big ones haven't died.

We will get through it. If nothing else, we will have chicken in the freezer to last the rest of the year. I am not looking forward to THAT weekend. I counted around 80 birds left. Maybe a few more. I just hope that there are enough birds to get four good pens.

I will post pictures of the weekend later.