I did it!!!

Well, I did it! I got a tattoo.

It is of my beloved Pit Bull who I lost 11 years ago this month to cancer. He was my best friend. Losing him devastated me. Just devastated me. I think of him every single day.

For the past two years I have been researching and making sure I wanted a tattoo. Yes. Yes I was positive.

Getting the tattoo didn't hurt at all. When the artist was done everyone had to look at it. The tattoo artist did a most awesome job. Seeing the finished work brought tears to my eyes.

This will be my one and only tattoo.

E.Z. ( my dog) will forever be in my heart, soul and now on my leg.

The pic was taken right after the tattoo while still in the shop.

Until next time............................

Ode to a Brown Dog

For those of you curious to know what the tattoo I will be getting is going to be........... It will be of the best damned dog I ever had the grace to share his life with. His name was E.Z. and if you haven't already guessed, he was a Pit Bull. He came into my life when he was six months old. At first I was pretty leery of having a bully breed in the house with my young children due to all the bad publicity the breed had. Yes, I had fallen for all the horror stories. The pic above is of him at about two years old.

This pic was taken when he was six and a half years old. E.Z. and I went through hell and back together. He was the best guardian over me and my kids. One night he heard something outside and frantically wanted out. I let him out and he took off running. All I saw was a shadow of a man running through the trees away from the house with E.Z. hot on his heels. The next thing I heard was the guy hitting the fence scrambling to get over it and E.Z. barking and growling. The guy managed to get over but not without ripping his pants ( there was evidence of his pants on the top of the fence that I found the next morning).

What really would crack me up is when I had friends come over who didn't know I was owned by a Pit. They would pull into the driveway and here would come E.Z. with his ball in his mouth 'talking' to the new person. Quite a few times they would honk their horn and when I came out of the house they told me that they didn't know I had a Pit Bull and were afraid to get out of the car. All the while E.Z. is still standing next to their car 'talking' to them and wanting them to throw the ball.

After explaining it was safe to get out of the car. That all he wanted was for them to throw his ball. They would get out of their car, E.Z. would drop the ball, stare at it and then them, waiting for them to throw that ball. When they did I warned them that he loved his ball and he would tire them out before he would tire out.

This pic was taken when E.Z. was 14, Jake on the right was almost two and Rosie on the far left was about four months old. E.Z. was such a great teacher to Jake and Rosie. By this time in E.Z.'s life he had been to all three of my kids kindergarten classes as show n tell. He was wonderful around kids. And one of the highlights taking him for show no tell was to educate both students and teachers that Pit Bulls are fantastic family dogs. That it is not the breed that is bad, but sadly owned by bad owners who taught them to be bad.

This is one of the last pictures I took of him. He was close to 15 1/2. He got cancer and it had rapidly spread throughout his body. One morning I took him outside to do his business ( he couldn't go outside by himself anymore due to his hearing was pretty much gone as well as his eyesight). When he peed, it was almost straight blood. The time had come to say goodbye to my best friend. On the way to the vet I stopped off at McDonald's, bought him a cheeseburger and gave it to him. The vet came out to the car and humanely put my buddy to sleep for good.

With the help of my brother, oldest daughters boyfriend at the time, they helped me dig a hole and bury him. He was buried with his ball. I carved into a cement block his name, date of birth and date of death. 12-1985 to 3-2000.

It's been ten years since I lost the old boy and there is still an ache and a hole in my heart from missing that Brown Dog.

So, he will be my one and only tattoo because he means that much to me. Although I am not going to tattoo his name!!! Loved the old boy with all my heart, but not going to tattoo E.Z. on me!! :)

Until next time..........................

Still here, tattoo, and another rant!

Well, as you can see Betsy goat is still here. Haven't seen or talked with the neighbor since Betsy made her way into my pasture.

My herd and Betsy are getting along great. In fact, Betsy now knows the feeding routine and she waits for me at the gate, then runs alongside the Gator as I drop off piles of hay. Oh, and Betsy has one eye!! As far as I'm concerned she can live here permanently!

Yesterday my Internet connection was in and out for the better part of the day. Thinking that the company I go through was having difficulties yet again I didn't stress about it too much. Well, yesterday early evening it went out completely! That's it!! So, I called and what did I hear? The infamous automated system. Okay, fine.

After answering questions and pushing buttons the system hung up on me. Fine. Called back. This time the voice I heard was all in Spanish. Um, sorry I speak English. Couldn't get to the English part of it so hung up. Called back. Got the Spanish voice again. Hung up. Called back. Finally got the English speaking voice and halfway through the call they hung up. Now I am really getting frustrated. I call back, nothing. Call again, still nothing. Call again. Finally the voice. Answered questions and pushed buttons ( yes I had a real tone in my voice by this time), again halfway through the call they hung up. Call back yet again, same routine answering questions and pushing buttons and yup, you guessed it, they hung up on me again!!!

Alrighty then. Time to walk away, calm down, and catch my breath.

After a bit of time had passed I called again. Got the English speaking voice. Answered the questions, pressed the buttons, so far so good. Then silence!! But wait, the voice came back on!!! This time the voice says that they are experiencing an unusually high number of calls and that the Internet would be restored shortly. Hmmmm, okay. I hung up ( yes after giving the dead air time enough for the voice to come back on). Within a few minutes the Internet was up and running!!!

Today's technology is blessing and a curse at the same time!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, and before I forget I was reading Justina's http://morningbrayfarm.com/ blog yesterday to find out she and Carson over at http://www.the7msnranch.com/ got tattoos! The tattoos they got were of the their BLM donkeys' brands. How very cool is that!!! My youngest daughter has been wanting a tattoo and I have been telling her that when she gets one, to make sure it means something to her that she will always enjoy looking at. Not one that later on life you look at and ask yourself why did I get that! So I told her about Justina's and Carson's tattoos. Her eyes lit up and said that they were awesome tattoos and she is going to get her BLM Mustangs' brand tattooed on her ankle. So thanks for the idea Justina and Carson!! One of these days I'll have to tell you of the tattoo I am going to get and have been wanting to for a long time now. It will be my first and only tattoo I will ever get.

Until next time.................................