Linda, I cannot begin to convey to you my heartfelt feelings of loss for you. My grief at this time cannot compare to your sorrow. I am so sorry for you. Please know that you are in my thoughts and prayers. Cindy: I am sorry for your loss. My Jake left Saturday (yesterday). I have been in a fog since 12:00noon Saturday. My buddy for 15 years, has gone to Rainbow Bridge to wait for me. I had to make the decision because Jake was not able to make it for me. For those of you with fuzzy buddies, please give them an extra helping of food tonite? And give them an extra smooch for me. For our lives are definitely diminished without them. Linda, grief is such a strange thing. While we go along in life, trying to make it real, we are reminded of what is really important. Your love and your memories will help keep him with you through your days. I wish there was something beyond these words in cyberland that could bring you comfort right now. Please know that you are thought of. And all my very best to your family. Please forgive, but I would like to share Rainbow Bridge with everyone, in case someone is not familiar: Rainbow Bridge Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge. When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable. All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind. They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster. You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart. Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together.... Author unknown... I am a train wreck right now. Peace and love to everyone here. I miss you all terribly.

Hey, that's an idea. My daughter is a do-it-yourselfer and she made me a quilt holder for Christmas last year. She did a fabulous job with all the detail and varnishing. I'll ask her if she wants to make a bridge for me.

Since I am the city clerk he has been going around telling every one I am doing things all wrong and illegal yada yada yada. This is a tiny town and there are many that will listen to him as I am not a favorite around town after stopping a good old boy ring of old town rulers that were dipping from the city coffers. This is pretty much a bass ackwards kind of tiny town.Gives real meaning to red neck. The stress he has been causing me is of constantly having to prove what he is saying about me is not true.Frustration because I should not be having to deal with this crap. I work so hard for this little city. With my careful watch I brought this town in 15K under budget this year in the general fund. Considering the budget was ruffly 59K I did very well handling the tax payers dollars!!! Not me actually I do not run the city. BUT I kept the council appraised on where they stood at every decision financially. Before me they were running amuck. I could go on for hours on the waste before I came on scene. Needless to say bad boys are not happy I have lightened their and their relatives personal pockets. Any way all of this started another psoriasis flair up for me. I have not brought it under control yet. It is very painful with hands and feet splitting and bleeding at the drop of a hat. Sunday my hands were clear of splits. Yesterday I had 16 new bloody splits on fingers and palms. And I did not do this with my mosaics on the hoosier Sunday.See gadget thread on the other side here. Hoping now the election is over and bad boy lost and the rest of my council but one are great the next couple of years will mellow out. Sorry for the rant. I am still pretty wound up.

merrybookwyrm, You still have to be pretty tough, independent and determined to live out there around Orr because it is just so remote. Even with modern-day vehicles, it can take police, firefighters and medics a long time to reach you out there in the boondocks even without flooding or road washouts which just compound an already difficult situation. Western Love County, including Orr, and the adjacent portions of Carter and Jefferson County were hit really hard by this last storm. They got a lot more rain and flooding out there than we had here in southcentral Love County. There's a point where you even stop having cell phone service once you get out there, and where the fire and police radios cut in and out and have so much static that they are pretty much unusable for communication. In this day and age, it is shocking to me that there's still areas that are not so remote, mileage-wise, but that still are far enough out there that communication is spotty. Carol, I love the sunshine and it helps the garden a lot, but the heat and heat index numbers kinda take the fun out of it. We gardeners and our gardens are going to be roasting hot this week which will help plant growth but make life miserable otherwise. I've been so busy with other things, or flooded out of the garden, that I am so far behind on harvesting and canning that it isn't even funny. Today I'm going to sort, wash and freeze about 10-15 gallons of tomatoes that I can use later on to make salsa. I just don't have time to make it this week. I've already got that many frozen, so they're really piling up and still there's tomatoes piled up on every flat surface in the house. I am more behind than usual. Partly it is because of the peppers. I have hot peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, etc. for making salsa, but the sweet peppers are so far behind it isn't even funny. If I picked every sweet bell that is even half-sized, I might not get enough for one batch of Annie's Salsa. I did hold the pepper plants in cups forever during the May flooding before finally getting them planted and they are way behind everything else. The jalapenos were quicker to set fruit and start making up for lost time but the sweet bells and poblano plants are just sitting there. Apparently 33+" of rain in the last 7 weeks does not impress them at all. I've been trying to just stay caught up on making plum jelly, but last week I didn't have time to make jelly so I just extracted the juice and froze it. I can make jelly any time, but I don't like the fact that I'm stockpiling everything in the freezer. I wanted to have all the plums finished before the peaches began to ripen, and we're only 2-3 days away from the first peach harvest (if I can keep the birds out of them, which seems like a losing battle). I'm hoping to pick a day later in the week, maybe on Wed or Thurs, where I block out any and every other thing and just focus on thawing that plum juice and making all the jelly. Oh, and I have more plums to harvest sometime today. It is cloudy and there's been rain (and flash-flooding) to our southeast. The last thing any part of this region needs today is more rain. Lake Texoma's rise has slowed dramatically in the last day, so I am not sure its crest will even match the record crest that happened around June 1st. The Red River is falling fast, and everyone here is relieved by that. I never got okra, cucumbers, winter squash or purple hull peas planted, and I need to do it now or not do it at all, but I'm so distracted by trying to deal with the tomato and fruit harvest that I don't know if I'll do it. I might wait and see how the watermelons and muskmelons I planted before last week's heavy rain/flooding do. If they don't survive or quickly become diseased in the waterlogged soil, I might not bother planting anything else. At least all the cracks in the ground healed up, though I am sure the silty ones on the surface will return soon. Dawn