An injured baby Fawn we found today

Today started off really busy and I was trying to get everything done that I wanted to do when my best friend Gail Williams called to invite the grand kids and me to go on a short 4 wheeler ride.  John came in and was adamant that the kids have to wear a helmet which is beyond me why suddenly he's decided this is important.  I was so upset because the older kids don't want to have to wear one and so I told them I didn't know if I was going to go or not.  Then the kids wanted to go badly enough that they were willing to wear the helmets so I decided I'd get over it and go too.  Part of my reason was I had so much to do but the main part of my reason was that I was upset at John for being so demanding on the kids wearing a helmet when he's never been that way before.  But anyway as it went I decided to go ahead and go. 
I was hurrying up to get out the door cause Gail had called and said they were headed for the ride within 15 minutes.  So off we went 7 kids on 5 different 4 wheelers and we headed up the trail behind the Limehouse's house.  We had no sooner turned up that trail when we came across this baby deer just 2 days old laying sprawled out in the middle of the trail and obviously listless and not doing well. 
There was no mother in sight and this little guy was only a few hours away from death.  Gail picked him up and began rubbing his tummy and stroking his neck then she even gave the little guy mouth to mouth.  Pretty soon he was bellowing and making sounds of distress, but was pretty weak so we loaded the little guy onto the 4 wheeler with Gail holding him and one of her grand kids driving.
Lucky for us we have two Veterinarians living right here on our mountain and this baby deer was found on their property right behind their house.  We went straight there and they examined him then gave him some naturapathic medicines to help ease the shock, and then we sat out on their porch as they examined him some more.  
He had one eye that was cloudy and full of dirt and several small bites near his eyes on his head but the main injuries were to his front legs.  We could see that he was skinned up pretty bad there and had some chunks of skin and fur missing near his front leg joints.  They had dried up already so it had to have happened a little bit before we got there. 
The Limehouse's gave him an IV of fluids right away to help with shock and dehydration too.  Then we fixed a surgical glove with a hole in one of the fingers and put some canned milk along with a little cooking oil into the bottle, and hooked the glove over the top of the opening and tried to get the little guy to eat.  After a few tries he did actually take some milk. 
Gail took him home and put him into a playpen bed in her bedroom and covered him up to keep him warm and quiet and the little guy just laid there like a cute little baby.  We tried to see if he could stand up but he was too weak to get up on his legs and we noticed that he would tip his head as if there was some brain damage there too. 
Tonight the Limehouse's picked up a baby bottle and some goats milk which is supposed to be the closest to a deers milk then they went over to examine the little guy again tonight and he's doing ever so slightly better, but still is holding his head crookedly, so that's our biggest concern at this point. 
We're just hoping that he will come out of the brain trauma and then we can nurse him back to health.  Gail has nursed 2 other deer when her kids were young but it's been over 20 years since she last did that.  The one deer she did that to years ago became pretty tame and would even be in her house when it came around.  It would even go to the door when it needed to go to the bathroom, and even though she'd turned it loose when it could survive on it's own it would come back and come right into their house. 
Finally it stayed outside and was a regular deer.  This one is a little buck and only 2 days old so the poor thing is lucky to be alive.  We're lucky to have the Limehouse's living here to help the little fella. 

 All the grand kids are wanting to pet him as Gail looks him over.  You can see his cloudy eye.

 Grand daughter Cortney pets the fawn while Wyatt and Thayn look on.

 My two best friends Gail and PT examine our little Bambi.

 Gail Williams and I along with her grand daughter Allyona.

 Grandson Tanner, best friends Gail Williams and PT the Veterinarian.

 Gail's and my grand kids at Limehouse's place.  Lot's of 4 wheelers.

 Grand daughter Tori

So that was my day today.  An exciting thing for my grand kids that they'll never forget since they're all city kids. 

Bluegrass Pickin Fun Times with Friends Old and New

A month on the road and now we are home as of 10:30 this morning....  It's been a great last few weeks and we came home to see Will, Gail, and 10 of their grand kids helping them work around their property raking and picking up branches, burning and just working together as a family.  It was a wonderful sight seeing our house again and being greeted by all these kids who I also teach bluegrass music too.  They were all waving and shouting to us, welcome home, welcome home.  This is the coolest place on the entire earth to be living at.  You just don't have neighbors and friends like this anymore but we sure do.  It was just plain old awesome that's all I can say.
I was sad to have to leave Weiser a few days early but I was also grateful for the time that I did have there.  I used to never miss a year at Weiser when I lived in Missoula, then we moved over here and now I'm only 3 hours away instead of 7.  I haven't made it there a single year now.  Crazy! What's up with that!   Well I guess it's the retirement thing and wanting to have the grand kids spend more summer time with us which has limited my time at Weiser cause I can't watch kids and have any fun playing music.  They're just a little young to take and let them run loose quite yet but soon they'll be able to do that. 
This year though I thought ahead and didn't take any of the younger grand kids until after Weiser week.  We have been on the road for a month doing all sorts of fun things with our grand kids and you can read about those  in other posts but the last part of this trip was all fun bluegrass things.
Grass Valley was so awesome and the jamming was incredible.  I made new friends, Jeanie and Susie meeting them on the first evening that I was there so each night I'd head right back to their camp and jam with them again. 
I played a lot of fiddle there and a lot of mandolin too so this was especially fun since I've been playing so much guitar in the last few years.  I've been working on my bluegrass technique on my fiddle and it was just way fun to experiment with playing it in a bluegrass jam circle.  So anyway that was our week at Grass Valley, hot weather, hot bands, and so much fun for me.  I loved seeing the fun vendors that I have gotten to know down there too and even Jerry Logan had a booth again this year so I bought two more of his original bluegrass necklace pieces too.    I already have one of his which is a mandolin peg head necklace made out of silver with a black onyx stone in it which I bought more than 10 years ago right there at Grass Valley too.  So anyway he had a booth there again and I got to visit with him and catch up with all what both of us have been up to.  I ended up buying two more of his necklaces so that now I'll be able to interchange this one I've been wearing constantly this last 10 years.  I also was able to buy 3 new/old  fiddles from a fiddle luthier guy who always has a booth down there too.  I was looking for some smaller sized fiddles for my students who can't afford to buy one, and was excited to be able to get 3 German made ones for a total price on all of them of $240 the normal cost of just one fiddle. 
All of these things added up to make my Grass Valley week so fantastic. 
After Grass Valley we had a long driving day up to Weiser Idaho for the National Fiddle Competition week of fun.  I needed to get back home here to get our place ready for hosting a woman's retreat out here in about 10 days, and also my big family reunion and bluegrass concert day that I do here each year over the week of the 4th of July.  Lot's to do to get ready for these, but John was really great to let me get in 3 days at Weiser jamming with friends.
I was really surprised to see several of the people who I'd jammed with down in Grass Valley up there at Weiser too.  Our daughter Gina and her new husband own a business where they go to fairs and such and sell food.  They were camped in the LDS church's parking lot which borders the city park in Weiser and so they suggested that we could park there too and that's what we decided to do.  I was good with it as long as I had access to the truck to go jam as much as I wanted to and it worked out just fine saving us $60 too.  It was also really good since we had the grand kids, Cortney, Tori, and Tanner with us as and it gave them things to do while there.  They could walk up and go swimming just a couple of blocks away or they could browse the vendors booths of which both things they did a lot during the 3 days we were there.  I had such a great time getting to see my Weiser friends and play a little music with them again.  I just love all those people so much and only a fellow bluegrasser can appreciate and understand how those friendships run so deep.  When I first got there my good friend Richard saw me and gave me this great big hug saying how glad he was to see me there.  It was a wonderful welcome to Weiser hug and we visited for over an hour just catching up on things.  
The Limehouses's were with us at Weiser too and even though I'd always talked so much about it they had never been there or seen it.  They stayed an extra day and let me take them on a grand tour of everything so we got to see a guy re-hair a fiddle bow,  and I got to show them the Institute area where we all jam an usually camp too.  I was excited that they didn't just hurry off and not get to see all the things that make Fiddle week at Weiser such a special thing for all of us who get to come each year.  They got a real feel to it all and had a nice relaxed day of walking and seeing it all.  I had a fun time showing them all the ropes and introducing them to my friends too. 
Last night, my last evening at Weiser, I got into a jam with a guy who was playing a musical saw.  He could make that thing sing and another lady, myself and one guy on the bass plus two of us on fiddles made up the jam.  It was a great little jam and suddenly I turned around to see standing behind me a lady who I met at Weiser 20 years ago, Julia Milleson.   She was standing there listening and holding her fiddle not realizing that it was me jamming.  Now Julia has had a pretty hard time of things these past few years.  First of all she lived with and took care of her aged mother until she passed away at almost 100 years old and then shortly after her mom passed on Julia got cancer real bad and had heart trouble to boot.  She was so weak that she had to move in with her son until she could recoup, but she got better and is looking great now.  She told me that she's been cancer free for a year now and that she's living in her own home once again.  It was fun to see her.  I think it's been close to 10 years since we last saw each other but I do keep in touch with her on the computer here, and she's in her mid to upper 80's herself now!  So it was just so good to get to see her and doing so well too.  She got out her fiddle and played with us for about an hour. 
Then later that evening I wandered over and jammed with JD Webb and his wife Judy for the rest of the evening.  Suddenly about 1AM here walks up Helen Smith.  She'd just gotten there and her husband drove their nice 5th wheeler up there for her then plans to come back and get her this Saturday.  I let her use my guitar since I was playing fiddle and then we got to play together too this way. 
Finally at around 2:30 I turned it in and drove back down to our camper where I cuddled into bed with John content at the wonderful few days I'd had to be bluegrassin it, but sad that it was ending, but happy that I was going to be coming home too. 
I always enjoy browsing the Weiser gift shop where sometimes I find the coolest souveniers of Weiser week.  One year I bought a banjo shaped cribbage board, one year blank note cards with cool vintage pictures of old time fiddlers on them, and this year I found a super cool wooden plaque where someone wood burned a little girl wearing chaps playing a guitar on it and then it says Get along little doggie all wood burned into it.   They used old saddle straps on it for decoration and then they nailed horse shoe nails across the bottom of it making it a perfect necklace holder for me.  When I asked the price and was told $20 for this nice 20 X 12 inch plaque I was shocked that it was so reasonable and I knew that it was going to be this years souvenier and so I grabbed it.  They had about 3 others that were each uniquely their own design but this one is the one I liked best. On the back is wood burned into it Weiser National Old Time Fiddlers Contest  2012 which is their 60th aniversary.  It's very fun and useful too.  The wood is off an old barn making it a really fun little piece and it was such a fun find.  I also ran into an old aquaintance there named David who wrote a song about all the things we experience each year at Weiser week and he'd written this several years ago when Weiser was in it's hey day so it has all the cool memories of those years for us.  The year that he'd written it he would play his guitar and sing it and this one guy recorded it live at our jam, then later put it onto a cassette of which I'd bought way back then.  Suddenly here he was sitting there again this year and so I asked him if he might have that song recorded onto a cd so that I could get it and put it onto my ipod.  Well he had some other friends there who had downloaded that jam session recording onto their computer and so upon visiting with him I found out that he would ask his wife to burn it onto a cd for me.  I was so lucky to get that and I count it as another prized souvenier from this week too so I'm going to get it onto my ipod for fun memories as I listen to it.  I was sitting and playing along as he sang it and it was recorded so this is a very special song and luckily I got it again. 
Today as we drove in and had 10 kids waving and smiling shouting welcome home to us just made an end to this perfect trip feel so good to us. 
We not only swam in the pond earlier today, but we also had our first night time swim in the pond tonight.  It was pretty fun and at first we were seeing bats flying over head of us, then suddenly more and more came in and we even had some pretty huge ones of a different variety come in too.  One scared me a bit as he sort of dive bombed some insects right above my head.    Grass Valley pictures.....

 Weiser pictures...

I guess that's about all I have to say this evening so I'll say goodnight and will be posting regularly once again. 

An update on Willie

I haven't been able to post on here for awhile because I haven't had access to Wifi but also because I've just been so busy playing music that I haven't wanted to or taken the time either.  I thought it would be good to update this blog on what happened to our Willie.
He went downhill fast the last part of the week we were in Grass Valley so Father's Day Sunday after we'd gone to church there in Grass Valley we decided that he would need to be put down.  Now I'm a person who absolutely hates putting an animal down unless there's just no other choice and Willie had gotten so weak and bad off that we decided we were going to just have to do it.  He couldn't eat, and was so weak that he couldn't even jump up onto our short little camper bed.  The kids or us would have to lift him up so he could lay there on our bed where he loved to sleep all day.  We even put a small amount of food and water up there for him and then John rigged a little litter box so he wouldn't have to try to get up there anymore.  It was just pitiful to see him try to jump up just a foot and not be able to make it landing on his backside each time.
Then he got sick and lost control of his bowels so we had a big mess which I was trying to clean up out there at the campsite.  Poor little fella was just ready to go home and so the Limehouse's who had a fellow Veternarian coming up to the festival had asked her if she could bring the stuff to help
Willie out.
We all went to church for Father's Day which was a very nice service and then had decided that when we got home we'd have to put him down if he was still alive.  I had to put the poor little guy into the bathtub of our camper with a blanket and all his stuff until we could get home and do this.  So after church we gathered the kids and let them all say goodbye and be there when we did this.  I had Tanner take John's and my picture holding him and saying goodbye.  John was especially close to Willie because just a couple of years ago Willie would jump up into John's lap every day for his belly scratching and he'd roll right over on his back and purr away as John would scratch his tummy.  They were especially bonded so it was hard to see the little guy in such shape and hard for us to have to do this but we knew it was the right thing to do.
We had a family prayer before we did it and I held him as he passed peacefully away and went home.
Banjo climbed up into my lap and said goodbye too and now she's been missing him off and on.  Sometimes she's okay and other times she's meowing in her siamese meow and looking for him around the house here.  Tomorrow we're going to have a funeral graveside burial for him and the kids, with the help of John are going to build him a wooden box and decorate it for him to be buried in.  I just wanted to update my last post since I had written it about Willie.  We love you little fella.

Our cat Willie

I want to write this quickly to get it in here before I forget to say something about our little kitty Willie.  Willie is our cat Banjo's daddy and we've had him since he was just finished as a breeder cat.  He's started going downhill the last couple of years and just recently is worse.  I was worried to leave the kitties at home for an entire month and especially since Willie is going down hill so fast. 
Well the first part of this trip he was doing great and then suddenly he began going downhill really quickly.  Two days ago he got incontinent and we had a mess all over John's and my bed, but I was able to clean it up as best as I could and John was good about it too. 
Pt and John Limehouse brought along fluids to give to him and this revived him enough to keep going until we can get him home hopefully.  He's just so frail that he can't even jump up onto our bed now and this has just started in the last few days. 
John and I are hoping that he makes it long enough to get him home and then I'm afraid we're going to have to put him down. 
I'm sad about this as he's been a very sweet cat and it's very hard for me to have to put any animals down.  I want them to pass away naturally and I just hope that we won't have to do that with poor
Willie.  He's about 19 years old and so he's lived a full life.  He's had kidney failure for about 2 years now and the Limehouse's said that once that happens an animal usually only lives 2 weeks to 2 years depending so he's been able to make it for almost the full 2 years of this time. 
I took a picture of him and Banjo laying beside each other on our camper bed today.  She's going to miss her best buddy, her dad. 

We are praying for him to pass away on his own and if not then when we get home we'll have to help him out.  The grand kids are having to lift him down to get water and he's not really eating anymore either.  He looks at the edge of the bed and debates jumping off of it to come get water but then decides better of it because he doesn't want to have to jump back up there, and actually he can't jump up there.  He tries but he lands back on his backside and just can't make it, so we have to help the poor little guy out.  He's just nothing but skin stretched over his bones.  I love you Willie and I'm sad to see you in such a condition. 

I love the elderly and the young

Well now this post will have the correct date to it as it really is Saturday June 16th the day before Father's Day and here we are at the festival which is almost over now. 
I had a very special moment in time today of which I tried to make it a teaching moment to my grand kids, but am not sure if it went over their heads or not. 
So this is how my day shaped up this morning.  After we got a breakfast of biscuits and gravy that John had made finished up here, I decided to head over to the stage area and start listening to the music.  As I was looking for a chair in the shade, as it was already really warm, this elderly gentleman takes my arm and offers me a chair next to him.  He was just the nicest, kindest man on the face of the earth and his eyes just danced with joy at being here at this festival.  He introduces himself as Buster and after a few minutes of sitting beside him I found out his real name was Richard Kraft but that his wife had given him the nickname of Buster which he prefers to be called by. 
He visited and visited with me between each song and telling me how he lives near this area and how when he got up this morning his wife asked him what time he'd like to leave to come on over here.  He told her "early and I'm staying late until after 11 at least."  He was talking and telling me that he lives only about 7 miles from here but that he can no longer drive.  He then tells me about in his younger days he traveled a lot on vacations and even went to Europe once for 6 weeks but got homesick to be back here during the trip.  He says to me, "just like the little girl in the movie, I feel the same, There's no Place Like Home."  As he said this he began to cry and I could tell that his mind was taking him back to a better time when he had his youth and could do more of the things he enjoyed. 
He noticed my wedding ring and he touched it and said, "I like seeing this."  I told him that we were celebrating our 40th aniversary this year.  Once again he teared up and gave me a big hug.  Then he saw me taking pictures of the different bands and people and he says, "here let me take a picture of you."  "I always tell my wife to take lot's of pictures, as you can always delete the ones that don't turn out and you can just buy a new camera chip card when it fills up but that a person can get about 1,000 pictures on one of those things.  I don't think he understood that a person could put the pictures on their computer and then erase their chip and begin taking pictures again. 
My heart was so filled with joy at meeting this wonderful, happy man who told me that he loves the Lord and was such a happy man.  It was a great way to start my bluegrass day off and later when I came back to the camper I tried to use it as a teaching moment with the kids about attitudes and being kind to people and happy in life.  That making choices is always an option and that we can always make choices to be happy.  His spirit emulated his kindness and I loved this guy and wish that I could have gotten information to keep in contact and write him letters or phone him etc. 
I have several good friends who are elderly and not in good health and I love those friends deeply.  Today I added a new one and if I see him later tonight I will give him my phone number and see if I can get his. 

I'd love to add him to my calling list of people that I love to call and check on.  So here is a picture of him and of us and I know that when you see it you'll see his beautiful spirit too.  Richard "Buster" Kraft....A good example of kindness and living a Christ like life in our everyday living. 

On our way to Grass Valley Bluegrass Festival

The date on this post isn't going to be correct because it actually happened a few days ago as we were driving down to California to Grass Valley to the annual Father's Day Festival held here.  We have taken 3 of our grand kids from Utah with us and as proud as I was of them a few days ago, now it's been a different story as this trip has progressed.  They've been bored and complaining to us making the festival less fun for John and I.  But that's not what this post is about anyway it's about our drive down to here which was on June 12th when we headed out of Herriman Utah and we were to drive over to Winnemucca, Nevada then pull into the Walmart there and wait for the Limehouse's to arrive. 
We had less of a drive so arrived earlier than they did, so we were there and parked by 2:30 in the afternoon and they were due in at around 5:30.  It was nice and warm but not too hot so I decided to sit outside our camper and practice my fiddle.
I enjoyed having the time to do so and the campers around us were thrilled to get to listen to me which was fun for all of us.  Suddenly after about an hour of practicing I see this man come running towards our camper pushing his shopping cart and shouting at me that he'd been listening to me fiddle on his way into Walmart and again on his way out.  He said that "I was pretty good and he loved the music and was also a mandolin player."  He had his mandolin along with him in his semi which was parked in a dirt lot beyond our camper.  He asked me if I'd mind letting him play a couple of tunes with me as he said he had a little bit of time he could spare.  So I of course said yes, then he ran to his truck and grabbed his mandolin out.
It was a nice Gibson F-9 and he knew a lot of bluegrass tunes to play and was pretty good on it. We ended up jamming for 2 hours and of course all the campers had pulled their chairs outside of their own rigs and were listening so we got to entertain them a bit too.  He told me that he was from Oklahoma and that his dad plays the banjo and mom sings and plays too.  He'd been playing along with them since he was a kid and so had learned a lot of the old time tunes.  We had a great time and it was so fun passing the time this way until Limehouse's arrived.   This guy had long hair and a long beard and was wearing a Harley Davidson t-shirt so when he got ready to leave I asked him if he rode a Harley to which he replied that he has a Heritage Softtail Classic the same bike as John and I have.  What a small world and what a fun day that turned out to be.  I posted about this on Facebook and got a ton of reponses from people who say they camp at Walmarts all the time but never thought to get out their instruments and play or practice but from now on they're going to start doing so.  I commented back that us Bluegrasser's need to unite and play whenever we camp at the Walmarts and start a bluegrass revolution of a new trend. 

It was just so very fun that I had to share!  Now all my bluegrass friends are laughing and saying "Only you could start a jam in a Walmart parking lot, all on your own as you park there."  I love it!

Grass Valley & Weiser here we come

Well this will be my last blog post for a couple of weeks cause I won't have access to my computer for a couple of weeks as we head out tomorrow morning for the big Grass Valley, California bluegrass festival.  We've been to this festival several times in the last 10 years or so and it's always a very fun one that we just love.  In fact Grass Valley was the very first bluegrass festival that my husband John went to.  Before that he didn't think he'd like them and so would never use his vacation to come along with me even to the local ones.
Years ago though our good friends Ron and Barb Cole invited us to come to this festival with them and help them run their booth where he sold the mandolins that he makes.  I finally convinced John to take some vacation time and come see what a festival was truly like.  He had so much fun that afterwards he told me to go sign us up for a CBA membership so that we'd get their newsletters and would know about Grass Valley again the following year.  He was ready to go again and ever since that fateful first Grass Valley festival he's wanted to take me to a lot more of them and even other festivals too.  Anyway now with a bit of that history, I'm excited that we get to head out once again for Grass Valley this year, and tomorrow morning is the day.  The extra bonus fun to the rest of this trip too is that on our way home to Idaho we get to stop for a couple of days at Weiser where they hold the National Fiddle Contest every year.  I always love to camp there and jam with friends who I only get to see at Weiser and no where else, and the last three years I've missed out on getting to go so this year at least I'm going to get a few days there again. 
We're going to get to take with us our 3 oldest grand kids, the ones here in Utah who's brother just left to serve a mission.  Those kids used to play bluegrass when they were younger and I was teaching them.  They even played two different times in the Kids On Bluegrass program that the CBA puts on at all of their festivals.  Now days though the kids don't play anymore and have lost the interest except for Tanner the youngest.  He's 13 and he still has some of the interest whenever he's with us, but when he's home here without us around he's just like the others and doesn't play or have the interest.  This of course makes me sad, but we get to take them to Grass Valley and then to Weiser too, so for this I'm happy. 
I'm hoping that this trip will kindle a fire in them once again and even if it's just for this week at least I can keep a little bit of bluegrass in their life for the moment.  If they decide to play and have fun with it then I'll sure be happy about that.
So now I'm going to post some pictures of these grand kids when they were playing at this festival several years ago. One year in particular was very special to me.  They got to do the grand finale on stage in the Kids On Bluegrass program and for that the people running the program always get the headliner stars to come out and sing with those kids doing that finale'.  That particular year it was Rhonda Vincent, and Wayne Taylor of the US Navy Band.  My grand kids sang and played Rocky Top to a standing ovation of the crowd.  Grandpa and I were so excited and someone took a video of it and posted it on Youtube too.  Now I have a new friend who painted a picture of playing my fiddle and I'm going to save up the money to hire her to paint this picture of my grand kids playing the Grass Valley stage with Rhonda, and Wayne singing and playing over their shoulders as they did a fired up rendition of Rocky Top.  It was a moment in time that grandpa and I will never forget and if I can preserve it with a painting, at least that'll bring back those memories and be a real treasure for me.
 My dream would be for them to someday come back to the music when they mature and get older in life, and my grandson Jeff who just left to be a missionary gave me a blessing on the eve of his departure promising me that my posterity would carry on this music.  I have to have faith that some of my grand kids will stay with the bluegrass music I've taught them.  But if they don't at least I gave them the chance and it was their choice.
As for now it's going to be fun to get to take them once again to this festival.  Afterwards they are going to get to come to Idaho with us for a month so we're very excited for tomorrow to come.  These kids are now Cortney 17 years old, Tori 15 years old, and Tanner 13 years old.  I'll get pictures of them at this years festival and will post them in the blog when I get home. 

                                                I'll post some more blogs,and get lot's of pictures on how our festival part of this trip goes.. I love my family and my grand kids are the icing on the cake of life for me.