Maynard Family Christmas 2011

More Great Christmas memories!

Hull Family Christmas

Great Christmas memories from 2011!

African Cats

No one wants to watch "The African Lion" with me. I asked Chris to and he said "no way". I asked him who would and he said "no one". :) Which I did myself in on Big Cat week on NATGeo last week. There was one scene that will take some time to recover from. Chris told me to turn it at the end of an episode last week. He said it was going to get sad and he didn't want to watch that. I said no it's not. He said told you so.

A Year in the Life of Hair

My niece Amber shaving my hair.

Hair.  It's a funny thing.  My whole life I've complained about my hair.  Too oily, widow's peak, cowlick at my widow's peak that gets out of control.  In the 80's I couldn't keep it frizzy enough.  In the past 10 years I couldn't keep it straight enough.  Then, well, no hair.  And still I complained.  Mangy dog?  Why couldn't my hair just fall out.  All of it?  No, lol, my hair fell out in patches and I had to keep it shaved throughout chemo. (Which is the norm more than not.)

Chris shaved my long hair 19 days to the first treatment, in our back yard with our horse clippers.  My sister Lynette helped me shave one time and Amber another. The photos show my niece Amber shaving my hair, the last time I needed to before letting it grow at an even pace.  Now?  Well now I still complain about my hair.  Now?  The curls.  I cannot contain or control the curls.  Hair or no hair.  Maybe it's just in my nature to hate it.  

My niece Amber doing me a huge favor.

I've been so lucky in the blessings of my friends and family during my hair loss.  Being bald is a emotionally hard trial.  Everywhere you go there are stares.  Wig or scarf.  At home there is also the fear of being stared at with visitors.  Being afraid of going without covering even though you are in your own home.  


Those around me made being bald easy.  I never thought about it when I was around them.  I felt like I'd always been bald.  When the subject came up it was in fun.  Not in fun that people made light of it or tried to distract me.  Just fun as in it's no big deal fun.  I usually asked those around me if it bothered them for me to take off my scarf while they were visiting or we were driving somewhere.  I knew they would say no they didn't mind.  I just hated the thought of making those around me uncomfortable.  They never were.  And I never was.  It's almost surreal to look back upon those times.  How lucky I was.

GREAT friends Kelley and 
Brittany whether it's sitting on 
the couch watching UFC

or playing with my wigs.

Chris and Rusty having 
a  good time with my wigs.

My niece Amber

My niece Jessie brought me food to chemo.  

Ohhhh the hunger was excruciating!!!

My nephew Tanner

My nephew Jamey

Thanksgiving 2010

   Kelley always willing to share
 lends me a hand with my hair.

My sister Lynette

Cathy, me & Brittany
New Year's Eve 2010

Kelley, Elisha, Me & Brittany
GREAT Friends!

My nieces

                                                                                                                    

The amazing thing in the year of the life of hair was the growth. To the right is the 2010 Christmas photo showing my hair which had just started to grow since Thanksgiving 2010.  

To the left is this year's, 2011, Christmas photo.  I'm very lucky that my hair has always been fast growing.  Thank you God for my hair.  And not letting me down in bringing it back even though I'm still never happy with it.

( I wonder if my niece Jessie will notice that I had "borrowed" her furry vest in the 2010 photo.  She is wearing the vest in the 2011. Ha!)

Winter Classic

Wishing I could go to the Winter Classic.

 Especially after watching HBO documentary

 "24/7 Flyers vs. Rangers Road to the NHL

 Winter Classic". Liev Schreiber makes

HBO sports documentaries like this one even

 better. Wow, what a narrator voice he has.

No one writes in cursive anymore but everyone blogs

I recently found out that teachers are not required to teach children how to write in cursive.  This discovery has been quite disturbing to me.

What is the purpose of no longer writing in cursive?  Is the thought of decision makers that we are entering the iPad era and such things are no longer important? (Batteries go dead ya'll.) The time is coming where everything we use to communicate with others will be on the computer-is this the reasoning?

Hand writing is an important skill everyone needs to have.  Handwritten notes and cards are so much more caring and thoughtful when reaching out to others.  Everyone will always need to know how to write, debit card or not.

Once having learned handwriting it's with a sense of pride.  Signing your name, in a readable way, on documents or letters is a powerful thing.  A signature, handwriting personalizing a issue and puts your face onto that issue in a deep bonded way with your handwritten signature that not a type out Word document can accomplish.

Yes, no one has to write in cursive anymore but everybody blogs..

Dummy Doe part 2

I was on the front porch this evening about 6.  Just as the sun was really setting.  I happened to glance over to the soy bean field and who did I see in the dusk?  My doe and her yearling.  I started to talk to her to test and see what the deer would do, to see if it was my doe.  She just raised her head and listened for a minute then back to grazing she went.  So it had to be her I thought to myself.

I walked to the edge of the porch and yelled toward the barn for Chris to come to the house, that my doe was home.  He came over and said he wasn't so sure that's it's her.  Maybe he said.  He has seen three doe together with two babies this past week.  Our doe is never with others so this might be her. We were watching her and the yearling as we talked.  They just kept looking back and grazing.  I saw something move at the tree line and at the tree line I spotted something else.  A six point buck!

Trevor

I love Trevor's You Tube videos from the Apple Store.

The Hunger Games

Can't wait for the movie!  I almost wish I'd never read the book because movies never seem to be as good as the books.  Hopefully this one will be.

Stick Your Tongue Out

Bridget tried to help a momma with two little kids running around in the lobby of the courthouse today.

his is what the one she told no, no, no did to her as he tried to pull a plant over.

Bridget told him "now that's not very nice." 

Dummy Deer

I like where we live.  No houses can be seen from our place.  Not that we don't have neighbors close by, scattered among the farm fields and woods in our community.

Being an animal lover it's great to live on the farm.  I've finally gotten hummingbirds and rabbits coming near the house after years of trying.  We have lots of quail and wild turkeys, hawks and falcons, owls in the roads at night and beaver we never see. And two baby raccoons live in a tree at the stop sign at the end of our road.  We also have all sorts of birds but luckily few groundhogs (we don't like those or coyotes).  

The ten acres beside us is alternated as a soy bean field and a hay field.  Quite a few creatures like to wander about it and the creek makes for great hiding for the beavers, although I think someone has killed those off.  

I'll start this section by saying I’m not anti hunting!!!!  I cannot count the number of friends and family members who like to hunt deer and bear and wild boar and rabbits and doves and so on.  Our dogs, American Bull Dogs, were created to be catch dogs and we've sold several puppies for boar dogs.  

Hunting is okay in my mind.  I’ll even eat deer meat if someone has cooked it.  Not much though and that's not because it’s deer meat.  I just don’t like the flavor that much.  And no, it doesn’t taste like beef.  Chris is not a hunter and I'm glad.  I don't mind other people hunting but I like that our household doesn't.  Chris also knows I don't like the few wild animals on our property scared off or killed.  

I’m not some crazy person like those on “Animal Attractions”.  I just like glimpses of wild animals around our place.  I do not want them hanging around all the time like they’re tame.  I don’t even want to see them everyday.  I just like to know they are there and I might get lucky enough for a sighting. 

We have a doe.  Chris and I call her our dummy deer because she doesn’t seem to fear people.  She has been coming to the soy bean field every year for around four years.  She comes quite close when we are grilling on the back porch.  We've even talked to her a little.  I chid her for being a dummy deer and tell her she is lucky to have lived so long, walking into the open like she does.  

Last year she had a fawn.  It was probably her first, or first to have lived long, because we'd never seen her with one before.  She gradually allowed it to come further and further into the soy bean field with her.  I scolded her for being a bad momma deer and raising a dummy fawn that wouldn't know how to fear humans.  Maybe I’ve been in the wrong by talking to her.  Maybe I set her up this week.......

Chris tells all our friends in the area who hunt that they better "not kill Marna's doe.  She’ll be mad.”  Monday a friend from across the way who is a deer hunter stopped by the barn and told Chris "I think Marna's doe is dead.  There is a doe that has been shot and thrown in the ditch.  I think it's her."  I was quite sad and upset when I heard about our doe.  

To be honest I'm not a big deer fan.  It's nice to see them out and about in our area like all the other wildlife. But I don't go to Cades Cove to see deer-we have far enough around our farm--but rather to try and see a bear.  But my dummy deer had become like a pet in ways. I enjoyed the evenings seeing her near the house.  I'd watch for her and sometimes I'd see her watch for me. 

It infuriates me a little for people who are supposed hunters to shoot a deer and throw her out like that.  Everyone I know has the deer they kill processed or give it to someone who will.  What a waste to kill something that is edible and toss it away when there are starving people in the world.     

I’m hoping that my doe will show up in the spring, maybe with a fawn.  For four years she has been quite good at hiding in the winters.  We’ve never seen her out during those times.  So maybe that wasn’t her in the ditch and maybe she isn’t a dummy after all…. 

Nasty Buffalo

It's no secret I'm a NatGeo kinda girl with dreams of traveling to Africa and the Galapagos and other wild places.  Watching NatGeo, the History Channel, the Discovery Channel I think I have seen about every type and topic of animal documentary. 

I’ve often thought of my dream trips to faraway places.  The fortunate thing about going on a couch safari is the ability to change channels when real life begins, or ends I should say.

I understand the harshness of life on the plains.  However, unless it’s a “fast” kill as the narrators describe, I can’t watch.  Predators must eat as well as the grazers but I prefer to only watch the chase, not the finish line. 

The Yellowstone documentary, or maybe it was the moose documentary, showed a young mother moose with her new calf.  They were near a river or lake.  A buffalo is in the background.  Now granted, I’ve never been a buffalo fan.  They are about on the same level as monkeys in my thoughts so I might be a little judgmental of this buffalo.  When I was showing my mare, Saya, in cow horse I would haul her to a cutting trainer’s place.  Brandon Sutton.  Brandon would give me cutting lessons on his buffalo.  This experience led me to dislike buffalo even more.  Saya was not far behind in my thoughts.  Tough as nails they could run for what seemed an endless amount of time. 

The moose and her calf were minding their own business when the buffalo decides to interrupt their day.  The baby moose has no idea about danger at this point in it’s young life.  But momma moose does.  She tries to lead her calf to safety but the buffalo butts the calf, again and again.  Momma moose runs back and forth trying to lead the buffalo away.  Finally the buffalo gores the baby calf into the ground.  The calf is not moving anymore and the buffalo leaves, looking very satisfied with itself. 

Momma moose runs to her calf and for a moment life seems hopeless.  But in a minute the little calf is up and wobbling after it’s momma into the woods.  Somehow I don’t think the baby survived the night.  We, the watchers, never know.  The documentary goes to another subject.  Perhaps to wolves of which I won’t watch hunt.

I hated that buffalo in an almost comical way, like somehow that buffalo was a big bully on the playground planning an attack.  Buffalos aren’t predators.  They are not carnivores, they are grazers, herbivores.  Somehow the scene just struck me as a move against nature, the natural order of things.  Buffalos and moose are not supposed to be locked in a battle for survival against one another.

I can barely kill a spider and to hit an animal accidently while driving is very upsetting.  However, I think had I been in the wild when that buffalo picked on the calf I’d have shot it.  People are supposed to be observers when in amongst animals in these situations, never interfering with “life”.  But that moment didn’t seem like life.  It seemed sinister.  Evil.  Nasty buffalo.  I’m not a hunter but have family members who are and that is okay either way to me.  In that split second I could have been a hunter.  I’d have my revenge.  Revenge that I’ve wrote about in another note, on another day.

Hmmm….the nasty buffalo, the momma moose, the calf, the narrator, the observer….if I look close enough I can see a similarities………

My Uncle Clarence Maynard