Last day of 2011.....

The last day of 2011 started off with me waking up at 5am, after going to bed after midnight, to get ready for work. I was only planning on working for about 3 hours but ended up staying there for 4.5 hours. After work I stopped by one of my favorite places to go on Saturdays, the farmers market. Normally I take Diggs with me but because I had to work he stayed home. I got to see many of my favorite farmers and even talked to a few new ones. The first place I headed was over to South Texas Heritage Pork where I was greeted by my friend Kelley. After telling her once again how much my father and I enjoyed the holiday party that they had at the farm and how both of us can’t stop talking about it I started asking her what she had in the cooler. She started listing off a few things then she said my favorite product to get from them…… polish sausage. I immediately said I want one of those, Kelley smiled as she reached into the white cooler. After a little shuffling of frozen pieces of pork her hand emerged with my sausage. We talked a little bit more and I remembered that I had some beans that I wanted to cook up, so I asked Kelley what she would recommend. We talked a little about it and she told me that her favorite thing for beans would be ham hocks. I told her I would take one of those, well this one took a little longer to find. Kelley had to dig to the bottom of the cooler and all over, she had sold a lot of hocks that day. She finally found the last one and I immediately paid for it and placed it into my reusable bag.

After a little bit more talking I knew that I need to get on with my shopping trip. I walked to the next booth and saw “Fresh farm eggs” on a sign out front. I first thought to myself that I already had some eggs at home but then I realized that I would have to go to HEB in a few days to get more. I walked up to the lady behind the table and handed her a $5 bill for the dozen eggs, slightly more than the free range organic brown eggs that I normally get from HEB. She handed me the eggs and I noticed that they were all different colors; some were brown, some were white, some were even a grayish blue. I thought to myself that these eggs looked familiar; it took talking to my step mother later that I knew why. When my family moved out to the property that my dad and step mother live on now we found a small chicken coop, so naturally we got some chickens. I can’t remember the type of chickens that they were but these were those eggs. After leaving that booth I headed over to buy a few other goodies. I got baby spinach and purple broccoli from Oak Hills Farms, 2 cups of fresh lemonade, and got an Olive Loaf from Soy Luna Bakery (they were out of my favorite: Rosemary Ciabatta Bread). While drinking my lemonade I noticed an older couple with an Australian Sheppard. I just had to go over and talk to them. While talking to them and petting their supper sweet dog I started talking about Diggs and what breads that he is. It turns out that the couple had a husky before this one. We started talking about some of the training and behaviors of each breed and I told them about Diggs being a therapy dog. Once again it turns out that they wanted to get their Aussie into therapy work. We talked a little more about it and we both had to get on with our days.

After returning home from the market and putting up my new goodies I loaded up Diggs to head out to my dad and step mother’s house. After doing a little work on both of the computers at the house it was play time for us. One thing that I am wanting to work on in 2012 is my aim while shooting a gun. I usually just point the gun at something (a log or can on the ground) and just hope that I hit it, but now I want to get better. My dad has a 22 rifle that was given to him by his dad and I picked up 150 rounds for it (I was planning on only shooting 1 box) and some targets so that I could learn. I had asked my dad to join me to show me a little about how the gun worked and it ended up being some quality father son time shooting a the target and eventually boards and sticks in the pond. I will have to say that shooting at the boards in the pond was better that shooting at the target. After empting 2 boxes we decided to call it quits and my dad taught me how to clean the gun. I spent a little more time at the house talking and before I left my step mother gave me some Hoppin John to eat on New Year ’s Day. Before Diggs and I headed out I wanted to take Digs on a walk around the property. Diggs had a blast walking around and smelling all the new things. Diggs would walk around for a little while with his tail wagging then look back at me as if to say, “Look at how much fun I’m having dad!”

Once Diggs and I got back to the house, after taking a longer more scenic route, I thought our night was over……. Boy was I wrong. Diggs and I got to spend some time relaxing. We were hearing a few fireworks going off and I did not think anything about it. Next thing I knew it was almost midnight and the fireworks were going off more frequently and closer. Then it was midnight and there were fireworks going off all around the house. I decided to look out the window to see if I could see anything going off. Well it was a clear night and with me being on the second floor I could see fireworks that were going off in the neighborhood and ones miles away. It was one of the coolest fireworks shows that I have seen, and here I was talking about how I did not want to shoot off fireworks or go see any. I noticed that Diggs had climbed into the bath tub, one of his least favorite places to be, and was laying there. I was not sure if he was frightened by the loud booms and bangs from the fireworks or just wanted to sleep there. I called him out of the tub and into the my room. I laid down and he jumped into the bed and laid next to me and place his head on my shoulder. Diggs normally does not stay next to someone if they are not petting him. Diggs stayed there until the fireworks had mostly stopped, almost an hour. After he felt that it was safe for him to leave my side he jumped off the bed and we both headed off to sleep.

So much for taking it easy on the last day of the year……..