AllCanSki redo

O.K. and this is my remake after I got me some training at the Apple store with one of them there geniuses, lol.
Hope you enjoy the shorter version.

Allcanski two

This is the video I took on our trip to San Antonio. Susan and I get to help out at the yearly event at Sea World where all of our special friends get to spend the day water skiing. It is a really fun event to see and to participate in. But it also is a learning experience for me. Especially in gratitude. I am thankful there are people here who can take care of our friends and family members like this and also go the extra mile to set up such an event.
And then I meet the Norman family and their son Billy and the unconditional love and lengths they go for their son Billy to make sure he has a great life and can make it to such events. They live in Arkansas and talk about the community they live in and the people there who care enough to lend a hand when needed.
I met April Miller and her mom Susan and see another families devotion to their daughter and how much they care. I hope April and I will stay in touch, she's a really cool young lady and we hit it off great.
And as for my brother in law David, this is so good for him. He is so lucky Susan found the Rainbow House for him and we will forever be indebted to Debbie and Ann.Thank you ladies, I pray every night that God has his eyes on you two.
And my good buddy Robert, he added a few new nationalities to his growing list, he failed to keep an eye on me, but I love him like a brother. Robert, thank you for making me smile and laugh.
As I work on my spiritual being, the events that I shared with my friends yesterday make this journey so much more rewarding. Thanks to everyone involved, because that makes me a better me,
Troy

Lucy in the Sky

Sam at play

Emmitt-1994? - 4/5/2008

It is with a heavy heart and a lump in my throat that I type this. Our male black swan was killed yesterday, presumably by a pack of coyotes. We theorize what happened is that the coyotes were pacing the outside of the fence area as the sun was coming up, and Emmitt went to protect his mate, Flo. He would have been trying to smack them with his powerful wings and trying to get a bite in with his beak and they were able to grab him. That's all I will say about that. His instincts were to protect his mate and babies at any cost and for ten plus years he did that to a tee.
We bought Emmitt and Flo number 1 over ten years ago. I named him Emmitt because when we went to pick him up we spent hours trying to catch him. He could move like Emmitt Smith! After we got him home it didn't take long for him to show us who was boss and to what extent he would protect his mate. I had to build a fence around the pond because it wasn't unusual to be awaken in the morning by him bititng at the sliding glass door on our bedroom.
As a father he sired about 8 cygnets a year for roughly 8 plus years which we sold for $200 each. He more than earned his keep here. I even remember the first cygnet they had. The egg was layed off the nest. We brought it to a friends house who incubated it and it hatched. We named her Cassie, but quickly found out the dificulties of raising a cygnet without the parents. We lost her only after a couple of months. The last 6 cygnets we had were lost this past month due to the hawks. This was the first time we ha ever lost any babies and what makes it even more sad is that we could have kept a couple to continue on with his legacy.
Emmitt was like Satan on steroids when it came to protecting his own. It is this trait that caused him his early demise, but it is why his mate will continue to survive. I should list list all the people who were attacked by him either while we were fishing or just visiting, but the list is long. The two most memorable and funniest ones were when my friend Robert and I were fishing and Emmitt came in for the attack. Robert didn't move fast enough and Emmitt grabbed him in family jewels area with his beak and wouldn't let go. Robert is a big man and to hear a big man scream like a girl as he trying to free hisself from the grasp of a 14 pound bird is..... well it's just damn funny as long as it's not you.
The other memorable attack came when my friend Bryan brought his boys over to fish. For a while it was going well as Emmitt stayed on the nest(he shared that duty with Flo) for nearly 2 hours. I guess at one point he was tired of sharing his pond so he set out for what he does best... run those two legged things out of his area. Well he went for Bryan's oldest son, who at one point looked like a professional fencer as he was using his fishing pole to keep Emmitt at a distance as he made his retreat. The retreat went to hell quickly when Byran's son( who was also a big kid) tripped and fell backwards. The familiar high pitched scream echoed again as I looked up and saw this swan all over this boy. I guess Emmitt went for the big ones first so the rest of the bystanders knew he wasn't mucking around! I could go on with those stories but I feel a couple would explain his sole purpose as far as he was concerned.
I don't know right now if we are going to get another male or not. Maybe another female so Flo can have a companion. It's too early to tell or make that decision. I just want a few days, as does Susan to reflect on the time we had with him and what he meant to us as he shared his life with us. If I could protect my own as fiercely as only he could I would consider that the lesson in life he taught me. I learn a lot from all of my animals... mostly patience, but his undivided ability to protect his own is something I'll remember about him unti lthe day I die.
Good bye Emmitt, I know you are with the first Flo under God's feet protecting all of his animals.

MY BIG SNAKE

I finally caught her. She was sunning and I was able to sneak up without her seeing me and grabbed her. She sprayed me with her scent but other than that she wasn't that aggressive. She weighed about 10 lbs and looked like she had a catfish in her belly. I was able to relocate her about 2 miles from my house in a canal. I had video of that also but the wind was blowing so hard you couldn't hear anything.
It was a great feeling being able to relocate her instead of killing her. It made me feel like I made up for the bobcat I found dead on the road yesterday and put in the freezer for our friend to mount.
Awesome!

Swans flying north, the easy way

The swans left for Oregon yesterday. Susan and I went to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo afterwards and met our llama friends and met Bernie and his family. Bernie bought Dino and Pilgrim , our mini Zebu bulls and he was showing Dino.
Other news on the farm, the hawks picked off the 6 black swan babies. That was sad and made me wonder on what I can do the next time the babies are hatched.
I have 60,000 miles now burning veggie oil and the powersmoke is getting ready to turn over at the 300,000 mile mark.
On the health scene, I'm lifting a lot of weight and hitting the cardio hard, but as always, there's room for improvement on the eats.
Susan slipped me the giant goobler and changed the new puppy's name to Sam. I had named her Echo. Oh well, it's all about compromise,lol. Tracy, Sam, the Boxer is our latest addition, and Susan's still looking at mini bulldogs.
As far as the Livestock show, you want to talk about a small world, these people who were showing mini Zebu's were from Jonesboro La. We lived there in the early sixties. I was telling the lady how I remembered that the 18 year old boy who lived next store accidentally shot and killed a young girl in the house we were living in and she knew both the families. The boy's name was Mack and he would take me out for icecream and I really remembered how awesome he was. When we moved to Texas, we got word he had passed away suddenly while he was in college, due to some type of infection. The lady at the rodeo said he died of grief, because he never was able to deal with accidentally shooting the young girl. Wow, that brought back many years!