Rooms now available for November:
Texas Room -- $59.00
Oklahoma Room -- $59.00 (special rates through the end of
2009.
Now is the time to come enjoy the fall weather and color! Each
room
has a private bathroom and second entry from a private deck. Call us at
580-623-4249 or 214-763-3823 for a reservation.

This past weekend, Oklahoma City hosted a "Ghouls Gone Wild" parade and concert event. We took our camping chairs and sat in a great location near the beginning of the parade route. It was great fun! There were lots of floats with live bands playing along the parade route, vintage cars, and "performance art" by theatre groups and local businesses featuring traditional characters (Dorothy and her companions on the way to OZ), along with zombies, ghouls, and monsters. Many in the audience dressed up. The parade ended with a "thousand flaming skeletons" -- skeletons holding torches as they marched down the street. The parade ended near Bricktown in a large tent where the musical entertainment would continue with concerts by several bands, including the Flaming Lips.

OPEN FOR BUSINESS

We are formally "open" for business with two rooms available: Texas Room and Oklahoma Room. A special rate through the end of the year (2009) of $59.00 is available for either room! Each room has a private bathroom and second entry from the private deck. The trees are starting to turn colors! The state park is beautiful this time of year. Temperatures have been 55-60 in the morning and as warm as 72 in the afternoons. Call us at 580-623-4249 or 214-763-3823 for a reservation this fall.

COLD SPELL

This past weekend, Oct 9-10, was the annual Watonga Cheese Festival, and it was VERY COLD. On Thursday, it poured down rain all day and into the night, but by Friday morning the wet front had passed to the east. It left behind temperatures in the high 30's overnight and 40's on Friday and Saturday, with a chilly breeze. During the day it wasn't too bad; a nice chilly fall day to walk through the main street exhibits and stop and listen to the music. Andy is on the entertainment committee for the festival, and they had arranged to have two stages going throughout the day for free, and two night-time acts in the theatre for paid tickets. At the last minute they had to arrange for a tent cover for the main stage, in case it did rain over the weekend. The tent also helped keep the wind out. One of the people that performed on the smaller stage on Friday was Clint Osmus, a young guitarist who did some John Prine and other old country covers, along with some Randy Newman. He was very good. He also performed later in the day with his band. Most of the acts on the small stage were 30-45 minutes long. The "headliner" for the main stage on Friday night was Edgar Cruz, and Drew and Montana arrived in time to see them. So did some friends of ours from Tulsa, Teri and John. We laid out a couple of layers of picnic blankets on the ground and also had some camping chairs set out under the tent. Once the sun went down, it got downright COLD. We bundled up and enjoyed the show. Edgar had brought one of his former students with him, a girl from San Diego who went by the name "radical classical". She had an interesting and different, avant garde, style. It was a good concert, in spite of the cold weather which I know was hard on the guitarists.

Saturday was very cold. But we braved the weather and strolled through the buildings and tents at the festival, bought cheese and wine, saw the art exhibits, and ate carnival food. The wine tasting exhibits were popular, but the small crowds all through the festival was a reflection of the cold weather.

Progress on New Mexico Room

New Addition

Andy has been hard at work on the bathroom and patio addition on the south end of the house, which will eventually be the New Mexico room. He and his building helpers have put up the studs for the walls, and are putting on the roof decking today. We had a little rain earlier in the week, which delayed their work for a couple of days, but the outlook is for nice weather for at least the next week. In fact, the temperatures have dropped in the last couple of days and it feels like fall. This morning it was barely 50 degrees and the high today will be 70 and sunny. There is a crisp feel in the air. The trees aren't changing colors yet, though. Everything in the yard is blooming right now and I can tell that next spring will be beautiful as plants in the garden fill in. I have started to thin out the daylilly beds and transplant those to other areas on the property. Andy has also been trimming more trees. Last weekend Andy and I laid out some mulch along a few paths that lead from the front yard down to the front meadow, where we plan on having a bonfire next weekend. We are excited to be having guests with us on the first two weekends in October.

We're having Fall Weather

It's already mid-September! It is hard to believe. We've had nice temperatures over the past two weeks: 60's in the morning and highs in the 80's. This weekend we finally got a nice rain on both Saturday and Sunday. It would have been perfect weather for me to do some work in the garden, but I got lazy and just couldn't get too motivated to work in the drizzle. Andy and I did some cleaning out and unpacking some more boxes from the living room, and we have that room about 90 percent empty. The gardens love this weather. Everything is green and blooming. The vegetable garden continues to produce, though the tomatoes aren't ripening right now -- probably waiting for sunny days again! Andy and I sprigged some bermuda grass in the backyard last weekend in the hopes of getting it established before the cold weather sets in and maybe having an actual "lawn" next spring. And Andy made some grape jelly last weekend. We continue to make progress on all fronts -- inside the house and outside in the gardens.

This past week Andy had the foundation poured for the add-on on the south side of the house, the third bedroom's bathroom. He and Carl Matli would have worked on the framing had the weather not been wet, but they hope to get that done this week. He also had a cement foundation laid for a big rock sign we have ordered.

Andy and I are going to host his high school reunion the first Saturday in October, and one of his classmates is going to stay with us. We are also getting revved up for the upcoming Cheese Festival, which will be held Oct. 9-10. Andy is on the Entertainment Committee, and my friend Robbie and I will be hosting a booth to raise funds for the Susan G. Komen foundation, giving away pink lemonade for donations. Andy hasn't decided yet if he is going to enter the DeSoto in the vintage car parade or show. I know I need to get some pictures posted here, and hopefully will learn how to do that sometime this month -- that is my goal!

BUSY MONTH

August has turned out to be a busy month for us. We had a visit from Alma and Warren from Dallas, and then Wes Mays from Coppell came and spent a couple of days. The weather was beautiful. We didn't do much except sit around and relax and visit and walk around the property and relax. We ate way too much! And we got the Desoto out and on the road. It is fun to drive through the Park -- everyone looks and waves to us.

Andy is hard at work on the addition to the third bedroom, which was his dad's room at the south end of the house. He has taken the outside brick off the wall, had some cement brought in for wall foundations, and set some of the plumbing for that bathroom. He had to trim off several limbs of a big tree that overhung that end of the house, but we'll be able to keep the tree itself. Andy has also done other trimming of trees around the property to let more light in for the lawn and gardens. The weather right now is perfect -- it was 65 degrees this morning and the high will only be around 84-88 degrees. We are hoping for some rain on Sunday, but Saturday is supposed to be really nice. We've been invited to help harvest grapes for one of the local wineries, so if the weather is nice Andy and I will join in that activity this weekend.

We've done some canning of vegetables from our garden: bread & butter pickles w/jalapenos, and pickled okra. We've been living on fresh salsa from homegrown tomatoes and peppers and jalapenos. We made some pesto from the basil we're growing in the front herb garden. We have some eggplant coming on right now. I planted some castor bean seeds around the barn garden in the spring, which was supposed to keep the gophers away. I don't know if that worked, but the castor bean plants have grown up and are gorgeous, with large red and green leaves and exotic flowers on a six-foot tall stalk! They are annuals, so I can't wait to collect seeds and plant them all around the property for next year.