Texas Pond Side

On July 1, 2010 we were on our way to a nearly 4,000 mile road trip to: Rocky Mountain NP, Grand Teton NP, Yellowstone NP, Badlands NP, and Mount Rushmore (can you tell we have a National Parks Annual Pass?). Yellowstone is truly amazing. So grateful that our forefathers had the foresight to reserve this amazing landscape for us to enjoy. We loved the cool weather (although it got a bit too cold for us at times - 31 degrees), the incredible scenery of mountains and waters (the Upper and Lower Falls and the Grand Canyon were awesome - probably my favorites), and the sighting of the animals. We had a close encounter. Keith got out of the car to observe some buffalos off the side of the road, over a small hill so that we couldn't see what he was looking at from the car. A moment later, we saw him running for cover to the car with a herd of buffalos close behind him. They were crossing the road to go to their resting spot for the night, and Keith and the car were right in their path. We also saw, in a distance, mama grizzly nursing her two cubs. At one of the geyser basins, a chipmunk ran around our feet looking for hand outs. The rafting on the Snake River in the Grand Tetons and the horseback riding and fly fishing in Yellowstone were wonderful highlights of the trip. Keith and I each caught a cut throat trout. It was incredible to see the trout jump out of the water snapping up the emerging may flies. No matter where we looked the sights were beautiful and amazing. We took over 1,400 photos and videos with our new camera. Now my computer is running out of memory with all the years' of photos and iTunes music. Keith also managed for us to visit the Mantey homestead in Battlecreek, Nebraska on our way back. We also dropped in on Lois Kilgore, Keith's father's cousin. This was a truly memorable vacation and I look forward to going back. P.S. One day after we came home, the trusty Suburban's transmission gave out. God was looking out for us!

Tim has gone home to Germany! We wish him the very best and hope to see him again soon!

We traveled to Angel Fire, New Mexico for a ski vacation for Spring break. Also made stops in Sweetwater for the annual rattlesnake roundup, Santa Fe for dinner (Plaza Cafe), Pecos National Monument, Las Vegas (Blue Hole), an alpaca farm (Victory Ranch), and Cadillac ranch in Amarillo. Skiing in Angel Fire was fun, but it sure was crowded. We thought we had left snow behind when we came home, but the next 24 hours brought at least seven inches of snow at home, on the first day of Spring!

February 11, 2010 has gone down in the record books as the snowiest day ever. Over 1 foot of snow! We awoke February 11 to a pristine white scene. Everything was covered in snow and it was still coming down in big fluffy flakes. The kids thought for sure school was closed, but alas no. Snow fell all day and continued into the night. That evening we rolled down snowy banks, built a snowman, and romped around in the snow with the dogs. Cookie, Kasey, Kirby, and Kody were delighted by the snow. Koda and Kona loved lounging in the snow and taking in the scene. Coco, on the other hand, could barely step through the snow. Finally PISD and other larger school districts relented and announced the cancellation of school the following day, which made it a four day weekend with President's Day the following Monday. Snow didn't stop before we went to bed. Friday morning I drove to work and got to the office before everyone else. Everything looked beautiful and sounds were muffled. My office window overlooks a forestful of beautiful snow ladden trees. Kids sledded down a small hill in a park nearby. What a blessed day.

Mom and I ventured to Tucson, Arizona for the world's greatest gem and mineral show 2010. We were led by friend Vicky Tehrani who is a veteran at the gem show. What an amazing event! All I can say is that we were dazzled and overwhelmed and much poorer than when we left Dallas. Bought baroque pearls, corals, lots of turquoise, lapis, stones of all kinds, and silver findings. The petrified wood, minerals, and other rocks were amazing. We only made it to the Holidome, Convention Center, and Electric Park. Mom scored a beautiful but heavy Chinese rock that she loved. Would love to take Keith next time. It's a rock lover's paradise!

The year 2009 sure went by in a flash! December was unprecedentedly cold with three snow falls that kept us indoors and at home most of the time. Amazingly the peacocks got through the bitter cold without problems. Then 2010 came. As one ages, the years seem to go by quicker and quicker. The passing of a friend who was only 39 on New Year's Day made me realize that life is too short and that we need to live each moment to the fullest. I want to be mindful of the legacy that I leave behind. The morning we learned of Steven's death, January 2nd, we were headed to Canton. We came back with puppy Kirby, our dog #8. Kirby weighed 5 lbs. when he arrived. Three weeks later, he is 13 lbs. Two months later, Kirby is about 27 lbs. His growth rate rivaled Kona's. Kirby is our third standard poodle. He sports all black fur with a patch of white on his chest and a very small white spot on his chin. Yesterday we went to the nearby park with Cookie, Kasey and Kirby. It was Kirby's first time with anything around his neck. He balked at it first, but very soon learned to walk on a leash by our side. We were very impressed and extremely pleased! We are hoping that he will grow up big and strong!

Tim is an exchange student from Hamberg, Germany who is staying with us for the Spring semester 2010. He arrived at our home January 16 and settled in nicely. Today we went to the Fort Worth Stock Yard and ran into Mayor Moncrief. Mayor Moncrief chatted with us for quite awhile and he welcomed Tim to Fort Worth. We also chatted with the cowboys of the long horn cattle drive (missed the drive by 10 minutes), Tim got on a long horn bull for photos, and we had a nice Mexican lunch and shopped in the Historical Stock Yard. The kids also ran the maze in chilly driving rain. Even though the weather was rainy and cold, we had a great time. We also visited the Amon Carter Museum and saw many of Frederick Remington's paintings and sculptures. On the way, we made a quick stop at an antique mall and spotted a Frederick Remington Bucking Bronco scuplture for $1990. Didn't buy it. After dropping A and Z off at friends' house for the night, we visited a Chinese eatery for some noodles, pork chop, and stinky tofu. Tim liked the pork chops, but definitely not the stinky tofu or the bubble tea. At least he tried everything!

School (Fall 2009) has been in session for many weeks now and we have settled into a new routine. We have also become more interested in horses and are taking lessons. Maybe eventually we can keep a horse at the house. All of us have also started teaching ESL at church once a week in addition to altar service. A and Z are helpers in my Level II class and Keith helps in the Foundations class. It's fun to learn about all the students in our class and to help them learn English. We have students from Mexico, China, Iraq and Bosnia.

It has been a very rainy Fall so far. We are expecting flash flooding tonight. We have never seen so many snails in the garden! The crazy cosmos are blooming in full force, attracting many Monarch butterflies to flit and flutter among the flowers. Recently Keith dragged home a dead bobcat that had gotten run over near A's school. Two days ago Keith found one of our peahens and a hen dead. The weather is not so agreeable for them. Couldn't really tell why they died. All the other peacocks and chickens are doing fine.

July 2009 - Just came back from our trip to Japan and China and have posted some photos. After more than two weeks away it was great to come home. We had a great time but we came home with sobering thoughts. The Japan and China we saw were in stark contrast. Tokyo, Japan was crowded but neat, and China was a sea of humanity everywhere we went. The restroom facilities of Japan and China cannot be farther apart in comparison. The toilets we saw in Tokyo were outfitted with bidet, heated seat, and/or automatic lid lifter. The restrooms were always immaculate. In most restrooms in Beijing and Xian, toilet paper was never supplied, and the atmosphere was always saturated with the stench of excrement or unpleasant cleaners. Most of the facilities were of the squatting kind. Although Tokyo also had congested traffic, but in China the drivers drove recklessly, honked constantly, and acted in a way that endangered pedestrians. After coming back, Keith's brother Dan informed us that his company, ABB, has had employees killed in traffic accidents in China every year. This is not surprising since we saw first hand how Chinese drivers drive. A news article I read on July 13 while in China reported that a retiree has resorted to throwing bricks at cars that run red lights at an intersection in the Gansu province after a woman was killed. A survey indicated that such action received over 80% approval rating. In China we also encountered people who cut in line in every single line we stood in, which we did not see in Tokyo. As a Chinese, I am saddened to see a nation that has historically and traditionally prided itself as a civilized and polite society now has a population that behaves in such uncivilized, disrespectful and selfish manner, and that this is what our kids had to witness. Why, I wonder, one country reacted to congestion and over-population with order and organization, while another reacted with recklessness and disorganization? The Japanese developed a respect for lawfulness and rules, and the Chinese became ingrained with the survival of the fittest mentality. I wonder if China's Cultural Revolution that turned its society upside down, destroyed the educated segments of the society, and rewarded and encouraged people to turn on one another, even one's own family, has something to do with this?

For Valentine's Day 2009 Keith detailed my Suburban, which I prefer and appreciate over any flower bouquet. The kids also helped begrudgingly. Keith said that they behaved like Paris Hilton in A Simple Life.

We celebrated Thanksgiving 2008 with our families, including Keith's parents from Crystal River, FL. We are extremely glad that they were able to travel to spend time with us. We have a lot to be thankful for, especially for our health and for our families. Christmas 2008 was very nice - we stayed in town and enjoyed some downtime family time. Now we are in the middle of February (2009) with temperatures flirting in the 70's. We had a bad ice storm at the end of January, and Appollo was tragically killed. The heavy ice made him come down off the roost, and our pyrenees, for some inexplicable reason, chased him down, plucked his tail feathers off, and killed him. We were heartbroken and upset that the dogs we got to protect our flock were the killers. We couldn't understand it. Zathura disappeared for three days and finally came back home. We were so relieved when she came back. We still love Koda and Kona very much, but we will be taking extra precautions and keep a closer eye on them in the future. We are now down to 8 peacocks, four males and four females. The four male peacocks are one year olds from the same hatch and do not yet sport beautiful tail feathers.

Keith has been hard at work rehabilitating our stairs and the living room floor. The carpet in the living room and stairs has been ripped out and is in the process of being replaced with a granite called Riversite. We also went ahead and painted the living room. Keith is almost done with the living room floor. The staircase risers still need to be done, and the railing needs to be stripped of the ugly brown paint and redone. (Note: as of March 2010 the stairs and the bedroom addition are still not completed. Sigh....)

We have a new member to our family - Kasey, a chocolate standard poodle with amber-colored eyes. Kasey is another first Monday Canton market puppy we have added to our family. We've been adding one dog per year, it seems. Kasey (Nov. 2008), Kona (Dec. 2007), and Koda (2006). Kasey's personality is very similar to Cookie's, which we love. Cookie is of course very jealous of the new puppy that is taking attention away from him. Cookie and Kasey are our velcro dogs - they stay with us wherever we go. We've been taking both of them on walks at the park.

We hosted some children from a Uganda orphan's choir in October 2008 while they visited our church. We have some new Fall photos to share with you.

Wei Wei had cholecystectomy to remove her gall bladder in October 2008. Here is a chronicle to her ordeal. The recovery and healing was quick and pain free. Thank you to everyone who prayed for her surgery and recovery, especially the Zweiaker bible study class at Messiah and our families!

During Spring break 2008 we visited Aunt Margie and Uncle Ron in Orlando and Mom and Dad in Crystal River. It also snowed in March, and in April we had several tornados touch down in and near the Dalls/Fort Worth area. God looked over us - we didn't suffer any damage or injury, but it was scary enough to send us to our downstairs closet. We have been busy planting Knockout roses, trees, and a victory garden of vegetables. The idea of a victory garden intrigued us because we learned that this was actually a WWII concept. It appealed to our sense of being self-sufficient, though we will be far from it, and to our sense of being green. I don't think you can be more ecologically-friendly than to harvest vegetables right from your backyard!

A's Creative Writing Corner - A's selected writings can be found here. It's a celebration of words, ideas and imagination.

2008 is the year of the rat! In the beginning of December 2007, at Canton's First Monday Market, we got our sixth dog - Kona, another Great Pyrenees. Kona (named after the Hawaiian town of coffee fame) was 5 weeks old and 4.5 pounds. Less than two months later, Kona grew to 30 pounds! Kona likes to follow Koda, our one-year old Great Pyrenees, around to learn the ropes of surveying the property and looking for breaches of the property line. It is so cute to see both of them together playing and running in the field. It has been said that two Great Pyrenees can take down a bear! With the sightings of mountain lions in this area, we will feel more secure when our property is guarded by Koda and Kona.

Keith's sister, Kathy, and her family came to visit us for Thanksgiving 2007 and we had a good time spending a few precious days with Kathy, Ned and Kendra. We visited Southfork Ranch and Fossil Rim. Kathy loved the ostriches! :)

In August 2007 we vacationed on the Big Island of Hawaii and had a wonderful time. We stayed at the Hilton Waikoloa for the first part of our stay there, which was located on the Northwest part of the island. We then stayed South of Hilo near Kea'au on the Southeast side of the island. These are two very different regions - one desert-like with lava fields and the other tropical with waterfalls and lush green gardens. We swam in geothermally-heated pools playing tag with fish, snorkeled in tidal pools filled with fish and corals, went horseback riding on Parkers Ranch (the world's largest ranch), saw the sun set on the horizon and gazed at stars from the peak of Mauna Kea (at over 13,700 ft.), walked around the rim where violent volcanic eruptions occurred, and flew in a helicopter over the Pu'u O'o, the lava flow vent of the Kilauea Volcano (the lava currently is flowing inland rather than to sea). The threat of Hurricane Flossie, earthquakes, and tsunami didn't dampen and, luckily, affect our plans. God was watching over us! I think this was a perfect vacation and a great hurrah for the kids before school started.

Michael visited us from Michigan Lotus Beads^TMis Wei Wei's jewelry design business. Lotus Beads designs use natural stones with a wide range of colors and patterns (turquoise, jasper, tiger eye, garnet, amethyst, lemon and lime quartz, smoky quartz, rose quartz, rutilated quartz, citrine, carnelian, chrysoprase, aventurine, agate, amazonite, etc.), coral, and pearls in a creative way. I would be happy to arrange a trunk show for you and your friends if you are in the Dallas metroplex. Custom design is also available. You will be amazed at how many compliments you get for your new necklace. For information please contact Wei Wei at texas.pondside@verizon.net.

North Texas had a very wet Spring and Summer 2007. Everything is very green and lush, but all the bugs are also very happy, especially the mosquitoes and the chiggers. This year's total is well over 30 inches, which far exceeds the past two years' rainfall totals.

A has advanced to the state science fair with her project (2007)! Although she didn't place at the state science fair, we are still so proud of her! Her project was titled The Intelligence of Fish.

Spring 2007 is here! The bradford pears, redbuds and forsythias bloomed beautifully this year. Now the Texas mountain laurels, wisterias, grape hyacinths, and lady banksia roses are in full bloom. Everywhere you see is green, the shade of young leaves that is so soothing to the eye and peaceful to the heart. We planted even more trees - bur oaks, Chinese pistachios, shantung maples, live oaks, redbuds, and cedar elms. More bushes were also planted - sweet brooms, Chinese fringe flower, sweet olives, and knock out roses. Everything has come to life, and unfortunately that also means that weeds are also out in full force, so we are also busy plucking out weeds of all kinds.

A new addition to the family zoo! Koda is an adorable Great Pyrenees who joined our zoo in December 2006. We wanted a Great Pyrenees because this breed can stay with livestock and fend off predators. In July 2006 we lost our emu baby, Sapphire, and on January 29, 2007 we lost our rat terrier, Pepper, to what we think is a bobcat. We wanted a dog that would not harm our chickens and peacocks but would be able to keep predators at bay. In less than three months Koda doubled his weight and is now taller than Cookie, our standard poodle. We've read that the males of this breed may reach 120 lbs. Koda has a very deep bark that resonates and travels very far. Unfortunately, this breed is very verbal and Koda likes to bark at night. We are hoping that he becomes more discerning as to what he should bark at and what is just normal noises of the night. We are also learning to live with fur that is not on the body of the dog but is sticking to our clothes. One of Koda's hobbies is to pull up newly planted trees and shrubs. With the addition of Koda, all of our dogs now boast a French origin (Poodles and Great Pyrenees).

We visited Chicago in November 2006. A highlight was visiting the Natural History Museum and seeing Sue. We also ate at the same Chinese restaurant in Chinatown almost every night because we really liked the food. We also sampled the local favorite - Gino's deep dish pizza. Although short, we had a great time in Chicago.

Jack, a green winged macaw, joined our household when he was five-week old in July 2006. We named him after Jack Sparrow of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Here is his goofy picture when he was a baby. We hand fed Jack until November 2006. Jack loves getting scratches on his head and under his wings. He also likes to snuggle. Jack has a red head, red chest, red shoulders, a green band on the wings (blue on top and red on the underside of the wings) and turquoise blue back, darker blue wings and a tail that is blue and red. Jack loves almonds, eggs and rice. He likes to climb down from his stand to our lap to share our dinner, especially if dinner includes rice. If he is in a playful mood, he will roll over on his back and try to grab fingers that stray into the vicinity of his claws. Once a finger is grabbed, then it goes into his very sharply pointed beaks.

We spent the Fourth of July 2006 with Keith's family on Lake Douglas in Eastern Tennessee. It was great to see everyone in the Mantey family. We also had fun water skiing, tubing, white water rafting, horseback riding, shooting off a variety of firecrackers every night, and visiting the Forbidden Caverns. We also managed to squeeze in a visit to Arkansas' Crater of Diamonds State Park to try our luck at diamond mining and with Keith's Uncle Elmer in Memphis on the way.

Our peacocks Apollo and Zahara have been out of the cage and living in our garden, however, Zahara's attempt to lay and sit on her eggs has resulted in her death. She disappeared and never came back. We suspect a coyote or bobcat may have killed her. The peacocks have become less timid and would get very close to us in search of tasty morsels. Every morning they peered into our windows to see when Keith will come out to give them handfuls of treats. They are curious birds and they like to inspect everything closely. They roost on the shade structure over the patio that Keith built, but occasionally they will fly up on the roof and take a stroll inspecting our rooftop. Little Baby Zathura is doing well and now full grown. We now also have a pair of white peacocks, Atlas and Zuri. In late 2006 we also added two young peahens to our flock, Zaza and Zara. Zaza is an Indian Blue peahen and Zara is a white peahen.

Wei Wei got the crazy idea that emus would be great additions to the menagerie. Keith was the Head Egg Turner and after 50 days Sapphire was hatched. Sapphire was adorable and fun to watch. He had a crazy running posture that looked like he left his head behind trailing at the end of a long neck. He loved being hosed down with the water hose. Sapphire was born March 2006. We had to leave him at home with the other animals for Keith's family reunion. Sapphire was attacked by what we think is a bobcat and he was killed (we have spotted the bobcat since we came home and we resolved to trap and relocate the bobcat). We were all devastated and saddened by Sapphire's death. We have become so accustomed to hearing his emu baby peeps....

Patio for the side yard The major construction in the yard has been completed - wrought iron fencing with stone columns, flagstone walkways around the koi pond, two patios and two arbors. The fence and the gates are beautiful and really enhance the beauty and integrity of our property. Everything turned out beautifully and really added architectural structures and shade to the yard. The new mail box that Keith designed and built is functional, sturdy and beautiful. Our old mailbox was wiped out by a truck that ran into it and flipped over as a result (the driver passed out).

We are thankful to Christ our Lord for our family, our good health, and God's many blessings on us. We are grateful for our new house that will enable us to create our little garden of Eden and give us more room to stretch.

God Bless America

Visitors since July 1998

Email us at texas.pondside@verizon.net