Easter Memories

Easter is next weekend! Late this year..not in March, but in April.  One of my favorite childhood memories of Easter was wearing the beautiful dressy- dresses made especially for me and my sister, Sue, by our wonderful mother, Marie Ellison Head, an excellent seamstress.  Mama made most of our clothes until about junior high, when we decided we wanted clothes "bought off the rack" as our friends had. They were not nearly as good as what Mama made, with all her love for us put into them. Another fond memory was making our own Easter eggs.  After growing up, I realized the importance of the ritual of making  Easter eggs was not the eggs themselves, but making them together, as a family. It was real fun to first boil the egg, then color it with a crayon, making all those different decorations on it, then dipping it in the colorful Paas dyes, to produce an "original' design that no one else had, so when it was "found", you knew it was the one you made. Mama would collect all the Easter eggs we had first hidden, then found in our Easter egg hunt, and make Deviled Eggs, a real treat, for the next few days.  No candy eggs for us! Beside, Mama would not have let us eat all that sugar.  The things we did as kids were simpler than today and were usually done in a family setting. I like to think that is one of the reasons we turned out to be such great folks...we had wonderful guidance.

Spring Has Sprung

Spring is here! Finally! Hope we get rain and the drought does not continue..we have had some rain, but still need more on a regular basis. The burn ban for McLennan county was lifted not long ago. I have a lot of stuff to burn down at the barn....old wood and paper feed sacks..a lot of feed sacks! Everything is green from the recent rains....just hope it stays that way. The warmer temperatures are very nice. It is good not to have to run the air conditioner day and night, just yet.  Jayla, my 4-year-old beautiful black mare, got in the wire and cut her hind leg in the hock pretty badly a few weeks ago. All you can do is give antibiotics to combat infection, wash the wound as often as possible with a water hose, apply a topical antibiotic, and hope for the best.  It is looking pretty good..still has a way to go to be well.  It will leave a scar, but I can live with that.  The good news is that she will not be crippled from it. She is in the front trap by herself, eating all that green grass that is coming up. Wow, the world looks so much brighter when it is Spring. My stallion, Mighty, is looking at his mares in a different way, as love is in the air! Hopefully, there will be two foals this year. Not sure if the old 26-year-old mare, named Jet for her sire, Jet's Payday, is in foal or not. Hope so, as she has been the money mare all thru the years, producing the barrel horse prospects that bring the most money due to her bloodlines. I have been so busy ...and just not felt like writing  much lately. I was ill a lot in the winter months..I catch everything the kids at school get! I plan to write soon about my paternal grandmother, Sally Lee Allen Head, and her life in the '40's and '50's, before the time of TV,  computers, and modern technology.