I pity the fool who tries to bite me!

I know everyone was worried about me but I am doing great considering what happened to the snake! My face is still a little swollen but nothing compared to what it was. I am home now and set up camp in mom and dad's room for a couple days. I have to stay out of the heat and keep my puncture wounds clean clean clean and Drake is an emotional wreck knowing I am in the house and he is outside all my his lonesome and having to fend off more snakes by himself without me! So mom and dad had to take him to the barn because he kept howling and whining and carrying on like a little baby! We all remember what a sexy beast I used to be, so hopefully one day soon I will return to my handsome old self!

Gotta go, not feeling so hot and I need to get all the rest I can!!! Mom and dad's bathroom floor sure does feel good! The cold floors sure do make my face feel good!

Love, Duke

When it rains it pours....ALOT!

What a week! Last Sunday was a great day! Cody finally took a few hours during the day to do whatever, and we ended up taking the 4-wheelers out on the ranch to do a little exploring. Louis went with us and we all had a great time. We ended up finding a way down to Patsy's Island! It only took us 4 months, but we finally found a way! For those of you who don't know was PI is, it's a place where indians used to live and they have found all kinds of artifacts and stuff down there. The only thing I found online about it is here http://www.ocgi.okstate.edu/shpo/shpopic.asp?id=04001335#ship
This place is actually on our land! Kind of cool! Well as soon as we got there after the 3 hour 4-wheeler ride in 102 degree weather, I was feeling not so good, I broke out in a cold sweat and wanted to just pass out right there! I said bury me with the indians please!

We did make it home in one piece. I took an extra cold bath, a 3 hour nap and I was good to go! Fed the deer, wiped the deer (pic below)hung with Cody, watched some TV, got a foot rub, went to sleep!

When we woke up Monday morning I was sicker than a dog! I hate doctors and hate being sick and put stuff likethat off, so I waited till Wednesday, when I couldn't even lift my head off the pillow to go to the doctor. Sweet Cody took a few hours out of his day to carry my but to see the Doc. I had strep-throat and it was not fun. Mom had planned to come stay with us on Wednesday anyways and she could have not picked a better day! By the time she got here I was running almost 102 fever and could not move a muscle. Dinner came and I got out of bed like I was gonna go cook, ha! Well after mom gave me a yelling and Cody gave me a yelling I mustered my way back to bed! Mom was a lot of help! She went to the grocery store, made dinner(homemade chicken noodle soup YUM), cleaned up the kitchen after Cody cooked for himself Monday and Tuesday :) and drove 20 minutes to town one day to get me a heatin pad because I was cramping so bad, and boy was that heatin pad worth every 40 miles of that trip! She did all the laundry and brought me I don't know how many 7 ups! Thanks MOM! I finally let someone take over and it felt great!

Mom also got a taste of Cody's little girl obsesive compulsive disorder! As in she is OC about Cody! She can't get to him fast enough when he gets home! I got a good pic of her trying to jump over the barrier to get to him! She is just glaring at me saying " U better step away from my daddy before I get u woman!"

And mom got to help bottle feed little girl! I think mom wanted to take her home. Mom had a hard time letting little girl get up on her own and walk. She wanted to pick her up and carry her to her spot, pick her up to eat and smooch smooch smooch! haha I was like mom "Let her do it, your spoiling her!" She's still not 100% up to par with her energy level and strength but she is getting their and she definitely had a lot more TLC this week with mom!

Then to top it off my poor baby Duke! We went to visit him today and O MY, his face is so big! I forgot to take my camera to take a picture and by the time we got to him he was so excited to see us that we didn't stay long because I didn't want him to pull out his IV. I talked to Christi today and was trying to explain his face. Remember Spud Mackenzie?? he was a bull terrier, google this and this was the shape of Dukes face but blown up about 7 X's as big, MY POOR BABY! He is not getting any better but not getting any worse so the doctors are keeping him again tonight. They are just pumping him full of fluids. I guess they are afraid to take him off the IV because he might swell up more and if he does it will go to his neck and that could cut off his air supply, MY POOR BABY!!!

And today......I think I finally feel normal!

Karen

DUKE VS RATTLESNAKE

News from Oklahoma!!!

This morning about 5:30am I feel Karen get out of bed and I here her open our window and yell at the dogs because they were barking non stop for an hour!! She shut the window and went into the bathroom and the dogs started to bark again, they were going crazy. So I get out of bed and go outside to yell at them, but when I get to the gate of their pen I can hear the rattler rattling away.
So I opened the gate and yelled at the dogs to come out and of course Drake is in high gear to exit and Duke starts toward the gate. But instead of coming on out, Duke decides to turn around and get one more bark in at the snake except this time he got a little to close and I see the snake strike at him. I see Duke jump back and run out the gate, but I did not hear a whimper from him so I thought the snake missed. After the dogs are out of the pen I grab the shovel and proceed to hack away at the 4 foot rattler.

After the snake is dead, I realize Duke has two fang marks right above his nose and it is already starting to swell. At 5:45am I call the Vet to see if I can go ahead and bring him and he said he would meet me up there. So our Big Blob of Love Duke is at the Vet getting Meds to help push the venom out of his system. I just called the Vet and he said that his face is about twice as big as it was this morning, which by the time I got him to the Vet it was pretty big, but that he is hanging in there and hopefully he will make it. Anyways, that was how our day started here in Oklahoma and I just thought everyone might like to hear.

Cody

Happy Father's Day!

Two wonderful father's!

To Daddy,
Hope you have the best day ever! Sorry we can't be there with you to make it better, but we love you and miss you so much! I'm really glad we have gotten closer over the last few years and hope every year we will continue to grow closer. Sometimes I wish we could get the lost years back but if I had them maybe I wouldn't appreciate you as much as I do now. God definitely had a plan for us, and it has worked out well! Love you and you mean the world to me!
Love, Karen


Rick,
Happy Fathers Day!!! I hope that you have a great and relaxing day. Thank you so much for all you have done for us. Sorry we couldn't be there today with you, but I will be thinking about you. You are a great father-in-law and I love you.
Cody

Dad,

Happy Fathers Day!!! Sorry we couldn't be there today but I will be thinking about you. I miss you and thank you for being such a great dad. Thank you for everything you have taught me and for being such a great example for me. You mean so much to me and I love you. Have a great day and see ya soon.

Love ya,

Cody

To Jed,

You little rascal! I went to bed thinking last night about Father's Day so you and Daddy were the last one's on my mind and I dreamed all night that you were tickling me and poking me.. I didn't sleep much, but that is ok because your a GREAT father-in-law! Thanks for raising two awsome boys' and setting a good example of what a father should be! I am lucky to have Cody as my husband and whoever Josh ends up with will be just as lucky as me! Sorry we couldn't be there today with you, but we sure do miss you! Hope you have a great day too and see ya'll soon!

Love, Karen

We wish everyone else in the fam a GREAT Father's Day too!

Daddo for helping raise one large, wonderful, happy family and setting a good example for us all to cherish our own family!

Andy for raising five wonderful, hyper, beautiful, crazy, loving girls. You are doing so good and everyone is so proud of you! Cody and I think the world of you and we are always rooting for you!

Randy for raising a wonderful family and showing people how much you love the Lord and inspiring people to do the same!

Kevin for raising 2 of the sweetest kids and for always coming up with the funniest, craziest phrases to get your point accross!

Mark for raising 2 of the cutest boy's (maybe a third..ha) and living your life in a way that makes people look up to you!

Uncle Ronnie for the help with cows, hay, etc. and for setting such a good example on how to live for the Lord. Also for always cracking yourself up and making others laugh just as hard!

Rusty for being a wonderful step-father to Blake!

Hope everyone had a Great Day!

Love,

Cody & Karen

O' Grass where art thou?

I knew when I married Cody that we would one day live on a huge ranch (in the middle of nowhere) with deer, exotics, buffalo, red deer, elk etc. There might be other people on the ranch, might not. Town would be an hour drive maybe 2! Well three years later......Bam! Here we are! I also knew that living on a ranch and taking care of the place, there was probably going to be a house provided on the land. I also knew that this house wouldn't be much, probably be 100 years old, or be just a run down shack. So I prepaired myself for the worst and made myself ok with the fact that I might not have a house that I could call my own for awhile. I wouldn't be able to pick the plan, color, layout, NADA, but I was ok with that because we would be happy together and my husband would be doing what he dreamed he would be doing!

When we first came to the place and interviewed and got the job we were told our new house would be a 'double wide'. These 2 words aren't the greatest 2 words to hear, but hey it was shelter! When we finally got to see the 'double wide' I was in awe. My double wide kicks your double wides blankety blankety blank! It is the coolest thing ever! Although it is way to big for just me and Cody, it will be just right in a few year ;) After getting over the initial shock of actually living in a descent house that has been provided for us, I thought, "if your gonna spend this much money on a double wide, why not build a normal size house that will not blow away in tornado alley." We have 4 bedrooms a huge closet and the biggest tub a girl could ask for, 3500 sq ft of pure home!

The only negative about this place.......the yard. There is no grass at ALL! The people who lived here before us would park their cars in the front yard.....so.....bye bye grass! We have grass on the side and the back of the house, but the front, nada. Well this gives me a project for the summer. We currently don't own a tiller and I am not gonna spend money on a tiller. Since this is western Oklahoma, it is soooo very dry out here and the ground is either sandy or red clay. Well our yard is red clay and hard to dig. Cody brought over a disc one day to try and loosen it up a bit, and it didn't work at all. So I soaked the yard, and started digging with a shovel! I dug and dug until my arm fell off, planted some bermuda and kept it soaking wet for 6 days and........

It is starting to grow....Woo-hoo! Well the sad part is I only did the right side of our yard and now I am dreading the left side. I started this morning digging again with a shovel, but I pulled something in my left arm and it still hurts, so I gave up for today! :)

Also, the breeder Doe are getting used to us. Cody walks their pens at least 4 times a day making sure the babies are thriving and I go with him at least 1 out of the 4. Some come up to us and lick our hands and some just love to get a good head scratchin! You can tell which one's have been bottle fed and which one's haven't....of course this one has been bottle fed! :)

So the next time someone comes and visits us.....we might have a pretty yard!

Love, Karen

Our Oklahoma Family

We are bottle feeding three fawns in our house. I never would have thought that I would ever have a pet in my house, much less a deer! But they are so adorable and you can't help but fall in love with them. One thinks Cody is her momma, one thinks I am her momma and one thought Hannah was her momma, but since Hannah had to go back to Texas, I have adopted her!

Mom and Kim: You know you have 2 granddogs, but meet your granddeer! :)

This one is Hannah's (which I have now adopted). This is the one we call 'little girl' because she was premature at birth and weighed no more than 2 pounds. She is our miracle fawn. There is usually no chance for a fawn to survive if it is less than 5 pounds. She had a twin that was stillborn but this little girl came out kicking! Cody brought her to the house, asked us to try to get it to suck, hung his head low, knew there was no hope and left. I am usually optimistic more than the other, but I also don't live in a dream world and always prepaired for the worst. I made a bottle, loved on that little girl for 30 minutes with extra TLC and she started sucking down her first feeding! I had to hold her head up for her but she sucked! Even though I got her to suck, it still didn't look good. Everytime I got up to do something little girl would get up and try to follow, but her legs just wouldn't let her. So finally I layed in the floor with her for about 20 minutes and she just cuddled me up ( it might have been the other way around :). I had stuff I needed to do so I picked her up and took her to Hannah (she was sitting on the bed reading a magazine in her oversize comfy robe) and I knew little girl would be warm with Hannah. Hannah loved on little girl for awhile, while I did some chores. I told Hannah later on that I won't be able to take it when she dies. Hannah looked at me and said, "I made it and she will make it too." I think Hannah helped little girl get stronger while she was here!

This is little girl the second day we had her, she was able to lift her head on her own!

This is the second girl we started bottle feeding, we call her 'big girl' because she is the oldest and the biggest. She is so pretty and she has long eyelashes and all prim and proper acting! She was shy the first couple of days, but after that she would run around the house and play with 'Cody's girl'. We moved big girl outside on Monday. She was getting so big, she was jumping over the gate we had set up for her. At night we keep them in the wash room and put up a pretty tall barrier. She would jump over that thing and run straight for my side of the bed and just lay there. She would lay there all day if we didn't make her get up! She is doing good outside but I think she misses her girls!

This is the first one we started bottle feeding and we call her 'Cody's girl' because she is a total snob to everyone but Cody! She is 1 of triplets. 2 Boys and 1 girl. The plan was to bottle feed any fawn who was a triplet or just to weak to nurse. She was the biggest of the 3 and the healthiest but your not suppose to bottle feed buck fawns so we had to take her. The littlest one didn't make it so we were gonna leave the other 2 with the momma, but the momma was paying more attention to the girl, and the boy wasn't doing as good as we hoped. So we took her and her other brother is doing great!

She also thinks Cody is her momma, she follows him around the house everywhere and when he leaves she either finds a dark corner and pouts or cry and run around the house looking for him. Sometimes when she looks sooo sad that its hard to look at her, I will call Cody and put him on speaker phone and she perks up and starts prancing and kicking and bucking! It is so cute!

Since we are bottle feeding them they need 4 weeks of clean, sanatized living environment but most people do 6. Since they are in our house, I say we stick to the 4. The good thing about fawns are they only go to the bathroom when their moms make them ( only for the first month) So they only go when we make them, it's kind of gross so I will let this subject slide! :) Well the 4 weeks are almost up and Cody's girl is getting good at going to the potty all by herself! Not good in a house!

Glad ya'll got to meet our Oklahoma Fam!

Here is a pic of Cody's porkypine!

This little sucker hurrrrts! I wanted to touch it just to see how sharp their stingers are and I barely touched it and it hurt! Cody was wearing gloves and he had to pull the stingers out of the gloves! :)

Love, Karen

Ranch Life

Hey Everyone, just wanted to give an update from Oklahoma. Hoping everyone is well and we miss you all. Well, never thought I would have deer in my House but right now I am bottle feeding 3 baby deer and they have taken up residence in our washroom. They are pretty cool and I have one that will follow me around when I call to it, just call me the deer whisperer. We have a total of 28 baby deer on the ground and they all seem to be doing well. Also, I killed my first porkypine the other night, pretty mean looking dude. Oh yea, we also have a wild bull, we don't get along. We roped him the other day and had him tied to the bumper of the truck, he wasn't a happy camper and he tried to kill me, lucky for me the rope caught him while in his charge toward me and he did a back flip. (Funny, but he was inches from me before the rope got tight) Anyways, to all back home, keep everything at PLM Ranch up and going and DON'T SELL MY HEIFERS. One more thing, tell my little buddies Jackson, Eli, Sadie, and Joe I said hello.

Peace, Love, & Chicken Grease,
Cody

Sweet Home Oklahoma

Hello to all!

We decided to start a blog about our life here in Oklahoma. That way our family can keep up with our daily or weekly adventures and always know what we are up too at any given time.

I am sure our blog will not be as popular as our girl Angie's blog, but hey, this will just have to do! :)

I will probably not proofread my blog 20 times before I post (like Christen :), I am so done with college and grades! We hope ya'll enjoy though!

Love, Karen