Friends of Pecos

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

MEET KAY AND JIM'S NEW LEETLE PEEG!




Her name is NADINE POZOLE.
pozole is a mexican soup made with pork.
she squeals very loud.

yesterday's radio hotline:
for sale:
antique, adult 3 wheeled bicycle $150.....i want that and today it's reduced to $100.
i'll give them$10.

guess i'll go watch my fingernails grow.

love, mary

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

STUPID, BORING NEWS.



RADIO HOTLINE.
Wanted:
derrick hand job....excuse me but could sound kinda kinky.
someone to shoe a horse.
For Sale:
a large bag of yarn.

There are dozens of people selling dogs and puppies of all kinds...there must be some puppy mill kind of set ups out here...that makes me puke.
Kittens, kittens, pecos has kittens.

Rodeo tickets are on sale.
i'm torn between buying good bleacher seats now ($11.) or waiting 2 weeks to see if there are any box seats available ($12.)
patty and toby will be here and c.j. and kevin and alex higgins and maybe a pal of alex's.
i invited bruce from san antonio but havn't heard from him.
maybe jamey.

i'm totally bored even though i've been painting a flowerpot for peggy at needleworks.
gene went back to work today after taking off all last week to take care of me.
i don't even want to talk about it and besides you all already know about it.
------------------------------------------------
i tore some ligaments in my right knee on the 18th on the way to NYC on the airplane.
vacation ruined.
left friday and returned to austin sat. night.
spent the night at kay and jim's and gene came and got me and we drove home sun.
been to see my family doctor twice.
have an appt. on june 4th in odessa with an orthopedic doctor.
i need an MRI.
the knee has improved some in the last 10 days.
got crutches.
got a wheelchair.
can't drive.
can't work.

gene planted my gourd and sunflower plants in the ground a few days ago.
he told bennie and willie not to pee on 'em but they probably didn't listen....the cats certainly didn't.
he's been watering plants and dusting and vacuuming and learning what i do when he's at work.
i HATE it.

got a short message from jamey.
she says china is good and it's like being in an indiana jones movie.
she's working hard and is so tired...she couldn't tell more.
she's at the silk international hotel in dunhuang.

we got a tenth of an inch of rain yesterday.
evidently the rest of texas is floating away.
you know when noah was on his arc? and it rained for 40 days and 40 nights?
pecos got 2 inches then.
and we had 4 inches a few weeks ago...but it dissapated before it reached the ground.
jeez...i'm a dork.
i'll go now.

wheeling away from the computer in my wheelchair....(actually it's on loan form kay's mama.)

Thursday, May 17, 2007

WE'RE OFF THE CAPTAIN SHOUTED...

as he waved his wooden leg!!

I'm done packing for New York....will leave the house tomorrow at 8 a.m.for my 10:30 a.m. flight.
Flight home lands at 8 p.m. Tuesday evening.

It's cold here....or at least I'm chilly.
70's during the day...and 50's at night.
usually it's way over 100 degrees by now...
yeah right, that's what we were told LAST year.
And we got another 2 tenths of rain yesterday...."We never get rain like this."....well, that is also what they said last year.
We are thankful.

Write me...or call.

Love, Mary

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

A PECOS CITY HISTORY LESSON.

1940-'41 city directory: (it was the 1st one published.)
Population- 4,855
Average rainfall- 15"...but one time it didn't rain for 18 months.
Elevation 2580...now I've seen it listed as 2100-something...is the town sinking?
"the weather is seldom extreme"....YEAH RIGHT!
under "guns and ammunition"-- Jack's Liquor and Sporting Goods. (great combo don't you think?)
under "potato chip factories"-- Mrs. Jesse McKee Potato Chip Factory, 705 S. Alamo.

Pecos had schools for: whites, negroes and mexicans.

Slogan: The Gateway To The Scenic Southwest.

One of T.B. Pruett's daughters owned a children's store called the Chic Shop.
Another daughter was an avon lady.
T.B.'s P.O. Box was #146

In 1941 T.B. Pruett Jr. was living in our house with his wife Bessie Mae. He was a telephone operator...she was a school teacher. T.B. senior died in 1931 and his wife in 1939.

Ivy Weatherby was married to William Courtney who owned the Courtney Hotel (where the museum is now...also known as the Orient Hotel). He is listed as a rancher also. They lived at the hotel.
Later she owned the hotel and bought our house in the 1950's....and was again and forever known as Mrs. Weatherby as she was BEFORE...wonder what happened? Sounds like goo' gossip to me.
I almost never see Mr. Courtney mentioned anywhere and do not know what happened to him.

OTHER ODDS-n-ENDS:
Bonnie and Clyde were at the 1932 Pecos Rodeo. They have proof in that they cashed some checks here. It is believed that they were on their way to Carlsbad to see family and also were checking out west texas escape routes.

I have found documentation that T.B. Pruett Sr. was here as early as March 31, 1892....he bought a post office money order.

In 1912 the city speed limit was 8 mph and cars had to yield to horse drawn vehicles. But only 2 years later the speed limit was raised to 12 mph.

On March 8, 1885 9 people were charged with card playing...and 4 with "gun totin'"...all charges were later dropped.

From Sept. 1915 to Feb. 1916:
An animal bounty count:
141 wildcats (reward was $1.)
2,041 coyotes (reward was $2.)
11,079 jack rabbits (reward was 5 cents)
That means somebody had to dispose of the 26,522 ears that were turned in as proof....gross!

Aside from all this above info...I'm amazed at how popular the card game BRIDGE was and is and forever shall be around here.

Daily Thought:
This town isn't a very, pretty, fun or interesting place to live...so I live in it's history.
I guess it's not THAT bad....
My boss Peggy says that the absolute WORST places to live out here is Van Horn and Presidio...she says they are "the jumping off places".
Here's a funny one form a book called "30 years west of the pecos."....
"He told the people in Monahans he had rather be in jail in Pecos than the Mayor of Monahans."

RADIO HOTLINE:
For Sale: Cement elephant fountain $250.
3 wheel bicycle $35.

That's all.
I'm tired.
Thanks for reading.
Love, mary

Sunday, May 13, 2007

357 DAYS AND COUNTING.




Well, we've made it here a year.

I worked the county elections yesterday for 13 hrs. at the civic center.
Then found out i worked the WRONG place.
I was sposed to be at the community center doing the city elections.
Boy, do i feel dumb!
I'll never live this one down.

Whaaaaa...I fell down...walking the dogs...on a broken sidewalk.
THIS IS NOT MY ASS IN THE PICTURE!!!
It's the inside of my knee.

Gene has found black widow spiders on the front porch and under the carport...he didn't wanna kill them cos they looked cool...whatever gene. I insisted he kill them.

Today he's working on finishing up the computer room floor and I painted porch trim.
UPDATE: it's now 6p.m. and the floor is totally finished! He worked very hard on it and I think it looks quite goo' for a 1st timer.

I've never picked up goats before.
There was a little petting zoo set up in the parking lot of the civic center where i was working yesterday.
In the morning 3 of the little goats got out and no one was around...i got 2 of them and put them back over the fence...the other one just hung around.
This zoo had: 2 camels, a huge tortoise, 1 zebra, 3 or 4 wallabys, an emu, 2 pot belleid pigs, a dozen goats, 1 llama etc.

I'll be having my mother's day next weekend in new york.
I leave friday and return the following tuesday.

RADIO HOTLINE:
3 pigs ready to butcher...ew.
2 swinging hammocks...as opposed to non-swinging ones.

love, mary

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

A NEW GLASS ART PIECE.




O.K...so i'm an idiot and don't care because the picture of my glass is sideways....cock your head real hard to the left. It's pretty large and i'm pretty proud. It was a great feeling to twist up some wire/glass again. Now i need to make a trip back to austin for more glass.

The other picture is of a wardrobe screen that i bought at an antique store in Ft. Davis last fall...it had no fabric in it and i FINALLY got it fixed up. The petticoat i took out of the dumpster at work the other day...yes, i dumpster dive now...NOT! I have no idea what made me look in there as i tossed the store trash. It looked like the leavings of a garage sale.

we got an inch of rain yesterday and four tenths today. yesterday there was lots of wind and lightening....any moisture is most welcome.

I fell down while walking the dogs this morning and am pretty sore...whatta dumb ass.

More later about the million and one wrangler shirts we are embroidering at work for rodeo...i'm scared. NOW we'll see just what that mary poole is made of!!!

I just love my neighbors Bill and Sib Higginbottham. I love the way she talks:
"Oh, that just worrried the hound out of me."
"Well, I tell you...that really upset my apple cart."

love, mary

Sunday, May 6, 2007

WEEKEND WORK...






Look at my pretty farm fresh eggs.
They are from chickens at Monahans.
$3. for 18 eggs.

See our new picture window.
We decided not to put the burglar bar back up...but will be putting the screen back.
In fact the other pictures are to show that we removed 5 other burglar bars from the front windows.
If you click on these photos and view them in a large format...you'll see that dirt is helping to hold the house together...haha.
The front door windows look pretty cool naked.
Also note that we got rid of our dog/baby gate to keep the dogs on the front porch and we recycled one of the burglar bars as the new gate...goo' idea! Looks much better!
We've lived all our lives in houses without burglar bars so why sand, prime and paint 'em...too much work.
Note the blue paint tape on the big window...we are sanding and painting the trim.
The Weatherby/Pruett house needs lots of TLC.
Mostly I sit around (eating bon-bons) and watch Gene work hard: tree trimming, flooring etc....stuff I can't do.
But I dust and vacuum alot and will help painting the window trim.
My job will be to wash 20 years or more of dirt off the front windows.

I did it!
Just HAD to turn on the A/C the last few afternoons.

The newspaper was advertising for melon pickers for $8.66 an hour.
That must be back breaking work.
The melons aren't ready yet and I'm wondering how good the crop will be considering we had that late freeze over Easter weekend.

Gene seemed to have actually enjoyed his TYC conference in Kerville this past week.
He was pissed he didn't win a door prize.
He said the gift bags we made were a hit.

This year may be the last Golden Girls competition....after 50-something years or more.
Only 5 girls signed up and 2 have dropped out...that's pretty sorry.
I hear that it used to be very much THE thing to do and that the girls were debutante type young ladies.
Now, the town has to beg girls to enter and they are rather...ahem...."yo-yo-in-your-face" not so quality types.
The little miss cantaloupe competition is still going strong.
We have 18 nominees this year and sometimes there are 25 or more.

RADIO HOTLINE:
For Sale:
maroon couch- $10. (gee, there's some quality for ya.)
1959 ford pick up truck w/ camper shell- $1,000.

That's all the news, bloggers.

Love, mary

Thursday, May 3, 2007

"SWEN"...er.....NEWS.


Got the window fixed yesterday. They did a great job...it's in there tight and the glass is thicker than before and the guys were very nice and professional. They even asked for my vacuum cleaner to clean up their mess and polished the glass up real pretty. Glad our insurance paid 100% of it since the bill was $565.32
I think we'll not put the burglar bar back up...in fact I think I'd like to take them all down....they're getting rusty and ugly. We've never had them at any of our other houses and it was o.k.
What do you think?

Gene got up at 5 a.m. yesterday and took off for his TYC workshop in Kerrville. We put together 5 gift bags for door prizes. They each had: an old polished up horsehoe, tiny bag of cantaloupe flavored jelly bellies, a 2007 Pecos Rodeo sticker, Pecos Museum sticker, Pecos Museum postcard, museum sheriff badge, Pecos magnet shaped like a mug of beer.... etc. Wish we could have afforded some Balmorrhea Laird's beef jerky.

Gene had another war with the mesquite trees and lost again. His forearms were all scratched and bloody....(he wears gloves at least.) The trees are all trimmed up nice.
He put another dose of "weed and feed" on our backyard...we are slowly but surely getting grass.
I try to dig a bag of weeds everyday...it's a never ending battle.

I am getting good at dodging big tumbleweeds while driving.

We got half an inch of rain on Sunday and a quarter inch yesterday morning.
But GEE WHIZ, little did I know that Odessa was getting pounded yesterday morning....they had 3" and lots of big hail.
I went to Midland yesterday afternoon to an estate sale and the Midland/Odessa area had water over the access road along IH 20 in at least a dozen places...a few of them were closed.
It was sunny when I went and then on the way home where it's real open and flat I could see HUGE, scary storms to the north and south....seems Pecos was between these big storms in the morning and evening.

I had never been to Midland...pop. 100,328....as opposed to Odessa pop. 96,600.
Midland is an hour and 15 min. drive from here.
It's about 15 miles from Odessa...thus the midlnad-odessa refernce all the time. (kinda like dallas-ft. worth.)
Neither are anything to write home about.
Odessa is growing like CRAZY and there's a big housing shortage.

Speaking of weather:
May 22nd is the 20th anniversary of the Saragosa tornado. My boss Peggy lives there and was home during the storm....her husband was in the barn. They couldn't live in their house for a whole year. This was a multiple vortex tornado that killed 30 of the 183 residents that live there....with 121 injured. Alot of them were children who were killed or trapped by collapsed walls at a school gathering.
85% of the town was wiped out.

Folks talk about the weather all the time out here.
Here's one of the reasons why:
FARMING!
They had devastating drought last year.
This year the Easter weekend freeze damaged 75% of this year's grape crop. (there's a big winery about 60 miles to the south near ft. stockton.)
The freeze also ruined alot of pecan, peach watermelon, cantaloupe and pumpkins.
In Pecos county due to 2 days of below freezing weather agricultural losses totaled 13 million dollars!

Folks talk about people dying alot here.
Here's one of the reasons why:
The children and of the area pioneers who settled this land are passing away every day.
So, folks remember those times and realize the history and stories are slipping away.
And people here are VERY attached to their history and land.

RADIO HOTLINE:
For Sale:
bales of wheat-$6.
38 joints of tubing.
To Give Away:
easter chicken, pot bellied pig, rabbit.

A pair of finches have been building a nest in the awning over the front door of the shop where I work.
On Tuesday the male flew into the store (we keep the door open on nice days)...and hopped around the display window. I pursuaded him it'd be in his best interest to fly back outside.

That's all.

Love, Mary