The plot thickens

So.  As I sat in my office pondering what "three new rules" might mean and why we had not heard anything about them as stakeholders, there was a tap on my door.

It was my friend the surveyor.

"Mrs. Horton, I just wanted to make sure you understood the implications of what I told you."

I assured the surveyor I did.  We said our goodbyes, and I called Carol Smith, head of the Private Providers Association of Texas and asked her if she'd received any communications on this matter from DADs.  She had not.  We both started looking through our emails.

We didn't find anything so Carol said she would make some calls and get back to me.

We had success.  The proposed rules could have been drafted specifically to target Down Home Ranch.  They specified that individuals intellectual disabilities (IDs) who had HCS funding could not 1) live next door to another person with IDs; 2)  could not live next door to staff who provided them with care or educational and other services; 3) must live in what was considered a "typical" community.

That pretty much left us out of the running.  We'd built the Ranch to be a real community in and of itself, though certainly not one that excluded or shut out in any way the world at large. We constructed our Village to echo the old-time neighborhoods of years gone by, with staff, families, Ranchers, ourselves, and other intrepid souls who shared our vision.  If something went amiss, our Ranchers would have easy access to many people who knew them very well, and more important--cared about their welfare deeply.

And that's pretty much how things worked out.  The distinctions between us Typical People (TPs) (aka "individuals without intellectual disabilities") and our Ranchers have blurred over time.  Naomi loves to kill dangerous snakes, Tom and his guys love to play sports in the street in front of their house, Andrew likes to garden, Valerie likes to sit on the porch and watch the world pass by, I like to mosey around with my dog Jenny, and Michael and Brian like to drive down to the pecan bottoms and look for wild pigs and hootie owls.

The Three Rules were formulated to prevent people from winding up in highly regulated environments such as the state institutions that horrified the nation a generation before--places where the residents were inmates and their personhood obliterated, where they wore uniforms with numbers instead of their names and lived in dorms with no personal space.

Down Home Ranch is nothing like that and never was.

We decided to have a meeting with our parents to address this issue, that threatened to cut their family members off from having HCS funding if they stayed at the Ranch.  The parents were outraged.  Their kids had begged to live here.  They were happy and well cared for, and had lives in which they enjoyed an abundance of choices. 

The parents began to call their state representatives to ask for help.  They signed up to testify at some of the few remaining stakeholder meetings.  They were eloquent and sensible.  Pressure on DADS began to mount.

The Rules came about because advocacy organizations and the educational establishment had pushed their agendas long and hard.  In the minds of many in these organizations every soul with Down syndrome, or autism, or whatever else qualifies as a disability can only be happy living alone in an urban setting, whizzing about town on public transportation, and livin' the vida loca.

Hey, I knew that guy!  But he was the only one I have met to date.  And while I don't doubt others exist, the fact is we're talking about a huge range of functioning among people with IDs, not to mention a huge range of interests, tastes, and preferences.

What about those who want to live in a neighborhood, with easy access to friends and colleagues?  Who love working with animals and plants?  Who might want to join a monastery of monks or nuns?

Not a typical neighborhood, says DADS.  What about the King Ranch and the other iconic Texas ranches?  Our pattern of life is pretty much just like theirs.  What about farmers and farm life?

What about personal choice.  Really?

All to no avail.  We faced losing funding for half our residents.  They would have to leave the place they themselves had chosen.

Then came a phone call.  From the Commissioner of DADS. She asked that we meet the next day with her counsel, and with ours.

Next day, we took our seats in the large conference room of the DADS building.  We were three, plus the Commissioner and about a dozen others.  Proceedings were polite, if guarded, and the end result was the offer of 20 ICF beds and the suspension of HCS services at Down Home Ranch.

We asked for, and received, the unprecedented concession that if and when our residents currently holding HCS left the Ranch, their HCS would be immediately reinstated upon their departure.  We accepted the deal, conflicted and grateful at the same time.

We felt even more conflicted when our attorney murmured darkly, "ICF.  I don't think you guys can manage ICF.  It's the same as opening a nursing home."

But we knew we would, and eventually we did.  Thanks to DADS' action we were able to expand our residential program quickly, and our families had the assurance that their family member would be well cared-for without sending Mom and Dad into penury.  It was a huge concession from the state, and through it we learned that the heartless bureaucracy had a heart after all.

In fact, down the line we were granted four more beds for our ICF program to enable us to restructure into an economically more feasible configuration.

So....what's the problem?

The economic bust of recent years has forced governments large and small to look at new ways of doing things.  When the money spigot was flowing unimpeded, it was easy to envision rich models like HCS and ICF.   Ironically, for all its heralded benefits, HCS was designed from the outset to be at least 20% less expensive per client than ICF, yet with a wider range of choices.  (Residency on a ranch, alas, not among them.)

The number of people in these programs nationwide is only a fraction of the number awaiting services of any kind, and people with intellectual disabilities are aging at the same rate as he rest of us.  Huge numbers of adult children with IDs remain at home being cared for by their elderly, increasingly frail parents.  Agencies have struggled to meet the needs of the population but the funding simply has not been there for them to do so and is not getting any better.

HCS was an attempt to loosen up the rigid framework of ICF (more about that later) and provide families with more choice for less money.  Concessions on the family's part lay primarily in retaining a bit more risk and responsibility than under ICF.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CMS, is the federal agency responsible for oversight of state agencies such as DADS, and it was a ruling from CMS that DADS was responding to when it came up with its interpretations that would make it impossible for Down Home Ranch to continue with HCS at the ranch site.  (The Ranch retained its provider status and later opened two HCS homes in small towns close to the Ranch.)

So.  Families with adult children with IDs, faced with dwindling public resources, like Jerry and I 25 years ago (for we saw the handwriting on the wall even back then), are taking matters into their own hands.

Living day by day with their children with Down syndrome, autism, and other disabilities, these families understand all too well the challenges of providing adequate lifetime care for them.  They are also running up against the realities of their children's lives as opposed to the pipedreams of the professionals and academics.

(to be continued) 

Growing up on “The Farm” - Memories of Travis State School



Cathy Belliveau, Program Director
Down Home Ranch

I often wonder how we got there, and how it was that we all came to be created by that place, changed forever by our years there. 

It was as if I were meant to be there.  Even in my earliest years  I loved tagging along with Dad to the “Farm,” as a girl full of curiosity would, wanting to understand what goes on from 8-5 in the parent world.

Camp Days

It was Narnia and Disneyland all in one place, with a bit of 1984 thrown in on occasion.   It could be a nightmare but in the best years it was mostly a haunting wonderland…something fragile and dark, full of beauty and tinged with sadness, all wrapped up in a sensory overload jumble.  I see it now as captured in a giant snow globe.  Surreal and locked the memories stir when I shake them in my mind.  

It is so hard for anyone to understand who had never been there.  

To understand, you had to breathe it in…let the place seep into you to experience the sense of awe it still holds for me.  It brings me to tears even after all these years: That Farm on the hill, holy depository for the broken and the lost, the loved and the rejected, the home.  It was the playground of my teen years…my rite of passage to adulthood.  It is a big part of who I am, and a big part of me was left behind, inside those gates.

I was thirteen when I first came to the Farm.  It took a while to take everything in and allow it to enchant me, as it had so many others who dedicated their lives to the care of the people on the Farm.  I went there every chance I had.  I spent my summers there teaching and being taught.  It was the best growing up place anyone could ask for.

After all these years it is still the Farm I think of when I recall the proudest moments in my work.  I still see the faces and hear the voices….calling me back over all those years to the past.

 Their faces come back to me—bringing smiles and tears.  I see the hands of the children and those of the elderly, all needing, yet all giving.  

The Farm started as a true farm community in 1933 for those society felt needed a separate home away from the rest of us.  At first it was just for men with mental disabilities, but it expanded in my years there to open the doors to women and some children.

Cathy volunteering at Special Olympics

The older men would tell me stories of growing vegetables and working in the fields below the main campus.  That was before my time. 

How proud they were of their work and how they missed the productive years, before the rules changed and the powers that were took the farm work out of the farm and left in its place the institution.

These old gentlemen should have been someone’s grandpa….so they became mine, and I will never forget them.  And in my mind’s eye I see my red headed  six year old, with his brown vacant eyes and one hand stretched out as if searching for something.  He whirled around in his dance for one….laughing at the wind….oblivious to my presence.  How I longed to reach him and unlock the child and set him free…but in a way he was already free…free from the world that could be so cruel to someone so different.



Santa paid a visit

I remember Christmas on the Farm, with parades and bands and hundreds of smiling faces wrapped up in holiday joy.  In the summertime there were watermelon days, paddle boat races and swimming in the pool. 

We loved Halloween so much we dedicated a an entire month to prepare for it.  Staff worked tirelessly to create costumes, a haunted house, and a carnival with candy apples and games of chance. There was not a single holiday we didn’t celebrate and go all out for.

In some ways it was all such a perfect safe haven. 

But not always.  Like any loving but sometimes dysfunctional family there were hard days and times it was difficult to smile, but they were few enough in my day.  The hugs and the loving words made up for the black moments when someone forgot our purpose.  We were family to each other and to the people who lived there.

The lessons we learned about unconditional love and acceptance were gifts we all received.  Those gifts are cherished to this day, and will be remembered as long as I have any memory at all.



The pond at Travis State School

It is difficult—no, really it’s impossible—to convey the depth of love many of us had for the people and for the place.

The Farm was closed forever in 1995, shut down by people who didn’t understand what it had been able to become over the years: a sanctuary.

Shut down by people with fancy theories but precious little real experience in living and loving people with a label.

Shut down, but never forgotten.  But not by me, and not by the hundreds of other people who lived and worked there.

The Farm will always be the haunting, mystical place on the hill that changed us all.

C. Belliveau

Welcome home

It's been a few months since our friend Kevin died. 

As with any death, there are "affairs" to be put in order--the closing of accounts, paying off of balances, and such like.  Kevin's sister Colleen came in from Florida and spent the past six months with Kevin in the hospital.  Now she is about to finish tying up the loose ends of a life and return home.

And a big concern has been Kevin's roommate, whom I'll call Andy.

Andy lived with Kevin for the last 20 years or so, and depended on him to navigate the practicalities of life.  Andy has a significant intellectual disability, and now in his late 50s, daunting health challenges as well.  What will happen to Andy?  He can't really live on his own, and even if he could, would not be able to afford to.  He doesn't want to live in a group home, fearing loss of freedom and--his words--"they steal all your stuff." 

We have all been feeling the pressure mounting as the day for Colleen's departure approached.  Not many acceptable options were likely to pan out within the time frame we had to work with.

And not only that.  We love Andy.  He's a great guy with a big heart and a lot of spunk.  He's sufferened some heart-breaking losses in the past few months.  We wanted a place where Andy would be welcomed and appreciated for the great guy he is.

And then I remembered Mary Catholic Worker House.  Hoping against hope, I sent off an Email, along with a heartfelt prayer, to the Director, Lynn, who ironically began this ministry about the time we began the Ranch, and for the same reason: to welcome the ones the rest of the world spends little time thinking about, much less caring about.

Within hours back came one of the most beautiful communications I have ever in my life received:  Judy, we would love to meet Andy.  Please let me know when you can bring him out to meet everybody.

Last Tuesday I picked Andy up and we trundled down to south Austin to meet Lynne and the men currently living at Mary House.  A large concrete sculpture of the Virgin of Guadalupe announces that this home is special.  Gorgeous gardens take up the front lawn, and very contented cats lounged about taking the sun.

Princess

Inside the home is clean and cheerful, eclectically furnished and equally eclectically peopled.  Lynn arrived shortly and we went back to her quarters to talk.  She explained the rules to Andy, including the one requiring everybody to be present for the evening meal unless urgent business dictates otherwise.  This rule is so the community will have a set time each day for fellowship, encouragement, and catching up on what's going on in one anothers' lives.

As I was leaving I noticed the picture of Jesus praying in the garden--a popular representation found in many Catholic homes. 

But what caught my eye and set me laughing was the caption below, which read: Jesus waiting for government services.

Indeed.  All this and a sense of humor, too. 

Thanks be to God!

Don't punish the disability

Yesterday as Jerry and I drove into Austin I read the scriptures for today's Mass readings.  The gospel was Jesus' parable about the King who invited people to his son's wedding feast, but everybody was too busy, saying "Nah, I gotta work this weekend" or "Sorry, I already have plans."

Well, words to that effect.  Plus a few murdered the men he'd sent with the invitation!

The King was insulted, so after wreaking a bit of havoc upon those who had refused his invitation the first time, he once again sent his minions out to bring guests to his son's wedding feast, but this time they weren't to bother with the list of the in crowd, but to bring in any old whobody they found on the street who wanted to come.

The last part of the parable was in brackets, which means it doesn't have to be read if the preacher doesn't want to deal with it, and this was the part about the guest who showed up and the King asked him why he'd not put on his wedding attire.  The guest had no good answer, so the King told his people to bind him hand and foot and cast him out into the darkness where there would be gnashing of teeth and other unpleasantness awaiting him.

"Wow," said Jerry.  "I'll be interested to see what Fr. Larry has to say about this last part."

But Fr. Larry does not quail before the words between the brackets.  And what he said, assuming I heard aright, was that the wedding guest's attire or lack thereof referred to his spiritual state, not his sartorial one.  He came not to celebrate the wedding of his soul with that of the King's Son, but for some other reason.  So as things wound up, he fared no better than those who chose not to come at all.

Later Jer and I talked about it some more, debating just what state one's soul had to be in before it was worthy to come to the feast.

In our profession there's a time-honored rule: Don't punish the disability.

By this, we mean, don't punish people for what they have no control over.  People with obsessive-compulsive disorder will never be punished, bribed, or nagged out of their condition.  It's their disability.  They can still manage to drive you crazy, even if you know that, which fact might constitute your disability.

The longer I'm in the business, I realize we all have disabilities, of all kinds, many we don't even know about.  We struggle against them, and like Paul, despair of our inability to overcome them.  Throughout our lives, we kid ourselves if we ever think we've made it.  Life is nothing if not a thorough education in humility.

And given that, the proper wedding attire must be the mantle of humility before the King, as we seek new life in Him who, having made us, understands us as no one on earth, ourselves included, ever could.

Not the dream he counted on....

I recall the early days after learning my newborn daughter, Kelly, had Down syndrome.

"Maybe she won't be affected as much as others," people would say in an attempt to comfort us.

But this was unlikely.  Down syndrome carries both a blessing and a curse in that, once you see that typical little face, that fat hand with the crease straight across it, you pretty much know what the future holds.

When Kelly was born, those in the know said things like, "Down syndrome is the Cadillac of the disabilities.  They're easy.  Everybody loves them."

And while not true of everybody exactly, a lot of people actually do. 

But when you're born looking completely normal, and grow up to have a vocabulary to match, but you happen to be, well...different...it gets way more complicated.

In our country, if you have an IQ of under 70, you qualify for a lot of services.  They're not always great, and it's not easy to access them, but at least they're there.

But if you have an IQ of 75 or thereabouts, you're pretty much on your own, tossed out in the world to compete against the guys with MBAs from Harvard.

Not exactly fair.

If you have a lot of support, and people around you who recognize your real gifts and talents, you will be encouraged to move toward independence, getting and keeping a job, and making it on your own.

It comes to be a big, big dream, and you long for the day it will come true--your own apartment, your own friends, independence from those you've depended on for years.

Sure, this is also the dream pitched to the kids with Down syndrome.  Here at the Ranch we work toward independence openly and honestly, but in truth--the real deal is unlikely to be realized.

I'm thinking of this today because I have two friends who trusted in the dream, and it didn't turn out exactly the way they'd dreamed it would.

They had the house or the apartment.  They had the job in the competitive market.

But they had pitifully few people who wanted to spend any time with them.  They were scammed repeatedly, in the case of one out of his entire retirement fund.  And it happened more than once.

Any overture that seemed to offer friendship was eagerly grasped, but the savvy wasn't there to see that really, it was just somebody out to take advantage of you.

Tonight one lies in the hospital fighting for his life, and as I think back on the years I've known him, I'm sad.  He never had the acceptance he craved, the friends he so wanted.  He was our friend, and we were his.  We spent time over holidays mostly, and a few times throughout the year after church, going out to eat.  But he was mostly alone.

On paper, his life has been a grand success.  In reality, it's been a hard, lonely slog.

Yes, we do come to be thankful for the blessing of Down syndrome.  There are lots of people willing to put them down, but there are lots willing to extend them protection, too.  They are identifiable as persons in need of assistance, and I've found that, more often than not, that assistance is there when they need it.

But my heart aches for those for whom it is not.

Training week...time for Ranch Camp!

Casey & Barry provide orientation for Ranch Camp

Hoo boy!  Training week has begun for camp staff.  Everybody's excited and tired, exhililarated and rattled.  I know the feeling well.

Marci, Camp Director

Marci, bless her, is our Lead Teacher and Service Coordinator.  She has also taken on the duties of Camp Director for the next several weeks.  I bought her a British poster that says: Keep calm and carry on.

Is there a choice?  Not really.

I ran camp for years and, true to form, those things you fear the most never happen, and those things you never dreamed of do.  Sometimes I guess they could coincide, but we have been blessed for them not to, and I expect this year will be no different.

Robert, Camp Manager

The mood in the Pavilion is full of youthful energy as staffers ranging in age from 13 to mid-20s take on the awesome task of caring for, guiding, and entertaining 60 campers for a fully week.  They're a bit nervous, especially those who don't have a lot of experience with people with disabilities.

This is where our Ranchers come in. 

The Ranchers, who live here year round, know the ropes, and they are able to both mentor the new staff and reassure them about the characteristics and capabilities of the campers they will serve. 

It's an invaluable role, and one in which the Ranchers appropriately take pride.  They're full partners in this enterprise.

And it shows.

Witnesses to their lives



Kelly, age seven, with wild plums



Jerry told me last night that he'd talked with a grandmother who'd gotten in touch with the Ranch wanting to donate several hundred dollars from sales of the book she wrote about her young grandson.  Of course we were delighted, and want to see that book, too.

I woke up this morning thinking about this grandma, anxious to hear her story. 

I know I will hear echoes of our story it it. 

We know this feeling so well.  In the weeks after Kelly's birth, little songs began to came over me as I rocked her. 

One went like this:

No less a miracle is my child,

Bright flower from an autumn garden.

Reaching for the sky, never stopping to ask why,

No less a miracle is she.

And did I ever really feel

This child was somehow just not real?

A child of no tomorrows,

Whose song no one would sing?

When this child brought the world to me

And opened up eternity

On life's unending wonder,

Of joy's eternal spring.

No less a miracle is my child,

My little flower from an autumn garden.

Reaching for the sky, never stopping to ask why,

No less a miracle is she.

I know I will this recognize this grandma's book for what it is--a testimony to the love this baby boy awakened in her and in her family, something real and tangible that says to the world:  This boy matters.  This boy has a wondrous life to live, too.

And we who love him will be the witnesses of it. 

New guys on the Ranch

Clyde, back row second from right, and Tom, front row right

I stopped by the Pavilion to check on "the new guys," who aren't new yet but are doing their trial week.

Trial week is a chance for prospective residents and the Ranch to find out if we're a match for each other.  Most have come to camp, and not a few have declined to move in once they learned that residency involves more time on work teams and not so much toasting s'mores over the campfire.

So Tommy, Jason, Clyde, and Nick are staying in Hickory Lodge, not exactly the same as a residence home (more like a bunkhouse), but close enough.

All four looked pleased as punch when I saw them, and our gang seemed happy, too. We've put them on work teams, and Jason was really going at the dining room floor with an industrial mop and bucket.  "Hi, Judy," he said.  "I'm working hard!"

I get the feeling Jason really wants to live here!

Later, in the barn, I overheard Rebekah, an old  hand, saying to Jason, "You want me show you how do this?"

Jason surveys the barn with satisfaction

"Sure!" Clyde said, and he couldn't have a better instructor.  But right then Lori drew every one aside to give a basic safety orientation on working around horses, all to the twangy background music of KVET's morning show.

Exciting times for Down Home Ranch, and perhaps a much longed-for beginning to a dream come true for four delightful men and their families, if, as I said, it turns out to be a match.

We'll continue to check each other out over the next week, and they'll get a much better picture of life at the Ranch.  I try to imagine what they're feeling now.  They seem happy and confident, but we are a swirl of unfamiliar faces, rules, and traditions.  I would be feeling a bit alone and tentative about the whole prospect at this point, I am sure.

Meanwhile, this weekend they're gearing up to go to the Farmers' Market in Elgin tomorrow morning, and then in the evening to Elgin's own Franco-American Vocal  Academy's production of Offenbach's School for Husbands.  (Who says we don't have culture out here in the boonies!?)

Sunday they'll head for home and think about their time here with the gang.  Maybe they'll decide not yet, or maybe not at all.

But somehow, if I were a betting woman...

Getting over it and on with it

C.S. Lewis observed that most people referred to as "saints" on earth probably have excellent digestive systems.  It's easier to act saintly when you feel well.

Alas, Jerry demoted me from sainthood on the fourth day following my surgery.

It's amazing how distracting physical disability can be.  I thought I'd read and write great things during convalescence, but I hurt and my mind was mush and mostly I lay on the couch and sobbed over endless episodes of Animal Rescue.

During all this Jerry popped in and cheerfully told me that Pat had said his 97-year-old aunt recently had the same operation and was back in the garden the week after. 

To which I replied something quite un-called for.

Kelly once told me she wanted her Down syndrome to go away and of course, as Mom, my heart broke.   She knew the Down syndrome was always there, and more, she was beginning to realize it always would be.

Jerry understood this better than I.  He had polio as a little guy, and it, too, was always there--the braces, the surgeries, the limp, the pain, the return of it all in later years.  His whole life has been framed by it.

We'd prefer life to be unlimited, pleasant, and predictably subject--ha, ha--to our control. 

So now I'm feeling reasonable well again.  If I were ten years younger I'd shrug my shoulders and get back into the fray.  However, I've been not to the mountaintop, but to the deep valley, and I've seen a different promised land, and  Jerry and I peer into the years wherein a "rope will be tied round our waist and we will be led where we would rather not go." 

I am soon to be 69 and he 73. 

This surgical adventure has been a watershed moment in our lives.  We understand better now what it means that our choices will be narrowing and we must plan for possibilities we'd rather not think about. 

Like Kelly, we want to stamp our foot indignantly and wish it away.

But it's time to revisit the will, sort through the thousands of family photos, and chase a few relatives down on Ancestry.com, and also to unpack and sort out a lifetime of spiritual and emotional baggage.

Just as we make careful individualized plans with our Ranchers every year, we must do so for ourselves.  We hold each another accountable and serve as each other's case manager and chief noodge, and the responsibility for Kelly and the Ranch community weighs on us beyond measure. 

But, once we've got these things reasonably settled for now (sure as plans are laid they change), we'll muddle on with life, wherever it leads. We get to pick how we'll face these last years on earth.  We pray God will give us the grace to choose joy regardless of what we must face.

But of course, not yet.

5 Piggies, 3 Cowboys, and 1 Executive Director

Five little pigs looking for food or adventure



Most new moms will tell you about a strange phenomenon, which is that when the baby finally goes to sleep long enough for you to grab a bite to eat, he or she will stay asleep right up until the time you are ready to take that first bite.

And then comes the wail from the nursery.

Happens every time!  How do they know?

Well, we have no babies in Benedict House, but we have five young pigs happily eating their way through adolescence over at the Spur barn, and they cleverly time their escapes to coincide with the very moment I have set food on the table for supper. And so it happened a few nights ago.

We sat down, unfolded our napkins, and the phone rang.

Cowboys live at Joseph House

It was John, the RA at Joseph House over at the Spur.

"Tell Jerry the pigs are out," he said tersely.

I sighed and turned to Jerry.  "The pigs are out," I said tersely. 

Jerry disappeared.  Supper went back on the warmer.

Forty-five minutes later Jerry came back, looking half peeved, half exhilirated.

"Well, I had three hard-working ranch hands to help me round 'em up," he said, meaning Sterling, Travis, and Kyle, the three cowboys who live at Joseph House.

3 Cowboys: Sterling, Travis, & Kyle

I imagined Jerry, Sterling, Travis and Kyle tearing about inside and outside of the Spur barn, with five pigs serving as highly uncontrolled variables in the process.  In fact, though, only three pigs had gotten out and were now wandering about in the paddocks amid donkeys, cattle, calves--with four humans in pursuit, none having much luck.

"It was hard for the guys to understand what I wanted to get them to do," said Jerry, "plus it was dark, and we could hear the little buggers but we couldn't see them, so I wasn't sure what I even wanted the guys to do."

But, as Jerry knew, the pigs wanted to be back in their safe pen almost as much as he wanted them to, so after a while the guys got them from outside the barn to inside--and quickly secured all the doors.

"But," said Jerry, "our large hay wagon, full of square bales, was taking up the middle of the barn, right next to the pig pen door and the one-bulb light meant we couldn't really see whether the pigs were secured or not." 

During the recount two of the escapees bolted into the pen, leaving but one at large.

Joseph House Cowboys model their pig-catching technique

"I put Travis in one corner of the barn, Sterling to his right about 20'. Kyle I had guarding the gate, arms akimbo to block a bolting piggie. I went around looking under the wagon and around a bunch of those old desks stored in the barn," continued Jerry.

No pig to be seen.

"Then I went outside and turned on the barn's outside lights, thinking he'd gotten outside somehow. But, no pig. I went back inside the barn and was about to declare and end to the hunt when I took another look inside the pig pen and, viola! all five pigs!

"I don't know, I guess the last little last stinker slipped in while we were out running around trying to find him."

Needless to say, the Great Pig Chase has now entered Ranch lore, with Jerry having nothing but good to say about the cowboys who let their supper get cold to do their job and help the boss.

And the four of them did it! 
None of them really knows how they did it, but they're all proud anyway.

Soon the pigs will have a new home especially designed for them, close to the chickens, near the new Community Garden.

Well confined, I hope.

"Don't Let the Dream Die"

Mr. Lobo at haying time

I often say that the greatest thing about Down Home Ranch is to have witnessed so many people bringing the best of who they are and what they have to share with us and our Ranchers.

One such person is Enrique Lobo Guerrero.

Most people call him "Lobo," which, as he will tell you, means "wolf" in Spanish.  I, however, refer to him as "Mr. Lobo."  Simply my preference, mostly because I have such enormous respect for Mr. Lobo.

He came here from Mexico when he was a very small boy with his parents.  He grew up in El Paso and earned his citizenship through service in the U.S. Army, which gave him many things but cost him most of his hearing.

Nearly 50 years ago, he married a beautiful lady named Lucy.  They were neighbors long before Mr. Lobo became an occasional employee of Down Home Ranch some eight years ago. 

Unfortunately, one of he first things he did was fall from a height of 8' while helping install the greenhouses where we now grow our poinsettias.

He was Star-Flighted out by helicopter with a broken back, but made an excellent recovery and as soon as possible he was back at the Ranch.

Mr. Lobo loves the "children," as he calls our Ranchers.  After years of working in maintenance--hard, outside, dirty work--we moved him to programs, working with them.  Mr. Lobo, like us, is getting older and attention must be paid.

He's never been happier.  He loves the Ranchers and they love him.  He is their advocate, their buddy, their teacher.

Years ago Bishop McCarthy visited the Ranch and his eagle eye fixed upon Mr. Lobo.  He talked with him at length about his work and I'm sure Mr. Lobo bent Bishop's ear about the "children" he cared for, and about the Ranch, and about his work.

Bishop was more impressed with Mr. Lobo than with the whole lot of the rest of us. 

Bishop sees things others don't see. 

After the visit he wrote Mr. Lobo a letter thanking him for his work and for sharing his love for the Ranch and our Ranchers.  We were all proud.

This past weekend we had a Strategic Planning Meeting.  It was a BIG hoopdedoodle, and lots of parents, and board members, and staff members, and friends and donors of the Ranch came.

We spent Friday evening and most of Saturday begining to figure out how to ensure that the Ranch will thrive, and with it our Ranchers, over the coming decades.

Of course Mr. Lobo was there.

At one point he said, "Every morning,you know, I wake up and I pray: 'God, don't let the dream die.'"

He's talking about Down Home Ranch, and who knows? 

Mr. Lobo might well be the reason it hasn't.

Servant Hearts



Kelly, Kyle, and Sandy figuring out the baking thing

 Yesterday students from St. Mary's Catholic Student Center at Texas A and M came out, a whole slew of them!  They'd wanted to do a service project, and we said, "Hey, why don't you do a Halloween thing with our residents?  They'd love that."

Everyone was game, so we worked a bit from both ends to set up and afternoon of fun and fellowship, and it was a doozie!

Kyle rides his broom like the cowboy he is

The thing is, there's just something special about Aggies.  We do have a few straggling Longhorns at the Ranch (and one real one), but the Aggies far outnumber them.  One reason is that we've had a close relationship with St. Mary's since the late 90s, so much so that many of our campers and Ranchers either come from that area or have very close ties to the University.



Not Quiddich--it's just a broom race

 I guess it figures that Aggies would be attracted to Ranch life.  Whatever the reason, by now the ties are so strong that the Ranch can deck itself out in maroon for any occasion.

The day began with everyone getting to know one another, moved on to cookie-backing, continued with the great scarecrow-stuffing-broomstick-racing-pumpkin-rolling event, and ended up by carving faces on the surviving pumpkins.  In the middle of all that were hamburgers for lunch.
The St. Mary's students were easy and natural with the residents, and asked over and over how they could get more involved.



Alan gets down and dirty with his pumpkin carving

 I told them that kids and adults with intellectual disabilities spend a whole lot of time with people who are paid to be with them and precious little with anybody (excluding family) who just wants to be around them because they like them. 

Therefore the St. Mary's visit was pure gold for us.  Just give our people a chance and they'll steal your heart.

Soon they'll be on Facebook tagging their new friends, enjoying the chance to be like everyone else.  The students will become hooked on the fascinating news from Down Home Ranch as disseminated by the Ranchers themselves. 

Unless the Lord build the house...

The "New" Joseph House

 As one of the top builders in the world, Habitat for Humanity knows a thing or two about building houses--the most important being that if the people who are going to live in it help build it they will live in it with greater dignity and appreciation.

Why should people with intellectual disabilities be any different?  Well, they aren't, as these pictures show.

Kyle & Sterling insulating their new home

Kyle and Sterling are just two of a number of Ranchers who've signed up to help finish out Joseph House, where Kyle, Sterling, Travis, and John will move as soon as it's ready. 

Sterling learns to do the job right

Joseph House, like all the houses in the Village at the Ranch, has been built thus far through the goodness and generosity of other people--people who donate a little bit each month, people who created humongous foundations to benefit others, a family with no relation to the Ranch who decided to donate enough money to finance the entire outer construction.  Plus of course the army of volunteers who help just out of the goodness of their hearts.

A few years ago Jerry and I read a book called God Is the Good We Do, by UT professor of architecture Michael Benedikt.  The book is long and learned (and in very small type) but the gist is this: wherever there are people doing good, there is God.

I interpret this theory by imagining the written score of a symphony.  Is that the symphony?  How could it be?

No, the symphony exists only while the orchestra is playing it. 

Maybe it's the same with God.  God is good and good is God. 

People with good hearts didn't just give money to build a house.  They also gave money to provide an opportunity for Sterling and Kyle to learn important skills and help build their own home.

And we are thankful indeed.

Of the Making of Hay

Community gathering in the hay crop



Last week the hay crew came and cut our hay. 

We were glad because we'd been trying to get it cut for weeks, but we're such small potatoes nobody is really enthusiastic about bringing out all that big equipment to work on our measly 20 acres.

But fortune smiled, the weather stayed dry, the temperature dropped, the hay got cut and windrowed, and there it was: 470 beautiful square bales sitting in the pasture ready to be loaded onto the trailers and taken into the hay barns.



Andrew exults in the beautiful morning air



This morning  I saw Keith grab a stray bale lying in the road.  He tossed it through the air into the bed of the pickup as easily as I would a bed pillow. 

"Wow!" I marveled, and mentioned it to Annette, who said with a wry smile, "Let's see how far he's tossing them at lunchtime."



Our terrific crew

 There was no dew this morning, so we got an early start.  Natalie, Crystal, Alaina, and Rebekah volunteered to help, as did Sterling, Travis, Andrew, Alan, Michael, and Kyle. 

The usual staff suspects showed up: Brian, Mr. Pat, Charles, Keith,  Jerry, Mr. Lobo, and Phil.

The truck and trailer started rolling, and our troops got underway with a whoop and a holler.  Brian stacked the bales as they were thrown onto the trailer.  Energy was high.  Some of the Ranchers worked in pairs to move the 50-pound bales but others managed on their own.

Natalie & Crystal load a bale

The whooping and hollering quickly ebbed away, as oxygen was required for other purposes.  The workers settled into a rhythm.  Soon it was time to move to the hay barn to off-load the bales and stack them in the barn.

Loading the trailer with 50-lb. bales

By this time the novelty was wearing thin.  It was harder moving the bales into the barn and everyone was beginning to tire.

At one point Travis said, "I don't think I want to be a cowboy anymore."

Then it was back to the fields, and so it went throughout the morning.

I couldn't believe how hard our guys and gals worked, with no complaints or slacking.  They are proud that our horses and cows now have a winter's worth of food put away, and they helped make it happen.

And Travis decided he does still want to be a cowboy after all.

Charles & Keith take a well-deserved rest

Those Wedding Bells

A friend reminded me recently that I'd promised to blog about the workshop Jerry and I went to at the National Down Syndrome Congress meetings in Orlando.

That was the "marriage" workshop run by two sets of parents--the bride's and the groom's to be specific--with a great amount of expertise and experience.  Their children were married last year in a "sacramental" rite with all the bells and whistles, and seem to be doing just fine.

Because of the danger of losing benefits should the young people have married civilly, they eschewed taking out a marriage license.  If the state in which the couple resides were to declare them legally wed under common-law marriage, the state could conceivably recover benefits from them.

The notion of this is infuriating, because the benefits we are talking about here are meagre at best.  Yet couples are indeed penalized for marrying while being intellectually disabled.  (The state has many baffling traditions, not the least of which is periodically checking in with me to see if Kelly still has Down syndrome.)

There were lots of  parents at the workshop, with lots of stories and opinions to share.

After a brief introduction and video on the wedding of their children, the group leaders opened up the discussion, and soon the discussion was all over the place.  The couple in question had been married in the church but not in the eyes of the law. No problem there. 

But one man objected to the notion that adults with Down syndrome should have to be married in the first place to express their sexuality, while another gave an impassioned defense of the sanctity of the union of man and woman.  Most of us fell somewhere in between.

Several people wondered whether it's the marriage or the wedding the young women are after.

"Good point," said the leader, going on to say that one acquaintance's daughter had been completely satisfied with an elaborate ceremony cementing her and her male friend as "best friends forever," after which they happily returned to their respective group homes and evening talks on the telephone. 

We have observed here at the Ranch (and our male residents have certainly lived through it) that our young women tend to be much more interested in boy-girl issues at a much younger age than the men.. This probably reflects the general cultural norm, but stands out more because our kids are so open and frank about their interests and desires. 

One friend told me of her son's girl friend, who had been sneaking off to make payments on a wedding gown without her parents' knowledge.  Before they discovered it she had practically paid the whole thing off!  My friend's son's sole interest in marriage at this point might...only might...be the flavor of cake served at the reception.

Kelly, 12, and Sterling 11

Meanwhile, the couples at the Ranch are in various stages of marriage mania.  For some it's clearly a fantasy, and the object of one's desire changes from week to week.  But for others, there is every evidence of enduring love, deep friendship, and comfort.  Kelly and Sterling have been going together since mid-high school, and they've had their rough patches but for several years now it's been pretty smooth sailing.  Two other couples have been going together for a year.

So Kelly thumbs through dog-eared copies of Brides magazine and Sterling draws floor plans for their future home, which he's surprisingly good at.  Casey holds relationship classes for the couples and I keep purchasing multiple copies of 101 Questions to Ask before Getting Engaged.

Most residential places just ban marriage for the residents.  How they do this in good conscience I cannot fathom. 

Which is not to say we've figured out how to pull this marriage thing off. 

Kyle and Alaina at Special Olympics

For one thing, we have no idea how we would house them under our current licensing.  We have single-sex homes.  I wouldn't have any objection to their moving into Sterling's house provided they had one side of the house to themselves, but that would mean whatever young man Kelly displaced would have to go into a women's house, and that's just not going to fly.

We can hope and pray that their HCS numbers pop up at the same time, but what are the chances of that happening?  Plus, the state says we can't offer HCS services here at the Ranch so they would have to move away, which they don't want to do.

We're overdo for another heart-to-heart with Sterling's folks about the issue, and how it will all work out in the end I still don't know.  We all have concerns, most having gone through divorces.  We know more than we'd like about the potential difficulties as well the joys.

But in the end, the old phrase keeps coming to me: "A dream deferred is a dream denied."  And I wonder why my daughter and her fiance have to be so at the mercy of outside forces because of their disability.

Bride's gown picture from: www.aweddingidea.com/tag/gown/

"One More Day of Freedom"

Tuesday June 22

Yesterday we had another beautiful day at the beach.

This time we brought umbrellas, mats, and folding chairs.  Kelly swam in a heavy T shirt to protect her from the relentless sun.  Despite frequent slatherings of high SPF sun screen, our skin tones are varying from lobster red to deepening tan.  By vacation's end we will--intentionally or not--all provide ample evidence of a week's vacation in Florida.

"I don't want to leave this vacation!" Kelly said at one point.

Then last night we decided to go to a movie.  Get Him to the Greek.  Ugh!

All we'd read was that it was funny.  There were a few funny bits, but the raunch far outweighed the merits (I'm being generous here using the plural, because the sole merit we agreed on was that we liked Russell Brand quite a lot.)

For reasons unknown we individually and collectively hung in til the end, despite the huge cringe-factor. Afterwards we all agreed that we would have been happy to walk out had one of us headed for the exit.  We still don't know why we didn't.

How to describe?  Juvenile--what's funny about vomit and feces?  Not much.  The "F" word?  Never was funny and the shock value wore out about 1969.  The focus on sex...please!  If it were that disgusting, meaningless, and degrading the species would have died out millenia ago.

This thing got great reviews from people I expect better of.  Big question of the evening: what does it take to earn an "X" rating these days?  If this didn't warrant it, what does?  Oh well, de gustibus non est disputatum. Tomorrow we're going to see Toy Story 3 to get the nasty taste out of our minds.

(All the above is to warn folks what they're in for should they go to that movie.  You may thank me now or later.)

Today we drove down to Sanibel Island, which is built up from the deposits of eons of currents dumping shells.  The sand is like talcum powder, the beach made up of shells.

After lunch at The Hungry Heron, we did a little souvenir shopping and headed for the beach.

Standing in the water, you can find all kinds of living mollusks by just wiggling your toes down into the sand.

We were enchanted when the pelicans began cruising in close to us and diving for fish.  Carolyn, Caitlin and I went further out into the water to check them out.  Caitlin said off handedly, "We wish things were more dolphiny!  We want dolphins to come and play with us!"

"Yeah, I'm sure if you saw a fin cutting through the water you'd hang around to see what it was," I said.

Not a minute later, a large, grey body arced through a nearby breaking wave.  We were in about 3' of water.  Our eyes bugged, we grabbed one another, and headed for shore as fast as we could go, which wasn't very.  (Caitie moved a bit quicker than Carolyn and I, however, because as she later reported, she'd felt a distinct bump shortly before our sighting.)

Once closer in we warned a family with young children and all retreated toward the water's edge.  We saw the critter breach a few times more.

We figured that, shark or dolphin, it had been attracted by the fish and the feeding pelicans and hugged the shore from that point on.  Whatever, it was an exciting finale to our day on Sanibel.

Once back at the house, we googled Sanibel beach and sharks and learned that indeed sharks abound off the popular beaches and that one should never 1) go into the water after 5:00 PM or before 9:00 AM 2) hang out near feeding pelicans.  Also, given the fact that we'd only seen one, it most surely was a shark and not a dolphin, who prefer to swim and hunt in groups.

The guide books cheerfully note that our chances of mayhem while driving in Florida traffic are billions of times greater than can be expected cavorting amidst the local marine life, but our story's just going to get better by the telling...

Other advice warned us against staying on the beach with nearby thunderheads, which we also foolishly did until I pointed out to Carolyn that they looked very like the clouds that excite the storm-chasers we watch on TV.  To appease me, we took down our umbrellas and headed for home.

Once showered and changed, we headed for the local Pig and Whistle English Pub for dinner and a pint.  Kelly didn't crank once about eating dinner at 9 in the evening, a true mark of her growing sophistication.  Turns out that the area we're staying in is a favorite for British nationals, and the pub does a brisk business despite having gotten its start in the pit of the recession.

On the way to the pub we stopped neighborhood traffic to gawk in true tourist fashion at 'gators lounging in the nearby waterway.

After way too much food we left the pub and Kelly said, "One more day of freedom!"

We made it back to the house with no further wildlife encounters.  The night was beautiful, half the sky pulsing with lightning, and the other  clear and starlit.

One last phone call to Sterling, and Kelly was ready for bed.

Wednesday, June 23

Today the girls headed for the beach and I stayed behind.  I was sure Kelly would stay behind with me and spend the day watching DVDs and having precious alone time, but this girl is in for everything that's happening.  I am impressed!

But I am happy tucked away in our lovely vacation home, letting my sunburn heal (didn't know that with a long-sleeved, buttoned-up shirt you can still turn into a crispy critter).

Tomorrow, back to real life.

"One more day of freedom," as Kelly says.