Deb Dahlberg Rowland

Over the last year I have been working with a wonderful woman, Donna Otabachian, Ph.D., who is the Director of Ranch Good Days, a program that has developed to meet the needs of unwanted, overlooked, and at risk girls from the ages of 13-21.

This program is similar to Cal Farley's Boys Ranch with the focus to provide young women with individualized learning through meaningful development and experiences.

Donna's Ranch Good Day program helps the girls achieve life long skills as well as build holistic values through mind, spirit, and character development. Donna has a Masters in Psychology and a Doctorate in Educational Administration.

Part of the Ranch Good Day's program utilizes Equine Assisted Therapy where the young women who have been disconnected emotionally learn vital lessons about nurturing and responsibility working with brood mares, watching and working with the horses as they go from conception to birth and beyond with the mares and foals.

The Ranch Good Days program survives on government grants and private donations and Donna is working on Federal funding and partnered to support Women of Indigenous Cultures.

Ranch Good Days has moved from Colorado to Texas and has set up temporarily at a friend and supporter's ranch in Williamson County and hopes to purchase a ranch that will support the projects and programs, as well as targeted growth, in the future somewhere near Florence which is just north of Georgetown/Austin.

I am privledged to be working with Donna and her girls, and look forward to locating the perfect ranch for them as well as becoming more involved in the fund raising that is necessary to keep the Ranch Good Days program in place, to help the girls currently in the program as well as girls that will need Ranch Good Days in the future! If you would like more information on how you might be able to help please feel free to contact either me or Donna directly.

The Bastrop Downtown Business Alliance and the Bastrop Opera House are preparing to present the 2009 Yesterfest Saturday, April 25, 9 am to 5pm in Historic Downtown Bastrop. there will be a number of Performing Artists including Nakia and His Southern Cousins and The Marshall Ford Wing Band. There will be children's activities from 9 am to 4 pm including a petting zoo, pony and hay rides, there will be arts and crafts a cake walk with music by the Bastrop Orchestra. After the days festivities the Opera House will host the musical "A Sunday in the Park" at 7:30 pm. For more info contact the Bastrop Downto0n Business Alliance and theBastrop Opera House

Google has an awesome picture management tool called Picasa. When you install it the program pulls all the photos you have on your computer in to one central file - including videos. It is very easy to use. Works great for labeling and emailing content. You can also create collages, and videos and you can upload them to the web .I don't know about you all but I had pictures all over the place and Picasa found them all! And best of all it is FREE. Check it out at http://picasa.google.com/

Things have been tough here in this/our part of Central Texas with the drought! Grasses are brown, trees are dry. Tanks are drying up ( makes for some good fishing but not as much sport as when the tanks are full!) People like my husband and I, who have hay fields, went thru a whole growing season last year and with out one cutting to supplement our feed program. It is that way for all the local ranchers. Hay is being brought in from other areas and of course the prices are escalating. Tough on top of tough in these economic times. And here in Bastrop recently we had a very large wildfire that ravaged lots of acres in the pines as well as pasture land destroying homes and businesses.

But the weatherpeople( being politically correct here!) are telling us that we will have our best chance for some of the wet stuff - RAIN - in the next few days. I will believe it when it happens but the cold front has just moved in as the temps just dropped 15 degrees in the last twenty minutes just like they said they would. ( My poor horses don't know whether to shed or stay hairy with the big temp changes ( 80's to 40's but that is Texas for you!)

Being only slightly superstitions I am going to do my part........my fingers are crossed, I will hand wash my car,. hang my laundry out to dry, and throw a handful of salt out in my back yard in the hopes that I can help induce a much needed down pour. If you have any other suggestions as to what I can do please share them with me. I am already praying!

Saturday was a stressful day full of excitement and not the good kind.  A wildfire broke out in the piney area just north of our  real estate office in Bastrop County.  The high winds broke a tree limb which fell on an electrical line which caught the dry underbrush and away it went.  I was in town buying office supplies when I got the call that we had to evacuate the office.  By the time I got there the smoke was THICK.  I grabbed my files, my laptop and the hard drive and locked up.  The fire fighters staged just down the road on Ponderosa.  I went home and met my husband and we hooked up our big horse trailer and went back down to fire central in case they needed help evacuating livestock.  The winds had changed which took our home out of the line of the fire so we felt comfortable trying to help others.  Did not know until the next morning what kind of damage was done which was extensive and so sad for those that were affected.  Our little country office was spared.  It looks like a miracle but I know it was also the hard work of the fire fighters on the ground and in the air that save it.  Lots of people were not so lucky and I hope to be able to help them in one way or another over the next few days.  Here is a quick video of what I saw.