Double the Fun!

   Each year, my sisters and I like to try to get some cute and fun photos of each others kids and us too.  Sometimes I take all of the pics on my camera and other times they are all on one of their cameras or we put their card into my camera etc......can get a little confusing.  Anyhow, I had a blast, as always, taking picks again this year and one of these years we may even remember to do it before the weather changes.  Thankfully, God blessed us with a couple sunny days that weren't to chilly to get some good photos.



   Here is Melody, my youngest niece.  She thought that sitting on the haystack outside, with ropes and blankets, kitties and doggies and her mom and me acting like .......crazy, was quite fun and funny!

   and then she decided that we were just plain 'nuts' and was no longer amused in a humorous way.

   But I managed to get a few more smiles with the help of her mommy(she knows where the tickle spots are)

   After the haystack and a change of clothes, we thought that leaves would make a nice 'back drop'.  Melody thought that they were great to and the kitty made them even better and I no longer existed.

   In my previous post I had noted that I had taken some pics of Sara and her family but that I didn't have any of the pics-I was wrong, I had a few of them.

   This is out at a friends ranch. We had a lot of fun taking pics here.  Something new and refreshing.

 At this point the girls where getting tired. I had already made them suffer through a hundred smiles(at least I am sure that is what they thought) and their tummies where telling them that lunch was needing consumption very soon!

   This pic makes me think of a duel that is about to take place between them and the camera person-me; the one that is standing between them and their lunch; the one that is making them look towards the sun and smile; the one that thinks she can just get another good pic if we do this or that or......the one has threatened them that I'll 'shoot' again if they take another step, or another, or another!

  I'm sure that you can see where this was going.  I realized and came to terms with myself that I had taken enough pics and that I'm sure some of them came out great and that if I didn't stop, well, things were going to get ugly, real ugly.

Marisa

  WOW! Its been a while since I've posted anything, again!  So sorry for those of you that enjoyed reading and looking at these posts. I am going to try to get better at it again.

  A couple weeks ago, I did family pictures for my sister Sara and I was able to do a bunch of them at a friends barn. They turned out great but unfortunately I don't have them on my camera card because I used hers but I did sneek in a few of Marisa with my camera.  Wish I had been a bit more prepared and I would of had Jessie come too.

    She is growing up way to fast and is so full of a very contagious personality-she will make you smile!!

  Not afraid to 'strike a pose'.........

  ........... especially when its in one of her many hats!

Of Kittens and Puppies

    Our kittens, Ghost(aka Dip) and Hope are getting big enough to start venturing into the great world outside. Translation: 'If they want to live a long, healthy life they need to start going outside'.  The outside world is like a HUGE playground for kitties. There are trees, bugs, shadows, crooks and crevices to explore and other kitties to antagonise-the possibilities are endless!! Translation:  'Outside is where they can tear, torture, bite, chew, scratch and chase things to their heart content.'

    Here is Ghost under the porch-he discovered that the dogs live outside too.

Hope, thinking that if she gets low enough to the ground she can stay hidden from the dogs.


   Speaking of dogs-Jon is getting big and with that size comes his big 'playdrive', appetite, ability to make a mess and get into trouble!  We're still working on the chickens-he thinks now maybe he can 'heard' them, after all he is a herding dog.

  One of his other favorite things to do is play in the water!!!   We irrigate our trees around here by putting the hose in the ditch and letting it runs for a while-this presents a great opportunity to get muddy and let the imagination go wild!

   Ever wonder what they think they are going to catch down there? 

   Splashing is lots of fun too!!

   Getting ready to 'pounce' on the source of the water-maybe that will work!

  "Hi, mom! Did you say something? I couldn't hear you, my head was under water."

Carport Turmoil

There is never a dull moment around here. Keeps life interesting, entertaining and humbling. A couple weeks ago my best friend and her kids came for a visit from Wyoming. It was so nice to see her and the munchkins-they grow up way to fast! I'm glad that they came when they did as Bryan and the girl's were getting ready to head to Maine for a week; I was excited for them to go but at the same time I didn't want them to leave. The thought of being completely alone for a whole week was scary!!! More on that later.
Anyhow, as I said earlier, there is never a dull moment and that has proven to be very true when Whitney comes to visit. A couple years ago, her son Connor ate some Black Locust seeds which we found out are very toxic-he's ok; then last year Whitney made a quick trip up to Oregon to see her sister and I kept the kids. Connor cut his big toe on the deck-it wasn't pretty. So this year didn't want to be left out, right!?
It was a lovely Sunday on July 31st. We had a missionary and his family that came to visit and speak at church that morning and was preaching again that evening. We were hosting fellowship at our house that night after the evening service. When we went to church that evening the weather was perfect; a few clouds in the distance but nothing that looked to threatening-no wind either. Well, that changed dramatically all within an hour!!! The wind was horrible, scary and quite impressive by the time church was done. It was trying to rain too.
We came home as soon as church was done to feed the critters and get ready for fellowship. When I pulled into the driveway I noticed that the front of our carport was no longer 'in' the ground!! Whitney's car was parked next to it. We had to move her car!!! We ran in to get the keys and grab a jacket-it was raining and quite cool. I ran back out to see that the wind had picked up the carport again-concrete and all-and then I heard a noise that was dreading to see what caused it! Her car was now under a corner of the carport!!!!
Thankfully, our neighbor had seen what was going on and he came racing over plus I had made a few desperate phone calls. We got our bobcat out and was able to lift the rubble from her car enough to drive it out from under it before more damage was done. When Bryan got there, he took control of the bobcat and continued to bring the rest of the mangled mess down before the wind continued to scatter it.

Whitney's car was where Connor is standing.

This is where the concrete post came to rest after it had dented the roof a couple times and scratched the paint up the driver's side door and all over the roof.

The dent on the passenger side of the roof.

Thankfully, no one was hurt and we were able to get the windshield replaced a couple days later and the car is drivable. This did change her plans on leaving from Wednesday to Friday which didn't hurt my feelings at all, however, it was never my plan to break the car to get her to stay longer. LOL!!

Cookies

For Father's Day this year, the girl's and Bryan made cookies for the 'grandpa's'. Man oh man, did they make cookies too. Bryan had done to the store earlier to get chocolate chips for the cookies and came back with a few variety's-I asked him how many did he plan on making since he was going to be eating them? He left that decision up to the girl's-I went and took a nap, a long nap; it had been a long week.

There were regular chocolate chip, white chocolate chip and butterscotch.

There was lots of dough made with lots of effort and love and taste-testing.

And there were funny faces while stirring in LOTS of chips!!!

Remember, I was sleeping.

The ready to be made into balls, put in the oven, 'chip' loaded dough.

They turned into marvelous cookies! Lots of marvelous cookies.

This was the first round of cookies out of the oven. Did I mention that they made lots of cookies? Like 4 batches?

Random II

Here are a few photos of 'things' that have been going on around here. There is never a dull moment and the work is never done; once a project is complete, then there's the maintenance.
Lizards--For any of you that have known me for a long time, like when I was still a kid( I still am at heart), catching lizards was one of my most favorite things to do during the summer. I spent countless hours thanks to my mom teaching me how and my dad for building the cages to keep them in. At one point I had 20 lizards. I found them fascinating and by lots of reading and studying, learned what different species there are in our area(there's a lot of them), their favorite foods, what ones could be kept together and what ones couldn't, what ones would tame down and of course how to keep them healthy and happy in captivity. I would only keep them usually for a couple months at the most and let them go; occasionally a few stayed for the winter thanks to my mom for letting me keep meal worms in the fridge to feed them.
This is a Sagbrush lizard that Jessie rescued from the cat. They have similar markings to the Western Fence lizard aka "Bluebelly's", but their scales are smaller and they don't have the blue patch on their throat.

This is a young Desert Horned Lizard aka the "Horny toad". Jessie and her friend Alania caught him. They really like ants but he also enjoys meal worms. Of most of the desert lizards, they are pretty docile and 'slower' running making them quite easy to catch.

Hank enjoying the 'dog days of summer' just laying around.

A couple weeks ago when it started warming up, Bryan was getting the swamp cooler ready and we started hearing a 'hissing' sound. After listening fro a moment, we thought it was water leaking, I realized that it was a ticked-off snake somewhere nearby. We found him coiled up with no sense of humor left under the garbage can about 6ft away from where we were at. We think that he was probably under the trees in the weeds by the swamp cooler getting out of the heat when Hank ran him over chasing imaginary shadows and fly's and whatever that dog thinks he see's. Needless to say, he was not impressed.

This particular snake is a Gopher snake or a 'bull snake' and is a good one to have around so to ease the stress on him I got a long stick and after a few attempts(which really made him mad) I was able to move him outback where he gladly slithered off. Last year we had a few snakes show up and Jessie thought it was fun to catch them but I used this snake as a good example of when to leave even a 'good' snake alone.

This is the trailer that we use to haul our bobcat/skid steer around on. It was in desperate need of a new floor so Bryan and a friend, Casey, have been working on it. They started it last year and its slowly making progress. Both of these men seem to have so much time on their hands I just don't understand why its not done.(sarcasm)

The goats are finally being used to their full potential. Instead of me bringing them the weeds(which means I have to pull them, rake them and then haul them-to much work), we have taken them to the weeds. This particular area I thought would take them about 2wks to clean up-not, it lasted 5 days!!!!

There was a good variety of weeds. They thought that they were in 'goat heaven'-all the weeds to eat and obstacles to climb. For any of those that are partial to Land cruisers, the Land cruiser was not hurt during this operation.

Here is the ditch out back that we use to 'irrigate' the trees. I had to re-dig it back out thanks to the gophers this spring. This was made quite easy by running a roto-tiller down it and then raking out the dirt but the gopher holes that keep caving in is making it a challenge to get water to the end. I am quite shocked that water can run down these holes for hours and never fill in or better yet, the water starts coming back up over 30ft away!!!!

Here is the space for the garden that has been in the making for over a year to but I finally got it completed and is now planted and growing things-lots of things!!! Things that were planted and many things that weren't. The chickens were doing a fabulous job of keeping it completely weed free, but since I put a chicken/rabbit proof fence up and tilled it, the weeds are rejoicing with all of the water-I'm not!!!

Black Fur Frenzy

There are 2 new faces at our place. They're both cute, They're both black. They're both babies-7wks to be exact. They're both furry. They're both full of lots of energy. They both like to attack things. They're both vocal. They're both a different species. One is male and the other female. One is small but big at the same time and the other is just small but big in attitude. They both have sharp teeth and claws. One is here to stay and the other will probably end up staying.

This is Jon. He's a black German shepherd. He came from the same breeder that we got Lee from. At this point I don't think he is going to be as layed back as Lee is.

He already knows what he wants and has had no trouble making himself right at home.

He's not that innocent - ha ha ha!!!

This is Hope. The kitten that I was certain was dead when I found her and was certain she wasn't going to survive the night after I realized that she was barely alive. She is now making up for 'lost' time and is living life literally to the fullest of her 'little' ability. She thinks its fun to chase Brooklyn(my niece) thru the house and is certain that everything needs to be brought into submission including my legs, the bookshelves, the doors, Jon, etc.....nothing is safe!!!
However, she's not out of the woods yet. She has a large umbilical hernia that needs to be repaired; just waiting for her to get a little bigger and up to full health(I thinks she's there).

Hope does occasionally slow down to charge her batteries but as you can see she is waiting for Jon to wake up. Her fiestyness may or may not work out for her good when she gets to explore the great outdoors. My last cat that would attack dogs didn't last to long. Unfortunately, he found out that not all dogs will run away from him when he starts to chase. The coyotes like this and I have to admit that its funny to see a big dog run away from a cat but in the long run, well, that's not the way its suppose to work.

Friends?

We have a rooster, actually, we have 3 of them-anybody want one? We have a particular rooster, actually, no, we have 3 particular roosters-anybody want one? Okay, we have a particular all white leghorn rooster who doesn't really know that he's a rooster-that's more specific. This specific rooster has a name too, actually, they all 3 have names-anybody want one? This particular, specific rooster that doesn't know that he's a rooster and that has a name and happens to be the one that the girl's like-they don't like the other 2, anybody want one? This particular, specific rooster........................oh never mind, his name is Star; the other 2 are Domino and Dinner(the girl's don't like him at all)-anybody want one?
About Star; he is about 2yrs old now and is a very docile rooster; so much so, that the girl's can pick him and hold him and he will 'lay' down in their lap and go to sleep. Last year, he cut his head on Russian olive thorn and of course we "had' to doctor him; I think he did it on purpose because he wanted to be held and 'babied' for the next week-he healed up just fine-can't even tell.
So this past month, he showed up one afternoon with a major limp. We have no idea what happened but of course he was quite 'comfy' with Jessie holding him while I looked at his leg. No evidence of any trauma other than the limp and he can't spread his toes well so I'm not sure if he broke the bones in his foot or toes or ruptured some tendons etc. The girl's of course went right to the question, "Your not going to kill him are you?" To which I replied, "If he is still willing to get himself up to get food and water and doesn't get worse, we will see how he does and see if his leg will heal." This by the way is our second rooster with a broken leg; the first one spent a month in our yard healing up only to be killed by a skunk after I put him back out with the others; needless to say we were quite sad.
So back to Star, I originally left him out on the property with the rest of them because he was getting himself around just fine-this made me happy. Then, our youngest rooster(2nd rooster in the pecking order and happens to be the chick that 'we' hatched last year), all of a sudden got a boost of testosterone(or something) and decided that Star needed to die!!! He got a hold of him and managed to tear 2 fairly large 'holes' in Star's neck. Of course the question, "Mom, are we going to have to kill him? I don't want him dead." I answer, " I have some stuff that we will try treating him with and we'll put him in the yard so that he can heal." Truth is, I didn't want to kill him either.
Star thinks that he is in heaven and has his new routine down. Food and water under Kentucky Coffee trees, shade and windbreak under honeysuckle bush or current bushes. Protection from rain under the deck and 'mom' brings him his scratch every morning by the honeysuckle bush. Oh, he has a friend too; one that he liked to 'study' and follow and occasionally chase last year.

Poor Lee; cats that he can't eat, horses that he can't heard, goats that he can't eat or heard and now a chicken is in his yard that he can't eat, heard, paw at, catch, chase, etc........

Actually, I don't think he minds him at all. Originally, Lee had his head down on his paws and Star was lying down. I think that they have an understanding and can relate to injuries in their past that have changed them forever-Lee's story is a bit graphic-no other way to put it!

"Mom, you know that I don't like the camera and me laying here next to a chicken, of all things, looks really bad!!! What will my friends think? Any dignity that I have as a noble, protective German Shepherd is gone. I am a disgrace to the breed!!! Whoa is me, whoa is me!!"

" Lee, its okay. You can blame me. I have taught you to not chase the chickens, the cats, the horses(well, you learned that one the hard way. You should be thankful that your still here). As for the goats, I have let you help me some but you can't blame me when you scatter the goats and then I'm upset because they have gone in 20 different directions eating my flowers, trees etc..... As for your little 'accident' I have told no-one, well almost no-one but believe me, they all felt sorry for you, especially the men. Believe me when I tell you, that people see you and they think, 'what a noble, beautiful, handsome shepherd.' He is so well behaved. What a good dog. So see, we are the only ones that you need to concern yourself with. You be-friending Star is seen as a noble, dignifying thing. People have a tendency to be to judgmental over all sorts of things so I commend you and thank you for the example that you have set. Good boy."

Well, maybe he will have to think about it for a while. He promptly left this spot after this photo but later, he was back.

All that I said about Lee being a good dog is true but whats also true, and I can't share this with him-he's too sensitive, he sheds at least 2-3 other dogs out of his coat each year, and his lack of hearing or selective hearing is getting real annoying. While he can claim 'big guns' for some of his hearing loss, its gotten worse particularly with me and lately seems to be wanting to wander a bit from the yard. Maybe we should have another talk?

Sara Surprise!

Okay, lets try this again. I tried once before to post this blog and the computer said that there was an error and deleted it-grrrr......
Last week, we put together a surprise workday for my sister Sara. For those of you that don't know she is on moderate bed rest for the rest of pregnancy. Ever since they had bought their place, its been a challenge for her to get out and work on the yard due to pregnancy's that haven't gone well so thanks to a lot of help from great friends and family we got a lot done.

This is a before work pic-notice the weeds. Our focus was to get as much done as possible in the front yard. This included pulling weeds, digging holes, weeds, getting dirt, weeds, planting trees in holes, weeds, putting a drip line together, weeds, mowing the lawns, weeds, getting a flower bed together and have I mentioned that we pulled weeds?

Notice-weeds

Hmmm...imagine that, more weeds.

The cottonwood trees and russian olive were planted here.

We pulled, raked and chopped weeds here too.

After 5-6hrs of blood, sweat and tears-the goat heads and mosquitoes were fierce, and 2 truck loads of weeds, we were as done as we were going to be.

Notice-no more weeds

It was a very successful day. We got done just in time for the wind to really start kicking up and progress was a lot faster that I had expected it to be thanks to everyones help.

Oh, and yes, she was very surprised!!