Homegrown

There is nothing better then 'stuff' that is homegrown and homemade.  I think its important, especially now days, to be able to provide food and things that help you live and helps others live-the basics.  This current culture, on the whole it seems like, has gotten away from the basics.  Electronics, entertainment and a society that is teaching that life is all about yourself and what you can do for you does not ultimately put food on the table.  While yes, electronics can and do help, playing imaginary games all day honestly makes you dumb and numbs you to the things that matter-life isn't a game-there are values. Entertainment can be enjoyable and a nice relief from the daily grind, but making a living centered on the opinions of others is crazy-everyone has there own opinion on what looks good, sounds good constantly changes it seems yearly, etc.......Its not possible to live in any consistent, daily life routine this way-look at Hollywood and all the drama of the celebrities.  Could you imagine living everyday constantly worried about the 'reviews' you got from your last show, or songs, etc.....Do they realize, that when it comes down to it, that stuff does not truly provide for the needs to live-food, clothing, housing etc......and our kids are driven to this sort of 'fame'.  Now, understand, I'm not against going and watching a movie and I love my music but I can live without them and I am certainly not caught up with the latest, 'who's divorcing who and who got caught with drugs again, drama, drama, drama...'

So anyhow, back to 'homegrown and homemade' and things that matter.  We were not put on this earth to serve ourselves. We were put here to serve and glorify God in all things and to help each other and I think that its very important to teach our kids this.  Teaching them where things come from and that good, honest work will be blessed and really has a sense of satisfaction and that we are all accountable for our actions is true reality.

  So in light of where things come from-food is important; can't live without it.  The girl's and I have our garden boxes. While yes I know that this will not feed us for a year, it teaches about where our food comes from-it wasn't 'made' in the grocery store.  Gardening, farming, agriculture, etc....is something that requires special attention to details and time.

   Now please understand, I am not saying that if you aren't gardening acres of land and consuming yourself with all that growing food entails your setting a bad example, but I think its important to know and understand that the things that sustain your life take work and some years really hard work to eventually get it available for your use.

 Gardens don't have to be big and elaborate; potted plants can produce quite a bit.

 Chicken!!!  It is not 'made' in a store-pink slime is not chicken just in case you were wondering.  We raise chickens for a few reasons-fresh eggs are the best-they haven't been sitting on the shelves for weeks or even months at the grocery store; I know what my chickens have been eating so eating them causes me no concern; they are great weed eaters and help with bug control-if you hate creepy crawlies get a couple chickens, they love bugs and give you eggs in return plus they are quite fun to watch-good entertainment!  I do still buy chicken from the store as I am not into raising tons of birds(we've done that)-that can get expensive but we try to 'supplement' how much we buy and it again teaches our kids and others that food is ultimately grown and then 'made' into something and it takes good, honest work that is rewarding to yourself and others.

 Speaking of good and honest work-notice that my girl's have smiles on their faces even though we are chopping weeds!  See, it can be as much fun as a nintendo game if you make it plus there are actual benefits to it.  Even little Melody is helping as the 'water girl'. These weeds are a major nuisance-they spread like crazy and nothing eats them because they are poisonous-something else good to learn.

So, I have to laugh because when I loaded these pics I wasn't actually planning on venting but its really sad when people don't realize where things come from-ultimately God who sustains all things by His powerful word. Heb. 1:3.  The reality of true values, things that matter are becoming less and less all the time. Take the time to teach your kids and yourself about the value of life; in order for you to live, something died whether it was an animal or a plant.  Know that there was hard work put in by someone so that you could have that food or garment of clothing or house, etc.....Know ultimately that all that we do have is a blessing from the Lord and should not be taken for granted but treated as a 'gift' that we don't deserve. The sinners that we are deserve only death but thanks to the sacrifice that God made in His Son Christ, we have been given new life and are new creatures-the old has past away- 2 Cor. 5:17 therefore we should live each day thankful for what we have-ultimately a hope in Him and the things to come!

Wild!

Spring is definitely here although we haven't had much for any 'spring/April' showers that we desperately need.  The wildflowers are blooming and the wildlife that has been hibernating is coming out to enjoy the warmth and replenish nutrients lost after a long and cold winter.  Please pray for rain though, as there isn't the growth in vegetation needed to sustain much and the water levels around here are critically low. Earnest prayer and faith in God can bring rain-"Elijah was a man with a nature like ours;  yet he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for 3 years and 6 months it did not rain on the land. Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land produced its fruit."  James 5:17-18

Most of these pictures Marisa and I took the other day as we hiked up Lewis Canyon with some friends.  It was a beautiful day as the weather was perfect and the scenery was bursting with spring life.

   Some wildflowers are making their appearance although scarce in numbers.

 Rose hips left from a long cold winter.

  Little 'horney toad' out catching ants.

  Lupin just starting to bloom.

 Indian Paint brush also in bloom.

 Not sure what this one is but the pink flowers are pretty-the bugs really like them too!

 Tent caterpillars are out busy making new 'tents'.

 Pink flowers on 'unknown' bush. I used to know what it was but I can't remember-gonna have to look it up again.

 If you look closely, there is a very upset 'rock-chuck' that my dogs interrupted. I'm pretty sure she had young ones near by as she was quite aggressive towards my dogs. Thankfully, no one was injured, just a bit stirred-up.

 More beautiful flowers that we enjoyed on our walk.  Get out and enjoy them while you can; I don't think they are going to last long.

Spring Cutting

Most of you know that we heat our house with a wood stove; we have a furnace but only use it when we are going to be gone during the winter which doesn't happen very often.  Anyhow, we love the wood stove heat.  It seems to heat the house better then a furnace as it heats the surface of everything, not just the air and its cheaper.

Of course, having a wood stove means that you must have wood to burn in it.  If you have been to Battle Mtn, you may ask," Are there really trees around here that you can go cut for firewood?" to which I would answer, yes!   You do have to drive a bit-the closest spot being about 70 miles from here and if you love spending time outdoors in the mountains then this isn't a problem.

We always start cutting our wood as early in the spring as possible as weather permits, this way it has plenty of time to dry before we need to use it-we cut green wood and dead wood-depends on whats available when we get to where we are going.

  Our first trip was on a perfect day. The weather forcast said a chance of thunderstorms and not to hot!!

  Once we got to our destination the clouds came and went all morning and afternoon with a few sprinkles here and there-it was wonderful!!

 If you know how to back a truck and trailer, you can get them just about anywhere and my goal was as close to the trees that we were cutting since the girls and I were loading it.

 Jessie showing so much excitement to be out gathering wood-NOT!  I think she would of rather stayed home and did school-thats okay, we doubled up on lessons the next day.

   Bryan going to town 'limbing' the limbs that were left from some previous wood cutters. We have many times filled our truck and trailer with wood that people have left including whole trees-its really a shame that so much would be left behind.  We pretty much take it all-the little stuff is great for those small fires that you need to take the chill off of things and you also need the little stuff to get a nice bed of coals to burn the large stuff all night not to mention the occasional out door 'camp' fires on a summer evening.

   One should never run chainsaws without proper protection-those things are scary!!  I tried the small one and said, Nope, not for me!

  So, when we go cut wood, we do stop and take a lunch break and few snack breaks and well, Marisa was having so much fun that she had to re-charge her batteries!!   What better place to take a nap though!!

  All loaded. Took us about 4-5hrs; I'm not sure what time we started.

Yeah, 1 load down and 4 more to go!!!

In the 'Mean' Time

Going through some pictures I realized I have a lot of misc. pics that are cute and just give a good idea of all the things that go on around here.  Please enjoy!!

    Here Marisa and Angel are catching a few Zzzzzz....Marisa's favorite thing to do and Angel is re-charging her batteries.  Can you tell who's dog she is?

 This here is/was the chicken coup that is being converted into my tack shed!!  I am very excited about the progress-it will make life so much easier; all of my tack has been in the horse trailer, garage and in the house but now it can all be on one spot.

  Jessie is showing this year in Nevada Bandits. This is her and Nina at their 2nd show.  She is having a blast and they are both doing very well.  This is the first year for both of them.

   Our gym has been a huge blessing in many ways to many people.  It has become not only a place for fitness but also for friendships.  It has definitely turned into a lot more then we ever thought it would-we love it and look forward to the 'work-out' for the day.

 Of course, we are riding as much as we can too down at the fairgrounds, at home and out in the desert. Practicing for shows and just having fun working with our horses.

Chicky Chicky's!!

After having chickens for a few years I've decided that it would be easier and more efficient if I could get some of my hens to sit on eggs and hatch them.  However, how do you really get a chicken to sit on eggs if she doesn't want to?  This is a question that I've been pondering trying to figure out what to do because I really didn't want to raise chicks again and have to deal with the heat lamp and the treated water and then the introductions into the main flock. I've had a couple hens that in the past have managed to hatch 1 chick and it was so much easier to just let mom take care of them and show them the 'ropes'.

So anyhow, a couple weeks ago, i noticed that I was missing 2 hens. I figured one of two things has happened-they are sitting on eggs somewhere or they became someones dinner.  Well, I started looking around and found 1 of the hens and sure enough, she was sitting on 15eggs!!!  

I was concerned with where she was sitting on them at and if they would live long once they started to hatch due to the cats around here. We tried to move her but that made her very upset and she refused to sit back on the eggs so we ended up putting her back-this made her very happy and she settled right back down to sitting on those eggs. Oh, while handling the eggs, we placed them over a flashlight to see which ones were fertile-12 of them were so we put only those ones back.

   Here is mommy, the girl's call her Firework.  She herself was hatched back here a little over a year ago-she is following in her mother's foot prints.

   She has herself quite a very nice nest tucked back under the brush and garbage. Its quite protected from the weather and out of the direct sun. I think she knew what she was doing when she picked this spot.

  Well, today like any other day, I went out to check on Firework and her eggs.  YES!!  They were starting to hatch!!   1 chick fully hatched and 3 more working on it!!

 Chicky number 2

 and chick's 3 and 4!

  This here is the daddy.  Between his coloring and the moms, I can't wait to see what these birds will look like!!

Puppy Tales

Looking through some of my past posts I noticed that I haven't brought you up to date on our current dog 'life'.  We love our dogs-usually, and after owner quite a few variety of breeds and from my experience working at a veterinary clinic for many years, I've been able to see many breeds, we have our favorites picked out(so we thought). 

As you may know, German Shepherds have been a favorite, especially with Bryan. I myself have grown quite fond of the shepherd with the only complaint is they can really shed!!  The girls on the other hand, like the shepherds but have always talked about owning different breeds.  Jessie's idea of an 'ideal' dog has changed many times from a Pomeranian, whippet, golden retriever to a great dane. Marisa on the other hand has had her heart set on a corgi-a smaller breed dog. 

With all of the dogs we have owned, it is funny to me how to Jessie and Marisa the dogs have to have that one person they belong to-none of them just belong to the family although we all share the dog. So, with this thought, it became very evident to Marisa that she didn't 'own' a dog and that Jessie had owned 2 in the past(neither of which worked out with life here) and she currently owned many cats and a rabbit.  This of course brought Marisa to us with a question, "Can I get my own dog?"

We thought about this quite a bit and knew that she had her heart set on a corgi but neither Bryan or I were sure we wanted a 'little' dog so we talked her into a shepherd. We contacted the breeder that we had gotten our other shepherd from and she just so happened to have a litter ready in a couple weeks with one male-we had also talked Marisa into a male.  So, after a couple weeks, Bryan and Marisa went and got 'John', named after John the Baptist.

Of course, Marisa was very excited with a new puppy that was hers but as he got bigger and a bit rougher when playing she had a hard time 'dealing' with him and he started to show that the 'bond' between them wasn't how she had envisioned it to be.  Needless to say, she still loved him and she tried frequently to get those 'special moments' of bonding with him and never seemed to get to discouraged when he wasn't that interested.

John continued to grow into a huge shepherd and was falling into a nice routine with the other dogs here and was great with knowing his place when it came to the livestock, chickens, cats etc....Bryan and I were thinking we had gotten ourselves another really nice, well behaved dog; but maybe we got a little to proud about it, maybe not. 

On a beautiful fall evening, Jessie went outside to start doing evening chores and as usual she took the dogs with her.  I was going to go out and help her after I got Marisa set up with watching little Melody, my niece, long enough for me to go help.  The next thing I know, Jessie comes running through the door yelling that she thinks John is dying!!!!   What!!???   I went running outside to where he was, Bryan was already there, and there on the ground was lying John's lifeless body-he was indeed dead.

This of course was shocking to say the least!  I asked Jessie if she knew what happened and she said he was playing ball with her and as he was coming back from retrieving the ball he started to wobble and then collapsed.  I, of course, am trying to figure out what would cause that and knowing that just yesterday a friend of ours down the road had just suddenly lost there 'healthy' dog too made me wonder about some poison but I couldn't think of a single poison that kills without symptoms.  I called the vet and made arrangements to have an autopsy done the next day.  We took him to Elko and they discovered that it wasn't poison that killed him-this was a huge relief because the anger that was boiling inside of me at the thought of someone doing this was scary; the cause of death was a deformed heart and that it was only going to be a matter of time before he out-grew and out-worked the capabilities of his heart.

This in someways brought relief knowing that he never suffered-he never showed any symptoms of anything wrong and he got to live like a puppy would love to right to the very end.

   I don't need to go into great depth at the heart ache that this brought to Marisa-her first dog died and then she had to remind me that all of the cats that she claimed as hers have also passed away and then her bunny which then begged the question, why?   This brought about a great discussion of how sin has had a very negative affect on all living things in this world and that death is one of them.  I reminded her that God knows when even a sparrow falls to the ground-none of it happens without Him knowing but one day we can look forward to a life with no death, no sickness, no bad hearts, etc......
   Okay, gotta move on; gettin a little teary eyed here.  Bryan and I decided we were going to wait a while before we got another dog and we did........not quite  a year.  Some friends of ours raise Corgi's-yep, we decided that we should contact them and see if they were going to have any litters available.  Sure enough, they had a litter just barely born.  We decided not to tell Marisa but made plans to go out and see them and let her pick one out.  She was so surprised!!  After looking at all of them, she decided on the runt of the litter.  We had to wait 7wks before she would be ready to come home,  so we went out a couple times to go see her. What a doll!!!

   Her she is, Marisa's little 'Angel'.   

  I have to say, that she has definitely grown on all of us and fits in quite well.  Her size is made up in attitude by far-she runs the place and isn't even a year old yet.  Most importantly, she sleeps and snuggles with Marisa and loves to play with her!!

 Have I mentioned yet how common it seems to be for dogs and owners to be 'alike'?   If I haven't, it quite often is true for them to have similarities and this is no different for Marisa and Angel. They're both cute, little, like to snuggle and have no problem taking control of a situation and gettin things lined out!
   Wow, so now we are up to 4 dogs-this is enough, right?  Now, Jessie starts talking about wanting to have her 'own' dog because technically none of the dogs we have our hers-now, which is kinda true but we told her she was going to have to wait a year or so. I reminded her to be thankful for the critters that we did have- horses, many cats, rabbits, chickens, etc......
   Ha, ha, ha......I get an e-mail from a friend that has a very nice blue heeler that needed a home. I made the mistake of telling these people that if for any reason they couldn't keep him, let me know-he was 8wks old at that time a year and a half ago but she hadn't forgot.  So, yep, we caved-showed Jessie a picture of him and she was 'sold' on this dog.  On the plus side, he was already housebroken, neutered, good with kids etc.....so we said we give him a try.

 Meet Waylon!  He has proven to be the typical healer-strong willed but loyal and he is definitely Jessie's dog!!

   He has proven to be well behaved(most of the time-he's still young) and to be a good patient when he cuts his foot open on sheet metal.

 He has also proven to be a big 'ham'.  He loves to snuggle-very affectionate unlike our other healer.  So we are now up to 5 dogs. All in all, its not that hard to have them; they know the routines around here and on a whole are extremely well behaved and most importantly, the girls each have 'their' dog that loves them!