What Really Starts It?

As I sit here and type this it is currently cloudy, breezy and cool outside from a recent storm system we have passing through.  It rained last night and there is more rain/snow in the forecast for the next day or so.  We had upper 60 degrees weather the last couple days which seemed to really 'motivate' a lot of people into the 'spring' mode; garden plans for the year, fertilizer needing to be put on the lawns, trimming up some tree branches and many other projects that have been waiting for a nice sunny day.  Spring has a way of bringing not only the new leaves and flowers out of trees and the new life that is born in the way of many critters but it brings people out too-they get motivated.  

   So, have you ever stopped to really think about what truly causes the trees to start budding out......

 and the grasses to start coming forth and seeds to spout?

   Scientifically speaking, we would say its the warmer, longer days and moisture that starts a chain reaction of the cells within the plants to start the process of growing, making food and seeds again(short paraphrase) etc....and to a point this is true......

 but really, what starts all of that?   How do the plants 'know' its time to wake up.....

or the horses bodies to start shedding all of that winter coat, the birds to start nesting and migrating back from there winter 'vacation' etc....?  As for me, there is really only one answer-God, He made it that way and I believe that He is constantly working in all the details of life-even the ones we seem to think are so little and are just 'expected' to happen because well, that what happens in the spring.  His creation though, speaks daily, loud and clear of His existence-we just need to stop long enough to look at it....

 and maybe pet it.........smell it.......sneeze........

 or play with it and in Hanks case, laugh as he tries to catch flying bugs or shadows or chase off the birds that are in the trees.......

and also give thanks for the many uses that we have been blessed with from His creation.  We get all of our physical needs met from the things that He has created.  Clothes, food, our homes, etc......We should never take these things for granted-its all a gift that can never be replicated by man-we're a creation too and use whats already been made to 'make' other things.

So, as your out getting busy with 'spring' projects, don't forget to give thanks for God's hand in the daily 'little ' things of 'spring' and maybe slow and stop and smell the tulips, daffodils and  crocuses.

It Makes Me Smile

I Love Spring!!  For me, it is very refreshing after winter and I'm ready to get busy with plans for the year.  I love the new growth of the trees, bushes, grasses, and flowers-they always make me smile.

Love, love ,love to see the new calves that are being born, chicks that have hatched, new little lambs, etc.....yes, they make me smile too!

Spring time makes me smile.

   So do the warmer days that make a hike in the hills all the more enjoyable........

 and its made even better when I get to be able to enjoy it with cuties like Marisa....

 and Jessie.....

 and dogs.......

 and the bestest, sweetest hunk of a man that I call my husband..........

 and great friends!!!!

 It warmed up to about 60 degrees this day.  Beautiful!!  We all had a great time and being able to witness God's hand in the changing of seasons and all that comes with it is truly amazing!!

Let The Racing Begin

As many of you may know, Jessie is my 'social bug'. She has always wanted to be involved with what is going on......anywhere just about.   When she was little, like 3 and 4 little, she would walk up to complete strangers and ask then if she could stay the night at their house!!--Scary if your her mom!!  She considered anybody that would smile and say hi a friend of hers; she has learned since then, and this is sad actually, that not all people are friendly and needless to say, this hit her hard the first time she realized it-me too(yes, there where tears, my tears)  

Anyhow, as parents, we know that its important for your kiddos to of course have friends and be involved in good activities.  Jessie has a love for animals(imagine that) and after learning about 4-H a couple years ago and a lot of talking and some help from some friends, we decided to let her show a heifer. Boy, was that an experience for all of us.  I'm sure we did just about everything wrong that a '1st timer' in the showing cattle world that anybody could do.  Yes, the halter got put on backwards a couple times, the heifer got away.......twice just to name a couple and for whatever reason, she really didn't like men which of course didn't help Bryan's feelings towards this project at all. So, long story short, we managed to get her heifer to the fair and thankfully had much needed help on getting her unloaded(that was scary and painful for our helper) but after the first night she seemed to settle in with all that was going on and by the next day she did very well.  Jessie showed her very good.

We did decide though that this was not something we were ready for in more ways then one and so we had Athena(the heifer) go back to the ranch that she came from-this was very hard especially for Jessie.

We wanted to continue to keep Jessie involved in something that we knew/thought she would enjoy. A friend of ours told us about the Nevada Bandits club in Elko-a gymkhana centered club(barrel racing, poles, etc........timed speed events on horseback)  This turned out to be perfect-Jessie loves horses and we already own the horses.  So last year was her first year at it and she did really well.  She's not the fastest but they ran the patterns beautifully and she still placed 3rd in her division.

So now this years season has started........in February was the first show.  This year though, I decided that I would 'race' with her-gotta do something with these horses instead of just feeding them!  The weather was still quite cold so we didn't practice as much as we would of liked but thankfully it warmed up a bit the day of the show.  

 Yes, she is as tired as she looks!  We had a very long day followed by a long night.  We were blessed to be able to come over the day before and stay with a friend at her sister's house in Lamoille.  This place was beautiful and complete with pastures for the horses but let me back up a bit.  Before we got to where we were staying, our friend blew a tire on her horse trailer-loaded with 3 horses- on the interstate as we were coming down the Emigrant Pass.  We got stopped, and where getting ready to see if we could changed this tire and thankfully realized before we got to far that the spare was also flat-the valve stem somehow got broken after she put it in the trailer.  UGH!!!!   So, we decided to crawl our way into Carlin to the tire shop there; got the valve stem fixed, changed the flat and we were on our way.  At this point the wind is really blowing.
   We made it to our destination, unloaded the horses, walked the pasture looking at the fences and for anything that might be a danger before we turned them out and then walked them around a bit before letting them go.  They of course, being horses, were quite 'excited' about the new place ran around bucking and just being silly but after some hay was put out for them they calmed down.  The wind never 'calmed' down that night and this kept the horse on edge........and me too!
   At about 10:00 that night I decided to go do my last check on them before I headed to bed.   They came trotting up to me and my flashlight caught something I didn't want to see......blood! and lots of it, so much in fact you could see the hair on her leg!  Jessie's horse, Nina was/had been bleeding a lot!!  I ran in and got Sandy, we grabbed some rags and a bucket of warm water and a halter.  After catching her-so far she wasn't limping- we started washing the blood looking for this gaping hole/gash that we thought she would have.  We were shocked to find a half inch(if that) hole-a puncture though that obviously severed a pretty good vessel.  We were very much relieved but still concerned about how she would be the next day.  We decided that the hole was probably caused by a willow branch-there was a row of willows along the irrigation ditch in the middle of the pasture.  After putting a bandage on her leg and  looking everyone else over, we gave them more hay and went to bed...........but not to sleep.

   The next morning the wind was still blowing but had died down a bit.  The horses were happy to see us and no one had anymore injuries.........a very deep sigh of relief!!   When it was time to load up, Nina decided that she wasn't about to be caught and ran around quite a bit so that was another big sigh of relief-Jessie could still compete today!

  It ended up being a great day, long but time well spent once again with family and friends having fun. Nina ran well all day(we kept a light wrap on the puncture) and Jessie won a halter for the day.  It was dark by the time we got home and believe me we were ready for bed!
   Nina's leg has since healed up beautifully and we just had our second show this past week-I'll be posting on that soon but I will give you a little info-it was much more relaxing  :)

Eureka!

I have lived in Nevada now for almost 26yrs and for the most part have stayed in the most northern half of the state;  I 've been to Vegas once and Tonopah a few times.  

This January, Bryan and I celebrated our 16yr anniversary!!  First, I would like to say that I can honestly say it keeps getting better and better with each passing year. I know that I am truly blessed to have Bryan as my husband.  So, for our anniversary's in the past, we like to try to get out of town. We wanted to plan a 4 to 5 day trip but due to Bryan's promotion with the state, his work schedule wasn't going to allow it anywhere near out actually anniversary, so we decided to at least do a day trip somewhere and then we are going to plan a bigger trip later on.

   The weather was forcasted to be sunny and quite warm actually-around 50-so we hopped in the car and headed down to Eureka, NV.  Why?  I've never been there and have been told that its a neat little town with lots of history that you can still 'look' at today.  There's also a really good place to get lunch there.

   The drive started out on I-80 to Carlin and then headed south down through Pine Valley into Diamond Valley and eventually Eureka.  The drive took us a little over 2hrs and was absolutely beautiful all of the way!

   It was very relaxing and refreshing to have a day that had no time limits on it and even better that we got to spend it together.  For Bryan, he has made this trip quite a few times before for work purposes but he feels that when you can actually pay attention to the scenery a bit more instead of traffic and you have your best friend with ya, the drive doesn't get old.

 Yes, there really is a 'soft' and 'tender' side to this 'so intimidating' man!

   As you can see in the pics, like most of the state, there's not much snow and its January-it is really dry!!

 When we got to Eureka, we went and ate at the Pony Express Deli-I highly recommend it!!  After lunch, we did the 'history walk' around the town.  We started off at the museum and went from there.

    A great use for used horseshoes!!  

 Down the sidewalk on the main street through town.

 We noticed that there a lot of churches in this small town!!  I don't think that all of them are currently being used but many different denominations are represented or have been in the past.

  There are still a lot of older homes scattered around the town too.

 When we got done, I think we had walked around and looked at around 40 different buildings that were historical landmarks.  Its kind of funny how many times the post office and had changed buildings  over the years.  Anyhow, we are planning on going back with the girls for some history lessons-can't beat hands-on learning!
   As you can probably guess, like most town in Nevada, Eureka was started with mining so there are a lot of the 'remains' of the original mining that took place there many years ago-mainly, really big piles of slag.  I was surprised that the town has built itself around these piles instead of moving them out, however, I'm sure that moving those wouldn't be a 'little' task for many reasons-i.e.  where would it go, you would probably need dynamite to break it up-its melted rock after all and dynamite going off in town might cause more problems then it solves and the large equipment to get it out would probably tear up the roads just to name a few.
 

 It ended up being just a perfect day spent with a perfect man!!  I know that a lot of people rolled their eyes and thought it 'strange' that we were looking forward to spending the day in Eureka but for me, they were over-looking the 'day together' part. For me this is huge and ended up being the perfect gift!

Truck Dogs

What is it about trucks that dogs like so much?  or that I like so much?  Must be that 'I feel big and important' or 'I have job to do-get out of my way' or ' I feel safer in a bigger vehicle' or for the dog ' I love the wind blowing in my face with my lips and tongue flapping in the breeze' or maybe its the image that seems to be portrayed in a truck-independence, freedom, etc....or just the fact that we just like trucks!

 Anyhow, the dogs just really love getting to ride in the truck even if we never actually go down the road.  They are content to 'help' me move heavy things around like hay and water tanks etc....

  Waylon is getting tired of waiting for me to be done with pictures.......get busy already....we have a 'job' to do!

  "Come on already"

  They look like such a noble breed.......ha ha ha!  I know better-don't let that look fool ya.

 The truck is now loaded with loose hay and a water tank that is going to become part of my garden(it has a hole in it) and the dogs feel like they are fulfilling their purpose to guard the truck and its precious load  ;)

  "okay mom, all is secure, lets get going!"

   Lets not forget about the cab of the truck.  Someone has to keep watch there too and that would be Hanks job.  He has no interest in the back of the truck-he's to important for that if you ask him and I won't tell him otherwise(i'm a softy)

 Yawn!!!   "Guarding the cab is hard work you know.  Good thing I have a 'comfy' job!"

And when its all said and done you put the shades on and chill..........on the bed.........to get ready for another day of 'truck riding'.  The life of a dog...........at least at our house.  :)