New baby calf at my house (or in the pasture--whatever)

Tinkerbell is the proud momma of a bouncing baby bull that we have named Hook!

These pictures were taken just a little while after little Hook was born.  Of course, we missed seeing him being born by about 20 minutes--we sure thought that Tinkerbell looked like she was going to calf at anytime and . . . ummm . . . she did!

Tinkerbell likes to sniff your hand for treats.

And then she wants to play (although it looks scary, she just wants to try to tap your hand and then she goes right back to sniffing you or to just standing there)

Another photo of Tink and the new baby out in the pasture with Dan (and Dakota--now Tinkerbell does not care for Dakota, so we did have to keep chasing Dakota back)

Petting little Hook--he was still wet.

Tink checking me out to make sure I'm safe to pet her new baby.

Little Hook's little face!  You can't quite see the spot where his horns will start to grow, but there is a tiny round circle on both sides of his head.  Longhorns have much smaller calves that Herefords do--although the Longhorns are a smaller breed of animal than the Hereford as well.  We want to keep petting and being around Hook as much as possible, so that he will be nice and friendly.  He will be becoming a Steer later this summer sometime.

Oh, Little Hook was born 42 weeks to the day that his daddy arrived on the ranch to meet his mother last Fall in Wisconsin.  His daddy's name is Spike.

A Month of Sundays

So we've had some wet and cool weeks this spring, but we have seen plenty of flowers, too (though, these flowers were supposed to be facing a different direction, but they uploaded a little funny--so much for making all of my images come up square and hoping that the more vertical photos would work again!)

Anyway, we've had some beautiful Sunday afternoons in the last month and I've been able to search out some beautiful sites (just down the road and up the ditch and next to a field I found some blankets of Mayflowers!)

So perfect and clean!  We saw them while driving home from church and I told Dan we would have to take a walk back to see them after we had lunch . . . and so we did--aren't you thankful!!!!

The next weekend we let the cows and horses out onto pasture.  (You might notice that our horse, Checotah, looks mighty wooly--we are quite sure that she has Cushings.  She was starting to have her hair grow really long last year, but it definitely got much worse this year--Dan just gave her a good clipping on Monday, so she's looking much better now!

While the rest of the animals went out to pasture, Mickey just couldn't get past the fact that he had to go through where a gate had been electrified for his entire life.  We figured, eh, he'll get hungry enough and wander out to his mother sometime overnight.  By the next afternoon, he was still in the yard and separated from his mother with no signs of going out on his own--sooooo . . . Dan decided to try to get him to go into the pasture again--this time when Gert (his momma) saw Dan going to fetch Mickey, she came and stood right by the gate to moo her encouragement!

So Mickey started on his way to his mother (through the muddy wet at the bottom of the cow yard)

And he finally decided that he really would like to be with his mother and the rest of the fam!

And that he had really missed his mother's milk!

 . . . a lot!  He must have nursed there for a good 5 minutes or more!

Beauty was quite happy to eat the grass after a winter of hay! (good hay, let me tell you, but it isn't fresh grass--come late fall when they've had grass for months on end, though, they're going to be excited for hay)

Soooo . . . in our wanderings after getting all the animals in the pasture we also came across one of the wild plum trees in the pasture just at the end of its full bloom.

And Dan looked good, so I snapped a photo (or two or three or four)

Back on Memorial Day we spent the day at the home of my parents-in-law.  Here my niece and her cousin (and best friend) laugh as I take their picture.

Here they are much more well composed.  This is the picture that Kalyn wants on her birthday card this year.  (of course, I told her that what I put on her birthday card is my decision, so she might get a picture of her ear instead).

Ummmm . . .  this one uploaded sideways and I don't feel like going back and trying to upload it again and again when I know I saved it the right way, so turn your head or your screen and you'll see a pretty rainbow over the cow shed rather than to the left of the cow shed)

Last week Dan got a new bike (well new to us).  A 2008 Honda Rebel to commute to work on and to make himself look cool--you should see him in his motorcycle chaps (okay, no you shouldn't because I don't want you to--I'll keep him for myself!)

Nice!  (and the bike is, too)

Dan's brother, Jason, his dad, and there's Dan again all on their bikes.  His brother was visiting last week and came with us to pick up Dan's bike and then his dad thought he better come on over and they all went for a quick ride into town together.  What a fun night!

And sometime in the midst of all of this I made dandelion jelly--good stuff.

Hope your month has been great!  I'll be starting to teach a musikgarten class through our local community education program next week, so wish me luck on that (I've got some busy weeks coming up--we're having a wagon train start here next week for a ride through a bunch of local communities and I was in charge of finding musicians for their first night of camping with a community picnic and our church has its 125th anniversary celebration (and I'm involved with music and I have to finish off editing and putting together a history dvd for that as well--wish me luck with that, too--so many pictures (that my mom has thankfully scanned in, but now we have to figure out exactly where all of them will go!)  Hmmmm . . .  I've got to make some special banners for the front of the church, too--soooo . . . lots to do!