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!

Found

Two female (umm . . . scratch that--6:30 in the morning eyes apparently are blind--they're boys, but they're such cuties that they should be wrapped in bows and snuggled!) puppies this morning around 6:30 near our home. 

Here's the one of the cuties sniffing for more food--don't worry he was well fed this morning, but he is a growing puppy after all . . .

They're movers and shakers (as you can tell by this blurry picture! silly little guy)

Dan found these little guys on his way to work this morning.  He brought them home and I gave them food and water and put down an old blanket for them to lay on for the time being.  We've called the local sheriff's office just in case someone reports them missing, but for now they are staying in our shop.

Long time no write

Hope you've all been having a good new year (you know, now that its March and all).  Here are some pic's to update you on stuff going on since my last post in November (yeah, I'm bad--like I say to Dan a lot when I don't get something done that I meant to do--"It's because I'm a terrible person.")

Ummm . . . big thing, I guess--we went to Mexico with my brother and sister-in-law back in the beginning of December)

Us in Tepic

Dan and our family's old exchange student, Michele in Tepic

With my brother and his wife on his birthday!

The street in front of our hotel

Me in the water on Stone Island

Restaurants on Stone Island

Olas Altas Bay--from our hotel room balcony

Fun was had by all (and we left on the day of a snow storm and arrived back . . . ummm . . . two days later than expected due to the snowstorm that took down the Metrodome roof)

But--we do like the snow--we love the snow!


Sooo . . . snowy wintery scenes around the farm . . .

Tinkerbell and Rowdy eating in the snow

Rowdy eating in the feed bunk

Dan added this divider so that the cows could no longer stand in the feed bunk to eat--while it makes an adorable picture, it causes quite a mess (as cows don't care where they do their business) and we weren't quite sure if the bunk's 2 x 12 boards were really able to handle pregnant cows day after day!

Sleeping out in the snow--Dan and his cousin slept out one Friday evening in early Feb.  Meanwhile, I stayed in the house and watched a movie and some old episodes of Bewitched with my sister-in-law.  Woohoo--sorry, Dan, I know that couples should do things together, but sleeping out on the frozen ground is not on my agenda--love camping--I've even camped out in well below freezing temps, but that was in a Teepee.

Wheat in the field where Dan and his cousin slept--would this be considered winter wheat?

Me last week in front of a mongo drift that formed in front of one of our old buildings.

A last look at the cows on a snowy, foggy day!

 Well, hope that catches you all up! 

Rowdy and Tinkerbell

Rowdy and Tinkerbell are our new longhorns!

We drove down to La Crosse, WI area two weeks ago and picked them up!!!!!  Woooooo!!!!

The farm we picked where we picked them up!

View from the driveway

Dan has wanted to have some longhorn cows for . . . . hmmm . . . . bunches of years.  There used to be a guy who would bring his longhorns to this local rodeo every year and Dan just loved going and hanging out by their pen to see their cool horns and the beautiful variations in color that they have.  He's studied up on all sorts of stuff on raising them, asked questions of family members who raise cows (or used to raise cows), and that was that for a long time.  We knew we would want to be fully prepared to be able to handle the cows (and needed to save up money to buy them as well).  We still have to make a definite decision as to how we will have our cows bred come next summer, though.

Sooooo . . . anyway . . . here are some photos of the actual cows.

Getting out of the trailer

Here comes Rowdy

Here comes Tinkerbell

Ahhhhh . . . right to the hay

Dan's cousin's cows were out in the pasture and came running to meet the new gals

Rowdy is on the left and Tinkerbell is on the right

We left them in this holding pen overnight

Then the next afternoon (it was really wet outside that day), we let them in with the rest of the cows (and horses, too).

Checking out their new digs (notice the herefords hiding behind the rock pile)

The view from my window over the kitchen sink that afternoon.

The cows have started to make friends--the yearlings and little Donald are still a bit afraid of Rowdy & Tink, but they'll all lay down amongst eachother now at least.  

Now, hopefully (if Spike the bull from Wisconsin did his job) early next summer we will have two little longhorn calves running around the place!

Happy Birthday Dan!

Dan doesn't go on the internet--we don't have internet at home--he doesn't quite know how to turn on the computer we have at home.  Perhaps if we get the internet someday (hmmm, someway needed to convince Dan that this should become a monthly household expense--difficult to do with a person who doesn't care for computers) he would actually spend many hours just browsing all over at things rather than working on the house and making it nice.  Hmmm . . . scrap that, 130-140 year old houses need work and we need to finish off projects.  All that being said--he won't read this--he won't see how happy I am for him that it is his birthday and that we are going out to eat at Applebee's tonight.  (and getting spicy wings--I am sure).  BUT . . . I will let him know that I wrote up a little something about his birthday and I'll even let him know that I think he's kinda cute.

Anyone else want to send my wonderful husband well wishes?  Just leave a comment and I'll let him know that somebody, somewhere out there that he has never heard of or might have heard a few words about at some point, but won't remember because he barely remembers that I have a blog because the word "blog" means nothing to him (except that Pioneer Woman has one and we stood in line for 5 hours to get my cookbook signed not to mention the 3 hours round trip in the vehicle).

Soooo . . . anyway Happy Birthday to my Dan.  The one that takes the gross things out of the refrigerator for me, plows out the driveway, does the heavy lifting, does pretty leatherwork and remembers that I love wild flowers!