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| From front to back--Spot, Mickey, and Hook! |
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| Looking through the arches |
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| The rented bull-y (he really isn't a bully, he's very nice) who will be the father of next year's little calves. |
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| The view of from the backside! |
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| Hmmm . . . pretty flower |
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| Get a good stretch in Norman! |
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| "My Baaaaaaaaahnie lies over the ocean, my baaaaaaaaaaahnie lies over the sea!" Bernie likes to sing real loud. |
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| Hook asks, "Do you wish you had little horn nubs on the top of your head? I bet you do because they'd make you look sooooooooooooooo cute" |
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| 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! |
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| Tinkerbell likes to sniff your hand for treats. |
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| 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) |
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| 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) |
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| Petting little Hook--he was still wet. |
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| Tink checking me out to make sure I'm safe to pet her new baby. |
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| 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. |
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| 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!) |
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| 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!) |
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| 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!!!! |
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| 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! |
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| 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! |
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| So Mickey started on his way to his mother (through the muddy wet at the bottom of the cow yard) |
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| And he finally decided that he really would like to be with his mother and the rest of the fam! |
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| And that he had really missed his mother's milk! |
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| . . . a lot! He must have nursed there for a good 5 minutes or more! |
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| 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) |
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| 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. |
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| And Dan looked good, so I snapped a photo (or two or three or four) |
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| 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. |
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| 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). |
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| 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) |
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| 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!) |
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| Nice! (and the bike is, too) |
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| 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! |
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| And sometime in the midst of all of this I made dandelion jelly--good stuff. |
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| Bernie and Rosie in the remains of the very weedy garden from last year. Bernie is quite surprised that his picture is being taken. |
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| Norman looking off of the back porch |
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| Green tulips last week--they finally are blooming now and were all nice and yellow just in time for Mother's Day! |
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| Dakota had a run-in with a raccoon last Wednesday morning in the wee hours. So far it looks like she is seeing out of her eye--no infection has happened--but she will remain a conehead for a little while. We are hoping that the eye will heal over eventually, but the scratch was deep and we may have to bring her to someone who specializes in doing surgery on the eye. Poor Dakota--just trying to make sure the raccoons don't come onto our place and kill our kitties (which they have in the past). |
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| Mother's Day and my mom's 64th birthday were on the same day this year. We had everyone over for dinner and my brother's family (his wife, really) brought the cupcake cake! |
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| The apricot trees just started to bloom this weekend! |
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| The violets finally opened up yesterday!!!!! |
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| This morning Dan found two little kittens in the wall of the barn--fallen down from the haymow. We hadn't seen these little ones yet--they are definitely one of the more wild(e) kitties kittens--probably Bobby's daughter's kittens (not that you know who Bobby is, but she has a daughter that looks almost exactly like her except that Bobby is has no tail and Bobby's daughter has a tail and also Bobby loves us very much, but Bobby's daughter doesn't so much care for us (except that she knows we feed her). Anyway, they seem to be really sweet kittens--not scared of us at all, surprisingly--the little peachy and white one started purring as I held it even, but Dan has said the gray and white one will not be allowed in the house--all of our gray and white kitties have "issues" and constantly chat at us and are just plain weird--like the Bernie--did you see his expression in that first picture? Do you want to know who started chatting at us at 6:00 am this morning after we got him (or her--I didn't check that carefully and my 6 am eyes have been known to be wrong in the past) out of the wall--the little Bernie look-a-like. Oh, you little kitties! |
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| Molly's little kittens are also growing up and starting to move around--what little sweet things! |
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| Last, but not least--the cows were enjoying today's sun. Here's hoping the rain will let up for a few days to help dry out their yard. I was using a long lens on this photo--there was a great oozing expanse of mud and muck between us as I shot this photo! Rain, rain go away, I've smelled enough cow muck for today (and next week and next month and so on) |
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| Us in Tepic |
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| Dan and our family's old exchange student, Michele in Tepic |
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| With my brother and his wife on his birthday! |
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| The street in front of our hotel |
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| Me in the water on Stone Island |
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| Restaurants on Stone Island |
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| Olas Altas Bay--from our hotel room balcony |
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| Tinkerbell and Rowdy eating in the snow |
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| Rowdy eating in the feed bunk |
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| 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! |
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| 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. |
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| Wheat in the field where Dan and his cousin slept--would this be considered winter wheat? |
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| Me last week in front of a mongo drift that formed in front of one of our old buildings. |
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| A last look at the cows on a snowy, foggy day! |
