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!

New and imperfect!

Remember this?

It is now this!!!!!!!!

Is is perfect?  No, the bathroom is not beautiful by any means yet, but our bathtub and shower are usable once again!  No more showers in the little square shower stall in the basement bathroom!  . . . and yes, that is a pretty well permanent rust stain on the bathtub--it is a good, solid, cast iron, porcelain tub and therefore would be very difficult to replace with any other kind of tub, so what it really needs is to be refinished, but as we can't quite afford the bathtub refinisher to come and work on our tub we just will live with our imperfections.  Imperfections are what make each one of us unique (including our bathtubs!)

My garden was a very imperfect garden this year--totally my doing--the plants worked their best to overcome my lack of weeding and care and so Saturday when I went to pull out stakes from the garden so that Dan could chop down the tall weedy mess, I was able to pick these  . . .

 . . . and put them into my cute rooster pitcher.

Lastly--the cows enjoying the Fall weather . . . 

Do you see them down there?  They love laying in the shade of the trees at the bottom of our south barnyard.

This weekend we'll be getting two longhorn mama's to add to our animal population.  I can't wait to meet them!

A title should go here

Just a few pictures of the fun going on around here!

Last week was our anniversary, so we both took the day off and went down to the Como Zoo and Conservatory in St. Paul!  (And following those pictures are embarrassing photos of Norman and Bernie that I took this week--I know, I know--who really needs to see these photos, but golly these animals make me laugh!)

The Animals

Pink flamingo!

Sleeping polar bear!

Giraffe and baby!

Gorilla!

 The Plants

Pretty flower!

The fern room!

Light through the leaves!

Now how about those embarrassing photos!

Norman & Bernie-the misfits

Can you do this?  And be comfortable?

You can just play with his paws and he barely slits open his eyes!

Bernie yawning--if you are any kind of vet could you tell me who Bernie's teeth are soooo small--he's got really short whiskers, too and his front claws are only little claw nubs (his back claws are normal, though)

 Well, those are the sights I've seen this past week!

The Fall of the Year

One of the maple trees in the pasture

Gorgeous weather this past week has led to gorgeous color and temperatures perfect for walking through our pasture!  (It has also led to thousands of boxelder bugs congregating on the south side of our house--the side with our main door, the side our bedroom window looks out on, the side our big dining room and living room windows look out--thank goodness for beautiful fall color in the outdoors!)

I love red maple leaves

I also think these vines look beautiful--they are considered bad as they can kill off trees eventually, but golly they're pretty as they do it?

Yep, fall is pretty!  I love fall--I got married in the fall--Our 8th anniversary is next week--Happy Anniversary, Dan (though, you don't know how to find my blog--I'll bring you in and show you this post, though, so I guess I can make sure you'll see it!)

Happy October, everyone!

Norman is such a good mother

This has been the scene lately in the evenings at our home . . .

Little Sally snuggles up to Norman

Ahhh . . . the sweetness

Ahhh . . . the comfort

Norman--mother of all lonely kittens--well, ummm, mother of a few lonely kittens that he decides are okay--well, ummm, as much as a neutered seven year-old male kitty can be a mother to one or two chosen kittens every once in a while, especially on a comfy quilt on a comfy couch.  Sally's a lucky little girl!

Supper

I made a yummy real supper last night.  I do make yummy real suppers a fair amount, but this one was so pretty and real supper-ish looking and there was a camera within steps of the plate, so I had to take a picture!

Dan's plate of spicy pan-fried tilapia with potatoes, tomatoes, and cucumbers from the local farmers' market as well as . . . ummm . . . organic lettuce from the grocery store. 

Anyway, it was good stuff!

Neato!

Wanna know something crazy/mildly interesting? 

My phone takes halfway decent pictures.

I mean I can't blow them up as big as I can with my camera, but golly . . . these pictures are kinda fun.

The one at the top there is from a while back as I was coming home from town and noticed this beautiful pink glow behind me.  I thought to myself, "Too bad I don't have my camera with me."  And then I went "Wait, I do have my phone.  It can't hurt to try it!"

The pictures sometimes make me think of a color polaroid  because of the way you don't get to adjust how long the "shutter" is open, so you can get interesting halos like this one . . .

But, goodness gracious, isn't that a cool photo anyway--kind of a pinhole, foggy effect--so neat!

Pretty good for my free phone I got from Sprint when we signed up for their family plan last year--in case your wondering it is an LG Lotus (LG and Sprint have no idea who I am).  Who knows, if they even have them around anymore, but I like the pictures I have gotten!  Even took some good ones of the boys I taught when they were goofing off during VBS!

Just a fun, quick shot that I was easily able to email to their moms without having to haul a camera in my pocket.

And then last night while visiting with friends at our local county park there was the most stunning sunset . . .

Pure and unadulterated gorgeousness!

Hope your week will be filled with unexpected blessings!

Wedding Presents

I just received a wedding present this week.

Dan and I have been married nearly 8 years.

We are so blessed to have been given this gift.  It may not have been in the making for 8 years (or maybe it has, I don't know), but when this dear friend was making this gift and was ready to give it she thought it would make a wonderful wedding present for us.

And it is a beautiful wedding present . . . something I will cherish . . .

Look at this quilt!  It is my quilt of many colors!

Our local community theater group put on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in July and now that song just keeps running through my head--it was red and purple and yellow and green and . . . or however that goes . . .

Anyway, this quilt was made by a dear friend of my mother who we used to go visit in the Summer up on the Leech Lake Reservation.  She and her husband (a pastor) had a small mission church and my mom would help run a Vacation Bible School with the kids.

I was little enough to be in the VBS with all of the kids and we would go swimming and ride on her husband's pontoon.  They had a beautiful home on the lake right next to the woods.  They also had a special spot in their hearts for orphaned animals.

One of those was a fawn who would come running out of the woods for a bottle of milk when it was young and corn (I suppose) when it was older.  They had a special collar on it to signify that nobody should hunt it (that was when I was really little, so I don't remember exactly what happened with that one--probably someone did eventually decide that they didn't care about the collar :( but there are also tons of bears around there).  The other little orphaned critter they cared for was a porcupine.  His name was Thorny.  He would come out of the woods every night for a bit of bread and milk.  Duane would pick him up (he didn't want anyone else to chance it just in case, but Thorny was a really nice porcupine) and because of this I know that porcupines have really soft fur on their bellies.

I'll have to search through my parent's photo albums and find some photos to scan in from those days.  I also saw my first black bear close up at their place.  It came out of the woods to scavenge after a bunch of the VBS kids had a food fight the evening before.

Hmmmm . . . anyway, I'm sure Susie doesn't go on the internet much (if at all) and she may never see this tribute to her and this thanks (a card will be going out in the mail soon, though), but Thank you Susie!  This wedding present was well worth the wait and I didn't even know I was waiting for it--those are the best presents anyway--the ones from the heart that you never expected!

July Photos

Glove

Dewey

Bunny

Singing

Storm clouds over Downtown Dassel

Storm clouds to the North

Best Buddies--Norman and Bernie

Orange Zinnia

Orange Zinnia even closer

Field of clover

Hope your July was filled with blessings!