"I'm not as good as I once was....."

Hmmmmm.......I bet I could get on his back.
Ya got the camera? Cause I'm gonna prove that I can do this.

Ready? Uh...... Just warming up here. That's better O.K. Now, Here we go.

I know, I know not very pretty. But hey,
I'm gonna make it.

See, what did I tell ya? Now hand me the baby.

And...... CHEESE!!



O.K. If the truth be known it took me about 4 try's but all it takes is one good jump and "I'm as good once as I ever was..."

Madsen Give away.

Hey Amy, I thought this would be perfect for you. You could go anywhere and excersize at the same time. Click on the side bar link.

Ultimate Faith in a Horse

First WARNING sign: Someone gives you a horse. Second WARNING sign: the only one that has ever worked with this two year old horse is an 8-9 year old girl.

Two days ago Roger called and asked the boys to go down to Shannon's house, about a half a mile away, and get Sugar and bring her down to our house. He told the boys to saddle up Duke and ride him up to get her. The boy's hadn't registered that last little bit of information about using Duke to help so they headed up to Shannon's. When they got there they realized they'd forgotten a halter and lead rope. So, home they came to get the lead rope and headed back up. By this time they were frustrated tired and started fighting, so Caib grabbed a halter and headed back up by himself.

Too many minutes later I figured I'd better run up and see what was taking Caib so long. I got to Shannon's and found Caib standing by a haystack watching Sugar eat hay and trying to get a hold of her lead rope. Apparently Sugar was determined to stay with the other horses. I caught Sugars lead rope and managed to get her out of the haystack, away from the other horses and down the road aways before she stepped on the edge of my foot ripped my shoe and started pulling back. She finally got free and Caib and I put her in a corral and came home. Dang horse(see warning signs).

Braden isn't about to give up on this horse. He's gone out and saddled her and worked with her to try to get through to her, break her, gentle her, whatever you want to call it. He loves animals, Especially horses and dogs.

So...... this morning Braden and Caib come in and ask if they can take Sugar on a walk around the block. Now remember, I know how this horse acts when she's being separated from other horses, so I say: " O.K., But be CAREFUL!!" Braden says "We will Be." Caib says "Mom, We'll be fine!" and then under his breath as they turn to walk away. "I hope."(remember he was with me and had seen Sugar balk) Then I hear Braden say. "Caib, you don't say that!"

Isn't it funny how Moms can tell what there kids mean when there could be all kinds of meaning behind one little statement. Braden was exercising all the faith he could in this horse. and he didn't want any doubt or fear to get in the way of his teaching it to trust humans.

He couldn't have cared less about my worrying over their safety. Sigh......I guess he figures that's a given.

They saddled her, warmed her up, and took her on her walk with out any problems at all. I guess that is the result of Braden's ultimate faith in horses.

Isn't she a pretty little thing.

Random Ramblings 'Cause I Got Carried Away

Grandma wanted a picture of her newly planted barley, so I went out while the light was just right to get a nice picture where she could see the tender young shoots just peeking out of the earth.

Then I figured, hey, grandma helped me plant my garden I might as well get a picture of it, too. O.K. I admit it's really not that great of a picture but once I get going I can't stop. Yes, Grandma, everything came up even your 1998 corn seeds are growing quite nicely. The only thing that looks a little sad is the Ocra. I'm pretty sure that has to do with the cold weather we've been having. sigh.... maybe one of these years I'll plant some Ocra that will be fooled into thinking it's in the nice warm south. Ha Ha Ha HA HA HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! Right.

So..... then I moved on to my flower bed. This flower bed has waited a long time to be tended and tilled and planted with floweres. In the past it has been filled with a beautiful array of quack grass, morning glory, and dandelions, with a few wild Irises here and there. I'm quite proud of it this year.

Then the Roses

A pretty little Daisey.

And one more Rose.

Chancee's Chatterings

Aubree, Chance, Oaklee and I went up on the mountain with Dad yesterday to drop off a few cows. We hauled up three or four pairs of Momma's with there babies. We were off the main road and were driving down the dirt road. When all of the sudden Chance pipes up in exasperation, Oh Great!!!! The trailers following us." Then we come to our first stand of Quakies.and suddenly he yells out "Dad, Dad, Stop, wait, back up, Dad hurry!" Well we know Chance quite well so instead of stopping we just asked "What?" Chancee's reply: "There were TWO tree's back there" Life is never boring when you take a Chance!!

I Don't usually Toot My own horn, but I'm honored by this.

http://www.cowboypoetry.com/winner.htm#Brian

I've entered cowboy poems on this website for quite a few years, along with hundreds of other people. So this really shocked me when I recieved an email informing that my poem "The Cows Go Out". had been considered as a winner for the coveted Lariat Laureate winner. (I was one of the 8 seconds). Hope you enjoy the web site.

So this is what it's like being married to a cowboy

Roger came home this afternoon, after having been on the mountain with his horse. He came inside for a few minutes to let me know that he was going to run the truck and horse trailer down to get some tires rotated and fixed. I said O.K. and expected him to tell me to come pick him up at the station. He didn't say anything but good bye and hurried out the door. Puzzled I looked out the window as he pulled off. He still had his horse in the trailer. Suddenly it all made sense. I grabbed my camera and went into my bedroom to wait for him to come riding up on his horse.

Modern cowboy, He's reaching into his pocket to get his cell phone.

I know you can't see it but he's dialing.
Somehow being on a horse and using a cell phone seems a little bit...well......contradictory to me. Oh well.

Uh Oh, Grandma!!!

Chancee found the tractorPushed some thingamajig
And now he dosen't know what to do................Well, Maybe

WAHOOO!!!!!!!THIS IS FUN!!!!!!

UH OH, Grandma,

We're gonna need your help planting Another garden!!!

Chancee's imagination

Can you tell what he is?

I'll Just let everyone go ahead and guess.

Summer Activities and Bowdrill Ironies.

We spent most of yesterday putting together a couple of bow drill sets for Braden and Caib, and avoiding house work for me. Well, what do you do with an eleven year old and a twelve year old boy after the cows are on the mountain, the sheep are all on the mountain and the farming has to be done with supervision in the evenings after Dad gets home from work. Oh sure, they have chores to do and you'd think they were the most strenuous chores on the place with the way they carry on about them and take two to three hours to get the ten minute chores done.

So, I ask what do you do? Well, you load all the kids up into the pick-up and head to the mountains where you can find some pretty decent size Sagebrush.

You hand a saw to the ambitious kids and have them saw the brush into manageable pieces and load them into the pick-up



While the less ambitious kid plays with the dog.
(OK He's definately not less ambitious, he just couldn't handle a saw)


You head home and saw the wood into these nice little fire boards
All done by hand.

Then you have the boys whittle some smaller sage branches into these spindles

then you run down the street to the irrigation canal where you can find some Willow or River Birch that will work as bows.

Then you run down to Big Rocks where some unidentified rancher has, in the long past, drug off a dead cow and left it amidst the brush and...well...big rocks; and find a couple of ankle bones from that LONG dead cow.

and Voila a bow drill set.

Caib has been determined to get a fire and has spent quite a few hours out trying his hardest to get one.

He's even made quite a bit of smoke. I've got to take Braden out to find another stick for a spindle his isn't quite straight enough.

The irony comes from the fact that, there we sat most of yesterday evening trying our darnedest to get a fire burning(side note: I used to work for one of those outdoor wilderness therapy programs and have made many fires like this) as a box of matches sat on the ground by us so that we could burn the end of the nylon rope that we used for our bows.

AHHH, but the bliss of busy boy's as they determinedly try to out do their mother.

Finally!!!!

Yes it's June and yes I'm barely getting my garden planted. We live at 7000 feet It doesn't do much good to plant much earlier, but it sure seems like I'm always the last person on earth to get my garden going. And just for your information, every garden I've ever planted in June has always done extremely well.





Now, here's another little bit of information for all you animal rights activist. I'm targeting you because I know how you feel about doing any sort of experimenting on animals. Well, here's a chance to rescue some poor unfortunate little Lab Rats. At least as far as we can tell that's what they are. I guess you'll just have to take our word for it. There are only two of them. The other two are Rat Healers. We might continue our experimenting with those two just to see if they really will heel rat's or if they'll just hunt them like there mom. sigh..... Does any one out there want a puppy? They're really cute.

Four weeks ago the strays in the neighborhood were labs and healers. The mother is a rat terrier.