Saturday, July 23, 2011

Summer Zooming by.........sigh

Tolerating The long summer days with all the kids home.
The only time Caib's horse has bucked has been when he had on a raicoat or winter coat so he's been working with Lilly so she's not scaredof them.



I think Lilly is such a pretty horse Caibs done an excellent job with her.




We went fishing at round lake one night



It was a beautiful night, no bugs, Braden caught two fish and Caib caught lot's of weeds and the boat.


Sorry my kids are hollering at me to come get them some dinner.....sigh it dosen't help that my oven went out a week ago and I'm running out of ideas for stove top stuff and grilled things.








Saturday, July 9, 2011

Cracking whips and roping LGM

I Tried really hard to get a couple of little videos but they wouldn't load. So all you get is the pictures. The LGM (little green man) sure looks like he's running away from Chance, and for good reason, too. Chance caught him and pulled him to the ground. Then for good measure gave him another good jerk. Caib standing there is about the proudest big brother around. He's Chancee's roping coach. He taught him everything he knows. What a great brother.


This is where I really wish I had the videos for you to watch. Braden's been working with Chance on his whip cracking skills. Chance does pretty good, too. The crack isn't exceptionally loud yet but we took care of that in the video as both Braden and Caib cracked there whips at exactly the right thime so that it sounds like Chance really snapped it good. Ah well.....Notice Chancees outfit. He claims to be Indiana Jones.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Hauling Hay and breaking horses

I love to watch my boys work and grow. This last year has been a new experience for Roger and myself as we've watched our oldest boy mature a bit. We went through the cracking voice etc. and now we get to experience the knowledge of a fourteen year old....Amazing. We love to joke with him about it and for the most part he's a great sport. He even has great "In your face" comments. What a GreaT KiD It's also been fun to watch as Caib has slowly grown taller then Braden, much to Caibs delight. Hear they are throwing some hay around. They can't quite understand why we won't buy them a weight set. Those bales weigh anywhere from 60-80 lbs. .

And as I recall the "Snatch and pull" was a full body lift that used all the muscles in the body especially if you grunted good and loud and growled a bit after you finished the lift.

Another thing I love to watch is my two oldest as they break their colts. This is actually Braden who's starting this colt for his Uncle Bart. This horse is about three, I think, and hasn't had much done with it. So she needs a lot more work then the colts that they are used to breaking. As Caib and I sat and watched Braden working with this horse, as it bucked and jumped at every little twitch, we talked about how much easier it is to take a horse from birth and teach it to be gentle and good, then to take an older horse who hasn't been taught or worked with. We related that to kids and how much easier it is to be good if your taught from birth and your parents insist on you doing what's right and guide you correctly, then if your allowed, as a kid, to just do whatever you want.

Caib picks up on things like that really easily.
Here's proof of that. Ironically, Caib is sitting on Jack, a one year old, who isn't old enough to even wear a saddle yet, watching Braden, as he works with the three year old. Lilly is the other horse in the corrall. She's Caibs horse that he's in the process of breaking. She's only bucked once with Caib because he climbed on her with a big coat on that she wasn't used to. But she's never bucked with a saddle on.




And....here's Chance.....He's just trying to stay out of the way.
















Friday, July 1, 2011

Summer Vacation?

What a Summer. This last week has finally felt like Summer may really be a vacation after all.


Hiding in the bushes.
Chance, Sporting a new hair cut.


First crop being put up.



Pruning trees, Trust me it looks a whole lot better now then it did.



Climbing trees




swinging, and the roses.



a close up of the roses for Grandma.







re-roofing the cellar.



swimming in the back yard.




Are we Farmers or what? Look at them tans!!!!! Whoa!!

all the kids in or near the pool. Funny story: I went out with the camera to get this picture. It took forever to get all the kids to get in or near the pool so I could take one second to snap the picture. Part of the problem: Oaklee would not cooperate, she refused to get close enough for me to get the picture and cried and cried. So I finally pointed the camera at her and said, " Smile for the camera.




This is what I got. Little Stinker.



Fun together



Chilling in the cool evening.


Another funny story: Oaklee was crawling around on the floor all evening pretending she was a dog. All the sudden I hear her singing to herself in the other room. "I a dog, Who let me out? Who... who? who?




There you go. I've been a bit busy and haven't taken the time to blog a lot. maybe this will get me going again. I guess it depends on how many comments I get..................Teasing!