The Many Faces Of Ki-Anne

Many of you may remember when I got suckered  into  brought my puppy home.  You may remember how I waited for her to tell me her name.

You patiently put up with all my pictures

and all my boring adoring stories.

You have watched her grow and change...

May I present Ki-Anne, my little hot pepper!

Her ears are up only when I talk to her...

for no one else, just me.

Now, that makes me feel special.

Picking Wild Huckleberries...

Marcy samples them.

They taste a lot like blue berries.

When they are dark, they are ripe.

Moving Cattle...

 Since the older babies (around seven hundred pounds) went to sale Friday, we moved the rest of the herd to another pasture. With a sack of feed in the tractor bucket, I think hubby could lead these through town. Notice belly-butting bottle baby, Lovely, (front and center) is a strong member of the herd now.



This is my favorite cow. She is huge and built perfectly in my book. Gelbvieh cattle come in three colors...yellow, red and black. I prefer the yellow, which is a "so last year" color. Hubby dreams of black. Now, tell me this...what difference does it make when all the meat is red after they are skinned? The funny thing is black brings more money at the sale barn...the least favorite is spotted cattle.

These are the early babies with Lovely in the middle, just like she was never a bottle baby. Lovely is about three months younger than her side mates. This was another miracle...Mom took Lovely back after she had been gone almost a month!!! Another reason Gelbveih are a wonderful choice of cattle. One mama will sit all the calves while the other mamas graze. If a babe becomes hungry, the nanny will feed it until the mother returns. Simply amazing to me!

I seem to have a thing with yellow...my favorite horse,
my favorite cow, my favorite rose...

 my favorite kittens and my favorite dog are all yellow!

I never buy yellow clothes, go figure.  I never said I wasn't

strange.



Revelations and Random Thoughts

I have never seen the movie "Titanic".  Why, you may ask.  I know how the story ends...ship sinks, people die...don't want to watch it.

I heard a story once that called a woman a holly hock.  The description ot the flower said, Does well behind barns and outhouses but no good in beds.

I think the government has too much power.  I believe we are slowly losing our rights as individuals and as a nation.  I think we should fix our own nation before we send money we do not have to other countries.

I believe in a Higher Power.

I believe I should probably stop talking now.  Have a great weekend.

A Rare Bird...

has been sited around the farm!  It is male and has been caught napping in the recliner and rummaging through the refrigerator. He has also been seen following the cattle, catching fish and tearing up equipment lately.

He mates for life and June third makes thirty-nine years. He's still hanging around the nest. The female is quite a frumphy old thing and tends to hang with the horses and dogs at the farm. The pair have been observed picking on each other, with a touch of playfulness. 

It has been recorded, this pair has been together almost a half-century and have produced only two chicks, we do know they have mated at least twice.

This rare photo pictures them in the beginning....

Happy Anniversary, hubby, thanks for putting up with me.

I love you!

May we have a hundred more!

Summer Slapped Us In The Face...

this week.  No gentle spring temperatures to enjoy...It is flat dab hot!  The too much rain has slowly left and the ground is already cracking.  Things continue to grow.

Note the tails...

the flies are out of hiding,

and torture my horses.  I must use the fly wipe.

It was an interesting night.  Hubby shot at and MISSED a critter after the chickens.  He could not hold the light and aim...my fault, I was sleeping.  We suspect it is a bobcat.  Hubby said it growled!

We have a bird at the pond, we cannot identify that is eating our bull frogs.  Black with a red head and hubby says it has never flown but runs across the water weeds and into the woods...I am calling it The Water Walker until we know.

Hubby also found a corn snake today and I haven't seen one of those since I was a child.  The bugs are eating every thing! 

Ki-Anne is driving me crazy finding terrapins.  She has found her voice and she lets the world know when she spies a terrapin.  I have to go look because I want her to tell me when there is a snake, but not when it's just a terrapin!!!  I tell her, leave it, she moves on and then rediscovers the terrapin after he has crawled a hundred feet and there we go again.

Mr I Can Drive Because Doc Said So has been driving every thing.  Fixing fence, welding the bush hog, hunting critters, fishing for supper, and getting cattle ready for market.  Did I mention it was hot???

As I sit inside, with the AC on, I am proud of the workers but I put my nine hours in today and I am relaxing.

Think I might get fired?

On The Rag...(Grossness Alert!)

is a term we have heard through out our life but few have truly gotten to experience it.

This term does apply to women on their period but it also means more.  In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth rags were really used!  No throw away pads or tampons...that was later.

I was born to Depression Era parents and my sisters and I got to experience "the rag" growing up.  If we were out of the disposable supplies, we were given an assortment of rags to layer, fit and pin into our underwear.  These were then washed and saved for the next time.  Truly disgusting, I know, but you really don't know how truly disgusting it is, until you have done it.

Recently my poor daughter ran out of disposable sanitary supplies.  She remembered our sad rag tales and fixed her situation.  I bought her tampons.  I was very genuinely thanked for this purchase...once in person and later by phone.

She said, oh, Mom, I never knew how wonderful the plugs really were.  I said, you could be even more primitive.  No, she said, that was primitive enough and she just wanted to tell me how much she appreciated the gift.

She hung up when I asked her if she had washed the rags for next time!