Goals

I posted last night that we had decided to get up earlier each morning to tend to our garden. And here is Day #1, cold and early, we planted carrots, radishes, lettuce, onions, and for some reason, beets. Additional planting tomorrow. It was a good way to start a day, after a cup of hot coffee of course.

Yesterday, Coffee Bean issued a challenge on her blog, righteousbuzz. I decided to play along since it has come at a time I needed a push. My belongings were in storage for a year. Once we moved into the Log House, we emptied storage and piled my boxes in our spaceous garage. The majority of my 'stuff' is unpacked and put away. But a large mess remains. Boxes of items not needed daily. Seasonal things, photos and albums, decorating stuff, and just stuff. There is plenty that needs to be done outdoors and I have just slacked off on the indoor settling in.

I went out this morning and took pictures. Humiliating.....

...an embarrassing mess

But I have taken the challenge and my goal is to have this stuff unpacked and in proper places by the end of May. *gulp* I will keep you posted on my progress.

Not that anyone really cares, but it may motivate me.

Dang, why not plan to drop 50# by the end of the year while I'm on a roll here.

OK, that's enough, three goals in one post is all I can handle. Anyone else care to play along?

Monday

Another weekend gone.

Daughter and grandson made it home safely very late Saturday night. They had a few delays and were glad to finally reach home. Tristan went back to school today. If you are wondering, he does very well in school and his teacher had no problem granting him permission to miss classes last week. He enjoys learning and is one of those who researches topics that interest him.

I realized after speaking to another family member yesterday, that my daughter did not send out graduation announcements. She graduated from college last week, with high honors, as an educator in Art. I am very proud of her, so is her son. She will make a superb teacher!

Congratulations Amy!

After work Saturday, I got home and went right to work with Jerry, building our lower pasture fence. Lots of good heavy labor.

Sunday I stayed in bed almost the entire day. It was a migraine day. I hate them, most people who don't suffer them, do not understand how a headache can be so disabling. Jerry happens to be one of those..... I am thankful that I get only about three yearly now.

Yesterday we somehow ended up with two extra horses here for a week or so visit. (we hope) Jerry got a call from a friend, who has a friend, who needed a place quick to keep her two horses due to a family 'situation'. Re: bad divorce. So we have two very, very fat, worried horses in stalls.

This evening we worked on the lower pasture fence again. It's coming along and should be done before the weekend. Fencing is hard work. I love hard work. Building fence is dirty work. I love getting dirty.

We also started planting our garden tonight. We planted tomato plants and green pepper plants. Next we have about 10 packets of seeds to sow. I seem to recall that tonight we kind of made an agreement to get up half an hour earlier every morning to work in our garden. I think we may be nuts. But it was good to be kneeling and digging in the soft, rich, tilled earth.

The gophers are winning: the cowboy hasn't shot any and the hound hasn't been able to catch any with all of his crazed diggings. Tonight we set gopher traps. Round plastic 'boxes', placed in their tunnels, they enter, hit a trigger and are decapitated..... hhmmmmm. Seems like drastic measures to eliminate a few little rodents. I guess they don't make the list of desirable wildlife.

Neither do skunks, Cort got 'skunked' sometime early this morning. Just a little stink.

Cort also treed a big raccoon yesterday in the yard. I missed that excitement.

The evenings have been warm enough to sleep with the back door open. The crickets are loud tonight. One of my favorite spring/summer night sounds. Sweet dreams......

Last Day in California

My Grandson wants to author this blog on his last day in California. He chose these pictures to share.



I'm at the American River on a granite rock island. I walked on a small rock bridge that was overflowing with water. The island is full of duck and goose poop.

I was trying to catch a baby lizard, it went under the rocks, and then I saw something......

Two ducks, a male and a female, kept coming up to us like they wanted us to feed them.

I found a small cave that was under a small bush that was hanging out the side of the river bank and there were rocks inside that were lined up like a chair and I carved rocks in there, um designs on rocks, no wait, um wait...never mind.

On our drives we see lots of deer. Oh dear

This is a lizard I found crawling in the rocks at my Nana's house. My Nana said I couldn't catch one, I kept trying and then I caught him. She was wrong. (OK so 1 time I was wrong, says Nana)

I looked it up and he is a Western Fence Lizard. He has beautiful blue patches on his belly. I had to let him go tonight because I am leaving tomorrow.

At home I have a Brown Anole in a terrarium, she is fast. She laid 2 eggs and had 2 babies. It was sad when they died.

I had fun here at California. But I'll be moving here sometime in the summer. If my Mom doesn't get a job, maybe I can be a cowboy. The 'Lone Ranger', again.

Havin' Fun

Our visitors made it here safely. My Grandson and I are going to write this blog together. He picked the pictures that we are sharing with you tonight. I think he may be having a fun time in California. He says, "WHAT! I'm having a GREAT time!" I think he misses school. He says,"I hate school." (he's fibbing)




Jerry is teaching me how to drive a tractor.

Grandson likes to climb, run, play, run, climb, work, and keeps me busy.

I didn't know my picture was taken like that! What am I doing with my finger?

Boy hugs horse.

I am finally able to ride a horse on my own. 'The Lone Ranger'

If you ride em', you clean up after 'em..... and he did so willingly. He can stay here as long as he wants.

I'm falling down Roller Coaster Road. Yeah it's really named that.

Super-boy and his buddy Super-dog.

Practicing for the California dog tossing championship.

Choose your favorite caption.

A. Dog stole boy's dinner. Boy cries.

B. Ah, crap he took my arm!

C. Super-boy takes a nap.

Scott Creek Trails Photos

The trail ride Saturday was held at this exquisite estate. This is the barn! One of our riding club members is the care taker and gets yearly permission to host a ride and b-b-q. The owners don't live here, just visit occasionally. It is beautiful country and the trails are kept well groomed.

This is one of several ponds on the property.

Those are Rock's ears. Everything is green and flowering, but in a short couple of months all will be golden and dry. (brown and dead) It doesn't rain here in the summer and we actually may have had our last rain already.

We had several little creek crossings.



The trail meandered through several pastures and meadows, along very old trails and cattle fence. No cattle are currently run on this land.

It was quite dusty later in the day. Seems much too early in the year for dusty trails. I believe the Midwest and east coast has gotten all of our rain.

Jerry and I were riding "drag", that is we were the last riders and our job was to watch ahead and make sure all was OK . We carried 'walkie-talkies' to communicate with the "trail boss", let him know if any rider/horse was having difficulty, if he needed to stop or slow down a bit. This was toward the end of the ride and old Remington is ears forward, chomping at the bit, eager to keep going, not liking the stop for a Kodak Moment.

Scott Creek Trails

Thirty horses and riders showed up for the trail ride. The weather was on the cool side which makes for a pleasant ride. We rode for two hours, stopped for lunch, rode further, made it back to the meadow we all had parked in and had a catered b-b-q dinner. It was a long but enjoyable day. Jerry loves the big crowds and socializing with everyone. I like very, very small groups much better. I have some nice pictures to share. We rode through pines, big oaks, across streams, over hills, and through meadows. The skies were clear and deep blue. Now you have to use your imagination because I am not successfully posting pictures tonight. And I am too tired to stay up longer and go out to Jerry's office to hook up to his internet booster. Sorry....

Some exciting news; today additonal seats were made available at discounted fares, on youngest daughter's flights, so.... yeehaw, the grandson gets to come visit while his mom is interviewing. Yay! They'll be here late tomorrow night.

Jerry has been suffering with a yucky cold for 3 days, I woke up with it this morning and felt crummy. I insisted we miss Church because it is a small church with many elderly members and I choose not to spread my viruses around if I can help it. The plan was to rest today and recover. Our rest today consisted of clearing out our front fence line of wild overgrown blackberry brambles and scraggly awful Oleander. The Oleander is deadly when eaten. I am glad to be rid of it, not that I would eat it, but the critters might. That's not the end of our rest though, we also pounded fence posts around the lower pasture. And cleared brush with the tractor. Oh, and I can't forget to mention that I was directed to raise Jerry in the bucket of the tractor high up in the trees so he could chainsaw dead limbs. It seemed very dangerous to me. So, now we're done resting and I'm going to bed. I sure hope that I can sleep after all of that rest.

No title

Sometimes my days and nights get entirely filled up and I can't get to the computer to write and read. Other times the internet connection doesn't cooperate. Jerry's office is out in back and late at night I just don't feel like tripping out there to connect to his nifty little antenna gadget.
I was able to do a little blog catch up reading today at work. Some of you really are excellent bloggers. Bringing much laughter to your readers or some serious thought.
Tonight will be a quick write. We have been busy tonight trying to help youngest daughter of mine to get a last minute flight out to California. Yeehaw, (did I just type yeehaw???) mission accomplished. She was notified 2 nights ago that she has been selected for an interview for a teaching position that opened up in a middle school in a neighboring town here in California. An excellent position. The interview was scheduled in a week, no optional dates, she is in a state far across the USA, she had two finals scheduled the day before and a son in school. But she got everything arranged, we helped arrange the flight and she will be interviewing next week. I do worry about the reliability (or lack of) with flying these days.
I am excited for her. Well and maybe for me too.... Grandson won't be able to make the trip, he'll have to stay there in school this trip. I miss my grands bunches! I hope youngest daughter is the best match for the job, and the job is her dream position.
I should get to bed. We have plans for a big trail ride followed by a catered dinner tomorrow. We need to have the horses loaded and ready to be on the road by 7 am. It should be a fun filled day. I'll try to get some pictures. Good night and a sunny weekend to all.

Our Critters

Cheyenne , our dark bay, gelding. Rock, our sorrel 9 year old mare.

Cort, our 1 1/2 year old male Queensland Blue Heeler cross.

Remington, aged sorrel Quarter Horse gelding.

Not much to say today. A day of fine weather, unpacking more boxes, sorting through stuff, and a bit of yard work.

Tagged

I've been tagged by Courtney. I'll play along, since I am in my office unpacking books. I love books. I need to change my list of favorite books, it is incomplete. I have way too many books even though I give away lots of the paper backs I buy. I need more book cases and shelves. So.... the last book I put on the shelf is.... LOVE SMART by Dr. Phil McGraw. I bought it back in 2005 when I was a single gal. The book is loaded with some good advice but I don't think it helped me find Jerry.


Here are the rules:
Pick up the nearest book of at least 123 pages.
Open the book to page 123.
Find the 5th sentence.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.

OK this is too funny!
Page 123, 5th sentence is ; Men are "wired" differently hormonally and neurologically, and have been socialized differently from birth. Men have been designed and socially trained to be less sensitive and emotional because they were expected to do jobs that necessitated less emotional reactivity. Now, that doesn't make them better or worse than women; it just makes them different. The point here is that it isn't right or wrong. It's just the way it is.

THANK YOU Dr. Phil! Now we are able to better understand Jerry on Gopher Patrol. Thanks for the tag Courtney.

I tag: (but I don't know how to do the link thing, and I don't mind if you don't play)
Jenn
Amy
Kelly
Karen D
Laura

Rural Weekend

This one's for Dad. This was my view while Dad and I were talking on the phone, I was sitting on the back porch enjoying (bragging about) our awesome weekend weather. The picture shows the down-slope side of our property, which is not fenced yet. Jerry has planted grass seed in the yard area, further down is a nice green grassy pasture with lots of pine trees and oaks. The road curves down along the property beyond our view. As we were talking, yellow clouds of pollen were drifting down from the trees, like sifted flour. Everything is covered in a yellow dust. It's worse today. We have to hose down the vehicles to go anywhere and see out the windshield.

Are you looking at this picture thinking, "Well how nice, Jerry is actually taking a break, sitting back peacefully enjoying life?" Are you? Well, lets just angle this view a bit more and zoom in on our subject. Shall we???

And folks, this is for real....
He is on Gopher Patrol..... (the gopher lives)
What can I say... the man makes my life more than I ever dreamed of.

Does this qualify for a "you know you're a redneck".....?

I call this "Lawn Crew Siesta". We turn them loose, we get a trimmed lawn AND fertilizer.

Notice they stand head to tail, you can see the tail swishing action, automatic fly swatters.

Cort didn't think it was fair for the horses to enjoy dinner without him. He thought he was being sneaky, and this was the response to my , "Hey Cort, what are you doing?"

This was his answer to my question. Sharing horse food.

Maybe I should have titled this post Red Neck Weekend. I hope you enjoyed it.

I am using Jerry's new cable, plugged into the phone card in my laptop, it attaches to a small antenna on the roof of his office, and my Internet connection is very much improved. I guess I'll have to go get one of these for myself. Or I'll have to come out to his office every time I want to get online.

Sunny Sunday

Time skipped by again. We had surprise out-of-state visitors from Wednesday until yesterday. Jerry's son, son's wife, and her dad. We had a nice visit, short but sweet.

Today was good. It was warm (80s), sunny, and very green. We had an excellent Church service this morning. Then we spent the rest of the day organizing our tack room and doing other odd and end jobs around here.

I took pictures today and had hoped to share a few but I have not been successful in getting them on this post. It sure is frustrating.

I'll try again tomorrow using a 'booster antenna device' that Jerry just bought for his laptop.

Saying good night now......

More Surgery

Case #1: Do you remember this patient from an earlier post?

And the surgery removing that very large lipoma (fatty tumor) from his neck?

Well here he is recovered and sporting a much more attractive neck line!

Case #2: I thought you may find this case interesting.... What's wrong with this picture?

Case#3: And then we have this little one. I'll call it, "not a tumor...." Can you find what's wrong with this picture?

Case#4: The ugly mass on this dog's rear leg turned out to be a lymphosarcoma. A bad cancer of the lymph nodes.

Case#5: Another tumor. This one is on a female dog,she is laying on her back in the picture. Another bad one. This one was a mammary cancer.

My message here is, please don't wait too long if you notice a lump on your pet that isn't going away or continues to increase in size. Better for everyone if it can be surgically removed while small.

I wouldn't want anyone to think all I do is follow Jerry around the place taking pictures of him working. Or that I spend all of my time riding and skiing..... Sometimes I actually work. ;-)

Sunday

Twenty baby Redwood Trees in a temporary tree nursery in our garden. We will replant them as soon as Jerry does some earth moving in front.

This thing is worse than riding a mechanical bull.... (maybe I have done that; in a younger, more foolish time in my life, maybe)

Gettin' er done...

There's a small Church in a nearby town that we went to on Easter. We both like it and have gone each Sunday since. I sure do like friendly, rural, small towns. After Church, we went to the grocery store, checked out an antique shop, then hit the Feed Store. We are being warmly greeted by new neighbors everywhere we go.


We had a quick lunch of tacos at home and then went outdoors to work. (Jerry still doesn't understand the 'day of rest' concept.)


Work will never end here. We thought it would be fun to put in a veggie garden. The garden area had already been created by a previous owner but has been sadly neglected in recent years. There is a 6 foot deer proof fence, an irrigation system, and tiers. Easy enough eh??? Hahahaha.


Jerry has spent several days doing bits of roto-tilling. First he cleared an area for the baby trees. Then started on the vegetable area. We finished up today. I helped. The tiller is a mean machine, it shakes and jumps and jars body parts. I didn't know that. If I had known, I would have made a strong case for supporting our local veggie farmers and not competing by producing our own food. But the tilling is finished. Now all we have to do is wait a few weeks and place little plants in the earth, water and fertilize, and harvest the bounty. Hahahaha. Are you kidding, I know it won't be easy like that, at all.

This is not taken in a local tavern. This is in our house, for goodness sakes.... All we need now are peanut shells on the floor and neon CORONA signs on the wall. Could be a country/western song....

*sigh*

Good night.

Back in the Saddle

We haven't ridden our horses since one fell on me in the fall and Jerry had the heart attack in November.
Saturday we loaded up our horses, saddles, and headed up into the 'hills'.


Only 15 miles from our house is a real nice camp ground and trail head for horses and hikers. The three horses ready to head out and Jerry adjusting his chaps.

Jerry on Cheyenne and leading Remington. We didn't want to leave Rem at home alone and he needs the exercise too, so he carried the pack saddle.

We rode up hills and down little canyons, this was a nice overlook area, actually it was a heli-pad clearing, up in the middle of the woods.

Big trees, the scent of pine and fern, silence.....

It was a very good day.

Good to be back in the saddle.