Queen for a day!

Yesterday was my 40Th Birthday!

It amazes me still, how fast these last 20 years have flown. Will the next 20 go just as fast?

Have I done or accomplished what I want with this life? Are there any regrets? What will I do going forward? Does everyone feel this way at some point?

Just a few of the questions rolling in my head lately.

ANYHOW

For my Birthday yesterday Molly had her baby!

I heard some mooing at dawn and went out to investigate. It wasn't Molly creating the ruckus it was Lily (her mother) and I think she was trying to seal the baby - who looked to be maybe 30 minutes old and still wet. Lily didn't end up getting pregnant this time around and really wanted that baby! She was keeping the baby from Molly by continually getting between them both and even going so far as trying to heard the baby off in another direction.

She didn't want to go, but we got Lily moved into another pen, where she mooed nonstop for hours. I was afraid she'd go through the fence a few times, but she finally calmed down.

I think the new baby's name will be Millie.

She looks very healthy and Molly is doing well too.


Also, that dratted Eight ball got out on Friday morning, went to the neighbors house, the neighbor tried to force him back through our fence (what? why didn't they call? the kids and I would have gone to get him), couldn't do that so herded him up onto the road where he was almost hit by a red truck, ran him down our driveway and into the barn where he will now stay till the Hubby repairs the fence and hooks up the new fencer. Which will hopefully be this week some time.

We had some friends over last night for pizza, beer and a bonfire. The kids did a little swimming and frog catching too.

A good time had by all :)

Summer Solstice and more fun

Today is the Summer Solstice.

June 21st.

In other parts of the world it's just another day.

For those in the northern parts (southern too) of the world it is the turning point from gaining daylight to loosing daylight. My Dad always says after today you can feel winter in the air - course he lives in AK and tends to see the glass as half empty.

We've quite a few storms dumping huge amounts of rain. Some flooding in Eau Claire and out in the country. Even knocking my telephone and Internet service out this last weekend that sure put a damper on my blogging.

I planted this peony as a tiny sprig and it took two years for it to bloom. Sure is a gorgeous color.

Eight ball, he's been a bad little steer lately.

But not as bad as Cinnamon.

Both the boys have decided that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and are going right through it and up onto the road. Which is really pissing the Hubby off, because they are wrecking all the electric fence insulators and really stretching out the wire, not to mention could get hit by a car!

Little farts. The fencer is going to need replacing and quite a bit of fence line as well. Until that time Cinnamon is going into the barn and Eight ball will to if he starts going out on his own.

Molly is about ready to pop, she's got a huge baby bump!

All bagged up too. The kids can't wait for a new calf.


Chyann and I went riding last night after I got off work.

It was a bit windy, we saw two deer, someone was riding a three wheeler nearby and that was enough to make Jennifer a nitwit. She did pretty well until the three wheeler made an appearance then decided it was time to head home, which was fine with me -- get her back into her comfort zone and then we'd try again.

As we got closer to home she calmed down enough that I thought we'd try heading back out again and she decided to throw me off on my ass!

It happened so quick -- one moment I was on, then on the ground, then back on my feet -- I even managed to keep the reins in my hand too.

Chyann was like what was that? She just bucked you off! I apparently bounced better than last time I fell off, cuz it didn't hurt at all (not even today- knock on wood).

Well, I couldn't let it end there, so we went home and I put a saddle on her and we headed back out. She was still a nitwit, but didn't try to throw me off again - thankfully.

Classic example of needing to ride Jenny more.

Anyhow.. We finally got the pool uncovered and are in the process of getting the chemical balance correct. The kids can't wait! Course the weather isn't really warm enough to use it right now, but they don't care.

That's it for now. Have a good one :)

Birds, work and doctor fun

I took this pic of the baby birds on Monday and they must have flew off yesterday, because they are gone this morning. Cute little buggers were practically overflowing the nest.

I realize it is only Thursday, but I tell ya this has got to be the strangest weeks I've had in a while.

Huge upheavals at work.

My supervisor has been reassigned to a new position, the mentor steps into the supervisor role, new mentor from a different team, we loose a few key knowledge holders and get a replacement from a completely different team. Not to mention the whole billing team is loosing their jobs. Crazy shit. Guess we'll have to see how all this shakes out.

We went to the cities for Chyann's check up.

The doctors, which we saw separately, both think she is still on the right track. They said they believe she will regain the mobility in her knee - it just takes time.

Now if she was unable to straighten it out and had not gained any (less than 2*- which is all she had in the last month) of motion since we saw them last they would reconsider the need for surgery to lengthen her muscles and remove the scar tissue.

In fact one doctor said if we went to AK for a year and did no physical therapy at all, when we came back she'd have perfectly normal mobility. I'm like what? are you kidding? He said no, her body is healing but very slowly. He popped up some xrays from when she was wearing the fixator and said look how far she's come and to come that far it takes a while to get back to normal. Even going so far as to say if she'd had done the fixator a year ago she'd still be wearing it until July, but due to the rod laying next to her femer it was able to be removed early.

Her other doctor asked her if knowing everything about the fixator and all that comes with it - the pain, the infections, knee issues, etc was it worth it? and she said with no hesitation yes. He addressed the emotional stages she was going through now (the anger, smart mouth, and other fun) was also part of the healing as a whole. Which I guess makes sense. You'd think after all the operations this family has had I have know that, but I guess I didn't.

Apparently we've all been too impatient for her to "get back to normal".

It's very hard for me to see her so completely different than how she use to be. Previously she was all go all the time. Now some times when I come home from work, she's literally been on the couch all day.

Patience grasshopper, patience.

And we rode...

Chyann and I rode both on Saturday and Sunday.

We had the BEST time!!

Caden actually thought to get out the camera and get some pictures of us. We were quite a bit away from him so the quality isn't the best, but you get the idea.

We saw a deer and the horses didn't freak out at all. They both stopped and took some deep breaths smelling the deer and we moved on towards it. The deer was frozen watching us approach and I'll admit I was worried about what was going to happen next.

Fortunately the deer decided to bound off into the woods and all was well. We did hear turkeys and pheasants, but didn't see any. Riding through that old corn sure makes a lot of noise too.




Chyann was riding Scotch and at this point he was ready to go home. Chyann had to work a bit to get him to slow'er down and take it easy. I was worried she'd loose her balance and take a tumble into the corn stalks since she is only using one stir up. I bet all those old dry corn stalks would hurt if you took a tumble into them. Fortunately we didn't find that out this weekend.

Coming up to the wash.

Jennifer and Scotch both kept an eagle eye on Caden too.

Sure was fun. We have to make more time to get out and ride.

Everyone pitched in and we got the gardens weeded too. The boys played some golf, knocking balls into pasture and Shasta shagged/fetched a bunch of balls for them. That was pretty cute.

Alas, the weekend is over. I'm feeling better - Allegra is good stuff folks.

Back to the grind of working for the weekend.

What a week

TGIF!

I can't say that enough.

This has been an incredibly long and crappy week on many levels.

Most of which I'd rather forget ever happened so I'll just hit the highlights - allergies are all of the sudden kicking my arse! My head needs to be removed and drained! I've been trying different OTC meds and none seem to be doing the trick so I may be hauling my miserable self to the doc in a box for some good drugs soon.

We had some wonderfully hot weather the beginning of the week! But I didn't get to enjoy any of it as I was at work (insert whine).

Now the weather has turned cool and it's is drizzling out. That's a good thing since the garden is really needing a nice soaker. Someone HAS to get out the and pull some weeds. Who and when I have no idea. I can't even pay the lazy kids to do it.. sheesh.

This is also the first official week of summer vacation.

Caden is doing swimming lessons through the school in a neighboring town and loving every minute of it!

Chyann is still doing intensive PT. Next week she sees the docs and hopefully they will decide to release her knee. She has not gained a degree of mobility in 2 mos. She, as you can imagine is pissed off and tired of all this shit.

Colton is driving me nuts! He be the big man now, but mostly acts like a surly 14 year old. What is up with that? I'm sure I was never like that at 18 - course at 17 I had already moved out and was doing my own thing so maybe that makes a difference.

Tomorrow I'm going to be laZing around like sweet Gracie is. Or at least sleeping in till 7a!

In other news the Hubby who is always planing ahead, bought a semi load of wood from some folks that are having their land logged about 2 miles from our house. Apparently this is a good deal as he didn't have to pay much for the trucking and delivery of it.

Pretty cool how the crane is right on top of the trailer and the driver can unload it all on his own. With any luck all this wood will last us three to four years.


Lots of pretty flowers are blooming.




Big plans for the weekend are to assist in getting the pool scupper/skimmer replaced, weeding the garden and riding horses. Not necessarily in that order either.



TGIF!

Thrift Sale deal and a Dog party plus Bugsy

Friday was Chyann and Cadens last day of school and they both spent the night a some friends' house, which left The Hubby and I to our own devices, which included a dinner of beer and peanuts then riding go carts at twilight.

We got up early Saturday and decided to hit some thrift sales.

The best deal by far of the day is this very cool porch/deck chair/lounge thing. The Hubby did not want it - I said for $10 how could I not get this piece of luxury furniture? He said whatever like a good Hubby should and we stuffed it in the van. After dropping it off at the house we went and picked up the kids.

Chyann did not go to bed until almost 4am and got up at 730a. Nice. Oh man, talk about cranky! Caden was in just about the same shape having not gone to bed till midnight and up at 6a. Jeez and they wanted to go hit some thrift sales too.

We did for a while until the bickering became unbearable.

So we went home and set up my cool lounge thing.

With the cover removed. You can set the head and feet sections at different angles too. Now tell me, how could I have passed this up? It will be perfect when we get the pool going. Speaking of pools, I had to order a new skimmer for it because the old one developed a crack over the winter that could not be fixed. The new one should be here on Monday. Which I'm sure will not be soon enough for the kids as the weather has finally turned summer like with high humidity and fantastic temps in the mid 80's! Love it!

Check out my poor bleeding heart plant that got mutilated last week with all that wind we had.

And Cowboy. He sure is a pretty boy.



I came back from taking pictures to find Chyann zonked out on the cool new lounge thing.



Sweet Bugsy decides to visit.

Beegee has to check out whats going on too.

Casey starts whining and crying to get up too, so I put her up, which runs Beegee off.

Shasta has to check it out now.

Beegee comes back

And finally the ever allusive Tater comes up too - Casey is the ear licker and does everyone, including Bugs. No Bugs doesn't have mange, he has a bad hair cut thanks to Chyann cutting out some mats then trying to "fix" it.

The horses start goofing around which prompts all but Casey to go check it out.

Chyann popped her head up and very crankily says get these dogs away from me.

Aaah, Saturday fun.

June is here!

My favorite month is here - June!

And not only because it is the BIG birthday month for me, but because the kids get out of school tomorrow, the garden will really be growing, new baby calves born, maybe some kittens, our local fair, we open the pool, depending on Chyann we'll be riding horses more, maybe some camping, hanging out with friends, BBQ'ing most every night, nice cold beer, thrift sale season really gets started (I love a good thrift sale!) and much more.

I'm bummed because of the late hours I work. Not getting home till 630ish every night is really going to put me in a bad mood.

There is a chance of getting a schedule change at work, but nothing for sure.

However a job may be opening up in our town. Fewer hours - more money an hr though and closer to home (maybe a five min drive).

Decisions, decisions...

Oh! and lets not forget that in my current job there is also the possibility of working from home come October.

Anyhow..

The wind is still blowing like crazy here. I'm so sick of it! My poor spindly tomato and pepper plants are sure taking a beating.

This is a rhododendron bush/plant that was here when we moved in nine years ago. It has only bloomed once or twice over the years - I even fertilize it regularly.

On Monday it had this one bloom coming.

This morning when I went out to feed the animals it had bloomed. Sure is lovely and it looks like more blooms are on the way.

In other news....

Colton is enjoying his job at Taco Johns. He says the folks there are very nice. It is nothing like his experience at Hardies last summer - thankfully.

Chyann is going to start working with our friend Nan's shire horses this weekend. Draft horse show season is only a month away.

My allergies are driving me nuts.

Blogger was really pissing me off yesterday! I had the hardest time commenting on blogs! It was like a big loop - type your comment and sign in - over and over again. I ended up just being anonymous a lot.

Happy Thursday!