Red Sky in the morning

Tuesday morning we were treated to a glorious sunrise.

Went back into the house after feeding the animals and grabbed my camera.

The pictures don't really do it justice, but you get the idea.

Course I had to mess around with the settings and try the panorama setting.

Pretty cool,eh?

And of course I neglected to change the settings back so Caden took multiple panoramic photos while on his hiking trip.

WHOOPS!

He has been having a great time hiking this week.

Doing a minimum of five miles a day.

Last base ball game tonight.

Should be an interesting game, as this team beat the boys early in the season and we won the second game they played.

Have a good day!

It's always fun

when we hang out with Sherri and her family - which we did on Saturday.

Mr Cool, aka Caden absolutely loved cruising the place in a two seater hot rod go cart!

Somehow we squeezed through that opening in the trees

and cruised newly bailed hay fields.

Hell of a nice fireworks display

and a ginormous bonfire!

Even did some midnight swimming.

Ended up leaving entirely too early the next day, but that is the way it goes I guess. 

Chyann had a great time on her camping trip.

She kayaked, rode jet skis, pontoon boats, helped put out a wildfire, drove a gator, swung from a rope into the lake, stayed in the lap of luxury in a new fancy dancy motor home, and probably about a 100 things she didn't tell me. 

I'm so glad she is home. 

Missed her something fierce. 

This week Caden is participating in a hiking program the school is offering to the Ice Age National park. 

Today he hiked 5.5 miles in the HOT/HUMID weather. 

Good thing he had plenty of water. 

I would have loved to have been able to take some time off to be a chaperon, but couldn't. 

Maybe next year.  

Have a nice evening :)

Plans changed

Hope everyone had a wonderful safe holiday!

You know what they say about the best laid plans ~ they change.

Chyann ended up going camping with a friend of hers and her family for the 4th up North.
She's been gone since Wednesday afternoon and is reportedly having a blast! With the exception of getting a blistering sunburn on Thursday, first day out and too cool to wear sun block apparently. Lesson learned though and has been liberally applying it and wearing a t-shirt when swimming.

Colton also high-tailed it out of here for a trip to the cities with the girl friend and her family.

Which left Caden a bunch of fireworks. Ended up casually inviting a friend of his and his folks over for dinner so Caden had a friend to do fireworks with. We had a good time.

We never buy much and nothing fancy. About 25 bucks is my limit, I just can't see throwing that much  money away. I'm cheap like that ya know.

I made the best new recipe for the 4th. Pineapple Pistachio Pie from Mr Food. If you are any kind of a Pistachio fan, this is the pie for you! Delicious!!   I did make two variations from the recipe however: I made a graham cracker crust instead of the shortbread cookie crumb crust and used chopped pecans instead of walnuts.  Side note: the recipe states to beat your heavy cream for 5 to 6 minutes.. Yeah that is way too long~ first go around I made butter instead of a nice fluffy whipped cream. Had to google what the hell "stiff peaks" exactly looked like, so my second go with the heavy cream only took 2.5 minutes to get the required "stiff peaks".  What the hell, learned something new anyhow.

The last home ball game was another win! 9 to 0! I tell you these boys totally rock! I heard one parent ask the coach if anyone would even want to play our team next year and he assured her that yes next year we move up a notch and literally everyone would want to play our boys - so expect an even fuller schedule.
The coach is putting together a baseball boot camp type of thing too, starting after the last game on the 11th. Two days a week  for three hours to practice and fine tune skills. Caden is stoked.

Chyann gets her drivers permit on the 15th. Can you imagine that?

Haven't done any horse riding since she's been gone. Maybe I will this afternoon. Depends if Colton will be around.

Anyhow, I'm off to hit some thrift sales and do the weekly grocery shopping.
Have a great day :)

A weekend home?

Yes that's right. 

We stayed home a whole weekend.

It's amazing the things you can get accomplished when you don't have to run kids to and fro.

The horses spent some time mowing for me.

Casper came over and nibbled on my shoe laces while I took a break in the shade from weed whacking.

It was beautiful out.

Not too hot and not a lot of humidity.

Caden gave me a headache he spent so much time riding the gocart.

Soon as the four big cows are gone (prob by the 16th) we are going to reseed the back pasture due to so much of the grass being washed away with all the rain we've had. 

Until then Caden is tearing it up and having a blast!

Playing around with the panoramic function on my camera while he raced down the driveway.

That back ridge in this picture is where Chyann and I will attempt a ride to on the 4th.

Speaking of rides we only managed two short rides over the weekend.

I actually put a saddle on Gypsy and rode her. 

Can't even remember the last time I used a saddle.

Felt pretty good.

I put an ad on Criags List to give away the kittens and they have all found new homes!

YAY!!

We are still on the list to get our barn cats nutered/spayed.

Hopefully soon!!!

Last home game for Caden tonight. 

I'm excited ~ Colton is even coming, how great is that!

We've got no big plans for the 4th since we both have to work on Friday.

Later :)

Baseball stories and the number 42

Another week flew by!

Highlight of the week was the double header up in Clear Lake.

(two 5 inning games)

The day dawned foggy with 96% humidity and all that humidity totally juiced up the atmosphere so that when the fog finally cleared and the sun came out we were primed for some major storms.

The sky got dark and it stormed for so long I was sure the games would be cancelled. 

When they were finally over the driveway was washed out again.

What a pain in the ass. 

The Hubby has decided against "fixing" it until we can get a few loads of gravel in here. 

So, beware if you are coming to my house - the ruts are deep lol

Also we've got some free kittens if you are interested.

Just a few of the beautiful babies.

Anyhow back to the story

When we got to the game it was about 80* with incredibly high humidity.

Of course blogger is not letting me upload videos again today!

What is up with that!!  GRRR

Suffice to say that Caden is first up to bat and hits his very first home run!

I WAS SO THRILLED!!!

OH MAN

He fairly flew around the bases!

Now that is how you start a game!

WOW!

Watching the action.

Checking out the all important play book.

Warming up for his second time up to bat.

First game won 7 to 4.

Second game Caden pitched three innings.

He gets in the zone 

and lets it 

Fly!

The other team only got three hits off him.

They won 9 to 2!

Have I mentioned how much I love baseball?!?!?

It's awesome!

42

Yep, I had a Birthday.

42 good years.

42 

Course the Hubby got me a cake that said 29 - again!

I can be found today mowing the lawn and weeding the garden.

Broke the riding mower on Thursday and will be using the push mower - good thing I don't have too much left to do.

In one week the garden went to pot with all this rain.

Weeds galore - ugh. 

Planning on a little ride this evening as well. 

Have a wonderful day friends!

Caterwallin' Cows

Now you'd think on this ONE Monday morning that I did not have to get up at the ass crack of dawn that I could sleep in JUST A LITTLE BIT wouldn't you?

Yeah, not so much. 

These caterwallin cows started bawling at first light.

Why you ask?

Because the neighbors loaded about 30 cows with two bulls in his pasture across the road and our ladies are in heat. 

All damn day and now into the evening the caterwallin' continued. 

It's enough to drive you absolutely bat shit nuts!

I'm sure our neighbors to the West just loved us today.

Yeah well I can't stand their barking dogs either so I guess we are even.

Deep breath.

Check it out some lilacs are blooming.

They smell divine.

I told Chyann last night that it was going to be a scorcher today so if she wanted to get a ride in we'd have to go early.

She says sure Mom, but I don't want to get up before noon.

Really?

Who is this teenager that stole my early bird little girl?

I waited till 1030a and told her I was going without her if she didn't get her buns moving.

She very reluctantly got with the program, but was definitely not in the best mood.

I think the look on her face says it all - put the camera away MOM!

Jeez what a crabass.

It was freaking hot/humid, but beautiful.

I rode Scotch bareback and was literally soaked from the waist to my ankles. 

Everywhere we went was wet too.

Enough of the rain already.

My Dad says you farmers are never happy, never enough rain or too much lol

True story, right?

Caden had a baseball game in town tonight and for the first time I forgot to put the damn SD card in my camera and could not take any pictures.

The boys did great though.

9 to 1

Caden pitched two innings and did very well, with only one boy walking to first.

Wednesday they've got a double header in Clear Lake.

Now that promises to be a super long night. 

Sweet dreams.

Sunday morning coffee

Spam.
Spam is driving me nuts!
A few older posts that literally have almost a 1000 hits of spam on them.
Turned on the comment moderation to weed them out, but I tell you it's a huge pain to weed through them on a daily basis.
Any thoughts on how to stop that shit? Is word verification the only way?

Ants.
Last week I saw that we had a few random ants on the kitchen floor.
Put ant traps on the grocery list. Got them yesterday.
Last night those beasties came out in freaking droves to get that ant bait!
Talk about nasty ((shudder))
Where the hell have they been hiding?

Attended a potluck last night.
Made the best macaroni salad.
Rained to beat the band for about an hour.
Good thing there were awnings to take shelter under and no wind to drive the rain at us.
Potato launchers are pretty cool. Might have to make one.
Invited a few friends over to our place afterwards.
Had a bonfire until 3am, it was a beautiful night.

Coffee is good today.

Blustery this am.
With any luck the wind will dry out the ball field and the boys will have practice this afternoon.

Hay.
The price of a 1000lb bale of alfalfa for the cows is going from $100 to $300 bucks.
A bale of grassy horse hay is up from $65 to 150 bucks.
We'll be making some big herd reduction decisions soon.
Not a good time to be a hobby farmer. Hmm.

The field next door was finally planted on Thursday.
Damn.
Course it rained so much Thur/Fri/Sat that it washed out parts of the field.
They may not be having much come up.


Deaths and desertion.
Pain that never healed.
Pig headed-ness.
UGH.
Absolutely nothing I can do to influence the situation.
Sorry.


And


Weddings.
Thinking about the weddings that were held yesterday.
Saw some beautiful pictures on facebook.
The one thing I don't like about not living close to family.
Missing the big events in the lives of people I care about.
Everyone looked so happy.
Made me feel all melancholy.
sigh
Big event planned in December for my brother.
I hope I can make it.


Later