The Nursery

We have a lovely porch on our house (please ignore the large pole, not our idea, but its here to stay). Unfortunately the windows no longer open and we live in Southern Colorado and this porch has southern exposure, making it way too hot in the summer.

However, it is wonderful through the winter and early spring. It is nice and toasty and holds the heat well through the night, making it a perfect nursery for all kinds of things....

Like my seedlings! The tomatoes, watermelon and rhubarb seedlings are all loving the accomodations!

And our meat bird chicks! They are so warm that the heat lamp only has to run for a few hours in the early morning to keep them nice and warm!

And, finally, these little guys! Kittens born just yesterday out in the porch! What fun to have a nursery and see all the babies (plant and animal) growing and thriving!

The Birthday Gift

Happy birthday hubby! So much for the Keurig, guess Mr. Coffee will have to keep working a while longer...behold what Michael just received for his birthday instead: a 1969 International Loadstar retired fire truck. The town was looking to get rid of this thing so we acquired it for only $100.00! It does have a small issue starting, but other than that she's a cherry! Like-new interior and only 11,000 miles. It also has a water pump and hoses so we are hoping to use those around the place here. Right now the kids think its the best toy we ever bought them! I have actually been working on getting her back to her bright redness...the kids aren't as into that as they are climbing on it... With the lack of rain and the wind we are having here, it might come in handy for its original purpose too! Can we say fire danger!?!?

Learning

There has been a lot of learning and growing going on here. Punch has been learning which cats are friendly and which are not so friendly...

He is also learning where to find the good shady spots! Its been up into the 80's and even 90's, followed by days in the 40's and 50's so we are all going back and forth between shady spots and sunny places!

Blitzen has been learning about bindweed, its been sooo dry here this spring, but somehow the bindweed has managed to come up. I can't believe how big he is, he'll be 2 months next week!

Finally, I am learning once again to have some patience. Our cherry tree is in bloom, so warmer weather is hopefully here to stay, now just for some rain!!

The Garnets Won

novica

I'm a winner!!

I finally broke my losing streak of 29+ (++) years and won a fabulous gift card to Novica! Thanks to Andrea at Rural Revival! For those of you who haven't checked out Novica or Rural Revival...I highly recommend both!:) I am having a hard time deciding between garnets for myself or something else lovely for others...I have always loved garnets though...

In other news, got to spend the weekend with my brother, his wife and their two girls this weekend, it was so much fun to have them! This is as close to my kids get to cleaned up and picture ready...

We've planted some seeds this year and they are actually still alive, well, most are, we did have a small incident involving Punch and a tray of watermelon...but all and all things are growing! These little onion seedlings are so amazing! They came out of their little seed folded in half and now they are stretching out. We also planted some tomato, peppers, rhubarb and basil. Can't wait to taste the salsa this will hopefully all turn into!

For the love of books

As a lover of books, I have been anxiously awaiting the day when Pearl professes that she has found a wonderful book that she can't put down; I imagine this opening the door to indepth book discussions, me sharing the books I loved at her age, etc. etc. So, the other day I was SOOO happy to see Pearl and Evelyn with a big stack of books!! I figured they were going to snuggle in together, reading through their stack. Well, this is what I found a bit later on my kitchen floor:




Snuggled up together reading books? Nope, they were creating a ranch with the books acting as different pastures...guess I'll keep waiting.



In other news, here's the view out my living room window today. We are thankful for the moisture, but I am ready for some rain!!

Babies!!

We've had a very busy month here! First, a new puppy. He is an Aussie, we are calling him Punch. As you can see, he is fitting right in here with us, he found his favorite spot in front of the fire and is also loving being outside with Banjo on these nice days.

The other baby that arrived was a new little ram lamb born yesterday. We were so excited to have a healthy lamb born from the two lambs we bought last spring. He is doing very well and his momma seems to be very protective and attentive. We are thankful she decided to have him this week instead of a couple of weeks back when temps were so low!

We are getting ready to order some baby chicks, this warmer weather has been sooo nice!

Paper Dolls

The girls LOVE their paper dolls...for the last few years they have been playing with their Barbie fashion dolls, they've spent hours punching out dolls and clothes and accessories. Imagine their surprise when Grandma came over with the paper dolls she played with as a child...!

They've loved looking at the fashions from the 50's and 60's, one set is a wedding party set, very exciting!

They've already spent hours playing with the "new" dolls!

Evelyn and Golder Face

Here is Evelyn doing what she does best...taking care of the kittens!

Spring/Summer 2010

Here's what we have been up to....

Pearl and Royce having a tractor race around our driveway!

Evie working on her model pose...she tells me that models aways have to look a "little mad."

My Mother's Day gift...a milking machine!! This is supposed to make life a lot easier...













...working on getting the garden expanded, planted and fenced. We've planted lots of tomatoes, peppers, carrots, peas, lettuce, watermelon and onions.

Weed Eater

Here are our new weed eaters! The ram (Lambert) has the black halter and the ewe lamb (Ma) has the blue halter. They are Katahdins, a type of hair sheep which means no shearing!

Playing with the Cousins

Pearl Mae






Blake, Wade and Royce protecting family and home.

Busy Busy

Wow, we've been busy! Here are some pictures to show what we've been up to...

First, Pearl with a blue ribbon for the long jump at Field Day.

Next, Royce at the lake eating a sandwich.

And, unfortunately, no good picture of Evelyn, but here is what follows me around when I go outside, our meat birds.

The grand finale, Banjo showcasing our wysteria in bloom. What do you think Annie, could he be a guest contestant on Pugject Runway?

Cookies and cream

Here is the new baby!! Finally, after years of waiting we have fresh milk, yummy! The kids named the baby Oreo, he is a bull calf, 1/2 Jersey and 1/2 Holstein. Here is a picture of him just after birth (which I missed) and one of him today, 5 days old.

New Arrivals

The girls have arrived!!! Here are the latest additions to our place. Lily (standing) will calve in March and the one laying down, Iris, is her calf from last year. Iris is 1/2 Jersey 1/2 Holstein we can't wait for some fresh milk!!

Memories

This is a picture of me, my sister and my mom at my grandparents house in Greeley. My aunt and uncle still live in this house and this picture brings back lots of wonderful memories. I loved climbing that tree, eating ice cream right before bed, looking at the flowers my grandparents had in their yard and picking out my very own cereal when I got to stay the night! Just a little house in town full of love.

P.S. Congrats to my sister, Tanya, Loveland's Dispatcher of the Year!!! Mom was proud of you then and she would be proud of you now!!!

Good ol' summertime!

Well, long time no post! Who knew time could pass so quickly!! We are cold and snowy here in Holly today so I thought I would post some of my favorite pictures from this summer!

The first is of Maggie and Pearl up at Maggie's house. This is official chicken catching garb, if you were wondering. Don't we all wear our bikinis when catching chickens?! My poor chickens would die of fright!

Here is a picture of me, my brother Bobby and all of the kids. We are at the Swetsville Zoo in Ft. Collins. If you have never been, you should go!

Finally, this picture just makes me laugh! It looks like he put that watermelon seed on his head, but really he didn't. We don't know how it ended up there, but it was funny!

Hope these photos will help you get through a cold winter's day! Before we know it, it'll be July again and I'll be wondering just how the kids manage to get every towel in the house outside and in the sprinkler!

Richard and the flock (Wordful Wednesday!)

This is our rooster, Richard. Pearl hatched him out at school this spring. When she brought him home she said that his name was Richard and now as I talk to other people who got some of the chicks from school, they also have one named Richard. Smart teacher, I think she named them ALL Richard! He is a silver laced Wyandotte and so far has been very much the gentleman. Ginny the Guinea can been seen in the background, that is for Ken, he laughs because there always seems to be an animal in the background of my pictures!

Evelyn especially enjoys the chickens and she checks for eggs for me about 16 times a day!

The chickens are still laying well dispite the shorter days, we did put light in the coop as they lay better with 12 - 14 hours of light. We are anxiously awaiting our first egg from our "Easter Eggers" Pearl picked out two Easter Egger pullets last time we visited our chicken lady and we are hoping for some green or blue eggs from them. Our dog, Banjo, is finally leaving the chickens alone, although I did catch him with an egg the other day, better an egg than a $6.00 chicken! Good boy, Banjo!

Grandma's Garden - Wordless Wednesday

Homecoming

Pearl was the crownbearer for Homecoming this weekend. She got to give each of the Queen candidates a rose and then she presented King's crown to the Queen and then the Queen put it on the King's head. This was right up her alley and she had a lot of fun. Royce and Evelyn also had fun running around during the game with their friends, we love that Holly lets you park around the football field to watch the game. Yeah for the small town! We would have never made it to halftime in the stands! Go Wildcats!