Trappers Moon

Oh I love a full moon. Friends, take a look out your window tonight. It is gorgeous. This was the time to set beaver traps before the swamps froze, to ensure a supply of warm winter furs. Another interpretation suggests that the name Full Beaver Moon comes from the fact that the beavers are now actively preparing for winter. It is sometimes also referred to as the Frosty Moon.

Last Sunday was Doug's 39th birthday. To celebrate he went hunting with a hunting buddy in the Blue Mountains. He got up early in the morning, well before sunup, and headed out. He said he would also like to ride his motorbike at Juniper Dunes in the Tri Cities but by the time he got back from the mountain he was tired. Our neighbors, Eric and Kylie, came by for a visit and they drank a couple beers followed by a dash into Applebee's for a dinner with my parents. Kate, Hadley and I had picked out an ice cream cake earlier in the day for him so we had Doug's mom and aunt and brother out for cake to finish out a good day. No one was more excited about the cake then Kate and Hadley. It was fun to watch.

I have to back track a little since it has been so long since I have written. The day before Doug's birthday he had a couple friends come out and work on the track. They used the tractor and the quads and did some maintenance, changed some corners, berms, etc. Then they had some good conditions to ride. It would have been nice to end on that note but I am sorry to report his good friend had an accident on his quad and broke his scapula. OUCH! He got pretty banged up other than the break but he is on the mend. He is tough and this is not the first time to visit the emergency room for an ATV accident.

It seems like it rained the entire week which we greatly needed. Rain and wind, rain and wind. It seemed like a perfect excuse to hunker down inside and do cozy things but tell it to the pups. They need so much more physical activity than I do. Hadley was sick on and off this week but is on the mend now.

I want to congratulate our neighbors, Melissa and Eric, on the birth of their son. Preston was born around noon today (Thursday) and all is well for Melissa and the baby. I can't wait to see him but I told them I would wait until they get home and settle in again.

Today was a break from the rain. We had plenty of sunshine but that darn wind stuck around. I couldn't take it anymore, I decided to go ride while Betty was watching the girls. It was so nice to ride Cruiser in the arena. We had a good ride and then I picked up irrigation pipe in the pasture (finally) and got a few things done with the horses.

(Back tracking again) Betty offered to watch Kate on Wednesday's so I could return to Bible Study Fellowship (BSF). I had gone before I had her for about 3 years and have gotten so much from the study. It is an international organization that studies the same book in the bible every year. This year we are studying about the life of Moses from the book of Exodus. The stories are intriguing and our teaching leader is a entertaining speaker which gives her the ability to not only bring the stories alive to each of us but also show us how those stories and teachings apply to our lives in the here and now. We do a weekly study and answer questions which we then discuss at BSF with a smaller discussion group before we meet in a large group with the rest of the women and hear Janna speak about the weeks lesson. It has been life changing for me, I had never gotten into the bible before but since my first year I have deepened my spiritual connections and I feel like it has gotten me back on track. So stay tuned for tidbits from the stories we are studying.

Wanna try a good recipe?? It is a spicy orange garlic shrimp dish that I served over brown rice and broccoli. I think next time I would make it with scallops just to allow me to eat more (I have a shell fish allergy) but the shrimp were very good too. I picked up the recipe from my very very favorite blog site called thepioneerwoman.com and she has a section on cooking. Check it out.

That's all folks!

Keeping Me Grounded

You can always count on kids to keep you grounded and humble, right? Well, at least I can. Maybe your kids are different and if that is the case you should stop reading right now. After I dropped off Hadley at preschool, Kate and I went on a mission to find a light weight jacket for Hadley. After looking at Gottshalks and Shopko I decided to stop at Sears. Soon after entering the store I realized why I stick with the the "mart" stores like KMart and Walmart, etc. Because they have SHOPPING CARTS which act as corrals on wheels. Kate was shoeless (her princess sandals were left in the car) so this made her especially stealthy. I found a jacket for Hadley quickly but then I started looking for baby clothes for my friend Colleen's new baby girl. Oh sweet Jesus are those baby clothes DARLING! I am absorbed with looking at all the sweet little pink outfits but I am keeping an eye out for Kate, she is hiding inside the clothing racks and loving it. But soon she becomes very bold for a wild coyote pup. She starts straying farther and farther from her mama. And as soon as I call her and start to try and track her down she bolts. I can only track her by watching for clothes to move on racks, she is quiet as a mouse with her shoeless baby feet. And if I caught sight of her she SHRIEKS with delight and sprints off. I am in a full sweat by now. I am one of those mothers with the out of control child in the store. The kind I scoffed at before I had my own pups. There is no doubt that a large majority of their wildness must stem from lack of quality parenting but surely some of it is genetic?? It couldn't have been from me, I was a mouse when I was little. A sassy mouse but still a mouse. I don't think I would have ever gotten out of sight from my mom. And Doug wasn't much different. Nature vs nurture is weighing very heavily on the side of nurture right now. Oh lordy. So I finally catch her, and believe me it wasn't easy. I am paying for my purchases and I have told Kate to stay close by. She darts off again but I can see where she is hiding, inside another clothes rack in the ladies department. And soon she comes back WITHOUT her tights or diaper. OH MY GOD!! WHY ME?? So, with sweat starting to roll down my back, I go on a diaper hunt. And she pretends to know where it might be. Yeah, right. I don't want to tell you how long we looked in the aisles and under hanging clothes before I finally just decided to cut my losses and head out the door in shame. I said a silent apology for whoever finds her tights and diaper and whatever else might be included in that little package.

Raking Leaves

SO much to report I last spoke (wrote). When I awoke on Friday I did what I usually do, sit down at the computer and check my email and then take a look at the weather. The rain was coming and I was so darn sick of my kids turning on the tv and turning into glazed donuts while sitting in front of it that I quickly bundled them up and scooted them outside for a morning of

fall fun. There has been a giant stack of branches from the summer wind storms piling up next to the strawberry patch waiting to be burned. Ok, so it has been sitting there for no less than 4 months but for some reason I felt it just HAD to be burned today. So we lit it up. And Hadley grabbed the bag of marshmallows for our mid morning fire. My mom showed up soon after the flames started to tame down and we collected more branches for the fire. My mom is, in addition to being a cat hoarder, a fire maniac. I swear it is the primary reason she and my dad bought mountain property and set up a house there so that she and her neighbor could cut down and burn things. She speaks of it like a job. "Well, we gotta get up there early so we can get alot of that stuff burned that we drug out last weekend." So you should have seen her get to work on my fire when she drove up. I had been picking up sticks one by one and depositing them on the fire but she immediately suggested I get my big rubbermaid cart and fill it up so she could really give the fire some fuel. So while Techno Sue burned I raked up a big pile of leaves for the girls to jump in.

It didn't take too long of the screams and laughs for the goats to hear all the fun and they came running up from the horse pens. Typically I leave them out during the day so they can graze on everything the farm has to offer naturally. I didn't have enough foresight to realize locked up goats require expensive horse hay. And because of our like/hate relationship that is hard for me to swallow. So imagine my delight when they ran up and started munching on the leaves. Of course, this sent Hadley nearly over the edge that they were eating "all" the leaves and she wasn't going to have any too jump in. However, despite the goats eating "all" the leaves we still managed to get some fall leaf photos.

We got a lot of burning done before the rain arrived but there was still time for Grandma Betty to give the girls a ride in the wagon.

And as if this wasn't enough fun for one day?? Halloween dress up was still to come! Doug wanted to the girls to come into the clinic so he could see them before we headed down town. As soon as Kate awoke from her nap we started preparing the girls for the big event. I curled all of Hadley's beautiful golden hair and applied glittery make up. Then we slipped on her sweet little dress. She looked adorable. And next for Kate. Dear sweet opinionated Kate. How could I have been so dumb as to think she would actually wear something that wasn't a dress for Halloween? I purchased what I thought to be a darling little outfit on ebay for WAY too much money. My friend had a brilliant idea. Offer her two costumes, one she surely will hate (a scary bird) and then the butterfly costume. It worked like a charm....UNTIL I actually slipped it on her. Believe me, you have seldom seen a meltdown like the one she offered up. It was SO bad I didn't even get to see the entire outfit on her cute little bod. I got the suit on and then the wings and then she started really flailing and I knew we were in deep do-do. Thankfully grandma Betty came to the rescue. In one of her shopping adventures she had purchased a dress not unlike Hadley's only in pink and that is what Kate became for Halloween. So you wanna know the next problem?? HADLEY wanted a pink dress since Kate had one. Ugh. Will I ever win?

So after a trip to Doug's office and then a round of trick or treating down town we headed over to Auntie Karen's to stop in and say hi before we hit her neighborhood. Although Kate was very good at staying close to us when we were downtown the wild coyote pup surfaced at the residential trick or treating. She darted in and out of the road, running and laughing in sheer delight that we were all pulling out our hair trying to manage her. She exhausted me and Betty and Hadley screamed like she had a knife in her back every time Kate headed for the road. It was less than relaxing and we made a short cut back to our point of origin but before arriving we hooked up with our friends Ashleigh and Tara and then Christa and the boys. Unfortunately, shortly after they arrived the rain started coming down and the girls got cold and wanted to call it quits. I have to tell you my favorite Halloween image, towards the end of our rounds Kate collected her goods (candy) from the home owner and then just plopped down on their steps next to the woman and started eating her candy. She was done and it was time to start reaping the joys of her harvest and she wasn't leaving for anything. lol.

And as Hadley, Kate and I drifted off to sleep Hadley said "Good bye October, see ya next October!" It's been a good one.

Wordless Wednesday

Buzzard Banquet

Don't you love it when you make new friends when you are least expecting it? Last year we had a group of men stop by and ask if they could hunt on our farm. While we don't usually accomodate such requests this seemed like a trustworthy bunch so we gave them the ok. They came back one more time during the season and at that point I invited them to be our guests this year at our little house next door. They took us up on the offer and showed up this weekend and hunted from Prescott to Pomeroy and back again. Doug had a great time hanging out with them in the evenings at the guest house and throwing back a few beers or whatever it is men drink. And then last night the chef of the group, John, invited us for a tantilizing dinner of roasted duck served with bacon and parsnip. Who's ever eatten parsnip? Not I says the farm girl! But the preperation of the bird and the perfect combination of spices made it a memory making feast. YUM! And it was topped off by interesting conversation with these three men and a couple bottles of wine. Fun evening.

With nothing much more to report I will leave you with some images from this evenings chore time.

Max keeping an eye on anyone coming and going on the farm.

Dandelion helping himself to a bite to eat from the hay wagon.

A princess tending to her royal duties like feeding the chickens.

...giving love to the horses...

Proof that Jesus is alive and well. Bitty in the background.

Elvis Jumps Jesus

Yes, it's true. Elvis jumped Jesus. This afternoon couldn't have been more glorious and I decided the horses would enjoy taking a run and grazing on the pasture so I went down to let them out of their pens. Cruiser galloped off. Then I opened the next gate and Elvis bolted out. Jesus, blind to the world, decided to mosey across the pasture right in the line of fire. Thankfully Elvis is quick as a cat and reactted with precision leaping over the white fro of feathers. Whew!! So Jesus is no worse for the wear, still confused about what happened, but she will live to see another day.



But let me back track a little. Let's review yesterday. Kate and Hadley went down to their grandma's for a play date which gave us a little time. As I was deciding what to do I noticed 2 police officers wandering around our patio taking to Doug. So of course I had to go see what was happening. Turns out they were Fish and Wildlife officers here questioning Doug about the dead moose in Idaho. Because he turned it in he became a suspect. Apparently, this a ploy sometimes used by people after they have shot something illegally thinking this will cast suspicion away from them but it does the opposite. As Doug says, Let no good deed go unpunished. They had determined what type of rifle was used in the shooting and wanted to ask Doug about it. Now it might not be a surprise but Doug has a large collection of rifles and pistols so as luck would have it he owned one of the rifles possibly used in the shooting. They wanted to come in and see the guns. Great... Come into the ABSOLUTE dirtiest room in our home. The man room/hobby room and see tables covered with empty beer bottles (Doug has been brewing beer and needs them for his batches) and the cat box and more beer bottles and RC airplanes...and then let's open our personal safe for these men and here is most things important to us. Wills, guns and more guns, photos and horse videos of horse by gone. Once they inspected the gun in question it became obvious to them it hadn't been fired in a LONG time but just for good measure Doug fired it into a target so they could retrieve the bullet and send it away to the crime lab where they will compare it to the bullet retrieved. Another learning lesson, every barrel of a gun is unique because of the process they use to make them so everyone bullet fired through it will have certain characteristics almost like a finger print. Once the interview seemed to be officially over they admitted that Doug was a rather major suspect because he had spent so much money for an out of state tag ($375) and hauled our giant horse trailer back there and then only stayed a few days as opposed to a week minimum like many others. I had to pipe in at that time and ask if they would like to meet exhibit A and exhibit B, the primary reason our trip was cut short?



Had a great ride yesterday. As I said earlier, Betty took the girls, and after the officers left I made a bee line for the horse pen. I saddled up Elvis and put a halter on Cruiser to pony him and headed out. The sunset could have been right out of a Charles Russell painting. I had never seen such pinks and blues. Cruiser, Elvis and I had a nice ride and it was finished by a close encounter with a great horned owl looking over us from one of the trees we rode under.

Lastly, I got the RARE chance to sit down and watch a movie and NO it was not Beauty and the Beast or Cinderella--in fact, it didn't have any cartoon characters in it AND it had foul language!! What a treat! I was a big fan of the HBO series Sex in the City and they came out with a movie that reunites the girls back in NYC. I loved it. It took me back to my escape of watching these four women struggle through bad relationships, marriage, parenthood, and many other challenges we all struggle with. If you enjoyed the series give the movie a try. It was a good way to end the evening.

Oh, one more thing...have you ever tried those weird wine-looking antioxidant drinks? They have the good stuff from red wine and muscadine minus the booze? I got a bottle at Costco called Reversitall plus and I swear to you, on my white crested black polish chicken, I can feel a difference in my joints! It claims to prevent free radical damage to cells, support immune system and promotes a healthy heart. It says on the back of the box "You have to consume large amounts of red wine to gain the benefits in 1 serving of Reversitall Plus!" Yeah, but 1 serving of Reversitall Plus ain't nearly as much fun. So you might want to take a chance on it next time you are at Costco.

Over and out.

We're Going on a Bear Hunt...it's gonna be a big one

What a week. WHAT A WEEK!! It really started last weekend when Doug came home Saturday night with a fever. I hadn't seen him that sick in a long time. And then...Hadley got it. She had a fever Sunday afternoon of 103 and it gradually came down but it took until Tuesday to kick it for good. I swear, I call Hadley in sick to preschool more than any other parent. Do you think they are going to start wondering if I have Munchhausen?? So Hadley gets over the bug Tuesday night and then...well, you know what happens. KATE gets it. It's a bazaar virus. It must be hoof and mouth disease. A fever and raw ulcerated throats. Gross huh? Kate still has her nasty sores in her throat and she is more tired than usual. It hurts to eat so she has been sustaining on liquids primarily. Ya know, if anyone could use a dose of a liquid diet it is me, not the girls! So I kept waiting for it to hit but so far I have been ok, just a sore throat but no fever to accompany it.

Because of this bug and the upcoming elk season (opening this morning) I had held off on sending in my registration form for a trail clinic in Baker City, Oregon. My mom and her friend Penny had talked about going to it at least a month ago and I thought it sounded like something totally different and fun to do with the horses so I invited myself to join them. Well, kind of. I was planning on taking my own trailer and sleeping accommodations. Elvis was ready for the road trip, new shoes and all clipped and spit shined. When Friday rolled around I got the final word on child care and I was ready to go but I called the ranch just to double check there were open slots since I hadn't send him my registration ahead of time. Bad news. No room. DAMN! So I was stuck at home after the exciting build up of a road trip with my horse. DAMN DAMN! My mom and Penny will have to take lots of pictures and give a good report.

Since I was in town that gave me the chance to head into the Elks for a surprise 60th birthday party for our very good friend and neighbor Harold Cochran. He has been friends with both of our families since forever. His daughter in law, Melissa Cochran, and Kylie and Eric were there and I always enjoy seeing them. Melissa is an artist and jewelry designer and is always decked out in fabulous stuff. Check out her webite and see what I mean. Melissa is about 11 months pregnant and is scheduled for a c-section on the 13th (right Melissa??) next month. We can't wait to meet our new neighbor. Hadley, Kate, Kylie and a couple other boys ran around and had a blast at the party. It's not very often that I bring my wild coyote pups to town and it showed. I thought Kate was going to give those old ladies that work at the Elks a stroke with her behavior. Apparently she had never seen coyote pups in the form of two little girls before.

We had been expecting visitors in our guest home this weekend so I spent part of Thursday getting it freshened up a bit. This is a group of bird hunters we met last year and invited them to come join us here on the farm. They are generous with their game and give us a pheasant or two and smoked salmon and other treats they have perfected over the years. They said the bird numbers are down this year meaning we didn't have a very successful hatch of new pheasants. They also remarked that they didn't see a single quail today and last year there a few coveys. Puzzling. Because they were hunting the creek, which runs right by the horses and chickens, I had to keep the chickens locked up for half the day. They are spoiled and used to getting out as soon as I feed in the morning so they were fit to be tied by the time I let them out past noon.

Doug and Dean are elk hunting this weekend. Dean drew a cow tag in the unit up past Dayton so they have spent a couple afternoons up there scouting around. Hopefully they are successful, a cow tag will be easier to fill than Doug's spike permit. Elk are such magnificent animals that it is cool just to be in their stomping grounds and possibly catch a glimpse of them. They are hunting in an area close to the Wenaha which is where this bull elk was taken last year. I hope I get all of these facts straight to this remarkable tale. He was taken with something called a governors tag which is raffled off by the state to the highest bidder. Doug told me this man, a nationally renowned hunter, paid $62,500 for the opportunity to get the bull. He is the third largest bull elk ever recorded. There were plenty of costs in addition to the tag and I have heard he paid $30,000 to outfitters to track it down. Amazing. IMHO there might be better ways to spend that kind of money but hey, there are a lot of people who would say the same about the money I spend on horses. Honestly I was surprised our part of the country produced something that big. I have always thought it strange the mentality of hunters. It's big, it's beautiful, it's powerful and superior so let's kill it. Does that really make sense? Aren't those the ones you want to let LIVE so they pass on their genetics? Nope, let's kill it and let the smaller more inferior animals to reproduce. Backwards thinking if you ask me. But just the same, I marvel at the photo.

This fall has been especially beautiful. The nights have been cold, sometimes cold enough to put a layer of ice on the water troughs, but the days have been sunny and colorful. The girls and I headed out on a leaf collecting adventure late this morning. While reciting one of our favorite books "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" we searched in the CREP in grasses that were taller than me in many areas. There is a nice variety of trees on the farm and Hadley had a blast picking them up and storing them away in her bag for the activities to come. Kate mostly just wanted to be carried. Or as she says "I carry you mama, I carry you." Yeah, you just try to carry me. Back to the house and out come the paints and color crayons. We traced leaves and painted them in a variety of colors to celebrate fall. My favorite time of year.

That's all for now!!