Friday, May 31, 2013
Yup
I just have to say here that little ol' me was the " man power" holding up the cabinets! Yeah.... Sore muscles today! Scott would get frustrated because we would have it perfectly on the line and then he would go to screw it in while I would be holding the whole thing myself - and it would slide down a quarter inch and we would have to start again. And the screws were terrible and kept stripping out.... so there was lots of very naughty words!
But we did it!
Monday, May 27, 2013
Missing Scott for breakfast!
Headed to Arches National park this afternoon. It's going to be VERY cool!
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Tight squeeze
So, on our way to Arches National Park, we had to go through this narrow space between the rocks. It took $4.5 million to complete 8 miles of road! Guys were up 400 feet tied in to the rock and working away to get through!
Off to a great adventure
We are in the car and headed to the southeastern part of the state. But we have stop by and get a picture with Tow Mater!
Saturday, May 25, 2013
The end
So we were a great team... Me and Scott.
Got the third coat on this morning and were thinking that was gonna be it. Until several hours later when we went back up after lunch only to see that the dog had nudged her way into the house and walked around in a circle. Soooooo..... looks like we will be doing that area once again!
Damn dog! At least she was smart enough to walk in and circle back around once she realized it was wet!
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Big day
Boy! This was big! At first we thought we would go with a darker stain. So we went ahead and stained the master bedroom. The next day Scott entertained the idea of simply doing the poly over the whole thing. And we loved it!
So that is what we did.
Not sure if we will just keep the bedroom darker OR Scott will have to go back to sanding the whole room again!
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
The horse dentist
Well.... Never seen this before!
Snorty got a double dose of tranquilizer so he was in a very happy place. I thought he was going to rest his head on my shoulder!
Ranger Noll
Hunter has been living in this outfit! He's official a ranger and has been working on his junior ranger badge very diligently! It is great to watch him work so hard on the paperwork.
Tongue duty
Kate had to hold his tongue out of the way. It was much harder than she thought it would be. He's got a strong tongue!
Friday, May 17, 2013
The garden... Go big or go home!
9 garden boxes.... All planted thanks to some extra help from poppa Joe and Bubbie.
Big brother Bo
He is already started and an awesome dog. Comes when he is called. Lays down with his head to the ground when you say "down"..... more than I can say about Betty Beatrice... Naughty girl - out till 4am last night!
Our new baby girl
My days of running through the pasture to round up cows are over. We LOVE her. Scott already told me to stay away from her.... She is a working dog and I should note corrupt her!
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
A pile of kittens
The kids now call it the nursery!
I want to name that carmel colored one Odd Ball, but I am getting some resistance. There are others who want to name it Butterscotch or Buttercup. Guess who?
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Moving on
So even though this calf just has died, I still need to get myself together and get the Brownies! As we are driving there, Katie told me that she had to get in the car and look away because she did not want Scott to see her cry. She asked me if I cried because she thought when I was walking to the tack room that I looked sad. Of course, I was. And I told her that its ok to cry and feel whatever you do feel. And that the most important thing is to not feel as though you ever have to hide your feelings because it is the most important to just be true to yourself.
I also I told her that I am sure Scott might have laughed at me but also that we just need to accept that we are not hardened yet by these experiences. And that is OK.
Brownies is good and we head to Katie's first softball game. Katie played 3rd base and did great! The final score was 12 to 12- a tie.
I head to the gym and Scott takes the kids home for dinner and bedtime. As they are passing the shop, they can see that our favorite shop cat, Cookie, is dead on the side of the road. It is probably a good thing I was not there because I am sure I would have gasped and got all emotional and Scott is much better about just moving forward. So, surprisingly enough, the kids did not really have much of a problem about it or any real emotional response.
But the next day, we decide to bury him. Which I am glad about because I was not too excited about watching the turkey vultures peck his eyes out. The boys and I take a shovel and scoop him up off the road. Once again this week, Hunter and Ben dig the hole and we bury him. We all say a little something about how he was the best shop cat in the whole wide world and we love how his tail was always in the shape of a question mark, and how he was just a sweet cat and that he will be missed.
Katie is really nowhere to be seen and when I do see her, she is sitting over by herself with her head in her lap and is crying. Of course, at that moment, I think to myself how I should have just left it alone, but that is not really me.
I walk over to her and just have to put my feelings aside and be strong so she can see me be strong. I tell her Cookie is in a good place and he will always be a part of us. And just like anyone that we have loved and lost, we can always find them in our hearts and that is where we will have to look for him now.
I find that when my emotions get the best of me it is best to just get to work and get dirty. So, we spent the rest of the day creating the garden. There was lots of dirt moving, shoveling, raking and just getting our hands dirty. And by the end of the day we were all feeling really good.
Although there had been sadness in the past few days, it certainly also made us realize all the happiness that is around us and all that we do have and how grateful we are to love and to be loved.
The next morning, we awake to a loud cat cry which was Cream as her water broke outside the back door! So, we rush to get her a comfortable place to have her kittens. At this point, we are not sure if she has already had the kittens and they are up in the forest or if that really was her water that just broke. So, we leave her alone. When we check her later, we can see she has a bunch of gunk coming out and she is definitely in labor. She does not want to seem to be alone so we bring her onto the deck and Katie sits with her.
Apparently it was taking so long that Katie got bored and went down to check on Squeak and her kittens. At this point, cream had crawled under the blanket and was hiding and every once in awhile you would see the blanket move, but we did not know what was going on. When I peeked under, I could see that she had delivered one kitten! And I called to Katie and she came running up.
Katie and I watched her deliver one more kitten. We were sure she was done because then she delivered the placenta and actually ate it! It was pretty gross and we had to look away.
We moved the box down to the shed so they could be with the other cats and kittens. When we went down a few hours later, Cream had delivered two more kittens!
The next morning we went down to check on them and thought Cream had moved all the kittens to an unknown location only to discover she had moved them in to her sisters basket with her kittens! They seem to take turns nursing each other's kittens if you can believe that! Sisterhood. It is a beautiful thing.
What a week!
Lots of life lessons this week...
So, about that little calf....
The next morning, we are having school over at the cabin because when we arrive at the ranch that morning the carbon monoxide detector was going off again. I'm not really sure what the situation is there, but instead of sticking around to find out I open the windows, left the door open and we went back to the cabin for school.
During recess, after lunch, I can hear Hunter yell that Squeak has got blood coming from her butt. So we all run out and down to the shed where are the cats live and sure enough, she has had five kittens! Surprisingly enough, she has all of the kittens in the basket, where not that long ago, last August, she was a kitten herself! Id even looked as though she had had the kittens in the basket verses having have had them somewhere else and move them there.
So the blanket is pretty wet, so we decide to do a little clean up and grab a drive blanket to put down instead. And that is when we see that one of the kittens is not moving and is definitely dead. We decide to bury it. I make a little God's Eye cross out of 2 sticks and some yarn. Hunter and Ben dig the hole and we put a little kitten inside and say a little prayer and bury her.
But in no time at all, we are running back up to the shed to check out all the other kittens! It was pretty exciting and everyone was bouncing with excitement.
Scott drives by and is headed over to the ranch to check on the calf from the day before. He just wants to make sure that the calf is nursing and things are going well. He has looked at it early that morning and it was curled up in the corner of the corral. When we had gone there in the late morning it looked as though it was exactly in the same place and have not moved. So he was going back to check on it.
In a little while, I get a call from Scott that says he is going to need my help over at the ranch. We are going to do what we did the day before and see if we can get the calf to nurse, it is not looking good. The calf is looking pretty weak. So, I load up the kids and we head over.
The heifer is still in the small corral but not in the lock down position anymore, and we need to get her back into the head squeeze so we can help the calf nurse. The calf is laying there with labored breathing and is really looking weak.
Now, I am in my early days of being a ranch woman and there are many, many things that I do not know and more importantly, that I do not even think of. So I have got to stick and I am standing with my feet up on the gate, leaning over using the stick to get the heifer to go into this specific corner of the corral. Of course, I am kind of talking nicely to it and telling her to go get her baby, move over to the corner, be a good girl and getting the right place. And this heifer is just freaking out and getting irate!
I have no idea and I'm totally caught off guard when she kicks in my direction and hits the gate right below my foot. I could feel the vibration from the gate through my foot. I stepped back and I'm so shaken by the whole thing that what do I do? I start to cry. All I could think of what if she would have been 3 inches higher she would have kicked me in the shin! And all I could think about was my leg being broken in half and having a limp for the rest of my life and walking around the ranch with a cane because of some stupid thing I did without even thinking.
But I suppose there is really not time for me to cry and feel sorry for myself, so I ask Katie to go and get the whip we use for the horse. And this way I can stand back and still get her moving.
Through all of this, the calf is just laying there and is not doing well at all. Scott looks down at the calf and looks up at me and says he thinks this calf is on its way out. All the excitement sort of quickly drains away because there is no real urgency anymore. The calf is just laying there taking its last few breaths. Scott looks down at it and picks it up and moves it closer to the heifer and says to the calf how he is sure she wants to be with her mom right now. The calf is still on the outside of the corral so I go to her and start to pet her. Every once in awhile she flinches and I'm not sure if it is because she is in pain or it is just the process of dying.
I cannot help but think about how at the end we all sort of die in the same way. There are those last few breaths we take as we are on our way and there is just no turning back. And that last out-breath that we take, when our last little bit of what makes us alive and fills our Being is exhaled, how we just become a part of everything.
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