The Wild Things come out in the Spring

Calves are beginning to hit the ground. More and more everyday.

The professional bull-rock riders tour rolls through town,

bringing its toughest riders (and their dogs).

8 seconds!

We signed Tess up for Kindergarten last week. Who knew going to Kindergarten involved so many signatures. The latest trend around here is dinosaurs. We have a little Palen Paleontologist. If you don't know the difference between a herbivore and a carnivore and an omnivore just ask. Great advances have been made in the paleontology field since I was a child and there are many more dinosaurs to learn about. Luckily, Tess has no problems pointing out my deficiencies in knowing the differences between a iguanodon and a parasaurolophus.

Tidbits

The world's largest waffle stack made by the smallest waffle chef. It's Alive!

We picked up 6 new hens and a Foghorn Leghorn.

Pretty white egg.

Soggy brown driveway.

Name Needed

This little scrapper has been living here more than a week now and still doesn't have a name!

Treasure Hunt

We decided to go for a treasure hunt this afternoon. We decided Middle Bear would be the best place to search for pirate treasure. There were LOTS of turkey tracks. We thought they must know the way.

We found a shiny gold coin near the duck pond.

Still looking for more.

Found some more gold coins in the bluffs. Tess thought the gold coins looked remarkably like the ones I gave to some of her friends two Christmases ago...funny how that works...we determined that the pirates and I must have shopped at the same store.

We also found a bone! Tess wanted to decorate the bone so we came home and put sprinkles on it and decorated the other side with markers. Tess is looking somewhat like a pirate with another battle scar on her cheek, this time an unfortunate run in with a plastic horse's ear. But this will just give her more cred' at preschool.

Last weekend Tess and I ran to Denver to meet Eric who was there for the Guard, but forgot the camera. The highlight was the draft horse show at the stockshow, Tess was very excited about the six-horse hitches pulling wagons. All she wanted for Christmas was a wagon for her plastic horses to pull, so to see them upclose was pretty impressive for her. We ended having to spend more time there than planned, so Tess and I checked out the Butterfly Pavillion, Build-A-Bear and shopping. The only things Tess wanted from all the stores in the big city was a pink suitcase.

Barn Raising

Eric has been building a loafing shed.

Tess has been helping: by supervising...

Bringing snacks in Tupperware.

And standing on boards.

The heifers and horses have been supervising too.

Chirstmas time

It is very hard to hold still long enough to get your picture taken when you are four and it is Christmas!
Dad, Tess and Trig sprinkling sparkly reindeer food outside the chimney on New Years Eve. This way the reindeer see the sparkles and know where to go and can get a snack.

Tess got a sleeping bag. She says this is so she can "go camping in the winter." I was thinking more along the lines of camping in the summer. It was below zero again this week with winds blowing a gale.

Since we were snowed and blowed in for about 3 days. Eric and Tess decided to create a new after Christmas tradition of going swimming. So the first day we could actually stand vertically without getting blown over, we visited the Casper Rec Center to check out their pool.

Other than the weather, we had a very nice Christmas, hope you did too!

It always take a while for me to gather up the courage to post a sad post, and then it always takes while for me to gather up the steam to post after. Around that same time my cousin Beckywas killed in a tragic car accident, it is hard to understand little less write about what we can't explain. Perhaps this is what distinguishes poets from the rest of us.

But, days go by. We had a beautiful Thanksgiving. I had purchased a farm raised turkey from some folks in Carpenter. I was nervous about it being a tough and dry old bird, but it was actually wonderful. It was shaped differently than a store bought bird, having larger legs and smaller breast - but since Eric prefers dark meat anyway, it turned out nice.

Eric has been having to go to a class in Denver for the National Guard once or twice a month, and sometimes in addition to his normal drills. Needless to say this is keeping his on his toes and out of trouble. He was an outrider for the local chariot races and it was about 0 without the wind. He is on the far right on the Dun, Bobbie,in this photo which was taken by Ben Britton.

But zero was just the beginning.

Tess continues to love to draw and loves animals and dinosaurs and Barbie and the Three Muskateers. I didn't know if I approved of Barbie, but the premise is that girls can be Muskateers just as well as boys. She folds paper swords.

I went to a bee keeping class this weekend and looking forward to my first hive in the spring. I turned a year older since the last post...hopefully a year wiser.

There is sorrow enough in the natural way

From men and women to fill our day;

But when we are certain of sorrow in store

Why do we always arrange for more?

Brothers and sisters I bid you beware

Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

About 6 months, always photogenic.

In Cody at Search and Rescue school.

Swimming at Flaming Gorge.


Camping

First day at home.

Plus many, many other photos within the blog....

Again we say goodbye to a loyal friend.

Just look at this empty halloween bag. I am such an abused child.

Ignore the chocolate on my lips.

Trig says....

Whose bright idea was it to bring me from my birthplace in Arizona

to this wicked place named Wyoming?

One tough cowgirl

Weaning calves is hard work...

Especially in the wind and the rain and the snow and the mud with a stuffy nose and gloves that are too big.

But getting to move the cattle with dad, Peanuts, Banjo and the dog makes it all worth while.

I promise this is something she WANTED to do.

Harvest Home

Last year when we went to the Harvest Home corn maze and pumpkin patch there was a wind chill of about -20 it seemed.

Last weekend, we had ten inches of snow and black ice advisories. Love that Wyoming weather!

This weekend it was 80 at the Harvest Home. Perfect weather for pumpkin hunting and the highlight, the corn box! We took our annual trek with our friend Lydia (far right) we ran into cousins Brock and Darci!

Back flipping into the corn.

Tess working hard to bury Lydia in the corn. Im sure Lydia's mom will be finding corn in unusual places for several weeks!

I'm king of the world....or at least Estes Park.

On the trail again

On extra good days we get to have trails not trials. Here is Eric on Clay with neighbor Roy moving neighbor Dennis's cows. Long time blog followers will recognize Clay from his baby pictures on the blog in Spring 2007. Eric is pretty proud of his progress.
True cowgirls wear their hats low.
Tess and Dad working hard. Eric got a fresh horse for moving the cattle back and for ponying Peanuts. She is Clays 1/2 sister and this is sure a nice shot of the "line-back dun." Isn't there a poem about that?
Speaking of shots, all photos in this entry are again courtesy of Karen Bennett who is our hero, as always.

Tess and Peanuts who I think are both a little on the tired side. I hear there was plenty of cow trailing songs sung in an effort to keep Tess awake and them dogies moving, but Eric would never admit to singing, so only those present will know for sure.

Tess started preschool this week. This is her first, first-day-of-school picture. So far she seems to being doing just fine. She gives us very little information about what happens at preschool, preschool must be a lot like Vegas I guess.

Over labor day, Eric and I went to Napa Valley for our anniversary.

Grapes every where you look. I told my dad it was sorta like going to Nebraska to visit corn fields, excepts they don't have moonshine tastings on the edge of the fields in Nebraska.

We rented bikes on Sunday and biked about twenty miles, stopping at several tasting rooms along the way.

More grapes! But you can see how dry the hills are...not what I was expecting.

Golden Gate. The Bay Bridge was closed, so we were expecting traffic to be much worse, but we were lucky.

Fisherman's Wharf which we visited on the way back to the airport. Interesting for us landlubbers.

Sea Lions. Tess would have loved this. But, she had fun staying with grandma and pops and they went to the National Trails Center in Casper where she learned about wagons.

Today's Harvest

A couple of pictures of our gardens gatherins for today. While we have had a rough year with the garden, we are starting to get some fixins. Today, I made chokecherry syrup a couple of which are shown here just for fun. Tess is excited to have this on ice cream with her Pops. Also pictured are some of the plums we picked today (many more in coffee cans spread around the house), the only acorn squash I think we are going to get, part of the tomatoes, brocolli and cauliflower and we even got 9 outta 9 on the eggs today. I made pickled beets a couple of weeks ago but I forgot to put them in the photo.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to make carrot pepper salsa as we still have lots of carrots and onions and maybe that will also cut down on my tomato and jalepeno numbers. If I'm real ambitious maybe I'll get some photos.

Trying the followers widget for awhile. I believe that if you become a follower, you will get the breaking news when there is a new post. You might even see a common friend or too. Its not hard.