Floatsum...

Weather has been changeable, 80 one day, windy and wet and cold the next. The guys are really scrambling to get their crops in between storms. Tomatoes are being planted at a terrific pace. 

We've got some awesome girls in this family: 

Great niece, Finley, is fearless. 

As is my youngest GD Miss B!  She was at Shriner's Childrens Hospital in Portland to get measured for new kicks.

GD Jacey had to work yesterday, and she had a track meet. Went to work took her lunch to run the track meet, and then back to work.

GD Lauren has been working on her '72 pickup at night with her brother & dad.  They extended the cab, in order for her to have more room inside. 

Almost done.

Lauren's BFF & Lauren, the police cruiser was not there because of them, or so I was told...

 I went in last week to do the intake paper work for the eye surgery next week at the hospital in RB. Was feel'n good and a bit cocky, never a good thing. One would think I would learn from past experience. Nope.
Met with the nice young male RN, we got to talking and he was a Navy corpsman (like my grandson Cody) that went on to become a RN. Then when he asked where I was born, I found out that he was raised just down the road a piece, just a whole lot later.  Small world.
Answered all the questions, and he said "you are amazingly healthy". I was basking in all this praise for an ol cowgirl all the way back here. Woke up the next morning with the beginning of a head cold. Dammit! Feeling better today, but will call the doc tomorrow to see if I have to reschedule, sure hope not as I have people lined up to help me, and I hate to juggle their schedules anymore than I have to.

Gone loopy...

Sunday another gal and I cowgirled up and went with a friend to the 1st memorial roping in honor of her husband who passed away recently.

She wasn't sure how many were going to make it to this team roping.  From the size of the crowd at his recent memorial service, I could'a told her that it was going to be a bunch. 

People came from far and near. They ended up with a little over 300 teams.

Weather always is a factor, when it's an outdoor arena. We had sunshine to start, and then the wind kicked up, clouds rolled over, sunshine, and more wind. Lots of wind, made it interesting and dusty. By the end of the day, we figured we were wearing a good portion of the arena. I'm still finding dirt in places that only the wind knows how it got there.

Spring Valley revisited...

Willie and I have been taking little road trips in the areas where the Cowman and I have lived. I have cataract surgery coming up in a couple weeks and hope to get in as many field trips as possible down here before I go up to RB for those.
 

The Spring Valley ranch is on the West side of the valley. I haven't been back that way for a long time. So I packed a lunch and we took off to see how things had fared over the years.

There is an old sheep ranch at the turn off of the blacktop. 

ewes on a hilltop

Amazingly the old rams club was still around just as you got onto the gravel road.

There were lots of cattle further on, (and for some reason I didn't take any pics of them.) 
The smell of sunshine after a rain, sweet grass, and cows make it a good place to be this time of year.

 

 Spent a lot of hours a horseback in that rugged country. It's beautiful this time of year when it's green and the creeks are running.

Our house is right above the center of the gate, (can't believe they painted that clear cedar white).

 The ranch runs to the top of that far ridge line.  It is actually one of the smallest ranches we lived on. Acres only count as they relate to carrying capacity.

They have power out there now. There was no power when we lived there. (We had a big CAT diesel generator for power.)  

There is a photo of the house just after we finished building it in this post: 
https://brighidsplace.blogspot.com/2015/08/shotguns-snakes-bull.html

There was an abundance of wild hogs, elk, deer, rattlesnakes (overabundance), and the occasional bear.

 

Pistols at ten paces...

 To start off the weekend we had a work day at Marymine's on Saturday.  All the kids showed up to help get things in order for Easter.

  I pulled weeds out of the borders and planted all the pots around the pool with blooming flowers. Lauren cleaned Marymine's house, Cody cleaned around his house, Colt fixed the potholes in the road, & repaired a leaky waterline from the well. Marymine and Ali went shopping for all the food and drink. Saturday was a long day for all of us, we finally finished up with the chores around 9:30 pm.

Easter turned out to be a beautiful day. All the kids got an Easter basket.

 Pistols at ten paces works especially well if Nanny is the only one who got pistols in her Easter basket...

The kids played corn hole and other games, where the rivalry was intense.  

Meanwhile the dogs went swimming in the pool and generally ran around. 

 

Willie (look at that form), Duke, Dingo, Dozer, & Peanut

 Dozer (Tyler's) lab kept wanting someone to throw the retriever dummy in the pool so he could dive in and retrieve it. Duke (Colt's) choc lab decided he wasn't waiting, grabbed the dummy from Dozer and he flung it into the pool.  He did it over and over for Dozer to fetch. Gotta love that Duke, he's an ol soul.

We filled our plates with BBQ tri-tip, and all the fix'ins and took them out to the picnic table by the pool.  As we were starting to set to, Cody began laughing. He looked at Lauren and said, "I know you're the one who wrote Happy Easter on the blackboard in cursive, because you forgot to erase the tiny printed Easter above it..."  We all looked and sure enough she had. Nothing much gets past this crew.

After a day full of blessings we settled down by the fire pit to share tall tales of Easters past.

Happy Easter

Here's a story from another Easter:
https://brighidsplace.blogspot.com/2009/04/eggs-away.html