Fine Feathered Friends

There is a large lawn area with old trees between Marymine's house and the bunkhouse where I live. 
In the crouch of a huge elm is a stick nest with three of these little cuties...  Yesterday we watched they're antics for the longest time. Mom must have been off getting dinner from the take out in the alfalfa.   

aaah Spring

All is in Spring hyper drive around the farmstead. Sunday before last, Marymine sent me across the valley to get "some color" for her yard. I hate shopping, really, except for plants. Came home with the ol SUV loaded to the roof with Lots of Color.  The youngest granddaughter and I planted 25 pots and three borders full to the brim... aaah Spring!
The son-in-law has his many & varied crops in, and just finished baling the first cutting of alfalfa. Grand kids are busy with ballgames, 4-H, FFA, and projects.
Marymine and her oldest girl were off to another state for a game last weekend. Which left the youngest girl & boy in my care, watch out world. Ran the boy to the dentist (30 miles away) Thursday morning.  Then away to the feed mill, to swap out a whole pallet of feed...which the girls had picked up the day before. The loader had put Alpaca feed on, instead of the show steer mix. I have a feeling that the young man driving the forklift might have been paying more attention to my granddaughter than which pallet he was loading.
Thursday night Lizzy had a ballgame and Friday night they all had a dinner to go to.  Saturday was full of 4-H for Lizzy, and grandson plowing.



Sunday, Lizzy and I took great grandpa to the Big rodeo.  We got to see a lot of family & friends, gossip, swap tales, oh and watch the rodeo.
Now why does it all come at once?  This granny needs a bit of a break once in a while so she can catch her breath and enjoy... aaah Spring

 

All's well that ends well...

             
When we sold our house last fall, I did a final clean and walk-thru. In a way, saying goodbye to the only house we ever owned.  All the other 29 moves had been to rentals or ranch housing. 
I had moved out months before, and himself had stayed on til a buyer was found. He did a good job of keeping it up, but didn't see that it wasn't as clean as it could be.  So I spent a last day with the house, cleaning, and polishing.  I made sure the bathrooms had full rolls of TP, new bars of soap, a few fresh towels, new batteries in the alarms, a basket of trash bags, new lightbulbs, cleansers, and watered the garden.  Locking the door behind me the last time, I wasn't sad, there was no need.  When I went by the realtor's to leave my keys, I also left a binder for the new owners.  The binder had a note wishing them nothing but happiness in their new home, all the warranties and manuals for the heating/ac unit, appliances, and fixtures.  The names and info of all the utilities, and services that we had used. Also included were the color codes and brands of paint & stain used. At the end I listed the close neighbors and slipped in a few pictures of the landscape in full bloom. 
I never met the buyers, but my ex said they were nice, all's well. 

Yeah Right Bucko...

               

A girlfriend called to say she was driving up to Washington state to spend a week with her sons, and would I like to ride along so I could spend some time with my Sean.  Took me about a minute to throw some clothes in my bag, make arrangements for Gus to stay with Marymine, and away I went. 

Spent a great week with my Sean and his girls. The girls and I did Fort Vancouver twice, and made hand puppets for their impromptu puppet show for Sean.  Those girls are inventive, we laughed and had a great time.

 Sean needed to find a home for his Queensland heeler, Jack.  After a call to Marymine to see if she was interested in adding to her pack, and an OK from my girlfriend, it was a go for Jack to ride home with us. 

Jack looks a lot like the Queensland heeler pictured above.  He is a dear sweet dog with very good manners, So I figured it would be smooth sailing getting him to Marymine's. 
Sean said he's a good traveler, except here I am driving a friend's car on a very busy 205 when he farts.  Now her car is nothing like my ol SUV, so I'm trying to drive, and roll down the window at the same time.  After we had nearly passed out from the fumes, I found the right button to push and aired us out.  We laughed, and said "Oh Jack you must have eaten something you shouldn't have".  On we went with me driving the Vancouver to Roseburg leg.  The next time he let one go we were in a driving rain storm and could only crack the windows, still able to laugh somewhat.  
Told my girlfriend of the time my cousins had sent a book to Sean's girls entitled "Walter the Farting Dog".  We had all gotten a kick out of that book, I must have read it to the girls a dozen times. 
Now it was starting to look like we had another five hours of driving with "Jack the Farting Dog".  We ran into snow on my next leg of driving, with no chains or 4 wheel drive it got a bit dicey. Jack the Farting Dog continued apace. Just about the time we would think he wasn't going to gas us again, he would let loose. Truckers would signal to us that our windows were down and it was snowing out, we pointed to Jack The Farting Dog, and kept on. We were starting to think it might be wise to stop at a WallyWorld and get gas masks. Tears were coming to our eyes, but it wasn't from laughter. We finally reached her place, switched my bags and Jack to my ol SUV for the last hour and a half  to my bunkhouse.  Pulled in, let Jack stretch his legs, retrieved Gus from Marymine's, and made Jack promise that he would Not fart in the bunkhouse.  He didn't, and now is happily living with the crew at Marymine's.  
When I called Sean to ask about Jack's fumigating specialty,  Sean said he probably was just plain scared to death riding with two ol ladies in that little car going thru rain and snow storms. Yeah right Bucko... 

Standing Tall

Jingleworms the ol cowboys called them. We had plenty of them on one of the ranches. I killed 27 in my yard, the last summer we lived there. They were big & nasty, would stand up in the grass and hunt your dog, who promptly jumped in the back of the pickup, only to have the jingleworm strike the truck tires.

One day moving cows with the Cowman up ahead, my horse stopped and he didn't seem willing to go forward. I was paying attention to the Cowman & the cows in front of me and not my horse. I gigged him and still no response. We were in a shallow wash, and when I looked down I saw we were surrounded by rattlesnakes. Being very calm, I gently told my horse to just quietly step between them and carry on with the job at hand. He did so and got us out of harms way. And I learned that you can wear a cowboy hat, plaid shirt, wranglers, chinks, boots, and spurs and still stand tall on top of a saddle horn.