Picture Post

There's not a whole lot going on here, we're just keeping busy with the usual summer activities.  We've had a few family members and various friends evacuated from fires.  Our prayers are with those who have lost their homes and for the safety of the fire fighters.  We saw a first response fire truck go up our road with his siren on today; the wind was blowing straight for our house.  My first thought was, "I guess we're the next to be evacuated!"  It seems like half the state is on fire!  Fortunately it ended up being nothing.  I keep having a nagging feeling to update our 72 hour kits though, especially now that we're surrounded by dry hills. 

There seems to be a lot of sad stuff going on right now with people we are close to and it's really been making me sad.  I'm trying my best to be a positive influence in their lives and help where I can, but it's hard to watch them struggle and not be able to do much.   

Aside from all that, not much is new, so I unloaded all the pictures on my phone for your viewing pleasure :)

 Maggie likes to steal my phone and take pictures with it.  It's interesting to see the house from her perspective.  This is a self portrait that made me laugh out loud when I found it on my phone.

 I can't remember if I included this picture in another post, but she's such a cutie that I decided to post it again.

 I was clearing the table from lunch and I came back into the dining room to find Lane downing the sour cream like it was yogurt.  He seemed to like it quite a bit!

 We're still inundated with box elder bugs.  Look close; the ground is completely covered here!  Luckily we're not getting too many around the house any more where my brother came and sprayed, but there's still millions along the perimeters.  In all honesty I think I probably need 100 chickens to eat them all, but there's no way I'm taking in that many chickens.  I guess our five will have to attempt to make a dent :)  On the bright side, at least the bugs are relatively harmless.  Imagine if those were ticks or something much more frightening on the ground!

 Hummingbirds are one of my favorite things to sit and watch during the summer.  My great uncle traps hummingbirds for research and puts bands on them to help track their migratory patterns.  He's one of very few that bands them.  He lives in Canada, but I still always look close to see if any of them have been banded :)

This was my Dad's Father's Day present from me.  It is the seat for an antique rocking chair that came across the plains and belonged to my great-great-aunt Birdie.  As long as I can remember, he's loved eagles.  This was one of my favorite leather projects so far and I'm really happy with how it turned out.  It made me really anxious to get started on a saddle for me :)

 I've loved watching my flowers bloom.  Most of them I could tell what type of flowers they were going to be by the leaves, but some have been a surprise.

Speaking of leather projects...these are the boots I got for my birthday.  I have been highly disappointed in them because it only took but four months for them to start completely falling apart, and all I had done to them was wear them!  I finally got around to re-sewing them by hand the other day and they're basically good as new.  I mentioned to Jonathan and his brother that maybe I should just go into the boot making business too so I can actually make a pair of boots that will last.  Everyone agreed that there would be no complaints if I did.  As if I don't already have enough hobbies...and yet, part of it does seem to be calling my name :)  Enough so that I looked into it online.  We already have most of the tools from making the saddle...

 We've been able to have family come and visit, and we were able to make a quick trip to see some of them as well.  (Jonathan had to pick up parts near by, so we killed two birds with one stone :) )

 Playing at the park.  The park here is really really nice for such a small town.

 Picking strawberries.

 Lane chasing the chickens.

 I'm still in the process of refinishing my chairs.  I did this one different than the rest, but there's the before and after.

 Our little town turned into a city for three days for a dirt bike hill climb.  It was kind of fun to watch them attempt to make it to the top of the hill; most of them crashed.  I'm not gonna lie though, it was sure nice to have peace, quiet, and privacy back though!

 Maggie rides this stick horse everywhere!  It was mine when I was little, and it's seen better days, but she doesn't care.  She named it Knuckelhead, but the ranch already has a horse named that so Jonathan told her to call it "Skinny" instead.

 Maggie looking at the doe in the pasture.

 Lane chillin' with an otter-pop.

 Snow White meets Groucho Marx.

 Maggie is apparently the bird whisperer.  This little robbin landed on the window ledge and Maggie pointed at it and talked to it for probably a minute, but as soon as I got closer to take a better picture it flew off.

 Duke loves playing frisbee, and he's good at it too!  It's hard to tell, but he jumped quite a ways off the ground and caught it in this picture.

 Lane takes his milk shakes seriously!

A conjoined triplet strawberry we found in the garden.  

Lane giggling on the swing :)

We found this pretty humorous.  Dunny discovered that he could scratch his back with the branches from a bush in the pasture.  Then he discovered he could use the fence too :)