Look, Twice in One Month!

It's only three weeks later and I'm already posting again!  So, without further adieu, here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure :)

 Lane with "Izzy" (his friend's bum/pet lamb)

 Maggie with Ginger (the same friend's puppy)

Maggie had a bit of a bike riding accident in the driveway.  She was going to fast, slammed on the brakes, and slid sideways. It looked pretty bad for a week or so. She got really tired of people asking her what happened.

 The same day Lane got gum stuck in his hair, so we decided it was time for a buzz cut.

Half healed.

A few days before Mother's Day, Maggie drew this picture for me and said, "Mom, I think I must have ten hearts, because that's how much I love you!" What a sweetie!

We have a joke in our family about acting like a border collie (begging for attention.) You can have your hand by your side and Duke will wedge his nose between it, then his head, and next thing you know you're being forced to pet him.  Sometimes the kids will do something similar and we tease them that they're being a border collie :)  Aren't his eyes just saying, "Pet me, love me, scratch my belly"?

We've had a decently wet spring, which is nice (and an answer to prayers).  It rained so much one night, that the river was bright orange the next day from all the sandstone erosion.

"All things denote there is a God."  How can one look at something as simple as the sky, with its different cloud formations and colors, and not believe that?

We've played with the idea of getting a round pen for awhile now. We found one for a good price so we decided to go ahead and get it.

Mostly, Dunny just needs to lose a lot of weight.  The horse gets fat looking at hay.  It doesn't help that he's the boss horse around here, so he gets first dibs of any green stuff.

 Speaking of green stuff, look what we found growing in our yard :)

Maggie had me help her write this note word by word. Apparently she's not happy with the seating in her primary class, so she's taking matters into her own hands :) Jed used to have a giant five-year-old crush on Maggie. He even referred to her as "My Maggie" and gave her a red sparkly heart shaped ring. One time last year I made Jed cry because I arranged the seating (accidentally) so that Maggie couldn't sit by him at preschool.  Anyway, I think Maggie got tired of the attention and told him she didn't always want to sit by him and he got the point and has sat by Conrad since.  Now the tides have turned I guess. I had no idea that this started so young!  Can't we wait until their twenty? (They have sat by each other the last two weeks since she wrote this note.  I'm still laughing about it.)

We've seen a few trains go by that were extremely long with every single car loaded with military vehicles.  Humvees, tanks, medics, etc. It was a sight to see!

The saddles are coming along. I am a little swamped with leather projects right now though, so they might have to be on the back burner for a bit.

These kiddos are pretty happy to sit and watch us bring cows in, tag calves, sort cows, you name it. They're extra happy if you give them an Otter Pop while they watch.

I'm working on a rifle case for my friend to give to her husband for their anniversary.  It's my first rifle case, but I'm happy with how it's coming along so far.  It's almost finished, but I'm waiting on a part for the sewing machine.
                                             

Sometimes I mix up some bread dough, set it aside to raise, and forget all about it.  I think it sufficiently rose, how about you?

I walked into the living room to find Maggie and Lane playing "tag the calves" I guess you can figure out who the calf was :)

Lane's been chasing butterflies around the yard trying to catch one, so he was a happy camper when he finally got one the other day.

Ironically, the very next day Maggie rescued this one that was trapped behind a sliding glass door at a greenhouse. It's almost like it knew she was helping it, because it climbed up on my fingers, then to her's and rested there for a minute before it fluttered off. (That or maybe it was so tired from being trapped in a hot greenhouse and flapping around trying to find freedom).

Yesterday I helped Jonathan sort all the pairs that showed up because some of the pairs were accidentally split up when they loaded the trucks and they had no idea which calves were separated from their mommas. The missing mommas didn't even get shipped up here. Plus, a lot of the calves weren't numbered and some of the cows weren't mothering up. Needless to say, it was a bit of a mess, but we got it all sorted out.  

We found the rest of the kittens.  Maggie is a little obsessed with them.  She has named them all at least three times.

We saw the Big Boy 4014 steam engine go by when it came through. I'm kicking myself though because in my impatience waiting for it to come (it was nearly an hour behind schedule) I was messing with the settings on my camera and forgot to switch them back when it finally got there.  So this is the best picture I got.  

Duke's life goal has been to catch a rock chuck or ground squirrel any time he goes out with us.  He chases them into their hole and then digs his little heart out trying to get to it.  So imagine his surprise when Hadley was running ahead of him, scared one in passing, which then jumped up and to the side right into Duke's mouth.  Duke stopped and looked at us like, "what just happened and what do I do with it now that I caught it?"  He'd shake it around for a little bit, put it down and look at it confused, then pick it back up again. We were laughing pretty hard at his facial expressions (this is one after he put it back down).  Since then, Hadley has also caught one and they seem to be getting a tag-team system down when they hunt them.

Don and Heather came down on the 15th and helped us work our calves (Thanks!).  When we got home, I found a tick crawling on my neck :-/  They are my absolute mortal enemy (along with spiders and mosquitoes). We've been on tick patrol since then, but one slipped past us because the other day we had to pull one out of Maggie's belly button.  Disgusting. Luckily it wasn't engorged, so I don't think it had been there for too long. I've been trying to get rid of the heebie-jeebies since then.