The Date That Almost Didn't Happen

We shipped the kids off to "Cousins Camp" at Pop Pop and Grandma's house yesterday after church.

No Kids = Date Night!

We leisurely drove back home and had lovely conversation about retirement, team roping and castrating bulls...in that order.  No interruptions. No refereeing fights in the back seat, and we didn't have to answer the question "Why?" even one time.  It felt totally weird.

When we got home, it began to rain hard.  I mean it was a real gully washer, or as they say in Texas, it was a real toad strangler!  While we waited for the rain to let up, we got ready to go out to a nice dinner.  I curled my hair, put on mascara, and wore my nicest boots.

We hopped in the truck and went to feed the critters on our way to dinner.

From here, things went south.

As we walked up to the hogs, being careful not to get our clean pants all muddy, we were appalled to find their entire pen was flooded.  There was nowhere for them to lay down and the whole thing had standing water in it.

The air hissed out of my lungs.  I cringed inwardly, and closed my eyes.

No matter how hard we try, SOMETHING always happens when we want to go on a date!

People who raise livestock will understand what I'm talking about.  If we have some place to be, something will calve, break down a fence, get into the neighbor's pasture, get sick, or some sort of natural disaster will take place.

It's similar to the well known truth that kids never get sick or injured during doctors' business hours, only it's the livestock version.

My husband gave me the look. (You know that look, don't you?)

 I said, "well, lets go home and change."

Upon our arrival, I took off my nice leather boots, and exchanged them for my rubber irrigation boots. I threw my curled hair up in a ponytail and put on a rain slicker.  My defeated husband did the same.  We grabbed some shovels and mechanically put our supplies in the back of the truck without a word.

While we were knee high in muddy water and pig poop, we were receiving these pictures on our phone of our kids living the life of leisure:

They attended tea parties and camp-outs with cousins while mom and dad worked in the driving rain.

Conversation was tense in the pig pen.  There were few words spoken, and most of them were in the form of orders.  We dug draining trenches, hauled in sand, shoveled mud, and all the while, it was raining and lightning was cracking around us.

Isn't that a romantic date?

When the pigs finally had a dry shelter, we loaded up our tools and got back in the truck. 

It was now 7:00pm.

My husband looked over at me, and said, "Do you want to just go to dinner with our irrigation boots on?"

WHAT? 

No.

I suggested that we just go through a drive-thru, but in the end, we went home and changed boots.  The curl was no longer in my wet hair, but we went out to the restaurant anyway, and had a lovely late-night dinner none the less.

We didn't get to catch a flick, but who needs a movie when your real life is this exciting?!? Just kidding.

This morning, Hank and Beulah came to greet me, no worse for the wear. And by the look on their faces, I'd say they don't mind the mud one bit! Dare I say that they are actually enjoying a spa day with a mud bath.  Their pen is already starting to dry very well, and we averted yet another crisis around here.

Once again, this quote seems to sum up the day:

" for I know the joys and discomforts of agricultural life and hold an inborn fondness for those associations which, even in hours of discouragement I cannot deny." -FFA Creed

BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!! 

Ya, that quote is a bunch of hog wash! Get it...hog wash?

(Is this thing on...?)

Hogs and kisses,

Nell

A Friday Chuckle...Because Everyone Needs One

Here are just a couple of things that I've noticed in my part of the world that made me chuckle, and I happened to have my iPhone handy to document them for your viewing pleasure.

It's been really dry around here, and this sign is posted in front of a business in town.

I saw this while driving down the road in Winslow....as in, ♪♫ Standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona, such a fine sight to see...♪♫

Here's a close-up.  Yes, here in the wild west folks still ride their horses to the saloon. No joke.  

Whiskey for the men, beer for the horses. 

Thank the Lord it's finally Friday! WoooHoooo!

Nell

Chicken Neuroses and Other Stuff

Stick a fork in 'er! Baseball season is FINALLY over.

[Insert me doing the Happy Dance.]


Three weeks of our family going in separate directions for ball games, daily 3 hour practices,  long tournaments two hours away, and getting home at midnight...all done.

Now is the time that summer really begins for us.

Free. At. Last.

Now the kids have time to explore, be creative, run through the sprinklers, build things, practice their roping, exercise their pigs, and most importantly....

They have time to ride, ride, ride!

With much angst, we let Hank and Beulah out of their pig pen to start their exercise routine, yesterday.  We were afraid they'd bolt and head straight for the road.  Turns out, we had nothing to worry about. Those pigs are about as lazy as they come. The only thing they wanted to do was walk back to their pen...at a snail's pace.

In other news, I feel compelled to discuss the subject of chicken neuroses.  First of all, are chickens capable of having a neurosis? After all, their brains are the size of a pea.

If it IS possible, then one of my chickens has a classic case.

Our hen, Oreo, roams the yard freely all day.  We leave the back door open when the weather is nice, and every single morning, Oreo walks into the kitchen, pecks at an antique wood stove in the corner, and then walks back outside.  Every. Single. Morning.

We used to freak out and the kids would scream, "Chicken in the house! Chicken in the house!".  But after 4 months of this happening, no one even bats an eyeball anymore.  Oreo does her pecking thing in the corner and promptly leaves.  She's never pooped in the house, and never explored any other areas of the kitchen.

Bizarre behavior. Compulsive behavior. Obsessive behavior. I'm not sure what to make of it. She also still lays a green egg every day under the porch, but that's beside the point.  I think Oreo is a very peculiar creature.

We really need a screen door, don't we?

Thanks for listening. I really needed to talk through that.

Off to enjoy our summer,

Nell

Embarrassing Moment #234578

Like all mountain folks, we have an old carved wooden bear on our front porch to greet visitors as they walk to the front door. No big deal.

I've walked past the bear a million times, but this time something caught my attention. Out of the corner of my eye I saw some objects in the bear's paw.

Imagine my shock and horror when I discovered that our "Welcome Bear" was holding sticks with a bunch of  dead grasshoppers skewered through them!

It looked like our bear was having a grasshopper shish kabob dinner.

It looked like he was making grasshopper Smores over the campfire.

It looked like someone sick and twisted lived at our house.

When interrogating my sweet and innocent looking children about the matter, I was appalled to find out that they all played a roll in this grasshopper "death on a stick" incident! Grasshoppers are true enemies, and they do eat our flowers and garden, but these trophies of  pest conquering are a bit over the top!  

Maybe they act as a stern warning to other grasshoppers in the area...Stay Away or this will happen to YOU!

What's even worse is that we recently put our house up for sale and we've had 14 groups of strangers come to look through it.  

I don't know how long these insects have been displayed on our front porch, but there's a possibility that....

50 total strangers have been greeted at the front door by dead grasshoppers on a stick.

Talk about embarrassment.  

What does this say about us?

What do people think when they see this? 

Would you buy a house with a barbaric display of this nature?

I'm hoping that some day we will all be able to laugh about this, but for now, we've put a moratorium on Grasshopper death by the stake.

Hoping to forget about this incident real soon,

Nell

4th of July Fun

Say, "Cheese Ball!"

We had a very unusual 4th of July this year. Temperatures were in the low 60's for most of the day, and it rained, and rained, and rained all afternoon and night.

Thankfully, the rain held off until after the parade was over.  The girls were looking festive as usual.

Here, they're putting on the charm so passers by would throw them lots of loot.

We had the usual small town floats...

As well as a few remarkable ones.

This float was my favorite! It has moving parts, which is pretty fancy for a little parade.

Afterward, we had a BBQ at Pop Pop and Grandma's house.

 Grandma taught the girls how to make cherry earrings the way she did as a kid.

When our bellies were full, we changed into pants and sweaters and headed out to the 100th annual Springerville Rodeo. Yes, it's been going on as long as Arizona has been a state. It was extra large this year, and the grandstands were packed!

Thank goodness the grandstands were also covered, and had wooden bleachers because the rain and lightning started shortly after the rodeo began, and you wouldn't catch me hanging around in metal bleachers! 

In addition to the usual riding events, this rodeo has a mix of ranch rodeo events, and some rather comical events that you won't see at a normal rodeo. For instance, the "pick-up" event involves racing on horseback down the arena, loading the horse into the back of a truck, and driving the pick-up down to the other end of the arena. People were bucked off, horses were crazy, and it was worth the price of admission.

After this shot, it started pouring, and the arena was a total mud hole which made for massive wrecks all around. Not one bull rider covered his bull.  We've been to two rodeos this week, and both have had tons of bull riders, and no one's made it to the timer. It was an entertaining rodeo, none the less.

Fireworks were canceled last night because of the lightning, rain, and cloud cover. They've re-scheduled them for Saturday.

Despite the set-backs, I didn't hear any complaints about the weather. We are so thankful for the rain!

3 Things to Share With You

#1



It's been nine days since I've had a Dr. Pepper.

That's practically an eternity.

No. There is no one else in my life.

I'm still madly passionate about his 23 flavors, and I adore the Doctor more than ever, but we had to break up for a while.  Too many 44 ouncers at ball games leads to an unhealthy symbiotic marriage.  I don't intend for our relationship to end in divorce, we just desperately need a little time apart to find a healthy balance. Our meetings need to be less frequent in the future.    


Besides, I've been jogging again, and if  I'm going to torture myself by pounding the gravel in my Nike's then I don't want Dr. Pepper to undo all of my hard work.  Running must not be done in vain. I've lost five pounds by not looking the Doctor in the eye.

Like I said, this is only a temporary separation.  Don't freak out.  I'm still a Pepper.


#2



After a long absence, I have a really delicious sourdough starter going. It feels so good to be back in the sourdough saddle again. It's been so very long since I've partaken of its culinary delights.

I've tried a ton of sourdough starters over the years, but this one might be my favorite so far. People can be very particular about their starters. I wanted one that didn't involve adding any yeast in it.  It uses plain yogurt to get that Lactobacillus culture going.  I'm thrilled with what has been developing in my crock on the counter-top.  I'm not opposed to using yeast in the actual bread recipes when needed, but it sort of feels like cheating if you use the packaged yeast to get the starter going, instead of culturing "wild yeasts". Besides, it's like a little science experiment on the counter-top for my kids to watch.  I'm pretty protective of it though. I think I'll name my starter "The Precious". (If you've never seen Lord of the Rings, then that was totally lost on you.)

I used this recipe from Williams Sonoma: Classic Sourdough Starter


Then, completely by accident, I discovered a pretty tasty, no frills recipe for sour dough rolls when I needed to feed my starter but didn't have the time to make a long, involved recipe with the cup of starter I took out.  I just used it in THIS recipe, and threw the ingredients in my bread machine on the dough cycle.  After it came out, I divided it into a dozen rolls. I let them rise for 30-40 minutes and baked at 375 for about 15 minutes. Totally easy, and Wowzers! The family gobbled them up! It was a nice change from my usual dinner rolls.  Next up, Pizza dough.




#3


We unknowingly blew a breaker in the garage that runs one of our freezers, and we lost the end of our beef, and about 20 pounds of frozen green chilies.  We're just sick about it.  Especially because we just sold our last fattened heifer for the year, and it was butchered last week.  :(


And the chilies....they don't come into season until the fall.  I use them so much in my cooking for soups, Mexican food, burgers, quesadillas, and pots of beans.  Now I'll just have to make due with the grocery store ones.


Modern technology is the pits sometimes.

Now I'm craving a juicy burger topped with cheese, bacon, and strips of  roasted Hatch Green chilies...and an ice-cold Dr. Pepper on the rocks to wash it down.

That's typical. Alway's wanting what we don't have.




Despite these setbacks, and my recent Dr. Pepper drought, I'm determined to make it a Happy Monday!

Nell

Easy 4th of July T-shirt Tutorial

After searching for patriotic shirts for the girls, and coming up empty handed, I decided to make some on the cheap!

I picked up two navy blue tanks at Walmart for $3.47 each.

Then I went to the craft department and picked up a package of iron-on canvas patches for $1.17.

Next, I typed out the letters USA in my Microsoft Word program.

I used the Cooper Black font in size 150, but you could use whatever looks cute, and adjust the size to fit the shirt.

After cutting out the paper letters, I pinned them on the patch, and cut each one out.

I had my daughter try the shirt on and I placed the letters in a spot that looked nice.  Then I had her take it off, and I centered the letters with a ruler.  Afterward, I just ironed them on. No sewing necessary!

That's it. Easy stuff!  I made a 4 layer flower out of some old flag material I had, and secured it with a button.  Then I just pinned it on with a safety pin so it's removable for washing.  Besides, I may just have the girls wear the flowers in their hair.  That's the beauty of the whole thing... it's changeable so we have options.

 Ta-da!!!

This shirt was made for around $4.00 and will be perfect for parade watching, popsicle eating, and fireworks viewing!