Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Distracted, In A Good Way

By this girl...on the right.
She and her two sisters conspired together (first time ever I think) and she came up from California for a surprise visit. That is my oldest daughter on the right and my youngest on the left. My middle daughter didn't join us for this expedition. I knew nothing until I pulled in my driveway and saw her. Well, of course, I cried. I was surprised and very happy and so pleased that they would do such a nice thing. I am still weepy...while I am writing about it!
So from the fifteenth until yesterday, all we did was the basic care of farm and animals. She jumped in and helped. So she could play with the goats, chickens and geese babies. She also went horse back riding for about a second. She's not one for heights and heaven forbid she should be six feet in the air on top of my horse! Her sister's boyfriend who has never been on or around horses rode around the farm a couple of times with her and seemed fairly at ease with it all.

When we weren't playing farmer, we went exploring. We went all the way to the most northern part of the contiguous United States. Beautiful! The water is just crazy colored. Something I would have expected from tropical places.
It's not the best shot, but I didn't want to slip off and FEEL the water! Or the bumps all the way down.

This is the other side of the trail...which was mostly...
It was fun. I ran out of breath several times on the way back, because it was all uphill, and I am way of shape for hiking. The drive home was fun/long. We stopped at a little restaurant called Pat's Place. It's on an Indian Reservation for the Makah Indians. We had seen a sign for the restaurant driving out to where we hiked, that said Fry Bread. Well, none of us wanted to pass that up. We had Indian Tacos, which were to die for. and made friends with the cook to boot. He was a very nice man with a fabulous sense of humor, which is good for us, because we are usually cutting up about one thing or another and we can get a little boisterous when we are together. He had as much fun as we did I think! Then the next day when we were back home, who did we run into, but the cook and the restaurant owner, Pat! (This is something, because our little drive was about three hours out there!) They had come into town for provisions for the restaurant. So we stopped and chatted with them for a few minutes. It's fun making new friends.

Back on the farm all is quiet. Yesterday, I took my girl to the airport, to return to San Francisco. Boo! I missed her as soon as I dropped her off. Then drove the long way home (2-1/4 hours) wishing we had just one more day. Today she called me and told me she got this job she had been hoping for, so she won't be back in July. Good news/Bad news kind of thing...I love that she got her job. She's been workng per diem for a long while now. She can breath a little easier and we will see her in September when we go down there.

So, that was my weekend! Nothing got done, but I'm happy about it this time! 
Wishing you a great week!



Monday, May 11, 2015

Fencing, not fencing.



Here we are...fence building, not fence building. I guess I am too impatient. I just want my animals out...where they belong! Not cooped up in a...well...coop. The goats are still rooming with the chickens, the horses are literally in a garage. Albeit, the garage floor is not cement, it's not a barn, and the horses have little room to move about. I bought five acres, I would like to use it!

Part of the problem here is the ROCKS! Can I now say that I hate rocks! I think I shared before, that we are on an old river bed. We have River Rocks. If there is a market for those, I would like to tap into it, because I would be a rich woman right now. Of course, then I would not have five beautiful acres of green pasture. 

There are two young men that I have hired pulling the rocks out of the holes I had bored out last week for my fence posts. The holes were holes in every sense of the word except for there wasn't an opening, the rocks just spill back into the hole because the auger can't pull them out like it does the dirt. 

My daughter did get the wood posts and all the T-Posts in along the back of the property and the posts around "Goat Island". We haven't got the fencing itself up. We ran out of time. My daughter works full time, and then on her weekends she works here trying to help get the animals situated. 

In the meantime, one of my goals moving up here and "retiring" was to enjoy all the local events. It is Irrigation Time. They turned on the irrigation water April 15th. That calls for a parade! Yes! And fireworks! Yes! And big muscled logger type guys competing for our enjoyment! Yes!





I got a ton of videos for the parade before my camera was full, so sorry, I didn't get any pictures of the logging guys!


The weather couldn't have been more perfect. In fact, it was a little too warm...I moved here because it is cooler than where I lived in California, not this weekend! It was fun, I got to see how the small town does it's celebrating and I like it! I also got an idea of what I need to do for next year. I will be making quilty type things to sell at these events. That was also one of my plans...to work hard during the winter to get my "wares" in order and then spend the summer sharing them with everyone and meeting the locals and having fun.

So, I'm off to go do my errands in town, back to finish up my chores around here, which includes making a master list of everything that needs to get done, so we can start striking things off the list. Oy, there's a lot to do...until next time my friends...be well!