Cranberry Bread

Thankfully another week has flown by 100 or more days til spring. Spent all week-end making cranberry bread for gifts and neighbors, and no Mom I didn’t eat enough to get sick on them. i did have some thou. My Mom’s receipe or my grandma’s I don’t know but it is the best cranberry bread ever.      Plenty cold here. Have to find the time to put up my tree or my grandson Gabe is going to come and do it, so I had better get the darn tree put up before a disaster hits my house.   Merry Chirstmas, No we haven’t been team sorting for a couple of weeks, but when we do I will get some pic’s. Promise.

Team Sorting & Thanksgiving

Thanskgiving is a done deal and I probaly gained 5 lbs. My poor horse ! We went team sorting, and we are getting better, Marissa had a blast on her Sassy horse. I didn’t get any pic’s because I forgot the camara. Here is a pic of my other and my Dad, and some of the kids playing playstation.

Fun was had by all. I will try and remember pic’s next week of team sorting.

Winter Doldrums : Team Sorting

Winter is here officially , the snow has come with the cold weather, and crawling out of my bed to go to work, is becoming quite the chore. Every morning I look at the calendar and count down the days till spring and warm weather which by the way is 124 days and counting till Spring.

We have pulled the horses and mules shoes and trimmed their hoofs. We me and my evil other one have started team sorting. JW is great at this sport, my horse Sandy, not so great she is great on steep trails and river crossings but come head to head with a heifer no way she backs as fast as she can to get away all the time keeping an eye on the cow. We will give it another try on Thursday night, I will take my camera and see if we can’t get some pic’s of the action. Will probaly take one of the grandmonsters Mikey or Marissa will have to wait and see. as the next day is a school day, we get home pretty late at night.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey Month

 

 

Well its that time of year. Time to think of all the things that we are grateful for.

My Mom had surgery last week on her heart, and has pulled thru like a trooper, she is now in a rehab center, to get her strength back, soon she will be home and be able to go to the bathroom without assist. That will make her happy, I know it would make me happy, to go by myself.

All our kids are doing well and so are the grandmonster’s. All horses, mules, and dog as well.

Mike and I are doing okay, things will be better in about 138 days. That is the first day of spring, and I can’t wait till the cold is gone, for another year.

Hunting Dogs and Attitude !

Hunting season is really starting to heat up, we have the elk in the freezer. Mike has started to grouse and pheasant hunt.

Saturday the Pheasant season opened in Idaho. Mike let the dog out and he pointed a few , but the birds are not holding and are flying. (poor Patches) he just can’t seem to catch a break.

Monday night, Mike again let patches out into the yard, (poor Patches) Trisha and Mikey came over for dinner . so Patches again didn’t get to go hunting.

Patches is becoming quite vocal, he sat outside and grumbled and growled for about a half hour. Mikey thought he was crying. I told him no he wasn’t, wait a while then he will cry he is just upset right now. Sure enough half hour later Patches is crying a long forlorn wail. Like somebody is dragging his heart out of his mouth. Here is a nice picture of the crying Patches. He won’t sit or stand for his photograph.

looks kinda of scary doesn’t he. In this next picture he is chasing a tweety bird.

Mike and Patches hunting behind the house.

Talk at you next week, maybe if I drug the dog he will sit still, not holding my breath.

Fall then Winter, Brrrrrrrrrrrrr

Fall is still here.

But winter is fast approaching, Mike and his friend Roger went and retrieved the elk camp that we had set up this past summer. These next words are his I am just immortalizing them for him if that is the right word.

We left Friday morning , and drove into a snow storm, in Wyo. Parked the trailers, at the trailhead. About a foot of snow on the ground. We then preceded to unload the mules and get them packed for the ride in to our elk camp. This is a 10 mile hike or 3 hours on horses and mules.

The trail, nobody had been up the trail since the last storm. WE had to break trail with only a foot of snow this was not hard, but it was snowing and the Wind. You know beautiful WINDY WYOMMING. Thats why Wyo starts with a W and not a Y so that is can rhyme with Wind. This ride took us 5 hours to get in, promised Lora I would call when I got service on my phone, called her on top of the mountain, and boy was it cold, the wind she was a howling, and we still didn’t know if our tent was still going to be there.

Our tent was still there, sure looked different from our summer camp. See pictures.

summer camp, then winter camp.

Tent is leaning quite a bit from the snow, it snowed all night long, but thankfully the wind quit blowing, or we would have had drifts over the tent. I forgot the pancake syrup at home so all we had for breakfast was coffee and bacon, thankfully we were loading up and heading back out.  There was another camp of 4 guys up here as well, and they had been up here for a week, but were heading out on saturday as well, they didn’t have any feed for their horses, they had 8 head, we gave them what we had left over from our hay cubes, which was about a bag, not really enough for 8 horses.Breaking camp was a chore of and  in itself the tent was frozen could not get it back into the bag. So we folded the tent the best we could and lashed it to the mule, will have to wait for the tent to thaw and dry out before putting away for the year. We had 3 ft of snow to break trail thru. So Roger and I broke trail back to the trailhead,as the other camp their horses hadn’t had any decent feed, for a couple of days.

Thankfully Saturday was a clear day, and very beautiful. We made it to the trailhead and loaded up the mules and went home. My mules got teased a lot because I brought horse blankets for them to stay warm cause I know the wind is terrible up on the mountain and in the horse trailer, but they were warm and cozy. The other animals were just jealous, cause they were freezing. Thats my trip and I am glad that I’m back home.

Hunting, Horses and mostly mules

Can we say that we are ready for winter? I finally had to break down and turn the furnace on Wednesday morning we received our first storm of the winter. Deny that winter is coming but it was cold. One good thing I don’t have to pick anymore stinkin tomato’s . I helped my daughter tear down the trampoline for the winter and Karson my grandmonster turned 5 on monday.

Mike shot his elk a 6 point but it has only one horn the elk broke it off. Mike thinks maybe fighting another bull. Here is a pic of his winter camp glad I only go in the summer.

the summer pictures of this same area are on my earlier posts.

talk at you later have to convince Mike(the evil one) that I want to paint my living room and get new carpet and kitchen floor, wish me luck.

Fall The changing World

Another summer has flown away. Its starting to get colder, the trees are a changing colors.

Wow, what else can I say I hate autumn/fall.  I love spring/summer, winter I hibernate who cares it’s all white.

The thing about fall it is only pretty for about 3 weeks then its just brown and dead looking until it snows. Then we get the best in spring/summer, and I’m happy again.

Well Mike is off hunting again until about the end of  November he will be back and forth home and hunting. another reason why I hate fall.

I’ve said enough about Fall and my hate relationship with this season. I’m waiting for a new adventure to start. maybe renovate my kitchen and floors will see how much money I have,  probaly enough to paint.

Talk at you next week. Here is a sad picture of fall.  180 days til spring the count down has begun.

Horses and mules

Well summer is over. It has been a real quiet week Mike was supposed to go hunting this past week end. He got the horse trailer loaded and all the panniers weighed , then while packing his sleeping bag into its bag he pulled a muscle in his back.  He thought he would be better in the morning, but this was not to be. He ended up calling his friend Robert to cancel the trip, and I got to unload the horse trailer. What fun! Today is Monday and he is starting to move again, back to normal. Thank God!  Here is a pic of summer ending. See ya next week.

Horses and Mules

Well summer is about over used my last vacation day Friday. Hunting season is now open and now I’m a hunting widow. Mike got back Sunday from his elk preliminary hunt, just looking.

Mike sure had a lot of country to look at. It is still hot in the high country, no frost lately so the trees haven’t started to get their fall colors yet. The tetons in this picture still have a cap of snow that won’t leave in my life time.

This next picture is for my friend who is afraid of high narrow trails. Annika don’t look down it’s way down just keep your eyes on the trail. Don’t look between the mule’s ears cause Lil John is looking down off the side of the trail and he even thinks it looks scary down there. the trail is to the left, just don’t look to far to the left cause it’s the same view as to the right.

You would think this is country for mountain goats, but no there is actually deer and elk and bears up here. Maybe next week Mike and Robert will get to see an elk to shoot at with his bow.

Were all fine here .The kids are back in school. Talk at you next week.