Surprise! You've Got Issues!

Most of my posts are fun-loving, toddler and ranch-life recording posts. This one isn't. In this post I will attempt to get vulnerable and share with you from a deeper place in my heart.

At the beginning of the week I had some feelings of insecurity about who I am reeling through my head. It was enough to keep me awake one night for a couple of hours. I didn't stop very long or hard to recognize the whys and whats but they ended up stopping me in my tracks. After a strange morning of frustration and a lack of control, I realized as I spilled my guts and many tears to a trusted friend, who also happens to be my sister, that I had major root issues to seek out. Something earlier in the week had caused emotions and insecurities to begin to surface.

Where were they coming from? Why was I feeling this way? What could I do about it?

These questions kept me in tears and dialogue off and on for two days. I was able to finally get to the root issues after hours of crying and sharing and listening and churning with my sister, husband and mom. Thank you all for your support.

So, what were the root issues?

It all started when I was a very, very little girl. A loved one chose to develop a story about my "creation." Looking back you wonder "what were they thinking?" and then you realize, they weren't! This "creation story" never sparked intense feelings or emotions for me, but as I put pieces together this week I realized this was the beginning. I hesitate to share this story but I would like to be completely honest about my root issues.

The story went something like this: "One day we found this giant poop in the yard. We got a hose out and started to wash it off and there we found Baby Erin in there!" I wasn't the world's prettiest baby when I was born and this prompted someone to make up a story to fit their opinion. Having heard this story as I grew up I must have allowed it to form who I saw myself to be.

In elementary school I was sadly the victim of intense and ongoing girly social bullying. My classmates physically abused, manipulated, used, lied to, shut out, and toyed with me on a regular basis. I remember at one point it was so bad that my dad taught me how to throw a punch...and I did. Although that got a bit of the physical abuse stopped it didn't change the way my heart and identity was affected by the situation. It was a huge blessing to move schools at the end of my 5th grade year.

There were some other things that I took on that I was told about who I was in my teen years. I believed just about anything anyone said to a fault. I couldn't decipher the difference between truth and embellishment or even flat out lies. I just believed. And my belief led to me taking on an identity about myself that included that I am not lovable, acceptable, or worth much to people. I believed that my friends didn't really like me and that they weren't trustworthy.

When I was 16 I sadly lost my father to brain tumors. It was my junior year in high school. Most of my peers cared about their clothes and what they'd be doing Friday night. I was spending the last few months with my father and having to learn to let go of one of the most important people in my life. And one horrible Monday morning in November he left us. The day of his funeral was the most horrible day of my entire life. I have never had the pit in my stomach like I did that morning. I actually cannot remember much of the details of the day...but I definitely remember how absolutely horrible it was to have to go through it. It was hard enough to bury my dad that day but I also lost my five closest friends that day. I will not go into the details but they made some choices that were really hurtful and unsupportive to me. Hurtful enough that my mom had to ask them to leave the funeral reception. Those friendships died that day and were buried with my father. It was an awful time to lose those that I needed.

That day left me full-out convinced that friends were not trustworthy, however this week was the first time that I even realized that I function under that belief. It has left me expecting friends to fail me. It has lead me to be self-protective and disappointed.

As I further analyzed my hurts that were surfacing I realized that I am really sensitive to a lack of reciprocation in relationships. Even though I am self-protective at times, I really desire and try to foster deep, two-way relationships. I run deep. I give all of who I am. I get hurt. I expect others to give the same, go as deep, desire as much. Often times others do not or cannot meet my expectations or desires. There is a difference between expectations and desires.

I also recognized that I have faced much rejection in my life. This has left me with deep, deep wounds. This was actually this issue that pulled all of the rest of this to the surface this week.

As I put the pieces of the puzzle together I realized that life experiences and the beliefs I allowed to form in me were as follows:

1. I am unlovable, rejectable, unworthy to other people.
2. Friends are not trustworthy.
3. I will get hurt.

I realized that I am left very wounded when people don't reciprocate...unhealthily wounded. I realized that I am withdrawing from certain relationships because I am afraid. I realized that I have a super-sensitivity to other's behavior and personally take responsibility for other's feelings.

Yuck. I have issues.

What do you do when you piece together a puzzle that says "Surprise! You're a wounded mess!" What is crazy is that this week I am just able to piece this altogether for the first time in my life! I knew tidbits of this and that but the whole picture, the root issues, they had not been pulled together or fully surfaced.

Well, the great news is I knew exactly what to do. Go to the Father of Truth, the Creator of Love, the Healer and allow Him to deal with me. And that is exactly what I did.

I sat down with my prayer journal and asked the Lord to walk me through the process of healing. He first had me write down the root issues and where they came from. Together we also listed every person that had wounded me and through His grace in my life I was able to forgive. And the Lord also showed me the lies that I had allowed to become a part of my beliefs about who I am and what I expected from relationships. And I renounced them. He told me the truths about who I am and I claimed them.

I am new. I am healed. I am free. I am thankful.

I do want to share that the Lord has recently allowed me to connect again with one of the friends that I lost the day I buried my dad. She had sent a letter of apology years ago without a return address and I just recently was able to find a way to get a hold of her. This connection has been really awesome. It just reminds me of the importance of forgiveness in our lives. Not one of us doesn't need it...how can we deny another the opportunity to receive it? And when we choose not to allow God to minister forgiveness for others in ourselves...we choose to imprison ourselves in hurt.

To God be the Glory.

Quick Catch-Up And A Dedication

The above is a dedication to my dear sisters. I love and miss you.

Wow! I haven't posted in almost a week! What happened? I guess I have been a little bit busy and a little bit preoccupied with something. And I don't have time to go into those details now! However, I wanted to post to let you all know you can look forward to some new posts soon. And next week is Rodeo Bible Camp, so I am sure I'll have more fun Prairie Posts with pictures and video soon!

I will hopefully have time on Saturday to get some of my last week together.

Prairie Excavation,Inc Goes Big

Monday night one of the founders of Prairie Excavation, Inc decided to go from the living room carpet to the Joe Moss Head Gate; from the plastic to the real deal.

Several nights lately we have had to drive up to Joe's to check the water we're diverting from the creek to the ditch. This ditch travels miles across other places to our irrigating pipes and reservoir. There is a blessing of water this year, which we haven't had much of in about 7 years now. We're grateful for every bit of it, however it brings a lot of work!


Here is a clip of The Prairie Excavator going big.


Before The Prairie Excavator started his sludge removal and when we first pulled in at Joe's, I spotted a furry brown thing across the creek. I ran back to the car for my video camera and hurried to get these next clips.







It is so much fun to have a lifestyle where we get to see wildlife so often! And such a variety of it! We've been blessed for a couple days now with rain and snow. I think we may end up with close to 2.5" of moisture out of this storm by the time it is done! It is like liquid gold for us here on the ranch! Thank You, Lord!

Prairie EMT In Action

There was a medical emergency in our home this morning . The Witness called for me in a desperate cry, "Guy, Mom. Guy, uh-hand, uh-office."


Being the overly-compassionate Mom that I am not, I said, "In a minute, I have to finish this cooking and then I'll be available." I was in the middle of getting that yummy Yellow Curry Thai chicken dish ready for the crock pot. This is the dish that I was so excited about in Seattle where I found the curry paste last month. Obviously I have my priorities in order:

#1 Food
#2 Medical Emergencies

When I became "available" I asked The Witness to explain to me again what had happened. "Uh-guy, uh-hand, uh-office." I knew from previous EMT experience who the victim was and what injury I could expect to find. And I found him just as expected:




Do you know how hard it is to try to drive an ATV with one hand while bleeding profusely with your other hand recently severed? I don't either, I've never tried that.

Usually I also know exactly where to find The Severed Hand. It is typically still attached to the handle of the ATV. However, I did not find it there. So, I grabbed my trusty cup of coffee and headed toward The Witness, who had now left the scene to possibly destroy other innocent plastic guys, and I asked, "do you know where his hand is?" and then took another blissful coffee sip.


"Uh-coffee."
Gulp. I am thinking, "Great. The hand is in the coffee that I am currently drinking!"



I went to the medical supplies drawer and found a piece of equipment that was sure to solve this medical emergency. And it did.



Being trained in on-site severed body parts cleaning and reattachment, I was able to get things put back in order quickly so that 4-Wheeler Man and The Witness were able to be back in business.




I sure hope that the Thai chicken turns out tonight.

The Nephew's Noises

Here is my adorable nephew making noises on the first video emailed of him.

Isn't he SO cute? Oh, I miss him so much!

A Sunday Drive

Yesterday we decided to go on a little adventure in the car. One of our favorite "dates" is to go for a drive. We originally were going to leave The Prairie Kid with Auntie, however after church and lunch The Prairie Kid was so tired that we thought it would be pretty mean of us to dump our crabby kid on someone else. So, we trusted that he would nap in the car for a good portion of the drive.

There are two forks of the Shoshone River that feed Buffalo Bill Reservoir. One is the North fork, which leads you to the East entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The other, the South fork, has a road that dead ends at the base of beautiful, rugged mountains and branches out into trails. It takes about an hour to drive to the end of the road from town. Here is a clip looking around a few miles before the end of the road.




A little ways past this point we spotted some big horn sheep. There were so many of them right off the road. What a treat! We stopped and watched for a bit. We were amazed at how many rams there were...about 20. And we did see one baby.


At the end of the road you park at the trail heads and see this big sign. Comforting, eh?

The Prairie Kid was glad to get out of the car (he didn't sleep nearly as long as we thought he would so he was sick of driving). There was a lot of water coming down from the mountains so he had a blast throwing rocks. I had a little clip of that but I couldn't get it uploaded for some reason.

On our way out we saw this grass snake in the road.

It was a fun trip and a beautiful day. I continually feel blessed to live in such a beautiful area of Wyoming. People from all over the world travel to visit this area...and we get to call it home.

Walk The Crayon Line

The Prairie Kid loves music. However, we have discovered he is picky about what he wants to listen to at certain times. We are now "taking turns" in the car listening to his music and our music. Some of his is ours but I am not sure we would choose to listen to it over, and over, and over again like he requests. When I say requests, what I really mean is screams and cries until we give in because it is not fun to listen to screaming and crying on our 30-minute drive to just about anywhere.

He has a favorite song now. It isn't "Old McDonald" (although that is a close second) or "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star;" it is "Ring of Fire" sung by Joaquin Phoenix on the Walk The Line soundtrack. I couldn't resist getting him to do a little ditty for you all in his dinosaur pjs (see, we do change our pjs every once in a while) and cowboy boots. Enjoy!

The Prairie Family Hard At Work

It all started with a phone call. The Prairie Daddy asked, "Do you want to come help me today?" Of course! The brother and sister-in-law are out of town and even though Dad sent a hand down to help there was much to be done.

So, The Prairie Kid and I suited up in our best ranch work clothes and headed out. We took both the video and SLR cameras with us so that we could chronicle the day. Here is The Prairie Kid ready to work.We started out mixing some feed. Then I was put to work filling buckets with pellets to later be added to more feed. I got nice and dirty trying to fill these buckets out of the huge white bags you see in this picture.

The next adventure was moving cattle. We had to move a little group of heifers two fields up from where they were. It was a quick little job on the ATVs. I did get my ATV stuck in the mud in the creek for a minute but I managed to get myself out when I remembered I could reverse!

Here is a video clip of moving the heifers. It is jumbled with me trying to video and drive all at the same time!

When we got back it was time to catch and vaccinate the horses. I was the catcher.

And we had to open up the doors for the chickens so they could run around for the day.

Then I jumped into a big ol' dump truck and drove it to the stack yard to be loaded up with bales of hay.

AND I MEAN LOADED! I was so proud of myself for driving such a rig...but this wasn't anything compared to the driving I had to do later!

The Prairie Kid and I were assigned to go out into the feeder pens and fill the mineral and salt boxes. We loaded up the ATV with the necessary goods and thankfully The Prairie Kid found a small shovel that he wanted me take along with us. Thank goodness for that shovel! I needed it!

Finally, it was lunch time. And I was starving! On our drive home we had to go through the Cowboy Car Wash...the center pivot was across the road.


At lunch we talked about how we were going to pull off a Prairie Kid Nap and me helping. We decided to see if The Prairie Kid could nap in his car seat, in the car, in the shop where it was cool. And it worked like a charm!
We had to run out on the ATV to a well to make sure there was water for cows. I love this part of the ranch because we don't go up there very often. It is so secluded and rugged. There was a spot where we looked across and could see the barn, shop, feedlot, etc. and then our house (the tiny dark line in the middle section of the picture) and to the left of our house is our reservoir. Can you see it? Now, imagine this...from our house to the barn is well over a mile...maybe even two when you drive!

We got back and I was put in a tractor. I was SCARED! I haven't driven a tractor much for years. Back in college I worked at a dude ranch for a summer and drove a tractor quite a bit. THAT WAS 10 YEARS AGO!

And The Prairie Daddy trusted me with some big, scary tasks. I freaked out and froze up a couple of times. Finally, I got the hang of it and was daring enough to hit 4th gear High and also park these crazy-long feed trailers within 4 inches of a retaining wall by myself! I did break a bit of pipe off of one when I jack-knifed. The Prairie Daddy told me these had a great turning ability but forgot to mentioned I could still jack-knife. He wasn't upset and it wasn't a necessary pipe piece. I still felt bad.

Between each trailer we had to mix the feed that went into the trailer. I was in charge of cutting the wrap or twine off of the bales, turning on and off the water flowing into the mixer, and making sure the wrap/twine was put into a pile for the garbage. I also had to make sure the square bales didn't fall apart before they were picked up with the tractor.

At the end of the day The Prairie Kid and I collected and washed eggs and then came home to a nice, hot shower. I was FILTHY! And last night my body felt like it had just worked a hard day's worth of physical ranch labor in the first time in a long time...oh wait, it did!

I have so much respect for The Prairie Daddy working like this every day. Although, he did admit yesterday was more than usual. Whew. I am sore today as well but it is worth it! And, I am definitely much tanner! I just wish I was much buffer and trimmer. I think it would take many more days out there to accomplish that. It is a bit tempting.......okay, I am over that temptation.

For My Mom: A Not-So-Easy Easy Task

My mom requested that I get an updated picture of The Prairie Kid for a new frame she has for the grandsons. She has patiently waited and finally I got around to snapping some shots today. However, something happened. The Easy-To-Take-Pictures-Of Prairie Kid has transformed into the Sticking Out The Tongue, Spitting, Obnoxious-While-Getting-Pictures-Taken Prairie Kid. It was really fun. Obviously I have some good shots of the attempt to get a framable picture. I am not so sure we actually captured THE framable picture, however knowing that my mom isn't nearly as picky as me she'll probably be happy with what we got. So, put your seat belts on and enjoy the following Picture-Picking Ride.

The Tongue-Spitting Pose

The Super Smile

Loooooooo-Loooooo Loooooo

Hee Hee Heee, You Can't Get A Good Picture Of Meeee

Deer In The Headlights

Practicing to be a Lazy Teenager

So, there are the pictures that I will NOT let my mom put in the frame. There are two that I think might work. There is one major problem with one of the choices: I am in the picture. So, I jumped onto the handy-dandy FREE Gimp2 photo editing software and, well, axed myself. Okay, technically I didn't use an ax. I used the color-selector tool and then gently airbrushed myself away. Man, I wish I could airbrush myself for real.

The Headless Mommy

Then I used the cropping tool...and voila...a Framable.

But this next one is really my favorite...

Mom, I hope you enjoy these because I had to bribe him to "cooperate" (which we now know wasn't very effective) with a new book I had just gotten for him and if you want more pictures taken I will have to visit Amazon.com again.

Testosterone-Driven, Spastic Toddler Self-Entertainment

The Prairie Kid was having a Crazy Moment the other day. I was able to get it captured on video for us all. I think laughter is contagious and you can't help but have a better day after watching the simplicity and joy of a two year old "hutball" loving Prairie Kid.

And yes, if you are wondering, I let The Prairie Kid wear the same pjs day after day, all day, if he so chooses (unless we go to town). When they get gross enough, we change to "new pjs" and wash the old, transforming them back into "new pjs." However, I am glad to report that I do not have the same lax practices with his diapers. My Prairie Kid has a clean butt.

Bucks and Boogies

You'll want to watch this to the end...it is worth it. And try not to read the text underneath until you've finished the video.

What can I say about The Nose-Picking Prairie Kid? Well, at least he's not insecure about being himself, right? Maybe watching nature like this just brought out the primitive side of him, eh? Or maybe he just needed to fish out that big ol' boogar he wouldn't admit was in there. Who knows...I am just feeling like a really proud Prairie Mama about now.

Baking and Licking

We've shifted occupations in our home in the past few days. We went from:

-shoveling dirt to shoveling flour
-using our tongue to make back hoe noises to using it to clean the kitchen counter
-mixing cement to mixing batter
-baking bricks to baking muffins
-cracking rocks to cracking eggs
-demolishing houses to demolishing kitchen etiquette

I am not sure if this was a good transition but it is a fun one!

Our new occupation was extremely adventurous and risky this morning. We pulled a box of muffin mix out of the cabinet that The Prairie Daddy bought and made them. It was really fun and The Prairie Kid did most of the "dirty work" as you will see in the clips. I may never get people to come over for a meal at our house again. Please know that I do not exercise the same cleaning techniques as The Prairie Kid.


I was actually quite impressed by how carefully this 2 1/2 year old poured things. He may turn out to be quite the little cook. He comes by it honestly when you think about my sister, The Culinary Master.

I guess along with his Culinary Skills comes his Salivary Skills. Again, a reminder that this is not something he learned or inherited from me!

Here is a little re-cap of the cooking experience. This shows how The Prairie Kid loves to spread a blanket out on the floor. I don't know where this comes from either but he has had an obsession with it for several months now. We spread blankets out on various floors more times a day than I would like to count. But he is worth it!

Prairie Kid In Action

Here are some clips of The Prairie Kid yesterday. He sure is keeping us laughing and entertained.

This first clip is a Proud Mommy Moment that I videotaped. It was a milestone that we've been working on for awhile.

The Prairie Kid does not seem to care what the weather is outside; when he wants to go out, he goes out! He has shown more Daddy Genes in the fact that he doesn't seem to be affected by temperature. The Prairie Daddy can also be out in the cold and not seem to be very affected. Again, more proof that The Prairie Kid is also The Clone.

The Prairie Kid really loves his kitty, Fluffy. He plays with her as much as he can, however she isn't as excited about him and that decreases his play time with her significantly.

Prairie Entrepreneuring

"Entrepreneuring" – a process that involves dreaming, discovering, and creating –

A limited liability excavation company was formed in our living room recently. I am proud to announce the grand opening of Prairie Excavation, LLC co-founded by The Prairie Daddy and The Prairie Kid.

(Mom this is a video not a picture...you may wish to push the play button on the lower left hand corner of the clip... : ) I love you. )

Both of the co-founders of Prairie Excavation, LLC have obvious experience in heavy equipment operations. I am confident that they will serve the area well with any earth moving or hauling needs. Prairie Excavation, LLC offers the following services:

- plastic brick removal

- screening for cheerios and other carpet debris

- demolition of anything stackable

- lego hauling

- site preparation for toy dispersal or vacuuming

Please feel free to contact the office for information on how this company can help you!

With A Little Help From My Friends

This post is a tribute to My Friends. I have needed a little help this week and some Wonderful Women stepped in and gladly gave their "Special Needs Friend" a little help (thank you, Molly for so lovingly coining this appropriate title for me).

So, it would only be appropriate in this tribute to have this song dedicated to:

Faith the Fabulous. Thank you for your company and the wonderful high carb, high fat lunch.

Molly the Marvelous. Thank you for driving my car, my cart, my kid, thinking of bubbles, and getting your hair cut next to me.

Lorelee the Lovable. Thank you for your company, blowing bubbles with and reading to my kid, and keeping him awake so that I could enjoy a nice movie while he napped at home.

Wonderful Women, here's to you. But thanks for not helping me get high like the Beatles talk about.

You know you have Vertigo when...

I felt a little better the last two days and didn't know that Vertigo can reoccur. However, this morning I woke up with a recurrence. I am not as bad as I was the first day but I am not doing well. I couldn't resist the opportunity to lighten up the situation and even though posting comes quite a bit harder, it is worth the effort to add some humor to the day.

You know you have Vertigo when...

your toddler's Blues Clues video makes you seasick.


You know you have Vertigo when...

you're willing to watch Blues Clues with your toddler.


You know you have Vertigo when...

the world continues to move even though you are stationary.


You know you have Vertigo when...

you watch The Prairie Daddy spin The Prairie Kid around in circles and you feel like you're the one in his arms.


You know you have Vertigo when...

you think the video you're watching needs tracking and then you realize it's you.


You know you have Vertigo when...

you're afraid to move your head either direction.


You know you have Vertigo when...

emptying/filling the dishwasher is the biggest accomplishment of your day.


You know you have Vertigo when...

you're exhausted after accomplishing the emptying/filling of the dishwasher.


You know you have Vertigo when...

you realize that you may not be able to drive for a while.


You know you have Vertigo when...

you can't play "roll over your kid" on the bed.


You know you have Vertigo when...

you have to close your eyes to give The Prairie Kid a kiss because when something gets that close to you it sets off The Dizzies.


You know you have Vertigo when...

you have to skip out on working cattle.


You know you have Vertigo when...

you have to ask a friend to drive you to town and escort you through Wal-mart.


You know you have Vertigo when...

your eyes seem to have acquired a mind of their own.


You know you have Vertigo when...

you make sure you're in contact with the wall when you go up and down stairs.


You know you have Vertigo when...

being called a Dizzy Blond is a very accurate accusation.


I would love to continue to think up some more clever lines but I am needing to go lay down. Whew.

Sicky House 2: A New Meaning To Dizzy Blond

If you all read last week's Sicky House post you knew I suffered a sore throat and fever for a couple days. Everything cleared up, so I thought, and I was feeling great for the rest of week. Remember, I went to the branding, helped The Irrigator, and video taped a calf being pulled? I WAS FINE!!!

Until Saturday morning. I rolled over in bed before I was ready to wake up and a huge surge of dizziness overtook my head. I fell back to sleep for a little bit but when I started to move around in that "waking up period" I was just overcome with this dizziness. It was so severe that at first when I tried to lift my head I couldn't! It took me a while to work my way up to a sit where I could reach for the phone and call The Prairie Hubby and tell him to bee-line it home because when The Prairie Kid woke up I wasn't going to be able to take care of him.

I continued to be extremely dizzy and have several "spells" of spins and nausea. We decided we'd better get me checked out so we went to the urgent care clinic. We suspected what the diagnosis would be and we were right.

What was the diagnosis? Blond. Just kidding. Vertigo. And it was most likely induced by last weeks infection sneaking into the inner ear and stirring some crystal-things into the wrong chamber causing major dizziness and imbalance. What do you do about this? Nothing. I did get a prescription for an anti-dizzy med but I never did take it. I was told "Go home, find a position you can tolerate, and rest for a few days."

Well, Sunday morning I was not feeling like laying around and I did manage to get to church. I needed assistance walking so I didn't fall over and I stayed put in a seat most of the time. I am feeling better all the time and happy that it is going away faster than originally expected. I am not sure when I will feel completely up to par again but not being in bed all of the time is sure nice.

I do think I brought a whole new meaning to Dizzy Blond though! Hopefully this is the end of the Sicky House posting!

Bringing In A New Life

A special thing happened today. It was unexpected for me. I didn't expect to have another "ranchy" post for you until next week. I expected to sit at the sewing machine repairing ripped Wranglers and shirts while watching movies much of the day as it snowed outside. Yes, for those of you outside of Wyoming it was snowing this morning and only 28 degrees at 10am. The Prairie Daddy went to town for a meeting mid-morning and before he left he let me know that there was a heifer that was calving.

Now we're not calving right now, so it was a surprise to me that a heifer was calving. Plus we don't calve the heifers here; they have their babes at Dad's place. Then I remembered that one of the neighbors bulls had a little fun with three of our little girls. Dang men. So, here we are, calving a heifer with an illegitimate calf. : )

The Prairie Daddy called me and The Prairie Kid on his way home and invited us to come along if they needed to pull the calf. Of course we wanted to go! So shortly after all three of us loaded up and headed to the barn.

I captured the event on my new video camera. I even got it downloaded and ready to show you on this post! I am pretty excited that this is my "video posting debut!"

But before you watch I need to give another "Option Out." THIS IS REALLY GRAPHIC and it might not be something everyone wants to watch. There are 4 clips. If you're not wanting to see two men help pull a baby calf out of a bawling heifer then feel free to skip to the last two clips...you'll enjoy the end result without the graphics. Otherwise, enjoy this amazing (but graphic) post. Please note: we love our animals and give them the utmost care. This heifer and her calf were unable to finish the laboring process without help. Having to pull this calf may look painful and mean, however this intervention potentially saved two lives. Also, we are careful to select bulls for heifers that will not have calves too big for heifers to handle. Many of our heifers do not need help calving. But remember, we didn't ask this bull to have his way with this heifer!

In this first clip The Prairie Daddy, who became The Calf-Pulling Ranch Vet, has managed to get inside and find the calf's front feet. He has gotten chains around them to have a grip and leverage on their pulling. They work with the heifer in her pushes, however this heifer wasn't pushing much at all so they just had to work without her cooperation. This is the "cow version" of helping a mommy get her babe out . It would be comparable to an o.b. using a vacuum to help a human mommy.

Now after the calf started to slide out it obviously got to a point where it got a little "stuck" and my brother-in-law got the calf turned a bit to help. This second clip shows the quick exit of the calf. I am warning you, as you pull a calf out when the mommy is standing up, it does quickly drop and it will hit the cement floor. The first time I saw this I just about fainted and cried. It is tough to see but it doesn't hurt the calf believe it or not.

This third clip is the trauma a 2 1/2 year old felt as 3 adults hushed him and were intently focused on a heifer for a while. He wasn't too sure about this.

But all ended up well and Mama and New Baby will soon get things figured out. And you'll see they already had visitors come and congratulate them!

I couldn't resist sharing this great surprise with you today. And I did manage to get the sewing done, one movie viewed, this posted, a cat nap, and some time with the family!

A Mom's Day Moment

When a Mom is busy and her kid is playing she knows that when it gets quiet someone is probably up to no good.

I was working in the office when I had one of those "uh oh, its too quiet" moments. I know not to mess around when its "too quiet" because it may mean that I could save the disaster that is in the making. So I bolted out of the office chair, headed for the family room

and....

and...

and...

Bliss...absolute Mommy Bliss...
Finding your 2 1/2 year old reading quietly and being so good....
What can I say?

Happy Mother's Day...any day.