Flag Football

The Prairie Kid is playing Flag Football this month. It is so cute! I do hope he wants to play football through high school. : )

Oh Yeah, We Went On A Trip!

I requested another overnight getaway for my birthday again this year. Last year we stayed in Yellowstone. This year The Prairie Daddy suggested that we go up into Montana and drop down to the North Entrance of Yellowstone. We stayed in a town just outside of the park called Gardiner, MT. Then the next day we drove through Yellowstone before hitting Cody for fireworks. We had a beautiful drive...

At the top of Chief Joseph Highway

Here is The Prairie Kid's photo of the hotel we stayed in

Sunset on the Yellowstone River in Gardiner, Montana

Here are the hot springs at Mammoth in Yellowstone

And while on the hiking trails around Mammoth we say this big bull snake

Petrified Tree

Yellow wildflowers covered strips of the mountains

A mama elk and calf

The brink of the lower falls

There was SO much water!

Here is a shot looking at the falls from another trail

Prairie Kid photography
We were a little silly by mid-afternoon...we were goofing off in the Lake General Store

We had a great trip. We didn't see any super-exciting wildlife, like bears or wolves, but it was a fun time to get away from "life" and spend some time together.

Sunday Afternoon On The Ranch

As we headed off to church this morning The Prairie Daddy didn't like the looks of our heifers and a few bulls pressed up to the fence of the neighbor's fence with cattle on the other side. He declared that we'd have to get them moved in the afternoon.

When we got home from town we got ready and headed out to move them. It was a beautiful day out, although it was breezy and wasn't all that warm.

I haven't helped for awhile. I was a bit nervous. Thankfully, I got the count right (I started gathering on my own) and got them going in the right direction. Unfortunately, at one point I was too busy taking pictures to realize that they started heading off the hill (and they weren't supposed to!) I quickly got the camera pocketed and got back to work. ; ) Here are some of the pics.

Gathering
Out to the road

I really like how this one turned out

Waiting for Dad

Heading into the corrals

Master Sorter...it is awesome to watch him. He got 5 bulls and 1 cow peeled out of this bunch. There were 49 heifers in this bunch too.

Rough view : )

So cute!

Out of the corrals with the heifers

Over the canal

All done!

Family pic with the timer

It was such a treat to get to go help today. I told The Prairie Kid when we got home that he is pretty blessed to get to do this kind of thing...not many kids would ever have the opportunity.

Thank You, Lord, for an amazing blessing of land and life.

Muy Relajante

Before we knew we were expecting The Prairie Kid we took a trip to Mexico. While we there we went on a great adventure tour. We snorkeled into a cenote (underground river/sinkhole),had lunch in a Mayan village, and sea-kayaked. While in the village we bought one of their hand-crafted hammocks.

I found it while doing some cleaning today and put it out on the deck. The Prairie Kid soon found his way into it. We even did his reading today while resting in it.

Rough view, eh?

Very relaxing. I just can't sway in it...I get seasick! One time in college, I was working at a Young Life camp as a wrangler for a month, and we had a hammock. I got so seasick I almost lost my lunch!

The Eye Of The Beholder

Let me introduce you to: Plains Larkspur (Delphinium geyeri Greene)

definition (as known by The Prairie Mama): beautiful purple flowers growing in the field behind the house that would make a beautiful bouquet

definition (as known by The Prairie Daddy): a toxic weed known to kill cattle

I asked The Prairie Daddy the other day if I could cut some of these beautiful flowers for the dining room table. He said yes. Not because he thought they would look beautiful on the dining room table, but because the ones I cut could not reproduce.

So today The Prairie Kid and I went out to cut beautiful flowers.

Yep, these are definitely beautiful flowers!

I understand they can kill cattle BUT look how beautiful they are!

I think even the dog thinks they're beautiful flowers!

The Prairie Daddy was working on irrigation and came by to say "hi"

Now what does this look like to you?

Beautiful flowers or toxic weeds?

Thankfully The Prairie Daddy doesn't mind toxic weeds adorning the dining room table. : ) And boy are they wonderfully fragrant too! (Smelly weeds, sheesh.)

Hindsight

I had a project to do for church this weekend that had a box with Styrofoam boards in it. The Prairie Kid asked if he could play with them. I agreed. Little did I know what would result!

The next thing we knew there were barely any Styrofoam boards left! Oops. But he had a good ol' time and had to help with the clean up.

See how hard he is working to clean up?

He had Styrofoam all over!

The vacuum was the only solution we could figure out to get this stuff off of him!

Eventually it all did get cleaned up but it was quite a feat!

Cowboy'd Up

After returning from Seattle The Prairie Kid decided to dress from head to toe like a cowboy. And he's been dressed like that (minus p.j.s and church pants) ever since. He's all of the sudden a "die hard" cowboy.

He was going to work with The Prairie Daddy the other day and this is what he decided he needed to wear. With this shirt on I thought he looked just like his uncle who runs the ranch with The Prairie Daddy. : )