An Interesting Week

Its been an interesting and busy week as usual around here. I got a phone call from my old boss and Friend Jerry and we caught up on things, my old commander and friend returned safely from Afghanistan (welcome back Kyle...err Major!), and my high school girlfriend Bonnie somehow found the blog and contacted me after oh...35 years or so. I have really enjoyed catching up on what happened to everyone we used to hang out with and she was gracious enough to send me some pictures of those days which I really appreciate because I had lost everything from those days during a military move years ago. Memories came flooding back of course and I was struck by the fact that I not only had the cutest girl in the entire school I had the nicest. Well she is still very nice and father time has been very kind to her....she looks great while I have liver spots, grey hair and scars all over. But, Holly and I have been laughing at my hair and the fact that I seemed to have my shirt unbuttoned in almost all of the pictures...what was I thinking???

We also have been busy gardening between rain squalls, we put up the new garage door on the house, and we have been working on a nearby ranch rounding up cattle, giving vaccinations and getting them artificially inseminated. Its a lot more complicated than it sounds but its fascinating and even though I am over 50, I still like to learn and experience new things and the rancher takes the time to teach and explain whats going on; thanks Ken. We have also been working on getting Holly more comfortable with her 4 wheeler, she is game for anything but for some reason the 4 wheeler intimidates her. But she is determined to master it and I am enjoying seeing her progress.

Judy had a booth at the Baker Creek spring fair and sold her quilts..aint she cute?

Our garage door was an el-cheapo aluminum job with no insulation and as you can see when the automatic door opener was added they never put the metal brace across the top so it was bending and tearing.

The whole vertical brace was coming off the door.

We had dents, it wouldnt weather seal, and it just looked bad.

The replacement is double sided, insulated, and already green.

It not only looks better and seals out the weather....its so quiet when it raises and lowers.

It also has the proper top brace.

Its 2" thick and well insulated.

Now we need to paint the house (the non-rock part).

We have purple, blue, white and peach colored Iris' in full bloom right now.

I had to mow the corral and during a break Maybelle just wouldnt leave the mower alone. She rubbed on it pit the throttle cable and jumped on it.

Holly layed weed barrier and a couple inches of bark mulch around the raised beds and it looks a lot better now.

Judy spoils Maybelle and at this rate she will still be bottle feeding her next year at this time!

This is our first year asparagas so we have to let it go to fern and not harvest but its going well. We also found some wild asparagas in our new woodlot.

Everyone has had trouble with their onion sets around here but ours are doing great...

We are a little behind on planting this year due to the cold spring and all the rain but we have onions, potatoes, spinach, lettuce, raddishes, collards, brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, tomatos, aparagas, sunflowers, peas, and castor beans in the ground in addition to the herb garden.

37 tomato plants we started from seed..4 different varieties.

We compost everything possible and always have 3 or 4 piles in various stages of production. When I turned these with the tractor yesterday they were steaming hot and we find that it works much better than commercial stuff. We arent certified organic but we dont use much in the way of commercial fertilizer or insecticide/pesticides.

Right below the orchard I tilled up a pumpkin patch for Holly which she will plant in a month or so for the Halloween market.

Holly was practicing riding while checking fences.

Yesterday we helped round up and artificially inseminate 37 heifers.

You definitely need them in a head chute for this chore.

I didnt get to do this task but it was interesting to see. The silver rod in his non-gloved hand is actually a plunger with the bull semen and I guess you find the cervix with the gloved hand and guide in the semen with the other.

I was responsible for giving an injection into their neck that stimulates their reproduction system to accept the semen.

Its a peaceful farm of about 640 acres (a section) with lots of cattle and old machinery..paradice.

And finally this is one of the pictures Bonnie sent me of the two of us in 1976 or 1977. One of the few where my shirt was not unbuttoned! I look at my hair and Bee Gees songs play in my head but you know it was the 70s.

More adventures and projects next week.