The Essary Family Daily News

Hunting widow

2011-11-11T08:41:00.002-07:00

When our marriage was young and we had one very young child, deer hunting meant a good house cleaning. It was amazing how much I could accomplish around the house without it being undone right behind me. Counters were not only cleaned off, but scrubbed with a toothbrush and bleach in every crack and crevice, around all faucets, and polished til everything shone.

Today, I still have the anticipation and want to get it all clean like that. But the children out number me x4. I have a huge list of things to get accomplished, but doubt shadows my mind of when I will have time to get it done.

For example, today is nearly shot and it's not 9am. A run to Wal-mart to get the latest and last Harry Potter movie that goes on sale today, use a credit at same store for a brand new set of dishes (since Thanksgiving is here this year, I want all my dishes to match and be in one piece in my new home). The girls both have eye appointments at 10am, followed by 3 hours of cheer practice from noon to 3. Chance has invited a friend to spend the night. They THINK they are going to sneak up at 3am and watch a rated R movie (Zombieland). They have another thing coming. But the evening will be spent making pizza, caramel popcorn, and other goodies and watching our movies; things that come from it being deer hunting and no daddy.

I hope to accomplish something tomorrow. I have pansies to plant and horses that are neglected after sitting unridden for many months. But of course, the wind is supposed to blow all weekend. Not to mention yet another trip to town, this time for Chance's football team's end of the season pizza party. Sunday is back to town for church, Monday and Tuesday work. The latter two, however, won't have the usual 6am basketball practice for Ch'ree. Instead, it has basketball games for their first tourney in Melrose.

But hopefully by Tuesday night, I will have accomplished SOMETHING. Maybe the house will be cleaner than usual. Maybe not. But in the meantime, I hope to make some special memories with the kiddos, as we are all widowed and orphaned for a few days.

Stupid cat

2011-08-27T08:37:00.003-06:00

We have a mama cat that's always having kittens. We don't spay or neuter because farm cats are hard to keep around with the coyote population. She has had 6 litters in the last 14 months; of those this last litter is the only ones to make it 6 weeks.

She's really a horrible mother. Most of the litters we never saw, we would just notice she was fat one day and skinny the next. But never saw any kittens. Two litters we did see when we lived in the rental, but she would hide them in the dumbest places. Like in the hitch of the camper. Or the bed of a pickup.

This spring I noticed a blob laying on the back patio. Upon further inspection I discovered it was a newly born kitten. She was in the dog kennel cleaning herself up, so I scooped it up and put it in there with her. I walked around the house and found another one on the other side of the patio, another by the garage. I put them all in their with her along with some food and water and locked it up. The next time I came to check on them, there was a mama and NO kittens. So, I drew the conclusion that she has been EATING her kittens all this time! EWWWW!!

The end of June I noticed she was fat once again. The next day she started having the kittens in the back of my old Bronco. It literally took her all day long. But I kept checking and the litter didn't appear to decrease in size, just increase to finally four kittens. For the next couple weeks I kept an eye out. She moved them from the back to the front of the vehicle, I kept bringing her food out there hoping she would stay. But soon she decided to move them to the burned out shell of an old pickup. After a couple weeks, she would move them to an unknown location, then again to the old work pickup that Jeff unknowlingly left the windows rolled down on.

But by now they are mobile. Jeff needed the truck and caught them all and moved them, but the dog got a hold of one. She didn't mean to hurt it, I think Scarlett just loved it to death, literally. Down to three. One went back into the work truck, I caught and put it back in the Bronco.

Yesterday, mama put one on the spare tire of my good pickup. And I can't reach it. This morning we heard another one crying by the side of the barn. Turns out one was stuck in an old muffler from a semi truck laying out there. Jeff put the fire rescue skills to use and cut it open to extracate the poor kitty. So two are accounted for.

But, we've come to the conclusion that this mama cat must be the stupidest cat to walk the face of the earth. If she doesn't eat the darn things, then she doesn't know a good safe spot to put them, though we show her plenty of good places. I used to think cats were natural mamas, but not so much anymore.

Where did summer go?

2011-08-05T08:00:00.002-06:00

It's August, and back to school is just about here. Teachers start back on Monday and the kids officially start classes the following week.
Summer flew by. It was a busy, but fairly uneventful, season. We spent a weekend in Lubbock with Jeff's sister, we managed one lake trip in Logan, NM at Ute Lake. We did lots of work around the house as we found long lost treasures that were packed away in storage last year, planted trees (some apple trees, a wind break, and a few in the yard), planted grass (seed in the front, then the back breaking work of desodding Jeff's parents yard to replant the sod in our back yard). The girls, Shelby especially, was busy all the month of June with basketball practices and camps. Then in July with volleyball practice/camp. And both girls busy all summer long with cheer practice and camp.
We've watched the sky for rain, and the horizon for fires. We have received a total of three inches of rain since October last year. Unfortunately, that isn't enough to plant a crop and the field lays brown and empty. However, Jeff has found a solution to the problem of not planting a crop, by harvesting CRP grass and baling it. None of it was renewed for the CRP program, and dairies are actually wanting it, not having much choice in the way of feed.
Not only has it been an exceptionally dry year, but exceptionally hot as well. And of course, our brand new air conditioner in this brand new house has already gone out in the hottest weeks of the year. Temps are in the 100s, but we are waiting on a part to arrive so it can be fixed.
But its with excitement and anticipation that we are starting this school year. Shelby is now a freshman and moves on up to JV, Ch'ree is in 7th grade and starts her first year playing junior high sports. Chance can't wait to start tackle football now that he's in 3rd grade, and Drew starts kindergarten.
As for me, it's a new school year as well. I will only be taking one class at ENMU, because I won't have time for anymore due to my new FULL TIME JOB!!! That's right, after 14 years of being a stay-at-home mom, I have been hired on at the kids' school to do a variety of jobs. I'll be an aide in the preschool most of the morning. Then I will do some office work for part of the afternoon. Finally I'm also the new yearbook sponsor and will teach one class dedicated to this. I'm also still the asst cheer coach. I'm really looking forward to my new duties at the school, and sure that the children are thrilled as well at the thought of seeing their mother every. single. day at school. bwahahaha!!!!

State Cheer videos

2011-06-21T13:12:00.002-06:00

Videos of Shelby on the Varsity cheer squad at the NMAA State Spirit Comp. We placed 4th in the 1A division! One day they had to do a crowd incorperated cheer that included specific elements (such as two jumps performed by all girls at the same time, no running tumbles but a standing tumble). The other day was a cheer and dance. It was alot of fun, and as my first year as a real coach along with Coach Lee, the girls did a great job! We had many challenges along the way this year with girls having to quit due to circumstances beyond their control and the fact that the entire cheerleading program changed when cheer was made an official sport in this state. But these four girls rose to the challenge and did an awesome job!!

Some house pictures

2011-04-16T11:14:00.003-06:00

Ok, so I don't have many pictures of the house yet. I've been busy! LOL! But I did take a few rooms. Maybe I'll take more when we have things up on walls. All our decorative stuff is in storage still and will be a few more weeks til we can get to it. In the meantime, here are a few:

Ch'ree's room

Shelby's room

Living room fire place

part of the kitchen

more kitchen, and Jeff cooking breakfast

Catching up, Part 1 and The Boat

2011-04-16T10:28:00.009-06:00

I know, I know. I promised pictures about a month ago of the new house. Then we were busy with state cheer competition, and unpacking, and company, and school, and spring break, then state FFA, and more unpacking and schoolwork. Not to mention real working. Oh, and a quick overnight trip to the lake to see if the boat Jeff bought floats (and it does). So now I have TONS of pictures to organize and upload for you, my couple of readers. Maybe I'll get them all done today, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll use the post date and time feature, or maybe I'll just give them to you all at once. Up first: How about some lake pictures? (disclaimer: having technical difficulties with Blogger. Won't let me move photos around, so nothing is in order. Anyone know an easier way to do this?)

Hard to believe that we do have lakes in New Mexico. In fact, Ft. Sumner State Park is just about an hour from here. So we loaded up the camper and boat and took a quick overnight trip over there. The water was too cold for me, but the kids waded in from the shore. We tried fishing but no luck. That's ok, we have all summer!

Jeff, the captain of this ship

Some silly girls

And a silly boy, Drew

The boat put Drew to sleep.

Shelby's Jaws imitation

All the kids on the "beach"

Girls on their first boat ride I'm the navigator. LOL!

Launching the new boat

House update: we moved!!

2011-03-10T19:40:00.004-07:00

Just a quick post to let y'all know that we have finally moved into our new house!! Sunday we moved in, and yesterday I finally got the computer hooked up.

I'll post pictures as soon as I take some. But for now, way too busy unpacking, schoolwork, and hanging out with my mom and aunt and stepfather who came out to help us.

House update, 2/24

2011-02-24T07:22:00.002-07:00

Wow, I can't believe the house is finally almost done! We were hoping to be moving next week, but looks like it will be another week after that. There are just too many little things to get done!

plumber is supposed to be there today, will be installing all the toilets, sinks, and working on the bathtub, hot water heater.
The electrictian has all the switches and plugs in, all the lights (and there are alot of lights!) and got the heat pumps installed. We now have heat!! His job is about done out there.
Septic tank is in, power is on, phone line hooked up.
cement has been poured for my front and back porch and the driveway. Still need to do the posts and rails for the porches
Boys were grouting floor tile last night. They still need to finish the kitchen counter tile and backsplash, then sealing it.
carpet, appliances, mantle and stove pipe on the fireplace, a few more baseboards, crown moulding on the kitchen cabinets are about all that's left.

Jeff and I have been doing most of the painting of the trimwork and doors. I painted 17 doors, two coats on each. Still one more to do that was just installed yesterday (in the garage for the hot water heater closet. I'm not too terribly worried about having it done, there is time). We still have a few more baseboards to paint, then some cutting in the color paint. I think we can get it done this weekend. Fingers crossed we pass the occupancy inspection and can move in March 7th!!

Family Picture update

2011-02-09T17:20:00.004-07:00

It's only been...3 years since we had a family picture done. Really? Dang, then guess it was time!

House update 2/9/2011

2011-02-09T17:04:00.004-07:00

House update:
We are in the homestretch! I think.

The cabinets are installed (yay!). All except the oven one, which hasn't come in yet. But not a big deal, it goes on the end so it's not holding anything up.
Sears just called and all the appliances came in today. We will pick up tomorrow.
The paint crew hasn't been showing up, so Jeff and I took it upon ourselves to get the painting done. There is ALOT of trim work to be painted, twice. And doors. And shelves. We've got two of the kids bedrooms and closets finished. Still need to touch up the walls and cut out.
Electrician is busy putting in outlets and switches, ceiling fans and light fixtures.
The fireplace hearth and surround is done.
tile is in, but not all grouted.
Carpet guy is meeting us tomorrow afternoon to measure for that.

Our goal is to be in March 1st. I don't know if we will make that goal or not. We still have to pour concrete for the porches, driveway, and AC units.

Speaking of pouring concrete, we hope to do that next week when the weather is supposed to warm up. It has been bitterly cold here the last couple weeks. I mean, COOOOLD! Talking about one day the high was like 5 I think. Wind chills have been -20 or -30. Schools have been cancelled not because of snow or roads (there has been very little snow), but because pipes froze or busted at both the kids' school AND at the university in town. Though I have appreciated the break so I can work on the house. And appreciated not going to aerobics, so now I'm not too sore to paint.

January school events

2011-01-16T16:48:00.004-07:00

January is half over, but we've managed to stay so busy we haven't noticed much.
Shelby plays basketball on our school's Junior High team. She also has been moved up to Varsity cheerleader. The latter made her eligible to walk in Basketball Homecoming this past weekend.

Shelby escorted by her best friend's brother, Terral

All my kiddos

Four of the Varsity Cheerleaders (there's actually five, but one was in the ER due to a concussion she received while playing in the earlier basketball game)

My tall girl

Playing defense against the Ft. Sumner Vixens

Cheering at ENMU Arena during EPAC against Logan Longhorns

The next few months will be a whirlwind with everyone's activities. In addition to us moving to our NEW house at the end of February or maybe first of March, my semester at ENMU starts this week. I'm taking 15 hours this semester (5 classes). Shelby will be playing basketball for another month, cheering Varsity games we hope into March (hopefully we make it to State), two cheer competitions in Albuquerque, then starts track. Ch'ree and Chance are both on Little Dribbler basketball teams. Jeff is coaching Ch'ree's (and I'll be helping). Ch'ree also cheers at Junior High games. Whew, I'm already looking forward to May! LOL!

House update, January 16, 2011

2011-01-16T16:22:00.002-07:00

The house continues to move along. Drywall is up, textured and painted. Jeff and I have been busy picking out appliances, cabinets, tile and light fixtures. These should be coming in throught the next few weeks. In the meantime, see what has been done!

living room with drywall

Garage doors (North side of house)

Tiling the kitchen

front and dormers

Dining room

Christmas Letter, 2010

2010-12-23T15:57:00.002-07:00

Once again, I ran out of time to do Christmas cards. So for your reading pleasure, here is the Christmas Letter that would have been in all of the cards.

Merry Christmas 2010
Dear Family and Friends,
Merry Christmas! Hope you all had a wonderful year and plan on spending the holidays with those you love.
As usual, it has been a busy year for us. We were able to sell our ranch this summer and are currently in the process of building a new home for us on our 240 acres of farmland. It still has a couple more months before being completed, the sheetrock should be in by the end of the year. The new house is just 1 ½ miles from Jeff’s parents house, and the kids are already having fun riding bikes or walking back and forth. We hope to be moved in by the end of February. In the meantime, we are renting a house between Floyd and town.
The children won’t stop growing.
Shelby is 13, in the 8th grade, and now taller than her mother. She has hit 5’8”. She is on the Junior Varsity cheer squad, plays on the Junior High volleyball, basketball and will probably run track again in the spring. She was selected for National Junior Honor Society for the 2nd year in a row and continues to be on the Honor Roll. She was also went through Confirmation at our church this spring. She’s grown into a beautiful young lady and makes us very proud.
Ch’ree is 11 and in 6th grade. She is on the Junior High and Elementary cheer squads and lately has been singing the National Anthem at the local ball games along with her best friend Gabby. She is also on the Honor Roll and will play her last year of Little Dribbler basketball this winter before going on to Junior high next year.
Chance is 8 and in 2nd grade. He is still the tallest in his class, and his feet have caught up to mine; we wear the same size boot! This year he played Flag Football and will play Little Dribbler basketball as well. He loves to play Legos and video games, and is also on Honor Roll.
Drew was 5 last month and in his 2nd year of preschool. He loves that he is one of the “big kids” this year in his class. He loves Legos and Transformers. He’s still my little “snuggle-bug” and is growing up fast.

Jeff still enjoys his job with the Portales Fire Department. He is still on the Floyd School Board and we will be coaching Ch’ree’s basketball team together. We were blessed with more rain than usual this year and had an awesome crop of hay grazer. Doubly blessed with the fact that we were able to sell it all as well.
I’ve been busy working as a substitute teacher and was hired as assistant cheer coach at Floyd, too. On top of that I decided to go back to school and work on my teaching degree; I took four classes this fall and made all As and Bs. I haven’t had time for any hobbies this year, plus it’s all packed up into a semi trailer we bought for storage, since we didn’t know what our living accommodations would be until the house was built. Jeff and I both got to play on a softball team this year. The Portales Fire Department participated in a co-ed adult city league, Jeff played right field and I played 1st base. I can’t wait for next summer to play again!
We took a couple small trips with our family this year. In June, Jenny’s mom and Wayne and some friends of theirs rented a place in Ruidoso for a few days. We met them there in our camper and went to see the historic town of Lincoln, and to White Sands Monument by Alamogordo. We also camped in Mora over Labor Day for the annual Essary Family reunion, and in June went to Littlefield, Texas for the revived McCarty family reunion.
We’ve had new family members join us, but lost a couple as well. I became an aunt two more times this year! My little brother and Nancy had their first child, a baby girl named Somi. Jeff’s sister also had a baby, a boy named Brogan. Both were born in July. Of course we have seen Brogan several times since they just live in Lubbock. But Somi is all the way in Atlanta, we hope to see her this coming year. We lost my Gram in March, and Jeff lost his Aunt Jerrie in August
Our family hopes you all have a wonderful Christmas, we look forward to seeing many of you in the coming year.
Love,
Jeff, Jenny, Shelby, Ch’ree, Chance, and Drew

House and life update, December 8th 2010

2010-12-08T21:02:00.003-07:00

As of today I am done with this semester of college! I completed 13 hours (four classes) and am confident I did well in all.
And now that is finally over, I can actually put some new(er) house pictures up and update you!

Our Texas Star front door. I love my door, even though we don't live in Texas)
The whole house all bricked in

The back door. The blinds are IN the door! Very cool!!

Now that most of the outside is done (still have the porches and some more siding to finish), the slow inside part is next. The electricians have been there running wires (lots and lots of wires). There are actually TWO heating/cooling units. One for the kids rooms, and one bigger one for the rest of the house. Someday in the distant future when the kids are all grown and gone, we can shut the smaller one off and shut the doors, saving some energy.

Today I got to pick out cabinets and get them ordered. They are a beautiful maple, I can't wait til they come in (but I must, they won't be ready until mid-January). We hope to have the drywall and fireplace (or heater) done by Christmas, we want to spend Christmas morning there.

Now that the semester of college is behind me (until January 19th, that is), I have a lot of things to catch up on around here. Like laundry and more attention to housework. And cleaning out the car I feel I have been living in. Cooking more meals for my family. Subbing at school. Getting the little cheerleaders going for this year. Christmas cards. Playing with the kids (and playing with the kids' video games. Indiana Jones Legos for Wii!!). Next semester will start before I know it, so I better get all that done!

2010-10-14T08:57:00.003-06:00

I know, I've been bad about posting pictures on here. I'm good at putting them on facebook because I'm taking them with my phone, easy to just upload there. But from phone to computer to here, it's another story. LOL!

So, I've missed a couple of steps with the framing process, but these first few pictures are from a week ago.

back porch (nevermind the shadow of silly lady holding the phone up high to get the trailer out of the way)

from the top of the baler, view of the back and side of the garage

front

These are as of Sunday.

fireplace in the living room

the breakfast bar

a bugs eye view of the house

And these are from yesterday

two of the many pallets of bricks

windows sitting in the garage

Ch'ree's window in her bedroom

The next items up are getting the windows and doors in (the doors haven't arrived yet, though), then the brick. Also the tub and showers came in yesterday and will also be going in soon. We've already had to pick out fixtures for those, which was way fun shopping in Lowe's. Soon the electrical will be going in as well. And my big decision looming is: where am I putting my appliances in the kitchen? Stay tuned!!

New House, Week Two

2010-09-25T07:36:00.002-06:00

The Slab of the house was poured yesterday morning. They were going to pour on Wednesday but with the threat of rain (that turned into a full 24 hour heavy drizzle), they put it off til Friday. Billy (the builder) said his crew was out here at 6am and using headlights from their trucks to see to get it all ready for the concrete.

I guess it looks like we are going to have alot of water faucets! LOL! Well, the finished house will have 2 full baths. The kids bathroom will have double sinks, as does the master bath. The master bath also has a seperate shower and tub. There is also a half bath, and the utility room has a sink. Plus the kitchen obviously has a sink and water for the ice maker. The garage will house the hot water heater and a water softener.

The garage will be poured on Monday, the framer will begin framing on Tuesday. Soon it will look like a house!

A fireman's funeral

2010-09-16T21:18:00.002-06:00

Today Jeff and I got to be a part of a funeral. A local man bravely fought but lost his battle with cancer. He had been a part of the Floyd Fire Department for the last 50 years, including serving as the fire chief a number of years ago. In recognition of his service, his funeral was with full fireman's honors, and the FFD were the pall bearers.
All Floyd Fire department volunteers got to wear class A shirts (Jeff chose to wear his Class A uniform from Portales FD). The services were in Portales, so we took nearly all of our fire trucks into town, one was draped in black bunting. Every volunteer dept in Roosevelt County, and even one from Curry, brought at least one truck and/or ambulance to the service. During the service one of our officers recited a fireman's prayer, and another one talked of the significance of the bell and it was rung. PFD also had an honor guard there with the casket.
Then the pall bearers carried the casket out to where all fire personel were lined up saluting and they loaded into the back of the truck with bunting, while a man with bagpipes played. We then drove "code 3" (lights and sirens) til we got outside of the city limits a few miles out of town.
We drove out to the Floyd cemetary where we lined up and saluted again as the family drove in, then again as the pall bearers unloaded the casket. The officers then took the flag off the casket and folded it, then the current chief presented it to the widow. As soon as he was done with that, the police/fire dispatcher did "Last Call" over the radio, the bagpipes played "Amazing Grace".
It was such a heartbreaking, touching and emotional service. I didn't know the man very well, but he was a well known farmer and wonderful man in the community. I'm so honored that Jeff and I got to be a part of the services.

Week One

2010-09-13T17:31:00.004-06:00

We are so excited, we finally get to build the house!!!

Digging the footings

More digging the footings

Pouring the footings

Vacation, June 2010

2010-08-14T09:55:00.004-06:00

This year we took the camper down to the mountains in Ruidoso, New Mexico. My mom and some friends had a condo down there for a few days so we met them there.

For a quick day trip we went to the White Sands State Park in Alamogordo. The kids had fun rolling, running, and attempting to sled down the huge sand dunes.

Drew running down a sand dune

Shelby

Back in Lincoln County, looking out from a rock tower the Conservation Corp had built in the 1930s. It was a long and winding gravel road up there and an additional hike, but the views were worth it.

Ch'ree, Judy, and Shelby

Another day we drove around the local area. We went to Lincoln and saw all the history there. Of course the most famous history there was Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War stuff. The kids were already familiar with the basics of the events thanks to movies like Young Guns, and Shelby had studied it in her New Mexico history class last year.

Anyone that's seen Young Guns knows that Billy the Kid worked for a man named Tunstall, and Tunstall's murder was the shot that started the Lincoln County War. This building was Tunstall's store. It's a museum filled with lots of items one could buy during that era. Shoes, household items, lots of odd looking contraptions that were used in the day. Very interesting stuff. Also has some old buggies and carts, even a water pumper for putting out fires.

For dinner one night we went to the Flying J Wranglers show. One can pan for gold and the little kids can ride a horse, then there is a Wild West comedy shootout in the street. Dinner was BBQ beef or chicken, ranch beans, chunky applesauce, biscuits and spice cake for dessert, then the group performs. It's a combination of comedy and good old western music and was alot of fun.

Drew and Ch'ree panning for gold

The Flying J Wranglers performing

Because I just didn't have enough to do these days...

2010-08-10T15:04:00.003-06:00

I've decided to go back to school. Yeah, in my spare time. LOL!

Seriously, I had been looking for a job that would work around the kids' school schedules. I love subbing, but it's not dependable. Other jobs in town would leave the kids home alone afterschool and Friday's since we have 4 day weeks. And that's something I'm not ready to do. The only solution would be an aide at their school. But there is no position open for that. Soooo, after alot of talking with Jeff and thinking, we decided the best way to spend my time would be to finish getting my teaching degree.

I'm all registered to take 13 hours (4 classes) at ENMU. I'm taking Math, Chemistry, and two education courses. If it all works the way I have planned, I will graduate in December 2012. My classes are on Monday and Wednesday (with one on Friday afternoon, which between Jeff and my gracious mother-in-law, should have the kiddos covered). I can still sub on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The summer has flown by, the kids start school day after tomorrow. We did swim lessons, VBS, a reunion in Littlefield, TX. A small trip to Ruidoso, and quick one to Lubbock to see the newest member of our family, my nephew Brogan Potter. Tonight is our last softball game, and it's a tournament. I've had so much fun playing ball again, hope we have many years of playing ahead of us. Summer will officially close when we go camping in Mora for Labor Day.

Fall has many events coming up. Shelby is playing volleyball on the junior high team and cheering JV. Ch'ree is cheering elem and Junior High. Chance plans on playing flag football.

We are still waiting on a few loose ends so we can start the new house. We are so looking forward to it, renting really sux. LOL! Our crop looks beautiful this year. We've been blessed with more rain than we are used to having (though according to Jeff this is how it used to be before all the drought years).

And that's the update from here. Of course, if you're my facebook friend you get this all the time. LOL!

We've Moved!!

2010-07-06T07:46:00.003-06:00

Just a quick note to let everyone know we have moved. For now we are renting a house, but will start building our new home soon! We are so excited about this!!!
If your trying to get a hold of us, don't try the home phone. We had it disconnected. The rental is in Portales phone and address district, and since we would have to change it all again in a few months when we are back in Floyd's district, we have opted to do without a landline for now. Besides, we really never use a landline anymore, we usually just use a cell. If you need us, try our cells. If you need those numbers, send an email (because I'm not posting that kind of info on here!).
Ditto for address. We actually already have the address for where our new home will be and are using it rather than the rental's. Why change everything twice, kwim?
For now, we are getting settled in with what we thought was going to be the minimum amount of stuff, but feels like we moved too much. While the rental has decent sized bedrooms and closet space, the kitchen and bath leaves MUCH to be desired. Gone are the spacious bathroom counters and drawers we had at the ranch. Gone too are more than half of my kitchen cabinets, drawers and counters, as well as a decent pantry. LOL! But, we will make do. After all, it's just temporary.
I think the hardest thing to get used to is the swamp cooler. We have truly been spoiled by a central air conditioner. Hopefully the summer won't be too hot and humid.
On the plus side, there is a large back yard for Scarlett to roam. There are also some pens for me to put my horse in. The girls are thrilled to have DishNetwork in their room (I'm stressing that this is a temporary thing). We are a bit closer to town, which is nice for the summer activities we have going on in Pville.
We are hauling cows to the sale today, then our lives as ranchers will be over. Our hay crop is in the ground and now that the move is done, seems like we may finally have a little bit of free time on our hands. Maybe I'll even have time to post some pictures here every now and then. haha!

2010-06-26T09:52:00.002-06:00

Just another quick post.
We closed on our ranch and are in the process of moving to a rental between Floyd and Portales. Waiting on some final bank stuff to begin construction on our NEW house! We are so excited about building EXACTLY what we want! It's going to be great, just gotta get it started! We have a floorplan, we have a builder, and we have a good well!
We have had a busy summer so far: cheer practices, packing and moving and loading stuff, a visit from my mother, stepfather and a friend of theirs, camping in Ruidoso, a family reunion in Littlefield, Texas, farming, cutting hay. And still much more to come: volleyball camp/practices, cheer camp/practices, swim lessons, VBS, Eclipse (the Twilight movie), Jeff's sister having a baby, more hay to cut. Not sure how we are going to get everything done before school starts! LOL!
Oh, and anyone commenting here, I've decided to change how to post a comment. I've been getting too many prescription drug links in the comments. So, that's why.

Another drive-by post

2010-05-09T09:16:00.003-06:00

Yes, it's been two months. Life isn't slowing down, or even moving at the same pace. It's RACING by!!!
March started with the passing of my last living grandparent. Gram was a great lady, not only that but a great Southern lady. The woman could COOK!
So the month started out with a trip to Georgia and Tennessee for her services. We had been planning to go Spring Break anyway, so we ended up having our vacation just a little bit earlier than planned. Her services were beautiful, and saw so many family members and friends that I hadn't seen in a long time, some since I was a little girl. We also went to Newnan to visit my dad and stepmother, too. So it was a bittersweet trip.
The rest of the last two months has been a blur. Shelby ran track, Ch'ree and Chance played basketball. I've subbed alot, had the Floyd Country Jamboree, Shelby was confirmed at church, we had Easter, my washing machine died (and I got a new front loader that's so SWEET!!! It even plays a song when it's done with a load!). Kids have had field trips, practices, tryouts (Shelby made Junior Varsity Cheer!!!!). The girls and I took a day and went to Albuquerque to watch our varsity cheerleaders at State competition (we won 2nd place!!!). Saw an old friend while we were there. Jeff and I had our first weekend away with no children last weekend when we attended EMS conference in Ruidoso. I went to a casino for the very first time (and lost $3 on penny slots).
The upcoming months should be just as busy. After nearly two years, we may have our ranch sold. We are planning on building a home a little bit closer to town (we are about 25 miles now, soon to be about 15). But so many details to work out (exactly where to put the new home, floorplans, etc). We have branded cattle so we can sell them off. And now faced with the daunting task of packing and moving. Since building a house requires several months, we need a place to go temporarily. Did ya know that Roosevelt County doesn't have many options when it comes to rentals? I looked in the newspaper and there is literally ONE advertised (and it's 2
bedroom, 1 bathroom, no pets. Probably not for a family of 6 with a dog, 3 cats and a horse). So my project for this week are to find ones that are NOT advertised.
Other upcoming events this month are:

Shelby's 13th birthday tomorrow
Drew's Preschool Tea (also tomorrow)
School's Spring music program Tuesday
Middle/High school awards assembly (also Tuesday)
playdays
elem. awards assembly
a sleepover for Shelby
girls have final exams
a wedding next weekend
softball practices (for me and Jeff. The fire department has a team in the city's adult league and I get to be on it!!)
athletic awards assembly (Shelby did 4 sports this year! Volleyball, Basketball, Cheer and track)
graduation (seems like every year I know more and more kids that are graduating!)

At least I'll be too busy and tired to get into much trouble! LOL!

2010-03-03T19:51:00.003-07:00

Ok, in case anyone was wondering what those pictures were all about:
Tuesday my grandmother passed away. She was 86 and on her 4th battle with cancer. This time it won, but not without a gallant effort on her part to fight it.
Anyway, my sister-in-law is at my mom's house preparing a slide show for the services and needed some more pictures. But, her mail told her, "nope, I'm not going to work today". So, the only way we could share was to post on my website. And so, there ya go.
Now I'll say a few things about my Gram.

she was an AWESOME cook!! Paula Deen would have taken lessons from my Gram. In fact, I own all of Paula's books and some of her recipes are the very ones my Gram always used! My favorites were her buttermilk biscuits, homemade strawberry jam, country fried steak, apple pie, and chocolate merangue pie.
She sewed some of the cutest dresses for me when I was little. They were always beautiful!
She was a HUGE UT fan (Tennessee, not Texas). She went to UT football games til she couldn't anymore. She made sure we all had a UT shirt, and even got a UT snuggie for Christmas.
We always had summer vacations together. To Disney/Epcot, once to the horse races in Kentucky. Many times to Myrtle Beach, SC and we always stayed at the Swamp Fox Inn.

There is so much to say about my Gram. We will all love and miss her very much!!

Gram Pictures

2010-03-03T19:02:00.004-07:00

Holly, these are for you.

Drinking game

2010-01-27T18:37:00.002-07:00

I usually don't post anything political (I hate offending people), and I think most everyone knows where I stand (cough, republican, cough). But this was too funny not to share.

State of the Union Address Drinking Game. The rules are: When Obama says "Let me be clear" = drink. When Obama says "Uhh" or "Umm" more than two consecutive times = Drink. When Obama says "Change" = drink. When Obama blames Bush, or says "Last eight years" = Do a shot. And when Nancy Pelosi claps like a seal = Drink................... Finally we have a good way to make it through an Obama speech!

Drive-by post

2010-01-27T14:35:00.002-07:00

Yes, it's been a couple months since I posted again. Where does the time go?
Well, alot of it goes to driving. I drive Shelby to school for 6am practices. Then I come home and get the other three kids up and ready, then drive them to school before the bell rings at 8:00. Then I drive back home if I'm not subbing that day. Or I may drive to town because Jeff locked his keys in the truck at the fire station. Or drive to the grocery store. I may drive back to school to help out a bake sale. I drive back to pick up the kids at 3:50. Then I drive home with anywhere from 3-5 children, some that may not be mine. I fix dinner. Then I drive back to the school for either Ch'ree or Chance's basketball practice.
I'm telling you, it's a crazy life these days!! LOL!

December and January was spent building fence. We had 2 1/2 miles of barb wire fence to build to divide this section into 4 quarters (and then dividing one of those quarters for an additional trap). It seems every nice day we had to work on it, Jeff was at work. And when he was home, it was snowing, or raining, or wind was blowing just too darn bad to do anything. I'll put up a post later when I get some pictures describing this.
Chance and Ch'ree are both in city league basketball. Shelby is still on the Junior High basketball, as well as the JH cheer squad (who also cheer not only JH games, but the JV games as well. Because we don't have a JV squad).
I've been subbing quite a bit. Usually 2-3 days a week, sometimes all 4 days. It's fun, I enjoy the work most of the time (except for some of the freshmen. ugh!). And I like the variety of it. I'm never in the same spot all the time. Sometimes I'm in the high school, sometimes in the elementary. And sometimes I'm in the office for the secretary (which I think is my favorite. Too bad it's a year round position, oh and that somebody already has it).
We are still trying to sell our ranch. No offers yet, but keeping fingers crossed!
This week is homecoming at the school. Thursday night there will be a Alumni bball tourney. Should be much fun to watch, Jeff is going to play in it, as well as some other "older" guys. I'll be standing by with a video camera in one hand and an oxygen tank in the other. LOL! Saturday will be the JV and Varsity games, followed by the coronation, and then a dance. The homecoming dance here isn't formal and anyone 7th and above can go (younger if a parent is with them, I think). I may stick around for some of it anyway. Shelby will probably want to stay.
Supposed to have a big snow tonight, so I suppose all of Thursday's stuff will depend on the weather.

Oh toothless one...

2009-11-22T16:59:00.002-07:00

The toothfairy has been making several stops here the last few months. I think she might have even forgotten a couple of times. Ch'ree and Chance BOTH lost a tooth over the weekend.

Chance's seems to have come at the perfect time for a holiday song: All I Want for Christmas is my TWO FRONT TEETH!!!

Happy 4th Birthday Drew!!!

2009-11-22T16:44:00.004-07:00

As always I'm a few days late, but have to wish my baby a happy birthday with some pictures!!

Happy that he is 4 now!!!

His favorite toy is a Bumblebee Plasma Cannon. That with his halloween costume and he is ready for action!!

THE LAST FOUR YEARS

A couple of weeks old

One year old.

Age two

Age three

Age four.

Deer Hunting 2009

2009-11-22T16:32:00.003-07:00

WARNING: SOME GROSS PICTURES HERE. IF YOU DON'T LIKE HUNTING AND/OR FEEL LIKE WE ARE BAMBI KILLERS, YOU MAY NOT WANT TO SEE THESE.

Jeff and his brother-in-law went deer hunting last weekend and each came back with a deer.

Jeff got a huge 13 point buck! What makes it even more special was that he shot it with his dad's old rifle that he had bought used when he was 13. He was so proud of this one that he is having the head mounted.

Jason got one, too. His was a 6 point and while not as big, still provides alot of meat.

Our 15 year old friend Addison being silly with the head.

And the eyes. guess she isn't very squeamish. LOL!

My niece Gracie watching her daddy skin his deer.

Jeff got a good bit of meat off these and we will enjoy eating it over the winter. See, just like Little House on the Prairie! LOL!

Halloween 2009

2009-11-22T16:19:00.002-07:00

This year for Halloween Shelby was a dead/zombie cheerleader.

Drew was Bumblebee (from Transformers), and Chance recycled last year's costume and was a clone trooper again.

Shelby's costume was also from last year (except she was a normal cheerleader last year, not dead) and Ch'ree was a pretty witch.

It's difficult to go trick or treating when you have no neighbors. But we knew a few people in a nice neighborhood in town and they let us invade them this year. And the candy they had was awesome! Lot's of chocolate! Thanks residents of Western Skies for letting us trick or treat with you!!!

FOOTBALL/CHEERING 2009

2009-11-22T16:09:00.004-07:00

This fall was busy for football.

Jeff isn't a big football fan, but when he can he is on the standby ambulance for games.

I was still the elementary cheer coach, and Ch'ree is still on that squad. Shelby however has moved up to the Junior High squad (which I still help with, though I'm not the main coach for).

Here are a few of the elementary squad performing a cheer (Ch'ree is on of the bases on the stunt)

The last day of October was our game against Melrose. And it was very chilly at 9am that morning. Here during halftime the Junior High girls take a break from cheering and warm up with some hot chocolate.

More chilly cheering. Brrrr, it's cold out here!!! Must be some Broncos in the atmosphere! LOL!

A different, much warmer, game.

Getting the crowd into it!

Visit with the Waldrips

2009-11-22T15:56:00.003-07:00

Last month my mother and stepfather came out for a visit. It was a little lastminute and we already had stuff going on that we couldn't change, so we just had to drag them along! LOL!

Coming to see us is always an adventure. This time it was problems with the rental car. Their flight from Atlanta to Albuquerque got in late Wednesday night, so they rented a car and got as far as Santa Rosa then stopped at a hotel. The next morning as they were loading the car they noticed it had a flat tire. Wayne got that changed and they hit the road. Somewhere between Ft. Sumner and Melrose they were passing a pickup with a horse trailer that was driving slow on the shoulder. All of the sudden the trailer threw a rock and shattered the passenger window all over Wayne's lap! They froze the rest of the way to our house that morning. The next day, after hours of phone calls, Wayne drove the windowless vehicle the 90 miles to Roswell to the nearest Hertz dealer to exchange the rental.

Shelby had a volleyball game on Thursday so they were lucky enough to get to see her play that. Then Saturday was the Floyd Junior Carnival, with a lot of games and stuff for everyone at the school (the Junior Class's big fundraiser). It was followed by a dance, which the class had already asked Jeff and myself to DJ for them. It worked out well, Mom took the boys home early and Jeff and I stayed to run the music the rest of the night.

As always, the visit ended too soon and they had to return home.

Me, mom, Shelby, Ch'ree, Chance and Drew. I don't normally wear camo. They were fixing to leave and I had to sub that day at the school, which was "wear camo day" for Red Ribbon Week (say no to drugs thing)

Shelby and my mom. Shelby is dang near as tall as she is!

Mom and the boys

The Bronco

2009-10-16T19:18:00.002-06:00

Jeff and I have a new project.

Jeff has a passion for late 1970s model pickups. I have been wanting some that I could put huge tires on and a lift kit. In high school, my guy friends had trucks like that. Old and big. Not much can beat riding around in an old truck and looking down on the little cars. Pickups are great, but not always the best for hauling around all these kids. So I knew it would have to be a utility vehicle. And since we are a Ford family, then a Bronco it would have to be.

We looked around on eBay, but everything was way too much for what we could afford. Then I found out that one of the teachers at the kids' school happened to have one sitting in her backyard. It was her son's, but she wanted her backyard back to rebuild the patio and just generally clean it up. So he offered it to me for $200.00. That's right. $200.

Of course, for that price, it's going to need some work. Needs a motor for the rear window. Some interior needs to be worked on. Door panel here, new carpet there. At least a seat cover. And a radio. Gotta have a good stereo in it!

A new grill, bumper, some fender work...Engine needs an overhaul, some other mechanical stuff (though it does run!)...

Lift kit, big honkin' tires, paint job...

But it's going to be fun working on it!! Almost as fun as driving it around and finding some muddy roads!

Scarlett

2009-10-11T20:47:00.002-06:00

I haven't posted many pictures of our puppy, Scarlett. Well, not so much a puppy anymore. She was a year old this last summer. Late last spring we were given several kittens that were pretty much wild. I was worried about kittens vs. puppy. The last dog we had found kittens alot of fun to play with. In fact, he played with them to death, literally.

But Scarlett absolutely loves cats. And they love her, too. Any morning we can see at least one cat snuggling as close as they can to her. And there have been times when I see her carrying a cat across the yard then give it a bath. But it is clear who rules the yard around here (6 cats vs. 1 dog. take a guess). They share food, water, and the kids. The kittens aren't wild anymore and let anyone pet them (and they frequently try to sneak in the house when a child leaves a door open). And they follow me around when I'm in the pens checking on cows.

Volleyball pictures, 10/11/09

2009-10-11T08:05:00.002-06:00

Our days have been a blur of mostly ball games and practices lately. Shelby is quite the little athlete. She may not be the best one on the team, but she does give it her all.

One thing we realized that if she was going to keep getting hit in the head with the ball, catching cheerleaders in stunts, contact lenses would be a wise investment. She loves them, too!

A typical night in volleyball is that the junior high team plays the first set, then the JV team, then ends with the Varsity team. All but 2 of the junior high cheerleaders are on the volleyball team, and we don't have a JV cheer squad. So the junior high squad cheers for the JV game.

Shelby and her cousin Gracie at the Dig Pink game.

Last night's Dig Pink game. Here Coach Gray is having a "motivational moment" (aka time out) with the girls. Junior high won and remains undefeated!!

Shelby waiting for the ball.

Varisty also had an excellent night, beating the #1 team in the state, Ft. Sumner. They had handed our girls their only loss all season a few weeks ago. But our girls wouldn't give up last night! They took it all the way to 5 games (winning the 1st, losing 2nd and 3rd, winning 4th and 5th). Way to go Lady Broncos!!!

Dig Pink

2009-10-09T12:47:00.003-06:00

Shelby's junior high team remains undefeated, as we beat Dora on Tuesday. Varsity's record is close to that, they have only lost one game, against the #1 team in the state, Ft. Sumner.
Tomorrow (Saturday) is our Dig Pink game, and we will be playing Ft. Sumner again. Money from the game and a cake auction to be held will go to benefit a Breast Cancer foundation. All the players have pink jerseys (and I have one, too!!). So if you are going to the game, be sure to wear PINK!!! Next week we will play in Elida for their Dig Pink game.
Go Lady Broncos!!!

September recap

2009-10-02T09:45:00.002-06:00

Oh, for heaven's sake! Has it really been nearly 2 months without an update!!?? I don't know where the time goes!!!

Kids are all in school and loving it. Drew especially. He loves preK and has alot of fun. So far he has brought home all "happy faces" in his daily planner that I sign each night.

Shelby has been the busiest of all the kids. She has volleyball practice nearly every day after school. And games at least once, sometimes twice a week. Her team is undefeated so far (I've lost count, but I think 9-0?). They won a tourney, and last night beat our biggest rival. They are really learning alot. She also cheers the JV volleyball games (which are right after her Junior High games. And we always hang around for the Varsity game after that (those girls have only lost one game, and that was against the #1 team in the state, Ft. Sumner).

Shelby also got contacts last week. Looks so grown up! Of course I have pictures, but they are still on the camera. I'll try to download them soon. She's now just 1 inch shorter than I am.

Chance had a birthday last month, he's now 7. The boy is getting taller, too. Reading alot, too. He read Green Eggs and Ham last week to me by himself. He has such...personality. LOL!

Jeff loves working at the Portales fire department. He's also been busy with harvest, lots of hay on the ground, some more needs to be cut, and some needs to be raked and baled. Waiting on humidity for the last two items.

I've been busy subbing at least once a week. Wherever I'm needed. Sometimes it's in the office, sometime in a classroom. Sometimes I just float around where needed. I love the work, wish it was more steady. Actually, I really wish a teacher's aide position would come open. I'd love to work full-time there.

That's it for now. I'll try to have some pictures up soon. In my spare time. LOL!

2009-08-04T09:52:00.002-06:00

A recap on what's been going on all summer

Jeff has a new job. July 7th was his first day at the Portales Fire Department. He enjoyed working at Clovis, but PFD is home for him. He loves going to work there; loves the work, loves his co-workers, loves our county.
4th of July was spent at the Floyd Fire Station for our 2nd annual 4th of July Celebration. There was free burgers and hot dogs, homemade ice cream, games for ALL ages, the best fireworks (once again, better than the ones in Portales the night before), and an awesome dance. Even the rain didn't hamper anything, especially since it was much needed and appreciated. The only bad part of the day was that Jeff had to work his final shift at Clovis so he couldn't be there. Leaving me with no one to dance with and just manning the music. But hopefully next year he will be off.
The haygrazer is planted and is looking GREAT! We were worried since we went nearly all year with very little rain and a very dry winter. But July has been a blessed month for rain. Hopefully the trend will remain for August and September and we can have an awesome crop!
Jeff is busy doing custom work in his off time from the fire department. He has 4 fields of alfalfa that he cuts for others, and another field of alfalfa that he cuts and bales.
My pickup needed new tires when we got back from Mesa Verde, so we went a little bigger and put a 2 1/2 inch lift kit on it as well. We were worried about going any bigger because this truck has to pull the camper. But now we are looking for some toys to jack up. Jeff wants a 79 Ford for himself, and I'm looking out for a Bronco (I'm not too particular about the year), or maybe a Jeep. Not really decided (but sure it doesn't matter because it won't be anytime soon anyway. LOL!)
We took a quick trip to Lubbock a couple weeks ago and spent the night with Jeff's sister. Took the kids to Chuck E Cheese's. None of us had ever been. I think we all had a blast, I love video games anyway. The food wasn't terrible and the place was really neat.
Last week we went camping to the family ranch in Mora. Jeff's sister and family and parents went as well. More on that with pictures in another post later.
School starts in 9 days. This year will be a bit different, as ALL the kids will be going. It's been 12 years since I haven't had a child at home with me. Everyone keeps asking what I'm going to do. Well, I've applied for my subbing, coaching and Educational Assistant licenses and will at least sub this year at the school. Since that isn't full time, I guess I'll have more time to catch up on some projects around here, help Jeff out more with farming, and want to start riding my horse again.

So, that's about it around here. Staying busy as always, and trying to stay out of trouble. LOL! Shelby is on the Junior High cheer squad, and will also play volleyball this fall, so we will be busy with lots of ball games to attend. Roosevelt County Fair is the week after school starts. No signs of life slowing down anytime soon. LOL!

Happy 10th Birthday, Ch'ree!!

2009-06-23T03:34:00.001-06:00

At 3:34am on Wednesday, June 23rd, 1999, Ch'ree Elizabeth Kate was FINALLY born. Only 9 days overdue. I had been doing everything I could think of short of bungee jumping to get that child out (and believe me, I even thought of doing that!). We bounced around choppy waters on the lake for Memorial day, I mowed, I gardened, walked all day at an air show and still nothing. Finally it was helping Jeff haul hay that got her going. I was driving the pickup around the field while Jeff loaded the bales. By that evening, we sent Shelby home with Jeff's father and we went on to the hospital.

Getting admitted was an ordeal itself. Apparently the maternity wing didn't WANT anyone else back there and threw out every excuse NOT to let me back there. While the woman at the admissions desk gave every reason TO let me back there. And even as we got back to the maternity ward, they still didn't believe I was in labor. And as a result I didn't get the epidural I so badly wanted.

I'll save you from the rest of the gorey details. Let's just say that Ch'ree arrived almost before the doctor did. All 8lb, 4oz of her. We had a great first day of getting to know her, but then developed a problem spitting up blood. On Thursday morning, she was airlifted to University Medical Center in Lubbock and admitted to the NICU. We called her a little unicorn with the IV tube in the middle of her head.

That was probably the most worried I have ever been. Having a child in the hospital and not knowing what was wrong was horrible. At first they were tossing around surgery. But eventually they discovered it was acid reflux and she was treated with meds. On Sunday we finally got to bring our baby girl home.

And now she is 10. And going into middle school (5th grade here). She's such a beautiful girl, and we are so lucky to have her in our family!!

Vacation 2009, Mesa Verde CO

2009-06-15T13:43:00.005-06:00

Last week we took a family vacation to Mesa Verde, CO. And saw some other points in between.

We took a tram ride down to one of the indian ruins called Long House. Which Drew loved, he thought it was like a train and called "All Aboard!" when it started to leave.

We still had to hike a bit to get to the ruins, and some ladder climbing to sit in the ruins.

Shelby was picked to help the park ranger out. She learned alot about the culture of these Indians, such as that she was near marrying age in their civilization, and that her mother and father were about to the end of their life expectancy.

Not sure who the man is, but this gives an idea of the vastness of this canyon and the ruins.

Alot of what we saw had been destroyed by fire. The rangers said it will take 100-150 years for the forest to recover. As you can see, grasslands seem to have taken over, and there were little to no tree seedlings.

A different view of Long House

Down in one of the canyons. The kids were real troopers for all the hiking we had to do.

The scenery was breathtaking. All the mountains and mesas and canyons was really neat. This was Shiprock.

No idea if these had any names, but were pretty just the same.

We went to Four Corners as well. Pretty cool for all of us to be in different states at the same time.

Drive By post with pictures for May 2009

2009-05-26T13:33:00.005-06:00

Alot has been going on this month. The kids are all out of school for the summer. This fall I will have one in Jr. High, one in middle school, one in elementary, and one in preschool. Wow! What will I do with myself?! Don't worry, I have that taken care of. I have lots of plans for next year and they don't include soap operas or bonbons. LOL!

So, what did we do this past month? I've already shared Shelby's 12th birthday. She loves her cell phone. And it really came in handy today at the grocery store when I sent her to pick up an item I forgot and she had to verify what flavor.

I went with Ch'ree's 4th grade class on their field trip to Santa Fe/Albuquerque. We left Floyd at 6:30 am and went to Santa Fe first, where we had a tour of the Roundhouse (capitol building). Was very cool. I have lived in New Mexico for 18 years and had never seen anything of Santa Fe except a Blake's Lottaburger. Hope to go back soon and do some more sightseeing, but there was no time for that this trip.

From Santa Fe we went south to Albuquerque and went to the rattlesnake museum in Old Town. I lived in Albuquerque for 2 years and never once went to Old Town. Sometime I would like to go back and see some of the shops.

We finished up the Albuquerque leg of the trip by going to the Zoo. It's really a nice zoo, but we didn't have enough time to see everything. Of what we did see, I think the polar bear exhibit was the best.

The girls that were in my group. There are 8 girls in Ch'ree's class and they are all very close. I love each one of them, they all call me mommy!

I took several pictures of animals at the zoo, but this peacock seemed to just sit at this one spot and pose for anyone who walked by. He'd stand there, then turn around and shake his tailfeathers, then turn back around. Almost like it was an act for him.

Though I didn't get any pictures, Shelby received some awards at the middle school/high school academic awards assembly. She got A/B Honor roll, as well as the Creative Writing award and a certificate and t-shirt for participating in an archery tournament.

Chance graduated from Kindergarten. There were 12 kids in our Kindergarten class this year, only 2 are girls (and one of those are leaving). They are a pretty good bunch of kids, too.

Instead of caps and gowns, the kids wore a special t-shirt and a baseball cap that had a tassel on it.

Ch'ree received 8 awards at the elementary awards assembly on the last day of school. She did really well this year, making A and A/B Honor roll throughout the year, awards for math, reading, and 3 for good citizenship.

Ch'ree with her teacher, Mrs. Mendoza.

Jeff spent all last week in Soccorro, New Mexico at the fire academy. He passed all his skills tests and the written exams and now has his FireFighter I and II!

Finally, Jeff taught me how to drive the swather the other day. With him at the fire department, he may need me to cut some hay if needed. It was a bit intimidating operating an $80,000 piece of machinery and remembering what all the controls do. For one, there are no pedals! Your accelerator and brake are just a joystick, and their are three different buttons/switches on it operate the header. It's like running a video game! LOL! I did finally get the hang of it, though.

It's a horrible picture of me, but there I am running the swather.

That's all going on here this month. It will be a busy summer, even though we don't have any plans for a vacation. Between the kids 4-H projects, swim lessons, VBS, the garden, the farming, Jeff working at the fire station, and possibly a day/overnight trip to the lake or the mountains, we should be pretty busy.

Happy 12th Birthday, Shelby!

2009-05-11T12:01:00.002-06:00

Shelby turned 12 on Sunday. We had a small gathering of family and friends come over for the dinner that Shelby requested: Jumbo Shells with Meat and cheese filling and a strawberry cheesecake. Also had homemade ice cream, since one person (Jeff) didn't care for cheesecake). Our friends the Deens brought some delicious olive dip.

Twilight fans that we are, Shelby loved the Team Edward shirt she got from her Grammie! She wore it to school today.But I think her favorite present was her very first cell phone. Since she will be starting junior high sports in the fall, and recently tried out for and is now on the junior high cheer squad, we decided it was time for her to have a cell phone. There may be times when I'm not always there, like afterschool practices and away games. This way we can be in touch when I'm not there.
She had a blast the rest of the day texting everyone that was in the room and aquiring cool ringtones.

Jeff's mom Linda, our friend Karen, and Jeff's sister Amanda all enjoying a margarita (nephew Brantley behind Linda)

Mmmmmm, this cheesecake is gooood!

Gracie and Drew having fun using Lindsey as a jungle gym!

rappelling

2009-04-11T22:02:00.002-06:00

Jeff has spent the last 6 weeks going thru fightfighter academy. It's just half done now, he will be done just as the kids get out for the summer.

He's been learning alot. All this week was ropes, knots, and rappelling.
His instructors let me come down one day and take pictures of all the guys scaling the 5 story training tower that's recently been built. It's set up for several different scenerios that they may face.

Jeff, how does it feel to take the difficult way down a perfectly good building?

It's Spiderman! Drew came with me (of course) and he thought all the guys were Spiderman!
Look Ma, no hands!!! This was part of what they had to do. Tie a knot then hang upside down. This was later used in another scenario to rescue someone out of a window.

I'm sure nothing compared to having both feet on the ground!!

Drive By Post 3/27/2009

2009-03-27T11:10:00.005-06:00

It's been busy around here. Seems like never enough time to post something. Or if there is some time, nothing really noteworthy to say. So I just have to save it all up for one post.

We are nearly done with basketball. We finished up city league stuff a couple weeks ago. The girls ended 6-1, Chance's team 5-2. Last week we had a Little Dribbler tourney in Dora, both teams lost 2, won one. This weekend is a tourney in Elida. Girls lost last night, boys will play today, girls and boy again tomorrow. Then basketball season will officially be OVER!
We are officially on Spring Break. Someone needs to tell Mother Nature. After weeks of 60's and 70's, we are now in a winter storm. It's been snowing all night, the temp is 24 (wind chill of 3), and wind is gusting to 50mph. Unfortunately, the tourney we have today was NOT cancelled, so we must head out in this. It's supposed to be back into the 70's by Sunday, though.
Our plans for spring break consist mostly of relaxing after our busy basketball season and planning our 4-H projects. There is a garden project to think about doing, plus various sewing/baking projects.
Jeff has been busy with school of his own. Three weeks ago he started his firefighter rookie school. He and 9 others from the Portales and Clovis fire departments are going through a 12 week school on firefighting and earning their firefighter I and II certifications. School is M-F from 7-4. Plus he still has to work his normal shift days. He's been logging in alot of overtime and is pretty wiped out when he is home. Another reason to be glad basketball season is over, no more practices 3 days a week! He can actually see the kids! They will all be done with school about the same time (end of May).
The 59th Annual Floyd Lion's Club Country Jamboree began last night. If you don't know, this is a big country music show the Lion's put on to raise money that they give back to the community in the form of eye glasses, scholarships, sponsoring sports teams, and helping families in their times of need. They also give away three musical instruments, one for each night of the jamboree. Students must submit an application and an essay of why they deserve the instrument, and a winner is chosen from three age groups. Ch'ree won for the elementary group. I knew about it, but it was kept a secret from everyone else til the big moment. Dave Nash (the MC) announced her last night at the Jamboree that she was the winner of a guitar and 2 lessons, plus an opportunity to play next year in the jamboree and show off what she has learned! She's so pleased with herself! We are proud of her, too!

Due to cutbacks at the town's newspaper, I'm no longer writing the Floyd news for them. I'm saddened by this, but in a way a little glad. No more worrying about getting that in on a deadline, no more worrying about my facts being correct (or about the paper themselves messing it all up. Something that has happened more than it should have). The village clerk and I had the foresight to start something else non-newspaper related last year. She and I put out a monthly news letter for the village, as well as making a blog for the village. This works out very well: it's not hard to do and we can say whatever we want without pesky editors cutting what they wanted to out.
New little baby calf, in case we were wondering if it was spring or not. LOL!

2009-03-27T11:04:00.002-06:00

My mother, stepfather and grandmother came out for a visit in February. We stayed busy with basketball games to play and cheer at. As usual, the visit was too short. Somehow my efforts to get them to just pack up and move out here aren't working.

Shelby showing off that she is taller than Gram

Drew, Wayne, Shelby, Ch'ree, Judy and Chance. Any more kids and I'll have to get a bigger sofa!

Chance and his Grandapa

Ch'ree, Grandama, and Shelby

Chance and Wayne riding 4-wheelers
Grandama and Drew. I had to do a doubletake at this picture. Drew looked so big I thought it was Chance for a minute!

2009-02-07T15:57:00.003-07:00

It's basketball season! No, we don't follow any NBA teams. It's right here in our own backyard!

Jeff finally had time this winter to set the girls up a basketball goal by the barn. They all have been having fun playing with it.

Somehow, a 5'2" girl against a 6'4" man doesn't see quite fair, does it?

Both the girls are on a City League team for our school. Although Ch'ree was supposed to have been in Junior league and Shelby in Seniors, the timing just wasn't working out. Nearly all their games were at the exact same time, but at different venues across town. So, Ch'ree was moved up to Seniors. Makes it much easier on me. And even though she has to work a bit harder, she can keep up with those older and bigger girls pretty good.

Ch'ree is #12

Shelby there blocking. Or something. I'm still learning the game myself.

Chance has also been playing ball. While the girls are fun to watch, Chance (and his teammates) are very entertaining as well. Though I think Chance is the most amusing. Some of the boys on his team are really good. He isn't supposed to be playing ball yet, he's actually too young. But, the coach has a son in Chance's class and is letting him play, so he said Chance and another boy could play, too. It does help that Chance is as big or bigger than the 1st and 2nd graders he is playing with anyway. At the game the other day, someone out of the blue (I have no idea who she was!) came up and asked me if that #4 was my kid. Of course, I said yes. She said, I knew he looked like an Essary! LOL!

If Chance doesn't keep his hands out of his pockets, I'm going to sew them shut!

He also likes to dance when he should be running or guarding.

And seeing me with a camera is just bad. He's such a clown! But, he's having fun, and that's all that matters.

2009-02-07T15:35:00.003-07:00

Well, we have been busy around here, as usual. Mostly everything revolving around the kids schedules. The girls are both playing basketball, as well as Chance this year (which is most amusing. I'll explain later). A couple of people have looked to buy the ranch, but so far no bites. We would really like a rain soon. It's been a long time since we had one. So long I don't remember when it was! I'm thinking it was around October, maybe November. Been a loooong time. Hopeful for tomorrow. I'm trying to help things along by washing the car the other day while I was in town.

All are well. Jeff continues to enjoy his work at the fire department. He loves to text me on his down time of the kinds of runs they have.

A few pictures to keep you updated on us.

Drew. Oh, big news with Drew. He is now potty trained! I'm so excited! After nearly 12 years of nearly always have a child in diapers, I'm almost diaper free! He still wears one at night, just in case. But all day long, even on trips to town, he wears big boy skivvies! A bittersweet milestone: he's definately not a baby anymore. He will probably start preschool in the fall.

Chance. Of course. He loves this Tennessee jacket that his great-grandmother bought him. Too bad he has already outgrown it!

Scarlett has GROWN! She and Drew have become quite chummy, as long as she isn't jumping on him. He was the one we were most concerned about when getting a new dog. After he was bit by a dog last year, we weren't sure if he would be able to handle being around on.

Scarlett has learned which side of the fence to stay on with the horses. Dude isn't very crazy about her.

Sometimes it's hard to take a picture of her. She likes to be in your face.

Or running towards you.

Maybe she thinks she is AirBud?

2009-01-23T13:54:00.003-07:00

I have received several kind comments from people who have come to my home and looked at some of the quilts I have made, or ones I have given as gifts. So, I thought I would try my hand at maybe selling some.

This quilt measures about 38"x26". It's great as a table runner or as a wall hanging. It's pieced by machine, quilted by hand. My hand stitches are about 8 per inch. Made of 100% cotton, and prewashed so it won't shrink.

You can see more pictures and more description at my Etsy store:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=20016316

Christmas Day, 2008

2008-12-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

The day started early. Very early. But it wasn't white. Just brown and windy. But it was a nice sunrise.

Chance came in my room at 5:44am to inform me that Santa had been here during the night. They apparently woke up about 40 minutes before, thankfully they didn't wake me, nor did they mess with anything under the tree.

Yup, he was here. He left some presents, and also made a mess on the carpet. See the ashes he tracked out of the fireplace? (please take note that it LOOKS like a ton of gifts, but I must tell you that I do have a fake tree, and in order to fit the tree into this corner between the hearth and the bookshelf, I leave off most of the branches in the back to wedge it in good. Therefore, less space to put the gifts and they overflow into the living room).

The girls played Spider Solitaire on the computer and the boys watched cartoons to pass the time til Jeff came home. I put the sausage balls and Christmas Morning Rolls in the oven. Soon the house was filled with delicious smells.

Jeff had to work Christmas Eve. He went to work on the 24th at 7am (left the house before 6) and didn't get off til the 25th at 7am (but he rushed and made it home before 8). It was hard, but the kids did wait for him to get home before opening anything.

Then the opening commenced. Shelby found out this book was available two days before Christmas. But I found out about it a few weeks ago and snatched it up. See, I knew she wanted it before she even knew about it!!

Jeff got a coffee mug from the Fire Department of New York City, courtesy of his mother-in-law. She and Wayne went to NYC earlier this month for a little vacation with one of my stepbrothers and his wife.

Ch'ree happy to get a new UT shirt from her great-grandmother. Nearly all of us got one. I also received a Texas Tech sweatshirt from Jeff's sister Amanda. Now, which will I wear when they play each other?

Also from Mom's trip to NYC, Drew got a die cast set of rescue and fire vehicles.

All the boys (even Jeff) received LEGOs for Christmas. They enjoyed putting them together before dinner.

My niece Gracie and Drew enjoying dinner. We had a traditional feast of turkey, gravy, stuffing (Stove Top, since it's quick and easy and I think is much better than my homemade recipe), Pretzel Salad, Funeral Potato casserole, broccoli casserole, and homemade buns. Dessert was all the homemade goodies myself and mother-in-law had been fixing for the past couple of weeks.

After dinner, this bunch had fun playing a new board game. It was called Life on the Farm, and according to them was pretty realistic. It's a combination of Life and Monopoly I think. They played for a couple hours, so I'm glad I didn't begin. I can't sit long for a board game, there is always a child that will need me at some point.

We all had a wonderful Christmas, spending it with family is always the best.

Hope your family had a wonderful Christmas as well!!

Christmas Letter, 2008

2008-12-27T17:36:00.002-07:00

(picture taken November 19th on Drew's 3rd birthday. Only recent picture I had with all the kids in it. Myself and Jeff just an added bonus. LOL!)

Dear family and friends,

Merry Christmas, 2008!! Y’all might have thought we dropped off the face of the earth, or that we didn’t like you anymore since you haven’t gotten a card from us is a few years. But to tell the truth, things have just been so CRAZY around here, I haven’t had time to DO Christmas cards! Who knew!? And like other years, you again won’t be getting a card from us this year. I’m convinced that someone has took a few hours out of the day and we no longer have 24 hours. Or the calendar is obviously lying to everyone. So, HERE is your Christmas letter.

First off, the kids are all GREAT! Shelby is 11 and in the 6th grade. She is a cheerleader on the Junior High and Elementary squads and plans on playing basketball for our school’s Little Dribbler team. She has hit the 5 foot mark and her foot is nearly as big as mine; she is always in my closet stealing my shoes and boots! She still loves to read, has learned a few chords on her guitar, and her brother Chance is her biggest worry in her life (he annoys the crap out of her!). Next year she will be able to play volleyball and basketball on the Junior High squad; I can’t believe my little baby is growing up on me.

Ch’ree is 9 and in the 4th grade. She was the only kid in her class to be on A honor roll the first nine weeks, but had a B in Science the second nine weeks. Which is ok, she still had the highest grades in her class. She is still cheering on the elementary squad and will also play Little Dribbler basketball. She is a pretty good kid and seldom have to get onto her. Though she does seem to be in her own little world sometimes. That’s ok, they know her there.

Chance, on the other hand… LOL! No, he’s really a good kid, too. He just LIVES to annoy Shelby, but I think even she will admit that he has his good moments. He is 6 years old and in Kindergarten. He’s nearly a head taller than a few of the kids in his class, so I guess we can say that he IS an Essary!! In fact, he is nearly as tall as Ch’ree! He loves to play Playstation, especially Star Wars games. He is really starting to read a lot and likes math. And you should see the kid dance! He sure can get down and boogie, as he showed everyone at a wedding a couple of months ago.

Drew just turned 3 in November. He is working on getting potty trained, and is such a little snuggle-bug. He loves all of his siblings, and likes to act like a puppy or a kitty, or lately just act like a baby and demand to be held and his sippy cup fed to him. Good thing the other kids don’t mind catering to him. We don’t understand much of what he is saying, but is getting good at playing charades with us.

Jeff has been very active in the community lately. After the big fire 3 years ago he joined our village’s volunteer fire department. Soon he decided that he would be a better asset if he got his EMT-Basic license. Then decided he would be an even BETTER asset if he got his EMT-Intermediate license. Before long, he decided that doing all this as a volunteer was great, but would be even better to be paid for it! So, he applied and was selected to be on the city of Clovis Fire Department. So far he loves it. It took them three weeks to find out his nickname, Jelly. We will see if they stick to using it, since it didn’t seem to upset him that they knew about it. He works 24 hours on, then 48 off. In his off time he still plans on farming and doing custom swathing and baling.

As for me, I just lay around at home. LOL! I’ve been taking 9 hours of online classes from ENMU this semester and made As in all of my classes (History of Western Civilization, Anthropology, and English-short stories). I am still coaching the elementary cheerleaders, as well as taking some of the duties of the Junior High squad. I took them to a 3 day cheer camp this summer and we had a blast! I still run errands for Jeff, help out with the kids classes at school by doing some of the parties and bake sales, driving them around to various activities like games and 4-H. I haven’t had much time for many hobbies, but they will all still be sitting there for when I do have time.

The farm front was a bit dreary this year. Not enough rain and when it did rain it wasn’t at the right time to help out the crop. Add to that the fuel prices and seems everything else shot up. But we are still hanging on. The custom work is still going strong. We lost our beloved German Shephard Tex this past summer, as well as Jeff’s horse Blue in the spring. But we did add to our fold a beautiful Golden Retriever puppy named Scarlet. Drew was attacked by a dog over the summer and was afraid of any dog for a while. But he does love Scarlet.

We only got to go one trip this year, our annual reunion in Mora. It rained most of the time, but we all still managed to have fun, and I managed to keep most of the mud out of the camper. My mother and stepfather and grandmother visited in the Spring to come see the annual Floyd Lion’s Club Country Jamboree. Jeff’s parents were named Floyd Citizens of the Year, which was a big surprise to them. It was difficult keeping it from them, especially since Jeff’s father is on the Lion’s club. Mom and Gram got to come back out this fall and my aunt joined them this time. They got to see Shelby cheer her first Junior High football game.

Jeff and I decided to try out hand at remodeling some of the house earlier this year. I’m happy to report the marriage survived it. Haha! We enclosed the garage, since it was too small to park a pickup in, and turned it into an office. It also houses 4 guitars, 2 amps, the stereo, loveseat, and a treadmill. Hours after we completed that project, Jeff got out the crowbar and started literally attacking the kitchen! Initially we thought we could just reface some things, but soon became evident that it needed to be gutted. We discovered some of the cabinets and sub floor were rotted from a long ago water leak. We really enjoy that space now.

All is well around here. We hope for a bunch of snow to help the ground this winter. We also hope all is well with your lives and families, and hope to see some of you soon!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
With Love,
Jeff and Jenny Essary and family

Happy 3rd Birthday, Drew!!

2008-11-19T14:31:00.002-07:00

Our baby turns 3 today.

3 weeks old

One year

Two Years

Brandin cows, August 2008

Roosevelt County Fair, August 2008

New Job

2008-11-13T21:02:00.004-07:00

Jeff finally decided what he wanted to be when he grew up. Besides being a farmer, that is:

Yup, he decided that he really loved doing EMS and firefighting. So he is now the newest member of the Clovis Fire Department.

Last weekend he went through a written test, then a physical agility test, and finally an interview. Today they called to let him know he got the job.

He will still be farming, and we can still live right here where we are (though the ranch is still for sale, we don't see ourselves moving to Clovis. It's about a 40 minute drive). Not sure exactly when he will start, but he imagines it will be week after next; he told them he can start immediatly. He will work 24 hours on, 48 hours off. In the spring he will have to do 8 weeks of training and his hours will change for those 8 weeks.

He's so excited about this! We all are. So, congrats Jeff!!

Halloween, 2008

2008-11-03T14:29:00.004-07:00

We were torn on what to do for Halloween this year. Our football team was playing a BIG game that night in Melrose, but the kids HAD to go trick or treating!

We found a happy compromise.

The 3rd and Kilgore Church of Christ in Portales had a Trunk or Treat complete with 2 bouncy houses. It was early enough that we could do that and still make it to Melrose for the football game.

Trick or treat!!

Ch'ree was a pirate, Chance Commander Rex (a clone trooper from Star Wars), Drew obviously Darth Vadar, Shelby a cheerleader from High School Musical (NOT Elida, as everyone seemed to think, even though their colors are purple, not red), and Jeff was a Confederate officer. I was...the cheer coach photographer. LOL! No, I didn't dress up. I actually do have a big ol' Southern Belle dress I made a few years ago to go along with Jeff's costume (which I also made), but my waistline isn't quite back to that size yet. Maybe I need a corset for it?

Drew was supposed to be a cow, but saw Darth hanging in the closet and HAD to be it. He also insisted that he carry Cammander Rex's gun (which wasn't interesting to him til I put batteries in it). Never mind the fact that Darth Vadar only used a light saber. A red one at that. But he misplaced the red lightsaber sometime that week and I could only find the green one, which is the one that Jeff is holding. No, I don't think they had lightsabers in the Civil War, did they? (Alas, I haven't been able to find a proper sword for Jeff, either).

And the only reason why Jeff was dressed up at all is because we stopped by the fire department that night, and one of the guys there is from up North, Jeff calls him Yank. So, there ya go.

I haven't posted pictures of Scarlett in a while, and she wasn't feeling very photogenic today. But you can see she is filling out nicely and GROWING!!

There's her puppy smile!!

This cat has been hanging around for about a month. He (I'm assuming he's a he) is wild, runs whenever he seese me. I took these from my desk in the office. Our lonely female had been howling like crazy right about the time he(?) showed up. I'm hoping kittens are on their way. A farm can never have too many barn cats.

Fruit Flies

2008-10-23T12:25:00.002-06:00

For the past two months, flies and fruit flies have been horrible around here. They are attracted to any food I leave on the counter. Not that I'm just leaving stuff out there, but things like bananas, tomatoes. Stuff I think belongs on the counter or there is just no room for them in the fridge (besides, you're not supposed to put bananas in the fridge, right?). I don't know if it's all the dairies in this area of the state or what. This place once was a dairy, so maybe they are just here because their great-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g grandparents were here.

A few fun ways to get rid of fruit flies:

Your mother comes for a visit and left half a bottle of wine. You don't drink wine (you prefer beer or margaritas). Poor a little bit of the wine in a cup and add a couple drops of dish soap. Within minutes the fruit flies will be attracted to the stuff and will land on the wine for a sip. but the dish soap has broken the tension of the wine and they instantly drown!! Dump and repeat once or twice a day as needed.
If you notice a concentration of them in an area, but don't want to spray chemicals around your kitchen, try this. Get out the vacuum cleaner. Turn it on and with the wand attachment, just hold it near the suckers. They are too weak and slow to fight that kind of suction. This also works most of the time with regular flies. Just wait til it's night time and they attach themselves to the ceiling for the night. Again, get out the wand attachment and walk around the room sucking them up. If you live in the middle of no where, it provides a form of entertainment that husbands especially enjoy. Also teaching them the skill of how to operate a vacuum cleaner.
If you are the compassionate sort and wouldn't even hurt a fly (you are probably a vegetarian too, aren't you?), try this: put something they like in a bowl. Leftover bits of salad is good, so are a couple slices of apples, maybe a banana peel. Cover the bowl with a clear cling wrap. Sometimes putting a rubberband around it helps keep it taught and in place. Next, poke a few small holes in the wrap. Flies get in, can't get out. When you have collected enough to ease your mind, take outside and set them free. Doesn't that make you warm and fuzzy inside? Peace, man.

Hope some of these help you out as all those tomatoes you picked from your garden before the freeze sit around and try to ripen, a haven for those nasty flies.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2008-10-19T09:31:00.004-06:00

Ok, it's my birthday (34, I mean, 29. Again). And since I do it to the kids, I might as well do it to myself, too.

First Christmas, 1974. Ain't I a cute fat thing. Just how many chins do I have? I still have that doll, BTW.

Me and the Bratty Brother Brian (hey Brian, how ya doin'? Call your sister sometime).

1st grade, 1st softball team

1988, freshman in high school

1994, our wedding day

1998

Whole family, 2007 (which is about the best recent picture of me, I couldn't find anything for the last few months)

Laugh now, dad. Remember that yours is next and Aunt Sue sent me a really cute one of you the other day! LOL!!!

Mom's visit and Shelby's first Junior High game

2008-10-08T11:32:00.003-06:00

Jenny's mother, Gram, and Aunt Jan came for a visit in September. However, all were camera shy, and we were really busy; we just didn't get alot of pictures done.

Aunt Jan (left) and Mom had fun playing Candy Land with Chance. However, Chance likes to cheat and goof off.

Shelby's first Junior High game cheering with the 7th and 8th graders (ok, and one 9th grader).

When a player is down, everyone takes a knee.

When we get a touchdown, we do jumping-jacks, 6 of them, one for each point.

Halftime show. When we went to cheer camp this summer, we had 6 kids and one stunt group. But when school started, 2 8th graders and a few more 6th graders decided that they wanted to cheer. We know have enough for 2 stunt groups!!

Drew just wanted to show off his bod running around the track.

Shelby happened to see this outside one day and snapped a picture of it. It's migration time here.

August/Labor Day pictures

2008-10-08T11:22:00.002-06:00

I told you I was behind! Here it is October and I haven't even put up any pictures of the kids at the county fair in August, or of the annual Labor Day Family Reunion in Mora!!
Jeff had to work at the EMT tent at the Roosevelt County Fair. Their trailer was parked right next to the Sheriff's office trailer. The Sheriff's office had a cool 4-wheeler that would seat 6 (or more, depending on how many kids you could actually squeeze in there!). Well, Drew was just obsessed with it! He wanted to ride in it so bad, it didn't matter if Mom and Dad weren't there. He just buddied up to Sheriff Darren Hooker and rode all around the fairgrounds, without us. As you can see, Chance is in the back. Hope that doesn't beome a habit. LOL!

The boys were dying to get one some rides. They had a ball on this one.

The girls were excited to go on some bigger rides. This one whipped them around a bit, but looks like they enjoyed themselves.

As usual, on Labor Day we go to the Sangre de Christo Mountains and enjoy the tranquility of camping. We arrived on Friday; it was nice and sunny. That night, it not only rained but hailed. Here the girls are showing off the hail-drift that piled under our awning. Also on display is her magazine that was in her tent (while I prefer the warm and cozy queen sized bed in the camper, the girls wanted to stay in a tent). The turd floater of a storm completely washed through the tent, leaving all bedding, Barbies, magazines, and library books soaked. Luckily it wasn't bedtime yet, so the girls weren't in there at the time. The hail pile didn't melt away til Sunday.

We all enjoyed the culinary skills of Jeff and his brother-in-law, Jason. Here they are cooking us all some bacon and eggs.

Scarlett is right at home!

2008-10-08T11:13:00.002-06:00

I have a bunch of pictures that need to be posted, but I'll try to break it up a bit. Here is a bunch about our new puppy, Scarlett.

She is making herself at home here with us. She is even allowed in the house sometimes!! But she loves to play with the kids outside. Or to chase the cat.

Or charge the camera

She is a terrific gardener. She attacks and pulls weeds for me.

Sometimes she just needs to roll around and stretch out!

She IS a Golden Retriever and likes to help retrieve the ball with the kids.

Or help serve

Or just look totally adorable!!

Scarlett is here

2008-09-20T18:51:00.002-06:00

We brought home the newest member of our family today.

Meet Scarlett (picture stolen from website of the breeder).

Over the summer we not only lost our beloved German Shephard Tex, but Drew was attacked by another German Shephard and since then has been terrified of dogs.

This needed to be taken care of as soon as possible.

I did some searching, but I didn't want to pay a fortune for a dog. I also didn't want to get another German Shephard. Nothing will replace Tex for me, and after Drew's attack, I wanted to get something more gentle. Not that GS aren't gentle, but would Drew ever trust one again?

My father has the sweetest Golden Retriever, and I decided that this needed to be the breed for us.

I scoured the Internet for the perfect one. Not a rescue or pound dog, I don't want a dog that may have a problem, not for Drew. Not an expensive breeder, I just can't afford that.

Then I came across a blog from a couple in Amarillo. They had a blog of their dogs that had just had puppies. And I was in love. They were 5 weeks old at the time, and I immediately contacted them. After some emails on what we wanted, they carefully selected the puppy for our family. I don't think they could have picked a better puppy for us.

She is 7 weeks old and is so sweet and snuggly. And soft. Did I mention sweet?

Even Drew is quickly getting over his fears. He insisted on holding her leash when we stopped for a potty break earlier today.

She has spent most of the day sleeping in my lap, or in someone else's lap. She has been so good with her potty breaks thus far, no accidents in the expedition or in the house yet.

There will be many more pictures and stories of Scarlett to come!!

Happy 6th birthday, Chance!

2008-09-06T07:36:00.001-06:00

Drive By Post, 8-21-08

2008-08-21T07:18:00.007-06:00

Things have been busy around here, but at the same time nothing really big to post about.

We have received lots of rain, a very good thing. All of our haygrazer crop is up and growing. The grass at the ranch is green, I can hardly keep up with the mowing around the house!

After Jeff got all the hay seed in the ground, we needed to brand cattle. Since we got a later start on branding this year than last, we had a bunch of last year's late calves to brand as well as this year's. Pictures of the event to follow. After we branded, we took the mamas and their calves to the pasture down the road. Talk about happy cows! That pasture hasn't been grazed on in nearly 3 years. It was completely burned by our big fire in November 2005, and it took us a while to get miles of fence rebuilt there and new water tanks put in. The yearlings we kept here at the house. As soon as the brands peel we can haul them off to the sale.

School has started. I think the kids were happier to go back than I was to see them leave. It was a boring and uneventful summer for them, with no trips, no swim lessons, or other things most kids get to do during the summer. With fuel prices the way they are, we just decided to stay home. Shelby started the 6th grade (her second year of middle school); Ch'ree is in 4th; Chance in Kindergarten. Drew still has another year at home before he can start preschool.

I'm back to school, too. I'm taking three online courses this semester: English 201 (short story); Anthropology 233 (People and Cultures of the world) and History 122 (World History II).

For sale. It's official, we have put our ranch on the market. In the last 2 or 3 years, land values have gone up, up, UP! We had the place appraised and it looked so good, we have decided to try and sell it. Just the ranch, not the farm. So, if anyone out there wants to buy a ranch with 1,141 acres, nice brand new barn and a 2,150+/- sq.ft brick home, just come on by! We plan on building a home on our farm if it sells, so we will still be around here. I'll put a link to the realtor up when he has it listed online.

Jeff has been busy finishing up things for his EMT-Intermediate license. He went to Las Cruces last weekend for the written and skills test. We know he passed the latter, watching the mailbox to find out the former. He is volunteering at the county fair today in the EMT tent.

We will be hitting the fair on Saturday. All the kid events are that day. I found a good turtle for the turtle race, and the boys can participate in the greased pig chase and stick horse race. I purchased tickets for the arenacross already. The boys LOVE to watch the 4-wheelers and motorcycles race. But I'm sure Chance will be upset that he can't bring his 4-wheeler and race, too. He wanted to really bad last year.

The big movie event for the summer wasn't in theaters, it was in our living room! The Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus Best of Both Worlds concert on Disney Channel was THE thing to watch this summer. Had we lived in a big town, we could have seen it in the theaters late last winter. But the nearest theater that had it was 2 hours away in Amarillo, and our school/basketball schedule wouldn't allow it. Poor country kids. LOL!

They also passed away those hot summer days learning to play chess. While Chance (barely pictured and barely dressed behind Ch'ree's head) played PS2.

Mamas and babies sorted away from each other. Do you think the mamas are telling their offspring, "Don't worry, it will only hurt for a second"?

The kids got a good position out of the way.

One of the teens, Addison, we had come help us. I think she's just bossing her big brother around up there.

The other two teens helping us. Seth in the red, Garrett in the grey.

Jeff branding, Don welding a knife (he's going to go notch an ear) and Alan (Seth and Addison's father) on the far left vaccinating.

First day of school!! Chance would not give me a decent smile for the camera.

Ch'ree will, though. Such a little princess.

The only picture I got of Shelby all day. With her cheer squad (she's in the back). First day of school starts off with a pep rally. The cheerleaders do some sideline chants to get the student body into some school spirit. Then the teachers are announced just like the starting line up at a game.

At the pep rally, the picture of our state champion cheer squad was presented. The girls on the right with the knee high black socks, camo shorts and tanks: some members of the varsity squad. That was their outfit for their hip hop dance routine they performed, they don't really dress like that for school.

Awww, poor Drew. So sad that everyone else got to go to school and he had to stay home. Well, not really. He was mad I told him no to something on the computer.

Attack of the giant zuccini!! LOL! Just kidding. With all the rain we had, I hadn't had a chance to go check the garden in a week. When I finally got out there, this is what I found. Not sure if it is edible or not, but sure is big!!

UCA Cheer Camp 2008

2008-07-22T12:53:00.004-06:00

One of my childhood/teenage dreams was to be a cheerleader. My preteen best friend was a cheerleader and she taught me all of her cheers; we would practice all day long in the yard. But I was either too involved in other activities or at one school it was something we just couldn't afford at the time or there was no way I could get to and from practices and games. By the time I had my own vehicle, I had to work to keep it full of gas and insurance, not to mention the payment. So my dream was never fulfilled.

The dream never left me, and as soon as I could I signed Shelby and Ch'ree up for cheering on our school's elementary squad. A couple years later I found myself being the sponsor for that squad. And now I'm going on my 5th year in that role. Cheering with the girls in the stands is probably the closest I will get to being a cheerleader without actually having to don those skirts. Which, I'll admit, probably wouldn't look as good on me now as it would have in high school when I was a size 1. LOL!

This year our school's varsity coach cleared it with our principle to allow willing 6th grade cheerleaders be on our junior high squad (which only consisted of 3 members before). The condition is that they only cheer at home games. We did some fundraising and got to go to cheer camp. The varsity squad had so many girls make that squad that it was going to take two coach/sponsors to take them to their camp in Artesia, which happened to be the same days as the UCA cheer camp here in Portales. So I got to go to cheer camp with the junior high squad held at Eastern New Mexico University's Greyhound Arena.

We had so much fun and I think we learned alot. There were 13 squads there, most of them Varsity squads from around New Mexico. Here they were learning some sideline cheers.

The camp lasted three days. We not only learned sidelines and cheers, but alot about stunting, two dances (Extreme Routine and HipHop), jumps, etc. Here was our private coaching lesson with UCA coach Tyrell.

We came so far in our stunting during camp. When we got there a thigh stand was about as difficult as we could do. By the end of the third day we could do a half extension (shown above) and working on a full extension (same as above but the base girls holding the top girl ABOVE their heads). We learned several other stunts in between those, too. Like going from a handstand to a shoulder straddle (I'll have to get some pictures of that one).

Here was UCA coach Kimmie doing a motion class (learning how to really stick those movements and what they are called).

Kimmie also helped us a bit on our stunting.

Shelby was the only girl in our group brave enough to try out for AllStars. Winners would get to participate in parades in Houston (9th grade and younger) or London (10th and older). Shelby, being the youngest at the entire camp, didn't make allstars, but I was so pround of her for trying out (the girls on her right were Clovis Varsity cheerleaders).

"Bring it on in, bring it on in, bring it on in...HEY, BRING. IT. ON. IN!!" This is what they would chat when it was time for the UCA instructors to talk to everyone. Cheer camp is very peppy. LOL!

By the last day we could really stick our half. Oh, and to get the girl down we learned to toss her up a little and catch her in what's called a cradle.

Group cheer last day of camp.

We won most improved squad (the Spirit Stick on the right shows that). I was so proud of these kids. They worked hard for three days from 9-4. They were real troopers, and have bruises to show it. The girl on top of the stunts from the few tumbles she took, the "road rash" girls on the bottom of the stunts from the top girl standing on their shoulders. The boy for putting up with us girls (it's our first year having a boy cheerleader).

4th of July, 2008

2008-07-05T10:29:00.006-06:00

Our village hasn't done anything for 4th of July since...well, since I've been around here! Jeff said he remembers when he was little someone used to do something. So this year, the fire department and the Lion's club decided to do something. A community event centered around food, fireworks, and good ol' American country music!

First the food had to be cooked. The fare was simple: hamburgers, hot dogs and chips. Served with iced tea and lemonade.

Followed by some homemade ice cream. This ice cream maker should make enough for this crowd.

Some good ol' family fun and games on the track, too. Drew is ready for the stick horse race, while my niece Gracie is getting some last minute tips from her mother, Amanda.

And their off!! Chance (middle boy in red) was ready to go! My nephew, Brantley, was too (2nd on the left). Unfortunately, Chance went down in the middle of the race, injured with skinned knees. He made a trip with daddy to the waiting ambulance to get cleaned up and said, "Daddy, please no needles. Ok?"

The girls had their turn, too. Ch'ree on the far left, Shelby on the far right.

It didn't end there! Even the big boys got a turn. Jeff, right in the middle. I think the high schoolers were having fun, even if they won't admit it.

Other races like the sack race, a dunking booth, and egg toss, went on until sunset.

Break here. I didn't have a chance to take any pictures of the fireworks because Drew, aka Hodini, kept trying to escape my sights. He loved the fireworks, just felt he needed to find another seat to view them. That seat being away from me. So, I held onto him and not the camera. But the fireworks were awesome. Some said they were better than the one in town the night before (Portales had to do their show a day early due to some problems with the pyrotechnic company being understaffed. We tried to make it to see them on Thursday, but was detained by a vanful of senior citizens that had run out of gas on the highway. Jeff, being the good sam that he is, stopped to help them out. We pulled up to the house we were crashing to watch the fireworks just as the last one was lit. Oh, well). Jeff and I spent all week pouring over all the songs on our iTunes library to pick the perfect ones to dance to. We tried to get just the right amount of songs from several decades. A little Bob Wills and Johnny Cash and a couple other old artists, a bit of 70's, 80's, 90's and the latest to keep everyone happy. Even a bit of the new hip hopped version of Cotton Eyed Joe and the Cha Cha Slide for the teens. There was much Alan Jackson, because you can't go wrong with him. He's traditional enough for the older folk, but new enough for the younger ones. The playlist we narrowed it down to would have took 7 hours to get through, so we didn't get to hear it all. Maybe next time.

There's Jeff working the playlist. Not sure if he was actually working on songs, or playing Spider Solataire. LOL!

Even Drew got in on the dancing! I think he's the cutest thing with his boots and wranglers on, but what happened to his shirt?

40 Years of wedded bliss for Don and Linda (Jeff's parents)

Ch'ree stealing a dance with Granddaddy

I know Jeff's mother took many pictures with her camera, and if I had some of those, I might be in one or two. But I don't, so you won't see me. haha!! Maybe if she sends me one or two, I MAY post them.

If I had to take a guess, about 150 people came for the festivities. I don't think Floyd has that many people, so a few probably came from town that had ties to the community (family or school). It was alot of fun, at least for our family. We didn't come home til 1am. Hopefully next year we can do it again!

Happy 4th of July!!

2008-07-04T07:32:00.002-06:00

Today will be a busy day as we enjoy the birthday of our nation.

To celebrate the event, our volunteer fire department and Lion's club (both of which Jeff is a member of) have planned what I hope will be a great annual tradition.

At 5, the fire department will be grilling hot dogs and hamburgers the community. At 6, there will be games and home made ice cream under the big tree behind the school. Also games (I glimpsed a dunking booth last night, heard tales of tug o war and three legged race, not sure what else there will be). 9pm on the football field there will be fireworks. And after that, Jeff has rigged up a playlist on his laptop and is going to hook it all up to some amps or speakers or something and having a dance in the fire station.

It's going to be a fun evening! I hope everyone out there reading this has an equally enjoyable one and remembering what this holiday is all about.

Photos, 6-27-08

2008-06-26T08:00:00.003-06:00

We took the kids swimming the other day. No, not to the city pool in town, not to a friend in the neighborhood that has a pool (HA!!). Nope, we just took them down to one of our brand new stock tanks!! It's not too deep, but big enough for many kids. It's not going to get torn up by wind or dogs with sharp toenails. And if you don't mind the bottom being a bit rough from concrete, it's just right. Jeff's sister and her family were here for the weekend, so we had those two kids in there as well. Drew wasn't into the water. He was actually in another pickup off camera having fun honking the horn and hitting other buttons.

They appear to be having a good time.

You may have noticed a few dark clouds in the picture of the stock tank. Well, we got a little rain out of that. When I say a little, I mean about .10 inch. Very little. But made some neat pictures. Like this double rainbow south of us.

Or this of the rain coming off the roof. Here in the southwest, we don't need raingutters, it doesn't rain enough for them! But I thought the picture was kinda neat.

Drew is SO BIG! He loves to wear his new boots with shorts. And hey, at least my grass is green (I've also watered it alot this year. Benefits of having a well instead of city water with bans and restrictions on such things).

This is the scariest picture of them all. My laundry room. With no less than 5 loads of laundry. This should keep me busy most of the day. Washing, drying, folding, and maybe some ironing. Doing laundry with my washing machine requires a bit more supervision than most. The valve on the cold side sometimes doesn't shut off. So if I don't keep an eye on things, the result is a flood in the laundry room. So, I have to hang out, cut off the water from the wall if it doesn't shut off, then come back around in about 20 minutes to turn it back on again for the rinse cycle, repeat. And I have forgotten about it. Alot. Which results in ANOTHER load of laundry of the towels I used to clean up the flooded mess.

Happy 9th Birthday, Ch'ree!!

2008-06-23T09:41:00.008-06:00

My baby girl is 9 today! Seems like just the other day she was born (drug free, I might add, thanks to a nurse who, even though I was 9 days overdue, didn't believe me that I was in labor!). The next day she was airlifted via helicopter to UMC in Lubbock because she was spitting up blood and spent the next few days in NICU. She looked huge next to all the preemies in there, weighing in at 8lb 4oz. Luckily it was just some acid reflux and after a couple weeks of Tagament there were no more problems.

She has grown up so much! Such a girly girl, she loves sports and is pretty smart too. But don't have a TV on anywhere near her, she just zones out. LOL!

Newborn, June 23rd 1999

One year, 2000

Age 2, 2001

Age 3, 2002

Preschool, 2003

Kindergarten, 2004

2005, 1st grade

Cheering, 2006

Spring 2006

8 years old, 3rd grade 2007

June, 2008

Cute puppies, a rant, and a Meme

2008-06-19T14:16:00.005-06:00

First the rant:

Some town people think it's perfectly acceptable to dump unwanted puppies on country folk. I guess because it looks like we have tons of room for them to run around and we have nothing better to do, right?

If you have a dog and don't WANT puppies and there is a chance that this dog could get knocked up or knock up some other dog, spay or neuter them. The country is not a place to dump your dogs. If we had a need for mass quantities of dogs, or any dog at all, we will go get one ourself, you don't need to choose for us. Take some responsibility for your pets, please.

Dogs that get dumped end up running in packs if not adopted by a loving family. Then they go wild. And wild dogs attack other dogs, or calves, or horses, or people. And can carry rabies.

My mother-in-law was the target of puppy dumping the other day. And while these chocolate lab mutts are cute as can be, we don't need more dogs. Tex is quite enough dog for our family. We don't need them to start running around chasing calves. Now it appears I'm responsible for finding homes for these darling puppies. She and I have both tried all week to find homes for these two, to no avail. I stopped by her house to take them to town for her to the pound.

And I apologize for those that I have called or visited the past two days trying to find a good home for these innocent pups. They didn't ask for this, neither did I. But please forgive me Julie and Buck and Rossi and anyone else I have pestered. LOL!

But on the way, the girls had to hold them and fell in love. And while I still have no intentions of keeping them, I just couldn't take them to the pound.

So, I brought them home. My good friend Lisa down at KSEL (the country station in town) said she will try to mention them on the air and we will try to find a good home for them.

I put them in this pen so that Tex wouldn't maul them to death. He's never been around another dog since he left his own litter mates. I wasn't sure how he would react. He barked and sniffed them abit while the fence stood between them. And so far I think he may be ok. I may try to put them in the yard in a bit where they will have more room and shade. Tex can also come and go as he pleases, since he can jump the yard fence (but the pen fence is too tall for him at 6 feet).

All I ask for is a good home for these puppies. They are cute as a button. They are free. Very friendly and loving.

And now the Meme. Buck posted his workspace, who was tagged by someone else, etc. So, here is mine.

It was stipulated that you couldn't clean it up first. Oh, dear. Well, there is the McDonald's Quarter pounder and coke I had for lunch. Under the box for the burger are phone books and farm journals that came in this weeks mail. There are McDs toys from the kids' happy meals today (Thursday is $1.69 happy meals!!), a Power Ranger 4-wheeler, cup-o-pens and pencils, some other various things I have printed, stapler, a set of allen wrenches from fixing the treadmill the other day, some Bath and Body Works Wild Honeysuckle lotion, the 2006 tax returns (?!), school catalog from ENMU and my degree plan, creative memories picture/paper cropper (what do you mean you can't see all that? It's just buried a little bit). On top of the printer are some CD-ROMS and my mother's day present from Ch'ree. Under the printer are some stackable organizers that look like chaos but I know what's them all. And mail. Yes it's a mess. Maybe today I'll clean it up some (uh, I'll shove everything I can in a drawer).

Hey, 5 people use this desk and computer. I'm not the only one who messes it up!!

Kids and computers

2008-06-18T13:15:00.003-06:00

I don't want to hear about how old people can't figure out how to use a computer.

Yesterday my 2 year old went to my desk, hit the on button on the CPU, then waited for the log-on screen to appear. Most of the profiles are not password protected (just mine). He managed to click on one of the profiles, then started up one of his games. There was no help from me, I wasn't even in the room. But I heard him starting it and watched from afar to see what he would do. The boy just moves that mouse around and clicks on what he wants like he was born to do it.

He is 2 for cryin' out loud!!

My 5 year old loves to turn on iTunes and search thru the 2102 songs I have on there and find the ONE he wants to hear. His favorite is Metallica's 2x4. He clicks it, hits repeat, and has the most interesting dance moves to it. He's not moshing, I'm not sure what he is doing. But he seems to love Metallica (at least one song). He will also belt out Taylor Swift songs, but usually changes some of the words around to poopoo and butthead, stinkyhead, things of that nature.

He also will get online to Disneychannel.com and surf around on Power Ranger games or stuff like that. The boy KNOWS what he is doing. He can't read yet but he KNOWS! It's the darndest thing.

And of course the girls do all sorts of things on the computer. They will type up a story on Wordpad or something, then attach it to an email and send it to their grandparents. They keep in touch with friends via email. I wasn't even talking on the PHONE at that age and they have email. LOL!

The Weather

2008-06-11T16:49:00.002-06:00

It's hot out there, folks. And windy. We are enjoying the day parked under the air conditioning. I'm thankful for central air, that's for sure! I'd hate to have an evap unit or even just a window unit.

Drive By Post, 6-3-08

2008-06-03T16:16:00.003-06:00

There hasn't really been anything of noteworthy significance to post about, so here's a few things that have been going on:

It's hot. I show 102 today. And it's breezy. So it feels like a hairdryer if you walk outside
I killed a rattlesnake in the backyard the other day. I had just got done mowing the lawn and was grabbing the sprinkler when I saw him getting a drink from the hydrant by the back door. By the time I got a hoe he had hidden in some bushes. It took me about 15 minutes but I finally got him dragged (drug?) out and killed him. Per my father-in-laws orders, I chopped his head off and buried it seperate from the rest of the body. Strange thing was, he never rattled, even though I clearly saw 5 rattles on his tail.
Jeff has had hell with a plow the past few days. One day a hydrolic hose broke. Another day he had two blowouts, another yesterday. Today he decided to just get all new tires. So between the two of us, we got them all changed out. I say the two of us. I had to take some of the tires to Clovis because no one in Portales or Melrose had the right size for three of them.
I have learned 7 chords on my guitar: A, Am, C, D, E, Em, G. I can play alot of good ol' country songs, lots of George Strait and Alan Jackson. However, B and F continue to be a challenge. I need a few more fingers before I can get those down.
Diesel is up to $4.69
And it's hot outside.
If anyone in the Portales area reads this, I have a tip for you: don't go to Walmart or Lowes for anything relating to plants. Go to the Garden Source out on 70. The guy there is most helpful and they have plants that no one else has (I bought blackberries, strawberries, a peach tree and apple tree today). They also have decorative items like windchimes and tons of other things. I could spend a fortune in there if I had one.
It's hot out there. It's so hot the weeds are wilting.
Today was our election day. I hope everyone has used their right to VOTE in this year's primaries and will again in the general election.
Jeff is working on his 80 hours of clinicals for his EMT-Intermediate license. But I think he is having too much fun hanging out with the Portales Fire Department. They play basketball and watch movies all day between runs.
We saw Indiana Jones over the Memorial Day Weekend. It was good, but I think the first three were better. But still good.
I miss my Atlanta Braves baseball games. I have boycotted TBS for dropping the Braves. I'm sure my not watching their stupid reruns and original series will really hurt them.
Have I mentioned how hot it is outside?
Also for any Portales area readers. Morning of June 28th, Velero gas pumps (in front of the library). Floyd Cheerleaders are having a car wash to raise money for cheer camp expenses. Come out and support us!

Well, that's about it. Not enough of any one item for it's own post, but plenty for a drive by!

May activities, 2008

2008-05-24T10:07:00.004-06:00

We had Shelby's Birthday Party. She requested Cheesecake for her cake and Stuffed Shells for dinner. We had nearly 20 of our friends and family over, and between myself, my SIL Amanda and a friend Karen, we killed many a margarita that night. We later broke out the musical instruments, Amanda and I on our guitars, while Jeff played bass and Don on the fiddle. We are becoming quite the musical family.

Last Monday was Chance's Preschool Tea. The 2nd year preschoolers always wind the Maypole. Chance is so ready for Kindergarden!

Shelby and Ch'ree both had awards assemblies. I missed Shelby's because I was on Chance's field trip to the Clovis Zoo. But she received 7 awards, including A/B honor roll for each of her subjects and perfect attendance.

Ch'ree cleaned up as well. She was almost the only one in her class on A honor roll, but one of her grades slipped down to a B. I give her an A for effort, though. She received 6 awards (missed Perfect Attendance by one day when she was sick). With her is her best friend, Mercedes. (Buck, this is Consuelo's daughter. C. was sitting in front of me at the assembly and asked me where these nerdy kids came from).

And mom, these pictures were taken with my NEW lens! Not bad, eh?

And we have had wind the past few days. Here are the poor cows trudging along in a sand storm.

I went out to feed with Jeff one day. I think this is the cutest calf out of the bunch this year.

Hey, somebody help me get this cactus off my chin, please!

This baby caught my eye, too! He's so new, his umbilical stump hasn't fallen off yet!

Tex was on the prowl for rabbits. I though this was a cool picture because we were bouncing around in the feed truck when I took it, and it wasn't a smooth trip. I think it shows what a decent camera can do. I have a Nikon D50 and I absolutely LOVE it! The rains have finally helped our grass and it's starting to green up, as well as the mesquite.

Shelby turns 11!!!

2008-05-10T08:07:00.006-06:00

Happy Birthday, my brown eyed baby girl!!!

Case IH Red

2008-05-07T12:40:00.000-06:00

We don't drive John Deeres on our place, so we really aren't "John Deere Green". But we are Case IH Red! And Heston Red. And Versitile red/orange. And Crustbuster grey? And Lord only knows what other colors of implements we have. Actually, I think we do have an old set of John Deere wheat drills that we don't use anymore.

And I was just having more fun with Photoshop here. My stepfather learning to drive a tractor here.

Introductions

2008-05-04T09:42:00.005-06:00

I realize that since I moved to blog format that everything I had on the old website is gone. I know, I've said this before. So periodically, I try to post things that were up on the old site.

One thing that I should do is introduce my family to all of you.

This is Shelby. She is our 1997 model. Eight pounds, 8 ozs. Twenty-four hours of labor, 3 of which was pushing (TMI?). Our firstborn, the oldest, the bossy one. She is in 5th grade (which is middle school at our small rural school). Most of the time she gets along with her younger sister and she and our youngest adore each other. But she and Chance just clash. All the time. It's mostly his fault. Anyway, Shelby LOVES to read, she started reading before she started Kindergarten (her teacher said she was the first student she ever had that started the year reading!). She has read every single Harry Potter book (after me, of course). She also enjoys horses, reading, listening to music, reading, Hannah Montana (and all things that have to do with Miley Cyrus), writing stories, reading, singing (and she is pretty good!). She does not enjoy watching Chance and cleaning her room. She cheers and plays basketball. As she is entering the world of tweens, she is adding talking on the phone and emailing friends to her list of things to do. Her foot is one size smaller than mine and I catch her in my closet drooling over my shoes and boots that she plans on wearing next year. Girl, you better stay away from my Ariat Fat Babies!!!

This is Ch'ree. She is our 1999 model. Eight lbs, 4oz. 12 hours of labor, 10 minutes of pushing with NO DRUGS! She spent a few days in Lubbocks NICU because she decided to spit up blood. I think she just wanted the helicopter ride to Lubbock to make her daddy jealous. Ended up she just had some acid reflux. She is the drama queen. She can cry at the drop of a hat if she needs to. She thinks it will get her out of whatever task I have assigned her. It doesn't work. She and Chance DO get along. Drew not so much (his preference, not hers). She also enjoys reading and writing stories. Except she likes to start many books and finish few. She also likes pretty things, she is kinda a frilly girl. She cheers and plays basketball (both girls have also dabbed around into soccer and baseball. They both enjoyed soccer. I didn't enjoy two different teams with all different times of practices and games in town). She can also stare at a TV and tune the entire world out around her. At any given time. She may not even like what's on or know what it is, she is mesmorized by the glowing box (Dad, does that sound familiar?). Like her sister, she also enjoys music. I think she is the most low maintenance of all the kids, though.

This is Chance. Our 2002 model. Nine lbs, 9ozs. Six hours of labor with an epidural, which after the last birth experience, I demanded as soon as I walked into the hospital. Even though he is three years younger than Ch'ree, he is the same size as she is (except she wears slim clothes and he regular). He's a tough boy. He shows his tough side to his sisters all day long. But when he is at school, he is the most compassionate kid there. He seldom gets in trouble at school (home is quite another matter). He can play the PS2 like there is no tomorrow (I have to work hard to beat him at many games). His biggest enjoyment is to get under Shelby's skin. He is on the verge of getting reading down. He talks about underwear alot. He likes to wear nothing but his underwear, alot. He wants to be in the middle of everything. He loves Power Rangers and Spiderman, and now rides a bike with NO training wheels. He also loves riding his 4-wheeler. He has a cousin who is 6 days younger than him. They are the same size, both blonde, both blue eyed, and when they get together, we call them Nitro and Glycerine.

And Drew is the baby. Our 2005 model, he was nine lbs, 3 ozs, 12 hours of labor. And the epidural guy did a WONDERFUL job with this one. After Drew was born, I was ready for more! Totally painless experience. He idolizes his big brother and Shelby. He loves Thomas the Train, Power Rangers and anything with dogs (currently Scooby Doo is a fav). He shuns underwear, prefers diapers (much to my dismay, as I want him potty trained). He loves apple juice, cartoons, his dog Tex, and the horses. He's quite fond of his daddy and mommy, and never have I seen a child that HAS to be snuggled as much as he. Like his mommy, he feels he must have shoes on his feet as soon as he wakes up and doesn't take them off til he hits the sack. And he hates hitting the sack. He would stay up all day and night if given the chance.

And this is Jeff and myself.

Jeff is 6'4". He's a 1973 model who was born and raised right here in Floyd. He farms and ranches, is on the volunteer fire department (and is almost done getting his EMS-Intermediate license. Watch out, he can put an IV in you!), the Lion's club, and on the school board. He works hard farming 1,300 acres and ranching another 1,200. He has put up with me and my Irish temper for nearly 15 years (13 1/2 wedded). He enjoys playing some old country tunes on his bass guitar, watching various Star Trek shows, wrestling with the kids, and pranks (his favorite is a remote controlled fart machine).

And me. Y'all know me. I'm a 1974 model troublemaker from Georgia who somehow found herself in New Mexico. I may not have been born a country girl, but I sure wanted the part all my life and now I have it. I love animals, especially my dog and the horses. I love being a farm wife. I've always been a tomboy, I grew up playing softball and on the swimteam and joining the neighborhood boys playing football and seeing if I can land on both wheels after jumping a ramp on my bike at the bottom of the hill (I didn't, it was a hard landing). I enjoy yardwork and gardening, I just wish I had a green thumb for it. I fear wasps. I'm learning guitar, I claim to be a scrapbooker and quilter (but haven't had the opportunity to do either in a long time). And recently I have found I love photography. I'm working on the basics of exposure right now with my digital SLR (a Nikon D50). I coach the elementary girls cheerleading squad (and no, I was never a cheerleader in school, but I wanted to real bad), and have coached the kids' baseball teams before. I love the Atlanta Braves, but haven't watched a game all year since TBS took my Braves away from me. I used to love to read books, but can't find the time for it anymore. Hmmm, maybe if I quit reading blogs....

We are a pretty close family. My life revolves around the kids and their activities, and around Jeff and what he needs me to do on any given day (get parts, rode machinery, get lunch, etc). I may go days without adult conversation. My MIL, FIL and SIL are my best friends, next to my husband. For fun we like to go camping (in the 5th wheel of course. I may be country, but I like my modern conviences) or just visit with family.

And now you know everything more than you probably ever wanted to know about us.

Playing with Photoshop

2008-05-03T10:29:00.003-06:00

It usually takes me a while to decide what to spend money and gift cards I get for Birthdays and Christmases. But this week I finally spent the combined checks from last October and December.

First, I bought a new lens for my camera. It's a 55-200mm Nikon zoom lens with VR (Vibration reduction). It's supposed to be REALLY neat. It doesn't get here til Wednesday, but I'll let you know how it goes!

Second, I bought a photo editing program. Not Photoshop CS2 or whatever it is. That puppy costs about $600!! No, I got Photoshop Elements 6.0. And this morning I had a bit of fun with it.

You know how when you get pictures done somewhere and they are always doing some fun things to make you want to spend an arm and a leg? Like selective coloring, when you can pick one color or something to stand out in a black and white photo? Well, here are my attempts at it:

What do you think? I wouldn't do it all the time, but I think it's kinda cool for the right photo.

Tampoline!

2008-04-30T14:39:00.002-06:00

With Shelby's 11th birthday approaching in the next couple weeks and Ch'ree's not far behind that, Jeff (never one to keep or wait around for a surprise) decided while he was in town to get the girls an early birthday present.

A trampoline.

Now Mom, I know you said you don't think they are safe, but it's pretty big and lots of padding. And it will help them with their cheerleading stunts. Ok? Feel better now?

Here is the crew putting it together. Drew especially wanted to help. There were a few little glitches (one of which is Jeff not reading the instructions in the right order, then not listening to me when my common sense told ME how to do it, and I backed it up with the correct order in the instructions). But, he is a man and who needs stinkin' instructions? Not him!

Eventually it was all put together. Drew isn't quite sure what to do. So he just likes to sit there and let everyone else bounce, therefore bouncing him in the air.

Ch'ree's got the jumping down, though!

And wow, Shelby! Look at that toetouch!!

Chance likes to get in everyone's way. Especially Shelby's. What else is new?

Drew needed a break from all the bouncing, so he decided to sit on the brown drought stricken grass that I can't water til my well is fixed and pick his nose.

And his toes.

"Here mom, want some boogers and toe jam?"

And yes, I have been jumping on it, too. It's really alot of fun and a good aerobic workout. Which is exactly what I need to lose these last few pounds.

2008-04-28T11:44:00.004-06:00

About a year ago, I heard about 101 in 1001. What it is: listing 101 things you want to accomplish, and you need to do it in 1001 days. Well, I had fun creating a spreadsheet for it, then I finally came up with 101 things to get done. Which was actually kinda hard to do. I have some piddly things on there (which still aren't done, so I guess they aren't so piddly), and some lofty goals as well. And as the year has gone on, I've actually added more than 101 things as I think of them.

As of today, I have accomplished 22 goals (not so good when you consider I've had a year to do them!).

Item 53: File away 2006 stuff (done May 9th, 2007)--whoohoo, I filed stuff. LOL! I actually have even done 2007 already too.

Item 37: Read Paula Deen Memoirs (done May, 2007)--A fun book. And I was desperate to find things for my 101 things to do, so I added a couple books to read. I love Paula Deen, she has such wonderful recipes that expand my waistline. I hate Paula Deen, because she has such wonderful recipes that expand my waistline. LOL! Her life has been very interesting, full of heartbreak and full of triumph. And it just goes to show you that even if you have nothing you can accomplish anything!

Item 88: Take my children to the ocean (done July 2007)--Last summer we went to Mustang Island (on the other side of Corpus Christi. We stayed in a campground right on the beach and could walk down to the water whenever we felt like it. We also went to San Antonio and saw The Alamo, Sea World, and the RiverWalk. It was HOT down there!!

Item 38: Read new Harry Potter book (done July 2007)--Picked it up on the way to San Antonio, the day it went on sale. Shelby and I had to fight over it, but we both got it read before we returned home.

Item 4: Pay off blue pickup (done August 2007)--Feels good to have that truck paid off! It was my first brand new right off the lot vehicle, and my dreamtruck (F-250 4door with the 7.3 Powerstroke, 4x4, leatherseats. Love that truck!)

Item 70: Sell camper (done June 2007)--this was on the list because we had just bought an '05 5th wheel, but still needed to sell our old '84. Sold it on Ebay to a really nice older couple from Louisianna. They drove out here to get it and brought a box full of Marti Gras beads for the kids.

Item 54: File current stuff (done September 2007)--I had alot of filing that needed to be done at the time. I try to stay a bit more on top of it now. LOL!

Item 96: Catch up all Quicken accounts (done september 2007)--Again, I was behind on bookkeeping.

Item 39: Give away 10 books--Got 'em boxed up, just haven't done anything with them. We have tons of books around here and not enough bookselves.

Item 66: Get a good Victoria Secrets bra! (done September 2007)--blush, blush. Yeah, this was something on my list. Got it done, thanks. Let's not mention it again.

Item 77: Have wisdom teeth pulled (done October 2007)--Got one pulled, bringing me up to 2 total. It was hurting and had chipped. Dr. Thompson fixed me right up. Didn't even feel it, really (dramatic change from when I had my first one pulled 10 years before. That dentist was a jerk and called me a crybaby. Wonder why I was so scared to have another one done?)

Item 69: Fix Tex’s pen (done October 2007, mostly done by Don)--Tex, my German Shephard, didn't like his pen. He would dig out of it. He didn't like to stay in the yard either, he would jump out of it. When Tex decided it would be fun to herd up the neighbors goats one day and she tried to shoot him (the only time he had ever run off anywhere), my father-in-law hooked the pen up to the electric fence box. He has since learned not to try to escape the fence. Actually, he only goes in it now if I'm going to work the horses (oooh, one time then).

Item 98: Get an iPod (Done October 19th, 2007 for birthday!)--I got an Ipod Nano! It's green and so cool! Jeff gave it to me for my birthday.

Item 18: Have family pictures done in 2007 (done, twice!)--We had this done in September 2007 for the church directory, then again at Sears because they are a heck of a lot cheaper than Olan Mills (who did the directory)

Item 75: Tree skirt for Holly and Jesse (December 2007)--I made a quilted Christmas tree skirt for my stepbrother and his wife for Christmas. It has a log cabin and a moose and pine tree on each side of it, it's a Debbie Mumm pattern. They live in Maine and I thought it fit them perfect.

Item 92: Build Barn at Ranch (done, December 2007)--Whoohoo, Jeff finally got his barn!

Item 97: Get a flatscreen computer monitor (done, Christmas 2007)--My Christmas present from Jeff.

Item 12: Remodel garage to music room/Jeff’s office (DONE, February 2008)--Ya'll saw this in progress.

Item 42: Set up store on website (decided not to do one)--Well, I thought I was going to make really cute personalized baby blankets and burb clothes and sell them online. Didn't work out too well. But, if anyone wants to buy one, let me know and I'll make 'em!

Item 56: Clean office good (February 08, completely moved office to garage)--relocating took care of this problem.

Item 11: Get kitchen remodeled (done March 08)--ya'll saw this in progress too.

Item 45: New light for front porch--it's bought, but not installed. Oh Jeeeeffffff...

Hopefully I'll get some more items posted before my 1001 days are up!!

Ridin' the horses

2008-04-20T18:01:00.003-06:00

I've always been passionate about horses. Always loved to go riding, or just brush and look at them. My first ride I was probably 3 or 4. It was in someone's house. Not sure why. Hope that little pony didn't make a mess. When my daddy took me to San Diego to visit some family, someone took me riding then. I remember when I was about 6 years old and my grandmother took my cousin to a riding stable that rented out rides. And I wanted to go SO BAD. But, I was forced to wait in the car (because I was having a huge temper tantrum). I was dusty and dirty and remembered wiping my dirty tears on the white bed sheet that Grandma used to protect the upholestry in the car. I didn't get a ride that time, but later that summer after I had calmed down, I did. I collected Bryer model horses, watched dang near every horse movie and read many a horse book (Black Stallions, Misty, Black Beauty, etc). I love horses.

When my father and stepmother first started getting their horses, it was one of the highlights of weekend and summer visits, just to brush them. I taught myself how to french braid on their tails, and enjoyed just clipping them with the electric clippers and brushing their manes and tails. I didn't even mind cleaning their stalls that much (really, Dad, I didn't. Some of my fondest memories are cleaning stalls and listening to the radio).

My father gave me my horse that I still have now. He was one of the first horses whose parents he owned and bred. His name is Dude, and I've had him since I was about 13. Everyone calls him a circus animal, and rightly so. He has a "spirited" streak in him. But he is my baby. I remember when he would be asleep in his stall and I would quietly walk in and lay down with him. He had a way of letting us know if he was out of water in his stall. First he would tear the 5-gallon bucket off the wall and stick it on his head. Then he would run it up and down the slats of his stall making a huge racket. When he would hear us enter the barn, he would then toss his head so that the bucket would fly over the walls of the stall and into the hallway so we could see that it was him out of water.

His spirited side wasn't always so cute. There was an incident with my father and the manure pile that Dude dragged him through. And the time when he tossed me into a fence. I think one time my dad threatened to shoot him with his .38 Special. LOL! He also used to have symptoms of colic about every 6 weeks or so and we would spend hours day and night walking him around praying he would be ok. Oddly enough, once I dragged his butt to New Mexico back in 1995, only one such attack occured.

Today for the first time in about 10 years, the kids and I talked Jeff into letting us ride the horses. It's always been a fear to let the kids ride. After all, why would they need to? We gather our cows with 4-wheelers and a feed truck. Jeff has no intention of letting them rodeo or show them. Then there was the local little 3 year old boy whose horse got spooked by a rope and drug him to death a few years ago.

Mundy is my father-in-law's horse. He's old. He's so old, he's been fitted for armor. He's so old, he's been shot with arrows before. He's so old, Coronado rode him into battle. He's so old...well, you get the picture. Really, he's about 28 years old. He had an accident shortly before Jeff and I were married (13 years ago) and messed up his hind feet. He's enjoyed a retired life out to pasture since.

Being that old and half crippled, Jeff finally decided that he would be gentle enough for his precious children. So we caught him, brushed him and saddled him up. Then Jeff led them around (just in case. Not taking any chances here).

Chance and Ch'ree had a turn

Then just Ch'ree. Mundy kinda has a mind of his own. He runs in two speeds: slow and stop. Here he had decided to stop. Dude was also nickering back in the pens. They weren't too sure of what was going on.

Then Shelby got a turn.

Shelby and Drew together

Drew and Chance. Drew has discovered that he LOVES horses!

After Mundy had his turn, I decided to try out Dude. We had a bit of trouble catching him. When you haven't had a halter on in years, guess you really don't want to get caught. But we finally did. First I brushed him, then lunged him a bit on a line. Then I wondered if I remembered how to saddle a horse. I had a little trouble with straps. Dude and I were raised riding English (he's a Tennessee Walking Horse, not a Quarter Horse like everything else around here), and the hardware and buckles are a bit different than our Western gear, but Jeff set me straight. Dude didn't object too bad with the bit, and I lunged him some more. Finally, I decided to just get on him and see what happened.

Had this been Dude 10 years ago, I'm sure he would have bucked or spun (in fact, I think that's what he did do last time he was ridden, 10 years ago). But I guess age must have mellowed him, and we just walked around for a bit. I even got him to trot a little, but that's it. It was nice just to be on a horse again. It's sad that he is about 22 years old, think of all the years of riding I've missed (doing silly things like birthing and caring for children).

And for a reward, they got a nice big bale of alfalfa. This is Mundy. And he has ALWAYS been this skinny. No matter if he has been wormed and on grain and unlimited supply of good hay (all of the above we have done). He's just a skinny horse. Dude has the exact same treatment and he's kinda fat. Go figure.

"Alfalfa? Alfalfa!! Why do THEY get alfalfa and all we get are cubes and unlimited pasture and haygrazer. We want ALFALFA!!!!" Look at the dust they are stirring up! No, they didn't get any alfalfa. Guess they are mad at us now.

"Where is my alfalfa?"

Cheerleaders

2008-04-16T17:19:00.005-06:00

Earlier this month, our school's varsity cheer squad went to Albuquerque to compete in the State Spirit Competition. And this year they came away with the 1st place trophy!

We decided to surprise them as they came home that night by meeting them at the county line with almost all the village's fire trucks and the ambulance, lights on, sirens wailing, and gave them an escort to the school, where many parents and students were also waiting for their arrival. It was pretty cool to have a 1st place trophy at the school again. There have only been 2 in the last 10 years, and this is the 1st for cheering at our school (though we have had 2 second places before).

Sidelines during a boys basketball game.

Taking a breather after halftime
Timeout cheer
One thing that makes these girls so special is that over half of them are also basketball players. On game nights, those 5 have to go out and give there all for their game first (most of them are starters, too, not benchwarmers. One, a freshman, consistantly scores the most points as well. On Varsity. That same girl is also the only girl on the Varsity baseball team. She got a grand slam a couple weeks ago. These girls aren't wimps), then they have 20 minutes to clean up, change into their cheer uniforms, and come cheer the boy's game. See the girl with the leg brace on the right? She was hit by a TRUCK 2 years ago (before she moved here). In fact, points were deducted during their routines at State for the brace. And we STILL won!! Most of these girls are also in FFA (Future Farmers of America). The State FFA contest was held in Las Cruces the same week as the State Cheer competition. So some of these girls had to go to Cruces first, do their judging, then get their hineys up to Albuquerque for the cheer competition. Whew!!

What's really good is that none of these girls are going anywhere. No seniors, one junior. The rest are all 9th and 10th graders. There were 7 other schools in our division (1A).

And while we are on the subject of cheerleaders. These are the older half (4th and 5th grade) of the elementary squad that I coach. Well, some of them. There are about 12 girls, but I was focusing in on Shelby (cheerleader in the middle).

And here is the younger squad I coach (preschool-3rd grade). Ch'ree is in the back row, on the right.

Congratulations on winning State, Broncos!!!

Elida Tournament, 2008

2008-04-13T08:25:00.004-06:00

Last weekend was the Little Dribbler Tourney in Elida, NM. This is our school's first year doing Little Dribblers. Some of the kids have played on city leagues for years, and many have never played at all.

Shelby doesn't get to play a whole lot. She is on a 5th-6th grade team, and her being a) a 5th grader, b) it being her first year playing and c) 12 girls on the team, 4 of which are 6th graders, she doesn't get alot of playing time. But I did catch a couple of shots that she was in the game.

Getting the rebound!

Here she is hustling.

And here on the bench. LOL!

Ch'ree gets a bit more playing time on her team. It's a 3rd-4th grade team. But there are only 7 kids on the team: 2 4th graders, 3 3rd graders (including Ch'ree), a 1st grader and a 2nd grader.

Ch'ree holding onto the ball.

Hey, I got the ball!! Now, who can I pass it to?

She actually dribbled, too.

Drew had a good time in the concession stand. Here is Terminator Drew, checking out the brackets with his nachos and my sunglasses. He'll be back.

The Waldrip Visit, Spring 2008

2008-04-13T07:42:00.004-06:00

Recently my mother, Judy, came for a visit with my stepfather (Wayne) and grandmother (Gram) in tow. They got to stay for 6 days, but of course it wasn't long enough. There just isn't enough time, plus it was a super busy week in our lives. The Floyd Jamboree was that week (which was part of the reason they came), and we also had a Little Dribbler tourney in Dora for the girls. And it was Spring Break (thank goodness, because my mom probably would have barely saw the kids if they had been in school that week!).

One thing Wayne wanted to do while he was here was to learn how to drive a tractor and plow. Of course, there is more to plowing than just jumping in the tractor and going, especially when it's the first time for the season for the tractors to get out. There was servicing, changing the oil, fixing various little things that were wrong from the previous year, welding stuff back together, cutting with the cutting torch, and other manly stuff with tools. Wayne got to see alot of this side of farming. Plowing was the break from all the fixing! LOL!

Jeff's not used to having a "hand" while he's plowing, so it involved some fixing up an additional plow. Now that he has that done, I guess he's going to expect me and Drew out there on this tractor.

Smile for the camera, Wayne!

Jeff got the bigger tractor, of course.

The visit also was an opportune time to catch some blackmail photos of Wayne. Like this gem of liberal Wayne unsuspectingly drinking out of Jeff's Rush Limbaugh coffee mug.

Or Wayne dipping a ritz cracker into a 5 pound tub of Sunland crunchy peanutbutter that he and Jeff had bought out at the peanut mill on Hwy. 70. Well, it was voted by Better Homes and Gardens as the best peanut butter last year, guess he had to try it out.

But we had a great time with them. Did some shopping for the girls, drank a few margaritas, watched a couple of movies, saw more than enough little kids playing basketball, and the Jamboree. And ate more than enough, too. LOL!

Floyd Fire, November 2005

2008-04-03T08:59:00.005-06:00

This post is an old one. I'm going back in time almost 2 1/2 years ago. There have been several fires recently, and this was content off the old site that is now gone. So just bear with me as I recount the events of that day and what happened afterwards.

It was Wednesday, November 30th. The week after Thanksgiving. I had just had another baby boy, Drew, 11 days before. My mother and family had been here for the birth and Thanksgiving and had left on Monday morning. We were getting back into a normal routine (well, as normal as life can be with a newborn). The girls were off to school, and I was sitting at home with the boys. Jeff was in town hauling hay from one of our fields to a dairy in Clovis.

Jeff called and asked me where that smoke was coming from. Smoke? What smoke? So, I went to all the windows in the house til I found a puff of smoke in the distance.

I'm a horrible judge of distances, so he asked me to load up the boys in the pickup and check it out. So, I travel down some dirt roads a bit and go as far west as I could go. The signs that say "Air Force Property: KEEP OUT" stopped me from going any further. I had reached the east border of the Melrose Bombing Range, the fire was on the range. But no big deal, they had their own fire crews and the wind was blowing to the North-East, away from us.

On my way back to the house, Jeff asked me if I could check on the cattle's water. We had recently moved the cattle to a different field a mile from the house. He told me I should be able to see the water float in the tank from road. Well, I couldn't see it. I didn't want to go in the pasture, it was a really hard gate for me to close (just a barb wire gate, but you have to put alot of pressure on it to get the wire loop over it). I had just had a baby and knew I didn't have the strength to get it shut. So, I called my father-in-law, Don, to see if he could check it for me. And I went back to the house.

Apparently the water tank wasn't working, because he called a pump guy to come out and work on it with him.

By that time, the wind had shifted. It was now blowing to the South-East, the smoke was coming towards the house. The wind not only shifted, but had picked up to about 40MPH. The sky and ground was a really eerie shade of brown and orange. Of course, I took pictures. LOL! But I felt safe because the fire was way out on the bombing range.

Then Don came to a screaching halt to the house and switched to Jeff's feed pickup. I thought he must be having problems with his truck. I fixed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a glass of milk, and sat down to check email. Then the pump guy came up and said, "Let's get y'all out of here!". By the time I got the baby into the carrier car seat, he already had Chance in his carseat in the truck. I left my lunch at my desk, and was wearing my oldest, holiest, most worn out pair of sweatpants I owned (because I did just have a baby and nothing fit me. I was going for comfort, not style. I may have brushed my hair that day, but I know I had no makeup on). Great, I'm getting evacuated and I look HORRIBLE and can't go back to get something better.

I didn't know where to go. Jeff told me to head to his parents house. But how could I go there when I don't know what's happening at MY house!

The fire was west of my place. So I went to the Mesa road, 2 miles south of the house. I drove up and down it (pacing in a pickup). All I see is a wall of smoke. Dang it, I wish I had thought, as I was being evacuated, to grab the video camera. And my digital camera battery was nearly dead, too. I have crappy clothes, few diapers, and no batteries! I always thought that if I were evacuated I would grab my scrapbooks, important papers, my computer, and as many clothes as I could throw into the camper, hook up and take off. My evacuation plans had gone out the window.

I looked north to where I should see my house and this is what I see. Smoke and flames! I have no idea if I still have a house now, everything could be gone, all my clothes, furniture, stuff for the baby. At one point I saw a huge burst of flames in the air, and I knew I had lost my home.

Well, I didn't. It was the abandoned house up the road 1/3 a mile. The old Feland place.

I shamelessly steal pictures, too. This is from news footage from when the TV station in Albuquerque got here. I think this is the road west of the school. The video actually showed tornadoes of fire jumping across the road.

The smoke was getting closer to the Mesa road, and suddenly my phone rang. Somebody told somebody who told my mother-in-law that the school was being evacuated. I raced that way, and just in time got my girls off the bus. They were fixing to take the whole school on an emergency "field trip". They actually did go to a local dairy, then when the fire got closer to that, took them all to a church in town to wait for parents to get them. And here I have to pause and say that we have some of the best kids at our school. The high school kids came down to the elementary and preschool and helped the teachers out with those little ones.

I finally went to my inlaws house and waited. There was nothing else to do. Of course, my mother-in-law took pictures (since my camera had died) and got me in my grungy sweats. I'm not going to share them with you.

About 4pm, the suspense was killing us! What was going on! Cell service was down, we had no information (had I known that a local radio station was reporting most of the whole thing, I would have made sure we had tuned in. But most stations here are live only in the morning and a satelite feed the rest of the day). So I fed the baby, and left all the kids with Linda and ventured out.

I went straight to my house and was relieved to find it still there. But so much was burned around it for miles! I went back to the inlaws and gathered my brood and went home. My lunch was still sitting by the computer. I threw it away. The whole place smelled like smoke.

The fire burned about 35,000 acres.

Here is the town of Floyd. The WHOLE town. The highway goes right thru the middle of it. The fire came to the back door of the Baptist church (you can see the steeple to the left of the middle). It burned thru the cemetary. It was even at the back door of the old gym at the school!

It got so close to this teacher's house, it melted the vinyl siding!

If you know where to look, you can see most of our ranch (but not our house). It's almost all gone. Remember back when I said Don came and got the feed truck? We had cows in that field. The cows followed that feed truck like a lifeline to the recently vacated summer pasture. He said that he saw the last cow come out of the gate, then saw the flames sweep across the gate itself. That's how close it was. He then had to evacuate the cows AGAIN when another branch of the fire went thru the summer pasture. The cows were moved to the pens by the house. Thankfully the firefighters were able to keep the flames away from the house and the pens.

This is our neighbor's place. In fact, they hadn't even moved in yet. They had just bought it and were remodeling. They lost 2 or 3 outbuildings. There is a bit of land towards the top of the picture (but not all the way to the top). If you know where to look, you can see a bunch of little dots all the way to the left of the picture. These are our hay bales, they weigh about a ton each. They were all in a neat line thanks to the handy dandy accumulater the baler has. But now the fire was using the line to jump from bale to bale of hay! Jeff had raced home and was using his pickup to break up the line of bales to keep the fire from burning it all! The hay was already sold and paid for, but he saved all but about a semi load.

In all, the damage was one habited house, several abandoned ones and outbuildings. No injuries, but several cattle had to be put down. And many, many miles of fence. As I drove my crew home that night, our road was lit by the cedar fence posts that were still burning.

There were dead rabbits everywhere. Even in the road. One neighbor said he would see rabbits on fire running as fast as they could to get away from the fire, and therefore causing more fires! The school smelled like smoke real bad. There was no school on Thursday or Friday so the cleanup people could put their Ozone machines in there to clear it all out.

The fire was bad. But the long dry winter was to be miserable. That was the year we had no snow. And the rain was turned off from October before the fire until about June. Jeff says, "It was dryer than a popcorn fart!". It was also WINDY. It was probably just normal. But with no vegetation to hold the ground, the dirt just BLEW. One day it was so bad, that Jeff actually MISSED our driveway as he drove home!

The sand was horrible! The fence that wasn't burned was getting covered up by the sand dunes.

This used to be a fence post.

This is the parking lot for the community building and school busses. The Lion's Club storage shed was burned, as well as the sound equipment for the annual Jamboree and their grill.

More of the bus parking, and the preschool playground. The sand was all the way up to the bottom of the kids' swingset. Not pictured is the monkey bars in the Elementary playground. Put it this way: they didn't hang from the bars anymore, they just walked across.

Some friends of ours moved to town. This is there front yard on moving day.

And here is Chance playing on the sand dunes in the yard.

Of course, we are VERY thankful that no one was hurt, and that our home was saved. I think 14 fire agencies worked on this fire, and over 200 fire personel. We suffered about a 700 acre loss, including our entire winter pasture. When the claims people arrived, they asked why we had let the grass get so tall. Well, it was to feed cattle all winter! Duh!! We also lost about 7 miles of fence that had to be rebuilt.

But out of the ashes...or however that saying goes. Even though we had no rain until summer, after a year or so the grass was back better than before. You can never tell now where the fire was. Jeff sooned joined the volunteer fire department and is currently working on his EMT-Intermediate license. But whenever we see smoke in the distance, we remember our fire.

The kitchen is done!!

2008-03-13T09:13:00.003-06:00

I'm busy moving into the new kitchen, reorganizing, and of course trying to clean the rest of the house (which looks like a bomb has hit it, not to mention the laundry piled up since the washer and dryer were on the patio for nearly a week). But here are a few of the finished pictures of our new kitchen!

This is the granite tile we chose.

New microwave and cooktop

new dishwasher
north wall
old snack bar now more work space and storage!

Believe it or not, the pile of trash was bigger! The kids and Jeff had already hauled off one trailer load of it. The rotted board just to the right of the middle was the base of my sink cabinet.

I'll try to do some before and after pictures sometime this week, but for now I have some work to do!!

bottom cabinets and new floor

2008-03-09T08:29:00.003-06:00

Well, blogger is having picture problems but I managed to upload one. Here are the bottom cabinets and the new floor.

Cookies

2008-03-08T13:50:00.002-07:00

Girl Scout cookies are evil and must be destroyed!!

Kitchen Remodel, part 3

2008-03-07T12:42:00.002-07:00

Just a few quick pictures of the work we did yesterday.

We got the walls all sanded and painted, then we decided at 9pm that we could put the wall cabinets in. Here is the north wall.
And the south wall. We put them really high, too. The old kitchen the cabinets were so low that I could barely put anything under them. NOW I won't have that problem. Since most of the Essary men are about 6'4" on average, we call this "Essary Height". LOL!

Even Drew decided he could do some of this work!

The floor guys are here now putting in the new linolium in the kitchen and the laundry room. No more Harvest Gold! I know Jeff will want to put in the base cabinets as soon as he can. But alas, he went to Shelby's basketball tourney in House and found himself having to coach the 5th-6th grade boys team! LOL!

Kitchen remodel, part 2

2008-03-06T08:17:00.006-07:00

Ok, first off, Jeff built a new cabinet for the kitchen. And he did an awesome job! It was pretty darn close to what we already had. It has bookshelves on one end for all my cookbooks, too. Raising up the snack bar was very cool, it was workable surface. Which I didn't have before when it was table level high.

See, it looked pretty good. BUT we couldn't get the stains to match on it. Not only that, but we tried to restain the original cabinets. We took all the top doors down and stripped them, then restained one, and it was too dark. So, we sanded that down and restained again, and it ended up the exact color as before (which wasn't what was happening with the new cabinet).

So that was when we decided to get new cabinets.

That's me saying, "Oh. My. Gosh. I can't believe what we just did! No turning back now!!!"Yes, this is gross and disgusting. This is what it looked like underneath the sink cabinet. Eww!! We also discovered rotted subflooring that was very spongy.

And the other side of the kitchen with no cabinets. Big rat nest underneath this one. I don't think it says anything about my housekeeping skills. As I was cleaning it up, there was an old milk pickup slip from 1967 (this place used to be a dairy). So it was an OLD rat nest. Haven't seen the rat that lived there, though.

Since we had to tear out the section of subfloor, we had to get to it. And it was underneath 2 layers of linolium. It took alot of time with a hammer and crowbar getting it up.

And then a couple of sandpaper pads with the grinder. And a VERY dusty mess. Which settled on EVERYTHING.

And there were nails in the linolium. Not just the subfloor. The vinyl itself. That had to be sanded down (there were ALOT of them).

Here we had to tear out the rotted subfloor. And it came out in many, many little pieces. Many of them. And lots of nails.Once we finally got all those pieces out, we had to get every little piece of sawdust, nail, etc. out of there. That Dyson came in handy! Best vacuum I ever had, hands down.

Yay, we put a new floor in!! Nice and solid floor. We are so happy now we decided to tear out the cabinets. They weren't as well constructed as we had thought, and those around the sink were really rotten.

Last night we mudded everything. Today we painted (but I haven't taken any pictures yet). We ran out of paint. We were using what was leftover from doing the garage/now office and had enough for one coat. But decided that a second coat wouldn't hurt, so Jeff went to town to take care of that.

Tomorrow the new linolium is supposed to be installed. I'll have to move the washer and dryer out to the patio this afternoon I guess. And we hope to possibly install the upper cabinets tonight or tomorrow afternoon.

Of course, now we are getting into the busy part of the week. Shelby has a Little Dribblers basketball tourney in House, NM and has to be at the school by 6am to take the bus. Jeff will probably go with her and I'll stay here for the floor guys. Then Saturday both girls have a game in town for their city league team. Jeff has class all day. So it may be Sunday before we get to do the rest of the cabinets.

Stay tuned!!

2008-03-04T20:08:00.002-07:00

We have had a few trials in the kitchen remodel. First Jeff built a new cabinet to match the old ones where the snack bar was. Then we started stripping the upper cabinet doors. Started to stain them and they were WAY too dark (we had tried a sample size of the stain and it was NOT the same as what we put on. I was pissed). Jeff tried to sand it off, but it still showed thru a little. Tried a much lighter stain and it was the SAME color as the cabinets before!

Then the wood he had made the new cabinet out of must have been different that the original. When I stained it, it came out totally different as well. So, nothing was matching up.

Sunday, Jeff decided to hell with it: let's get new cabinets.

Yesterday, that is what we did.

Today we gutted the kitchen. Completely. Fridge is in the new office. I have NO counters, NO cabinets. Everything is in boxes. We are eating off paper plates, and I got lots of frozen stuff today that can be nuked or baked (we still have oven, but no cooktop). Shopping in the frozen aisles was a new experience for me (other than WW meals).

As we tore out the cabinets, we discovered that the floor under the sink and dishwasher was nearly completely rotted out. So we have to fix that first. New floor comes in Friday.
Oh, and we decided to bite the bullet and do granite tile counters. Not the stuff he found the other day that I didn't like. We picked one out together and ordered it. Should be in by Monday. Very affordable. We cancelled the order on the laminate, and are probably spending as much on the tile as we did on those (of course, we still have to get concrete backerboard, bottom plyboard, the thinset and grout for the tile, and wood trim). But we felt it was a good investment for the value of the place.

The cabinets are in the barn, waiting to go in. Nice oak cabinets. No, not top of the line. Probably not middle of the line. But good enough for me. They have real oak doors and faces and are raised panels. I love them. And they fit our budget. Cool.

I have pictures, but don't feel like plugging the camera in to download them yet. Don't worry, ya'll will see soon enough.

The destruction of the kitchen

2008-02-25T16:32:00.004-07:00

Now that the garage is done, the next step is the kitchen. First, a little background. When we bought this house, it was site unseen (well, at least the inside). We bought it in a foreclosure auction on the county courthouse steps nearly 6 years ago. It was two months after the sale when we were actually able to look in the house itself. Keep in mind I was also pregnant and hormonal at the time. Well, I took a look at the kitchen and about burst into tears. It was UGLY!! Still is ugly. Paneling everywhere, ugly yellow and brown countertops and floors. I'm sure back in the 60's and 70's it was state of the art. But I wanted to stay in my almost new doublewide trailer with the nice white and cheerful kitchen (and walkin closets, and huge master bath with a shower and seperate garden tub).

So, that brings us to where we are now: finally starting to remodel this house a little. We have had a bit of controversy about it. First we were going to gut the whole kitchen and start over. But new cabinets cost money, even the cheap ones. We were also going to have a contractor do it (different guy than the one that did our new doors on the garage), but after waiting a year on him, we have decided to just tackle the job ourself. We ruled out cabinets. We can strip and restain and update the hardware ourself on these. But the paneling and soffit's gotta go. We ordered new countertops at Lowe's last week. Unfortunatly, they won't be in for 8 weeks. And the floor guy comes out tomorrow to measure the floor for new linolium.

First to come down was the soffit in the kitchen

when the original owners put it up there, it was not meant to come down.

And just as I suspected, after tearing that down meant I would also be painting the ceiling. But it sure did open the place up.

North wall, Before

and after

then came the snack bar. You can see in previous photos that it wasn't the same height as the rest of the counters. Jeff is in the process of building a cabinet to go here (there wasn't one before).

Stay tuned, there will be more coming soon!

Remodeling the Garage

2008-02-18T21:58:00.006-07:00

I haven't posted in a while because we have been BUSY! Besides the girls being on 2 different basketball teams (both requiring practices and games) and them cheering (and me coaching them), and me getting the flu and laryngitis. But we have also been remodeling.

The garage was too small for any of our pickups. And when I found a rattlesnake in the garage last summer, we decided it was time to finally enclose the garage. We had a local contractor put the doors in, and we decided to do the rest ourselves. Which was an adventure. Neither of us have really done anything like this.

Of course, Jeff got to buy new tools for the job. A miter saw and a wet saw to cut tiles with. A guy always needs an excuse for more toys, right?

Before. Check out the holes in the wall on the right. The previous owner somehow managed to fit a car in here, but wrecked out the walls with her car door.

Back corner, before.

Jeff had to do some mudding work to the textured walls. For some odd reason, the previous owners had textured the walls AFTER installing the garage door. So he did some patching up.

Painting the ceiling

Drew had to help put the beadboard up. We decided that bead board would be the best way to cover up those holes from the car door. And we really liked the look of beadboard from my mom's breakfast room in her house.

Chance had to get in on the act and help a bit, too.

Putting down the tile floor. This was our first adventure into tiling. Jeff did most of the floor.

But I had to help a little bit because Jeff was so sore from doing 2/3 of it.

Then I got to do the grout.

Floor after all the grout in. The next part was harder than the actual grouting, scrubbing the excess grout off the floor. By the time I got done late Friday night, I was give out.

And here it is all done! Jeff got the baseboards down and we gave the floor one last mop.

Getting moved in. Jeff's music corner. He has a desk on the other side of this corner.

My desk.

We put the love seat out here, too.

We are very happy with the results, and now that we have done this ourselves, we are ready to tackle the next job: THE KITCHEN!!!! Stay tuned...

Branding Cattle

2008-02-04T09:52:00.000-07:00

The one drawback about closing down the old site was that all the old content (7 or 8 years of accumulated stuff) went away with it. So periodically, I'm going to put a post up that was actually a page from the other site. Just a bit of info about us (our work, projects, vacations, kids, whatever I feel like subjecting you to). There should be a record of it in the sidebar somewhere (look under vacation, or farm, or something like that. Sorta like a table of contents).

Today, we are branding cattle (well, no. Not TODAY. That's just what I'm going to show you today).

This here is what we heat the branding irons in. It's connected to a propane bottle (not in the picture). Branding is an important part of ranching. It identifies your cattle from someone else's, for one. Say a fence is down (or some idiot guy doesn't fix his fences and his cows are ALWAYS getting out and breaking into OUR pastures and mingling with OUR cows). You gotta have someway to tell them apart. You also must have cows branded in order to sell them, at least in New Mexico you do. You also can't sell cows that have a fresh brand. They must be 2-3 weeks old or so (the scab from the brand will have peeled off). This also deters rustlers from stealing cattle. Because they don't want to have to feed them and house them for 3 weeks waiting for that brand to peel off.

There are a couple of different ways to brand cattle. There is the old fashioned way (which is more work, but I think more fun). Everyone gets up at 4am. And when I say everyone, I mean your neighbors, uncles, cousins and other folks get up at 4am, saddle and load their horses in trailers, then drive them out to your place. By 5am they arrive with the horses, go way out into the pastures, find all the cattle, and herd them up to a big pen or two (usually they try to seperate the calves from the mamas). Then a one or two guys will remain on their horses and ROPE a calf, drag it away from the other cows. A couple of strong cowboys will then catch the roped calf, throw him to the ground, and the calf is swarmed by a bunch of people, each with a different job. One is castrating, one branding, one dehorning, one vaccinating, one ear tagging (varies from ranch to ranch). The next week we go help the neighbor out with his cattle. But anymore, everyone around here does it another way.

This is a branding chute. And we don't even use the horses anymore. Our cows are "trained" so that when they hear the feed truck, the come a'runnin'!! Gotta be the feed truck. You can go out there in a regular pickup and they won't even look at you. But the FEED truck (in our case, a 1986 F-250), they KNOW that sound!! We can also use a 4-wheeler to find any that wandered off (but that doesn't happen with our cows. They want that FEED!).

We also have a pretty big setup of pens by the house. A few big ones, some smaller ones, gates, chutes, runs. We can put them all in one big pen, then seperate them out (calves from mamas). All the calves are then in one pen with a narrow run that they line up single file.

Here is Jeff's dad, Don. That stick in his hand is a cattle prod. It gives the cows a little shock to get them moving thru the run and into the chute. Sometimes they get a little stubborn (think they know what's coming?)

Here is a good view of the chute. As soon as the cows head gets thru a hole in the front, we trap him/her in there and squeeze the chute shut. The cow can't go forward or backward, or lie down or anything. You can fit a pretty good sized cow in this chute. For really small calves, we have a smaller chute. It's down a different run. On this day, we didn't have any small ones.

The bars will fold down two at a time for easy access to whatever part of the body you apply your brand to. Brands are registered with the state, so you have to do it the same each time.

There is also a part near the bottom that folds down for easy access to a bull calf's "manly" areas. Because he won't be a bull no more. Nope, time for him to become a steer. We used to just use a pocket knife and cut them off. Some people save them (the testicles), take them home and fry 'em up. AKA Rocky Mountain Oysters. And to tell you the truth, I think they are pretty tasty. But, the Essary family doesn't do that. Now we use a bander. There are different kinds of banders. Some are nothing more than a small, really thick rubber band that's put around the base of them. We have a SmartBander, which is a little different than that. It's not supposed to be as traumatic on the calf and something to do with hormones. In a week or two, they just fall off.

And while the calf is in the chute, we can do other things, like dehorn, vaccinate, ear tag, put some wormer on them. We do not use horomones, though.

Oh, great. I'm caught. Hey, wait a sec! What are you doing with that hot thing!!??

OUCH!!!!

Actually, it only hurts for a second (well, I'm assuming. They don't seem to be bothered by it once you done. Having never been branded myself, I guess I really can't speak for them). This is our brand.

Then they are all turned back out to their mamas, and it's like nothing ever happend. We have such a small operation (50 head), we can easily do all our calves in a day with just two people. But sometimes it's fun to invite some friends over anyway to help. Drink some beer, tell some dirty jokes, do a little work. And be rest assured that the wife has some big meal cooked up at the house. Like a big BBQ briscut, some mashed taters or tater salad, buns, broccoli casserole, and homemade ice cream to go with some peach cobbler. Except that this wife likes to be down where the action is and doesn't quite go that far. But Jeff's mother does! The past few years with little kids underfoot I've been at the house more, but soon, they will be old enough to be down there and not be in the way.

Here's some pictures of our cows I took the other day while we were driving around the ranch.

Ha! I'm a horse. You aren't going to get near ME with those hot things!!! (actually, many ranches do brand their horses. We just choose not to)

Sand and Wind

2008-01-28T12:03:00.000-07:00

It's a blowin' and a goin' out there today. Current weather shows the wind is sustained at only 38MPH, but gusting to 51MPH. It's so bad, I'm not going to go outside to fetch the camera out of my truck so I can take pictures of it to share you. BUT, don't worry, I won't leave you emptyhanded. How about some pictures of past wind storms.

Here is one from 2001. Back at the trailer house. Yup, that wind sure is blowin' out there.

Same day, different view. This one is the back yard. We didn't even live around any fields, this is just dirt off someone's pasture.

Now, you can't tell the wind is really blowing much in this one, but believe me, it was. November 2005. When the air force burned 3/4 of my ranch and almost my house. I was 11 days post-partum and was just me, Chance, and brand new Drew. Jeff had called me from town (he was hauling hay) and said he saw some smoke, wanted to know how close to us it was. I loaded the boys up in the truck to check it out, and it was about 6 or 7 miles away, shouldn't come anywhere near us. Well, the wind shifted and it came right for us! 30 minutes after I took this shot, we were evacuated in a cloud of smoke. Was a scary day for us all, the fire burned thru the cemetery, and came right to the back door of the school (which had been evacuated and the kids hauled to a church in town).

As a result of the fire above, there was no vegetation to hold the ground down. It was a dry, windy winter. Here's a sand dune after some of that wind. In some spots, the sand covered up part of the 5 strand barb wire fence, up to the 3 wire in places. Cows were just walking over it. The fence had to be torn down, the sand scraped away with a blade, and fence rebuilt. Seven miles of it.