The pumpkins!

Here are the pumpkins we created Sunday after our great day on Saturday picking them out. The kids each picked out what they wanted them to look like. Well, truth be told Sage wanted a Turkey on hers. She is just like her dad, wants everything elaborate! Silly girl, she settled for this one. Hers is on the left. The one on the right is Steele's.

Here is my proud boy with his pumpkin. Is that the funniest smile?!
Rascal!

Jeremy carved my pumpkin for me. I just can't sit still for that. I was busy cleaning up the mess behind the kids and washing their hands before they painted the living room with pumpkin guts. I told Jeremy to do whatever he wanted with it and he knows how much I like July 4th and red white and blue so he put a flag on it. Cute huh?!

Know where your meat is coming from!!!

For some reason for me to feel productive I have to have 48 irons in the fire. Well, I don't think having the irons in the fire makes me feel productive...........okay well maybe making the 48 irons into something makes me feel productive.

The last couple of days my mind has been flying. I have changed Sage's homeschool program and now she has enrichment classes one day per week. I am searching, checking into a preschool for Steele just to give him an outlet. Jeremy is back to work riding outside horses. I feel like life is rolling again. Somewhat. A couple of weeks ago a friend butchered a steer that he had bought from us and we sold the meat for so much per pound on the hoof. We managed to get lucky and try some of the ground beef. I really wanted to taste home raised beef as opposed to grocery store beef. I figured if the ground beef was good then the rest had to be good. And let me tell you, my little ranch raised daughter falls to the floor at the sight of me cooking ground beef from the store and refuses to eat it. So I beg her to try the home raised meat, promising her it is going to be different. I am here to say the little rug rat ate every bit and wanted more. We had just made it into patties and used very little garlic salt to season it so that we could get the full effect of it. I am not ever going to buy that dye injected, hormone, bateria laden crap from the store AGAIN!!! I am checking into freezers to use here on the ranch since we are off the grid and must produce our own power. I have found some but will keep searching since our new business venture will require something as well as our own use. The new business venture you ask?! This little taste test of mine has got my mind reeling. Why on earth would we even be putting something into our bodies that we don't know where it has come from and what was put on/into it? I have done some research on this handy internet and found that other people are doing similar things. If all goes to plan we intend to start selling shares in our steers for others to enjoy range ran grass fed beef. I have not worked out all the particulars yet and am still doing some searching for information but it would be cut, packaged and most likely frozen already. I am so excited at the prospect of our family even having fresh beef I can't sleep. Well and the other million ideas floating in my head.............

Later this week we are heading to Tehachapi to pick apples and pumpkins for making cakes and pies! Next year I am going to have a heck of a garden and I will be canning it this time next year! I think I may even look into a milk cow. We already have chickens.

I want to know where my food is coming from!!!

Picking out our pumpkins!!!

On Saturday Grandpa wanted to go to the pumpkin patch and get the kids their pumpkins. He looks forward to this stuff all week and so had I. I just love Fall. It was a perfectly beautiful day. The Tapias had the place decorated so cute. The kids had so much fun.

And then it was time for Steele's first "real" haircut. This is before and the after picture was so blurry cause he loved it so much he wouldn't hold still............I just love that handsome little rascal!

I had one request, I wanted a family picture at the pumpkin patch. And I got it!

Doesn't it seem like when you really want something it just doesn't work out? Just as we were heading out to pay for our pumpkins I scream "Wait!!! I need a picture of us!!!" We ran over and sat under this tree, the kids held their pumpkins and there it was. My beautiful picture!

I love it, we had a wonderful day.

Oops.....It's an Alamar Knot

It is not the best picture but it is there. The Alamar Knot. It graces all corners of the ranch. Anywhere he can justify one you will find it.
Kind of like the corn he grew all over the place just cause he could.
There is no reasonable explaination other than that.
Oh and just in case your wondering our good friend Freddy made that sign for Jeremy for his birthday quite a few years ago.
In case you can't read spanish it says
"Corrals over the rainbow"

Working on the tack room

This is the tack room that is across the creek by the arena. Do you notice anything that repeats itself in this picture?

Okay, fine I will tell ya. You have to look real close but my husband like to tie knots. I am not kidding, if there is baling twine, a wad of horsehair, leather strips, anything he can tie he will make some sort of something out of it. I think it is called the fiador knot he puts them on everything, I will check with him when he comes in but right now he is too busy putting a new roof on this tack room that he through up last year. You see we had a special visitor last year about this time (we are missing you Martin!) and he really wanted his gear to have a place to be properly hung up. See we don't like to rush into things around here and usually there is some sort of deadline that makes us complete (or sort of) projects.

There was a big sale at Harbor Freight in town last weekend and my dad must kinda likes Jeremy or something because he found a solar panel kit in the sale flyer and wanted to get it for him so he could put lights out on his arena. Would have been handy last Spring when we were branding some cattle into the pitch dark hours when I distinctly remember having to play ground crew in my nice jeans, of which I usually only have one pair at a time. Oops, that kinda resembles whining doesn't it? Ah well anyhow, the solar panels must be mounted on a high spot and this roof has been elected. First he must reinforce it and repair it and all that good jazz.


The kids headed out to the creek to collect rocks for their rock store that will be located on the tack room porch much to Jeremy's delight........
Steele got tired trying to carry a bucket full of rocks (insert snickering from Momma here!) and decided to sit down in his bucket. Priss just loves the kids and takes any chance to maul him.

See that hill in the background. This morning that is where a lone coyote stood casing the joint. Jeremy and Steele were in town picking up a few things while Sage and I were here. I went out to see what the dogs were barking at and there he was. Jesse, our one eyed dog is the only one smart enough to do anything about it while the other idiots just stood around barking. I yelled at him a few times but you must realize the house is pretty far across the creek from here and he kinda just gave me the finger and kept looking for something to eat. So I decided I had better do something about it. The only gun that was here that I am comfortable with was Jeremy's .45 so I come running in the house to grab it, meanwhile Sage is watching Swan Lake, she barely looks up to see I am leaving the house with a gun to say "what are you doing Mom?" I head out to the driveway and fire a shot into the hillside just to scare him off. He was way too far to shoot with that gun and besides I just can't do it unless I actually caught him doing something. I comfort all the sissy dogs that are now cowering on the porch under chairs and come back in the house to put the gun away and take notice that Sage hasn't even taken her eyes off of her movie. I guess it is just another day around the ranch to her!

My junior stud muffin

I haven't had the time or the desire to write many stories here lately and I always have so many good ones............well, it's not that I don't want to. I just want to be able to write it in all it's glory and I haven't had the time. So I have some time this morning to tell you a pretty funny one.

Steele has been Jeremy's mini me lately. Hanging out with him all the time. If he leaves the house Steele is runnning circles looking for his clothes so he can go on whatever adventure they might have. Living on this ranch is one big adventure in itself, something always is bound to happen. Just the other day Jeremy and Paul saw a bear! Anyway, back to my story. Jeremy never goes anywhere without a knife. Which can be very inconvienent when you have to take him to the emergency room...........Jeremy and Steele were at the hardware store together a couple weeks back and found a little leatherman and of course Steele just had to have it. Jeremy checked it out and the knife was really hard to open but the other tools were pretty easy to get out. He could easily get the screw driver open and the scissors, the file ect. The kid is obsessed with knives and flashlights, seriously he has like 30 flashlights of all different varieties thanks to Granpa fueling his obsession. Another story for another time.

Well, we had been in town running errands and the kids were getting restless so we went to Burger King since they had a play area. Those are the best!!! Jeremy and I can actually speak two words to one another without getting interupted, usually............

So there I was looking through the phone book for a number of a preschool I want to look into for Steele when I get a wake up reminder that we have ranch kids and then there are city kids..............there had been a couple other kids playing in there. A couple girls, you know he likes the girls. So they were all playing real nice. I heard Steele say he was Buzz Lightyear and then another kid said "no! I am" Sweet Sage solved that problem by relating it to the second Toy Story when there actually was two Buzz Lightyears. A couple minutes later a little girl is screaming "he has a knife!!!" I didn't think too much of it when all of a sudden it strikes me...........I say to Jeremy "does Steele have his knife?!"

He doesn't even answer me he just jumps up and runs over to where Steele is coming out of the slide. I try to act like nothing is happening and continue to read my phonebook. The kids mother is freaking out saying "I can't believe anyone would let their kid have a knife!"

Well, Jeremy was able to slip it out of his pocket without them seeing cause God knows they might have the sheriff there. I am positive Steele was just showing her cause he thought it was cool and he wanted to show off to her. He had no idea what a big bad world this is and how they have to teach kids in school to FREAK the hell out if someone has a weapon. To him it is a tool not a weapon..........When Jeremy came back over to sit down I waited til the mom and daughter had left (you know they did!) to ask him if he did have his knife, sure enough. All Jeremy said was "damn city kids".

It really sucks when you realize what a screwed up world it is anymore that kids feel like they have to be on guard all the time. I can totally see where the little girl was coming from. Not everybody lives like we do. At the same time it was pretty funny.

The wild horses

This is our little band of wild horses. They came from the herd over in Oak Creek. Apparently they didn't like it over there anymore so they moved. They thankfully are still on private property so no one can mess with them. They just happy as clams there.