The Rural Life Suits Us

When Jay and I met, I swore I would never live east of I-25.  I was a mountain girl, pure and simple.  I had to have my mountains, period.

But then we moved out east.  Not far, only about 19 miles from my home town and I immediately fell in love.  I still must have my mountains, but now I live just far enough away that I get to see them.  My drive in to work every day has the best view ever and we're not so far away that I can't get a "fix" whenever I want.

I also get to pretend to be a farmer on occasion, which I love.  A friend of ours has a "small farm" that we get to house-sit when her family is out of town. 

The barn kitties are always fun to watch.

So when that same friend asked if I wanted to come help out on branding day, I jumped at the opportunity.  Last year, my job was to "back pour" the meds - literally taking the medication and pouring it along the backs of the animals.

This year, my job included holding the calves' legs with a rope while they got banded.  A few of the little boys took offense, but they all got through it just fine.

I also got to do the vaccinating this year.  My medical students would cringe to see me shooting the animals.  Human medicine is, in some ways, very different from vet medicine.  No swabbing the area with alcohol and waiting for it to dry, no changing of needles between shots (which means lots of re-capping), no choosing just the right spot.  Nope, it's more, knock the shit (literally) off the skin, jab, inject, re-cap and move on to the next animal. 

Shooting the calves is much, much easier than shooting the cows.  Believe it or not, the bulls were perfect gentlemen while they got taken care of.  The cows, not so much.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to stay long enough to complete the job, because Jay and I had to go pick up some hay.  There were just a handful of cows left to do when I handed off my job, so I didn't feel as guilty as I would have if I had bailed earlier.

I found a screaming deal on hay ($3/bale), but we had to pick the hay up out of the field.  Jay and I called in our substantial families and met them at the field. 

In order to have all available adult hands loading, I threw Deejo's son, The Boy, in Jay's truck to drive while we loaded.  Poor kid.  He had never driven before and was a bit wary.  He's fifteen-ish and should be getting his learner's permit anyway.  He got a quick lesson on which was the gas and brake and how to steer.  I must have been feeling particularly confident in this never-driven-before kid's ability, because I didn't think twice about making T (Junior's son) and Asset (Nebalee's daughter) ride in the cab with him.  Easier to corral all of the kids in one place than try to keep track of them.

With two trucks/crews running, only took us about 25 minutes to load 120 bales.  Not bad - I thought we'd be out there much longer.

Maybe my favorite picture of the day: Asset, T, and The Boy.

In no time, we were headed back to L.E.'s to unload.  We don't have much storage space, so fifty bales were put up inside the pen and the rest were stacked outside.  I just stepped aside and stayed out of the way while everyone else stacked the hay - too many people in one place makes for quick, but crowded, work.

It feels good to have most of the hay laid in for the year.  We've got another fifty bales that we'll pick up next week, and I'll probably buy another fifty in September just to make sure we'll make it until first cut next year.  It hurts the pocketbook right now, but we'll definitely appreciate not having to put out money every month for hay.  My hope is that we won't lose too much to mold, like Mom did last year.  We stacked and tarped with an eye toward air circulation.  If moisture gets into the stack, there should be enough circulation for it to dry out.

Yesterday was busy and physically demanding, but I loved every minute of it.  We have the best family, who were willing to give up a couple of hours in the middle of the day on a Saturday to work in heat and humidity.  It was truly "Just Another Perfect Day".

Someone Pinch Me

Holy cow, the last week has been ... odd.

But in a totally good way.

I went back to work on Monday and was told by the big boss that once I got settled in he needed to talk to me.  Now, we've had some "re-arranging" of the campus, so I was a bit worried.  He laughed and told me it wasn't a bad thing.  And it wasn't.  It wasn't excellent, like a promotion or a big fat raise, but it wasn't bad.

We're finally going to be able to start being in charge of our own advertising, instead of being told how to do it, and my boss wanted me to do a videotaped interview about our upcoming Family 9Health Fair.  I was up for it.  And then he told me it would be the next day.  Wow.  That was fast.  Good thing I'm passionate about the 9HealthFair.  On Tuesday, I met the interviewer and the camera man and we pulled off the interview in one take.  We had five minutes allotted for time and our one-take interview was 5:02.  'Bout as good as you can get.

The next day (Wednesday), I got a Facebook message from someone I'd met at a blogger roundtable, asking if I would be interested in doing a presentation on guns at the upcoming Great Outdoors Show.  No brainer.  Of course I was interested.  I contacted her and we set up a time for me to do a radio interview on Thursday to run on Friday.

The interview was fun and was conducted by a D.J. who is also a shooter, which put me at ease right away.  I think we spent more time talking "off the record" than we did on.  I also found out today that I'll be taking the stage on Saturday right before RJ and Jay Paul from The Swamp People.  How crazy is that?

I'll have a ton of people in the audience for my talk, but I know they'll be saving their seats for RJ and Jay Paul.  It's all good, though, because they're gonna have to hear what I have to say about shooting.  So it's really a win-win for me.

On top of it all, I got a phone call from Estes' Other Mother and the mares are already at CSU.  The baby horse planting will happen tomorrow.

And ON TOP OF THAT, I'm still working on my book and hope to have it out by the middle of August.  Whew. 

AAAAANNNNNDDDDDD...my non-Parrothead husband bought me tickets to go see Jimmy Buffett in October.  I can't tell you how much that means to me.  It's a hell of a culture shock for a non-Parrothead to attend a Buffett concert.

When did I step into the Twilight Zone?

It's a Good Damn Day

Even though I'm currently sitting at work.

So far...

• My press credentials from NSSF came (OMG, I'm a real, honest-to-god media professional *squee*) for SHOT Show in January.
• My first shipment of Thrive foods came.  I'm a lot in love with Thrive.  I've been wanting to order since July, but finally had a couple of bucks that I felt I could part with and placed a small order.
• It's almost sixty degrees outside.
• I'm going to the range with Tara!
• Duck Dynasty and Nashville are on tonight.

Yep, it's a Good Damn Day.

Today

Today, I was a busy girl.

I played with this...

Went around the block with Asset...

Went out on the mountain with Bill...

And since I missed Boot Camp yesterday, Nebalee drew me the circuit so I could do it when I went to the gym tonight...

Bill took one look at her beautiful stick figures and said this...

All in all, a pretty darn good day :)

Just another perfect day(te)

The Denver Zoo welcomed quadruplet tiger cubs earlier this year and released them from the nursery on August 31.  As soon as RCC saw that he decided we needed to go see the babies at the zoo.  We made a date to go.

I got off of work early Thursday evening (meaning I'd only worked 9.5 hours) and we decided to go out to dinner and then a movie at the three dollar theater (boy do we know how to live large!).  Lucky me, our date started a whole twelve hours early.

I cancelled my standing shooting date with Tara for Friday and off we went to the zoo to see the babies.  We were pretty much lazy bums and didn't get to the zoo until early afternoon where we got a pleasant surprise - because the zoo had a fundraiser that evening and would be closing early, we got in for half price!

We saw Lions....

...and tigers...

...and bears...

...and the cutest darn ocelots on the planet...

...and the coolest upside-down reflection ever...

...and then we went back and saw more tigers...

I could have stood and watched those cubs all day.  Only six weeks old and already larger than some dogs.  Finally, being jostled by all the little kids who wanted to see the babies got old and we decided to continue our date at Casa Bonita.

Now before y'all get excited about us going to some romantic place, go check out the link for Casa Bonita. 

It's okay, I'll wait.

You get the gist?  It's as romantic as you can make it with all the kids running around (blessedly few since we were there so early), but it is perhaps the most fun restaurant anyone can go to and is a Denver landmark (even though it's technically in Lakewood).

Of course, our date wouldn't have been complete without a cheesy picture at the fountain in front of Casa Bonita.

Just for you South Park fans, here's a little video of Casa Bonita for you (no, it's not us in the video).



What do you think HCRers - should we build a trip to Casa Bonita into our schedule?

Is This Not The Sweetest Thing Ever?

So far this Labor Day weekend has been pretty darn good.  Went shooting with Tara, took Monster up to the Lodge to work this weekend and got to shoot in a Defensive Pistol competition this morning.  I'd say this weekend has been fabulous!

Monster is my problem child; he's not always easy to get along with and has a huge chip on his shoulder.  He's my skater boy, attitude and all, has been in and out of trouble and chooses to live with his father's mother-in-law.  No matter what, he's my baby and I love him (even when there are times I'd like to kill him myself).

Then there are things like this:

...and this...

...and especially this...



...that make my heart so happy.

Estes has claimed Monster as her boy.  Monster can do no wrong as far as Estes is concerned - whatever he asks, she does.  When we arrived at the Lodge Friday night and walked over to tell the horses hi, her head popped up, ears forward and she made eye contact with Monster and nickered.  My horse barely nickers at me, but she was just beside herself to see Monster.  I ceased to exist Friday night.

In fact, watching the two of them, I felt the bond that they have and offered to let Monster ride her.  So here's the thing - Monster doesn't ride.  He's not much of a horse guy.  But he's definitely an Estes guy.

None of the other kids have ridden Estes - they've not been interested.  Monster, though, couldn't wait to get up on her...

Yup, that's my Monster up on my horse.  I had to borrow Bill's horse Ranger to go out.

Really, there are good days. 

And there are really good days.

And then there are perfect days.

Love you Monster and Estes - thanks for taking care of each other.