What's Going On and SweatPink 1MillionMinutes Challenge

Hey Everyone!

Thanks for stopping by my blog, as always!

Over the next few weeks I'm going to be really, really busy, so I may not be posting much. We'll see.

Alfalfa and Yellow Sweet Clover, blooming right now in our ditch.
I always love the colors and the smell--so sweet and lovely!

There's not a ton going on around here, anyway. Some of my long-time readers may have noticed I haven't been writing much about the farm lately. That's because I'm not sure what to say. We have hardly had any rain in calendar year 2015. Less than two inches total since January 1, and less than 1 inch during the growing season.  Our crops and pastures are drying up and it's not pretty. Finding anywhere with decent hay to cut is a struggle. We're already moving our cows around to different pastures to try to keep good grass in front of them, but the time is likely to come very soon when we'll have to be a little creative.

It's hard to write about the dry situation here. I keep writing a sentence, then deleting it because I think it somehow may come off as snarky or sarcastic and I don't in any way want anyone to think I'm making light of a poopy situation. It just kinda stinks.

So, this summer you may see more non-farming posts on my blog and more posts related to fitness and recreation. Which leads me into the next topic of this post...

I signed up (for FREE!) to take part in the FitApproach 1MillionMinutes fitness challenge! They are going for one million minutes of activity total, logged by all the people who are registered with their site. I think it's pretty cool. All I have do to is go to their website and log how many minutes of exercise I do each day.

I don't have to do one million minutes myself, but I did set a goal for myself of 2000 minutes. The challenge runs from June 21 to August 21. I have no idea if 2000 minutes is reasonable, unattainable, or too easy, it just seemed like a goal. I thought if I did 30 minutes of activity each day, that would be about 1800 minutes, and then just rounded up to 2000. Everything I log goes toward the overall challenge goal of one million minutes, from users all around the world. Plus, I think they're doing giveaways and contests for people who are signed, so maybe I'll get some cool freebies. :)

The first contest they are running is to complete the Mad Lib below, so I'm doing that in this post! I'll be using my blog and Instagram throughout the 1MillionMinutes challenge to share my progress. 

I am so excited to join #1MillionMinutes with #sweatpink! This summer my goal is to do _2000_ (number) minutes of running, walking, and yoga (mostly) (activity), while wearing my favorite _hot pink__ (color) _Oiselle Distance Shorts (noun).

I predict that we’ll _annihilate_ (Verb) the goal of #1MillionMinutes – we’ll actually hit _1,500,000_ (number) of minutes this summer! I predict that _running_ (activity) will be the top-logged movement.

I’ll get extra minutes in by _mountain biking_ (verb) to Lost River Ranch (place)!

My favorite way to get extra minutes in is by doing online workouts (verb) with FitSugar! (person). My dog Harvey_(person) is my BEST activity partner because he/she is so hyper and always ready to run! (adjective). Our favorite way to relax post-workout is to lay out in front of the fan.

I tag Christy ,  ( people) to help us reach #1MillionMInutes… or more!

Just Ugly.

I had just settled down to my computer to catch up on some mindless internet surfing when the phone rang. Chances are I was on the Oiselle website, reading their blog or picking out what my next purchase would be (if I had unlimited budget.) I looked at my caller ID and saw that it was Jeff. He'd been gone on a run with Harvey for only about five minutes but here he was calling me? 

"Hey. What's up? Everything Ok?" I answered the phone on the second ring.

"No. I need you to come get me." He sounded fairly calm but something must have been up or he wouldn't have called.  

"Ok. Do you need me to bring anything?" I asked, already wondering in my mind if I should try to round up the shotgun...

"No, just hurry up." He hung up. I had a suspicious feeling I knew why he had called. If it had simply been that his run had started off poorly, he wouldn't have asked me to bail him out. He would have either turned around on his own, or plowed on through. No, it must have been Harvey. And it was snake season...

I pulled up in the pickup. Jeff was only a short distance north of the yard and scanned for the dog. I saw him soon enough and he appeared to be trotting along just fine. I gave Jeff a questioning look and he said, "It's Harvey. He found a rattlesnake." 

Sure enough, there were the two telltale puncture marks on the left side of his face. From fangs. 

We hurried back to the yard and ran inside. Jeff called the vet and said we'd be on our way. We gathered up a few things, loaded up the dog, who by now was starting to walk a bit more unsteadily, and headed for Havre. It was an hour's drive to the vet clinic from our house. 

Harvey, soon after being bit. You can see one of the punctures and the swelling around it.

As we drove, I recalled the first and only other time Harvey had been bit. He was not quite one year old at that point. Jeff and I had been inside preparing dinner and Harvey was outside in the yard. After a while, we went out to get him and bring him in. Typically, when we open the door and call his name, he comes trotting on up to the house with bright eyes and tail wagging. That night, he was laying down in the grass. He looked at Jeff, tried to get up and walk toward him, and then swayed back to the ground. He had long strings of saliva hanging from his jowls.

Jeff and I together picked him up and brought him inside. As we carried him, we noticed a few places where he had vomited. I was pretty scared we were going to lose our puppy. We called the vet and explained the situation. No, we hadn't seen the snake, but Harvey did have a puncture on his snout, and after describing his symptoms, the vet confirmed that it had been a snake bite and to bring Harvey in as quickly as we could. Harvey was really out of it that first time. He could hardly walk and was sort of drifting in and out of what I told myself was sleep. His face had swollen up significantly by the time we reached the vet office and he seemed pretty dazed. I was terrified.

Harvey's face beginning to swell, en route to the vet this past Saturday night.
You can see both punctures from the fangs in this photo.

With that first bite, Harvey's symptoms were severe enough that the vet suggested he stay overnight in their hospital. She said she thought he would be fine, but maybe it would be best if he stayed over. She had administered a powerful steroid shot to help with pain and inflammation and also began an antibiotic regimen. We left feeling reassured but still sad and worried. We had Harvey vaccinated for rattlesnake venom just a few months prior and I remember thinking, what if he hadn't had that vaccine? The conversation with the vet may have gone differently. When I went back to get him the next morning, he was still very swollen in his face, but his eyes were brighter and he was happy to see me. I knew at that point that he'd be OK.

Since then, we've had Harvey vaccinated each spring. It always seems like an insignificant price to pay for the greatly increased likelihood of keeping our best friend around longer if he gets bit. We've encountered snakes every year that I've lived here, but he hadn't been bit again. Until now.

Harvey at the vet, this time around. The swelling in his face had increased at this point and even started travelling down into his chest a bit.

Harvey had been bit on the snout, again. Our neighbor had told us that he'd seen some snakes out and to be careful, but we hadn't seen any yet. Typically, if we have a chance to find a dead snake or kill one, we'll use the dead one to train Harvey to stay away from that smell. This year, we hadn't had a chance to brush up on his training yet, like we normally do. This year, the first one he found nailed him.

But I wasn't nearly as afraid this time as last time. I felt like if he could survive that first bite when he was still so young, not quite fully grown, he should be OK this time. Plus, his initial reactions were so much less severe-- he could still walk mostly OK and he hadn't vomited. His eyes never got dull like they had that first time. He was sleepy and sore, definitely, but he still stayed sharp throughout. The vet again administered a steroid injection, but this time sent Harvey home with us, along with some antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory pill. He could stay the night at home, at our house. Another good sign.

With Harvey and his meds happily secured back in the vehicle, it was now about 8:00 on Saturday night and we realized we hadn't eaten anything yet. After tossing back and forth a few options for a quick dinner in Havre, we settled on Rod's Drive In.  I'd lived here four years and still hadn't had one of their famed "Ugly Burgers." Our ourder was simple: two Ugly Burgers and two fries. It seemed like a fitting end to an ugly kind of evening.

Messy, greasy, and, well, ugly, but delicious!

We all went straight to bed when we got home. Harvey was struggling a bit to find a way to lie down that was comfortable to him- his swelling had gone into his chest and forearm by now and he was acting like it was quite painful. I had to laugh at him though, even in his pitiful state, because he looked inflated like a cartoon and was obviously very sleepy, but he couldn't figure out how to lay down in a comfortable way. He actually kept falling asleep while sitting and standing up! I've never seen a dog nod off like that before.

The next morning, Harvey's swelling had already gone down some. I was amazed at how much better he seemed already, especially since the last time it took him almost two weeks to cycle through all the inflammation. He clearly felt quite a bit better, too. As I was sitting at the table with my morning coffee, Harvey and I heard the unmistakable whistle of a gopher through the screen door and he was off like a shot! He just HAD to get outside and get that thing!

As soon as I began to unlatch the door, he bolted through it and scurried right to the lilac bush. Then, he pounced right into the middle of it! I heard a scuffle and some frantic gopher whistling and within seconds Harvey had emerged from the bush with a newly-dead gopher hanging out of his mouth! He made one big circle around the yard, with his trophy hanging out of his mouth, showing off his prize. Rattlesnake bite or not, nothing's keeping this guy down for long!

Thankful Thursday ~ School's Out For The Summer!

School's out for the summer! Our last day of school was actually a few weeks ago, on May 21. I spent that first weekend at State Track and in Bozeman and then all of last week was spent catching up on housework and me-time. Yes, I'm posting my Thankful Thursday post on Friday (sometimes that happens. I don't have all my shit together all the time, but who does? That's why you like this blog, right? Because I'm real? I'll tell myself that anyway... ;) ) and today I'm thankful that school's out for the summer! 

So what does school being out mean for me? In actuality, I still have to work over the summer. I'm not a teacher and I'm not employed by the school, I just work in the school environment most of the time. My co-worker and I are actually running a summer program for the kids in our program. So, we meet with them two days a week and continue therapeutic services, interventions, and a whole lot of positive skill-building throughout the summer. It's a little like summer camp or day camp for the kids. We do crafts, activities, and have deep and meaningful discussions and sharing circles. It's pretty fun, actually. Even though we're the ones as adults who are supposed to be serving them, and we are, often times it's the kids who teach me something. I get just as much "therapy" from them as I hope they get from me. That's definitely something to be thankful for.

In our first week of summer program, the kids painted flower pots in "a way that represents their personality," then they got to plant flowers in their pots and we had a discussion about what it means to take care of something, and empathy.
This is my flower pot, which I painted to match my patio furniture. :)

I'm also spending a lot more time with Jeff, which is awesome. Last week I helped him with several cow chores, including feeding range cake, some fencing, and setting up back-rubbers out in the pasture. I've also helped him with some farm and crop-specific stuff, too. It feels great to be involved and know that I'm helping out with our operation in a tangible way.

Cows eating cake. Love these ladies! 

Here's my arm, holding some barbed wire as we stretch it across the creek. I'm a RancHER. :)

Scouting out the pea crop. What do you think, Harvey? 

I'm thankful for more time during the summer for outdoor recreation and fitness pursuits! And again, thankful to be able to do more of that with Jeff, and Harvey of course, too. Last Sunday we went for another pasture bike ride. We think we covered between 8 and 9 miles. Photos from our previous pasture ride can be found HERE. The weather was warmer this time, so we made sure to find plenty of water stops for the dogs...

Harvey and Abby are enjoying some wading and a drink in the creek that runs through the pasture.
Jeff and I opted to remain on the bridge.

Of course, I'm getting in more running than I did during the end of the school year. I'm thankful that I have a little more flexibility to fit in some runs, and more time to fit in longer runs. Governor's Cup is just over a week away!

Here, Iggy is accompanying me. We officially adopted Iggy earlier this summer.
He's old, but he still likes to go for runs at his own pace.

And I've also been helping Carol, Tom, and Jeff with finishing up with planting our garden. We've got our raised beds full and the seeds are sprouting and yesterday we transplanted our tomatoes and peppers. We're all set, just need to keep up with watering and weeding and we'll be enjoying bountiful harvests, soon! We have already been eating the spinach from the garden and I think there are radish sprouts ready, too. I'm thankful in advance for the yummy veggies we'll have all summer long! Can't wait! 

Also, thankful for honeybee pollinators! Look at the size of those bumbles! 

Big bumblebees on chive blossoms! Seriously. We did NOT have bumblebees this large in Iowa! 

So many things to be excited about and thankful for when it comes to summer time! What are some of your favorite summer activities? What are you thankful for this week?

Harvey is thankful for pickup rides. I'm always thankful for Harvey!

The Vastness of the Sky and Land

I recently finished a book titled Breakfast With Buddha, by Roland Merullo, which is complicated to describe but is about a man who takes a road trip from NYC to North Dakota with a spiritual guru, by accident. It was a great read and I would recommend it.

When it got to the part of the journey where the protagonist and his Holy Man pal arrived in North Dakota at the man's family farm, I appreciated the description of the land and place, as it reminded me of Montana, and very much of where I live now. Everything that is described in this citation could and has happened on our farm. Here's the excerpt:

"In order to appreciate the place, you have to get out of your car and walk the fields-- say, just after the wheat has been harvested and the hay rolled into bales as tall as a man. You might come upon a prairie rattlesnake under one of those bales, and you might see a scampering cottontail or two, and you'll likely startle a covey of pheasant, partridge, or ruffled grouse in the sagebrush and wild prairie rose near the river. But mostly, if you stand quietly for a time, you'll get a sense of the vastness of the sky and of the land beneath it, a great, rich, untroubled emptiness that feeds a good percentage of the world."

We have been able to drive through a good portion of Montana and North Dakota on our way to Wisconsin for another FUE get-together, this time in Bayfield, WI, home of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. I'll post more about the conference after we get back, but it's always good to get together with our Farmers Union family. :)

At the farm right now, we left behind fields of ripening wheat and barley and hay in bales waiting to be picked up and brought to the yard. When we get back, we'll be readying the combine and the yard for harvest, but it's nice to have this time away right now, before things get crazy at home.

If you're looking for a good book, check out Breakfast With Buddha. You'll find some excellent imagery and descriptions of locales all across the US, some delightful characters and comedic moments, and you might gain deeper insight into your soul's contentment, too. Here in north-central Montana, we'll just keep on considering the vastness of sky and land and revel in our own understanding that there's more here than emptiness. This land feeds the world but also feeds the soul.

Photo by my mom, Penny Adam. 

Plows, Cows, and Snake #2

Lately, Jeff and I have been feeling a little bit like we've been running in every direction. It seems like everything has been happening, or needs to be happening at the same time. I decided the best way to organize things into a blog post would be to just put up a bunch of photos and then try to narrate in between.

OK.

Go.

Photo #1: Fix the Plow

 We have a piece of ground that came out of CRP last year, so we seeded it to winter wheat last fall. And... it didn't come up. We got it 100% adjusted out, which meant that we have had to control weeds in it all summer and get it ready to try and plant again. We have used a combination of methods to do this. First, we sprayed it out. Then, Jeff has been going over the land again and again with the plow to try to level it out a bit more. We have come to the conclusion that plows were built for the purpose of breaking down as it seems like nearly every evening we are out there fixing the dang thing.

Beyond that, I actually really like this photo for the repetition of line and form, and contrast of metal on rough earth. Also for the implied vanishing point.

Moving on.

With the heat, Harvey spends most of the day indoors or lounging in the shade. We go for walks, runs, or bike rides early in the morning or late in the evening when it's cool. The neighboring crop fields have reached their fullest height, which is just high enough to really obscure view of the dog. See Photo #2. If you read my previous post (and keep reading to the bottom of this one!) you know that rattlesnakes are in season around her, so the limited visibility of my dog makes me walking him feel a little more stressful, but as long as he doesn't get to far away and I can keep my eye on him relatively well, I feel better.

Photo #2: Who's Tail is That?

The next set of photos references our cow herd. We are nearing the end of the breeding season for the cows. The bull is still with them, but will be extricated later this week. On Monday, Jeff moved the group we have at our place from the farther-away pasture up to the one close to the house. I like seeing them every day as they explore this pasture. They look pretty good-- the summer has been good to them!

Photo #3: Hello, Cow!

Photo #4: Preparing to Bolt

They saw me walking toward them, so they all stood up and got ready to run... 

Photo #5: On the Run

The image looks blurry because they were moving and kicking up dust.
And because I took the photo on my phone. 

Last night was another exciting night around here that ties in a couple of the aforementioned subjects. Once again the blow was broke down. Jeff had called and informed me that he'd be coming back to the yard to get me and some supplies so we could go back up to the field and work on it. 

I started getting ready to go when I caught glimpse of Harvey out the window of our house-- looking like he was dodging away from something. I looked out the window and saw that he was about 6-8 feet away from a LARGE coiled rattlesnake, just behind one of our parked cars. I yelled to Harvey, "Harvey, NO! LEAVE IT!" And he cautiously trotted to the front door of the house, taking a very wide berth around the snake, and I let him in, making sure he hadn't been bit. Then, I called Jeff back and reported that we had another snake, this time very close to the house, then I went out and watched him until Jeff arrived and dispatched him. 

Not the world's greatest photo, but I wasn't interested in getting too much closer. 

This time, we kept the rattle, shown here with a fencing staple and a small rock. The rattle is about two inches long and includes eight rings, or whatever you want to call them. Needless to say, this was a big one. 

 So that's what's been happening around here. Second snake in less than a week right in the yard. I'm reasonably convinced that Harvey has learned to be very, very cautions around snakes and I feel fairly confident that he won't get bit again unless he is caught by surprise.

We continue to make progress in farming and ranching operations and are looking ahead to the start of Harvest, which will likely begin in a few weeks. :)

Snakes on the Plains

We have had a few new neighbors show up recently and I have to say I have been less than hospitable.  Most recently, I ran over the new guy with a pickup  *twice*  then Jeff nailed him with shotgun blasts. Not very neighborly, right?  Well Jeff and I both considered it the appropriate response because the new-guy-on-the-block was not a neighbor we wanted.  He was sandy-colored, stuck his tongue out a lot (how rude!), and made an awful buzzing sound whenever we got close!  How would you like it if your neighbors treated you that way?

After that silly intro, you've likely deduced our new "neighbors" are in fact rattlesnakes.  The Prairie Rattlesnake is the only venomous snake in Montana and unfortunately it seems we are right along the main thoroughfare.

We saw our first snake of the season while on a pasture hike with my family on their visit a few weeks ago.  Since then, we've seen several more on the roads and two who were close enough to our house that we felt action needed to be taken.  Normally, if we see them in a field or somewhere away from the house we let them be.  Nice to have a little free rodent control.  Furthermore, they tend to act gentlemanly (for some reason, all rattlesnakes are referred to as male...)  and warn you with their rattle when you are about to get too close.  As if to say, "Helloooooooo!  I'm here!  Don't you dare step on me... OR ELSE!" or, "I don't want to bite you. I just want to mind my own business, but if you get close to me, I'll have to take measures into my own hands, erm, I mean... fangs!"  Rattlesnakes are like the crotchety, crazy old guy with a gun living as a recluse in a shack in the woods.  Enter his turf and BEWARE!

It's when the rattlesnakes enter our yard that I begin to take issue.  Rattlesnake bites in people are largely preventable.  We're generally smart enough to know what they are, where they may be lurking, and to leave them alone (or to get the gun!).  It's my dog I worry about the most.  Last year, Tom and Carol had a dog get bit by a snake.  The year before, Harvey was bit.  Thank goodness for the rattlesnake vaccine for dogs, but nevertheless it's not an experience I would like repeated.  Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (FWP) even says on their website that it's OK to "deal with the problem" when they're in your own yard and pose a threat to the safety of your family and pets.  So there!  I'm justified in my killing!

The first sighting of the season was just a little south of Tom and Carol's house, on the trail to the creek and pastures.  As I said, we spotted him while on a walk with my family.  Actually, Harvey alerted us to his presence.  He was sniffing around and acting a bit keyed up, but not in the way he acts when he is on-scent with a bird.  He had his nose pretty close to what looked like a large gopher hole.  As we got a little closer, we could hear the snake rattling away.  We called Harvey off with some urgency, and he actually chose to listen to us! Approaching the hole, we saw that it was a snake and he was trying to warn us off.  Thanks to an excellent camera lens and zoom, my mom was able to get this great photo of the snake:


Then, last week, Jeff and I were walking Harvey on our road when we encountered another snake, right along the side of the road.  This one was fairly close to the house.  Again, we called off Harvey.  This time we went back for the shotgun.  I was glad Jeff was with me to help take care of it-- my shotgun skills leave much to be desired.

A few nights after that, I went out to take Harvey for another walk and didn't even make it down our driveway to get to the road before I heard the telltale rattle.  Right in our driveway this time! The nerve! I calmly called Harvey back and we loaded up into the pickup for our little stand-off with the snake.  I drove up to him and stared him down.  He stared me right back.  It was like the prelude to a shoot0out in an old Western movie! All at once I took my shot, which was flooring it in the pickup right over his sorry, squirmy little body! I heard him rattle like crazy and as the dust settled and I backed up to survey my work, I discovered he was not dead at all.  Just mad.  No one wants a mad rattlesnake on the loose!  I backed up and went at him again... Harvey in the passenger seat looked at me with panic, I'm sure.  This time I definitely injured him, but he was still down there, coiled and angry.

By now, I was more or less in a panic myself because I couldn't seem to kill the little bastard.  I am quite certain I looked right at him and blathered loudly, "Why don't you just DIE!?!"  Then I did what any sensible farm woman with marginal shotgun skills and a healthy fear of rattlesnakes would do, feminism be damned, I went and got my husband, who promptly dispatched of the snake in two quick shotgun blasts.  His head flew over the pasture fence and his body blew to smithereens.  Harvey let out a bark as the dust settled again and we went back into the house.  We'll show him!  Should've strung up the rest of his parts as warning to his brethren not to mess with this yard!

And I turned on the TV to watch a little mindless drivel and take my mind off the night's adventure and what was on the first channel? Snakes on a Plane! I just can't win! Now that I've completely convinced you all that I'm a sadist, at least when it comes to rattlesnakes in the yard, let it be known that new neighbors of the slithery, snaky variety are NOT WELCOME! Anyone of the human kind who would like to visit is welcome any time. ;)

Calf Sale!

Arriving at work today, Tuesday, which is in fact my Monday, having asked a number of coworkers how they spent their weekend, I found I was feeling a bit confused.  One hundred percent of survey respondents stated their weekends were filled with lazy, dog-days-of-summer activities.  One hundred percent of those I asked reported going to the lake.  Other activities included “going to the fair,” “visiting family/friends,” and the delightfully general, “relaxing.”  Why was I feeling confused?  My thought was, “Why did all of these people have so much extra time for “relaxing?”  What happened to my weekend?

 

Yes, it’s true I have a four-day weekend.  By that I mean I work at a wage-paying job in town three days a week.  By no means are the remaining four days are spent idle.  My weekend typically involves gardening either at my house or in the big gardens at Tom and Carol’s, calf-chores, shuttling vehicles with Jeff, helping with cows, housework such as laundry, cleaning, cooking, putting up food from the garden… any or all of the above. 

 

To be clear, I am not trying to be one of those martyrs to being busy.  You know the type… “I’m so busy! You can’t possibly understand how busy I am all the time!  I don’t have time for anyone or anything but all my important, busy tasks! No one is as busy as I am!...” listing all their many, varied, “important” activities.  That’s not my point. 

 

What is my point? Summer is busy!  We’re all busy. Well, all of us except everyone I unofficially surveyed at work in Chester today.  My guess is that each of them were busier than they let on, but who wants to say, “Why, yes my weekend was filled with banal but time-occupying tasks around the house and farm…”  (The Busy Martyrs, that’s who!)   Truthfully, I’d rather be busy than not.  Besides, after being away from home so much in the first half of the summer, at this point it still feels satisfying to dig in to home and farm tasks and feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with them.

 

This weekend was a big weekend for the ranch side of our operation.  Friday and Saturday were spent moving each of the four bunches of our herd which had heretofore been split into four groups in four different pastures, with the bulls in each respective group.  Each group was brought back to the yard, the bulls separated out, and fly-treatment administered.  Newsflash: Cows get flies. Cows get flies realllllly bad. Bulls get them even worse than cows!  Do you like getting fly bites? Me neither.  I can’t imagine constantly having so many flies swarming around me.  I tend to reach for the bug spray pretty quickly.  Animals can’t apply it to themselves, so that’s where we come in.  They really seem to love the fly spray, which is mixed in with cool water.  On a hot summer day, it probably feels pretty good to get a cool shower and be rid of your bugs all at once! 

 

Yesterday was also important as it was the day our calves sold.  I’m not positive, but I think the selling price was another record high, and the calves look like they will weigh out pretty good at shipping time, so that’s good, too.  The past few years we have sold our calves in a video-auction format.  So, a local representative from the auction company visits the farm and takes a video of our cows and calves.  The video is posted on their website for viewing before the sale.  You can check out the video of our calves here: http://www.northernlivestockvideo.com/catalog.php?lot=19673&SaleID=816  The sale itself is televised.  Prospective buyers place their bids online or over the phone. Kinda crazy, and I’m sure I’m not explaining it very well, but it works. Even though the calves sold yesterday, we will continue to graze them until the shipping date in late October.  Tonight for dinner we are eating beef (spaghetti with homemade meatballs!) to celebrate our calves selling so well!

 

And speaking of food, another of my major accomplishments over the weekend was food prep.  Harvest is nearly upon us, so I have been trying to prepare planned-overs to have on hand for harvest meals.  I have also done some putting-up of produce from the garden and from our Bountiful Basket.  Right now, we have snow peas and regular peas in full force and green beans starting to come on.  Shelling peas is a nice activity for watching baseball games.  Snow peas have been eaten plain, in salads, and frozen for later.  Green beans will most definitely be processed into delicious pickled beans—one of my favorites!  I also tried a few new recipes this weekend for home-canned goods:  Strawberry Dessert Sauce, and Blueberry-Maple-Pecan Conserve.  Both of which were absolutely delicious when I scraped a spoon in the pot to clean out the left-overs, and both super easy to make. 

 

All of the activity over the weekend carried the decreasingly-subtle hubbub of harvest preparation.  It’s likely we will be cutting peas within a week to ten days, and there’s lots to do in the meantime before we start.  That electric excitement is starting to gather in the air, however. 

 

The other busy creatures this time of year are the rattlesnakes… More on this in my next post, due later this week!

Early Summer Roundup, Installment Five: Glacier Drive Through

My family came to visit over the Fourth of July and the following weekend and did I take a single family photo to prove they were here? No...

It was nice to have them for a few days.  We were here on the farm for the first part of their visit. Jeff missed out on a lot of the action because he was on the swather/baler making hay.  The rest of us were mostly pretty chill. Lots of sleeping in, long walks on the farm roads, and catching up. 

The second part of their visit, we drove over to Glacier.  Mom and Dad had never seen the park, but Ryan and I went a few years ago when he was visiting another time.  Due to unforeseen circumstances, we had less time in the park than we had originally planned on, so we were pretty much limited to the Parking Lot Tour of Going-to-the-Sun road.  It was still awesome, and neat to share the park with my family.  If nothing else, it was a teaser for a future visit when we will hopefully have more time to get off the main road and really get to know Glacier. 

Most of the photos I took are pretty much your standard tourist photos from the pull-outs along the road, but the scenery is so spectacular that even the least experienced hobby photographer like myself can take masterpiece shots.  Here's a few of the highlights-- enjoy!

Mama and baby mountain goat! Jeff took us to the Goat Lick overlook on Highway 2, which was very cool.

Lake McDonald

I think this was Jackson Glacier. I wonder how long this glacier will be around?

St. Mary Lake

A Day in the Life AND Early Summer Roundup, Installment Four: Seattle Proper!

A day in the life...

So good to be home for the whole weekend. Jeff and I both have been looking forward to the time when we'd no longer be traveling so much and this is the first full weekend of being home.  Not that we aren't busy, however.  Jeff has been spending most of his time mowing CRP that we will be putting into production.  And when he isn't mowing, he and I have been on ranch duties. 

Right now, our cows are running with Tom's at pasture.  They are in four groups and spread out among the different pastures we own and rent.  Late July is a restless time for the cattle, however. The bulls in particular are starting to get antsy.  By now, they have been with the cows for some time and have, ahem, well... one might say they have achieved their mission.  At least we hope they have.  Judging by the tendency of the bulls to get out lately, one could safely say that at least the good majority of the cows are bred.

Therein lies the problem.  The bulls get restless and decide to push on fences here and there and escape.  They go into the neighbors herd (where there are fewer bred cows...) or into the neighbor's wheat field (wheat tastes better than grass! Duh!)... or just into some other pasture (Hence the phrase, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence).  All this activity has lead to Jeff and I spending time mending fences and gates here and there.  As Jeff is on the mower as much as he can be, it has been my job over the past few days to drive around and check whether the cows are in or out at the various pastures. 

Mornings have also been spent watering the vegetable garden and flowers at Tom and Carol's house, and harvesting veggies.  Lettuce is on the down-side of its bell curve of ripeness, while cucumbers and green peas, and snow peas are on the upswing.  If anyone has any good cucumber or pea recipes, send them our way because we have a bumper crop for sure! Tonight I am making pasta with bacon and peas, and I think I am going to experiment with making pea spread either today or tomorrow. It will be like hummus, only green, and I think it'll freeze fine, too.  First step in making pea dip will be simply to figure out how to put together and use the food processor...

So that's what has been happening around here over the weekend.

Back to the Early Summer Roundup, here's the photos from our time in Seattle. 

Really, the only super-touristy thing we did was go to Pike's Place market.  Even though it was crowded with throngs of people, I still enjoyed it.  It was cool to see so much produce and seafood in one place. Although I did wonder how much of it was produced locally versus shipped in from warehouses or facilities from far away...

 

We met up with a very dear friend of mine from college, Ellen, whom I hadn't seen since I still lived in Iowa.  She and her husband and their young son were also in Seattle for a wedding (not the same wedding!) so we met at the market for breakfast.  They are organic farmers in Western Iowa.  They also have a CSA and Ellen is a huge advocate for local, sustainable food. I love her.  Here's one of their websites: Pin Oak Place.

I took this picture in the market because of the beef prices.  HOLY COW! No pun intended.  Glad I don't have to buy beef at the store... although I am sure there is a Pike's Place Market Markup.  Would anyone out there like to pay Bangs Beef that much for one of our steaks?!?! :) 

I bought some delicious Tequila Caramel from this stand. We were first attracted to this booth because of the name-- Woodring Orchards.  We have some close family friends from Townsend, MT with that last name... any relation!?

 

And now moving into the main reason we went to Seattle in the first place! For the wedding of my dear friend, Steven.  Steven and Jessica started dating back when I still lived in Ames... so maybe 2006? I had the great delight of meeting and getting to know Jessica before the two of them moved to Seattle.  Steven I have known since we were in seventh grade.  He's actually still to this date the friend I have had the longest who I still keep in touch with.  He's a pretty tremendous guy! Jessica is so wonderful as well.  Wish we all lived closer. :)

Steven is a very talented person in many different realms. One of his talents is glass blowing.  Steven and a friend made all these little glass penguin figurines and glass ornaments for the centerpieces at the wedding reception.  They were beautiful!

 Another person I was so fortunate to reconnect with at the wedding was another dear friend from high school, Leslie! I hadn't seen her since high school but was so delighted to find that we were still easy friends. Sometimes when you reconnect with someone you haven't seen in a while, either you or they have changed so much that you can't see why you were friends in the first place. Not so with Leslie.  I had a great time catching up with her!

 Jessica and Steven.  The happy couple! I wished we had more time to catch up with them, but that's the nature of weddings. You're surrounded by friends and family but it's so hard to have meaningful conversations with any of them.  Next time, friends!

The light is a little goofy in this photo, but here's me, Jessica, Steven, and Leslie.

 

The wedding reception was at Golden Gardens park, right on a public beach on the Sound. Looking across the water, you could see the Olympic Peninsula and the mountains. 

 The reception was held in what was formerly a bath house and is now an events venue. It was perfect. The weather was perfect. The people were perfect. Everything was perfect!

 
 We were really only in Seattle for about 48 hours, in total, so we didn't have a ton of time to see too many people, unfortunately. Sunday, we did take some time to relax at a baseball game. Happily, the Cubs, my long-time favorite team, were playing the Mariners in interleague play. We decided rather last minute to buy tickets at the gate and go to the game before heading out of town.

 

Approaching the stadium, with great Mount Rainier in the background.

Safeco Field is pretty new and a very nice stadium.

The view from our seats.

Alas, we look pretty confused as fans.  Jeff in his Braves shirt and I in a Mariners hat, and we both cheering for the Cubs.  We got a few funny looks from the people seated around us.  I bought the Mariners hat because I had neglected to bring a hat of my own to the game and it was pretty sunny.  I guess I'm a Mariners fan, now! Since they are AL and the Cubs are NL it's probably OK to be fans of both, right?

 

Stay tuned for the next episode of Early Summer Roundup, coming soon!

Early Summer Roundup, Installment Three: Washington's North Cascades

Jeff and I recently drove to Seattle for the wedding of a very good friend of mine from my hometown.  There will be another post about the wedding shortly as the Early Summer Roundup continues... I'm trying to do posts every other day, to catch up.  So far, so good.

 

Anyway, I have always loved a good road trip and since my husband doesn't much care for airplanes, we road trip quite often.  Who would want to fly after all the negative events surrounding airplanes lately, anyway?!?! I know they say more people die in cars than in planes, but there is something about that feeling of control when one is driving a car.  Who am I kidding, though- my husband is the driver!

 

This was my first time into the state of Washington.  We took our time driving from the farm to Seattle.  I think straight through, going the fast way, it takes about 12-13 hours.  We took several days to drive out and stayed with a few friends along the way.  Columbia Falls, MT the first night, and Omak/Okanogan, WA the second night.  This gave us quite a bit of time to meander and enjoy the scenery. We took many designated scenic highways and by-ways and never touched an interstate until we got to the Seattle area.  We enjoyed taking in the countryside and theorizing about agriculture in different climates and situations from our own. 

 



 

Shortly after we left Montana, we drove through the town of Clark Fork, ID.  As you can see, Clark Fork is home of the Wampus Cats.  No joke.  Yes, that is a mace on the end of it's tail...

Winthrop, WA was a charming little western town (tourist traps work on us!) just east of the North Cascades. It was kind of the gateway to the National Park and it was delightful. We were driving through at about 8:30 in the morning, so it was pretty calm.  It was situated right on a river, which I can no longer remember the name of, and was very scenic.  We agreed it would be a great destination to come back to and stay a few days.

So... that happened. Like I said, sucker for touristy things.

Along the North Cascade Highway, which is actually US Highway 20. I have always thought the perfect long-term road trip would be Highway 20 coast-to-coast.  Seriously.  Take out a map and look at the countryside that Highway 20 goes through.  It would be epic. 

Lake Diablo in North Cascades National Park.  Truly beautiful. The park was really pretty empty, especially compared to Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Glacier, which are the three parks where I have spent the most time.  AND it was FREE ADMISSION to boot!  Couldn't be beat.  The mountains and glacial lakes were very striking. Jeff and I agreed that it reminded us of Glacier but with only a fraction of the people. 

Yours truly... followed by a few more views of Lake Diablo.

Jeff and I did take a few short hikes in the park. Driving through East to West is definitely not the recommended route, because there is only one visitor center (that we knew of) and it is on the West side of the park.  Thus, we were not able to plan our hikes or our day very well.  But we did manage to find a few good short jaunts that weren't far off the highway.  It definitely looked and felt like west-of-the-divide, with all the humidity, mosses, and ferns.

This waterfall was extremely steep and narrow. Unfortunately, my photo really flattens it out. What can I say except my photography skills are less than great. Just go to North Cascades already, ok?

And... vino time!  As we coasted out of the mountains, we couldn't help but stop and "rehydrate," so to speak! Since it's very difficult to ship wine into Montana, we have decided a wine-drinker needs to take care of business when travelling!  We definitely stocked up in Washington!

 

Next post will be about Seattle Proper! Stay tuned...