BHSS Finds 2014!

  A few weeks ago, Hubby, Mr T and myself headed off to the land of South Dakota to spend some quality time with Hub's family.  His brother, SIL and our two nieces, along with Gma S came down to check out the Stock Show and to spend some vacationing time with us.  We had a blast!  Mr T had so much fun bossing playing and spending time with his cousins.  It was a nice relaxful kind of weekend!  We hit up the WaTiki Water Park, the Trade Show, the Angus Show and Sale, Chili's (my favorite!), a Rodeo, the Dakotah Steakhouse (yum!) and a few other prime shopping spots.

  Here is this year's bounty from the Trade Show at the Black Hills Stock Show.

My annual stop at the JR Watkins booth is resulting in more and more stuff!  

A stop at the Tupperware booth, and I finally got my pickle container!

Leather conditioner that is not greasy and repels water.  Excited to use this stuff!

Discounted his and her fencing gloves!  Hard to beat the price at $6/pair for fencing gloves :).

Gma S found this pair of boots at the Boot Barn for Mr T!  We have such a tough time finding boots that will fit his high arch.  These are a little big, should fit him just right in time for Spring brandings!

  That was all that we came home with this year.  Some year's I am in a buying mood and some year's - not so much.   This was a not so much year!  We had more fun spending time with family :).

Have a Blessed Day!
~C~

In Progress Report

  I thought I had better pop in and tell my readers 'Hello' since it has been awhile!  We have been busy with different projects, some are pulling together quite nicely - others not so much!

This cart is getting revamped to become my printer stand.  I have had some spray paint issues and it remains 'in progress'.

Man Cave is now complete!  Just got the light installed on Sunday.  

Nothing like ordering antiques from Ebay and having them arrive broken.  This mug lost it's handle.  Sad day for me....still waiting on a resolution (I think that is the Ebay word).

Bathroom upstairs is 'in progress'.  The toilet is function-able, we have a leak on the facet - haven't had time to get back to see what's wrong for sure.  The shower needs a door.  It's getting closer!

That's pretty much what's going on.  I am trying to get some stuff unpacked into the office so I can start scrap-booking soon.  I hate being so far behind.  I have moved Mr T's toys upstairs which has helped with the living room downstairs being a little less messy.  We are still waiting on our pellet stove to arrive.  That has been a run-around but a stove is on the way now.  Hubs built our floor mantle(?) for the stove to set on it, looks great!

Well, I think that I am off to play 4-Wheeler cowgirl today in the warm 20 degree temps!  Have a Blessed Day!
~C~

Pool Table - Picture Overload!!!

 On Jan. 2nd, we ventured over to my Grandmother's house and dismantled a pool table for the first time in our lives. We Hubby watched countless YouTube videos in preparation for this move.  Surprisingly enough, we were able to disassemble the table in about two hours and had hauled a flight of steep steps out of Gma's Basement.  It was not a feat for the faint of heart, due to the weight of the slate of the table.  But, we managed.  I am very thrilled to have my dear (departed now) Grandpa's pool table in our house, it is such an awesome memento.  We have the original receipt from when Gpa bought it in '94 and we know that is was used at that time.

Pool table wrapped up in blankets, along with a few other 'treasures' from Gma's basement.

Getting started with the legs and the support boards.

Mr T counting the balls.

Helping dad with the screws.

Mr T is becoming quite the photographer!!!  Here we are deciding how wide the table is so we can center it in our room.

Slate on and starting to get it cleaned up, leveled and positioned.

  Because it wasn't hard enough to haul it up Grandma's steps, we also had to haul it up our steps to the upstairs.  I should have taken the option of 'phone a friend' since my arms were absolute jello by the time we get it up there!!!  Then it was time for more YouTube videos on how to felt a table.  We ordered our felt online from Ozone Billiards and choose a Charcoal Gray to go with the wall colors in our rec room.

Putting the felt on the rails.

Getting ready to start the felting process on the table.

Stretching and hooking the felt on the side pocket.

Felt is on, now to trim the edges.

All Finished!

Mr T and Hubs playing the first game of pool.  

  We are awaiting our pool table light to come in.  Ordered it last night and it won't ship till Friday but in the meantime we can still play.  Looking forward to hours of perfecting our 'skills'!!!  I am sure that there will also be hours of YouTube videos on how to put more "english" on the cue balls along with other instructional ideas!

Have a Blessed Day!
~C~

Week Recap

  Well, I did it or at least I am trying to Potty Train Mr T.  It's been a rollercoaster for me and lots of extra laundry.  However I do think that we are the right path, at least I hope so since I just sold all of the extra diapers.  In my mind, it was either do it or well do it!  That has taken up most of my week.  I did manage to get out and check cattle, we seem to be pretty much over the sickness in calves.  Of course, the cooler temps and the little rain that we have received helped immensely. 

  Plans are in the making for getting started to wean the rest of the calves.  We have a couple days of helping neighbors in the upcoming week along with a visit from Mr T's ND Grandma and Grandpa.  It's nearly birthday time!  I can not believe that he is about to turn 3, hence the need to get this Potty Training ordeal accomplished. 

  The rest of my week was spent decluttering.  I have torn apart nearly every closet (in the main floor level) and got rid of lots of stuff.  I thought that I had done a decent job when we moved but I still found things that I no longer want/use/need.  It's a very satisfying feeling to get rid if 'junk'.  I am trying to sell things on online garage sale sites and if that don't work....dumpster time!   I feel like at least when Potty Trainings isn't going the direction that I want, I am still accomplishing something!

  Hopefully one of these days that I get back and track to posting ranching stuff again, in the meantime - bear with me! 

Have a Blessed Day!
~C~

Goat Wrangling

  This AM, Boss Man arrived over to my house and asked me to go check our cows to the west of the Home Meadow.  They were bunched up and mooing like crazy.  We assumed that they were out of water and needed let them out the gate into the next pasture for water.  I quickly dressed Mr T and let him outside to play with Cat while the guys were doing some work on the baling tractor in the shop.  I grabbed the 4-Wheeler, some Salt & Mineral, then took off to check water and cows. 

  Got to the first windmill and we had a half tank of water (enough water for the time being), realized that something else had to have these cows all wound up.  So I started driving the pasture, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, they had plenty of grass and water.  I went down to a gate that I knew needed a little tightening and a top wire replaced that was broken, fixed that.  Then I drove the last little bit of hills that were left and then I found these critters hanging out.

Goat #1 and Goat #2

  I went back home and reported my findings to Boss Man, then I started calling a few neighbors that might have goats.  I didn't find the owners so I decided to go corral them and let them eat our weeds out of our corrals instead of keeping our cows all nervous.  Mr T went with me on this mission. 

Mr T chasing the goats...it was hot, he thought they should go faster!

 
  One of our neighbors (R) that I had called to see if he had any goats or was missing any, showed up to help us wrangle the goats.  He didn't know who owned them either but had gotten called the day before over a goat sighting to the South of us by the highway.  He had decided to take them home and keep them until someone called.  Since I already had them headed to our corrals, we decided to take them there and he went on his merry way.  I don't think either one of us really wanted to wrangle goats!  Mr T and I got the goats in the corral, gave them some water and then came home...it was lunch time!

Silly Boy!

  I guess one of us was really, really hungry!!!  This was taken after he had already eaten a decent sized meal and had gotten down out of his booster seat.  Still hungry, I guess!  Silly boys! :)

Have a Blessed Day!
~C~

What a Week!

  I am not sure what happened to cause this crazy turn of events this past 6 days but it had to something major like a Full Moon or something like that!  It all started out when Boss Man came back from SD with the Nephew to send the weekend.  It was a last minute kind of trip and Nephew C really wanted to come visit and should have been a pleasant weekend for that. 

  However, it discovered on Saturday morning that the frame had broken on Boss Man's pickup.  Which is the same pickup with the HydraBed and Caker and now is not a good time for it to be out of commission...to say the least.  So, we loaded it up on the trailer and took it the mechanic where it was determined that patching it wasn't the answer and would take at least a 10 days to get a different frame put on the pickup.  Back to the drawing board and that is when Hubby and Boss Man decided that it was time to take our pickup to the mechanic to pull the HyrdaBed off and caker and put it on our pickup.  Basically, this at this point was more of inconvenience than anything.  We still have our '78 Ford pickup to cake the cows with and we can use a tractor to feed hay. 

  Then, Travis took off on Monday at 4AM to go two loads of cows....well, within an hour (and while it was still dark), he lost the lights on the truck.  Yep, a switch had burned out.  So, he waited for just a smidgen at a truckstop for daylight to come and took off.  He did make it home right as it was getting dark, thankfully!!  However, he ended up tipping over the ranch sign in the dark when he tried to park on some sand to clean the truck out.  Whoops!!!  They got the lights back to working at least!

We were needing a new sign, I guess!!

  On Tuesday, Boss Man and Hubby took off at 3AM to head to SD to bring back our cows up on stalks (with my Nephew in tow), they made it about an hour and half and the truck died.  They were able to limp it to a small town after several hours and it was rather cold for all of them since the truck wouldn't start for nearly an hour.  They got warmed up at the convenience store and since at the point they thought that the semi was gelling up, they got some additives and took off.  However, not long out of town and they knew that wasn't the issue.  So, back to the town and this time that they waited for the parts store to open and they thought that they needed a Fuel Filter.  Long story short....that wasn't the issue either; turned out to be Injection pump.  It took nearly 12 hours to get about 180 miles that day where Hubby got the truck to a Mechanic and my brother and SIL came to rescue his son and my hubby to take them back to his house.  What about Boss Man?  Well, he stayed at a truck stop and waited for the other trucks to come back by with loads of our cows to pick up him and bring home.  Hubby - well, he went out for supper and decided that he deserved a few beers from his long day!
 
  Sounds like at this point that Hubby and the truck will arrive here on Friday with a load of cows.  This has been an interesting adventure for all!  Mr T and I have helping Boss Man work cows everyday and feeding all of our cows and yearlings.  We did go and retrieve our feed pickup now so I don't have to scoop cake out to the cattle (whew!) and it will make feeding hay to the cattle easier as well. 

  What a week - to say the least!!!

  Have a Blessed Day!!!

  ~C~

An Over Due Thank You!

  I have a pretty great friend over at From the Mountains to the Prairie that recently sent me a little House Warming gift!  I got an email from her one day back in January stating that I would soon be getting a little something from Stampin' Up in the mail from her.  I was pretty stoked and impatiently waited for my shipment to arrive and here is what I got.....

Look at all of that fun stuff!

  Just a little something?  Heck no, there is a lot of fun stuff to play with in my scrapbooking room!  I really do owe C a pretty big Thank You for this house warming gift!  I see now that I have posted this that I forgot one of the items in the picture...sorry, C!

  Since my friend got me all excited about scrapbooking with new stuff, I decided to put in an order with Stampin' Up to get a few more products that I just had to have (one of which was my label punch!).  Here is the fun stuff that I ordered!

More fun stuff :)

  Looks like when Hubby gets my scrapbooking room office done upstairs that I will have some serious scrapping work to be doing :)!

  Have a Blessed Day!
  ~C~

The Family Photos With A Two Year Old.

  Monday the 8th of October was actually Mr T's birthday.  We had some more cake and tried to take some family photos since my In-Laws were still here visiting.  This is how they turned out....enjoy!

First - Mr T and Daddy blowing out his candle.

Family Photo Attempt #1

Final Attempt - We gave up!!

Have a Blessed Day!
~C~

Checking In

  I had such good intentions to do more blogging and getting stuff on here after we got moved into the new house.  However, I seem to run around with my tail in circles.  We have been busy and that is an understatement.

  We are back to haying, working cattle, fixing stuff, helping neighbors, taking care of Mr T and working on the house.  Life is not going to settle down anytime soon either.  I am sure that I have mentioned this before but we are experiencing the worst drought that I have seen.  We would love some moisture, however the weather forecast for this afternoon is "dry lightening".  Trying to watch for smoke/fire is a full time job and while there hasn't been a fire on our ranch, our neighbors have had fires and we feel for them.  Hubby has learned how fantastic our neighbors are while helping them fight local fires. 

  Here is the windmill that we think some naughty bulls that were fighting tried to knock over earlier this summer.  The guys got it all straightened and it's back to pumping water!

 

 

 
 The house project is still on going job, we picked up some more items for getting it finished.  We are working hard to get it 'mostly finished' by Mr T's birthday in October.  Deadlines are good for us, gives us some motivation for a few more varnishing projects.  We picked up the back splash for the kitchen counter tops and will soon be putting that up and then I just might take some kitchen pictures even though we don't have the window treatments even started (or thought of, for that matter!). 

    In the meantime, I am not forgetting to blog - I just haven't had a spare moment to work on it!  Soon, soon, I promise!!!

Have a Blessed Day!
~C~

Not a Normal Peeping Tom

   As I have mentioned in a few previous posts, we are almost done with dry wall...thank you Lord!!!  I had no idea how much taping, mudding and sanding (and then doing it all over again!) could suck!  It was exciting the first few days and then it was just tiring after that. 

  Here is who was window peeking on us last week.

Window Peeker

Crazy Mare!

  I think she was as confused as Mr T as to what we were doing :)

Have a Blessed Day
~C~