Sunday Night Highlights 3.13.16

Weekend Adventures:

• My primary goal this weekend has been rest. Wacey got sick last week and gave it to the both of us, so we're all fighting the tail end (I hope) of snotty noses and stuffy heads.
• Currently, there's a pot of chicken stock simmering on the stove in preparation for chicken & noodles. I've never made chicken & noodles completely from scratch--stock and all--and I'm so excited to see how this turns out. It already smells soul-healing, which is what we're aiming for! 
• Bert and I are camped out of the sofa while Wacey is asleep (!!!!) watching The Martian, which so far is like Castaway but on Mars. We're about an hour in, and I highly recommend. Normally I'm not into space movies, but I can see why this one was nominated for Best Picture.

Agriculture:

• I've been reading up and planning for my garden, and I've learned a lot of things! Keep in mind that I'm a total newb, so don't make fun of me.
• Kale is a very hardy vegetable that grows in cool weather, so it can be harvested both in the spring and the fall. 
• Heirloom tomatoes are gorgeous.
• My lilac bushes need some serious attention

On the Ranch:

• Bert has one heifer left to calve! That means night calving has stopped, and he's a little tiny less busy for a minute before we start breeding season. I'm glad for him to get a little more rest and not have to work as hard! The real treat is when the cows get kicked out to grass and the guys don't have to feed every day anymore.
• Otherwise, business as usual. We're feeling so fortunate to have had such nice weather lately, our calves are really looking good. 

On the Home Front:

• You guys, I've got nothin'. I have zero plans for the upcoming week beyond getting everyone healthy and the house in some semblance of working, sterilized order. 
• If I can manage that, my next plan of attack is to get a work nook ready downstairs. I need a designated place to work downstairs while Wacey is playing--not the sofa--with a desk, bulletin board, etc. I realized last week how disorganized I am, and I can't take it anymore. I have all the supplies I need, I've just got to throw it together. 
• We're going to do our best to get up to my bro- and sis-in-law's ranch's bull sale next week, so please cross your fingers that we're all healthy! We can't bring germs with us because they have a little baby!
• I discovered green juice. I like it. 

Friday Favorites 3.11.16

Happy Friday from sunny, warm Colorado!

Seriously. I don't know that I've ever said it in March but the weather is GORGEOUS.

This week was one filled with a sick baby, and an almost-sick mama (Zicam seriously is the best), and lots of work for the ranch, so Wace and I took a spin with the stroller this morning to soak up some of this glorious sunshine, and it was perfect.

Here are some other perfect things I've found on the internets this week:

Favorite Green: Climbing cucumber. I've got the garden on my mind, and this looks like a really cool way to maximize space in a smaller bed. Plus it looks all profesh and handy and stuff.

Favorite Style: Braids. I'm LOVING my new short cut, and I like to wear it pulled back when I have Day 2 hair. This looks like a great option, and is an easy-to-follow tutorial that even this braid-challenged gal can handle!

Favorite Obsession: Rose Hydrating Gel Eye Cream. YOU GUYS. I got a sample of this from Sephora, and this little baby just zoomed to the top of my wish list. It's expensive, but man oh man. It feels AMAZING, smells even more amazing, wears better under makeup than any other cream I've tried, and is something I would really like to invest in (or have my husband invest in for maybe Mother's Day *cough*).

Favorite Fashion: Grandpa Tees. I am getting my dad one of these for Father's Day. I just love them! I would get one for my Father-in-Law, too, but I've never seen him wear anything without sleeves and buttons. Maybe we could find a western version?

Favorite Decor: Laundry Room Ladder. Our laundry room and mud room are the same room. Woefully ill-appointed in terms of organization, and sort of drive me crazy. This looks like a fast, easy, cute step to making it just a liiiiiittle more functional, and I know there's got to be an old wooden ladder around somewhere!

Favorite Treat: Peeps Krispie Bars. We still haven't decided what we're going to do for Easter, but these are the cutest little treats that I might just have to make some. And eat them alllll by myself. Just kidding. I will, however, make a double batch ;)

Favorite Suits: This one and this one. I have always been a one-piece kind of gal, but not a ruched mom suit kind of gal, and I would really love to get Wacey in the pool this summer. These options are both cute (if expensive) ideas for a gorgeous one piece! *Crosses fingers for a sale*

Favorite Floral: Floral Maternity Dress. No, I'm not pregnant, but I secretly hope that maybe one day I'll be pregnant in the spring so I can wear this. 

Favorite Food: Korean Beef Bowl. My Facebook Supper Club mom group RAVES about this, and I'm always looking for ways to use up ground beef that aren't burgers or tacos, so I think we'll give it a try!

Happy weekend, y'all! It's 8:30 and I'm going to bed.

A Horse Is A Horse

I had big plans for a blog post complete with photos about ultrasounding the heifers, but Wacey got his very first cold and I felt pretty bad for the little guy (and didn't want to infect the entire ranch), so we stayed home. He was pretty miserable, but with the help of a humidifier, my handy-dandy NoseFrida, and a little Benadryl, Hubba Bubba seems to be back to his normal self, albeit with a little more snot.

Since I don't have any fun pictures of ultrasounding, the horses volunteered to be the subject of today's post.

Okay, fine, Ninja volunteered all of them. She's sort of pushy.

Anywho.

Here's the pushy gal herself: Ninja. She's coming four. Her name is Ninja because my oldest nephew wanted to name the next horse Michaelangelo, but the next horse was a girl, so her name is Michaelangela, or Ninja for short. It's fitting because she's an escape artist.

Also, she's really shy and likes to hide in her shell. Obviously.

Suuuuuuuper shy. Not curious at all. Great respect for photographic boundaries.

The poor gal standing next to her is Molly. Molly is a project of Bert's--she's an older mare that we got from another guy on the ranch that needs some work. She's pretty shy, but she's nice, and Bert told me last night that she's doing really well.

She's also Early's mother! Here's a picture of them almost two years ago when Early was born. He was so tiny and sweet.

And here's Early now! He's big and fat, just like he should be. Bert has worked with him a little bit, but will really get started on his training this summer.

Unlike his Mama, he is NOT shy. He's still sweet!

His friend, there, is Jig. He's a horse that the ranch owns that is part of Bert's working string--since Early, Ninja, and Molly are all kind of projects, they aren't ridden for daily ranch work yet. 

Asa is, of course, Bert's main man. Bert started him, and they've been together since before Bert and I have been together! They're like peas and carrots. Or even like a cowboy and his horse. You know, They get along so well, and Ace is Bert's go-to when he needs to rope something, because Asa would help him rope a house if Bert asked him to.

This is not something Bert's ever asked of him, though, just to be clear.

Ace is also my favorite ride. He's so so gentle, and sort of a goof, and takes good care of whomever he's packing around, and I know he won't buck me off and ruin my camera or something, or like, break my leg. Because I usually have a camera, and I always bring my legs along. He'll be Wacey's horse someday!

Miss is our boss lady. We bought her with our wedding money when we lived in Montana. She had some quirks when we got her, but Bert's done a great job with helping her get over some of her issues and now she's in the rotation just as much as Ace. She's also Bert's go-to ranch rodeo horse. I really like her, too. She's fiesty and so smooth and easy to ride and if she were a person, I think she would be a loud-mouthed diva who gets things done, and hates mud, but still gets things done.

She also likes Wacey, which is a big plus. 

So there they are! In addition to these six, Bert also usually has an outside project, too. Right now he has another horse down at the barn from one of the other guys on the ranch. 

I always dreamed of having real live horses when I was growing up. I had (have--it's at my parents') a pretttttyyyyyy impressive Breyer collection, but nothing comes close to the real thing! It's kind of funny because when we moved to Montana, we took one horse (Asa), when we came back, we had two, and now we've upped the ante to five and I think that makes us a little crazy.

And by us I mean Bert, since I currently spend most of my time with the human rugrat and thus he gets to play with the equine rugrats. 

And by play with, I mean feed, shoe, ride, groom, etc. 

And by spend most of my time with, I mean try and play educational games with but really I mean clean up after and snuggle.

We like to keep things honest over here :)

How We Make the Work-At-Home Work

I was reading a blog post by a gal in one of my Facebook mom groups, and it really struck a note with me, because it's so true. I sort of hate the titles "Stay-at-home" or "Work-at-home" mom, because it implies that that's all you do. You stay home and stay, or stay home and "work," but that doesn't even begin to cover it.

She had a great list of all the things moms are generally in charge of, from appointments to bills to groceries to auto maintenance, and they're all so necessary and true. I was one of the first of my friend group to get married, and definitely one of the first to have kids, and apparently Bert and I are on the younger side of the spectrum, so we get asked advice from our unmarried, soon-to-be-married, having-kids friends.

My #1? Figure out who does what, don't become resentful about your role, and if it gets too hard, talk about it.

In our house, I'm responsible for pretty much everything inside. I take care of almost all the cooking, cleaning, laundry, bills, calendar, appointments, etc. I remember having friends being like "Why do you do all of that? It's not 1950."

Disclaimer (you knew it was coming): Y'all, I know women and men are equal in so many ways and blah blah blah. But, I also know we have different strengths, and divvy up the "undesirable" parts of life accordingly. Plus, I'm a better cook and I actually do enjoy a lot of this homemaking stuff (*gasp*).

When we first moved in together in 2011, our agreement was simple, and it's sort of evolved from there. To my friends who asked why I do all the inside stuff, my answer was "Because he shoots the things that have to die." That usually got the reaction I wanted: a stop to the nagging and feminist arguments, and a little shock.

A little shock goes a loooong way.

I know, it's a little dramatic, and maybe it doesn't sit well with you, but it's true. In ranching, animals die, or have to be put down to save them suffering, and knowing when they are past saving is an essential part of animal husbandry. I told Bert that I thought it was a fair trade: I take care of the house, he puts animals down when it was necessary. That's how we've proceeded. I know parties on both sides will have trouble with how we do things--that women can of course do what needs to be done (so true), or that a vet should be called to take care of euthanasia (not cost-effective, and not always feasible, and we don't believe in making animals wait in pain for hours while we try to find a vet to come out). but this isn't a post about women's equality, or about the life cycle, or animal rights, or humans' aversion to death and dying, which can often bode poorly for animals.

It's about how we make things work! When we both worked full-time outside on the ranch, things were more 50/50--we fed together, I took a night check, we were both up and at 'em at 4am when it was time to saddle horses. Now, the logistics either waking Wacey up or getting him ready to go outside with all of his stuff for a cow emergency usually means that one of us stays home with him, and it's usually me.

Some days, I find myself getting a little jealous of Bert. Baby-free days every day where he doesn't have to clean an endless litany of diapers and dishes, where's he's guaranteed to get work done, and where he's not scrambling to do allthethings the second that baby goes down for a nap. Plus, I really, really miss working outside. Like, a lot.

But then, some nights, when he's dragging himself out of bed at midnight to tend to a calving emergency at the barn, or coming home in the dark because hunters left the gate open and there are cows scattered to the four winds, or feeding cows in a blizzard and checking around the clock, I imagine he might feel similarly, wishing he could just stay in bed, or enjoy a minute or two on the sofa in an empty house of an evening, or stay in a warm house instead of having to freeze in subzero temperatures. I remember being desperate for relief when Wacey was born last calving season: I was so tired, covered in spit-up, feeling gross and mad that Bert deserted me in the night to go night check the heifers. And then, he came home that morning from a night spent at barn, looking for coffee, covered in blood from pulling a calf that had a ton of trouble, and BAM! The Lord handed me some perspective.

Everything is a season. Some seasons sort of suck. Some are amazing. Some are hard. Some smell terrible. Some are all of those things in turn. Do what works to get through that season, and don't look back, unless it's to gaze longingly at pictures of your tiny baby, or to re-live your wedding, or think about a loved one, or to make sure that cow that was chasing you before has, in fact, stayed on her side of the fence.

Sunday Night Highlights 3.6.16

Weekend Adventures:

• Yesterday, Wacey got a haircut and hated every minute of it. 
• Today, we're headed into town to celebrate my lovely mother-in-law's birthday. Both of Bert's siblings will be there, plus all of their kids, so it's bound to be a good time. I always make angel food cake with homemade whipped cream and strawberries. And then I eat too much cream and strawberries. 
• We were surprised with a warm Sunday morning, so Wacey and I spent the morning outside playing with his bike while I tried to discuss the finer points of the animal kingdom with him; namely, that not all animals are called "dog," but he doesn't care. And actually, I don't either. It's hilarious and cute. Plus, it's his only word. 

Agriculture:

• It's springtime, so in addition to lambing and kidding and calving, sheep are also being sheared. Their wool is sheared off in one piece, called a fleece.
• Pigs can't sweat, which is why they wallow in mud to cool off. They can also run a seven-minute mile, which makes me feel really excellent about my fitness level.
• Wheat farmers make five cents or less from every loaf of bread you buy at the store. 

On the Ranch:

• Calves, of course.
• We'll be ultrasounding heifers for carcass traits this week. Actually the vet will, the cowboys will be running cows through the chute, and I'll probably be at home, keeping an eye on our heifers--we have just a few stragglers left to calve at our camp, and have about 500 total. 
• The first ranch rodeo is two months from this weekend! That may not seem very close, but trust me, it is.

On the Home Front:

• Oh Springtime. I know we'll get at least one more snow and it's WAY too early to put in a garden, but that doesn't mean I can't plan. This year, I'm getting off to a good start and really researching and, well, planning our garden. Plus, Bert now has a skidsteer for our camp, which means I can build up our raised garden with some fresh dirt--it needs it! 
• We're quiet around here for just a minute. Pretty soon, we'll swing full on into spring work, which means breeding and branding on top of more calving and a couple of bull sales, so I'm enjoying our last sort of quiet week. We were looking ahead to our April and May calendars, and y'all? We've never been so busy! I'm kind of excited, kind of dreading it, but mostly excited.
• For all of these trips and busy seasons coming up, I'm thinking of getting a Lily Jade diaper bag. They're pricey, but so perfect for what we need. I LOVE my diaper bag now, but it's not designed to back a small army's worth of stuff that I like to have for trips and rodeos because I'm a crazy person. I'm waiting to see how much new plates are for the Subaru tomorrow (meh) to see how close I'm going to get to my new bag, haha, and how much more of my unused things I need to attempt to hock on eBay, #reallife, yo. 

Neal

One of my favorite things besides smoothies and surprise discounts at checkout and when my pants fit is when things come full circle. I love when things are complete, and when stories have happy endings.

Thus, I love when our calves stay on the ranch and become mothers themselves! It's fun to see baby calves grow up and come back to the pens where they were born as a mama-to-be.

This is Neal. I love Neal. I wrote a lot about Neal on my old blog when she was born two year ago. She has a narrow white face, and I could spot her from anywhere! It was actually kind of creepy. I mean, she was always rightthere.

And yes, I know she's a girl whose name is Neal. Look, I didn't know she was a girl when I named her. It just came to me. Nancy Drew has a girl friend named George, and Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds have a daughter named James. I can have a calf called Neal.

My other named calves from that year (Fleur, Flour, Dipstick) were boys and are no longer on this ranch--some of them are on other ranches, breeding cows. But that's beside the point because that's not full circle. That's like three-quarters of a circle. But Neal is still here!

Except Neal is no longer a calf! She's a MOMMY! She had a baby two days ago and I got to the barn right as the baby was starting to get up. Good job, Neal!

I'm so proud. I'm extra-special proud because she got that baby up quick. Heifers don't always know what's what, so we all enjoy when they get it and don't need any help.

It's important for a calf to get up shortly after being born--usually within a half hour or so--because they need to nurse and get their colostrum. When they are born, the mom will lick them clean, and start bothering them to get up. They'll nudge the calf with their head, holler at them a little bit, and generally harass them until the calf gets the point and learns to stand.

Good job, Neal.

Super Tuesday

It's Super Tuesday. Buuuuut rather than focus on the madness happening at the polls today,  I am focusing on all the reasons why Tuesday is super over here (while simultaneously praying that America just knocks it off already and quits goofing around with the fake support of bad candidates). 

I'm also drinking my daily lemon water, while simultaneously praying that if American doesn't knock it off, someone else gets nominated anyway because let's get real, here.

Reason #1: This morning, BEFORE Wacey woke up, I got in 6500 steps and all of my active minutes. I'm trying so hard to be healthier and while I don't enjoy waking up early every morning, it's worth it sometimes to have that goal checked off my list first thing. I re-watched the two episodes of  Friends where Rachel has Emma, and man, having a baby changes how you watch episodes of sitcoms where people are having babies!

Reason #2: I FINALLY ordered the paint for the dresser makeover I've been planning. I've been putting it off because there's a store in Colorado Springs that sells the paint and I thought I could make a worthwhile trip down there, but I haven't had the time so I just ate the shipping cost. I'm so excited for it to get here!

Reason #3: I'm dressed, my face is on, Wacey is asleep, I'm caught up on getting my calves entered, and that means I have time to work on other projects for work, aka sorting out DNA.

Reason #4: My Living Proof proof order is On Vehicle for Delivery today, according to my tracking number. My samples ran out a couple of days ago and I can't wait for those full-size miracle workers to get into my hot little hands!

Reason #5: Our driveway got graded today. As I've said before, in Rural America, road graders=happiness. 

Reason #6: I have leftover tortellini for lunch. Even though I don't pack lunch anymore, having something other than my standard gets me SO excited. I'm a loser. It's okay.

Reason #7: It's March, the weather is beautiful, and I can't help but start looking forward to spring! I know we'll get at least one more big snow--it is March in Colorado, after all--but it's nice to know that we're on the downhill side of a mountain with an usually snowy winter. That was a really awkward metaphor. 

Reason #8: Does anyone else feel happy (or at least a little proud) when they adult? I do. I know, I'm in my late twenties, married with a kid, you would think being responsible would lose its allure, but no siree bob! If you saw my "Continue Watching for Cassidy" queue on Netflix, you would know that adulting does not extend into every area of my life.

I've been working with our insurance agent to get our renter's and personal property insurance up-to-date (because apparently we are saddle/chaps/bit/spur collectors now), and I added life insurance (because it feels irresponsible to me to have a kid and not have life insurance), and opened savings accounts for us and for Wace that accrue much higher interest than our current setup. I'm particularly excited for the last part because having an automatic debit into an account that's harder to access (aka not linked to my checking account ha) with higher interest payments is pretty exciting! I know. L on the forehead. Haters gonna hate, I'm just gonna earn interest. 

Worst song ever.

Happy Super Tuesday! May we all wake up tomorrow to much better political news!