Goin' Fishin'

I love to fish. I grew up doing it all the time. My folks have a pond that is only about 50 feet from the back door...not really good when I'm the only one at home and should be cleaning and doing laundry inside, but instead I'm out fishing....

Until I hear the truck coming down the road then I throw the pole down and run in the house really fast ans act like I'm working...

Anyways, I married a man who really doesn't care to fish...ever...so last year on mothers day I made him go.

And here I am with the one and only fish I caught. Notice how I have to hold the thing up by my head and how the dogs are staring intently at the fish.... 

 Then back goes the fish and....

in go the dogs.

We learned a few things that day...

1. We have fish in the pond...we really weren't sure

2. The dogs hate fish and want to kill them all.

Well after all the  dry weather we have had this year all our ponds have taken a bad beating. Some have gone dry but this one here by our house has kept some water in it, but it has gotten really low and we noticed how the cattle had destroyed the the pond dam so we decided to have it cleaned out

So on this past Monday....when it was 70+ degrees the guys showed up with the equipment and started working on the pond.  The started by cleaning off all the trees off the dam.
  

Since it was so beautiful Chester and I walked out there and watched them work...He loved watching the equipment work.

Like normal the dogs followed us out there.

Before the could start the pond clean out and the dam repair they had to get all the water out. Lucky for us we have another pond just on the other side of the pond dam, so when we have to bust the dam to let the water out we didn't lose any of the precious water.

The digging as started....

I will show some before and after pics in another post, but here is some pics of the work being done.

 

As you can see there is still a good amount of water in the pond, but don't be fooled, it's probably no more than a couple of feet deep in the middle. 

Finally he made it through the dam

And out goes the water and hopefully some fish...

Jasper watched with crazy excitement.

And then he saw a fish back in the pond........or maybe it's the loch ness monster...either way...

Off the dogs go, back into the pond to see what they can catch and kill....

and how muddy they can get. 

And some fish they did catch.

and they weren't bad sized fish.

And to my astonishment there were catfish out there too, I was excited about this.

Every time the dogs would come out with a fish I would confiscate it from them and then take it a chuck it into the other pond.  

After which they would go back in and try to catch it again.

I think I threw one fish back in 4 times.....I don't think it made it. 

Since it was beautiful out I decided to do some "search and rescue" fishing. 

So I put Chester to bed and...

Put my hip boot on, grabbed a shovel and bucket and away I went.

My Helpers came along too.

Kit the boarder collie was the only smart one, she stayed on shore and stayed clean. 

Ya see all that nastiness, I was out in the middle of it saving fish. 

I got mostly small fish, but there were a few nice sized ones that I pulled out and saved too.    

Not all the fish made it....Jasper caught one really nice bass and then thought it was a good idea to bring it up to the house and drop it in the front yard.....yuck!!

There has been a lot of work done on the pond since I saved some fish...it looks like a different pond.

But I will share more on that later.

Hope ya'll have a great weekend

JP         

Are You My Owner?!?!?!

So back before Christmas, really close to the beginning of December we noticed we had an extra cow out with our herd here by our house. She wasn't hard to spot she is a red white faced cow in a group of all black cows.

We do have a few red cows in some of our groups, but we know each of them by sight and here be our house we don't have any red cows, so she stuck out like a sore thumb.  

When she appeared we were super busy and didn't have time to get her in, so we didn't bother calling the neighbor to tell him she was here. She wasn't hurting anything out in our pasture, she was just out eating wheat with the rest of the girls, so we just left her.

Well after Christmas was over with we decided to get her in and then give the neighbor a call to tell him to come get her. When his hired man shows up he takes one quick look at her and says she isn't theirs....

We were shocked and confused, to say the least.

This one neighbor always has cattle getting out on us, so we just KNEW it was his cow, but we were wrong. This hired man said he had seen her running the roads north of us a month or so before, but she defiantly wasn't theirs. 

So since we had her caught, we tried to get a hold of all the other neighbors in the area that have cattle and see if she was theirs....
 

But we had no luck, everyone we talked with said she didn't belong to them.  So now we are back to square one. We still have this random red cow hangin' out in our pasture eating our wheat. 

There is one neighbor who said no to her, but Caleb and I both think we remember her staring us down from across the the fence when we would be in the field next to his pasture.

I am beginning to think that she hitch-hiked her way here from out west in hope of finding greener pasture.....just a thought. ;)

JP 

Being Honest

So I feel the need to come clean with something...

I'm a slob...well at least I can be. I actually have some obsessive-compulsive tendency's but until things have their proper place to go, they just lay cluttered everywhere and are a mess...

Not having their proper place to go is what got me into the problem I am in today....

Enter my Dresser.... 

It's really not that bad...

Look at it from a different angle.
 

Oh, wait it really is that bad, maybe even worse from this angle!

And since we are being honest it has been like this for well over a year. I have thought about cleaning it off, but then think really whats the use it's just gonna get messy again....

I think that about my love hadles too....why workout to get rid of them I'm just gonna have more kids and then they will be back. ;) another topic for another time.

Back to my messy dresser.  The main problem is I have a lot of necklaces and they don't all fit in my jewlery box and some of them are long and I don't want them to get all tangled up. So the last time I cleaned off my dresser I laid them flat on it and they looked good for a day. :/ I also have a big pile of scarves that are sitting in a pile on the right side...they usually hang on the corner of the mirror and made every thing look even messier.
     

See no room in the Inn or the jewlery box.

I really think it has been this way for probably a year and half by now, cause I know I thought of a solution a long time ago and got some of the things to make it with, but then I had a child.

I think that's all that really needs to be said.

Oh and I couldn't figure out what boards to use for my project.

I started it once, cut the boards, only to figure out they were too thick for what I was gonna do. 

So I stuck waiting and trying to figure it out again.

Well  back last summer, this old barn got a face lift. It was either fix it or it dies. So now it looks like this...

All the old barn wood was covered with pretty red tin, and new doors were made. Well in the process of fixing it up there were some scraps of barn wood left over and I picked up some of the smaller ones and did this...

While walking through Lowe's back before Chester was born, I got the idea of using door knobs to hang my necklaces on. I originally was gonna cut a plywood square, and paint it, but Caleb didn't care for that idea....and I don't think it would have looked as good.  

So I bought a handful of different knobs....they were on clarence, so even better, the long skinny one is for dangly earrings and the others are for necklaces. I like the idea of using old antique knob even better, but I didn't think about that till I already had these knobs bought.    

This one is for my scarves.....originally this was suppose to be fore necklaces, but since I needed somewhere to put my scarves, it got changed.

I have another idea for my scarves and if I ever get that done then I will use this for necklaces, but until then it will be home to my scarves.

I should have put little things on the back of each of them so I could hand them on a nail, but that would have taken even longer for me to get this done, so I just grabbed some screws and the drill and screwed them strait to the wall.

If Caleb would have been helping, then the would have both been even, and level and it would have been screwed into a stud, but I didn't do any of that and just eyeballed it...

But I know I hit a stud with at least one of my screws! :)  

Here they are in action.
 

I have a lot of necklaces, and really need another one for them, but until I have more space for one, I will have to make due.
 

I really needed another handle for my earrings, but this will do for now.
 

I really don't love this for my scarves, but it works for now.

It's really amazing how much my spirit was calmed just from cleaning this off....it's wonderful...

Lets just hope I keep it this way!

JP 

 

  

Mooooo

So now that my head is clear to think again I thought I would share with you what's goin' on with life here on the farm.....Well it's kinda slow....

Slow might not be the right word, it's less varied right now. We stay busy, but its doing the same thing pretty much each day....

That is we feed Cattle everyday, and that's about it. Ok there is some other stuff, but it's boring stuff so we aren't gonna talk about tit right now.

  
It's cold and there is no grass so a lot of hay is being fed.

And ate. 

If they weren't cows I would call them pigs....

I don't go out everyday, but Chester and I usually try and make it out at least once a week, and some times he doesn't make through feeding all the cattle without falling asleep.

This guy always likes to tag along as well. I'm not sure why but he always looks so pathetic in all the pictures I have of him. 

This is probably opne of my favorite cows cause she throws some awesome caves!!

And oddly enough I haven't named her yet, I haven't came across an name that I like just yet. 

Any suggestions?? 
 

The boys stopped to say hi to the camera....the bigger one is Tom and the smaller one is Lenard.

   
This is another one of my favorite cows....

She's just pretty....and the pretty sun on her pretty black coat makes her look even prettier!

Until we meet again.

JP  

Waiting on Go

I had a miscarriage....

I know that's a heck of a way to start a post, but I have, no that's not the reason have haven't posted in two months....well the not fully the reason. I haven't posted in two months cause it was nonstop go craziness from Thanksgiving till into the new year, I have just recently been able to find my house again....and cause I was putting off writing about this. 

So let’s back up....Last June Caleb and I found out we were expecting baby #2. We were soo very excited. I was a little shocked cause it happened this time without having to use clomid like I did when trying to get pregnant with Chester. I thought, "This is what it's like to be like me sister, who I think could get pregnant just by her husband looking at her...lol." But seriously I was so very excited cause it made me feel like there was nothing wrong with me and Chester was going to have a sibling to play with....and they would only be 17 months apart, kinda like I was with my sibling. Things were perfect! The pregnancy started just like the last one, I was grumpy and tired...at least this time I was more prepared for it. 

 I had told my friends and family, they had put it in the bulitin at church, no big deal I figure since the last pregnancy went so wonderfully. 

Then one day in the middle of July I woke up and noticed some bleeding...

I call my Doc and they are trying to be positive for me, and think it's nothing to worry about but I should come on in just to make sure. I was 7 weeks along....I know there will be some people out there that think that's not very far along so it shouldn't be a big deal, but to any momma who wants a baby it's a huge deal. 

I couldn't go that very day, but the next day I took our truck up to get the tires rotated...yeah, I know, but it needed done, and the appointment was already made, so might as well, one less trip for me. So head up and sit for about an hour and half while the guy works on the tires...I sit and think, realizing that I know what they are going to tell me, cause the bleeding has just gotten worse as the hours went by. I remember it was raining that day cause there were puddles in the parking lot, It seems right that it was raining. 

After the got my truck taken care of I head to the hospital for the ultrasound...

...No heartbeat. The Ultrasound Tech was trying as hard as she could to find a heartbeat, but all she found is what was left of the fetus. She didn't confirm it, but said I needed to go see the Doc to get the confirmation. My doc confirms it and tells me what to expect over the next few days.  Through all of that I never cried, I just took it all in, but my 30 minute drive home I bawled the whole way. 

Caleb wasn't with me, but I called him as soon as I left the Doctors office.  I glad he wasn't with me it gave me time to deal with it my way I did a lot of talkin' with God on the trip home.  

I was supposed to be making a trip to hang out with some college girlfriends over the weekend, and then we were supposed to leave and go to Colorado to visit Caleb's sister, but neither of those happened, I just wasn't up for it. 

The next day however I did make the trip with Caleb and his Dad over to annual Farm show....odd I know, but I didn't want to think about what had just happened, and no better place than hanging out with my husband and his dad looking at farm equipment.
 
Since then we have been trying again, but my body is back to acting like it used to, so back on drugs I go and hopefully we will get another little one. 

It's been six months since this happened, so why share about it now? Well, God has been laying it on my heart to share this since it happen and I have been putting it off. I didn't want to share this cause writing about it just makes me relive it again and there is still some sadness there. But even though there is sadness, there is also some joy knowing that my little one is up there in heaven and that I will get to meet them one day! 

When you think of it that way, it makes losing the baby not so hard; the hard part comes when I have to take a hard look at myself and how I just wanted things to be my way. I didn't want this path that God had for me to take, I wanted my "Perfect" little world, where things happen just the way that I want them to and where I am fully in control, but that's not how it works. I am far from being in control and the sooner I realize that better off I will be. 

My selfish desire wanted a baby here with me, and somehow I thought it would be much better off, with me....seriously, better off here on an Earth full of suffering and tears than in heaven walking with Jesus. 

I know this was kinda a sad story to start back with, but I felt the need to share this and encourage any of you that might have gone through similar situations. 

For now we will continue, with our little miracle family, to Wait on Go for the addition of more little ones.

Lots of Love from here on the Farm,

JP