Fun & Games

We had a jam-packed weekend starting Friday evening. Colten had a friend over to play for awhile (he couldn't stay for a sleep over, though) and we had Hilda Community Club where it was joke night and I was impressed that Ashlyn wanted to go up and tell a joke in front of everyone. I didn't even want to do that. Way to go Ashlyn! Her friend Jayde came home with us after club and spent the night (not sure if they slept or not... I'm pretty sure I heard giggles and whispers all night). Saturday morning the kids played and I cleaned (yay!). They had some intricate games of Littlest Pet Shop going on. This pic is from when they had them all in a conga line or something. It amazes me the games they come up with! Saturday afternoon I convinced my parents to wait for us so we could go take a boat ride with them at Sunrise Beach while John was gone to Cabela's with Noel. The kids really enjoyed getting wet! It was a nice day to be on the water. On the way back, we just managed to catch the bats leaving a cave that's near a dirt road somewhere between the lake and my parents house (can't remember the name offhand). That was definitely a treat!

Sunday, John cooked lots of yummy BBQ to celebrate my birthday a little early. Of course, we all ate too much and Sunday night my stomach complained a lot!!! It was hard to get up for the drive to Austin Monday morning, but I managed. Thought I'd post a pic of the sunset I caught on the way home. The one good thing about the drive to Austin is getting to watch the sun rise and set over the hills and the lake and the river. This is from the slab over the Llano River in Castell.

The Barn Has a Slab!

We now have a slab for the barn, the first step to getting it rebuilt. Of course now, John can't wait to start the next steps, but that will be awhile yet. For now, though, it's kinda neat to have it done. John will already have a better place to work on the vehicles instead of crawling around in the dirt. Plus the kids have a new place to play....they were playing tennis on it this morning!


So, I'm about pear-ed out. We cut up and dried 6 trays of pears in the dehydrator Thursday, and with the left over pears, I made a pear pie and two batches of pear cake split into four half-cakes to put in the freezer. Guess what I'll be bringing to holiday functions this year!

Tidbits

Stuck Cow
So far, the cow that was stuck has managed to make it. John gave it some shots to relax it's muscles and has been taking it water and feed. It has moved some on it's own and even made it to the shade, but yesterday he couldn't find it. Hopefully it found a good spot to rest. Still not sure what will become of it.

Pear Bombs
This weekend we took a bedsheet and the kids and I held it under the pear tree while John knocked pears out of the tree. The kids thought it was pretty cool to see pears flying out of the tree and rolling around in the sheet or falling on the ground (splat!). I thought it was pretty gross when a rotten one would fall into the sheet and get splattered by the others. Rotten pear juice, yum! We took some of the pears to my parents and my dad is going to attempt to make wine out of them. Hope it turns out! Also, we borrowed a dehydrator from our neighbors and are going to try dehydrating some of them since I read pears don't freeze well. Guess we'll eat the rest of them. They turned out really big and juicy this year due to the rainy weather. There weren't quite as many as last year since a lot of them got knocked off during one of our crazy weather events. It's amazing we had this many considering the 4 inch hail and ~70mph wind. We found that the dogs actually helped us to keep the pears that made it this far... we discovered a dead raccoon in the yard the other morning. We couldn't believe it... usually they just bark all night at stray cats. Guess they really had something this time!

Parent Homework
I went to a meeting for the parents of first grade students last night and decided first grade was too much work for me! Really, though, we will be having to read every night and practice spelling words and spelling sentences and make sure they can pass their reading tests and know what to do to help them when they're struggling with words while reading and write down the books they read and help them practice writing and, well, I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Between that and helping Ashlyn with her homework, it'll feel like being back in school again! It is exciting, though, to see Colten reading. I know he'll enjoy it considering how much he loves being read to (especially Captain Underpants!!!). Wish us luck in getting to 60 words per minute by the end of the year! (That sounds like a lot, doesn't it?)

Blimps
Seriously, how often do you see blimps these days? John called this afternoon and said there was a plain white blimp flying over the ranch. Strange!

Frustrations with Animals

We love having animals around, but sometimes they're frustrating... here are a few examples from this week:

Monday, our neighbor gave us one of their cats and said they'd bring another that usually hangs out with it later when they could catch it. The first cat has been fine. It hasn't left the upstairs porch since that's the only place in the yard that the dogs can't get to. The only problem we've had with it is that it likes to meow in the middle of the night right outside our bedroom window. I think I'm getting used to it, though. Yesterday, they brought the other cat and put it upstairs with it's friend. As soon as it was let go, it proceeded to high tail it off the side of the porch and land with a thud on the ground, one story below. We assume it didn't break anything since it was able to run and hide in a wood pile. John was able to catch it and we put it in a cage with some food. I think it'll be awhile before we let it go again! Of all the dogs/cats we've had in the yard, this was the first to actually jump off the upstairs porch. We kept thinking one would fall of one of these days since they like to slink around through the railings, but never thought one would fly off!

Next is the pigs. John set up a new pen for them further away from the house than last year. There's an A-frame shed with hay that's set up on a cement slab. The other part of the slab is where we put the water for them so they don't make a huge mud hole. The rest of the pen is grass/dirt and has shady parts. When John got home yesterday afternoon, he went to check on them, and they were both laying on the slab in the sun, panting and sun burnt. Of all the places they could be, they were in the hottest part of the pen... makes sense to me. John had to put a tarp over the slab temporarily until he can add something more sturdy, so if they decide they like to lay there, at least they won't burn. Otherwise, we might have some cooked Pork Chop and Ham for everyone!

Lastly, John had his work cut out for him this morning when he noticed that one of the cows was stuck in a mud hole in the pasture. This a part of the pasture that is usually dry, but after all the rain we've been having, it's now a swampy area. He noticed the cow there yesterday and thought it was just laying down, but it was in the exact same spot this morning. Fortunately, he was able to pull it out with the jeep, but it wasn't able to get up. He thinks it's legs are worn out from trying to escape. He'll be watching it today to see if it recovers. I'm not sure what we'll do with it if it doesn't get up soon. Hopefully, it's just really tired.

Piggies

Tonight, we picked up the pigs that the kids will be showing in the stock show this year. We should have gotten them earlier this week, but it's been too rainy (we had 3.2 inches in the gauge this morning). Colten claimed the black and white one and named it Pork Chop and Ashlyn's is Ham. Not sure if those are official names yet or not, but they definitely follow the theme from last year. Ashlyn still has fond memories of Bacon. She must have forgotten all the poop she had to scoop!

Rena's In Galveston

We got Rena moved in, but of course, things didn't go quite as planned. Rena wasn't able to get the water turned on at her new apartment until next Tuesday. We thought we'd just get a motel room in Galveston to stay in after we got her moved in, however, every place I looked at online was charging around $180 for Saturday night or was full... oh yea it's Labor Day weekend! So instead of trying to squeeze in some fun stuff, we left the kids at Omie B's and planned on heading back home after moving her in. It was a long couple of days of driving, but we hardly got rained on at all Saturday (Friday night, however, we got poured on in San Antonio and off and on after that) and everything went pretty smoothly. And now, John has more time to get stuff done this weekend after his crazy day Friday. By the way, he managed to get most everything done and we were on the road by 5:30.

Here's a picture of Rena on the porch of her new place: