This is how Konrad puts to boys to sleep.

News from the Ranch

Well the weather is frigid and it certainly feels like winter even though winter doesn't officially arrive for twelve more days. We are anxiously awaiting the birth or our first kids, though we have no signs of their eminent arrival. Farmer Kaul says those nannies better start having some kids soon or they will be sold to market!

T-Bone is doing good, getting bigger all the time. Today was the first day he did not eat all of his food. This is a good sign, it means he's full and he has already eaten all he wants. This is also good news for the budget because he eats 1/2 of a 5 gallon bucket full of different feed. He eats crushed corn, sweet feed and a couple other treats, plus hay. Yesterday I went out to feed him and he was nowhere to be seen. He was chilling out in the pond area back in the woods. By the time I finished delivering all his food and water I saw him standing back there, just looking at me. Normally he is waiting for his food by the gate, bellering loudly for all the neighbors to hear, but I was a little earlier than usual. All the water troughs have been frozen over for days. Even though the temperature gets over 32 all the ice doesn't melt so we have to break it and pull it out so the animals can drink. T-Bone is big enough and the ice is thin enough that he can push it down and get a drink but the goats are another story. I don't know if it's because they are too small or if they are just cranially challenged.

Sunday we got two new barn cats. One male and one female, they are both fixed. One is white, currently named Snowball, the other is gray, named Smoky. So now we have 4 barn cats. Hopefully they will all get along once the two new cats are released and will begin to suppress the mouse population.

Kash has become an accomplished escape artist. First he squeezed through the gate, we're not positive but we think he sometimes goes under, and now he jumps between the top two rows of fencing. We added some chicken wire to his fence but that smart creature jumped through anyway and was heavy enough to bend the fence down enough to get through. So now he is either being locked inside his dog house or allowed into the house (which was his main goal to begin with). Have we been outsmarted by a dog? I have enough challenges with our two human children I can't fight every battle with the four-legged ones too!

Halloween 2008

Rhinestone Cowboy and Mr. Fireman
A couple of videos of the boys having fun.

T-Bone

Our steer arrived late Monday afternoon. He will be in the pasture until next spring and then he will move to the freezer. I go back and forth on how I feel about this, this is my first venture into raising my own animal food. Konrad is pretty excited to have a steer on the farm, that's good because he will have to be the one to take care of it on most occasions. I don't want to come to like the cow. We only plan to keep half of the meat, our friends the Thomas' are taking the other half.
T-Bone will stay in the barn for about 3 days and then be released to the pasture. KC wants to go check on him all the time and is currently calling himself "T-Bone the Cow". KR is very interested in T-Bone but got scared when T-Bone bellowed out while KR was in the barn adn cried all the way up to the house.

Playing

This is the boys and their wonderfully safe new game. At least they aim for the pillows?

Eight Years

We celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary with a night out without the children to eat sushi and have adult conversation. Yippee! Thank you to family and friends for the cards and congratulations.

goat house

This is our new goat house. Konrad found it on an empty lot about a mile from the house and conned one of his buddies into riding over there and lifting it on to the trailer (pulled by our beautiful new truck). This is a picture of the two of them celebrating their loot with a non-limed Corona-sorry guys. They were both thankful not to be arrested during the endeavor. That would look very bad on the resume of a police officer.
We've been eyeing the house for a while now. This is my first close look at it, it doesn't seem to have a door. I guess was used to cover something they didn't want anyone to have access to. Konrad promises it was trash and that we were doing them a favor. If this is true I have to wonder A) why it took him so long to get up the nerve to do it and B) why he was panicked as he passed a sheriff on the way home. Mmm...nonetheless, it is currently still on the trailer behind the truck leaking oil (and probably several other fluids) on our newly sealed driveway.
and while I'm giving Konrad a hard time, let me tell you about Mr.-spoiler-pants.
So I'm out tonight and I didn't get to watch survivor when it aired. I was not worried, I can watch it later on the Internet. He and I are talking about random things after the kids went to bed and he just blurts out, "Jackie got voted out." I didn't even know what he was talking about at first. He works with a Jackie so I was trying hard to connect the dots and then he added, "on Survivor". I wanted to thump him on the forehead! He's much bigger than me, so I didn't, but I am still wondering why he would just blurt something like that out? He's very tired from all these crazy shifts, so I'll chalk it up to exhaustion.

Dinner A'fare

Tonight I went with some friends to make some meals at Dinner A'Fare. I didn't like my mandated hat in the picture of me, so I am putting up a picture of friends instead. This is Donna and Amy, mother and daughter. I made shrimp newburg and some other delicious-sounding meals. I have been to this place before so I'm sure they will taste as good as they sound. While I was gone, Konrad took the boys to the pool and was reaffirmed that Gordon would indeed drown himself if he didn't have a life jacket on. He sinks like a rock, but jumps in anyway! Scary. I was glad to hear that my parents covered their pool for the winter already. One less concern when visiting them.

Ranching

Today we bought our first hay bales. We got 25 square bales. Konrad says they cost a little more than we wanted to pay, but we only had to drive 1/2 miles to get them so we figured we made up for the extra cost in gas savings. The boys erally liked the John Deere tractor and baler. We unloaded the hay into our barn and set up a fall scene that we will pose in front of soon. Konrad says that will probably be our Christmas picture.

Cupcakes

There was a message on my phone this morning that I just HAD to go to Julia's Bakery and purchase a cupcake. So I did. I actually purchased two. I chose the Andi's Mint Cupcake and the Reese's Cup cupcake. I took a bite of each before it dawned on me to take a picture of them, but you get the idea. You will be happy to know that they were indeed delicious!