6/29 The schedule

This has been our schedule this year Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday Chris and  Collin up at 5:30 a.m. to get him to workouts at 6 a.m. and Chris checks irrigation systems.   I get Erin up at 6:30 and take her in for workouts at 7.  Some days the football team runs drills until 7:20 a.m.  Then we head home so he can have breakfast and I start to water the garden since it is evident that we have too much heat and no rain.  
This morning the goats flipped their latch so they help with morning watering chores!

Collin helped me put trenches in the corn and green beans to help with the watering.  We’ll see if it works.  Our first batch of corn died, so this was planted late…in the heat!    I go get Erin at 8 and the rest of the day begins…what will today hold?

6/27 Hot and Dry

I was up in time for some sunrise photos this morning.  The sun is north on the horizon and easy for me to miss.  I have also learned that little moisture in the air makes for boring sunrise and sunset photos.  Today we at least had some clouds to play with.  Alan missed it! The heat is only half the story.  It has been so dry that the animals come running to any water source.    
Siesta!
 

6/26 Darn Hot

Ugh, what a summer.  During a year where some parts of the country are flooding we are draught ridden.  Seriously draught ridden.   Last week Chris said the dry land corn would probably be ruined  if we did not get any rain last weekend, however, it’s now been another week of 100F + heat and wind and no rain.  I forgot to water the garden Saturday, this is what I found on Sunday.

Our first round of corn did not grow, so we had to plant some more in June.  Not sure I can get it through the heat, but I really want to try!

I thought I’d contact the county to see if they would like to hire our goats to trim down the trees that grown near the phone lines.  I had them out grazing Sunday afternoon and they attacked this tree like kids attact ice cream!

6/22 Alan at play

                                                            Alan disappears from time to time.  His older siblings get busy with things other than imaginary play.  I find him in the shop in the boat or like today on Billy’s cart playing with the whip. 

 

 

 

 

Lacey likes to c heck the chickens with me.  Today she got the door open!

6/21 Dis-budding or de-horning

Here are our girls kid 2 and kid 1.  It’s a big day for kid 2, she will be de-horned today.  Horns get stuck in fence or cause pain when they head butt you.  Meet Cheryl Carey, the woman we got the goats from.  She has been awesome in helping us through these firsts.  She has a tool that she uses to de horn them.  It’s like branding really.  She has a tool that heats the area and burns the follicles the horn comes out of.  That seals it off so they won’t continue to grown.  Li’l one cried hard the first time, but not so much for the second.

Erin takes her back to her momma and some milk!

6/20 Pitch

Unfortunately another loss for the Mr Tee Sterling Rec team.  A bad one too.  The only bright spot was the inning Hans got to pitch.  He did a great job, assisted in all 3 outs and was a personal season highlight.  He actually got the 2nd out and then chased a kid back to base tagging him for the 3rd out.  Whoohoo!

6/18 Rubberband Man

After years of looking, the boys found rubber band guns at the same time they had allowance to spend…yippee!

6/14 Horns, combines and baseball

One, only one of our kids has horns growing, they are not named so we’ll call it goat 1.  She will be disbudded or dehorned soon. 
With harvest coming Alan got creative and made a combine out of lego'
       s.  Cool, isn’t it?
Harvest got underway this afternoon and Alan so badly wanted to ride with his father.  The sky grew so dark and I thought for sure his baseball game and harvest would be “cancelled” for the night.  No such luck (for rain).  We not only played, but he played awful, the delay due to the rain completely threw the boy’s concentration.  Ugh, it was ugly!

6/12 Rattlers

Hans was in a tournament this weekend. They played 2 games Saturday but lost both. Sunday they played 4 games and won 3 giving them 3rd overall. Since the last win was 13:11 in the last moments players and coaches were thrilled. Here he is with good friend Wendell. We were not able to go due to harvest, so it was nice Wendell's dad could stay with them.

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6/11 Getting ready for harvest

Hans is away this weekend playing baseball with the Rattlers in Dodge City KS.  Here at  home we are preparing for harvest. We had a brief start Wednesday evening and Thursday filled with problems with the one combine and then the wheat was not dry enough to cut over the weekend.

While Chris worked on the combine I took combine photos.

6/10 What keeps you busy

Collin is working around the house and yard this summer.  Chris bought a truck load of wood and guess who gets to stack it? 

Erin’s goat has been bred and looks very pregnant.  We did not intend to breed her this year.  The billie busted through the fence while Erin and I were in CO and had 1 afternoon with her.  He’s good! She is due in mid August.

Hans’ team had a miserable game tonight, I think they lost 2-10.  Hans however, got to pitch and catch and did rather well at both.

 

Hans is a fantastic stealer and he is so quick even if they do go for him he is usually safe!

6/7 At the diamond

Lots of baseball tonight.  One thing I like about playing local is we see so many friends in town that we just don’t see very often.  Tonight I saw my friend Kim and her 2 kids Karis and Ian.  What a blessing both of these little ones is!

Alan’s team won their first game tonight, the first game in 2 years. They almost won their second game, but lost it in the last moments as the other team scored the final runs.

Hans’ team struggles this year, but this game was better than some others. He is enjoying getting to play catcher.  Erin has a bit of a fan club.  She is working with the preschoolers at VBS this week and these are 2 of her peeps!