A Little Taste of Fall

I love Fall, I think it's my favorite season.  It's a close tie with Spring.  But I'd rather wear boots and sweaters, and I really like making soup.  So, Fall may win.

It's so amazing when all the green trees begin gently changing into bright beautiful colors.

This is our maple tree in our back yard of our house in town.  It is the only Fall like tree we have.

Here some pretty Aspen trees are peaking up from behind one of our barns.

Is anyone else in love with white pumpkins?!  The past two years there have been more of them around, and I'm digging it.

Going from golden to red, from the top down.

This bush sits outside my kitchen window, I adore it.

A snacking horse made his way into my shot.  Snacking horses don't really care if you're trying to get a great photo of the beautiful fall landscape.  If you're where they want to feed they just mosey right on in.

Here's my family's pumpkins we carved the other night.  The one on the right end is my husbands.  Can you guess what it is?  He claims he was being creative,  I think he was just getting worn out after carving three of our children's pumpkins.

I love how tall this grass is.  I am standing for this shot, the grass was as tall as me, so pretty.

And here's my baby kissing "her" horse.  No one officially gave her the colt.  He was born this summer, and since he's a baby and she's our baby I think she figures it's fitting that the horse be hers.  I'm not going to argue with her, and I would like to see someone try.

Aspen trees are the perfect color scheme: black, white, & yellow... perfect.

And here's our dog Gus adorning some pink ear muffs my baby put on him.  It snowed that day (as you can see behind him, gotta love Montana "Falls"), and she thought he needed to stay warm.  He's such a good dog, he kept them on for thirty minutes before they finally slid to his neck.  Then he slept for an hour with them around his neck.  You can't ask more from a dog than to wear ear muffs that his two year old owner puts on him.

Happy Fall everyone.  Hope you are enjoying all the wonderful colors this season brings.

Horses & Such

We recently spent a few days at The Ranch entertaining some out of town guests from Mexico.

They were in for a real treat because we have a three day old baby colt.

He's the sweetest little guy and our first colt ever to have blue eyes.  Chances are his eyes won't stay that color, but for now it is such a cool feature.

He was still dirty from being born.  So, being the mom I am I couldn't resist giving him his first bath.  He didn't enjoy it so much, "but at least you're clean" I told him.  Honestly, I don't think he cares if he's clean or not.  

We also have a colt who is a couple months old.  The hot weather really tuckers him out!

And of course the sky at the ranch was not disappointing.  And of course I had to snap a photo.  And of course I had to share it with you.

Finally, I have to brag on my oldest girls, who happen to be twins.  They competed in their second horse show ever and did a great job.

At age seven they were the youngest riders at the show and most of their competitors were teenagers.  

Nonetheless, the twins came home with ribbons and the satisfaction of competing well.

A big shout out to their Grandpa Buck, who also happens to be their coach.  He's really helped them to become amazing little horse women.  

Great job girls!

And a good job to their horses Best 

and Itchy.

Missing the Sunrise

Last year when we lived on the ranch there were many things that I didn't care for this time of year.  For instance, feeding livestock in twenty degrees below zero weather.  Or having to open three gates just to get out of our "driveway".  But one thing that I greatly miss are the sunrises.

Our old ranch house faced east & every morning a beautiful sunrise would pop over the mountains.  This always made getting my day started a little bit easier.

Now I live in the mountains close to town.  We do not have sunrises.  It just starts to get brighter & around noon  the sun is visible.

And while I feel extremely blessed to have our new home, I miss my dose of morning sunrise.

Something about a sunrise give you a feeling of newness.  & you think "Yeah, this is a new day.  Come on, let's get going!"

A sunrise will put you beyond yourself & make you think about how big, beautiful, & amazing this world is, & how wonderful of a Creator we have.  It will ground you & make you think about what's important.

A sunrise will stop you in your tracks & make you take a big deep breath & enjoy life.   I miss my sunrises.

Which is why I have one of these photos as my desktop image.  My computer is right by the kitchen, the room where I start my day by feeding, fixing my kiddos hair & getting them ready for school.  So I see it first thing in the morning, gives my day a jump start.  Feel free to grab one of these photos & do the same.  It will make your morning brighter.

Busy Week

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while.  See, I had family in town.  Family from really far away.  Family that I love dearly & see sparingly.  So I was a little preoccupied.

Actually, a lot preoccupied because my beautiful sis-in-law brought her new baby girl.  This was the first time I got to meet her (& smell her, I love baby smell).  So every spare moment I was sitting on the couch holding her.

Or taking pictures of her & her cute chubby cheeks.  Which left little time for blogging.

Plus the weather finally got warm up here in the mountains.

Which meant there was a lot of time spent outside swimming...

... & posing cute chubby cheek babies in ridiculously cute settings...

... & working.  My bro-in-law loves coming here so he can work ;)

& of course we squeezed in some horse riding.  Unfortunately my other bro-in-law (not pictured) took a horse ride the first day he was here & had an accident which resulted in five of his ribs being broken.  So his vacation was a bit dampened.

We also took a day trip to a nearby town for some fun shopping & a stop at the amazing candy store.

Cousins got to spend time with each other...

... & we topped it off with yet more cute pictures of the sweetest chubby cheeked baby around.
I promise to post some yummy recipes soon.

Spring, Welcome to the Rockies

I think I can officially say that Spring is here!

We have actually had warm weather & sunny days.  And NO snow... finally!

Flowers are blooming, a sure sign of Spring.

Trees are finally blossoming & getting leaves.

Deer are scampering all over the place nibbling on green grass.  This particular deer seems to be yelling at someone, he's probably sick of me taking pictures of him.  But the best sign that it's Spring is babies!

Not from me (don't even think it), but from our horses.  This little guy was born yesterday.

Baby colts are one of my most favorite things in the world.

This one is especially sweet.  I got to be the first person to handle him, I love that.  This is the only time in a horses life that you can stick your fingers in their mouths without getting your digits chomped off.  Just like a human baby a horse baby will suck on your fingers.  Don't ask me why, but I love doing this.  (sidenote: these are not my hands, they're my father's)

I love colt tails, they are so stinkin' cute!  The first few days of a colt's life we spend as much time petting them, picking up their feet, & sticking our fingers in their mouth as we can.  

This is called imprinting, & it makes a horse very easy to train & break out if you do this starting the first day of their lives.  When we go to breakout (ride for the first time) our horses they rarely even buck because we imprint them from day one.  Plus who doesn't want to pet a baby horse.  After all this he gets a little tuckered out.

And lays down for a snooze... so sweet... now his mama gets a break.  I'm so happy Spring is here!