Friday, August 26, 2011

Arbor , pig roast, and whatever else I can think of!


Well.....I have heard that one of the reasons that women love to shop and go to sales, stems from their gathering days when the men were out hunting. I think that is why I like to look at classifieds so much. It is the thrill of the gathering. Boy did I get a killer deal about two weeks ago. A large dog house, and for only $25! Sure will keep someone warm this winter. And the best part of it is, we didn't have to build anything. It was built by a young fellow who worked at Home Depot, and he got the wood for next to nothing, he built it for his Basset Hound. Now how big could this be??? Dennis and I loaded ourselves into the pick up, and took off to go to get this dog house. It took four of us, plus the neighbor guy to get it into the bed of the pick up. I told Dennis we would ask our neighbor with the hay fork to help us get it out. Well, the neighbor never was able to come and help us, so after looking at this house, sitting in the truck out in the yard, (as it was too big to get into the garage,) we decided to tackle this on our own with the use of rollers. We were able to get it out, without injury to ourselves or the house. Here you can see me standing along side the house. Looks as if a whole family of Basset Hounds could fit in here. How big could this be? It weighed #700 pounds!


I entered one of my quilts in the Ault Fall Festival.
It took a blue ribbon, plus I received a 2.5# bag of sugar.
This goes back to the days of the sugar beet harvest, and what they used to give as prizes at the festival, and they still carry on this tradition. Some Ault residents used to have cupboards full of these small bags of sugar by there back door, and would offer them to anyone who came to visit. Another bit of trivia about the town of Ault the letters stand for "A Unique Little Town" hence the name Ault. We live 10 miles from Ault, and it is our closest gas station.


We never did make it to Nunns Fall festival as our neighbors to the west of us had their annual pig roast. We toured their pig facilities, saw their 900# boar, equipped with tusks and all the other stuff boars have. He was as big as our couch! They said he was easy to handle, sure would not want a crabby one at that weight. The little baby piggies were so cute, like little cans on legs, is what they remind me of. I did not think to bring my camera this year since I took allot of pictures last year. But shame on me, the pig pictures would have been neat for you all to see. They also had a draft breed colt, who had a tracheostomy tube. Don't see too many of those in farm animals. The little(well actually large Percheron colt) had a cold and went into resp distress, and ended up with some paralysed neck muscle. They are hoping that eventually they will be able to get this removed.

My arbor is almost finished. All we need is some decorative peak for the top. I was thinking along the line of what they used to use on the roofs of houses, metal with a ball at either end. When I see it, I will know. Can't recall the name of it now. This fall when it is safe to transplant, I will plant the Russian Sage and Trumpet vines around it.



We have our years worth of hay, as there is reportedly going to be a shortage due to all the strange weather happenings. Here is Brian who is delivering a stack of hay for us. A stack is 160 bales. We ended up getting 2 stacks, one of grass hay, and one of alfalfa. Goats milk best when they are feed good quality alfafa. The only bad thing about getting the stacks, is we have to carry them one by one and stack into the barn.



All the mouths to feed, err, um I mean the goats, lined up to watch the delivery of their years worth of hay.



Two of my little doelings that we had this year, Dazzle and Bambi, can you tell who is who?

August has been way too long and busy for us. Not to mention the above record heat. In the 90's all month. Dare I say it, but I am looking forward to a cold front coming through. It has also been the month of harvest for us. We are full swing into garden harvesting.
More later...................................

Friday, August 5, 2011

The fair again, Peeping Tom, and Arbor

THE FAIR AGAIN!!!!

Now who can resist this? Free food. And we were some of the first in line. There were tons of people who showed up for this event.

Here is the food that we were served, and it was a good barbecue pork sandwich, with all the trimmings.

Some of the other folks who enjoyed the food, they also had a band that played patriotic and big band music, who could ask for anything else? The ambiance was great, the food was delectable(and best of all, I did not have to prepare it!), the music was toe tapping, all priceless. But the cost??? Well as Dennis bit into the pork sandwich, he bit a bone chard and broke off a piece of his molar. The cost? $1100 for a new crown. Just goes to show you that you can't get something for nothing. But the memories are a lasting gift.

Here are a few more fair pictures. The splash dogs, a competition to see how far your dog can fly thru the air to retrieve a ball, and land in the water. I caught this dog mid air.



In the front of one of the buildings a huge tree with beautiful flowers, I am not sure what they are, they looked like hollyhock flowers. IF you look real close you can almost see me standing camouflaged in front of the tree. The temp in Greeley that day was 102.


This horse was all decked out in finery, giving rides by carriage throughout the fair grounds.

The morning of the fair,this is not our actual temperature, but the temp of the window when the sun is shinning on it. Just to let you know how hot and intense the sun can get at 5100 feet above sea level.


PEEPING TOM!!!!!!!!!!!

The hair on the back of my neck was all prickly and standing on end. I could just feel his beady eyes boring down on me. You know the feeling, when you just know someone or something is watching you. You know, the feeling you get when you feel that someone is following you on some dark lonely night, and all you can hear is a footstep....Every intimate movement being scrutinized. Wondering if some form of ill being is to be bestowed upon you. .I caught him watching me just out of the corner of my eye, as I got up to turn on the ceiling fan. He ducked quickly to avoid being spotted, but I know that he could see the white tee shirt I was wearing, and the rhythmical swirling of the fan blades. My breath caught in my chest as I slowly edged my way to the window, tip toe after tip toe, as I did not know if this was just my imagination playing tricks on me, or someone out to do me harm. There he sat, on the bench that we have so conveniently placed outside our bedroom window, just inches away from the screen. Our tom turkey! The only movement giving him away in the dark of night is the blinking of his round black eye. He stared into my eyes, and I acknowledged him, (as I always talk to my animals), as I breathed a huge sigh of relief in knowing that the peeper was animal and not human. So, tom has been renamed Peeping Tom, as he comes to perch on that bench every evening about the same time we go to bed, and when I get up in the middle of the night, there he is, and he stays until 5:30 every am like clock work. Is he really peeping, or keeping watch out for his beloved masters. I hope the later, or maybe he thinks there is safety for him by our bedroom window?



ARBOR
Phase two of our arbor is the roof, a work in progress, working between the thunderstorms and hot humid days. I am confident that we will finally finish this this week and get a good start on the bridge. The turkeys have taken a liking to roosting on the top of the roof.


And what else is coming???? Well, Larimer County fair Aug 5-9, Ault Fall Festival Aug 5-7, Nunn Harvest Festival Aug 12-14, Windsor Landscape and Garden Tour Aug 13Th. So much to do, and probably not enough time to get it all done.
More later............................................