Farm Life

Trails for Kids 2016

{WARNING: Picture Overload… again…}

So what we were up to this last weekend? Well it involved friends, camping, and horses. What more could you ask for? Hubby took Thursday off and he and Jared worked on moving horses, trailers, stuff down to Underwood’s Crag O’Lea in Pineville, MO, for the weekends adventures. I met Karen after I got out of school and picked up Abug and she got off work, then we headed down.

The evenings meal consisted of Steak and potatoes. A good kind of hearty meal :).

Then our friends Tony & Stephanie couldn’t get power to their camper, so the men went to work trying to rewire the box and figure out why. And just like that (you know like 20 minutes later, not bad) they had power. Woot woot! Nothing like rewiring by flashlight. Tony had a flashlight on his head and every time he’d look away hubby would grumble at him because he took the light.

Then we wandered down to the tent. I guess I should tell you this weekend was Trails for Kids. It is to raise money for the Tri-County CP Center.

Once we got to the tent, we checked out the lighting that hubby/Grady/Jared/Jason helped wire up. There was a dance floor so I turned on baby girls favorite song, “Girl Crush” and she and daddy danced. Then Jared tried to teach her how to break dance.

Friday morning our plans were breakfast and then to hit the trails. We had Bacon and Eggs and steak left over from Thursday night. They got out tortillas and cheese and made breakfast burritos. I knew Jared came into the camper looking for cheese but it wasn’t until my second burrito that I actually found the cheese. I made the comment I thought cheese would make it better, but it really didn’t. And if you look at the plate of bacon, a few pieces are burnt to a crisp… I had them on my second burrito. I wound up not eating the whole thing. The burnt bacon was not so yummy but the other bacon was excellent! We also had hubby’s candied jalapeños. YUM!

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Little Cricket Bars

Isn’t she beautiful? This was Little Cricket Bars, or her barn name was Cricket or Ma. She is a 1984 model. If there’s one thing I can teach you about horses, their age changes on January 1st. That would make her 32. 32 is old in horse years.

A friend of our family gave her to us with the condition she had a home until she died. We agreed, and sadly Saturday night into Sunday morning she lost her battle. I’m not sure she was battling anything other than as she was getting older, it was getting harder for her to get around. Their 32 years is probably like what 70-90 in adult years? I’ve actually never heard a conversion like dog years… for every year a dog gains 7… ya know… I’ve never heard that conversion for horses. (more…)

Woolaroc Rendezvous

{warning: Picture heavy!!}

Since we’ve become friends with Karen and Jared, they’ve mentioned doing these rendezvous things. We really didn’t know what that was but told them we would be interested. So basically, you dress up pre-1840’s, you sleep in tents, and that’s kind of the gist.

A few weeks ago, maybe even a month or so now, Karen and Jared showed us this flier they got in the mail for the rendezvous that happened this past weekend. Karen rounded up some clothes for us to wear and we were in.

Friday Abug and I loaded up with Karen and Jared and left early morning. It’s known that I’m not a morning person, they said they were leaving around 9-10am and I was like really (imagine that really in a whiney voice). Yes, really and I was there, rearing and ready to go, Abug in tow. Hubby was coming down after he got off work and picked Tbug up.

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Happy First Day of Spring

… yesterday!!…

So what did you do on your first day of spring?

This is what I woke up to…. Well technically it was a text telling us baby on the ground so hubby and I started annoying my dad for pictures 🙂

We weren’t able to go over right away. There are two weekends a year hubby has to work, and this was one of them. We decided to go to church (8:15-9:15) and then he was scheduled to work at 10.

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The Weekend that Was

This weekend was a whirlwind of a weekend! Saturday morning we woke up bright and early… no joke!… and headed to my aunts house. AC had the weekend off and wanted to see Abug and it worked with our schedule also so away we went.

Mom originally thought we’d stop in OKC for lunch but we got there at 11am and we thought, AC’s is just about an hour or so past OKC, let’s just head on. So I sent AC a message and asked her if she’d like to meet us for lunch. She said she and UB would meet us at Interurban. They said we were going somewhere else for dinner so we didn’t want to eat a big lunch.

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Go to the feed store….

This is Devil Dawg, not Mudflap….

As we were pulling out of the driveway this morning I looked down at my phone and it said I had 26 minutes to my parents house and that traffic was clear. I laughed and joked that we go to my parents house a lot on Sunday’s I guess.

If you don’t have an iPhone, it has some feature about it that picks up on patterns that you normally do and tells you how traffic is for that particular commute. Oh… and we weren’t headed to my parents house this morning.

Hubby said that the other day he was talking to my dad. My dad mentioned that he looked down at his phone the other day and it told him what traffic was like to the feed store. Dad started laughing and asked if hubby and I were playing tricks on him. But no, every Saturday is feed store day.

Mudflap used to tell dad it was Saturday and time for the feed store. Mudflap recently passed away though… so now it is dad’s phone that tells him it is time to go to the feed store. I can sure tell you the horses will be happy to have dad receiving reminders ;).

Oooooo I wonder if we travel on a trip if it’ll say he has to go like 136 miles (or some random number) to get to the feed store.

Boots Boots and more Boots {and Tips on taking care of Leather!}

My love/hate relationship with Facebook paid off once again this week. Why do I say love/hate? Well because sometimes I love to hate it! Sometimes people overshare on Facebook. Sometimes people take what you say wrong on Facebook. Sometimes….. the stories go on and on. Use your imagination.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great place to connect with old friends and new friends a like. a great place to share recipes and pictures. And a great place to find deals on boots!

Oh, wait, what? Boots? Yes, boots. This past weekend I was on Facebook, and a group that I’m a member of Farm Hats had a post about a Durango Boots discount. I read through the post and it said that if you ordered with the code FFACHAPTER you got a pair of FFA Durango Boots for $49. I thought that seems too good to be true.

So I went on to the website and it showed that they were $149 (or if men $152 or something like that). I went ahead and added a pair to my cart, plugged in the discount code, and bam… $49 pair of FFA Durango boots. No tax and you could get free shipping for $2 for FedEx shipping. I showed it to the hubs and also shared it on my Facebook page for others to benefit from.

Then that night hubby and I decided (and I use hubby and I loosely, he did it 😉 I just benefitted from it) to order us each a pair. One… the website said $2 was donated to the FFA (I’d have liked a little more but whatever) and two, you can’t beat a pair of $49 pair of boots.

They arrived yesterday. I was sooooo happy! Oh and get this… The box said they donate $5 per pair of boot to the FFA. Even better!!

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FFA and National FFA Week

Welcome to FFA Week. Did you know it was FFA week? What is National FFA Week? It is a week for FFA, Alumni, and Sponsors to be agvocates for this great organization and Agriculture as a whole.

Now I grew up on a farm and I have always had a fondness for agriculture, but I have learned there are people out there who think their food comes from the store. Well, yes, but where does the store get it?

Words that scare people are GMO, Farm, Factory Farm, Blood & Guts, Antibiotics, etc. There is nothing scary about those words, especially if you educate yourself to the best of your ability. That’s not reading just one side, no, read both sides. You may not agree with what the other side says, but that is how you educate yourself.

I joined FFA as a Freshman in high school (the earliest you could join when I was in school). When I did my student teaching I learned that some programs have 7th and 8th graders taking classes in agriculture to expose them, our school didn’t offer that.

But through the FFA I was able to travel both Domestically and Internationally. In fact I got my Bachelors degree in Agriculture Education. Which here’s a fun fact, George Straight graduated from Southwest Texas State University with a degree in Agriculture Education. Hey King George, you’re awesome in more ways than one!

Anyway I got in to showing sheep as an FFA’er. I showed sheep all over the state of Missouri and took it on to the American Royal. I also traveled to Washington D.C., St. Louis, MO, all over the state of South Dakota, and Costa Rica to pursue agriculture (and that’s just to name a few). Yes, Agriculture is that awesome.

In the FFA I learned how to public speak (I am a very shy/outgoing person), judge animals, trapse through muck with the best of them :), achieve awards, and much more. I learned how to be a team player, how to give more than I receive but receive all in the same. How to make friendships with people you didn’t know and much more. I can’t say enough good things about FFA. And now, some pictures.

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Sunny and 68

Saturday morning the weather was predicted to be in the upper 60’s. The upper 60’s in January, really? Holy cow yes! And was it ever awesome!?!?

Hubby, Grady, and Jared had plans to help Chuck start cleaning the campgrounds that we use for the trail riding events. If you remember the rains in December after Christmas… there was mud everywhere. The refrigerator and freezer were full of water. The hot water heater was busted (I think that’s what I heard). It did a lot of damage to the shower facilities. There was 36″ of water before it crested. So they decided since they had a free weekend, why not go down and start the cleanup process.

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