Hay Bale Jumping...

It's a must when we visit my hometown.

Plus it makes for some pretty neat pictures.

xo 

nessa dee

At the Ranch

We made a quick trip down to my hometown this week. I was supposed to help my dad start packing up his house as he's in the process of selling his place. We've been trying to get him to move closer to us for years, and though he's threatened to do so, it's never happened. He lives in a small town that had very few job opportunities, and we knew that selling his home would take time. So every time an offer for the house would come in, we'd tell him to take it, that he wouldn't ever get a better offer, and every time my dad would hesitate, and let the offer fade away with the hope that my brother or I would want to move back one day.    I can't blame him for not wanting to sell, though. He lives in a house that was designed by my mom, built from scratch on land that's been in his family for decades. He has barns, quite the menagerie of farm animals, and years of memories. It's the house I grew up in, and I have a half a life of memories there, but I know we can make many new memories and a lot more of them if he moves closer. Plus, there's a huge oil boom going on in that same small town, and we're all eating our words. Your hesitancy paid off, Dad, but for real this time, you're never going to get a better offer than right now!

The purpose of our little trip was to help him start packing up the house, but with the kids in tow, packing was put on the back burner in favor of trips out to the ranch to look for deer, playing with all of the dogs, chasing barn cats, catching frogs, and riding tractors.

 

 We didn't get much packing done, but we made a lot of memories.

Happy Monday!

xo

nessa dee

Puddle Jumping

I don't know about you, but for us, summer's been much busier than our busy school year. I had planned on getting a few rooms cleaned out, brushing up my illustration portfolio, blogging, and spending the rest of the days lounging [okay, chasing kids] around the pool. Instead, I've been packing, leaving, coming home, unpacking, washing clothes, repacking, and leaving again. And maybe I'm just old, but travelling so much with three kids in tow is exhausting, not to mention the work that piles up when we're gone. I'm panicking now because we are a good week into July and I've yet to cross anything off my summer to-do list. And thus, the annual sacrificing of want-to-do's in favor of need-to-do's has begun. 

But enough about that. Let's have a gander at a fat baby jumping in puddles after a much needed rainstorm:

 

 

Happy Monday!

xo

nessa dee

And we're back!

At least Jonathan, the dog, and I are back. The kids stayed with their grandparents for a few extra days of fun while Mom gets a few extra days of uninterrupted prep time for Baby Boy. I'm also going to try to get a few personal illustration projects done in this free time.

Oh, who am I kidding, I'm going to sit around the house and sulk because I don't know what to do without my children. At least I have the dog here with me to keep me company and give me someone to dote on. She's hiding from me at the moment because I've been smothering her with love.

I bet you're dying to know of our exciting adventures. Beautiful white sandy beaches? No. Breathtaking mountain views? Not hardly. 100+ degree weather, red dirt, and run-ins with poisonous arachnids? Now you're talking!

The first leg of trip took us to my hometown to give the kids some PaPa Jack time before we are thrust into the sleepless nights of new babyhood. We were actually fortunate in that the temperature stayed in the low 100's while we were there..it had been up to 107 the week before. I tried to keep my big, pregnant self indoors as much as possible, but when you're surrounded by animals, and barns, and giant machinery, the pull to go outside and play is just too much. [Not to mention the fact that I had to kill a scorpion in the living room an hour after we arrived.]

I was eager to put my new camera + lens to work down there...

These pictures were from the afternoon that we arrived. Unfortunately for me [fortunately for you], my camera battery died, and I forgot to bring the charger. The rest of our trip involved a cattle auction, a visit to the ranch, an up-close look at all of the oil activity going on around there, more hay jumping, new boots for the kids, shooting BB guns at cans, feeding the cows and another scorpion plus a black widow. Finn wore his camouflage shirt every day while we were there. Both kids were covered in dirt from head to toe by evening, and they loved every minute of it.

xo

nessa dee

Ranching 101–Part 2

If you recall from part 1, we had just taken a cow to the vet to get a little nip and tuck. As soon as we got home, my dad got a call from another ranch hand that a cow was bogged down in the mud. So we loaded back up, and went back out to the ranch to get her out.

The poor thing was up to her stomach in mud from a broken water pipe. To get her out involved tying a rope around her buried back legs and dragging her out with a truck.

The kids and I were quite entertained watching these three men attempt to maneuver through the mud.  

Their first attempt to pull the cow out ended in a broken rope, but thankfully, the second attempt was a success, and Audrie…well she made a new friend.

After the rescue, we ate a late dinner at a restaurant, the guys still covered in mud, went home, and hit the hay, knowing we would be getting up at dawn for another adventure.

The next morning was met with excitement as we would be watching the guys herd cattle with this:

The helicopter has made a cowboy’s job a lot easier. It does the job of a whole team of horses and riders in a fraction of the time it would take to locate and round up all of the cattle. And it’s a trip to watch. I would show you some awesome pictures of the helicopter right over head, ducking down in trees, and hovering just above the cows except that my camera quit just as it was taking off. It decided to work again right as they were bringing the last herd up to the pens, so here’s what we did manage to capture…

It really is an amazing thing to watch.

After the helicopter landed, my dad saddled up his old grey horse, Lonesome Joe, and got to work separating the cows from the calves.

[Picture of Lonesome Joe by Audrie]

Even with modern technology, ranching is hard. I was glad the kids got to see how hard ranchers have to work. It’s easy for us to grow accustomed to a leisurely way of life not getting a taste of plain old, gritty, hard work. I want the kids to appreciate such labor. I want them to be able to get in there and get their hands dirty even when the work’s tough, the days are long, and the weather’s hot.

No one ever says that doing what you love is easy. My dad sure works hard…

but he loves being a cowboy.

xo

nessa dee