Enjoy: neighborhood trees and houses

Yesterday Levi and I were home alone, as Scott was still up at the ranch helping with some cow work, so Levi and I packed up in the stroller, grabbed the camera and went walking for over two miles around our neighborhood, enjoying the beautiful weather and trees.

I know I've said it on my blog before, but I think the area of town where we live is the best part. Or maybe I'm just partial. :-) The house above is our neighbors' across the street.

Most of the houses in the well-established area are early 1900s. Ours is 1922.

And I love all the big trees!

The green house above is a favorite of mine. Because the garages in the area are so small some people have turned them into living space and I'd love to see how they look inside.

Needless to say, we enjoyed ourselves very much, and it was a perfect opportunity because Scott could care less about looking at the old houses and their pretty fall decorations on the front steps and porches. :-)

For the first time in four months:

For the first time since the beginning of July, yesterday I mounted up on a horse and went out to help gather a pasture, and it sure was nice to be out again!

Bob, Scott and I loaded up the horses and headed out to a pasture on the association to gather up the assortment of cattle that included heifers, bulls and rebreeds. Scott and Bob went one way, and I went another with the two sidekicks - Foxy, above, and Lucy, pictured below.

They would gather cows all day every day if given half the chance. The thing with Lucy is, if everything is going too smoothly, she creates excitement by choosing a cow to pick on, driving it into the rest of the bunch and usually sending them all running.

The cattle were spread to the four corners of the 8,000-acre pasture, so I first headed to gather up a couple groups that were off by themselves. There are Iowa heifers in this group!

And then I added another group, which had taken off heading due west since we'd last seen them, and required a detour at a trot by Deets, the girls and myself. Since my mares foaled last spring, Scott's gelding Deets and I have been a pair when I ride, and we get along fine, except he's very tall so I avoid getting off him at all costs, only dismounting when we get back to the barn or trailer.

I left those heifers with another group hanging out by the road, and went to help Scott gather a larger group and bring them the same direction. Scott was riding his colt Medicine Hat yesterday, who we got broke earlier this summer.

Then I went to make sure Bob didn't need any help - we couldn't see him as he was behind a little hill, and the above photo is looking back at Scott trailing behind the heifers and bulls.

Then the two groups combined at the gate in the corner.

And we held them up to sort off four cows that needed to head to the corral.

After finishing those tasks we went to the house where Bob and Scott switched horses and we ate lunch. The night before I'd packed a cooler with a pork roast I'd shredded. Half of it had regular bbq sauce and the other half had a jalapeno bbq sauce that's really pretty good. I'd also put together a corn casserole that Shirley put in the oven to bake there at the ranch house. She stayed with Levi in the house all day, and she's much appreciated! We also had lettuce salad and the pumpkin chip cookies with frosting that are a fall Hemken tradition.

Then we headed to the lower end of the ranch to help load another small bunch of cattle.

And then we were done for the day. We sure picked a good one to be outside all day! Shirley, Levi and I headed back into town shortly, where Levi and I took an early bedtime. In a couple years Levi will be riding along with us on his own horse instead of staying at the ranch house. :-)

This is Antelope Hunting

Step one: load the baby in the front, the dogs in the back, and head up to the ranch. Drop Scott off at a reservoir, and head to appointed meeting place. Feed baby.

Step two: dogs wait patiently in the truck until the baby's belly's full.

Step three: enjoy the scenery and the gorgeous morning while waiting for Scott. That's the ranch house in the distance, past the reservoir that went dry last spring.

Step four: get out and start playing around taking some photos, while the dogs run to welcome Scott back to the truck.

Step five: continue driving around areas of the ranch that are in Scott's hunting area. Follow obscure two-tracks. :-)

Step six: keep looking, but don't find the antelope that Scott wants, and dogs dutifully keep an eye out.

Step seven: give up on the antelope hunt for the day, and head over the 'mountain' to the north side, where the rest of the family members are hunting deer and elk in the timber.

That was our day last Saturday. :-) I hope yours was as enjoyable! Tomorrow we're headed up to the ranch to gather cows - Grandma Martinez is watching Levi while we're out riding.

The Six-Week Check-Ups

Here we are! Levi and I have both made it to our week of six-week check-ups with our respective doctors. Levi went in to his on Tuesday, and he now weighs 11.5 pounds and he's 22.5 inches long, which means he's grown half an inch every week since his last check-up. No wonder he eats so much!

He's started smiling just a little bit, and he still talks and moves constantly. Luckily when he talks at night he doesn't keep me up, but Scott says this morning he was awake and talking almost constantly from 3 to 6 a.m. He doesn't fuss, he just lays in his crib and looks around at everything and keeps a running commentary of talking, grunts and groans.

He's able to hold his head up really well. When you hold him on your shoulder he holds his head up on his own and takes it all in, especially if you walk around with him. He loves to lie on the couch and stare up at Scott's antelope head.

My appointment is in about an hour, when Dr. Smothers is supposed to officially clear me from my c-section surgery, not that I haven't already been doing everything again, anyway, especially with Scott having his abdominal surgery soon after mine.

I'm curious to see what my official doctor's office weight will be... to me, I think I'm down at least 20 pounds from before Levi was born, and I'm steadily fitting into my old jeans, one by one, and it's nice to have my wardrobe back!

Tonight Aunt Penny and Cousin Kyle will be here to spend the night with us, because they're going elk hunting tomorrow while we look for antelope, so Penny is going to look after Levi and Scott and I are planning a trip to the Beacon. It's evenings like this that are the reason I've been diligently pumping to store up enough for Levi to eat. I try to pump every morning at his 5-6 a.m. feeding, and I've been pleased to get about three or four ounces of extra milk to stockpile every morning.

So, Levi's check-up had positive results with a good report for the doctor, so hopefully mine is as encouraging!

An Elk Weekend

Over this last weekend we packed up our family of three, met up with family in Douglas, and headed south to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park for the weekend.

We had two goals: take photos of fall color and elk, and hear the bull elk bugle. While I didn't come away with any photos I'm in love with, I did get some, and haven't edited all of them, and we did hear quite a few elk bugle - the first time I'd heard them.

When we got to the park the first leg of our drive was up a gravel road to the summit, which was above treeline. I was impressed they had a visitors center clear up there. It was just below the visitors center that we found these elk, and let the record show that Scott took the photo at the top of this post. :-)

This rock chuck was also up there near the elk. Also a Scott photo.

Otherwise, the scenery was pretty, but nothing that can't be equally matched by Wyoming's mountains. I wasn't too impressed with Rocky Mountain National Park, as it's really not very big, and was packed full of tourists from the city. Granted, I'm sure Yellowstone is the same way, and that's why I haven't set foot in Wyoming's park since I moved here. It's much better to find your way into the backcountry wilderness than touring mountains on a highway and seeing them out of a vehicle window. There's a lot of national forest and wilderness areas around Rocky Mountain NP, and I'm sure they have a lot to offer.

But it was a nice trip. We spent the night in Grand Lake, south of the park, and drove back through to Estes Park Sunday afternoon, where the annual Elkfest was taking place. We were going to do some window shopping, but didn't, since we couldn't find a park place due to the 30,000 attendees that packed downtown.

More photos to come, if I find some decent ones in those I haven't sorted through yet.

Sewing for Baby With a Cat

Over the weekend Link and I were able to work a little bit on a few sewing projects.

The first project we worked on - and finished - was the slipcover for the rocking chair. It's good to have that one done!

Link was very helpful, offering his advice at every turn.

We decided to cover most of the cushion on the plain canvas dropcloth fabric, but we did use one other kind of fabric on one side.

So this is the one side of the cushion with a piece of fabric I picked up at the church thrift store in Iowa Falls when Melissa and I went to Iowa about a month ago.

And here's the finished chair! I had considered doing a blue star applique on the seat back, but decided I'll leave that detail for later, and for now focus on getting some of the other sewing projects done.

There are 2x4s under the chair because Scott still has yet to finish his part of the rocker project - blocking up the legs a little bit so it's a little taller and easier to get out of.

The next project we worked on was a cover for the Boppy pillow that my mom found for me. We decided to use the red stars because that fabric hasn't been used anywhere else yet.

And Link approved of my choice.

He's such a helper, and doesn't get in the way at all!