A wintertime chore

During the winter, Scott and Bob's cows are kept in a leased pasture west of Casper without good running water, so that means almost every day in the cold months someone has to go out and open the small reservoir so the cows have something to drink when they need it.

Because the reservoir level has fallen slightly over the winter, Scott decided to open two new water holes for the cows. Usually, if they're regularly opened, all it takes is a shovel, iron bar or an ax to break the thin ice over the holes, but since he was opening a new hole Scott used a chainsaw to make the initial cuts, and good thing, because the ice turned out to be about eight inches thick and would have taken forever to open with an ax.

(note: this is before he got his new Husqvarna chain saw. I'm sure he'd love to go open new water holes this weekend just for an excuse to use it.)

After he cut the outline of the rectangle, he cut the big rectangle into chunks to make it easier to clear the water hole.

Of course the dogs were there to help. It was very extremely windy that day, as you can see by Lucy's ruffled fur.

Once the ice in the hole is completely free, it's time to take other tools to it to get it scooped out of there.

First thing is an ax, to get the big blocks broken into smaller chunks.

Lucy makes a good supervisor.

Then the smaller pieces of ice can be shoveled out of the hole.

Scott likes to leave the smaller, wet pieces of ice right around the hole's edge so they'll freeze and provide some rough traction for the cows when they come to drink. The girls love ice cubes - the cracking of an ice cube tray never fails to bring them to the kitchen at the house - and Lucy was wondering if the big chunk could be all hers.

But Foxy is the one who really goes nuts for ice.

She's such an odd little dog. But at least it doesn't take much to keep her happy.

And she likes chasing ice chunks across the reservoir. There is much slipping, sliding and skidding that goes on.

And then she takes her ice chunks and loses them in snow drifts.

Now THAT's depressing...

So, in keeping with my desire to start some flowers indoors to enjoy later in our front yard and patio and at our wedding reception in late May, I did a little research into when I would need to start the seeds and how to care for them.

The first thing I've found out so far is that the last frost date for Casper is June 8. The first frost date is listed as September 7. Talk about a short growing season... We all know it's reality, it's just a bit startling to actually see it in print. At least I don't live in Jackson, where the last frost date is listed as July 28, and the first frost date is set at July 31!
No wonder most of their farmer's market produce comes from outside the immediate area.

Already a week into March...

Wow, things have been pretty busy around here, and I just haven't had the time to write a new post. It seems like something I do frequently, but again I apologize for the absence.

Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook saw the updates and photos from last weekend's trip to St. Louis for friend Emily's wedding to Morgan Zelch. Scott and I had a wonderful trip, and it was a nice winter adventure before we get started with the springtime frenzy that accompanies any ag operation. For us, it means calving, brandings and putting cows where they belong for the summer, and this spring will also include, if all goes well, two new colts, which I am very much looking forward to. Jazz, the first to foal, is just about a month out at this point.

Highlights from the St. Louis trip include a trip up the St. Louis Arch. It was the first time Scott had been to St. Louis, and the second time for me, although my first time was about 20 years ago, if not a little longer.

A delightful last-minute surprise was meeting up with college friend Kat, who now lives in New York City. We found out Thursday via Facebook that we were both headed to St. Louis that very day, so Friday we met up for lunch and conversation in Lafayette Square. Scott was a good sport and tagged along. :-)

There was a big thunderstorm Friday night, which brought in some pretty chilly weather for Saturday's wedding ceremony, which was still held outdoors at Emily's parents' house.

Emily and I before the wedding ceremony. She had a perfect vintage dress that she found discounted in the basement of the wedding boutique, and it didn't have to be altered at all. It was perfect for her.

Other than that trip, last week was just a busy one getting the paper ready to go before Scott and I left Wednesday night. Since the paper's big this time of year, with extra advertising for bull sales, that means we need more articles than usual to fill it. We're on our third week of extra pages this week, and I think it's turned out really well so far and we haven't run out of material stocked up in our files yet.

It's March 8 today, and 15 degrees outside, but I still can't help itching for spring and some flowers and gardening. It's occurred to me that I should start some flowers under a grow light in the basement so I have fresh cut flowers to decorate at our May 28 wedding reception at the ranch.

I'd like to start a variety of easy-to-grow annuals. If I can successfully get them going indoors, I could transfer them to my sunny flowerbeds in front of the house to finish growing and blooming in the weeks just before the reception. I really don't dare transplant them to outside much earlier than the second week of May. We'll just have to see how this spring shapes up. The last two have been pretty cold and wet.

But I think it would be really pretty to have a bunch of bright flowers to spread out on the eating and serving tables under our tent, combined with some pretty white lights. Hopefully the weather's nice and not cold, wet and windy. Otherwise, rather than fresh flowers, we better have hot chocolate and hand warmers for our guests.

With thoughts of spring also come thoughts of getting an herb garden going again. Try as I might, I just can't keep enough sunlight on my herbs to get them through the winter indoors. Looking forward to planting more basil, thyme, mint and rosemary. Hopefully my chives will come up again in their pot - they usually do.

In other news - I think I'm going to get a new refrigerator soon! The one that came with the house is not only energy inefficient, it's storage inefficient. And it freezes all my fresh vegetables, no matter what shelf I put them on, and it's small. Scott recently received a nice bonus from Cameron, which he used part of to buy his chainsaw, and next he'll take me appliance shopping. :-) Looking forward to getting a new one, although we'll just get a middle-of-the-road refrigerator, because we're planning on moving from this house in four or five years, and I'd hate to have to leave my dream refrigerator behind.

Nora's baby quilt

I have neglected to post photos of the project I was working on in January for Baby Seehusen, who we now know is Baby Nora, born Feb. 6 and interupting her father's Superbowl Sunday.

It had been a while since I'd undertaken a sewing project, but this one actually came together pretty quickly. To me, the most enjoyable parts of any sewing project, save for being happy with the final product, is visiting the fabric store to choose fabrics, colors, textures and patterns. The day I visited Hancock Fabrics my coworkers were beginning to worry about me in my absence. :-)

Since at that time we didn't know if Baby Seehusen was to be a boy or a girl - although I had thought from the beginning she would be a girl - I did my best to choose gender-neutral fabrics and actually was really pleased with how they turned out, not too girl or boy, and just the right amount of fresh spring-time feel, as well as a little 'farm' and 'country' thrown in.

The pattern of this quilt is called Log Cabin, and I was inspired by an article in one of my wintertime Martha Stewart magazines, which featured the pattern in different applications, one of them a pale blue/purple/gray seersucker baby quilt.

I decided on the color and pattern layout through trial and error, shifting things here and there before cutting the next pieces. I tried to vary the directions of the stripes on both the pale and bolder fabrics, thus the joining of fabrics in the long yellow piece, because I wanted the stripes to run lengthwise.

I love the pieces with the blue plaid. They're my favorite part of the quilt. Through cutting this out I decided that I would really like to have a rotary cutter - it would have been much easier to get straight even lines with one of those, rather than using my scissors and cutting mat. As it is, through being very careful, I managed pretty well.

Here it is partially sewn together. I was really paranoid about my seams getting crooked and everything getting off-kilter, so I took plenty of time and was very careful that everything matched up.

And of course my assistant Link put the same care into the piecing together as I did. Ok maybe not. Sorry, Holly, I tried to make sure the quilt was cat-hair-free, but there might be some lingering hangers-on that I didn't notice. Blame it on the feline assistant who insisted on being in the middle of the project.

Ta da! The whole top pattern sewn together, and very please with how it turned out. And loving the colors and the arrangement of patterns.

Yes, that is a seam ripper there next to my scissors. My seam ripper is one of my nearest and dearest sewing tools. I had a somewhat hard time sewing the top to the middle batting to the yellow fabric for the back. In hindsight, I should have cut both the batting and the backing several inches too large, then simply trimmed, instead of fighting with them to make them line up.

The next step was hand-stitching all the seams between color blocks, to make them stand out and add a little bit of a highlight and a homespun feel. It didn't take that long, after all, and was actually the part of putting the quilt together that I enjoyed the most.

Then came a part I had a tough time with - the binding. The edges were fine... it's the corners that confused me. And now if Holly looks at it I'm sure she'll be able to tell I had to do some improvising. It was either that or re-cut and re-sew the entire binding, and I was so close to finishing and didn't have enough fabric, so I made do with what I had.

I also debated about whether or not the blue plaid would look good on the binding, and had my doubts, but I ended up really liking it.

And, apparently, I completely forgot to take photos of the entire finished project. So instead, here is a parting shot of Assistant Feline doing what he does best.

Next project: Baby Ehlers. :-)

Not a chicken person, but...

Having lived on a hog farm for most of my life, where my family also raised the occasional calf to butcher, before moving to cattle country in Wyoming, I've always had ready access to pork and beef. And, since beginning to work for the paper, I regularly see the numbers about the competition between the 'red meat' industries and the poultry/turkey/feathered industry.

Take this blurb, for example, that will run on this week's cover:

"In the recent 'Agricultural Projections to 2020' report, USDA forecasts poultry consumption will surpass red meat consumption for the first time in 2018. The agency says consumption of chicken and turkeys will reach 106.7 pounds in 2018, while consumption of beef, pork, veal, lamb and mutton will total 106.3 pounds."

Now, we did have our share of laying hens and broiler - or butcher - chickens at one point growing up, and we did eat our fair share of them, but lately I find myself avoiding chicken in favor of beef or pork. Mostly because both my upstairs refrigerator freezer and my deep freeze in the basement are chock full of both, because of events like this that tend to happen around here:

Almost a year later, I'm just now using up the last of the ground beef from this old lead steer. I became very creative in ground beef uses! There's more than just chili and hamburgers to be enjoyed from ground beef. (Don't worry, that's our health inspector friend Jamie in the white shirt. She made sure everything was kept clean and kosher.)

So anyway, the point is that I haven't cooked or eaten anything chicken (on purpose) for at least two years, if not longer, but this recipe posted by Pioneer Woman just might inspire me to cook up and consume some chicken:

It's called Creamy Chicken Spaghetti Casserole, and the combination of Parmesan, mushrooms and pasta looks too good to pass up... It reminds me of the Chicken Tetrazzini recipe my mom used to make frequently for catering jobs.

Of snow and horses

Racing chariots in Jackson, Wyoming.

Yes, I realize that, again, it's been almost a week already since I posted. With the way weeks fly by around here, it's going to be August and my due date before I know it.

Since my last post we made it to Jackson and attended two days of cutter racing. I also did interviews for three articles for the paper that all went well. I also remembered that it's a mistake for me to think I can shop in Jackson, which is full of tourist mementos and clothing for rich men's wives, and little in between. I did get a pretty burnt orange, gray and white saddle blanket from Flat Creek Saddle Shop when I finished my interview there. There was a really pretty textured silk scarf that I should have also bought. I might have to have them send it to me.

Melissa and two friends came over from Lander on Saturday to watch the races with us, and it snowed all day long but wasn't too cold and really didn't accumulate much in town. In fact, now I'm convinced it never stops snowing in Jackson, because it didn't the whole time we were there, even when the sun was trying to come out. No wonder people use it as a winter wonderland.

As always happens when we go on these trips, like Pocatello last year, I'm convinced I gained between five and 10 pounds from eating out so much. That biscuit sandwich I had at Bubba's BBQ for breakfast that one morning sure was good! We also had breakfast at The Bunnery, a tasty but pricey bakery north of the Town Square. There many pastries in their glass cabinet looked delicious, and I managed to escape with just a few bites from Scott's cinnamon roll.

We were all glad we decided to drive back Monday, instead of trying to come back over the pass Sunday night in the cold and snow. As it was, the roads were pretty snowpacked on the way home.

So since then, just been making up for the lost day this week and getting everything done for the paper. We've officially hit the time of year where we have too many ads to run in less pages, so this is our first week at 24 pages and I expect that to continue through the next four editions. It's really sucking up my editorial so far! This week's cover features my interviews with the Shriners and photos of the races, so I'm looking forward to seeing what Tracy's done with them in the layout.

Other than that - gotta get started on Baby Ehlers's baby gift this weekend! The time for her to arrive is coming right up. :-)

Togwotee: A Snow Lovers' Paradise

This morning Scott and I left town with Foxy and Lucy at about 6:30, heading for the ranch to drop them off and to pick up Bob and Becky before heading up to Jackson.

We hit Lander about 9:30 and were scowled at by Melissa as she walked across the street in front of us and we gave her a friendly honk.

And then we headed up through the reservation, Dubois and over Togwotee Pass - the main road from anywhere in eastern Wyoming to Jackson and its snow and world-class skiing.

Snowmobilers like Togwotee Pass very much, and there are tracks and trucks and trailers and snowmachines everywhere up there. It was a pretty drive on a clear day, so we could see the surrounding mountains.

After coming off the west side of the pass, eventually you can see the Tetons as you still descend, and Becky and i were disappointed they were shrouded in clouds.

It's still very pretty in the area. I apologize for window reflections, as I snapped these as we were driving from Moran Junction down to Jackson.

Lots of snow, almost covering the buck rail fences that line the road.

The southern end of the Tetons began to clear up a little, and the clouds look neat in this picture - I'm sad there's a windshield refelction.

We arrived in Jackson just before 1 p.m., and after a quick check-in to the Antler Inn I headed out to my 1:30 interview with Kate Mead, who lives on her family's ranch just north of town, and who raises and markets natural steers to sell to restaurants and retailers in town. We had a very interesting conversation, and I was out there with her for over an hour, visiting about everything from the local school board to her cattle to raising kids in a busy lifestyle with a working mom. She is also sister-in-law to our new Governor Matt Mead.

It's very pretty in this country!

It was overcast later this afternoon into this evening, and I hope the sun shines tomorrow because I'd really like to get some photos of the cutter races, and somehow they'd just be a little drab in overcast lighting, as opposed to sunshine with the racing horses and the flying snow chips.

Tomorrow I interview at Flat Creek Saddlery at 10 a.m., then following the races tomorrow afternoon I'm meeting up with a few of the Shriners to do interviews about the races themselves. Out of this trip we should get two solid feature articles for our cover, plus an article for our impending Horse Edition.

For now, Scott and I are relaxing in our hotel room, enjoying our crackling fire in the fireplace. Mini vacations are nice. :-)

Git 'im!

This is the neighborhood tom cat. The same one that sprayed my front window a couple weeks ago, and the same one that comes to harass Link and who yowls in the early morning hours of summertime, when the windows are open and we can hear him.

The other morning he had the nerve to sit in Link's spot on the front porch railing and look in the window. Now, if he hadn't already gotten on my bad side, I might have felt sorry for him and thought, 'Oh, he just wants a home, too.'

But he had no such luck.

This is the tom cat in the tree of our front yard after I opened the front door and told the dogs to 'git him.'

They did.

They're really becoming quite good at the whole 'sic 'em' concept. If you tell them to 'sic 'em' while they're in the pickup they go on high alert and start looking for cows.

That morning the three of them went down the front steps, around my truck once, around my car once, and then up the tree went the cat. The girls thought they were pretty big and bad, and they were thrilled to be allowed to chase a cat, because they've been strictly admonished time and again to leave Link alone. Their favorite evening entertainment is sticking their nose in his face when he's relaxing on my lap. It gets quite the grumpy growl and hiss in response.

And I haven't seen the tom cat again since that morning.

How the Red Dinner looked

Drop-leaf pedestal table in the front room - red salt and pepper shakers from Heather for housewarming.

Well, it wasn't anything perfect or extravagant, or anything like I had first envisioned decorating for the Red Dinner party could be. These days, I just don't have a whole lot of time for a whole lot of detail, so I had to let my grand plans go and be satisfied with a few simple place settings and arrangements, all pulled together from things I had in my house. I thought about going out to buy some new things to use, because decorating with new things is always fun, but then decided to save my money and make do.

That saving money scheme is how I've already managed to put $1,000 away in my 'baby savings account' for furniture, supplies, fun things, etc. It will be fun to have money available to hopefully splurge on a few things for the baby room, but even with money saved specifically for something, I sometime still have a hard time spending it. :-)

Two tables in the front room on Sunday morning - the girls helped set and decorate.

So I went 'shopping' in my house, and these are the few things I came up with to decorate my Red Dinner tables for Valentine's Day. The loveseat is *still* over in the tv area, so I still had plenty of room to set up my drop-leaf pedestal table for four place settings. With that table, I can easily seat a dozen in my front room.

On my big table I used my everyday red tablecloth and dressed it up with one of the lace curtain panels I've had tucked away for quite some time.

The red pitcher in the center of the table is one of my favorite pieces that friend Amy gave me some time ago. Alas, somehow it got a crack down the side - no idea how/when that happened - but it's so pretty I still keep it for decoration. I also used a few other red glass pieces, as well as tin mini loaf pans as candy dishes. And the wooden puzzle pig that friend Emily gave me just for an item of interest. :-)

Oh, and the chairs at the head and foot of the table I painted just in time, because they went great. :-) On the right side of the table is my trunk that I used to seat two, and moved a desk chair around that side for the third place setting.

In the first photo of this post you can see these flowers placed on the wood stove. Scott brought this pretty red chrysanthemum plant home for me the other day, and I love it. He likes to buy me plants rather than cut flowers, because then they last, and I hope that I can keep it alive! The last time he brought plants home for me, he bought me two, and one lived and one died, so I think that's a good strategy.

Salad/snack fixings on the buffet line.

When we got home from snowshoeing everyone was very hungry, so I set out these fresh veggies and some dip on the end of the counter for people to munch on, as well as the chocolate heart sandwich cookies. As you can see from the empty cucumber and dip bowl, my guests were very appreciative. :-) Thanks to Jamie, who helped me put the last minute things together for the meal, and to mother-in-law Shirley, for doing the dishes before we even got home! That's always a nice surprise.

The kitchen buffet line.

This is how I serve meals when I have a lot of people over. Since the table didn't have enough space for all the food - and since there were two tables, anyway - I just put the desserts on the table and the rest of the food was served buffet style. I usually fill the long counter with serving dishes for the sides, and put the main course on the end of the 'U' and it seems to work pretty well.

Our menu was spaghetti with red meat sauce, cottage cheese/ red Jell-o salad, heart-shaped garlic bread, lettuce salad with red veggie toppings and red velvet cake, heart-shaped sandwich cookies and a chocolate cake that Melissa brought over. I also had conversation hearts, of course, and heart-shaped Junior Mints on the tables.

Melissa and Penny getting ready to enjoy the meal.

This is what my main table looked like when I had all the places set... at the last second Melissa and I squished in four place settings down each side because we didn't know if another pair of family members would show up. Turns out they didn't, and good thing, because 10 at that table wouldn't have left much elbow room.

If I ever have more than 12 sitting down to eat at once in the house, I'll take the library table from my sewing room and set it, as well. That would give six more places to sit, at least.

So those are my simple Valentine's decorations - I'd had visions of making a garland to hang on the beam that divides the upstairs of the house, or any of the number of other Valentine's ideas I'd seen on blogs, but we had snowshoeing to do! So I let the details go, kept the food and decorations simple, and was able to enjoy the day and our company.

Note to self, though: don't brown ground beef, put it in red sauce and leave it in the crock pot for several hours. I thought it would save time, which it did, but being in the crock pot and cooking so long gave the beef a different texture. Not bad, just different, and I don't think I'd do it again. In the future I would just brown it, then reheat when we were ready to eat the meal.

Lu enjoying the wood stove in the front room.

And just because this photo was also on my camera, here is Lucy the morning after our party in the front room. It doesn't look like it, but there were hot coals in the stove, and she likes to go over there and lie on the rug. I don't blame her, it's quite cozy by the stove.

Even though they're not coordinated and aren't an interior decorator's dream, I have three rugs there in the front room, going from the front door to the stove. They're good for when we have a multitude of boots and people going in and out, and then we always also have plenty of space to set our firewood when we bring it in from the front porch, especially when it's snowy and needs to drip off.

Oh! Another thing that happened since the Red Dinner is that on Valentine's Day Scott and I went to our first baby doctor appointment. It all went smoothly, and we got to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time. :-) I think that made it a lot more real to Scott, and at 20 weeks we'll have an ultrasound, so we have to wait nine weeks to see any images. Even then, we're not going to find out whether we're having a boy or a girl, so we'll have to be careful which images we get to see, especially since this doctor's office offers the 3D images.

We're also in the midst of combining checking accounts - which sounded like too much of a pain to do before now - and putting some long-term financial planning in place, so we need to get an overall view of our budget and incoming and outgoing funds and all that good stuff.... I'd put it off until now, but with a baby on the way, it's better done sooner than later. With just the two of us a budget wasn't that big of a deal, because we have plenty coming in to cover our basic expenses and bills, but I know adding a baby and its accompanying costs will likely change that...

For today, I need to get all the editorial for the paper ready and packaged up for Tracy, because I'd like to finish and proof it tomorrow, as I'll be out Friday for our trip to Jackson for the cutter races. I also have several interviews scheduled for Friday afternoon, so it will be a busy weekend. Poor Scott - seems like we can't go on any trips anymore where I don't try to combine them with the paper or interviews somehow. Since the cutter races run Saturday and Sunday, we've also taken Monday off for our drive back to town. It will be a nice mini vacation before we hit March, which is busy for the Roundup with our increase in advertising for bull sales.