Fall Happenings...

Time for a little fall season catch up session!  

Buck season went well, as you can see.  Sunshine and Mr Wonderful tagged out, Spud Man enjoyed his first year buck hunting, but wasn't able to bag a buck this year.

Sunshine grew lots of gourds this summer and she managed to sell close to $100 worth!  They made great fall decor and were a big seller on our local classifieds page.

Beautiful shapes and colors!

We've been enjoying some of our pastured meat chickens.  We rub them down with olive oil and add rosemary, sage and other seasonings...then we smoke them for a couple hours and roast them in the roaster.  Oh my goodness they smell and taste amazing.  Really need to keep more for ourselves next year.  Mmmm mmm.

I enjoyed all the fall colors before the winds picked up and blew every leaf away.  No raking leaves here!

The kids and I spotted this buck during elk season and managed to snap a quick picture of him before he took off.

Spud Man wrapped up a successful year of growing hogs.  He raised 7 in all, 2 of his own that he paid for.  We pay for the feed for his hog in exchange for him caring for the rest of the hogs we bought for our own supply and to sell.  It was a good arrangement and he is pretty excited about having money to give, save, and spend!

That is a small sampling of everything going on these past couple months.  Life is very good at Summerfield Acres!  We are finally getting some much needed family time, rest, and even a few projects worked on.  

Front Flowerbed Fun...

We've been weeding, and weeding, and weeding some more.  This week it was the front flower bed, again, for the 5th time this season.  We didn't have enough in the landscaping budget to put too many perennials in the front bed this spring so we filled it with sunflowers and gourds to help cover some of the bare areas.  So far that plan is working out pretty nicely.

Here is an overview of what it looks like from the house looking towards the road.

Here is what this same section looked like just 1 month ago...

The next few pictures are the rest of the front flower bed sections.

Here are some close ups of our favorite sunflowers.  They are so cheerful and fun!

Aren't they beautiful?  The honey bees sure like them!

Here are some of the gourd selection we ended up with.  They are pretty fun and they will make great fall decor additions!

That is the progress on the front flower bed so far this year.  I like the looks of it so far, I will enjoy adding in some shrubs, evergreens, and more perennials next spring, but for now this was a fun way to fill up the larger spaces.

Aerial Adventure...

 Three of the kids got to go for a flight last weekend!

Getting all buckled up, and puke bags ready just in case!

 Sunshine and my dad up front.

Headed toward the runway.

Fly away home...

An aerial shot of our place!  You can see the bees in the lower right corner.  You can also see the large garden area behind the house too.

The hay ranch, I've made many fond childhood memories here.  We used to ride the horses from our house up here as often as we could.  It was a long ride, but worth it.

The area I grew up.  North Fork of McKay Creek.

South Fork of McKay Creek in the upper section of the picture, North Fork in the lower section.  

It's a wonderful place to grow up!

Hope you enjoyed the aerial tour!

Lookey Who We Got to Babysit.....

This last spring a friend of mine decided it would be a good idea to get some baby ducks.....for easter (you know the drill, they are cute and fluffy and great for the kids, then they grow and you turn them loose on someone's farm right?). Anyway she had had the ducklings for a few weeks but they were growing out of her pen she had set up and they were impossibly messy, no exageration there. They were smelly, bad house guests in general. Eventually she had to have them in an old bathtub in her garage so they weren't getting the attention she wanted them to have.

Of course it just so happens they had to go on a trip and needed someone to babysit these ducklings for a couple days...she promised she'd come back and get them really, but then the kids fell in love with them and they soon became my problem. Before we knew it we'd had them several weeks. We were slightly better set up for them as we did have an area outside for the messy guys. We figured out a way to keep their water clean and their bedding dry. We even had a pond in our yard so they got some frequent swims. Overall it was really fun.

They soon had to go to a new home though as 5 ducks in town did not really make sense. We found them a suitable home complete with natural pond with lots of feed and acres and acres to enjoy. It happened to be my in-laws place, so they were welcomed with open arms.....too bad the coyotes had hunger pangs and there ended up being a couple unfortunate ones.:( It's always one thing if it isn't another!

They really know how to make a muddy mess of our pond don't they? Ducks are messy, don't let anyone tell you different! Hope you enjoyed the little piece of springtime heaven....

Snow Fun...

We found a large snow bank in the mountains and had a blast! We met with my sister and her husband. The snow had been plowed into a large hill and we took full advantage. There were snowballs flying.....

Sledding slopes.......(evidently we are so broke we can't afford sleds.)

There was helpful big sisters........

Freezing children......(and mean mom's just snapping pics of the poor darlings.)

Brrrrr...."Where are your gloves young lady?"

There was pouting in the pick-up......(He really wanted to come play in the snow.)

There were even snow caves!!!

We had a really great time! We hope you enjoyed too!

Sneaky Nest....

Look what we found on a hike last spring. We had hiked approx. 1 mile UPHILL, when I HAD to stop and resaturate my lungs with oxygen while grumbling about how Mr Wonderful said it was an easy hike and that he just knew I would enjoy it.......anyway we had to stop and gasp for some air for a while before we could go on and the kids were walking around exploring and this tiny bird flies out from the grass......we got to thinking hmmmm where did that birdy come from? So we started looking around and we happened to peek under a tuft of droopy grass and lookey what we found......



Look what else we found......in case you think this is a pile of pooo it is NOT, it is a clump of Morel Mushrooms.

Join us on a special right of passage......Whippersnapper finds his first "schroom" all on his own.

Well almost all on his own anyway......see that FULL bucket in the background? Yup Mr Wonderful is happy.



Here are some other pics of our hike.

Oh and does anyone enjoy waterfalls? I Looooove waterfalls like this one.....






Enjoy.....

Mr Wonderful....works

Well here is what Mr Wonderful does......can you say every little boys dream? Basically he gets to play with big boy Tonka's! He has worked with my family's excavation business for over 16 years. The man is a human calulator (mathematically gifted)....that comes in VERY handy when shopping and things are on sale....."Honey how much would this one be if it is 30% off?" "And this one?" "How about all these together then?" Did someone say shopping? Woah there Jules stay on topic here, sorry. Anyway just wanted to give you a sneak peak into our humble way of bringing home the bacon.

There is just something about being on a construction site that makes boys hang out of the car and drool and bounce all around and talk 900 miles per hour with excitement! So much so I sometimes dread it because instantly Spud Man will start telling me all about what is happening and why (then asks ME why) then continues to go on and on about what all he knows.....why do boys do that? It is sooo annoying to us super relaxed and logical females who really do know what is going on (Just pretend, ok? Just pretend).



Although that is not really the whole truth, as much as the kids would like to think he is working in those big machines all day. This next picture is how he now spends a lot of his time, on the phone like this trying to tie up loose ends and manage things....


Something about that safety orange and workboots....mmmm mmmm!

By the way this was the excavation for that new Cayuse Tech Building accross from the casino.....Mr Wonderful did such a great job with managing that job we are working on another big job for the same general contractor.......gotta love good feedback. I am really proud of him.

PS. There are a few kids out there who beleive Mr Wonderful is actually "Bob The Builder". I don't want to break their hearts so we'll just pretend ok?