Bates Bar J

Today we had to return Miss Ella to her parents. Figured they knew where we lived so sooner or later they were going to come looking for her. While Brenda was driving her home Caron, my niece, and I loaded a couple of horses in the trailer and headed out to Bates’ place for a ride. For many years Caron spent time every summer here and up till last year was a horse leader there. Not sure the horse’s needed a leader but I guess the little kids who were going on the trail rides sure did. Today she took me out and showed me some of the country. The picture below is Caron riding my mare Willow as we cross one of the many creeks along the trail.

It is a beautiful spot and I am going to be bugging her to take me back time and time again. Best part is it is only about a half hour from our barn, so it is not long drive.

The shots above and below are from a couple of overlooks , the one above with the Rockies in the background is where we ate our lunch.

I sure hope we get back there when the leaves start to turn as it will be an even more beautiful spot, and I might even take my good camera’s along.

Going into Bates is a pretty steep hill and it was apparent that the trailer brakes were on some kind of break of there own, going down there. Once we got home I started investigating and soon isolated it to the truck we were using, my Dad’s Remnant truck. Took about five hours to find the place where the wire had corroded off and about 2 minutes to fix it. Time I get it all back together I will have spent about 7 hours looking for one little broken wire. Well better me than some guy charging me a $125/hour to do it. Tomorrow is another early day as I need to take my other horse trailer up to Red Deer to get a couple of things fixed and a modification or two done to it.

Rocky and Back

Today we were up early with a mission in mind. We headed off before breakfast so we could catch Lacey and Clayton still half awake and smuggle Miss Ella out of their house. Once we had her in our clutches we ran for the wide open country and holed up at Dogpound North for day or two with our youngest grandchild. She wanted to see the horses, over and over again.

We set up her swimming pool on the lawn and filled it with well water. Yikes that was cold but Grandma came through with a few buckets of hot water from the house so it was not long until she was swimming away to her hearts content. I think she spent 2 or 3 hours running and diving into that pool.

Almost every picture we have of her whether on the ground or in the pool has Mack keeping a close watch on her. It would be a brave fool who would try to get between this little girl and her bodyguard. And when Mack wasn’t on duty Meg was.

All in all it was a great day, sunshine, no wind, Ella to keep us smiling all day.

Oh by the way here is picture of our WHOLE apple crop this year. Looks like apple pie is not on the horizon again. Last year we had lot’s of flowers but no bees, this year we had flowers and bees but I guess the bees were not doing what bees do as this is the only apple on the tree. While farming is like that, maybe next year.

Yah, that is my thumb in there for reference.

Hays all Down

Well last night just as I finished updating the blog the last of our hay got laid down. Of course then we had a little refreshing rain shower but this morning dawned bright and sunny. Here’s hoping it stays this way for a few days so we can get this part of our harvest done. We still have about 50 acres of barley that will need to be cut, but that may be a while yet. It will probably go as silage as it was pretty late when Bob got it seeded so it might not ripen soon enough to combine it.

I took a walk out through the hay this morning and of course Meg came along as well as my son’s dog Mack. Mack hangs with us most days as Matt is over in Albania working on a drilling rig.

He is about a year and a half old and a pretty good dog, well trained and especially well socialized, he loves kids and other dogs, and like I tell people that come to the farm he never bites anyone while we are around. The rest of the day was spent just hanging out and getting a few things done around the yard. I ran the big lawnmower through a couple of old gardens here knocking down and mulching the weeds and thistles that have sprung up since we stopped planting vegetables here. When my Dad was living here he kept about a half acre of garden growing an assortment of vegetable and fruit well weeded and ready for the families consumption. After that I spent a while stalking around with my weedeater cutting down the thistles that are hiding out along my fences and such. I don’t think you can ever entirely get rid of these dang things but we are trying.

Not a lot other than that happening around Dogpound North but I talked to a fellow down at Dogpound South today, and it is hot, hot, hot down there. The last couple of haboobs down there have left a little dust around the place but all in all it is faring pretty well and waiting for us to reappear in the fall.

Thought I would throw in this picture of a couple of Pingo’s up near Tuktoyaktuk in Canada’s Northwest Territories a few years back. Hope it brings a few cool thoughts down there to Arizona.

Some might think that is an artifact caused by the sun in top centre of the photo but I know it is a couple of interested guys watching over us down here at Dogpound North. Thanks for stopping by Bro’s.

HAYING so Guess what?

Another day at Dogpound North. Our hay has been getting cut so that has given me a new landscape to work with my camera. I’ve been watching Al over at the Bayfield Bunch and trying to figure out this Photographers Eye thingy he talks about. Not sure what it is, but I just have to find what I like and that will have to do for the rest of you. Some of his tips and comments make sense when I read them but I can’t remember them all when the camera is in front of my face.

It sure helps when the man upstairs sends some interesting cloud formations by to highlight the photos, and you know since we have our hay laying down we WILL get rain out of those clouds. It would be nice to have the hay dry but seems like that is not going to happen this year.

Shot from a hill about 4 miles east of Dogpound North.

Today Brenda was into town to see our daughter Rebecca and do some last minute shopping before that new baby shows up on the scene so they had a day of shopping and talking and while they were doing that I ran into town and had lunch with Dad. After that it was a trip to our local Costco to pick up a couple of things. While we were away last winter they built a new Costco north of the city and it is not as busy as the ones in town so it is easy to pop in and pick up a thing or two, without the usual long lineups.

Clouds VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Happy Birthday Mom

Mom and her partner Charlie (yep Charlie Brown)

Today is my Mom’s birthday so Brenda and I ran into town so that we could take her to lunch. I won’t reveal her age, just let it suffice to say that she wasn’t a child bride and had graduated from University a few years before I was born. Granted she was one of the youngest graduates ever from the University of Alberta but she is past worrying about her age and almost to the bragging stage.

We once again headed down to my favourite Italian place, Gnocchi’s, and chowed down and had a good old chin wag while we ate. Come to think of it a couple of my chins wag now even when I’m not talking.

After lunch we headed back to the farm as we had some blueberries that needed to be processed into jam. Just in case in previous blogs anyone had mistaken me for the head jam cook around here, I am just unskilled labour and help with the stirring or putting the lids on while our master chef is supervising all of that activity. Only at the end of the process does my highly skilled tasting talent come into the process.

The weather here at Dogpound North has been pretty nice for hanging out and doing the things we do but we get a little rain every few days and the humidity has been pretty high for around here (50-60%) so it has not been good haying weather. It is overcast today and kinda looks like rain this evening but that said it is time the hay was cut and that is happening as I write. Now if the Lord just does his part and keeps it dry for a few days we should get that hay into stacks if we are lucky or big round bales if not.

Back at Dogpound North

We have been home for a few days and other than a few jars of jam and a little grass mowing haven’t got much done. Seems like we are busy all day but it is still hard to think of what actually got done. Sunday I ran into the city and picked up Dad and headed to the Bearspaw Farmers Market. There is always a crowd there and as Sunday was a beautiful day it seemed like there were more folks than there were vegetables', but we managed to get ourselves some great bacon, and a bundle of fresh carrots and some pickling cukes, Brenda likes to eat them with a little salt. Brenda whipped up a pork pot roast with those carrots, some new potatoes and a few onions. So I wonder where those carrots in a grocery store come from cause these farm fresh ones sure taste a lot more like the carrots I used to raid from neighbourhood gardens. Along with that great pot roast there was a fresh blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream. There goes my diet….again!

Stormy Skies VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Monday after running Dad back into town I was into my doc for my annual physical, between her, and my cardiologist, they can think of no more reasons to poke and prod at me, and told me to beat it till next spring. So now the next exciting thing that will happen around here is going to be Rebecca’s baby coming. We are in the final countdown now. Less than two weeks till the due date, and with Bec and her sister Lacey’s history, Bec was a few weeks early and Lace was in a hurry and came a full 8 weeks early, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if she was a little early. Early in August Lacey and Brenda had a baby shower for Bec and now that the baby is all showered he could come anytime.

Today I started trying to get a persistent leak we have under our sink fixed. We have had the rig into a couple of places and none have been able to find the leak, but I THINK we have isolated it as the sprayer head and the water appears to run down and make it look like it is the faucet leaking. I hauled that piece into a couple of hardware stores and one RV place looking for a replacement with no luck. But the plumbing specialist in Home Depot robbed a couple of units in his store and I think put together a reasonable facsimile of what we need. Not sure whether that will fix it but here’s hoping.

Anniversary Dinner

We left Vancouver Island and our friends place on the Nanaimo River Thursday morning and headed for the Duke Point ferry terminal.

Not our usual route but we thought we should take a run south of the border for a little celebration. Thursday was our tenth wedding anniversary and as we were to far away to make it to the Yaha Tinda we thought we should find a nice restaurant and have a nice dinner. Other than the lineup (40 minutes) at the border crossing all went well. The Homeland Security agent was a pleasant young lady who seemed to realize that we had no evil intentions towards her homeland and she just waved us on through with no difficulties. (hey aliens we may be but we do pay our property taxes on time)

The shot above is of the Peace Arch, first one from the Canadian side and the second from south of the Medicine Line. Each side has a different quote both pertinent to our close relationship with our southern siblings. We took a spin down I-5 to the town of Bellingham. We have been to Bellingham many times as for a long time my brother Brent kept his sailboat in a marina here and I visited and sailed with him quite often. We popped into Barnes and Noble, I have a Nook and the power cable was broken and they don’t sell them in Canada so we looked after that then ran over to Costco to buy some pocketbooks also. We find the Costco books cheaper than the e-books and although the Canadian dollar is, and has been at par or better with the greenback, the price on books is still better in the States.

We had a restaurant on Chuckanut Drive in mind but after checking into a hotel and getting online Brenda found one in the town of Fairhaven that appealed to her more than our first choice.  She had the Crab-stuffed shrimp and I had the Fish Special which was Mussels on rice pilaf. The shrimp were good, I tried one, and the mussels (I didn’t share) (well really she didn’t want one) were some of the best I have ever eaten.

Friday morning we got up and headed off into the fog looking for the Canadian border. It is a long drive from the Left Coast back into Alberta and takes the best part of 11 hours. With a stop for fuel along the way and a few rest breaks we arrived back at Dogpound North safe and sound and still married.

The shot above is of Mount Stephen that overlooks the little town of Field, British Columbia.

Good to be home but it looks as if the grass didn’t take a vacation so I spent part of the day getting some of that tamed as well as spraying some of my ever healthy Russian thistles. In between I managed to pick a bunch of raspberries, I am hoping enough to get a few sealers of jam. Even managed to load 30 bales of tough hay and bring it in to feed to my fat pen horses over the summer. I am trying to keep our riding pals in a little better shape this summer, just in case.