Go Away

The oh so annoying miller moths are still here. Their numbers have increased rapidly. I need batteries for the camera or I'd take a picture of the pan in the bathroom with the little lamp.  I have dumped the pan twice in the last four hours and there are still so many flitting around.  Someone on FB said the reason the pesky things haven't left is because of the fires in the mountains.
We can see the smoke from the Waldo Canyon fire.  We've had the smoke drift past here.  Peter didn't go to work on Wednesday and came home early Tuesday.  His boss and the family are staying at the shop.  They were evacuated from their home in Chipita Park.

Calhan Auction

Most Mondays you'll find me here. At the Calhan Auction. I've bought and sold a lot of stuff and animals here. Comet and Gypsy came from the auction, so did Sophie but we didn't know it at the time. I can't eat a chicken I've raised so when they get older or stupid I take them to the auction. I've bought and sold goats and sheep. Bought Ariel and Kusko there as well and their son, Jafar, might be making a trip to the auction soon.
In addition to livestock, the auction also deals with "stuff". It might be junk to you but it could be a treasure to someone else.
Sometimes the prices are to the benefit of the seller, sometimes the buyer. A friend of mine had a pig she took the auction. She ended up owing the auction money as the pig only sold for $5 which wasn't enough to cover the expenses of the auction. It was a really fat (not large, fat) pig.
The animals are sold by the head (horses, most goats) but most are sold be the head.
People also bring free kittens and sometimes puppies.
So if you have a free Monday come to the auction in Calhan. There is also a horse and tack sale the last Saturday of each month. I don't go to that one, it would be dangerous to my bank account.

New Baby

After eight years my Jeep Cherokee finally gave it's last. We bought the Jeep when I drowned the Taurus on our country road after one of our rare heavy rains. My grandma, Andy was 16 months at the time, and I were driving home at night in the rain. The kind of rain which brings out the millions of little frogs. The neighbor went through with his little sports car, I followed and the engine just sucked up the water out of the puddle and cracked.
Dare I mention that I was 8 1/2 months pregnant with Alex.
So Peter's brother, Charlie who was a car salesman at the time, found the Jeep for us. It worked well for the last eight years but started having more and more behavior issues. With 300K miles on it, it just made more sense to get a new vehicle rather than pour more money into the Jeep.



This is a 2001 Dodge Dakota pickup. We named it Penny. It should work a lot better for farm activities, especially hauling hay and feed. It even has some farm critters in it already.

My friend Magie

The new picture at the top was taken by Magie about a year ago. The highest peak you see is Pike's Peak.
Now that the situation has been resolved I can let you know what has been going on.
On December 22, 2010 Magie and her three daughters took some Christmas presents to a family that they have been friendly with for FIVE Years. There had been a disagreement between this mother and the school over a religious presentation at the school, basically the school said the mother could not give a religious presentation at the school. Magie was trying to explain this rationally to the mother and make things "right" between the school and this particular parent. So when Magie takes the gifts to the family the mother hits Magie in the face breaking Magie's nose and glasses. Because Magie wanted to know why the mother was acting so irrationally, Magie went into the house. Magie left soon after and went to a friend's house who called the paramedics because of Magie's injuries. The assaulting mom called the Sheriff's department, wanting Magie arrested. Supposedly this mom was also under the influence of "medical marijuana" but let's not get into That Issue.
So Magie was arrested and spent several hours in jail. What does my best friend do while in jail? She is singing Christmas carols to the other inmates. Magie does have a wonderful voice, she's one of our church's soloists.
Magie gets released on bond. My seven year old money hungry son, Alex, offers all of his money to get his Aunt Magie out of jail. It wasn't necessary but it does go to show the level of caring that people out here have for Magie.
So after several court appearances, making a long and suffering story short, today Magie accepted a deal which lowered her "crime" from a class 5 felony to a petty offense. Instead of facing 1-3 years in prison, Magie received 18 months unsupervised probation and has to complete a mental health exam. Around the issue of why she's such a nice person and takes presents to someone who doesn't want them. A large number of people wrote letters of recommendation for Magie. I did. But then she's my bestest friend and will be taking care of Andy and Alex if for some reason Peter and I cannot. Unless the mental health exam says that Magie is a deranged lunatic, then I might have to rethink the care plans.

Changes

Never one to be satisfied with the way things are, I made some changes. I rearranged the living room, except for moving the piano, just to heavy. Put some of my old comic books on craigslist to sell, hopefully.
And in case you didn't notice I made some changes on the blog. The header picture is of Ariel and her baby of 2009, Belle. For those who don't know or don't remember all of our llamas are named after Disney characters. Starting with Kusco (the dad) who went to a new home, Ariel, baby number one was Lilo who died from rattler bite. Followed by Jasmine and then Belle. Belle was actually born on the same day that Lilo died and they look almost identical. Now Ariel has 2010 baby Jafar but since my digital camera lens isn't cooperating I can't download the pictures of him.
One other change to the blog I added a new blog to follow.
If you look real close at the picture of Ariel, right under the Green Gates heading are some black spots. Those are cows on the open range. West of us is about a gazillion acres of BLM land with a cattle lease.

From the mouth of babes

The other night my kids (the human ones) went for a walk up our hill/driveway. Eight year old Andy was asking his sister who she voted for. Melissa hemmed and hawwed and Andy said "You voted for Obama didn't you." Melissa admitted she did. Andy asked why and Melissa said at the time is seemed the better choice. Andy was quiet for a little bit and then asked his sister, "How's that Obama thing working out for you." Andy had seen this on a bumper sticker. He's such a little Republican.

The Doctor said I'm "great"

Last Wednesday the medical van came out to the church to offer medical services. In order to keep them coming they need warm bodies receiving services. Since the services are free and I like to support the church activities, I signed up and had my blood drawn to be tested.
This morning at 5:15 a.m. the medical company called and said that my potassium level was dangerously high and I needed to go to the emergency room right away. This based on blood drawn 6 days ago.
So I end up at the ER (thank you Magie for taking the boys on no notice, just me showing up and dropping them off). The hospital proceeds to run more blood work (I can't tell you how much I enjoy having blood taken, really I can't tell you that because I'd be telling a big fat LIE.)
In addition to the blood work they also did an EKG and some other tests. The results came back negative, fine, great etc. Come to find out if the lab lets your blood sit around for 5 days it starts to deteriorate and gives a false level of potassium. So instead of a level 7 (stroke city) it's at a 4 (quite a normal range). So basically there was a lot and lot of worry (Peter, my MIL, my BIL, my SIL, Magie and me) for NOTHING. Except for the big whooping bill we'll get from the hospital and a raise in our health insurance. And I'm healthy.

Cereal

My boys love cereal. Especially Alex. He would live on cereal if I'd let him. He has cereal for breakfast, morning snack, lunch dessert, afternoon snack--you get the idea.
When I was a kid, we had healthy cereal or grits for breakfast. The boys don't like grits, (I didn't either back then). Having Alpha bits was a rare treat. I don't get a lot of sugary cereals. Mostly we get corn flakes or rice krispies. I do have a box of raisin bran crunch but the boys don't like it.
They keep asking for oatmeal but I just can't wrap my brain around oatmeal in the summer. I do have some blueberries to put on the cereal but we think Andy is allergic. Also have mixed berries and strawberries. But my fave is still captain crunch. The original.

Last Day of School

It's happened. School is officially over for the summer. Two and half months of all day boy stuff.
School begins August 17. And yes I'm counting the days until then. I dearly love my boys but they have so much energy. And it was over 90* today.
Picked up the turkeys and Magie gave me 3 cayuga ducklings for a goose. Still waiting for Lucky Duck to hatch her eggs.
I'm thinking that my mom needs to start a blog, her children and grandchildren could keep up with what's going on. I think she's busier now that she's retired from teaching.

A New Beginning

I have a blog at another site. But I didn't feel very comfortable there. Reading some of the blogs here at blogspot I felt more "in tune" here. So this will be my new blog home. It will take awhile for things to get arranged to my liking. Plus I'm not overly computer savy.