Final post from 2017 - now caught up!

We attended our niece's wedding in Oklahoma where we saw lots of family.

K5 and K4, each with a babe in arms, visiting with their Grand Dad at the wedding reception.

Kids always like staying in a hotel with an indoor swimming pool.

Some family had to travel from afar, so it was a great weekend.

K12 turned 8 years old.

Just one of several birthdays we celebrated in the Fall.

As part of preparing for K7's return home from his Mission in Africa, we ripped out the basement carpet and installed something much easier to keep clean with several boys downstairs. We also had to shuffle some bedroom arrangements.

K9 is 3 1/2 years old, weights close to 50 pounds, and wearing size 6 under pants! Yes, he is huge, but almost potty trained. He is loud and mobile. Our current goal is getting him to sit quietly during family scripture study and during Church. He attends the 3 year old Sunbeam Primary class and does sit still for it, so slow but steady progress!

We had several visits from kids and grand kids. This was hair cutting day.

K9 is a Daddy's boy! Took my hat and glasses.

K11 wanted to play football. Went to the practises and had fun, but did not like wearing a helmet or all the pushing and shoving on the line of scrimmage during game day. His coaches said he kept wanting to leave the game and stand on sidelines, so they let him. I kept my mouth shut while thinking, "If he was your son, coach, what would you say to him? "Get back in there and tough it out..."? Oh well, they were the volunteer coaches, not me. He also went through a brief period at school during the same time where he was slacking off and not putting forth his best effort. He figured out he doesn't want to continue with football, and after a teacher/parent conference, he figured out how to give his best effort again. I am okay with him dropping football and improving as a student. However, K9 really loved that helmet, and with his size and toughness, who knows... 

K6 and K8

Our family was very happy to meet K7 at the airport on the evening of 8 November 2017, upon his return from Ghana, West Africa, where he served a Mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

He loved the people of Ghana, he loved the work, and the country, and he grew in so many wonderful ways. But he is obviously happy to enjoy his first winter snow in over two years.

What happened on the farm in 2017 while I wasn't posting?

Too much to post now, but here's a 30 second update: I love this shot with the little puffy white clouds in the blue sky over the bright green paddock filled with little puffy white sheep.

Lots of calves born.

Some really good storms, but damage limited to things like trees and branches falling on fence lines.

Living in the countryside and watching big storms blow through has some up sides - great rainbows! Just wish I had a better camera. 

Our experiment with pilgrim geese came to an end. They were beautiful, but too messy - pooping all around the house - and too aggressive against small ducks, small dogs and small children, so they went to live on another farm.

Our daughter K5 and her husband Jeremiah moved into Grandma's house next door, so with them here and K9 growing a little bigger, we have more ranch hands to help out with chores.

This was cool looking - someone ripped the clouds in half?

I now fertilize our pastures with Redmon salt, which I buy from a friend. Unfortunately our tractor does not have a front loader on it, so we always have to borrow a neighbor's tractor to unload the one ton bags. But another great thing about living in rural America is the fact we do have awesome neighbors, so they loan us the tractor.

Gained a new barn cat. Meet Jonesy, who has six claws on his front paws. He showed up during a storm. Not sure if he came out of the woods or someone from town dropped him off. He was starving - his sibling died on the outside of our fence, and Jonesy almost died when our shepherd dog Dandy got a hold of him, but the big boys rescued him. It is a double miracle because our old barn cat Jimmy actually likes Jonesy. 

Another form of wildlife living in our woods. Long black snake. No, I did not shoot this one - not poisonous, therefore a "friendly" (as long as it stays out of our chicken coop!).

Remember those one ton bags of sea salt? I have tried various ways of getting it out of bags and spread it some what evenly across our pastures. Last time, the boys and I had to laboriously shovel it into buckets and then lift it up to pour into a funnel spreader on back of a tractor. This time I thought it would be easy and quick to borrow our neighbor Sarah and her red tractor to lift bag up above fertilizer spreading truck, so K8 (in truck bed) could cut bottom of sack. Would have worked except the red tractor could not lift bag that high and extend out without back tires coming off the ground. Exciting, but dangerous. So I called a second neighbor, Thomas, who has a much bigger tractor. He fortunately was home, so he came and rescued us. To avoid wasting both neighbor's time and tractors in the future, I am now working on plan #3 which I will unveil in March or April. Stay tuned for another episode of "Trying to work smarter, not harder, on the farm".

K9 loved Thomas's giant tractor.

After long neglect, we turned our attention back to the greenhouse. After some online research, I found this wiggle wire stuff which Jeremiah is using to attach the plastic roof, which will allow us to roll up the sides in warmer weather.

Our crew: John, K6 (who always likes to "pose" for a camera shot), and K8.

It was John's idea to build these raised garden beds. They contain stacks of old used tires which hold the weight of the dirt beds. Great way to re-cycle, and make it easy to garden without having to bend down or too far over.

We are in the middle of winter now. Normally I would start feeding hay to the cattle and sheep at the end of December, but I have been doing it since early September due to a drought here in southern Missouri - no rain equalled no grass growing, so we had to buy triple the amount of hay compared to a normal autumn/winter. Has only happened twice in past several years, and it really hurts the budget! 

Two more recent additions to the farm - Bill and Betty. Their momma was an Anatolian shepherd and poppa was a Great Pyrenees. They are big and smart. Were supposed to be large guard dogs for the sheep, but it looks like they are now pets living in the barn and yard with other dogs. I am okay with this, since my big guard dog is getting older, I have been thinking of getting two large breed pups. I will get two more LGD's to live with the flock.  

It has been our worse lambing season ever. This is "Hope", a little girl who needed bottle feeding. She is the 2nd lamb this winter to need bottle feeding. We also lost one ewe who had a lamb stuck, and later her first lamb died from bloat because he got into our alfalfa hay storage and ate too much. I am pulling our 2 year old ram out of flock to give the ewes a break until fall, and will be replacing him with a new guy later this year. 

In spite of various ups and downs, I love life on the farm.

Take time to enjoy a little culture

Our local ballet company puts on 3 shows a year. Last year was Wizard of Oz, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker. My Bride had a juicy role in Sleeping Beauty - the King feared her...

...the other fairies feared her...

...and the audience loved her performance.

Can't remember if K8 was in Sleeping Beauty, but he was definitely in The Wizard of Oz.

Instead of scary flying monkey's, the witches' henchmen were dressed as humorous "men in black". K8 is on the far left.

K8 is front right.

These are our main company dancers. They may be young, but have a lot of talent, and for such a small company out in the rural Ozarks, operating on a shoe string budget, they put on truly great shows. K8 is far right. 

Our daughter K3 took most of these photos.

Solar Eclipse over Portland

If it's August, it's time to run a Spartan Race.

With family, and several thousand other folks.

I did not get many pics because I chose to watch 3 cute grand children.

So I stayed close to the finish line. K8 did a back flip into the big mud puddle at the finish line (you see it off to the left). 

Everyone finished. Another successful Race Day.

And as a bonus on our last morning, we were at the airport during the big solar eclipse. We were just coming through the TSA security check into this scene. 

What is orange and black, and has 3 legs?

In August 2017, it was time for another trip. This one with kids, and only an hour's drive - to the Zoo.

The tiger in this exhibit is the answer to the question from the post's title. A female tiger who gets around surprisingly well on 3 legs. Can not remember how she lost the leg, and no, I did not get a good photo of her.  

I loved the giraffe feeding station.

So much so, that we bought a family season pass. We'll be going often.