Wanch Update, lots of pics

K10's birthday party at local pottery painting shop was creatively fun...

...followed by cup cakes and ice cream.

We never miss the Annual Baker Creek Seed Festival...

...which added a new high tech sanitation gizmo this year. Took K11 a few minutes to figure out how to operate it (big Sister gave him hint - foot pedal).

K9 with his favorite k9 - Bill, the Great Pyrenees

K10 with new jewelry...

...expensive day, since K12 also got some shiny stuff.

Jonsey the cat proving that Bill the alpha dog can be patient. But pity the stranger who comes over our fence at night.

K10 digging thorny thistles out of a hay field.

K11 digging thistles out of a grazing pasture - this weed is not welcome anywhere on the Wanch.

K2 waiting his turn at the family barber shop.

First over night camp out for K10 and K9 at our annual church Father and Son's outing. Fortunately we had cabins with canvas curtains to cover the screen windows, because we had a thunder storm. Boys eating bananas for late night snack.

Loading half empty feed barrels of grain left over from winter time. Not sure what the story is with K12's fashion statement (on far left).

Took team work.

Putting up fence line also requires team work, the more the merrier. 

Splicing two sections of field fence.

Danny caught this large mouth bass from our pond last Sunday, and threw it on the grill. Good eating.

Converted a few of our pastures into new hay fields this Spring to help reduce the high cost of feeding the herd and flock this coming winter.

With a second cutting later this Fall, we should have just enough hay to make it through winter at a new cost of $15 per bale instead of last year's drought driven high of $55 (and some places were charging as much as $80 per bale!). 

Hi ho, it's off to work we go! Our Wanch is full of Princesses, little people, music, and fun.

Visited Portland, Oregon, for grand daughter Lydia's 8th Birthday and...

...her Baptism!

K10 getting her first pair of ballet point shoes.

New sheep handling equipment made it much easier to band and tag lambs this year.

We are seeing a lot of water snakes in the stream this year.

These two snakes wrapped themselves on the water gap fence - they looked like sticks.

We had a lot of strong storms this Spring. No serious damage, but lots of limbs down.

Some limbs on top of fences.

Kept us busy cutting and building burn piles.

Lots of burn piles.

Starting to open up the west side of hill above stream in order to add more grazing pastures. We will keep a lot of the big shade trees, but will be cutting firewood for months this summer and fall.

After having a rare tornado pass just a little over a mile to our east last month, I decided to take down the giant oak tree next to my bed room. Our son-in-law, Ryan, fortunately has a hobby of tree climbing and trimming. This is him starting up the tree, with rain clouds moving across the sky above.

He is about 50 feet up, and only got a little sprinkling of rain.

Lots of cutting, with hand saw and chain saw.

"Timber!"

Crash!

It was grueling and exhausting work - I should know, because I sat on an ammo can and watched Ryan for 3 hours! Sending up the occasional cold water bottle to keep him hydrated.

We then spent a few days cleaning up - cutting branches, building burn piles and loading firewood.

See the green barrel? The one with dent on top? It saved our fence line from getting crushed.

Little kids needed team work to load this long feed trough.

Then I told them to load a 2nd one. They said it was impossible. They learned to stop telling me things are impossible.

All American boys defending our part of the world from scary, mindless, destructive creatures that begin with the letter "D". Team work. They were hooting, hollering, laughing, and screaming. They had a blast...literally. "Move, shoot, communicate".