Embracing the Rain

I don't understand everyone's complaining about the rain. Seriously, we DO live in Oregon! Maybe I'm the last true Oregonian; I fully embrace the rain. Yes, I'll admit to voicing frustrations towards some of the hardships and inconveniences that constant rainfall can instigate but I feel that this is all a small sacrifice that I make in exchange for getting to live in the one of the greenest states in the union.

Warm rainy days like today are awesome. It is warm enough to be outside working yet the rain keeps everything fresh, clean and cool. On the other hand, it also offers me with an excellent excuse to just stay in the house to bake cookies or clean, or I could spend the entire day out in my arena messing with all of the horses while listening to the gentle fall of rain on the rooftop.

I especially enjoy it when God just completely cuts loose and sends down a short torrential rainfall. The sound of those storms on my barn roof are awe inspiring to say the least. I'll just stop whatever I'm doing and let the sound of the heavy rain drum through my body like the base at a concert, my heart beats faster and I feel a sense of exhilaration course through my veins. After the storm passes, the clouds inadvertently part, the sun appears along with a rainbow and all is well. It's fun to walk outside and see all of the little temporary runoff creeks that formed and quickly dissipate.


My absolute favorite is the first rain of summer. After a couple months of warm and sometimes hot, sunny days the grasses have all turned a monotonous brown and yellow and everything is covered in a layer of dust. The first rain washes all of the that away, replenishes the earth and makes everything smell so wonderful. Every year when the first rain arrives I always run outside and stand in it, I love to let the cool raindrops cover my body. It is as if I can feel all of my troubles, aches and pains being washed away by God. I'll stay out in the rain until my clothes are completely soaked through and I'm shivering with a shallow chill that is quickly warmed when I towel off. My husband always looks at me like I'm a crazy lady, (he never joins me in my rain ritual) and maybe I am but I don't care, I feel better and it smells great outside.

So, the next time you feel the need to complain about the rain, try to find a reason to enjoy and embrace it. It makes life so much more delightful. Remember, a positive attitude heals the soul and beats out evil and depression any day.

Encourage one another!

Summer Grilling

Ahh spring.  It’s finally here and with it come the birds, flowers, planting the garden and of course GRILLING WEATHER!  Actually, I grill year round but the nice weather certainly makes grilling a lot more fun and provides more pleasant temperatures for getting creative on the bar-b-q.

I’ve been sick for the past several days so my cooking has been limited to thawing out the reserves I had stashed in the basement freezers or cold sandwiches but today I finally mustered up enough energy to cook on my new bar-b-q.

For starters, I make the hamburgers.  Have you ever wondered how the restaurants get those perfect diamond shaped grill marks on your steaks and burgers?  You try flipping them this way and that way and it never seems to work out just right.  Well, let me share a little secret with you.  Just before it’s time to flip your meat over, use your flipping tool to simply turn the meat 90 degrees, let it cook for a bit more and THEN flip it over.  WALLA!  You will have the perfect grill marks that I am 100% sure make your meat taste SO much better.

I like to have bacon with my hamburgers so I decided to break out this really cool veggie rack that I found at Wall Mart.  It was working so perfectly for the bacon that I decided to be brave and throw on some asparagus that had been soaking in butter and garlic all night.  YUM!

Of course you can’t have a great hamburger lunch without a fresh salad so I dug around in my fridge in search of something crunchy and fresh to serve as a side.  The pickings were pretty slim so I had to get creative which seems to be something that comes naturally to me lately.  I sliced up what was left of a cucumber, added a can of mandarin oranges, a sprinkle of coconut and topped it with a mixture of sour cream, milk and dill weed.  It was WONDERFUL!

Encourage one another!

My Husband and I

John and I have struggled through "for richer or poorer", we have lived through "in sickness and in health", we continue to embrace "in good times and in bad" We choose to live our lives to the fullest, make our mark on the world and leave behind a destiny our children and grandchildren will be proud of until "death ...do us part".

Mind your Own Business

I think that Hank Williams says it all in his song titled "Mind Your Own Business"  especially in the last lyric that goes

Mindin' other people's business seems to be high-toned
I got all that I can do just to mind my own
Why don't you mind your own business
If you mind your own business, you'll stay busy all the time.

Seriously.   What is it about people these days that makes them think that what is going on in someone elses life is any of their business?  If your name isn't on the deed, title, birth certificate, invoice or whatever, then it's really none of your business.  Unless the life of a person or animal is in danger, you need to keep your nose, your opinions and your fingers to yourself.   This includes of course what you say about people behind their backs.

Remember, it'll come back to you three times three so take Hank's advice and mind your own business!  You'll get a lot more respect for it.

Click here to listen to the song

Poached Eggs

I have never in my life had any desire or need to eat a poached egg. To be completely honest, just the thought of eating an egg that has been boiled without it's shell sounded completely gross and...well....boring. However, upon visiting one of my favorite websites for recipe, photo, craft and homeschooling ideas there, right smack on my computer screen, ergo - in my face - was the directions for property poaching an egg according to my dear friend the Pioneer Woman. Since I've been sick with the flue for the past couple of days my appetite hasn't quite been the same but for some reason, that poached egg, served as eggs Benedict actually looked yummy.The Pioneer Woman made it look easy, it actually sounded good to my poor sore stomach and I'm bored so I decided to give it a try. Why NOT?

According to the Pioneer Woman randomly when tossing a raw egg into a boiling cauldron of water that has been stirred to a near tornado state the egg will wrap around itself and hence you will have a wonderful oval shaped egg in two minutes. Well, either I'm not quite as good at creating a tornado as she is or she lied. Regardless, instead of having a poached egg, I learned out to create that yummy ribbon of egg that is in egg flour soup. FAIL.

In my second attempt I decided to fall back on old faithful for instruction - Julia Childs. The woman is a culinary genius and considering that she barely knew how to boil an egg or cook anything else for that matter until attending cooking school in France near the age of 40, her life's achievements are nothing short of a miracle and a major inspiration for people like me. Okay, back to the task at hand, poaching an egg. Julia suggests bringing the water to a very light boil or heavy simmer, add a touch of vinegar to help the egg stay together and use only very fresh eggs. Well I didn't have any very fresh eggs and considering the state of my uneasy stomach and unpredictable south end, going to town for fresh eggs was out of the question. Old eggs will have to do. What I really liked about Julia's method was there was no rapid stirring needed, just crack the egg into a small bowl and gently ease it into the water. Wow, that was easy! Much to my delight, the egg stayed together and turned out just like in the picture.

Of course eggs Benedict wouldn't really be eggs Benedict without toast, bacon and hollandaise sauce and fortunately I had bread and bacon (not canadian ~ sorry) on hand and making hollandaise sauce is a piece of cake. I put it all together and bravely sat down to a rerun of Sex in the City to taste my masterpiece and much to my surprise it was WONDERFULLY DELICIOUS! The bonus is my stomach didn't fight back with cramps and threats of evicting the food I had just consumed and enjoyed. I can't believe it, I'm so excited about it that I think I'll make it for dinner tonight too.

p.s.  The photo is not mine, I copied it from a web site.  Sorry, I didn't think about grabbing my camera for the event.

Lovely Foggy Fall Mornings are my Favorite Time for Pictures

This morning the sun was just beginning it daily rise over the hilltops spreading warm rays across the pastures and onto the fog that was hanging over the mountains like a warm blanket. This is my favorite time to go out with my camera to see what I can capture. The lighting that the early sun and provides is absolutely wonderful and the fog provides unique photo effect opportunities. In this photo, I was thrilled to allow the fog to blur out the background that I would normally do by adjusting the aperture setting on my camera.



I know, it’s a boring photo but be patient I am going somewhere with this.

In this next photo, I wanted to capture the colors in the black walnut tree and allow the sun to have a part so I set my aperture wide open to catch a bit of the suns rays but I didn’t want the sky blown out so I used my spot metering and metered on the fog and yippee the blue sky came in just like I wanted it.



Then, if you put the fog, the sun, the fall colors all together and add an interesting subject matter you end up with a nice shot like this.



See? I told you I was going somewhere!

Cabin Fever

Two weeks ago I broke my ankle. It was one of those stupid accidents that just happen no matter how careful you try to be. I have a water trough blocking a gap in the fence where there should be a small gate that was never installed. Rather then walk all the way to the other end of the barnyard, I climbed over the water trough to get quick access to the horses and put on their fly nets in the morning. When I climbed back out and jumped down I landed wrong, my ankle twisted and I heard a loud SNAP along with intense pain. I lay there awhile skirming around and moaning from the pain hoping it was like all of the other times I've twisted my ankle and it would just be okay after a minute or so. Unforunately that wasn't the case so I screamed for John to come help me. I yelled to him that I thought I had broken my ankle, he thought I said one of the horses had a broken ankle so he went back into the house and brought out a gun. I'm sure glad he didn't shoot me! He brought the car around so he could take me to the hospital, that is when poor Riley got scared. He screamed to his grandpa, "Don't run over my Grandma!!!" The poor little mushy boy. :)

At the hospital they did xrays and a CT scan, sure enough it was broken. They sent me home with a boot thingy and instructions to go see a surgeon about pinning me back together. Thank GOD the surgeon said I didn't have to have surgery and didn't put on a cast so here I sit with a 6 week sentence of no weight on the foot. I go back to the doctor Wednesday for new xrays and hope that my sentence will be shortened by a bit because I'm going start raving MAD being locked up in this house.

Here it is two days after the break. I really don't think it looks all that bad but what do I know.


That's it, my life is so boring and uneventful now that I have nother more to ad so I'll just end this post with a photo that I took BEFORE I broke my stupid ankle.

Photographing a Wedding

My look a like niece got married this past Saturday and had asked me to be the photographer. I tried to talk her into hiring a professional but she insisted that I would do fine. I ran around like a crazy person for the entire ceremony and took almost 1100 photos. I'm exhausted but I think I got so good photos, I sure hope she likes them!

I got a couple of new pets to add to the menagerie

Vanessa is a very freindly little Nigerian Dwarf with a silly personality



Bindi is a sweet little blue eye Nigerian Dwarf. She's a little shy but is comming around slowley.


These little goats like to follow me all around the ranch and look for trouble to get into.

The Building of a Box Culvert

Last weekend Dad and I accompanied Ernie, Scott and Jeff up into the woods to pack in the supplies and construct a box culvert to provide a temporary creek crossing along the new trail being built for the Mule Skinner's Memorial Day Poke Ride.

Here, we are loading up Ernies miles with the supplies we needed to back in. In this photos, Cody is being loaded with the lumber.


Here, I provide a nice view of Coday all loaded up and ready to go


Whisky gets to pack in some of the additional supplies we need, chainsaw, buckets, lunch etc.


Chex waits patiently while the mules get all packed up.


The mules are all loaded up, we head out to a hillside to grab some rock


This is the area before we did any improvements. It doesn't look like much but we worry that after 500 horses cross, it'll be a muddy mess.


Scott was the lucky nail straightener guy. Remember, RECYCLE!


While Ernie works on preparing the creek bed, Scott and Jeff start assembling the box


Putting the final touches on the box


The box is set over the creek flow and tamped down into place


The creek flow is adjusted just a little more to make sure it flows through the box


Some large branches are placed on each side of the box to help stabelize it


Ernie has these handy paniers that open from the bottom, this made it really easy to unload the gravel right over the culvert


Ernie tromps around on the fished product to make sure it is solid


Finally we are finished with our project and head back to the trailers

Finally a moment for ME

I never in my wildest dreams that my rescue would get so incredibly big and busy that I would no longer have the time to enjoy my photography hobby and keeping my personal blog updated. This morning however, I did take just a few minutes to grab my camera and head out for some photo opportunities.

Here are a couple of my roosters. They are really shy so getting a photo of them is difficult but this morning I was sneaking up on some elk and managed to surprise he roosters in the process!

By the time I got done photographing the roosters, the stupid horses had discovered the elk and chased them down to the bottom of the field near the road. I high tailed it to the house and screamed a Dad to GET IN THE CAR, NOW! The poor guy was in the middle of shaving and had no shoes on but I sounded serious so he scrambled and off we went to our lower field. I spotted the elk again and they were in my woods right next to the road all set up for a perfect photo opportunity. I stopped the car, rolled down the window, did the 4 point check on the camera (shutter speed, ISO, F-stop etc) and prepared to take the shot when Dad started talking. GAAAA!!!!! At that point it became very clear to me why my Dad was never much of a successful hunter instead of hand signals he screams out, “There’s the elk!”

They ran off, here is a photo of their retreat back across my hay field.


Oh well, it was fun anyway.

It's Been Very Busy Here

I haven't had the time to post in here lately because my rescue has been taking up all of my time. Make sure you click on my rescue link and take a look at all of the new horses that we have in.

My Dad is moving back over to this side of the mountain and will be living with my sister Jill. This will give me lots of opportunity to spend quality time with him.

Fly me to the Moon

Freezing cold weather and a brand new moon peaking out from behind the shadow of the earth drug me out into the night to get these shots. I took one at the proper exposure for a nice moon shot and the other is over exposed a bit so you can see the outline of the rest of the moon in the shadows. It was fun trying to figure out what settings to use on my camera to get just the right effects.





Today is Super Bowl Sunday!!!! We always have a big party and lots of fun with all of our friends. There is always way too much food, some drinking, a freindly bet and lots of visiting with our friends. It's a house full but it's danged FUN!

Now, on to something serious, if any of you are in need of a really nice, well broke, gentle horse let me know. I'm helping a neighbor find homes for some of his retired dude string horses.

Here We Go Again

Yes, yes I know there are a lot of people who wish they could get just a glimpse of some of the wildlife that we see here nearly every day but it doesn't make having them here all of the time any easier to deal with.



Every year one or two large herds of elk show up around our place. Fortunately, they favor the new green grass on our neighbor's fields but that doesn't stop them from paying a visit to our fields and taking down our fences as they come and go.

There is always a lead cow that chooses where the herd goes.


Then comes the rest of the cows, last years calves and the small bulls


Then the larger bulls bring up the rear. It's the same story every day.


This particular day I was feeling rather frisky as this herd headed straight towards my lower field so I grabbed my camera and made a mad dash for the closest vantage point I could muster without being spotted. Sneaking up on elk isn't rocket science mind you but it is harder then most people think it is. On this particular forray into wildlife photography I sprung my crotch climbing over the fence, tore my pants on the blackberries, lost my rubber boot in the boot sucking mud and poked my boob on a wayward branch. None-the-less in spite of my lungs heaving for air and my hands shaking from exhaustion I managed to get a few shots.

BUT, yes there is always a BUT in wildlife photography; the elk were MOVING and the lighting was less then ideal for shooting a moving object with a 300 zoom lense and shaking hands. Oh well. None of the shots are worth framing but they are better then what I've gotten in the past. At least this time I didn't feel like spiking my camera off the floor after I downloaded the photos.

Good bye for today elk. That's a big darned herd!

I'm hoping for some inspiration

I haven't been making very frequent entries lately for a couple of reasons. One is, I haven't been able to come up with a clever, entertaining topic. Another is, I haven't been out getting any wonderful photographs of anything. The good news is, I am only going to be working 1 day a week for the next month or two or three or four so I'll have a lot of time to go out searching for that perfect photo opportunity so stay tuned!

In the mean time, I'll entertain you with this cute picture of Mr. Piggelsworth and his buddy Doctor Doodle Duck.

Snow, EEKS!

I don't think I'll ever wish for a white Christmas again. EVER. We got burried in the snow, nearly 4 feet of it. Our power went out and didn't come back on until a couple of days after Christmas, it was out for six days. I didn't get to work for 3 weeks but I sure stayed busy trying to keep up with this place and all of the animals here.

To give you an idea of just how deep it got here is a picture of one of my fences, just the tops are showing and that is not a drift, it's that deep everywhere.



You can't even see Marlboro Man's junkers! Okay, that can be a good thing!


Toby kept getting covered in this annoying snow balls!


Before it got too deep the horses enjoyed the snow too.



Barns all around us were caving in including 6 indoor arenas just in my area. Of course that really made me nervous but luckily we were smart and had our barn fully engineered rather then just putting up an ag building. That meant that the building was engineered to withstand a 4 foot snow load. At the time I thought that was crazy, we'd never get that kind of snow, YEAH RIGHT! We had to spend over $6000.00 upgrading the trusses, perlins and beams to meet the county standards and boy was I ever glad that we did, it sure paid off this winter.

I tried to photograph the snow but when I was faced with endless white everywhere I had a really rad time capturing anything worthwhile. So here are a few weak attempts at being creative.

I Love to Cook

I love cooking, I'm constantly looking for new recipies to try and I have tons of cookbooks that I pour over looking for yummy stuff to make for dinner but most of the dishes I make don't have a written recipie, it's all in my head. I spend a lot of time thinking up different ways to make dishes, most of the time it turns out pretty good but sometimes they are a flop.

Since I haven't had much to say here on my blog these past few days I decided to tell you what was for dinner tonight. All of these items were very easy and great for a quick, good dinner after a long day at work.

First on the menu, fresh salmon cooked on the grill with lemon pepper

Mmmmm, you can see the steam wafting into the air. Wash and dry the salmon thoroughly, sprinkle it with lemmon pepper and let sit for several minutes. Pre heat the George Forman grill (George is one of my best freinds in the kitchen) spray a good coat of olive oil PAM all over the grill, place on the salmon and let that cook until done, usually about 10-15 minutes depending on how thick your salmon is.

Oven Roasted Asparagus

This is amazingling fast, easy and delicious. Just wash the asparagus, cut off the ends, dry with paper towell and place on a cookie sheet. Spray a generous coating of olive oil PAM, don't be shy, olive oil is good for you. Sprinkly on some kosher salt (don't use table salt, it's a sin) and fresh ground pepper, you can use the powered pepper if you want, I won't tell anyone. Place into preheated 450 oven and cook for 10 minutes. Dont try to cheat and put it in the oven before it's hot, it'll ruin this dish.

Texas Toast

You can use any kind of bread for this, tonight's was french bread. Just heat up a non stick frying pan, melt some butter into the pan, place the bread on top of the butter and cook until brown. If you want you can melt more butter, flip it over and cook both sides. If you're feeling frisky you can sprinkle on some kosher salt or grated cheese.

Baked potatoe, I'll spare you the details on this because honestly, who doesn't know how to make a baked potatoe?

Put this all together and you've got a quick, easy hearty meal. Enjoy.