Life on the High Plains

Dear Friends, This year, I am helping save lives from cancer by taking part in the American Cancer Society Relay For Life, and I’m hoping you will support me.  I am doing this for two good friends--Sara, a young co-worker who has been battling Hodgkins Lymphoma for over a year while maintaining an unbelievable attitude and faith in God.  I am also doing this for my friend Mark who recently lost his battle with cancer and my mom who was a breast cancer survivor. Farm Credit is teaming with Black Hills Energy to participate in the Lincoln County Relay for Life on Friday, July 9th from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m.  I will be traveling to Limon with four other co-workers to participate in the walk and to support Sara.  Sara is only a year older than my youngest daughter, JP, and it breaks my heart every time she suffers a setback in her treatment.  I thought I'd ask once for support.  If you're interested please visit my personal web page to make a ...

Irv and I are in Fort Collins for the Colorado 4-H State Conference.  For dinner we went to a new restaurant, Sanfords, that a friend had told me about. It's an interesting place with unusual decor.  If you're old enough to remember Sanford and Son, then you'll understand their decorating. Irv order the ribs.  It was served on a platter.  When he was about half done the waitress came over and asked if he wanted another rack since it was all you could eat.  We just laughed at her.  It was truly the biggest plate of food I have ever seen in my life.  Irv couldn't even eat all of it.  Great deal --- all you can eat ribs with potato, corn, and bread for $16.99.  It's a good thing we don't have a Sanfords in Colorado Springs yet.

We had some time to spare in Fort Collins so we decided to take a hike up to Horsetooth Rock.  First we had to figure out how to get there.  Irv's pretty good with a map so he was in charge of navigation. Then we started climbing up.  Was this really such a good idea for the first hike of the year?  When we were talking about it, five miles and 1400 foot elevation increase didn't seem so bad.  What we didn't consider was the heat and out of shape legs. There were lots of stops in the shade to rest the legs and catch our breath. Irv got to climb some rocks on the way. Even Irv got a little tired. We got to see a doe and her fawn which we didn't get a very good picture of.  There were also lots of beautiful views and wild flowers like these. Isn't it beautiful? I have stilled and quieted my soul. Psalm 131:2

This is Mr. Beans and his cousin Super Pizza Boy.  They don't get to see each other very often, but when they do it's always fun.  They get along so well together. At the family reunion they got to do a little fishing, some marshmallow eating, and of course their favorite activity.... video game playing. Silly boys!

We drove from Colorado to Idaho recently for a family reunion.  Most of the drive isn't too interesting, but then you get into the part of Wyoming that is breath taking.  We stopped alongside the road to take this picture, it's near Star Valley, Wyoming. Then we crossed into Idaho which is equally beautiful. I absolutely love this part of the country.  If I ever win the lottery I will have a summer home there.

Recently we ventured to Idaho to attend the Maloney Family Reunion.  It's always great fun to see my cousins. My cousin, MW, and her husband, DW, own a very unique business, The Prepared Pantry. They sell baking mixes such as cookes, muffins, pancakes, bread machine, scones, etc. that they have created themselves.  They are unlike anything you could ever find at a grocery store.  I've bought things from them online before, but on this visit I got to visit their store.  I could have spent hours there and since we drove this year we had the car so I was able to purchase quite a few items.  The day after we got home I made these cinnamon chip muffins for breakfast.  They were wonderful! Here you can see some of the other mixes I purchased. I highly recommend that you check out their website ( http://www.preparedpantry.com/index.html ).  You'll love their products.  You can also sign up to receive emails with special deals a...

Keira, our murderous lab, found a stash of baby bunnies a few days ago.  It's not that she is a mean dog who likes to kill baby bunnies, she thinks she's playing with them.  Unfortunately, a couple baby bunnies didn't survive her "playing".  Irv was able to save this one and kept him in a bucket until I came home.  I almost killed him myself when I accidentally dropped him. We had a problem when it came to releasing this baby.  If we put him back under the deck Keira would probably have another chance to "play" with him. We decided on the barn.  At least he would be somewhat safe if the other bunny families would accept him and assuming a snake wouldn't come in to eat him.  I would have liked to keep him, but I learned last year that it's nearly impossible to keep a wild bunny alive in captivity. Good luck little bunny!

Saturday was a horse show day for our family.  Irv and I have been volunteering our services to the Mt. Herman 4-H Club for several years. Irv does the announcing.  He also helps with the grunt work such as moving poles, logs, barrels, trail course obstacles, and anything else that is needed. And I do the registration and scorekeeping. We've become a pretty good team over the years and have learned how to keep a show moving quickly.  We were done by 2:30 p.m. on Saturday which is really early for a horse show. JP traveled all the way to Grand Junction to judge a show there.  It was her first two-judge show.  She was finished by 6:00 or so and then had a long drive home. This week Irv and I are going to Ft. Collins for 4-H State Conference.  I'm one of the co-superintendents for the horse bowl contest and Irv is coming along to help.  Jillian will be coming up also because she coaches our county's livestock bowl team....

In March when we were in Hawaii on the Big Island we spent a day at the Volcanoes National Park.  I had never seen an active volcano before so it was quite interesting.  I never knew there were different types of volcanoes.  I always thought they all erupted from the top of the mountain.  Mt. Kilauea is a shield volcano meaning it erupts from the side of the mountain. The park rangers don't allow tourists anywhere near the lava flow.  We learned that all new lava flow is the propery of the state of Hawaii.  The flow is extending the size of the Big Island. JP warned us before we left that it's bad luck to bring a piece of the lava home, so we left it all there. We hiked across the caldera of an area that erupted back in the 1950s.  It was like being on another planet.  It was about four miles across. Sometimes it was cold and rainy and other times it was hot and muggy.  The caldera is surrounded by a rain forest.  ...

Wednesday night when I came home I was trapped in the garage by a long, slithery guest that was very unwelcome.  After my initial screaming fit which nobody heard because I was home alone, I jumped back in the car, grabbed the remote and let myself out through the big door.  (The snake was guarding the regular door so I had no choice but to find another exit.) When Irv came home the next morning he looked for my unwelcome guest, but couldn't find him.  We assumed he left.  Today I decided to do a little work in my garden and I loaded up Mr. Beans' wagon with the plants I had sitting in the garage.  I then went inside the house for a minute.  When I came back out, I found my unwelcome friend slithered across the top of the plants.  He must have been coiled up in one of the plants which means I came very close to touching him.  (Screaming out loud!!!!) So much for working in the garden.  I'm staying locked inside the rest of the day....

We were in Albuquerque over the Memorial Day weekend visiting family.  On Sunday we ventured to the Balloon Fiesta Park where the Albuquerque Wine Festival was taking place.  We were accompanied by Irv's brother, Scott and his wife Kim.  Irv's sister, Leslie, was also with us.  We tasted a lot of different wines, some of which were horrible, but some were really good.  The favorite winery of the ladies was St. Clair Winery.  They had some really good sweet wines.  The most fun we had was at the tent for Plum Loco.  They had some really unusual wines such as chocolate, plum, pecan, and green chili.  Kim and I ended up buying bottles of chocolate and plum wine.  They're a lot better than they sound.  Leslie treated Kim and I to a wine slushee.  Really good on a hot, sunny New Mexico day.  It was a lot of fun hanging out with the in-laws...a lot of laughing which I'm sure had nothing to do with the amount of wine we sampled....