Tis The Season....

for cotton harvest!! Dad started stripping cotton yesterday, so I took the opportunity to snap a few shots. The field is so white that from the highway it looks like snow. This could possible be one of his best fields ever, and he has grown some pretty good cotton these last couple of years.











This picture is blurry, but he had just dumped a load onto the bowl buggy, which my brother is driving. And Preston is moving the cotton around so that they can get more into the buggy. The first time you see this done you think that they are going to dump it on the ground!










Here he is dumping the cotton into the module builder, and from there is gets pressed into a nice block of cotton that can be hauled away.

















Isn't it beautiful?










"Riding off into the sunset"!











When I was little, my family raised lots of cotton as did others in this valley. I remember getting to jump in the cotton trailers to smash down the cotton so that they could get as much as possible in the trailers. We also lived right next to the cotton gin, and I remember one time spending the night inside of one of the trailers. All those fun memories came flooding back yesterday with the smell of the cotton! What a wonderful life growing up as a farm kid....and being a farmer's wife!!

One of those weeks.....

Side Note: Had my blog done ready to post and it erased this picture. So, it's story is below!













OK, so this is a random blog for me to vent a little bit! I'll start with this picture that I took back in May, just thought that it looked really cool. Last May, when my mom and I went to Denton, I found this wagon wheel at an antique shop...still haven't done anything with it, but it looks kind of neat leaning against my house! ;)






This month marks a year since we put Windy down, and got Praise. I was browsing my old pictures and found this one when Jason and I first went and looked at him.


This is Praise this summer. I just talked to the lady that we bought him from this last week. When I called her and told her who I was she was SO excited to hear from me. She lives close to where we go to church and she had been driving around the different church parking lots trying to find our pickup!! I gave her an update on him, and told her that he is the best horse that we have ever owned, which is true.

Now, for this last week.....it basically started out bad. I was filled with frustration, disappointment, and sadness, hoping that the week would get better. Well, it didn't. We finally got a combine on Thursday to harvest out pinto beans, and that night as Jason was backing up to dump the last load the back axle broke. Did I mention that it's not even our combine? It's still not fixed, but it is no longer sitting on the ground. On Saturday, we were able to get another combine here and we will be done by today.

It rained last night, on our hay that was ready to be baled. Lovely. How in the world we have had so much rained on hay, but yet are still so dry is beyond my comprehension. And the clouds are building again today. We have had lighting and thunder, just like it is monsoon season. Weird.

Sick calves. Coccidiosis to be exact. I told Jason that this is more stressful than a newborn baby.....I think anyway! Every night I'm dreaming of these calves and trying to keep them alive and healthy. And with harvest being in full swing, I find myself there a lot by myself. But I really do enjoy spending time with them.

Maybe this week will be better!

Our Latest Project

For weeks, Jason has stayed up late crunching numbers and building spread sheets. For weeks, all he talked about were calves, what we would buy, where we would keep them, how to turn our rained on hay into money. Well, after weeks and weeks and weeks, we finally have calves!





These two pictures are some calves that we bought right from the ranch last week. There is one in this group that I call Stitch, from the Disney cartoon "Lilo and Stitch". And once I get a picture of him, you'll know why but he is the cutest little thing!







These calves came from the sale barn two weeks ago and there is more of them, but I did not want to bore you with pictures of calves, that is if you are still reading this! ;) We have had to doctor them several times to get them over shipping fever. As of today, everyone is fat and happy!


So, basically, what all of the this means is that we are going nowhere this winter. Just 8 miles down the road to check on our sweet little calves and back again!!

Where does the time go?

I did not realize that it has been two months since I have blogged....if feels like just a couple of weeks have gone by! Good News, we are alive and well. Just an update on what's been going in southern Arizona.

1. Hay...and lots of it! We just cut two pivots of hay, so starting very soon our days will get long and the nights longer.

2. We painted Nina and Papa's house. And when I say "we", I mean Jason helped me! We had a lot of fun, and really enjoyed the coke floats in the afternoon.

3. We have spent some time helping our friends as they are vaccinating calves and getting ready to ship. That's been a lot of fun and it's nice little get-away for us.

4. Mema and Karen came from Arkansas to visit. And I'm embarrassed to admit that we only spent one afternoon with them. It just happened to be during our hay time.

5. Janette came to visit, and she is going to be here today. WhooHoo!!

6. Coming in 2010....a baby!! Teaspoon, my mare, is pregnant and she is getting the cutest little tummy.

7. Last weekend we finally got away to the White Mountains. It was cool and damp and perfect! We saw elk, lots of turkeys, and antelope. That has too be one of our favorite past times, and it's hard to believe that we have only been up there once this year! And there would be pictures but I have misplaced my camera's battery charger.

8. Roasting chile......and LOTS of it! Since we just planted a small block of chile in with my dad's red chile, I did not expect to roast a lot of chile this year. Well, on Labor Day, we picked and roasted 520 lbs. Thankfully, I had the help of my parents and Tammy. On Thursday, we roasted 180 lbs. for the people at Valley, and now I have another 150 lbs. for Monday for more people at Valley. Ask Virgil about who got me in all of this work! Actually, he has made it a lot easier being organized and helping to get the chile distributed. Thank you!! And a big thank you to my parents who have helped me everytime I've had a big order. My dad is getting to quite the chile roasting expert!!

That's about it for now. This week is county fair, and we have kids that we support showing everyday, but at least this year it's only a one hour trip both ways instead of two hours!

God has been so good to us this year and we continually see His hand in our lives. I hope that the past two months have been good to you!

Wedding week

Well, we made it!! All went pretty well, and a big "thank you" for everyone who was praying for us. This picture is of Jodie, Rosanna, Stacey, Me, B and S waiting in Gadabout for our pedicures.

This is S and B being so cute! I can't believe that I didn't get any pictures of them on my camera all dressed up. I'll try to find a way to post wedding pictures when they come in.
Me and my parents after the wedding. Stacey's colors were truffle, wine and candy pink. I just happened to be in wine, but there were 16 bridesmaids and we all were in different colors. It was really beautiful.
Jason and I together....we clean up pretty good! He was happy that he got to wear maroon. And I wish that I had taken a picture of the back of my hair. I had my Italian man, Giancarlo, do my hair. It was so unique and very modern which is ironic because I was the most country girl of all of them there! There wasn't one curl in it, it was all braids and twists. Crazy! And I had 68 bobbi pins in my hair, it took a little while to get them all out.

The day of the wedding all of us girls were getting ready, and I went to find my dress. I could not find it anywhere. So I went to ask my mom because she was bringing it with all of the other dresses. She forgot it. So Jason had to drive 30 minutes back to her house to get my dress and another 30 minutes back. She was so upset with herself! Jason and I missed out on all of the pre-wedding pictures, but we were both in the wedding!

The ceremony went very smooth and was very beautiful. My sister is gorgeous anyway, but she was picture perfect on her wedding day!! Again, no pictures with my camera! We arrived at the reception hall, took some pictures, and then the DJ was going to announce all of us and it started raining and the wind was blowing hard. So there was quite a delay, but eventually we made it out there. Jason and I were first and then so on. We had to walk down these steps and then to our tables. Well, Rocky's sister and her husband were a couple of people behind us. As they were walking down the steps, she completely missed the bottom one and hit the ground. He husband, Scott, stood over her and yelled "SAFE"! She was OK and handled it very well, but she's had lots of practice being graceful....she was runner up at the Miss New Mexico pageant a few years ago.

After we ate, did the toasts, and cut the cake it was time for the dance. Stacey and Rocky danced first and then they handed the microphone over to Stacey. She announced that the first father/daughter dance would be with me and my dad. I bawled!! The only regret at my wedding was not getting to dance with my daddy, and she gave that to me on her wedding day, before she danced with him. My eyes fill with tears as I write this. It was the most precious, most thoughtful, most priceless gift anyone has ever given me, and I will forever be grateful! Thank you, Stacey.

It was a wonderful wedding, and I could not be prouder of my sister and my new brother-in-law. He absolutely adores her, and she could not have picked anyone better. They are perfect for each other, and we love you so much!

The Cake.....from finish to start.

Blogger was putting my pictures up in a very random order! But anyway, I guess that we'll start out with the finished cake first. By the way, the post is for you Nette!












I did not get any pictures of it that night, only when I had set it up. I was fairly happy with it, but I was really happy with the taste of the cake. Rocky wanted a strawberry cake with chocolate icing, so that's what he got! And it TOWERED over the wedding cake. My sister was upset that she didn't ask me to make her wedding cake. It looked more like a child's birthday cake. I'll post pictures of it when I can.

(These next pictures are all mixed up! Sorry.) My very messy kitchen! You can't make cakes without making a huge mess.
This is part of the icing project. From here, I am going to start smoothing the sides.
This is my huge bowl of icing.
This is my cake right out of the oven.
And right before the oven.

Well, Nette, I hope this is what you were wanting!! Sorry it's backwards, but just scroll up! ;)

Hope y'all had a great 4th of July! I've been reading about people spending time on the lake, having BBQs, and fireworks. Well, my 4th consisted of driving tractor.....all day. But this was the fireworks that I got to see, not bad, huh?

I have been on the tractor for days, working on my cake when I am able, and trying to clean house before I leave tomorrow. My sister's wedding is on Friday, and things on the farm are CRAZY trying to get the wheat out so we can plant beans, swathing hay, waiting for it to dry but it keeps getting rained on, ect. Oh, yes, and yesterday as I was bringing the disk to another field I had a blow out on one of the tires on the disk. Nice. But it did give me some time to work on my cake!

Please pray for my whole family as we prepare for this wedding, and please pray for me and my cake!