Spot

Time goes by awfully fast here on Antelope Hills Ranch. Calving season is here and the thermometer is still dipping down to below zero at night. We have to keep the cows that are ready to calve in the barn at night. In the morning comes the job of cleaning out the barn. A pitch fork, wheel barrow and muscles get the chore done. Then it's time to fork fluffy clean straw into the barn. It's all ready for the next night.

 

 This is one of our new additions. I named her spot. This heifer is out of a big red cow and will weigh in at over 100 lbs.

 

 We're hopping for warmer weather. The big herd is starting to calve & we can't get 200 cows in the barn.

 

Spring Time in North Dakota

 

I woke up this morning with Johny Horton's "Spring Time in Alaska" playing in my head.

 

I mushed into Fairbanks. The City was a Boom.

Took a little stroll to the Red Dog Saloon.

I walked in the door. The music was clear.

The prettiest voice I had heard in two years.

The song she was singing made a mans blood run cold.

When it's spring time in Alaska it's 40 below.

 

Tomorrow is the first day of spring. Birds should be singing, grass should be growing but not here. We have huge snow drifts and the wind-chill factor for tomorrow night is predicted at 39 below.

 

 Our first calve of the season was born yesterday. A sweet little Black Angus heifer. we spent all afternoon getting her warm and dry. The poor little thing shivered for hours before we could put her back out with her mama.

 

 

Do you think it's true?

Do happy cows really live in California?





 

 

 

Delisiousness

 

 

I made strawberry jam yesterday to go with Willies famous Artisan Bread.

 

The  sweet scent of strawberries simmering on the stove wafted through the house yesterday afternoon bringing thoughts of spring berries growing in the garden. Soon the snow will melt revealing green strawberry plants that will bloom and produce fresh red fruit for our table.

 

 I can't wait to munch on some of those sweet strawberries over vanilla ice cream.

 

 

 

TTPT- Her Fearful Symmetry

 

 I just finished reading Audrey Niffenegger's novel "Her Fearful Symmetry" This was both a strange and intriguing book.

 

   Julia and Valentina Poole are twenty-year-old sisters with an intense attachment to each other. One morning the mailman delivers a thick envelope to their house in the suburbs of Chicago. There English aunt Elspeth Noblin has died of cancer and left them her London apartment. There are two conditions for this inheritance: that they live in the flat for a year before they sell it and their parents not enter it. Julia and Valentina become involved with their living neighbors: Martin, a composer of crossword puzzles who suffers from crippling OCD, and Robert, Elspeth's elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetary. They also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including perhaps their aunt.

 

 In this book you will never guess the ending. It is a page turner.

 

To check out great books others are reading go to Some Of A kind

 

 

Road Home

 

I just read an article in "Mary Janes Farm" written by Rebekah Teal that really hit home.

 

 It's a popular question to ask these days: "What would you do if you knew you wouldn't fail?" I think a better, soul-searching question is: "What would you do if you failed?" In order to succeed, you've got to take some missteps. in order to live the life you're dreaming about, you have to be willing to make mistakes. If you wait to live your dream until you know for certain it will all work out fine and dandy, then you'll never live it. It will always be the dream unrealized. There is no success insurance.

 

I have taken many leaps of faith and fell flat on my face. Splat. I'm a leaper, what can I say? I made lots of mistakes getting to this place of my dreams. Each misstep provides us with more information, more insight. Learn from your mistakes and move on. Don't beat yourself up, don't count them. Listen to yourself and your heart.

 

I have just come home from a training trip to Iowa. The plan was to learn and run a business. I had been trying very hard to make myself like this while deep in my heart knowing this is not what I want to do with my life.

 

I'm a farm girl/artist at heart and don't want to spend endless hours in town. Knowing this I cut my losses and headed home to my beloved Antelope Lake. I plan to enjoy our place, dig in the dirt, check fences, help with the cattle, take care of my chickens, work on art projects ect.,ect.....