Bad For Sale Pictures

Jordan has come through again with another great mirror picture.

 Nothing sells furniture like a picture of a half naked man with a bit of a gut. I like how he is camouflaged by blending in with the sofa behind the mirror. 

Passion For Purple

It is pretty evident this time of year, that I seem to have an attraction to purple flowers.  Here are a few that are blooming now. 

Everblooming hydrangea 

Purple coneflower 

Russian sage

Blue salvia

Phlox

Dahlia 

A different phlox 

Speedwell

Balloon flower

Allium

 And just to show a little orange, my stunning day lilies in the background.  I love walking around the yard and looking at everything. 

Lunging Draper

 Draper is still being a handful.  I keep thinking she will settle down but it is just not happening.   I have been lunging her for an hour before I try to ride.  All she wants to do is run.  

She did slow down to inspect Zipper. 

I have been riding her in the barn and mostly just lunging outside.  Maybe I will get her worn down eventually.  But I am looking for some help now.  I need someone that can take her trail riding and do a lot of out in the open work.  I am hopeful someone will turn up.

Cucumbers!

Or would I say cucumber, singular.  

Anyway, I got my first cucumber out of the garden.  The plants look great so far and we go an inch of rain today.  I think there will be a few more in my future. 

 

 

New River Gorge

Linda, Joe and I headed to West Virginia today for a visit with Emily.  She was a wonderful hostess and we had a great time.  This is sort of our trip in reverse because it is too difficult to sort pictures properly on my iPad. 

We went to the New River Gorge National Park.  The newest national park dedicated in 2020. 

We went to the visitor center for some great views of the gorge

And bridge.  Plus, I found a penny smashing machine at a nearby gift shop!

Emily’s friend Keiran joined us for the day.

We hiked the Kaymoor Miner’s trail which was rated “strenuous.”  Because my pictures are in reverse, this was after we finished the climb back up the 800+ stairs.

It was a lot of stairs.

And also a very steep trail to get to the stairs. 

It was enough to about put you into a trance going down.  Emily had told us we would probably want to take a shower afterwards.  My response was that I could control my speed to where I would not sweat much. Famous last words.  With the humidity and elevation change it would have taken 3+ hours instead of the 1 1/2 hours to not have sweated.  We also went on a scenic drive, ate at Pies and Pints, and had a very refreshing key lime pie made by Emily.  Maybe next time we will go in a longer but less strenuous hike. A highly recommended trip.

Couponing #74

We are going to to visit Emily tomorrow.  I asked if she needed anything from my store.  She said she wanted some Comet.  That is something I didn’t have.  Good excuse to go couponing today. 

I didn’t have a coupon for Comet and I needed some milk.  It worked out the milk was cheaper and everything else was free. 

$2.65 plus tax, not bad. 

But even better was this deal, I didn’t really need any of it right now but I just couldn’t pass it up.

45 cents plus tax.  Total savings on the two scenarios, $38.

Chautauqua

Our local annual Chautauqua festival is drawing to a close.  Sadie has gone to several events and has been having a wonderful time. 

 Tonight was bluegrass music.  She is becoming quite the dancer.  

She was getting pretty tired by this point and was beginning to spend more time on the ground than upright, but she had a ball. 

New Clothesline

I haven’t had a clothesline up for several years.  I use to tie one up in the summer between the house and grapevine pergola.  It was cumbersome and in the way and I didn’t like walking through the grass that was sometimes wet or just mowed and sticking to my feet.  I have been thinking of putting one up on the deck that I could put up and take down easily.  

I finally managed to get it done.  Part of the holdup was trying to figure out how to put up a temporary post.  I told Joe all of my ideas, and he just said., get a board and nail another board to the bottom and shove it under the rail and the weight of the laundry will keep it upright. 

This is what I came up with using those directions.  It looks like it just might work. 

For the other end, I just use some clips on my existing hooks for the porch swing.  Appalachian Power will be happy now that I will be saving more energy. 

Bad Horse For Sale Pictures

This is a father/son pair for sale.

I will freely admit that they are very cute.  

Who wouldn’t fall in love with this pair. 

My only criticism is that it is currently almost July.  

Maybe they could have added an updated photo where the ponies weren’t obscured by snow. 

Constant Battle

We wage a constant battle over trying to keep a water gap over the creek.  Whenever the water gets up, something floats down and takes out the wire.  The cattle are due to move across the creek soon so I went with Joe to help fix the gaps again.

It is a wide expanse.

One strand of barb wire is all we try to keep across it.

I felt sort of bad walking across, the rocks were solid with little snails.  I could feel them crunch under my beach shoes. 

One down and onto the next.  The water is a good deal deeper here. 

But it was no match for Joe and his waders.  But he has to be careful.  Waders and barb wire are not a good match. 

Two gaps back in place.  Now it’s ready for some cattle again. 

BullTurnout

Today was the day for turning out the bulls to the spring calving cows.  Two went with the cows, one went to the replacement heifers, one went to the first calf heifers at our rented farm, and one went up the road to our other farm.  It was a lot of shuffling.  

We tried first to just get the two we wanted to go with the cows, but they did not cooperate.

So we had to go back and get four.

It wasn’t an issue,

Just a little more sorting. 

 Then the replacement bull we bought a few weeks ago was delivered today.  He was the one going to the rented farm.  We got him off the delivery trailer and onto ours then headed to the farm.  The gate was blocked by three logging trailers.  We had to come back to the house so Joe could get the truck and drive to where they are logging up the road.  An hour later, the logging trailers were moved and Joe was able to get the bull turned out.  

Sadie Sunday

Sadie loves hats.  She always wants to wear one outside.  Today I offered her a “new” one.  New to her anyway, I think it is probably 65 years old.  But great grandma wanted to see her I it.  She loves it.  She threw her other hat down in favor of this one.  The only problem is it is too small.  

The way to get Sadie to do about anything is to give her a bucket and a chore.  Next chore, photo shoot.  

There is a matching hat for Allie but by the time she is big enough for it Sadie will be wayyy to big for this one.  I think I need to take her hat shopping.