Decorating

Decorations have been done for the last week.  Cards are being worked on as we speak.  Still more shopping.  I don't think I'm ever done with that.

 I thought this was an elegant way to display the yarn and glitter craft I did.

 The wooded tree is from my brother's trip to Nepal when he hiked to the base camp at Mt. Everest.

 I know my sister A will be a little jealous of this Santa collection.

 It's not Christmas without a Santa's Mail on the door.  I copied him from one my mother made years ago and has hung on her door every Christmas.  It was always a big occasion to write the letter to Santa then put it in Santa's Mail.  It would then magically disappear by the next day.

A sneak preview of the tree.

New Fence

Since building the barn this summer we have been making due with a temporary electric fence.

 The fence builders finally came and have been busy little beavers.  We now have a permanent fence around the barn,  (electric high tensile so you can't really see it well in the picture)

 and a large horse lot on the lower side.  Just waiting on some green gates now.

While they were here, J had them finish the last side of the barn lot at the old barn.  Now maybe we won't have to worry about that one for another 20 years.

Kit Kat Khristmas

My family celebrated E's 15th birthday today by taking her to lunch after church then coming to the house for ice cream cake.  Sister L said "Oh, let Kit Kat (previously banished to the garage for the duration of the Christmas decorations) in.  I'll watch him and make sure he doesn't get into any trouble."

 Kit Kat said, "Oh what a beautiful sparkly tree with such shiny cat toys dangling from it!"

J said, "Back to the garage for you Kit Kat."

Gathering Wood

J has been busing cutting wood this fall.  We about need a pickup load a week to heat the house.  He usually does this by himself.  But since E and I were home today we went to help. 

It's hard to believe that when we bought this farm you couldn't walk through this section due to the briers, bushes and multiflora rose.  Goats are amazing.   It was too muddy to drive up on the other side of the fence so J threw the wood over,

and E and I loaded it in the truck.  Ready for another week.  E however, is walking around the house in shorts and a tee shirt complaining about how cold it is.  She says she is tired of dressing in layers.  I guess her definition of layers is anything layered over her skin.

Christmas Parade

I finally got to ride in the Christmas Parade.  I was going to  last year until it snowed and turned bitter cold. 

 The weather was perfect this year.

 Hank the Wonder Horse tolerated all of the decorations.  I didn't degrade him by putting on antlers.

 Just some bows a rump rug and jingle bells for his front legs.  V and J were good enough to ride with me.

 V was back on her old mount Jessica.  Her mane braided up nicely with the ribbons.

 I was told that 27 horses turned out for the parade.

 Jessica did great although I think she would have preferred going a lot further and faster.

 J rode his dad's horse Lady.  She hadn't been ridden in 6 months but did fine.  It took me 20 minutes to get that tail combed out.  Looks like J could use a new saddle pad.

After a lot of hurry up and wait we finished the route in Christmas spirit.  Hank now has Christmas Parade to add to his resume (and Jessica and Lady).   Thank you E for taking the pictures.

Mad Santa

Our local Saddle Club had a Mad Santa gift exchange at our Christmas party.  I think J and I came out pretty good. 

 I got this stylish pin,

and J got this shoe rack.  I was going to put in in the new shop but it looked so good in the mud room I decided to leave it in the house.

Shots and Tags

Now that the steers are weaned and eating well, it is time to vaccinate and tag them with their EID tags.

 Theoretically, age and source verification should get us a premium at slaughter.  In reality sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.  Same with the vaccines.  You would think if you vaccinate against shipping fever they shouldn't get sick.  We bought 9 steers from a vet friend that had vaccinated hers 3 times.  We still had to treat 3 from respiratory problems.  Maybe it helped to keep them from getting worse.

 J did the tagging.

 I did the head catching and most of the vaccinating (except for the picture).  No help yesterday, the girls were in school.

 J's feeding 600# a day to the group, by hand.

They all like to eat.  If the weather cooperates they should be shipped out west in 2 weeks.