Life, with Grandchildren, Part 2

It was a Sunday morning when the next carload of grandchildren arrived...oops there were three children and a dog. Ben was a little beagle who was thrilled to have two weeks of very few restrictions. He was not well favored by several of the residents but he was tolerated.
He loved following the trail of a bunny rabbit, especially at 3am. Poor Alex had to roll out of bed and shut him up.

Andre was always hungry for some "homemade bread"! His first question when he arrived was, "Do you have any homemade bread??" We heard it so often we were afraid he would turn into the Pillsbury dough boy!!

One afternoon we decided to go looking for a hot springs that we had heard about. We read on the internet it was a 2 mile hike under a canopy of douglas fire trees. Sounded like my kind of hike, all shaded. Alex didn't want to go so he stayed home with Great Grandma.  We had about a 35 minute drive to the trailhead. At first we all stuck together but as the trail got steeper, Martin and Rob walked on ahead. The canopy of douglas fir trees never materialized, a fire had burned the whole mountainside.

The trail was about like a cow path. I walked slower and slower till soon I was walking alone. Andre came running back to me, he decided I needed a body guard in case a bear came after me. He had a stick, (gun) he was going to shoot the bear with.

Well, maybe he would just hit him on the head and the bear would run. Thankfully we never met up with a bear, my escort was making way too much noise to see any kind of wildlife.  After walking for several miles we finally came upon the hot springs. It was worth every bit of the walk, we just wished we would have started earlier so we could stay in the water longer.  The warm water felt so good on our tired feet

Walking back was a lot easier, it seemed like it was all downhill. We also had a little boy singing, "The Ants go Marching"...all 10 to 12?  verses, we didn't have to worry about bear on the way back either.

Andre wanted something that he wasn't allowed to have. He got quite upset and declared he was leaving! "And I'm not coming back till cwollege" He stomped up the stairs, he was gone so long that we forgot about his threat. Sometime later he was looking in the refrigerator.
 Leah said "Hey, what are you doing? Get out of there!"
"I'm looking for food to take with me"
Then we noticed his duffle bag sitting by the door, two water bottles in the side pockets.
"Oh no, nobody takes food when they run away", Leah told him.
But I'm just a little boy, I will get hungry and die if I don't have food."
"You have to hunt for your food. You catch a rabbit and find a sharp stone and skin it, then..." she remembered the burn ban was in effect because of all the forest fires so.."you lay it out in the sun to dry, then when it is hard you can eat it." Andre did not look impressed with her story but he shrugged his shoulders, picked up his duffle and struggled out the door. It looked like he had all his earthly possessions in there, as hard as it was to carry.
A little while later he was back, heading for the steps.
"I thought you left" his mother commented
"I need more underwear"was the mumbled reply
I just about lost it, but his mother raised her eyebrows and said, "I'm impressed!!"
While he was still looking for extra underwear, Caroline, a cousin,  came to play with Allie for the afternoon. Andre decided to put his plans on hold for a bit!!

Allison and Caroline played dress up all afternoon. They even snagged a handsome prince.

Alex is becoming quite the young man. We didn't dare take his picture until he combed his hair. Sometimes it took him so long to comb his hair I forgot I was supposed to get a picture.

We took the family to Hell's Canyon. It was so smoky we didnt get any good scenery pictures.

Sometimes you just have to work with what you can get.

One Sunday we went out to Washington to church. On the way home we stopped at a rest area. Everyone got out except Alex and I. He sat up and looked around then reclined back on the seat. "Grandma," he said, "if you see any pretty girls walking past, wake me up."   "I surely will" I said. Just then I saw a very pretty girl walking out of the restroom, heading our way. "Here comes one," I whispered. He shot up, looked around, , "where, where" "Right there", I said and pointed to his sister Allison. "Awww, Grandma!! he moaned as he flopped back on the seat.

Our neighbor has a small pony the children like to ride. Alex and Allison rode him but when Andre got on the pony, it took off running. Andre was holding on tight till he eventually got bounced loose and hit the dust. He wouldn't get back on unless somebody would lead the pony.

            A real western outfit!!

Life, with Grandchildren. Part 1

I know winter is upon us, but I didn't have much time to write over the summer months. So I'm  going to sneak a few summer blogs in here.

As the summer flew by on wings, we had many visitors pass through our doors. Among our visitors were several families of grandchildren. We had one batch of grandchildren running in and out for almost a month.

We picked up Jaci and Karen in Iowa the 10th of June. They got a ride from PA with Rob's cousin. We also met up with our youngest daughter, Amanda and her husband Nate. We brought the four of them and their luggage, back to Idaho with us, in our 5 passenger car. What didn't fit on the roof, fit in the car, miraculously!! We were sardined in the car for 25 hours and still loved each other when we got home. There were several times we wanted to throw Mr. Bop-it out the window and once we threatened Karen if she didn't stop giggling we would exchange her for a suitcase on the roof. Amanda and Nate stayed with us for about 2 weeks, then they flew back to PA. Jaci and Karen stayed until their parents came out the last day of June.

We spent the next several weeks filling each hour with memories! Jaci made us her famous soft pretzels, (which we devoured immediately!) swept floors and was grandpas right hand man. Karen was my girl Friday! She washed the floors, cleaned the bathrooms, even scrubbing the dreaded outhouse!! We even got a chance to go rock hunting with a professional rock hound. He told us to fill our pockets with marbles and every time we found a rock we were supposed to put a marble in its place. When we lost all our marbles we were rock hounds. Jaci is now a confirmed rock hound!!

I thought life couldn't get any sweeter and then their parents and younger siblings arrived. The two little girls had never been to "I-de-ho" before so they were super excited to see where we lived. They reminded me of twins even though they are 15 months apart. They did everything together, even getting in trouble together.

The parents said they were only here 5 minutes when the first catastrophic event happened but I think they were here a little longer than that. We have a french door with a sliding screen that opens onto the deck. One little girl was inside and wanted to go out, she didn't see the screen was shut and tried to walk right through it. Her dad and grandpa were both in the room and both had some things to say that brought on the tears. It took the two men a few minutes to smooth out the wrinkles in the door and get it sliding again. They both sat down on the couch and continued their conversation while the mom comforted the little girl. Suddenly there was another clatter at the screen door. The other little girl, completely oblivious to what had just happened, was outside and wanted to come in, only she didn't walk through the door, she ran through it. I don't think I ever saw two men get off a couch so fast. I thought their words were a little harsh but I was just the grandmother, who knew nothing about fixing screen doors!! Now we had another little girl in tears. The mother was ready to pack her children up and head back to PA. The grandmother was also in tears because the very day she had been looking forward to for weeks, was falling apart before her eyes!! Meanwhile the men took the screen door off the track and worked for about a half hour to get all the wrinkles smoothed out. The little girls remembered to open the screen door after that and we have a memory that, even now, we can look back on and laugh!! And the screen door?? It works better now than it did before the little girls ran through it!

One highlight they got to experience was the July 4th parade and porcupine race. It was a fun day!!

Our time together went fast, way too fast! It was their last evening, July 14th, we had eaten supper and the family was carrying their suitcases to the car when the older girls came running in, "Grandma, there's something wrong with Joseph." I went out to look at the cat, he would disappear for 3 or 4 days at a time since his pal, the dog, died. Now that I think of it Joseph and Judge were never apart. Where the one was, the other wasn't far away. There was definitely something wrong with Joseph, he already looked like he was on his way out. Jesse walked over and said, "He looks dehydrated to me!" Which triggered Jaci's memory, when she mowed the lawn she dumped out his water dish and never refilled it. So now we had another girl in tears...thanks Jess!! There was no way that caused his so called dehydration, we have water troughs for the cattle and the cat can reach them, he has lived here all his life so he knows where the best waterholes are!  After telling all this to Jaci, I went back in the house. This wasn't the send off I was hoping to give these girls, we have enough tears at our partings without crying over a cat yet!!  Jaci continued to work with Joseph, making him a bed in the old doghouse,  she also got him up to eat and drink before the family headed east for PA. The girls were all in tears as their van drove away, but I still wasn't sure if it was for me or the cat. Jaci texted me several times to see how Joseph was doing. The next morning I dreaded telling her that Joseph didn't make it. She took the news pretty well and that made me feel a whole lot better too!!

I had about 3 weeks to get ready for the next family's arrival....

The Sun will Shine Again

The weatherman and a host of other folks that think they know what the weather will do, have been predicting all summer that we are headed for a worse winter than 2016. What could be worse than almost 80 inches of snow?

Well, I will tell you!!

For the past week the temperatures have plummeted to the mid teens at night and haven't even reached 32 during the day. The sun?? I don't remember when we saw the sun last.  Fog has also blanketed the valley, it is quite dismal to say the least. Day after day of fog is not a cheery sight.

We still have cows out on pastureland. We had planned to vaccinate the cows we have here at home, that haven't been worked yet, then bring another batch home tomorrow. Our final group of cows will have to wait till next week to be brought home. The weatherman said today was supposed to be very sunny. By 9:30 we knew we weren't going to see any sun, so we bundled up and went out to face the elements. The cows behaved surprisingly well. We only had two that thought they needed to jump over the moon, they only made it over the pasture fence. They will have to wait out there till tomorrow and hopefully we can get them in with the next batch of cows. 

We took the vaccines out in a cooler to stay cool, then had to put them in the pickup to keep them from freezing. Rob had to get the digging iron to chip the frozen ground away from the chute so we could get the headlock open. There were a few other inconveniences that were caused by the frigid temps. It was starting to look like a day full of irritations. My toes were starting to feel like they would break if I bent them. We still had to break ice on water troughs and feed some hay to the cows we had just vaccinated. 

Cold and crabby I headed for the house. I find it hard to be thankful for cold weather, especially when I saw the temperature was 24 degrees at 2:30 in the afternoon. We weren't even close to the first day of winter yet. 

When Rob came in sometime later we were discussing the day. He said, "Do you realize we didn't have any wind today?" The wind!! I had completely forgotten what the wind can do in conditions like this. Wind would have escalated our problems. Since he reminded me that our day could have been a lot worse, I am grateful we made it through as easy as we did.  Nobody knows exactly how our winter will unfold but I hope the sun shines again...soon!!