May 2017

Another weekend with these sweet puppies. Their eyes are open and they are curious this week. I can't believe how much they have changed in one week.

We brought Ally's friend Payzlee along this weekend. Ally can't stop talking about these puppies and Payzlee is pet hungry. They both were in heaven.

Cleaning out some rotten wood on the far side of the pond. This was an old boardwalk structure but had rotted nearly all the way. There were a lot of sad mice running for their lives when we lifted the wood away. They'd better hide from Lucy quickly. She's on the prowl. You can see the grass squares we are moving from the garden area and building up around the pond. The boys have been a great help with this garden project that is way bigger than we ever expected.

Evening stroll along the river. Jessie is ever watchful and spends her days patrolling her new home. She was probably more grateful than all of us to get out of the tiny house. She can now roam free. Not a bad setup for an old bird dog.

Byron and I have been working on these strawberry gutters. They will have a  home in the garden once we can get it all settled. For now, they live in the greenhouse.

These four little gals are growing more every weekend. How will we possibly choose one?

Tomatoes and peppers to go in the new garden boxes. They are getting a good head start.

So this is what a chord of wood looks like. Learning new things at a frantic pace. Are we sure we are cut out for this?

The boys and I threw on our work gloves and stacked the wood like we had done it a thousand times before. The boys are hoping we won't do it a thousand more times.

Work on the garden continues. We rented a machine and cut it into squares. Then we've been loading it over to the pond edges and laying it as additional pond banks.

Tyler was a big helper today but Carter and Byron have spent time out here with me as well. If we could just get some fencers to show up then we'd be in the money.

Last load in the back of Tyler's four wheel trailer. Happy to be finished with this portion.

We went to visit Julie and help with a little farm work. She had some scrap she needed burned off and some weed pulling the boys worked on. Fun times when you get to feed the little lamb.

Apparently my new game is to break the lawn mower whenever I use it so Byron comes home from work and patiently fixes it for me so I can break it again the next day. I need to stop running over rocks. He's being very patient with his city wife while she figures out all this new equipment.

Byron had a road trip to Missoula to visit the branch down that way and he like a boss brought me home Chipotle for dinner. He is the best! Love him to pieces. Also, I love Chipotle, maybe one day Kalispell will get one of our own.

Can you believe how sweet these little lambs of Julie's are? I sewed up a few fleece lamb coats for these little fellas so they aren't quite so cold at night. That's a new use for my sewing skills.

The view from our bedroom in the morning. Gorgeous every day!

Byron running the mower. We sometimes argue over who gets to mow because it really is so fun to zip around on that baby. That probably won't last forever.

Found these cute mushrooms on the property and threw away probably two pounds of them. I thought they were so cute though I posted to see if anyone knows what they are. Apparently they are a highly sought after delicacy and we just trashed loads of them. We were hoping to get all the spores up so none would grow back next year. Seriously, we are amateurs. Hopefully we didn't get them all as we did make a few omelettes with the ones that grew up in the next crop and they are quite delicious. Morels are known by everyone but us. Another live and learn moment. How many of these are we going to have to have this year?

Boy Scout biking merit badge activity. They are doing the fifty miler today. Ty has already earned this badge but is being a good sport and going on it again. Good luck boys! This photo was taken down at Flathead Lake Boat launch.

Another weekend visit to Linda's. These puppies are really growing. We have all started picking a favorite and it's not the same puppy. There could be some intense negotiations when it comes time to choose which lady gets to come home with us.

Byron is once again a genius and found out there's a local garden that does spring tours. Bibler Gardens. He bought us tickets for mothers day weekend. It was just what the doctor ordered. Byron and I were actually out Saturday morning working away on our new garden area when I remembered in a jolt that the garden tour had started two minutes ago. We raced to the car in our dirty work clothes and only missed about twenty minutes.

It was so gorgeous and was great inspiration to keep going with this endless garden project of ours. Will we ever get it done? Bibler Gardens is amazing and I will definitely come through on the tour every year.

This little gal finally found a toad. She has been looking and hoping we would have frogs by our pond. She was so happy to find one.

We had to go back to Woodland Park to see if the little eggs had hatched. Lucky us there were loads of little baby geese and ducks and swans all around. We brought some duck feed with us this time and had fun feeding.

Carter was to busy to come up with us this weekend but the rest of us had loads of fun playing with this increasingly adorable puppies. Their bellies are round and they like to munch on your fingers.

Carter and his friend Cole went to Mormon Prom. It took a bit of encouragement from me but Carter was a trooper. He asked four girls before he found one in town and not already previously invited. One girls said she didn't do dances. I'm proud of him for sticking it out especially when not all the girls knew who he was - still new around here. They had a fun night.

Annalyse was Carter's date -they moved shortly after the dance-but Carter did come home and tell me he was so impressed with her. I thought he was going to talk about how gorgeous she is, but he talked on and on about how smart she is. Impressive. Cole's cousins hung out with their group as well.

Not a bad backdrop for photos. This is the backyard of our house. Crazy how pretty it is.

Jessie was going nuts in our living room. Apparently a cedar wax-wing bird had flown down the chimney and into the coal stove. Luckily it was not hot. The boys got it out but it flew into a window and we ended up loosing it.

We buried it outside. Darn it-that's one of my favorite types of birds. So pretty.