Wordfull Wednesday: Inner Beauty

Cocoa over at http://chocolateonmycranium.blogspot.com/ is hosting Wordfull Wednesday and this weeks topic is Inner Beauty. What a great topic! I have had many, many thoughts going through this head of mine over the past few days, but I have finally settled on posting the following.

Never Judge A Book By Its Cover!

You may look at a "book"........ it is old, tattered, torn, wrinkled, creased.......and think, why on earth would I even bother with this.........you might just have very well passed up the best "story" you have ever read. You must look closer before you judge......open the book, give it a chance, read or listen, get to know the story.........yes, I'm speaking of judging others by what we see......it is what we don't see, the "Inner Beauty" that really matters.

Even a weed has Inner Beauty................

Dairy Goats & Dairy Cows.................

On Saturday, Countrychick, Grandma and I went to the local dairy show. My friend, Funny Farm Lady and her two girls were showing their goats and heifers. My neighbors daughter was also showing her Jersey heifer..............This was an open show for all youth in the area. Below is Funny Farm Lady's youngest daughter and her little goat, Nelly. She really loves her goat.

This is Funny Farm Lady's other daughter and her little goat, Marshmallow............such a look of concentration on her face. Countrychick loves goats and they love her...........we have four goats............they live out at Grandma and Grandpa's five acres.............why don't they live with us out at the farm you ask..........Hayman doesn't like goats! Nuff Said.................
Between the goat show and the cow show, there was a break...........a bar-b-que for everyone to enjoy. After lunch Countrychick jumped in to help get the last minute preps done on the heifers. She had never washed a cow before this..................She had fun until................. You want me to wash where!........................Okay............poor heifer!!!!!!! Countrychick was a trooper........................She now wants a cow of her very own...........Hayman just laughs! All of the young ladies showing did an excellent job.............All of their hard work paid off. The young lady on the far right is my neighbors daughter..........this was her first show...............she has a sweet Jersey heifer named, Ella.............She won Master Showman! We were very proud of her and all of the other girls.
Going to the show was a great way to spend the day............grocery shopping afterwards was not so fun.................Tomorrow morning, I'm off to judge the 4-H cat show.

Lazy Evening...................

Hayman noticed this little fella sitting on one of our poultry cages outside on Thursday evening. Isn't he just the sweetest little thing you have seen all week...............I grabbed my camera and out the door I went to see if I could get a few shots. The Hummingbirds have just shown up at our place so they are not use to us yet. Once they are around for awhile, they won't mind me standing by the feeder.......but until then, I have to sit on the little patio chair and hold really, really still to try to get a few photos.......... This one below decided he was going to sit up next to the rooster and guard the feeder from the others...........
He would sit there until another came along, then he would run it off..........come back and guard some more...........don't worry, the others got to get their turn, but they had to be fast.
Just before I got ready to come in the house, I turned to look at the field in front of our house..........and this is what I saw. The moon was coming up and it was such a pretty sight.
I was so excited to see this unfolding in front of me that I forgot to change my camera setting.........but I still managed to get a few okay shots. It was a pretty evening....................

There was a HUGE spider........................

I was fixing lunch on Wednesday ( blt's with fresh tomatoes from the garden....yum! ), when I hear this coming from the vicinity of Countrychicks bathroom..........mom.....mom.....Mom........MOM..........MOTHER THERE IS A HUGE SPIDER IN THE BATHROOM! Countrychick does not like spiders. Let me repeat that.......Countrychick DOES NOT LIKE SPIDERS! So I stop what I am doing and head for the bathroom............Where is this HUGE spider I ask Countrychick..........she points to the baseboard. I started laughing................then grabbed my camera. I kept on laughing while I snapped a few photos. Countrychick was now giving me the "evil" eye because I was laughing at her..............This is a photo of the HUGE spider. ( he is not so huge......just a little tiny thing. ) Now I don't really care for spiders, but I'm not afraid of them. I told Countrychick to grab a napkin from the kitchen and bring it to me. She grabbed the napkin and tossed it at me through the door. She was not going back into the bathroom until the spider was gone. I gently picked up the little........oh, HUGE spider and proceeded to head for the backdoor of the house. The Spider had other ideas and started running up my arm...........Countrychick started going.........Eeewwww, EEeeeewwwww, EEEEEWWWWWW............Yiiiiiikkkkkeeees, GROSS MOM......how can you touch that thing!!!!!! We finally made it out the backdoor and onto the back steps. The spider was done riding around on my arm...........he hopped off my arm and onto the wood. He was a happy spider........................... The HUGE Spider was free of the indoors.........free to romp and play with other spiders just like him. Countrychick did a complete check of the bathroom for fear that there were other HUGE spiders just lurking and waiting to get her. ( We will get her some therapy for her arachnophobia one of these days............) Until then, mom will be the official "spider getter" in the house.

To Drill or Not to Drill.......that was the $10,000 question!

Last week, my parents, who live about 35 miles from us, started having problems with their well. At first they thought it was a problem with the pump, so they called someone to come out and have a look. The pump was not the problem.........well it was a problem because it wasn't pumping water like it should, but it wasn't all the pumps fault. To make a long story as short as possible, in a nut shell, the water table in the area where my parents five acres are located dropped drastically over the last few months, with my parents being non the wiser until they stated having problems. The man that came to check out the problem tried to lower the pump farther down into the well, but encountered a major problem. When the well was first drilled many years ago, it was drilled to a depth of 148 feet. Which should have been fine.........but when they tried to lower the pump last week to where the current water level is, the pump would not go below 123 feet. The "Well Man" delivered the bad new...........the well had caved in, collapsed in on itself and there was no hope for it! So the decision was made to drill a new well.............believe you me, it was not an easy decision to make and certainly not a cheap decision to make! But what was the alternative........living without water! Lucky for my folks, the "Well Man" and his rig were able to start drilling this week. They arrived on Monday to set everything up and started drilling early Tuesday morning. Countrychick and I happened to be in town, so we stayed out at mom and dads to watch all of the action for most of the day. I will do my best to clue you in on what was going on when I took the following photos...........


They had just started up the rig when I snapped this shot. You could feel the rumble under your feet and smell the diesel fumes hanging in the air............this was around 10:30 AM Most of the morning was spent with a steady hummm coming from the rig and then things got a bit more interesting in the early afternoon...................around 2 pm dad came in to let me know that they would be adding another section of pipe to the drill shaft. At this point they were down around 60 feet or so........a hook was placed around a 20 foot section of pipe and then it was taken up into the air...................Up, up, up off the trailer it comes..................

It was then swung into place and attached to the existing pipe.................exciting, isn't it...............
Everything was then lined up and the pipe shaft was once again lowered into the ground and the drilling commenced once again....................
Look closely.........I think they struck chocolate milk! What a cool well that would be! No, it wasn't chocolate milk...........this is the mudbox......I think that is what it was called. Anyway, it moved the water up out of the ground and across this table. The moving of the water keeps the gravel that is being drilled from clogging up around the drill bit in the ground........or something like that..........................
Drill, drill, drill.............until you hit water or in this case until you hit 200 feet or so................
The photo below was taken in the later afternoon.........just look at that sky! Isn't it a pretty shade of blue...............at this point around 4 pm or so the drillers had reached a depth of 105 feet. When the drillers stopped for the day, they had reached a depth of 140 feet. Did I forget to mention that several of the neighbors are also in the same boat as my folks........no water..........so they have to drill new wells or re-drill existing wells as well. This rig was set up to the south of my folks. I talked with mom early this morning and the drillers were at a depth of 160 feet or so. They will start to case the well today as they should reach the 200 foot depth by early afternoon if all goes as planned. This means that if all goes well, mom and dad will have a new well that will be up and running sometime in the next day or so. Oh and yes, it really will cost them around $10,000 or so to have this little project done...............mom said that the new well was dads birthday present......Happy Birthday Dad...........just want you always wanted.........A Brand New Well!

Ladybugs, Weeds and a Mouse.............

I went out Saturday morning to the garden to water and weed. I thought I would pull up the radishes because they had gone to seed. Then I spotted these little guys or gals and didn't have the heart to pull those radish plants. The ladybugs had moved in and were working over the garden plants.........so I left them alone. Those little ladybugs were busy indeed.........................
I had fun watching them and it prolonged my other morning project, which was to weed.............I finally grabbed the shovel and got to work..............after thirty odd minutes of hard manual labor, I looked back and saw this...........piles and piles of weeds. It makes a body feel good to work so hard and have this as a result................

Out from under a weed ran this little fella..............He stopped long enough for me to snap this shot................then I swear he stuck out his little pink tongue at me and ran towards my car...........
If you look close enough, you will see him running away...........to my car!! I screamed, "Not my car you little stinker"...................I got to the car just after he did and shooed him out from under it. He went on his merry way and hid under a pile of boards stacked on the other side of the house. Close call.............I don't need another mouse in my car!!


After all of the hard work and mouse adventure................I made these...........yummy! Then I ate them all!!! Not really.........just kidding. I did share a few with Hayman and Countrygirl.

Last Weeks Fishing Trip...........

We went fishing last Thursday with Hayman's boss and his family. It was a nice getaway after the sad events of the day before......we lost our eleven year old Husky/cross to a rattle snake bite. It was tragic and sad............ Here is Hayman below bringing in his catch. The fish were really jumping that morning! At one point, Hayman had one in his net and another reached up and grabbed the woolly-bugger on the line, so he had to deal with two feisty fish...........
A day on the water beats a day of hard work..................
Countrychick fished from the bank for a few hours before she got in the little boat.........she had good luck and ended up catching six fish. The gangs all here...........in their boats.........and everyone had a fish on their line.....Hooray!!!
Where was I, you ask...........not fishing as usual, taking photos of everyone else and really cool bugs........I love dragonflies and this one decided to cooperate by staying still for a very long time. I have lots of photos of him or her.
A good day of fishing was had by all.............every cast resulted in a bite or catch. Many were thrown back, others were consumed for dinner. By the time we got home, we were tired, hot and hungry, so there are no photos of the resulting fish dinner. But I must say, It was very, very good...................

The Camping Trip..........

The journey began at the bottom of Hinkey Summit..........

We went camping a few weeks back. It only takes me a million years to get my photos downloaded from the camera to the computer.......wonder why that is??? So today I thought I would share some of the camping photos with you. This was where we went..........it is located about 40 odd miles or so from where we live. The road leading up to Hinkey is full of switchbacks, twists and turns.............Hayman drove in front of me with the truck, hauling the 4-wheeler and camping gear.......I followed behind in the Expedition with all the food, dog, Countrychick and a mouse. ( we didn't know the mouse was in the car at the time! ) The road made my vertigo kick in.......dizzy and driving is fun........just kidding, it wasn't to bad, but my hands were really gripping that wheel!

You can see a bit of that switchback stuff in the above photo. The truck in the photo was hauling three horses and cowboys down the mountain. They were moving right along..........

Here is our little camp. The creek ran behind our camping spot. It was nice to hear the water during the day and it would lull you to sleep at night.........
Hayman and CountryChick enjoying the view...............The views were amazing.....lush and green in some areas and very barren and brown in other areas.
This shot was taken off the top of Buckskin Mtn. The wind was blowing so hard I had a hard time keeping the camera still. The haze in the background is from the fires burning in Northern Calif........The wild flowers were still very pretty. There were lots of different kinds and Hayman got tired of stopping all the time for me to take photos. I could do a whole post just on wildflowers.More flowers.......pink and white flowers.

This was the biggest tree for miles around. There was a large hawk watching all of the action in the area.........the action was me trying to get a photo of him......and some cows grazing nearby.
The third day we took the 4-wheeler up the trail behind our camp. It was a beautiful ride. We had lunch in a grouping of Aspens. Yes, that is snow in the photo.........two little patches.The Aspens where we had lunch...........
Hayman and Countrychick in the clearing where we had lunch......yes, there are photos of me on this trip, but they are on Countrychicks camera and I haven't downloaded it yet......lets hope it won't take another million years to get that little chore done..............Every evening, Hayman would build us a nice little fire in our Volcano. My super find at the thrift store about a year ago.......anyway, he was the keeper of the fire. The best part of the evening after the camp chores were done.......roasting marshmallows and making smore's. Yummy........................The trip was a lot of fun. We left a day early due to the weather. Large thunderheads were building the morning we left. Didn't want to get stuck up in the middle of nowhere if there was going to be a dry lightning storm! So home we went and it was good to be back............A little side note about the mouse in the car. She went camping with us, left her evidence all over the car, got into the food bags and caused me to have a melt down over the pancake mix. Long story! How do we know it was a she..........well several days after we got home, I found eight baby mice under my backseat!! YUCK!!!!!!!!! The car has since been sanitized!!