Some of my music

Miranda Lambert - The House That Built Me

Rillito River 2014/09/08

Here's what four inches of rain does to our dry river bed.

Girls Weekend

Once a year.......okay sometimes more and generally whenever they can Jill, Meagan, and Maren do a weekend get away that they call "MOO."  It is a tradition started by Grandma Kartchner and continued by Jill.  "Moo" stands for "Mothers only outing."  It has also been called the "S and B Club" and several other unsavory things over the years but "MOO" has stuck.  What this really means is there are children being cared for only by their father, (Dustin), Grandad and Uncle Jake.  What could possibly go wrong????

 Jake and Grandad had some more cows to brand....Soooooooo......

 Uncle Jake bent up some new "Calf--sized" branding irons and....

 We got the kids lined out with jobs.....  Daxton was good help loading the chute.

 John and Lenore Carter came to help...

 Maylee stomped on ants and pointed out the different "Mama cow(s)" and "Baby cow(s)."

Mikayla took most of these pictures.

 OSHA and, probably, a number of other government agencies be damned we've got the kids havin' a blast during "MOO!"

 Aunt Lenore was no help branding once Daxton showed up but that was probably a good thing for Daxton....

 We ran a little low on Propane but

 ....being guys watching young children we decided to build a fire and heat the irons for the last few cows that way.

 

These cows are so skinny it was hard to find enough hide over meat to brand.

 

 

 

 

 Lenore would not give up the baby for nothin'

 We got 'em all branded up and then......What else?

 The Horseshoe Cafe!!

 Maylee talked John's ear off and they made fast friends.

 Poor Carters.......  They have to rent grandkids. 

 After dinner, it was jumping on the bed and late movies cuz "That's the way we roll!!"

 Wrestling and bouncing on the blow up mattress at nap time the next day....

 Loading up for a ride in Grandad's truck.....

 Checking water for the cows at a safe distance, of course.

We HAD to move some furniture around but we didn't tell Nana!

 The dogs helped us keep the kids herded up. And then it was off to clean the house before "MOO" ended

 

 

Around sundown Uncle Jake and Grandad went to check the cows and make sure they were all still on the right side of the fences.