Tractors vs Machetes

In preparation for our new horse that will be coming soon, the boys have been working hard to get the pens cleaned up and ready. Sunday they will be making a trip to go pick out what Brandon wants. A reward for working hard all summer. We have decided for the most part that we will bring the horse to it's new home after the winter. We are not experienced with horses and winters seem to be harder so we are going to wait until the spring. But he will go take a look to see if he is partial to one.

So being the good parents we are, we allowed our children to work hard and build character in preparing for the new animal by handing them sharp, long machetes and told them to "Get to work!!!" So here is my youngest son whacking away at the grass and brush that is as tall as he is.

What??? I told them to be careful okay??? I told them to watch for snakes!!! Geez! What kind of mother do you take me for??

I don't seem to have any pictures of the other two boys but that doesn't mean they worked any less than this boy. You'd be surprised at the amount of work boys will do when you give them permission to use machetes!

So here he works; and they worked and they worked! For about a week they whacked! And they got blisters. And they got sweaty. And they got dirty. And they didn't care!! But it was moving a little slow...

Dad starts helping. There was trash hidden under grass and other junk they had to clear to get ready for...

(Cue music) The Tractor!!! Even Buzz had to give a moment of silence and awe.

That tractor did in 5 seconds what it took my babies an hour to do!

The King of his Throne! He spent hours on this thing. And only once did he pick up barbed wire which put a pause in the shredding.

It sure helped to have this tractor. We borrowed it from a friend that lives in the next town over. Did you know it takes about an hour to drive a tractor 10 miles?

He certainly was enjoying himself.

And it cost us less than $30! We uh...had a flat tire....

But it was all worth the time and trouble.

Our pens are cleared for the most part. There are a few trees and branches to be trimmed and some wire that needs to be removed but we have all winter to work on that!

We are lovin' it up here! I just can't believe how blessed we are to have this opportunity. We have found our place in the universe!

Cooler Weather and Fall Apples

When we moved a couple of months ago, we didn't move far up north. Actually, we just moved one state up from where we lived. About 8 hours or so north. I didn't realize what an impact that would play weather wise. Where we came from, in the Big City, we had 2 seasons: hot and not as hot. Summers could be pretty brutal and winter was....well...winter was a reprieve from the humid summer. Summer lasted through October and if we were lucky, we got a cool Thanksgiving but I can remember many Thanksgivings running the AC because it was in the 80's out. We might have a couple of freezes and fret because we left the plants out!

Well here we are in early October and it's getting a bit chilly here! In fact, with mornings in the upper 50's to mid 60's I wear a jacket to work and get teased!!! I'm sorry folks but where I'm from...this is WINTER!!!! No joke!!!

All kidding aside, it's nice to discover new seasons like Autumn and even though we are supposed to experience a warmer winter than usual, I still look forward to the experience! With cooler weather comes Harvest!

My son has been helping out with a friend and she happens to have apple trees in her back yard! Jackpot!!! I have been blessed with an abundant supply of apples straight from the tree. In fact, my son was stung by a yellow jacket picking my first delivery!

Why yes, that is a pear in there! And can I just let you know it was deliciously sweet? I don't mean to rub it in but I am ruined with store bought produce for life!

Here is my collection today. This is after I have started a batch of Apple Butter and Apple Pie! I am so afraid I'm going to lose them so I have plans to make all kinds of yummy apple concoctions! I'm going to try freezing some with a "recipe" I found on the Internet so I hope that works out!

This will be the apple butter. You can't believe how good this is and it's not even done yet. Uh...on a side note, please excuse my poor crock pot. It was a wedding gift which is going on 19 years and has seen some better days. But it does the job so therefore it stays....

Here is the apple pie! I'm sorry but it was so good! This would definitely be a hit at one of my family gatherings. I sure do miss those. Every once in a while my siblings would all gather at my mom and dad's and we'd eat and visit. Oh did we eat! Moving into the country has left us out of those but I am certainly there in spirit. Sorry--feeling a little home sick this weekend. But anywho!!!

Did I mention how good this was???? So today, I say I love apples...but I can't really promise I'd say the same thing next week!

By the way: Here's a little teaser for my next post. I don't know why but I just can't seem to get that song out of my mind...."She thinks my tractor's sexy...."

Trail Ride

We had company from Australia for almost a week and a half and while they were here, they generously provided a trail ride for our family along with themselves. We have been wanting to do this but have not found the excuse to spend the time or money on it yet so this was the perfect opportunity!

Now mind you--I am absolutely TERRIFIED of horses. They are big and scary and they can sense when you are afraid of them which makes me even more afraid of them! The only time I remember being around a horse was at a friend of ours ranch and while looking at the horses, one sneezed all over me! It was really disgusting I have to say. I had horse snot all over me.

The couple of days before the Trail Ride I purposely didn't think too much about it. See, my oldest son worked with a friend all summer with her horses. Instead of paying him money, she is letting him pick a horse to raise and he was gaining experience to boot. We (the term "we" is used very loosely here) have been working very hard getting our pens ready for our new animal and I figure if we are going to have one around here, I might as well get used to them...right?

Well, I have to admit I almost couldn't get on the horse. It took everything I had to get up on that beast. This was the one I rode and his name was...Concussion. I kid not!!! He was a mustang about 9 years ago and we found out after that he has kicked 2 people off during a trail ride. Yes, I did tell this man it was my first ride and that I was deathly afraid of horses.

So here we are getting to know the horses and introducing ourselves to them before our hour long ride.

My Ryan was so excited! He told me afterwards that this was his new favorite thing! His horse's name was Wrangler.

Here is my stud on a stud! Hahaaa! Sorry--I couldn't resist. His horse was named Medusa.
I guess Medusa is a girls name which in turn totally nullifies the whole stud comment....sorry.

Here's me and Trey on Concussion...I mean Cocoa. They changed his name. I guess not many people wanted to ride a horse named Concussion!!! We rode double back because the last horse was MIA. He couldn't find him so I volunteered to ride with Trey. I figured it would help me be a bit braver!

Brandon sat atop Misty. She was a pretty good horse but on the trail he dropped the reins and she accidentally stepped on it and broke it! Oops!! She was so good. She just stopped and decided she would take the opportunity to take a little snack.

As you can see: no reins. He did so good. "Uh, excuse me!! Trail Master sir! I dropped my reins!" All was good. He tied them up for a quick fix and all was well with the world again!

This is me feeling comfortable enough at the time to free a hand and take a picture. I love Cocoa's ears...hehe. This was just before coming back down a hill where half way through, Cocoa, or Concussion rather, decides it would be much more fun to RUN down the hill and show his riders a good time!!! So here I go bouncing up and down, starting to slip to the side, and poor Trey is bouncing up against a saddle on the butt of the equine. Trail Master yells, "Use your legs!!! Use your legs!!!" and before I go tumbling to the side I right myself and while Trey is bouncing around like no soon-to-be 13 year old boy should be bouncing around, I slow the horse down and we come to the bottom safely upright with me chanting, "I'm okay, I'm okay" mostly to convince myself than anybody else. Poor Trey tells me "Mom, I don't think you'll be getting grandchildren from me" and with nervous laughter we move along down the trail! Did I mention my horse's name was CONCUSSION????? I could have died!!!!

And Ryan rides easy breezy with no problems whatsoever!

We all finished safe and sound and besides the soreness. OH MY GOSH the soreness!!!! We had a great time and it provided the incentive to clear out the horse pens back at home. Pictures to come shortly!!

The County Fair

Raise your hand if you like bacon, ham, pork chops, or pulled pork BBQ. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

My Ryan is doing Ag this year and we have pretty much decided he is raising a pig. Now we are city folk turned country so we know absolutely NOTHING about raising most any animal besides dogs, birds, or lizards. So as my dad would say, "It'll be an adventure!" Yes! An adventure it will be for us Tarvers.

So we thought we'd hit the County Fair to see what all the hubub is about. Of course there were steers, goats, sheep, and of course...PIGS! (I will try to refrain from calling any of the following pigs after a certain cute piglet in a certain movie that made plenty of people cry but I can't promise anything).

People...these pigs were HUGE!!! Can you see that the pig is almost to this kid's hips? Ryan's Ag teacher is what the locals around here call a "pig man". He knows all about pigs. And I must say "his" pigs were usually winners. They were good lookin' pigs! I know nothing about pigs and I could usually spot out the ones he helped raise they were that good lookin'.

Would you look at the rear on that pig? Good eatin'. Can I just point out for a second that if you have never seen live pigs...they are filthy animals!!! This is the only rear shot I could post because of...well...because the animal is clean in the picture. Can we just leave it at that? Oh! And sorry I showed a pig's butt on here...

We are now trying to decided on what type of pig we are going to raise. I'm not even sure of the significance at this point but there are so many different types.

It's BABE!!! Okay see???? I'm sorry...I just couldn't help myself. And just look at those pink boots to match!!! Goodness!!

After the pig show, they had a Frog Jump contest. They take flour and make a circle and set the frogs in the middle. The first one out of the circle is the winner. I was so syked about the Frog Jump and let me tell you...it was over in like 3 seconds. I'm not kidding! Thank goodness they did 2 different ones because I blinked and missed the first one!!!

You can barely see where I marked the little froggy. The kids were pretty excited.

Then the turtle race. Now I don't know who got started on the whole "turtles are the slowest animal on earth" lie but these guys are fast! Not as fast as the frogs but fast!

Then we went to see the other contests. There were entries for EVERYTHING. Canning, crops, art, photos, quilts, and...SCRAPBOOKING! Nobody entered for the scrapbooking but guess what I'm entering next year? Not because I'm any good but it's a sure win! No one else entered!!! Hahaaa!! Look at the size of that melon! Seriously???? It's huge folks! That is a normal size wagon...not a kiddie size.

This gorgeous quilt! There are no words. I can't imagine how long it took to make this.

Garden produce. Yum! I wish we could have tasted them.

Gourds and squash....awesome!!!

So...harvesty!

Peanuts!!! I didn't even know they grew those up here. I just knew there was a lot of wheat and cotton. I want to grow peanuts!!!

And speaking of cotton! I have never seen "raw" cotton before. It gets everywhere and probably one of the culprits of my son's asthma flare ups lately.

Isn't it neat? Anyway. The county fair was fun and we are looking forward to the slightly larger Spring County Fair. We didn't make the State Fair but my Ryan did. He got to march in it! Maybe next year we'll make the trip!

Friday Night Lights

First off, please don't stop checking the blog from time to time. There are lots of adventures going on but no time to post. I keep waiting for things to slow down but now I'm thinking with a girl in college and 3 boys in school activities, I might be waiting until I'm in the grave before things "slow down". Not that I'm complaining. Busy is good. Busy is healthy. Busy is...tiring.

Friday Night Lights. Of course when we lived in the Big City we had high school football games. My girl was in flags and my Brandon was in percussion so football games and half times shows were part of our lives. Our weekends were planned according to what time they had to be there and what time they had to be picked up and where they were going afterwards and what time they would be back.

Here in the country is pretty much the same. Oh, except for...well...a few differences.


In the country, the stadiums are THE place to be on a Friday night. Pretty much shop closes down so the towns folk can catch the game. The game is super important and the kids are under ALOT of pressure. The whole town's counting on them. And when you go to the game, you see everyone you know in the town.

The color guard is a little smaller than we're used to. But when you come from a school with close to 4000 students and a band with 300 students, and move to a school of less than 300 students and a band of about 30 students there's going to be some staggering differences! Just to put this in perspective: the town we are living in currently has roughly 200 people and the band we were in when we lived in the Big City had 300 members! Capiche? Some schools around here don't even have a band so we feel lucky we have one!! The school we played last night didn't have a band and I was thankful we have one. Can you imagine a high school football game with NO BAND????

Here's my Ryan. He's in 8th grade and because of the number of students, 8th graders are part of the high school band. I think if it gets low enough, they will pull the stronger players from 7th!!! Can you imagine 2nd year players with Seniors???

Here they are on the field playing the Star Spangled Banner. Cymbals Rule!!!!

He's having a good time. A fun thing the town does after football games is they offer a "5th Quarter". This is where a restaurant sponsors the kids and opens up after the games and allows the players, cheerleaders, and band to eat free!!! The local banks help sponsor that too!

Brandon plays percussion too but is not able to be in band this semester. He moved in the middle of the school year last year and didn't take the state history class and has to retake a semester of Algebra so he didn't have room for his band elective. But he goes and hangs out with them for a bit and will be back next semester!

The concessions are a bit different too. They offer burgers that someone is grilling behind the stand! Seriously!!! The grill is going and making every one's mouths water and you can't help but step up and buy a $3.50 burger!!! They also let the band members mingle and go buy food from the concession stand too which was a BIG NO NO in the Big City!

My boys aren't playing football yet but people scratch their heads and ask with bewilderment, "Not playing football? Why would they not play football?" Hahahaa. Not to worry though! They are in Wrestling, Track, Band, and Agriculture so we're not THAT scorned! Besides, I've heard my boys talking about maybe playing next year so they might catch the football bug yet!

Guess we'll see.