I've been challenged.

I have so many friends who have blogs and am challenged to actually keep one up. Mike went back to his regular shift at work so I think I may be able to pull it off now. We shall see.

We went on a family trip this weekend and I'm treasuring it. I have to wonder how many more trips we'll get to have with our guys. Chris will turn 16 in 6 or 7 weeks and I remember how few trips I took with my parents after that magical age. Jesse will turn 14 a week after Chris's birthday. I look at these men and wonder where my boys went. Their voices changed a while back, they've both outgrown me in the last year and they even outworked my Daddy in the hay field today.

So, this family trip.....we went to look at........cattle. Oh, there's a surprise! I think we visited 8 farms in Iowa. We got to see some really nice cattle and got some really good advice from some top notch cattlemen. We spent the afternoon with a family we've become friends with. They have 4 kiddos: a 14 year old girl, a 12 year old boy, a 2 year old girl and a 3 month old boy. We enjoyed visiting with them. We ate so much for lunch that none of us needed any supper on the way home. The dad invited Mike on a trip to the US/Canadian boarder. Unfortunately, Mike had to get back for work today and fortunately, we were able to have the footer poured for our house. I told Mike I'm tempted to go put a chair out on the new porch. He just laughed.

We got home last night to learn that one of our best steers died while we were gone. To say the least we were all a little upset. He wasn't sick when we left on Sunday morning but was dead by Monday morning. The boys had about 2 to 3 weeks of work in on him. The had him broke to tie and were ready to begin washing him this week. So disappointing. But, we are thankful none of the other calves are sick and it looks as if the weather might break soon. The yo-yo of the thermometer is very hard on these calves. And on us.

Today as the guys were finishing pouring our footer, BOTH dogs (the Chihuahua and the Aussie) walked in the concrete. Apparently they need to leave their mark on the house. Funny thing is, the Chihuahua made as big a mark as the Aussie. Of course she had 2 legs sink in while the other was just a paw print.