Happy 24 Years!

Jeff and I went out for our anniversary.  This year we visited the new Whataburger in Tyler.  They make a good burger.  It was nice to keep things low key this year as the money is slotted for all things house.  It's been an amazing 24 years.  The journey that has led us here has been a bit crazy, but I wouldn't want it any different.  Jeff has big dreams and accomplishes them.  We have a great family and are building a beautiful home together!  Thank you for everything you are constantly doing for our family!  I love you forever!  Here's to an eternity more!

 

So Thankful

We did our family Thanksgiving on Sunday December 1st.  It's become a tradition with the ranch to move our Thanksgiving to the Sunday after so we can be focused on working at the ranch during the holiday.  Jeff and the kids (after much coercion and a speeding ticket for Mhari) went and took care of feeding the bison hay while I finished the dinner.  It was especially delicious.  I brined the turkey and it was so moist!  The pie also was amazing!

 

Finishing out November

I do love the amazing sunsets we get to enjoy by working late at the ranch!  We really did get so much of the house drywalled!  It's crazy that November is already over!  Time is flying by!  We have been planning to move in by the end of December, but it isn't feeling like we will be able to meet that deadline.  The older kids will be home from school during the Christmas break so it will be nice to have a few more helpers, but maybe not quite to the moving stage yet.  It's frustrating to feel like we still aren't ready to move, but I guess that is one of life's lessons... patience.  This house build has had a way of teaching that lesson over and over again :).

 

Thankful for Dry Wall

This week has been the great sheetrock week!  Jeff has been finishing up work so we haven't been slaving away every day, but we have made a ton of progress.  If all we had to do was sit and build a house this would go way faster!  We will just stay grateful that we have this week during the holiday time to get more done than usual!  We are certainly thankful for all of our helpers that make this house build possible!  We love you Mhari, Clark and Lorna!

 

Piglets!

The bison broke the water float in the water trough in Pasture 7.  Ugh.  So annoying.  

In other news, Harriet had her piglets today!  They are so cute!  There were a few still born, but we have 8 living (I think).  Hopefully everything goes well with them.  Harriet seems to be taking very good care of them!  November should be a good weather month for the piglets!

 

Ceiling!

We started sheet rocking the ceiling today!  We are using 4x12 sheets so it covers a lot when it goes up.  Clark and Jeff screw it to the rafters and Mhari and Lorna help me prep the sheets.  We also rented a lift to help us get the sheet rock up on the ceiling.  It has been amazing!  I wish it was going faster, but it does look like we have a ceiling in some rooms now!  

 

Mom of the Year

Our Bison Mary, Number 1, has earned the Mom of the Year award!  Or she should anyway :).  One of our bison moms, Laura, #4, died suddenly a few months ago.  Her calf was just a few weeks old.  We didn't know how to help the calf so we just watched and waited.  

Unfortunately, we were waiting for it to die.  It was too young to survive on just grass and hay, but we weren't going to separate it on it's own to bottle feed it.  Not living on the ranch made this just too difficult for us to manage.  Well, the calf kept living.  We saw it try to nurse on Mary, right after it's mom had died, but Mary kicked it away.  It was super close in age to Mary's calf and it would hang out with her calf.  Looks like she wore Mary down and Mary finally adopted her.  Mary is feeding both calves.  Way to go Mary!  Both calves will suffer a bit on growth, but at least we didn't lose the calf too!  Seriously Mary is such a good mom!