A day off...

Ben took Clyde and Alice to the ranch today.  It's so quiet, I just don't know what to do.  I thought about nothing, but after sleeping for an hour I got up, read about 100 pages of grant applications, vacuumed the entire house, dusted, did 3 loads of laundry, fixed a chair, picked up all the stray toys, revamped the blog (check out the labels), and now I think I'll watch a movie, try to read some more and make some flan.

Shipping Sheep

The other day we picked Daddy up at work and went to Sater Meadows north of McCall. There were so many sheep! I got a cane so I could help tell the sheep where to go. They loaded some on trucks and the others they sorted. Mommy didn't have her camera, but Marg took these with her phone. It was so fun! Daddy couldn't believe how quiet sheep are compared to cows. They can jump really high. Sometimes they tried to jump the fences. We put the girls in one pen, the boys in one pen and the old ladies in another.

I like sheep!

Look what Mommy Made...

Stuck up in the woods without many sewing resources nearby, Mommy was thinking what can I make for this baby shower. Her friend is having a second baby girl. So she made both girls little homemade purses. One is made out of part of a pair of jeans and the other a stained sweater, and they both include 3 extra quilt squares from a quilt she was making for another baby that's coming. She's also including some diapers and a baby toy in the package. The purses are reversible too. Check them out:

Back Yard

One of the best things of this summer has been the yard. Good for mom because it's got wire up and no one can get out. Good for Clyde because he can run around and beat on things. Both kids really like being outside (and the house stays cleaner too!). We'll miss the yard as it cools down and we get ready to move south with the cows.

The Last Huckleberries

It's cooling down in the mountains. We took a road trip over Lick Creek Summit down the Secesh River to the Salmon River to Warm Lake and back home. It's a beautiful drive if you're ever in the McCall area and have some time.

But the best thing happened, we found more huckleberries!!! It was September 6th and they were totally done in the valley for weeks, but we got high enough that they were perfect. And, as Clyde would say, there were "So many!!!" Clyde always asks for so many of everything. Not more or a lot, but so many.

And, they were gigantic! For those of you not familiar with huckleberries, these were probably double the size we're used to:

Luckily, the Smiths were planning on coming the next day (Labor Day) so we took them up to the same place. Some berries had succumbed to the frosty night, but there were enough they got about a pint and a half to take home. And we had huckleberry pancakes for dinner, mmmmm.

Here's some of the other cool scenery we saw on the drive:

Cool dead tree.

Fungus growing on burnt tree.

Tree growing out of a rock.

Mossy tree.