3 July 2016

Vacation

It was kind of a spur of the moment thing. Early in the week my husband asked if I wanted to try another family trip to the hills. I did of course. We enjoyed our trip last year and when we find a good thing we like to stick to it. So we did the same things as last year. Mostly.

We went back to Legion Lake again. It was great again. Despite our knowledge of its folly we rented a paddle boat again, as usual it was a bad idea.

Afterward with children, amazingly, still alive we ate lunch then played around the lake. The Goblin Child found a friend from Minnesota and they played happily. 8 ran around, and crashed.

Then we went into Keystone and rode the tram. It rained. But it was still fun. We ate.

After all that we still squeezed in Reptile Gardens. The rain had stopped it was beautiful. They didn’t think the tortoise was alive, scared them half to death when it moved.

We stayed the night at a hotel in Rapid that we had stayed at after The Goblin Child was born. We loved it that time, this time it was still nice, the children were awful. No one slept and everyone was up bright and early the next morning. We had promised The Goblin Child that we would go to Storybook Island and she was really looking forward to it. It was pouring rain. We went to Perkins for breakfast hoping it would stop. It didn’t. So we looked for other things to do. We found a cave. I remember my dad taking me to caves as a little girl and loved watching The Goblin Child go through with her Lala. I carried 8.

It was still raining when we got out we wavered on what to do and wound up at Chapel in the hills. It was beautiful. I explained to The Goblin Child that this was her heritage, it is all very Norwegian.

Then despite the rain, which had let up considerably at least, we went to Storybook Island. She loved it again, especially the merry go round. It was pretty cool, I think I liked it best too.

 

 

19 June 2016

Happy Fathers Day!

We got you a present unfortunately stupid Amazon’s 2 day delivery does not mean our area apparently. So it should, hopefully, be here Monday. I should have ordered it sooner. We’ve been so busy and I didn’t realize Fathers Day was this weekend. Oops. So here’s a picture and maybe it really will be here tomorrow.

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Happy Fathers day anyway! You’re a great dad. The kids are crazy about you, I love the way their eyes light up when you come home.

To my dad too! You’re great! Wish we got to see you more often. The Goblin Child loves her Different Papa. And Justin, such an awesome dad. This family seems to be blessed with an abundance of great fathers, how very lucky we are.

 

11 June 2016

AI

20160610_190541Not artificial intelligence, artificial insemination. Warning graphic content.

The neighbor and usual good help, Clint decided to AI his cattle and asked if we would be interested. We thought and talked about and decided to go ahead and try it. He has so far handled all the details with us only needing to show up. He arraigned for the needed supplies from a nice looking Short Horn bull for most of our herd and one straw from a black bull for our already very colorful Blue.

Yesterday we brought the cows in and sorted the calves off, then Clint arrived with a couple more head, an expert and supplies. Not to AI yet but to get ready to. I had no idea what was going on sometimes it’s best just to do what you are told. But for the sake of writing this I thought I should find out so I can tell about it without sounding like an idiot.

So, they inserted CIDR inserts. CIDR means controlled internal drug release. They are plastic and T shaped, coated with hormones to bring the cows into heat. They are used along with a shot of GnRH,Β  to synchronize the cattle so they would all come into heat at the same time. Now in seven days they will pull the CIDR out and give an injection of a prostaglandin F2. After that they will be ready to inseminate in around sixty hours, less for heifers more for cows.

What are all these things? What do all those letters stand for? I don’t know and really can only do so much research, children and all that. Maybe I’ll look into it with the next installment.

 

 

8 June 2016

A Compelling And Unique Argument For Gods Existance

I read this article on Slashdot and was enthralled.

An anonymous reader writes: At Recode’s annual Code Conference, Elon Musk explained how we are almost certainly living in a more advanced civilization’s video game. He said: “The strongest argument for us being in a simulation probably is the following. Forty years ago we had pong. Like, two rectangles and a dot. That was what games were. Now, 40 years later, we have photorealistic, 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously, and it’s getting better every year. Soon we’ll have virtual reality, augmented reality. If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, even if that rate of advancement drops by a thousand from what it is now. Then you just say, okay, let’s imagine it’s 10,000 years in the future, which is nothing on the evolutionary scale. So given that we’re clearly on a trajectory to have games that are indistinguishable from reality, and those games could be played on any set-top box or on a PC or whatever, and there would probably be billions of such computers or set-top boxes, it would seem to follow that the odds that we’re in base reality is one in billions. Tell me what’s wrong with that argument. Is there a flaw in that argument?”

For anyone who doesn’t know who Elon Musk is he is brilliant. Think Tesla, space travel, PayPal. He played himself in Iron Man 2, not that that’s an argument for brilliance but it is cool. He is the real life version of Tony Stark. And he is not religious. Does not believe in God.

So without believing in God he decided that the world probably exists as a game, good verses evil, with spectators watching to see how it is played and what the outcome is. Is that not exactly what Christians believe?

Lucifer challenged God, to a game, to see who was more powerful. God being good and fair didn’t simply destroy him but instead gave him earth as his game board to show the heavenly beings that he was the good and rightful leader and satan was wrong. They are engaged in the most important game ever.

What can I say, Elon Musk has it all figured out.

5 June 2016

And Then Spring Came

When that happens all free time disappears.

There are cattle to get sorted, calves worked and everything hauled to pasture. Us girls got together and branded out little bunch of calves. All two of us girls this time. With most of the kids along. The one that wasn’t there was the only one that would have enjoyed it.

The garden is mostly in. We’ve been enjoying lettuce from the green house for a while now. Tomatoes are all in, peppers too. Trying for a sunflower house/corn maze again this year.

 

With the warm weather there has been lots of time to play outside, with the cousins and with friends. We’ve been climbing trees, playing with Little Tiny Kitty and checking out strange bugs. Life is good. So busy there’s barely time to breath right now but good.

 

29 May 2016

I Love Theater!

The arts are awesome! We were treated to a splendid performance tonight. First a fashion show, then a play. The play was expertly written and produced. The parts were perfectly cast with each actor well suited to their part. We laughed and cried and begged for an encore.

 

25 May 2016

What We Learned In Preschool

When we sent The Goblin Child to preschool in the darkest depths of winter it was to give her something to do. She was bored sick in the house, it was miserably cold outside and we had all had enough. Strangely I am surprised at all that she learned. I know, people send children to school to learn, but the scope of the things learned was impressive and today on her last day I thought I would reminisce.

She learned about Cat in The Hat. Our night time reading will never be the same. We used to have a greater variety of books we were aloud to read but then The Cat in the Hat came to visit. She was enthralled.

Scrub a dub came to visit. Now she washes her hands regularly and with great intensity, using proper technique and time length. We have never spent so much time in public bathrooms. But her hands are sparkly clean.

She learned about the importance of wearing sunblock. They made really cool bracelets that change color in the sun, she showed it to everybody and the cousins oohed and awed appropriately. One day while getting ready to work cattle she ran back in the house for a minute and came out covered in sun block. Her face and hands were caked and white. She told me how important it was to protect your skin, I couldn’t argue. I could spread it out a little more evenly. I feared for the state of the kitchen but needlessly, she had only gotten it where it needed to be.

She made lots of new friends. One was a particular favorite, it worried us a little. She would come home and tell us all about how she liked him so much because he took really good care of her. Then the only other girl came back and her other friend was forgotten.

She learned to sing a beautiful rendition of Jesus loves me, without all the words but with movements.

And the absolute best of all was the time that as we sat down to supper she said that we had forgotten to pay. We went back and forth for awhile trying to figure out what she was talking about, things can be a bit confusing sometimes. She meant pray. We had forgotten to say our prayers. Not only did she remind us, she said the prayer. We asked if she had learned that from eating at her good preschool friends house, she had gone over for lunch a couple of times. No she said, she had learned it at preschool. They say their prayers at snack time. We didn’t send her to a church preschool planning on this being what she learned, just didn’t think about it, not that we didn’t want it, but we are so thrilled with all the knowledge she brought home.

 

They enjoyed a field trip to the park today. She loved it.