Cleo discovers the food storage

Cleo is my female Red-sided Eclectus, and she is quite the little character. Now that she's discovered the food storage bin, it's her favorite place to hang out.



I guess this proves how smart she is. Nice, soft place to nest, complete with snacks!

Spring Helicopter Surveys

Every year, Bruce has to fly around 15 big game helicopter surveys.  This entails morning and evening flights to count deer and elk, and noon flights to count Bighorn sheep. He often, weather permitting, flies 3 flights a day, coming down for about an hour, sometimes 2 before setting off on another flight.

People often think this sounds like great fun... and Bruce enjoys it to a point- but it's so different from just taking a helicopter ride... (btw...the birds in the photo above are immature Bald Eagles).  Bruce describes the experience as similar to being on a roller coaster for 3 hrs., taking an hour break, then, climbing back on for non-stop roller coasting for another 3 hrs. etc. and all the while, he's looking down out of the window, and trying to count AND classify all the animals running below. NOT relaxing, and quick to get old.

(Okay... I'll warn you now, that although this post seems like it should be about Bruce's helicopter surveys... at some point, it's going to morph into being about our two horses.  I do hope you enjoy horse photos. :)

When the kids were little, they LOVED Spring survey time.  VERY often, Bruce would have the helicopter land in our front yard, while he and the pilot came in for some coffee, and cookies. ONCE, the pilot flew Bruce AND the kids back to the airport! WOW! Very cool! And Bruce would always have the pilot buzz over the top of the house. The kids would listen for the chopper, and go piling out the front door, waving and jumping up and down, yelling to their Dad.Great fun!

Well... the kids are gone now. But Bruce still buzzes the house from time to time, and I still tear outside, with the Shelties, to wave excitedly.  This year, the wind was so bad, and the ride was so rough, that he had the pilot set down in the field next to our house so they could have a little break!  

The horses had been going nuts at the first sight of the helicopter. (Remember, I warned you! LOTS of horse photos, coming up!)

Dakota, a veteran of such things, heard it coming first.

The tail went up, and off she went!

Wynter caught onto the game very quickly...

and soon, the two of them were galloping across the pasture. MAN! They are beautiful!

 

They threw their heads, and galloped, tails held high... and then- they noticed that the helicopter had LANDED!

They galloped closer...

They stopped and watched...

Then, they calmly trotted over as close as they could get. It was as if they were wondering why their new playmate had stopped playing!

When the helicopter took off again, they got to resume their game. 

Bruce buzzed the house one last time....

and flew off to the airport, leaving the mares to more routine pastimes.

Excuse ME!

I am as bad as the Papparazzi! I couldn't resist taking photos of these two Bluebirds taking a bath. :)

As soon as the female was done, the male hopped into the water. 

I think they were just grateful the water was no longer frozen!

Snow in the Mountains

The good thing about the storms this past week... we've got snow in the mountains! Which will be a big help come this Summer.

Remedying a Mistake

So... remember way back in February, when I said that Montana had skipped February and March, and gone straight into April? Or was that the end of January.... no matter.  Montana has discovered her mistake and is working overtime to remedy the situation.

Now it's April, but it looks and feels more like the end of Jan. beginning of Feb!  We have SNOW! hail, lows in the 20's, highs in the 30's. *sighs*

This poor little Bluebird, and I think it's a pretty rotten trick. There was no snow when we wanted snow... but then.... once we got Spring Fever, and started looking forward to the nice weather... BOOM!!!

Winter strikes. 

PLEASE bring Spring back soon!!!

Wynter's first elk encounter

Wynter's previous owner told me that the little mare had seen a few deer in her lifetime, but never an elk, so when the elk came down, I was curious to see what her reaction would be.

A couple of them hopped the fence into the horse's pasture. Unfortunately, I was torn between seeing how Wyn would react, and running to grab my camera- so I don't have any photos of the stand off.  Wynter was very intrigued. Her head went up, her ears pricked forward. She snorted and took two steps forward, and one back, and then... just stood her ground. The elk looked at her, then, turned and left.

Wynter took her cue from Dakota, and went back to grazing.  But when she saw me standing there, she turned and looked at me like...."WHAT was that???" :)

Happy Easter!

Bruce and I were thrilled to learn that our youngest son, Cade, was able to make it home for Easter. He drove in Friday afternoon, and had to leave Sunday late morning... but he came HOME! I was ecstatic.

I hadn't even decorated the house (unheard of for me!), so I scrambled to unpack all our favorite Easter decorations.

And, once I'd gotten them out.... I felt better. I'd forgotten how much I love our Easter things. :)

We kept things pretty low key.  For instance... even though I demanded we dye Easter eggs, this WAS the very first year, we didn't take the time to make the eggs into things... like flowers, ladybugs, bunnies, etc.  I actually take pride in that tradition of creativity- and I missed it.

But the dyes WERE pretty.

And we did have a lot of fun dying the eggs! and listening to our silly Easter Songs tape.

Bruce made a self-portrait :)

And the eggs were pretty.

Our tradition has always been for the children to line up at the top of the stairs... youngest first. They can't come down to find what the Easter Bunny left, until they hear the special Easter song playing. I made poor Cade line up all by himself! *L*  Some things are just sacred.

BUT I didn't put out all the things the Easter bunny usually puts on the table- like Easter grass. And there were only two baskets, Bruce and Cade's, this year. And I didn't buy MAD candy, like I usually do... and we didn't put ANY of the candy in Easter eggs- hence no hunting for Easter eggs, either. I mean... Cade IS 20 now.  But I missed it.

Most of the candy, I just left in the bags, and gave to Cade to take back to college. Bruce and I don't need it around the house, tempting us.

Bruce waited patiently... I'm sure he was wondering why there was next to nothing in his basket! It's just that his gifts were too big (size wise). He didn't have to wait for long.

Bruce got an extra keg for making beer... some more beer mix, some cider mix, AND the 5th season of House :)  Cade got a season of Seinfeld, SNL commercials, a razor, candy, and Jones soda pop. I got some books, and some kitchen utensils, so it was a good Easter for everyone!  After opening our baskets, we had our traditional breakfast of popovers, scrambled eggs, and sausage, and some sparkling cider. Yum!

But then...... Cade had to leave. For me, Easter was over... I distracted myself by going riding.

I even let Dakota come with. :)

If Easter is the beginning of new life, then I guess our Easter reflected that. Definitely not like our bustling, exciting Easters of old... where there was barely enough time to cook dinner for our large family inbetween egg hunts, dressing up, giggling children, etc. but the new, quieter, slower (dare I say it? lonelier) lifestyle of empty-nesters.  I am so grateful Cade came home. I am also, very grateful for our life here- and grateful for wonderful memories.