Text Messages

From Today...

Anne (1:23pm): I regret to inform you that feeding DID NOT go well and one of the gates is now in need of serious repair. In an effort to prevent more damage, I'm saving the last two bales for you.

Anne (1:28pm): Also, I just ate an impressive amount of ice cream to cheer me up.
Now I am ill.

Anne (1:33pm): Oh, and the ice cream did cheer me up, btw. So you don't need to be afraid to come home or anything...

Jared (1:34pm): Thank goodness for icecream.

An Early Valentine

I decided to make sugar cookies last night to bring to primary today. I wanted to do a birthday / Valentine's treat since one of my girls had a birthday this last week and Valentines Day is just two short days away. Sugar cookies seemed like a great way to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. So I made the dough and threw it in the fridge to chill for a few hours while Jared and I went to the stake Valentine's dinner.

When we got home, I rolled out the dough and then opened my magical baking drawer full of magical baking things to retrieve my very large and magical collection of cookie cutter shapes...  only to discover that I don't own a very large and magical collection of cookie cutter shapes.

I could have sworn I did. Must have been a dream.

So I was forced to go with the one cookie cutter that I actually did have. I made my class try and guess what the cookie was supposed to be before they could eat it. Without the full themed collection displayed below, it really was quite hard to tell.

Only one of my girls was able to figure it out.

Nothing says Happy Birthday and Happy Valentine's day like a pink rooster.

Right??

It's a good thing my girls are easy to please...

And it's a very good thing that I have a great friend who gave me this awesome themed "gag" gift as a wedding present. Little did she know how much I'd end up loving it! 
Thanks, Rhenn :)

Not Just Another Day

Thursday morning.

6:55am.

I'm laying in bed wondering how much time I have before Jared makes me get up to help feed the cows. I can usually hold him off until about 7:30 if I manage to fake sleeping without smiling or giggling. But not this time.

"I need to be to Josh's place by 8:30 so we need to feed early this morning.
We're working with the calves today.

Wanna come?"

Do I wanna come... what kind of question is that??

So I went.

And I learned.

And I gagged.

The main purpose of the day was to tattoo and tag the calves' ears, as well as vaccinate for I'm not sure what, and spray for fleas, worms, etc. This was one of the ranch activities that I hadn't been a part of before, so I was excited to see what it was all about.

Jared and his brothers kept the calves coming down the chute, Phillip operated the squeeze chute, Joy did the vaccinating, Dave (the vet) did the tattooing and tagging, and I did the spraying.

I wish I would have gotten some good pictures of Dave doing his thing, but I didn't. So the next four pictures are ones I found online. I thought I'd include them so you can get a visual. Aren't I nice?

As I said, the purpose of the day was the tattooing, vaccinating, and the tagging. However, on a few occasions, some extra doctoring was required. At this point I feel I should warn you that the following pics are not for those with a weak stomach. If blood and other goopy fluids are a bit much for you, then you should probably skip the rest of this post and check back in a few days for posts of a less graphic nature.

My first exposure to some doctoring occurred with this little calf.

Poor girl had to be dehorned. To do this, they get her in the squeeze chute, hook a rope up to her nose to keep her head in the right position, trim the hair around the horn back a bit, and then...

Definitely wasn't expecting to see that when I got out of bed Thursday morning.

Next up was a calf with a lumpy jaw. We had three calves with lumpy jaws but I only took pics of the first one. These lumps make it painful for the calf to chew their food, so they need to be taken care of. First you trim back the hair, puncture the lump, watch the goop come out, and then get the peroxide...and a shovel.

I'm not sure why everyone seems to have a look of disgust in this next picture...it might because someone just mentioned eating the cream-filled donuts Dave had in his truck.

The Lyman men are just about the toughest guys I've ever met, but Josh only had to take about two steps towards Reed and Parker before they started gagging and had to turn their backs to him.

So funny :)

All in all, it was a pretty good day. And despite the cold, the hours of work, and the unexpected experience with some doctoring - I ended the day with a smile on my face.

And a little bit of color to my jeans.

Wishing My Life Away

I'm sitting here watching a video I recorded last year.

Over. And over. And over. And over. And over.

I don't think I'll ever get sick of it. Or stop laughing when I watch it.

And I can't help but be reminded of something my mom used to always say to us kids while growing up.

 Whenever I'd say something like, "I want it to be a week from now so this stupid test will be overwith!" or "Ahhh! I can't wait until it's two years from now so I'll be done with school!!!" she'd usually always respond with:

"Don't wish your life away, Anne."

To be honest, it always kind of annoyed me when she said it. (I love you, mom!!) Mostly because I really thought that she really thought that I was literally wishing my life away. But I wasn't. I just wanted it to speed up a little bit. And skip over the crappy parts. Like school. And acne. And awkward dates.

I'm 100% sure that I was completely miserable on every date I went on in high school.

Every. Single. One.

Ok, so maybe I kinda sorta actually only went on one date in high school.

But it really was awkward. And miserable.

Hmmm, not really sure how this blog turned into an embarrassing confession of my lack of dating in high school. Interesting. I honestly don't know how to smoothly transition back to my original blog topic now.

Soooo.....

<insert smooth and really funny transition here>

I went out to the hills west of our place the other day with Reed and Eli to check on the cows and open some gates. Eventually the cows are supposed to find the open gates and make their way back to our place. And at some point in the next couple weeks (I think), Jared and his family will go out and bring in the cows who didn't come in on their own. And then come March 15th, just six short weeks away, they'll start having their calves!!!!!

YAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY!!

I remember last year on one of my many weekend visits, Jared and I came out to our future home before church on Sunday to feed. I giggled and grinned from ear to ear the whole time because of all the calves running all over the place. Have I mentioned recently that calves are just so stinking cute??

On one of my later weekend trips, I was able to experience the joy and pain of branding. Talk about an adventure.

Ok, so that last pic of Jared wasn't part of branding, but I had it saved in the same album and couldn't resist sharing it. Mainly to show off how ruggedly handsome and fashionable he is. You know, just in case the floppy hat he was sporting in the previous pictures wasn't proof enough. His t-shirt says 'Game Over' btw. A little gift from yours truly. At the time he thought it was a joke. Little did he know....

Anyways, back to the branding. Near the end of the day, it was the bigger calves' turn and after watching the first two go down, I knew I had to start recording for the next one.

I'm so glad I did.

There are sooooo many things I could say about this recording, but I'll refrain. I just ask that you watch it enough times to watch each individual person's contribution toward bringing this calf down.

Jared and Jake bring the calf out, and then....

I think I've watched this video at least 50 times. There's just so much I love about it! In addition to the number of men it took to bring this calf down, my top three favorite parts are:

1. When Jared falls, gets back up, and then whips his floppy hat back like he really means business.

2. Watching Jake (the guy in the white tshirt) get dragged the last half of the fight.

3. Seeing Spencer, Jared's brother-in-law, trip backwards over Jake near the end of the recording.

Hilarious.

Is it bad that I laugh at other peoples' pain? In this case, I'm gonna say no.

And I'm also gonna say that...

I want it to be six weeks from now.

Really. Really. Bad.