Today

Today is a little wet. A little windy. A little cold.

Texas has been outside for 2 hours already now, and I am about to head out there to sort through some springers (pregnant cows) to go to auction today.

It's always days like these where something always has to go wrong...

The baby cows broke their water tank, so it's overflowing onto already sloppy ground.

When this kind of thing happens, we have to shut the water off until it is fixed.

Good thing I just showered!!

House Fire

Two nights ago as Texas and I were packing up our belongings to move out of our "damp" house for awhile...

I heard sirens.

One might think, especially if one lived in the country, that hearing sirens is nothing to stop baking your cookies over.

Out here though, there's only a couple houses past ours down the road, and we are friends with several of the neighbors in the area. Usually, when you hear sirens, it means something is getting a little crazy in the country!

The first set of sirens I heard was no big deal. Then I heard another set, and another... and I looked out the bedroom window to see three firetrucks meeting each other at a T, probably a firetruck from Oakdale, a firetruck from Waterford, and a firetruck from the county. Since we don't really live in Oakdale and are technically closer to other smaller towns, it's kind of a race for the firetrucks to see which town or county truck can get there the quickest. They all win, woo!

Turns out, the house on the corner, the next house down the street from Texas and I was on fire! Smoke was billowing out of the chimney and through any other hole it could find in the house.

These pictures were taken from our front yard.

A little too close for comfort I'd say.

We had a front row seat for the action. Neighbors from all over were cruising down the street, and some were parking at the next dairy over to get right in on the action.

Ohhhh small town life.

I am pretty certain that everyone was ok as there were no ambulances fleeing the scene, and it looked as if four firetrucks was overkill.

Who needs satellite tv when you live in the country?!

Puppy at Work

 Stoney has been working hard lately.

Sitting in truck beds.

Waiting for me to get done going through cows.

It's sooo very demanding on a growing puppy.

Sometimes he gets to hang out in the hay and watch me work with the cows.

Sometimes he...

...oops! Hope this was off the clock pup.

The Yard Guy

This is the guy that mows our lawn:

Sometimes, I have to remind him that he only needs to come once a week.

"Thanks, but didn't you just mow it yesterday?!"

Silly yard guy.

Ranch Kitties

Some of the ranch kitties have been pretty adventurous during the last few days!

I guess I should be careful about what I say... yet again.

My last post I talked about how Texas and I needed to move out of our moldy house for a couple days for it to "air out". I also mentioned how the critters would be moving out too... because I'd hate for my furball cat to get stuck in a fan.

WELL, little did I know, that I cursed my other furball of a cat, Alfalfa.

My beloved kitty of 12 years who has endured the outdoor ranch kitty life like a champ. He has beat all the odds of ranch kitty life which typically only lasts two years for an outdoor cat.

Here is my baby back in the day:

Before you start calling up the SPCA or PETA, please keep in mind I was about 13 years old.

And my cat also enjoyed modeling.

Anyways, back to the story of my kitty cursing.

My mom went to start up her truck on Friday to get some groceries, but when she revved up the ol' dodge, she heard some strange noises. Immediately, she shut off the truck. Opened the hood. Much to her dismay, she found two ranch kitties under the hood, trying to escape the rain. One of those kitties being my Falfie.

Maybe it's because Alfie has a few extra lives left.

Maybe it's because he is smarter than the average outdoor cat.

Maybe he just got lucky.

Maybe someone up in the high heavens knew that my boyfriend could not handle telling me, yet again, I had lost someone I loved.

My kitty survived. The last cat that wedged himself next to the fan in the engine got decapitated. Falfie came out a little lighter with a little less fur, but he did indeed, keep his head on. The other kitten sleeping next to him came away scotch free too. One of them had undone the fan belt in the truck when it started, so the engine fan never got the chance to turn on.

I scolded Alfie and told him to never scare me like that again.

Alrighty, next kitty adventure. A little less dangerous and a little less fur shed. This one's name is Peppy.

Peppy used to live out in the hay alley with all of the other feral ranch kitties. My dad would go out and feed the wild cats almost every night, and he started to see Peppy around a lot. She got a little friendlier each time he went out there, and then one day, she decided to make our house her new home. Ever since, Peppy has been a staple over at my mom's house.

Peppy is quite the character. She likes to chase after the dogs when they are playing outside. She'll follow whoever out to the barn to see what's going on with the cows. She just likes to be involved with whatever is going on.

Remember the roofer my mom had to call to come look at the rainforest in her house? Well, when he came on Friday, Peppy decided she needed to supervise whatever he was doing on the roof.

Did I mention Peppy is preggers?

Meanwhile, back at my house... my ranch kitty is stirring up her own kind of trouble inside the house. Goose is pretty bossy. So bossy that she tends to convince my pup that his food is actually her food. Almost every night, I have to go in and break this up:

As if she wasn't fat enough already!

Alrighty, for the grand finale...

Drum roll please...

Texas, you ready?

Ta-da!!

May I kindly introduce you to one eyed Jack? Actually, he doesn't have a name yet, but I do think that suits him quite well. One eyed Jack is this wild cat out in the hay alley that must have got something stuck in his eye as a young kitten.

It looks like the cat has a golf ball sized tumor coming out of his eye.

He's pretty self conscious about it; I don't know how I got close enough to take this picture on my phone.

More kitty adventures to come! Hopefully no truck engines will be involved in the future.

When It Rains, It Pours

 I have learned a valuable lesson this week.

I should learn not to be so boastful. I was so incredibly excited to have missed Amarillo's terrible -27 below temperatures a couple weeks ago, and to top it off, to be soaking in the 70 degree weather here in Oakdale.

Maybe I should have held back posting on Facebook about how happy I was to be out of Amarillo at just the right time.

Maybe I shouldn't have sent a million pictures to Mama Texas showing her how lovely our weather was in comparison to hell freezing over in Amarillo.

Maybe then I wouldn't have cursed myself, Texas, and my mom with the terrible luck we have been experiencing this week with the rain and its aftershocks.

It started out fairly innocent.

Gray skies.

A little bit of hail.

All was fine and dandy minus a few puddles here and there. And a soaking wet boyfriend coming in from work.

Then, disaster hit...

My mom's house turned into a rain forest.

The ceiling just kind of opened up, and it was like having an arboretum in the kitchen. Except instead of beautiful flowers and plants, there were a variety of pots, pans, dishes, and mail.

My mom is waiting on a roofer to come out and evaluate the damage and figure out the problem.

Meanwhile, back at the humble abode where Texas and I live, we are dealing with our own problems...

MOLD!

Yup, mold. Mildew. Whatever you want to call it.

I was putting my flippy floppies back under the bed on Sunday after a nice warm day in Santa Cruz that weekend when I saw it...

On the walls.

Behind the bed.

Behind the night stand.

Behind the dog crate.

Behind the bed in the guest bedroom... on the other end of the house.

To top it off, when I opened the closet to look for the M word in there, I found another black predator... ants.

Of course, being the strong, independent, farm raised, deer killing woman I am, I immediately freaked out and called tractor driving Texas to come rescue me.

A few rainy days later, the Mold Inspector man (who isn't allowed to say the M word) came out look at the house.

The diagnosis??

Our house is wet. It needs to be aired out.

Huh?? I don't think our house will fit in a dryer.

The underneath of the house is wet. The floors/carpet might potentially be wet. The humidity inside the house is 20% higher than outside... even though it was raining at the time of inspection.

How will we fix this mess since technology has yet to make a house sized dryer??

Fans. Lots of fans. Inside the house. Below the house.

While all of this happens, Texas and I, along with all the critters, must move out for a few days. I'd hate to come home to my fur ball of a cat stuck in a fan.

I will keep ya posted on the rainy happenin's over here in sunny California. Keep dry y'all!

San Francisco

Wow, I know I am getting a blog fan club when people start asking me why I haven't written in a week!

So what if those people are my mom and boyfriend... who already know every little detail of my everyday life. Let a girl live, ok?! Just let me feel as loved as Pioneer Woman for at least one day, ok?!

Ok.

I promised pictures of San Francisco awhile back, and I have been very bad about actually following up on that.. and since then and now, I have made another trip to a beachy destination, Santa Cruz. Pictures of that trip will be posted in about a year or two.

Let the picture festivities begin!!!!

Ok, these are from our day trip to San Francisco two weekends ago. We had a beautiful drive from Oakdale to Dublin where we were parking the truck to take the BART to downtown San Francisco. This is a shot of the windmills as we were driving over Altamont Pass.

 I had to supervise Texas and make sure he put in the right amount of money for the BART ride. BART is a subway-esque train that makes it easy for people to avoid the traffic when traveling from the valley to the bay area. Texas was not pleased when I informed him we would be traveling underwater, under the Bay, in order to get to San Francisco. Fortunately, we were already on the BART, and there was no turning back! Muahaha!





Over the hills, under the water, and through the traffic, we arrived safe and sound in San Francisco! I think Texas thought I was kidding when we hopped off the BART at the Embarcadero Street exit. We were basically underground in a black hole. I told him to prepare for what we were about to see as we crawled up the stairs into... the big city! Is it just me, or is "I just took a huge sigh of relief" written all over this mans face??

I think Texas was a little bit confused about this whole BART thing... how we started the BART trip in the valley, above ground... and somehow, I conned him into buying this ticket from an ATM looking machine to go underground, underwater, with a bunch of strange people... and we ended up crawling out from this underground cave thingy finding ourselves on a city street surrounded by skyscrapers. Immediately, Texas pulls out this new technology thing you may have heard of - his Iphone. He used his map application to find out where we were in relation to the Bay.

We found out that we were about 2 miles away from the water, so we started our trek!

Someone looks like they are enjoying California a bit too much...

About 30 minutes and 100 degrees later, we found water!!! 

About the temperature... I told Texas that San Francisco was usually cloudy or overcast and breezy. Well, guess what!! We had the pleasure of visiting San Fran on one of the hottest days in history! Too bad he dressed for 55 degrees, and it ended up being 75+ degrees... which is why all of our pictures look like this:

Texas was a little bit sweaty in his long sleeve shirt and black felt cowboy hat. Alas, we continued on with our adventure despite the fact that my cowboy was melting away.

We discovered that if we wanted to go to the Aquarium on the Pier, we would both get discounts!! Ha...

We decided to skip the aquarium on this trip and continue on to our first destination of interest.. BUBBA GUMPS!!! Of course, I had to take the touristy picture of Texas on Forrest's bench..

After taking approximately a zillion photos, we made it inside to get our fill of seafood and beer. 

We actually ended up only getting our fill of beer because the food there costs waaaaay too much! We split a shrimp entree, got our tall beers in our souvenir glasses and enjoyed the view out the window.

After we finished lunch, we took a walk around Pier 39, checked out the shops, and looked at Alcatraz from afar. Alcatraz is an old prison that used to house the meanest criminals in the nation. Fortunately for Texas, the prison is no longer in use and is just a tourist attraction.

Update on Texas sweating his Wrangler Butt off:

I think he was wishing he was one of these sea lions.

Ok, onward from the sweaty pictures. We hit the Krazy Kaps shop where I was disappointed to find they do not have the selection they once had. However, I did find a cute "cowboy hat" to wear, so Texas wasn't the only person in San Fran dressed like a cowboy.

But then, we found these hats. I think California has finally taken its toll on Texas. I have summoned him to watching nothing but Lonesome Dove for the next month to get his head back on straight.

Make that two months of Lonesome Dove.

Minus the fact that my Texas boyfriend turned all California on me in less than three hours, it was a beautiful day to take a trip to the ocean.

Ooo! Oooo!! Here's a really fun game. It's called, "Where's the guy from Texas?" 

Seriously, he stuck out like a sore thumb. We walked by this guy selling t-shirts of San Francisco, and Texas replied with a "no thanks" when he was solicited. The guy responded with a "HEY c'mon, you're from TEXAS!"

Called out.

After we were done at the Pier, we started to head back toward the BART station. During our walk back up one of the treacherous hills San Fran is known for, we started to notice a trend...

Signs were starting to have weird lettering on them. I think it's called... Chinese??

We were headed straight through Chinatown. Now, not only was Texas the only cowboy hat wearing individual within 50 miles, but he was also the tallest by about 3 feet.

We started to get weird looks...

...so I snapped a quick shot of Texas in Chinatown, and we got outta there in a flash!!

Quite literally, we made it out of Chinatown in a flash. Here is Texas, sweating again.

I left my heart in San Francisco.

Just kidding. It came back with me. I love San Fran and all, but I am a country girl through and through. Texas and I were soooo happy to make it back home that night to our doggies and to our little house on the prairie. Err, on the farm.