Pelted

This is about as close to snow as we get here in northern California.  Hail.  It comes down hard and fast, though it's not the golf ball sized hail balls the Midwest seems to get, but everyone still runs for cover.

The cows are sheltered in their safe freestall barn,  Joey was too lazy to walk to his barn and decides to take cover under the huge oak tree in his pasture and Chloe gets the urge for a potty break at this very moment and as I open the sliding glass door to let her out, she decides against it.

As for Dominic, he still goes about his work on the dairy; feeding cows, scraping barns all while getting pelted by hail and soaked by the rain.

The rest of us; Bryce, Paige and cousins, Cam and Leila, who are here for a play date and sleepover found indoor activities to keep entertained......

Trouble x's two....

What is it with boys and video games?  Does this love of video games carry on into adulthood?  If I allowed it, they would be on this Nintendo 24-7.

What do you do to keep entertained on a stormy day?

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What Happens When You Turn a Six Year Old Loose at a FFA Cake Auction?

The temptation was too much for our six year old, Bryce.  He saw all these sugar coated treats and couldn't help himself with his bidding.  Paige and I stayed at home, we had a "cranky" day yesterday and she needed to go to sleep at an earlier time so we missed all the fun. 

The Petaluma FFA Cake Auction is a fundraiser for Petaluma FFA.  It happens once a year and is always something to look forward to.  Before Dominic and Bryce headed over to the event, I gave Bryce my point and shoot camera with instructions to take some photos of the event.  He loves a job, especially when it involves my camera.

Bryce surveyed the goods.

Picked out his choices to bid on.

Before the auction, a potluck dinner is eaten by the guests.  A huge array of food to choose from.

Okay, back to the cakes.  This next cake up for bid was Bryce's front runner.  He REALLY wanted it.

The bidding is up to $55, the auctioneer looks at Bryce and asks, "Will you go $60?"

Bryce yells, "I'll go $100!!" 

Going once, going twice........SOLD for $60 to the 6 year old with Daddy's check book!

Sold again to the 6 year old!

And one last time, SOLD for $90 to the 6 year old! {this homemade toffee is to DIE for! Worth every dollar!}

It's a good thing we have our annual Marin County Farm Bureau holiday dinner planned for tonight, because the 20 pound cake is going to the restaurant with us.

Other related posts you may enjoy:
The Dairy Judging Team
A Saturday Night Out - FFA Fundraiser
Scotland or Bust - FFA Fundraiser
Scotland Adventure - Go Team!
Ag in the New Classroom


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It's Looking a lot Like Christmas, here at our home on the dairy

We broke out the Christmas decorations on Tuesday.  No, we don't have our tree yet but I thought it might work out better if we spread out our decorating over a five day period or so....plus I had to dig out the advent calendar for the kids. Can't miss a day!  They are so excited, each day, to find what treats await them in the little drawers.

Along with the calendar, out came the garland for the mantel and my small collection of Nutcrackers.  Paige didn't remember these from last Christmas and became SO excited when she saw them. 

"Mommy are those soldiers?!!"

And to go along with all the decorating we had a fire going, some Christmas music playing and I sipped on another seasonal favorite of mine, Ginger Snappish tea....SO good.

Mixed with a teaspoon of french vanilla creamer, it was perfect.

To end a perfect day, we went over to Bryce and Paige's Great Grandma and Grandpa's house, here on the ranch, for a turkey dinner.  What a treat!  Everything Great Grandma cooks is delicious, no joke.  I think I had the juiciest turkey ever! 

Great Grandma has a toy box full of toys for the grand kids to play with, but what do they find?  I don't think this was a toy, but they played with it the entire night.

How's your decorating coming along?  Do you have your tree up yet?

Happy Thursday!

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Larabar~Nasty Hair~The Mitts

After my boot camp class at the gym this morning I was really craving a little something to eat right away.  I normally wait an hour or so before eating something after class, but I guess my body just needed that energy earlier this morning.  So I tried one of these Larabars.  Have you tried them?  I don't know much about them but on the package they claim to be 'real food' which to me interprets to minimally processed.  Well, they are super good and let me tell you, it did taste as though I was eating a cashew cookie.  What a treat! And just what I needed.

Moving on to afternoon playtime.  Fun for the kids, but repercussions = more work for me because of lots of this.......

which normally ends up like this.......

this..............

this....................

and this.............

Oh, and a whole lot of this...........

I just can't deny them playtime in the commodity barn.....it's SO much fun for them!

And it's a good thing Dominic does his own laundry otherwise I think I would be an absolute slave to the washer and dryer.......so, it could be worse, right?.

On days like today, I definitely feel like a short order cook as well.  My kids are always hungry and I don't like to feed them a lot of processed foods {but don't get me wrong, they do eat them}.  My kids don't eat many cooked veggies, but they LOVE raw veggies which is even better.  So many times I will serve a little platter of veggies and dip for snack or with dinner.  They're really not into the dip but I am.

It's a cilantro roasted pecan dip I picked up from Trader Joe's and it's so yummy!

A few of you have asked me where I found these oven mitts after spotting them on my healthy zucchini bread post.  Well they are by Martha Stewart and I found them on my shopping trip with my cousin to San Francisco {Macy's}.  My kitchen has red accents, so I fell in love with these rooster/hen mitts.  So, there you go!

Okay, gotta go!  Off to a girl's B-Day dinner at Wild Fox.

Happy Monday!

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Fresh Milk Straight From the Cow

There is almost nothing better than waking up on a foggy, Sunday morning by the smell of coffee brewing and knowing there's fresh milk, straight from our cows waiting to be poured into that coffee cup.  All that rich, creamy goodness is such a treat!

I have to say, if we didn't have access to our own fresh, raw milk I wouldn't buy it at the grocery store.  I would stick to the pasteurized.  But since we do, we run down to the milk tank almost daily to fill up our milk pitcher.

Hmmm....just heavenly.

Bryce's Special K cereal.

 Okay, time to begin the day!

 

Let's move on to chickens...... 

Later in the day we drove over to my sister's house to visit their 2 month old baby chicks.  I had been meaning to get over there to take some photos of them when they were first born, all fluffy and cute but I never made it.  Not that they're not cute now, but I wanted to get some photos of all the fluff they were sporting when they were smaller.

These chicks were hatched in an incubator at my sister's house.  They ended up with four hens and four roosters.  They are now two months old and with most of their feathers coming in.  More fresh eggs coming soon to their house!  We were going to take four or so hens for our own upbringing but since there were only four hens out of the hatched chicks, we'll wait for the next incubator batch.

Remember Snowball ?  There she is looking in from the outside.  The baby chicks are kept in their coop for their own protection and until they are big enough to fly.

Paige, the animal lover wanted to hold every one of them.

And I couldn't leave without checking in on the baby bunnies that aren't very tiny anymore....remember them?  Here's Cinnamon saying hi!

To complete the afternoon, a fun ride on a mini 4-wheeler.

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