Summer is just peeking around the corner and the ranch is a busy beehive of activity right now.  Rows of freshly cut grass fill the fields, bales are being picked up day by day and Dev’s little turnips are poking their heads out.  After winter dragged its feet leaving the scene, it feels like the heat pounced on us out of nowhere in the last few weeks, and the skies have filled with thunderclouds over and over again.

It has rained. And rained some more. The mosquitos are having a heyday with anyone outside.

If you wonder what we’re doing up here, you can probably pick an activity out of your hat at random and you’d be right. There’s always the fencing. And the fixing tractors/trailers/quads/pipes/balers/wagons/tires/roads/haysheds… Then there’s the cabins (cleaning), and mowing the grass… And the horses – with babies needing training and the adults shifting from field to field on the farm, munching up all the spare grass throughout the corners of the ranch.

Irrigation never ends – though the big silvers (behemoth and leviathan as I’ve named them) help out quite a bit.

Above all there is Always the cows, busy in their little game of kick the can – where we kick them up the mountain and they come racing back as fast as they can, just to see if they can get home before we catch them.

In the meantime we have family visits, and strawberry hunts, picnics and Weiner roasts, overnight camping trips and even a little outdoor church gathering. Basically, everything is happening up here – and lots of times it’s all at once!

We may be exhausted, by turns overheated, sunburnt or wet – but we wouldn’t trade this valley for anything, and we are thankful – so thankful for what we have. To all you family members and friends spread far and wide – to all those future friends we’ve yet to meet, we can’t wait for a visit – the ranch is here, the cabins are ready, and the coffee’s on!

-Kerri