August 2020

August was hot and dry. But that didn't stop Mark from starting the the month off with some amazing fishing!

While he was catching the big ones, I was at the ranch with the boys spending the last day with the Texas cousins.  We did some horse riding too!

It was the last time for epic air soft battles with all the cousins together.

                              

While they were up in the hills, I watched the sun set.

And enjoyed time at the beautiful ranch with my beautiful mom and sisters.  Mandy must have thought something was funny at the moment I snapped this picture.  This is summer.  This is family. This is my favorite.

Back at Mini Meadows Farm (my new farm name), I cannot get enough of Precious.  She has truly become "my precious." She is the sweetest and cutest goat we have.

Mark got invited on a last minute fishing float trip with a friend.  He packed right up and headed to the Snake. He loved it.

Our library finally opened to pick up holds and the boys settled right in to reading non stop.  I made them read outside just so they could get outdoors.

Last two times biking in Park City during Brian's mountain biking class.

Here is Brian coming down off the Park City Mountain on his last day.

Harvest time for Mini Meadows Farm sweet corn! It is the best!

Our garden went crazy.

Ray and Rusty love when I let them in the middle to eat.  They are such little piggies. It is hard to keep them trim and healthy.

I spent lots of time back by the park cutting branch after branch after branch of Russian Olive trees.

It's finally starting to be usable space!  I am so excited to open the Mini Meadows Farm petting farm and reading forest back there.

I bought many pounds of steak at Costco and we had a vacuum packing night. We all love having a freezer full of steak ready to pop in to the Sous Vide.

The boys did another two weeks of tennis lessons.  They are getting good!

Pebbles and Polly saying hello.

Precious came too, but one of the other goats frightened her and she had a pretty good faint.  Don't worry, she was only down a a couple seconds and back up to say hello.

August brought our free city dumpster, so we decided to take advantage of it and tear down part of the wall in front of our house.  So glad for Mark and the tractor!

Unfortunately it was one of the hottest days of the year.  I think it was about 105 degrees when I took this pic! But we only had the one day to get it done. 

Harvesting more corn!

Just a little family time checking out the new TV for the living room.

We had friends over for Ping Pong and Foosball. The boys loved playing with them.

Then it was the start of school.  The kids were happy, I was a wreck...completely unsure about our decision to send them and full of worry. But so far so good. Brian is in 7th and Timmy is in 5th.

The nice thing is the kids have online Fridays.  They got their work done in the morning and we went up to the ranch in the afternoon. My mom put us all to work chopping down thistles on our property.

We made a stop at Fort Washington.

Cowboy is still looking good.  I do love that boy.

Then we took Caitlin to the Oakley skate park for some rollerblading.  Timmy was having fun, I promise.  Just a funny pic of him.

Mark helped me trim the horses feet.

The last evening of August was Monday night tennis with Mark.  He often takes the boys to the courts an hour before his Monday night games to practice. They couldn't ask for a better coach!

July 2020

July is one of my favorite months in the year!  It is the epitome of summer. 

I picked up my new little buckling goat to start off the month.

His name is Pirate.

Biking on Wednesday mornings.

The garden grows!

Mark helped cut all new foam for the Scamp cushions for me because the old foam was way too hard.  I now sleep much better in there.

 

Then I took the Scamp up to the ranch and parked it in these trees.  It was like my own little camping spot through the first part of July.

July 4th came about, which also brings cousin time at the ranch and the boat race.

Sisters!

These good old horses have been so good for everyone to ride up there at the ranch.

The next generation does the same as we did as kids.  They float the ditch and ride through the culverts.

My sweet Cowboy loves the ranch.

As the weather turned dry, so did the biking trails.  Brian always looked something like this after mountain biking.

I have some neighbors that love walking the minis.

Luke brought a friend to Utah for a weekend.  Mark taught them how to fly fish.

We also took them Crayfishing at Strawberry.

We caught over 200.

And made the most delicious soup afterward!  

Same girls over to see the goats.

And wash the ponies.

Little sister came for pictures.

The chicks are getting big!

We took a camping trip to Payson Lakes with friends.  We love it up there!

After camping we went up to the ranch for Will's birthday party. It was fun to enjoy Allison's new house!

I love my little farm. I have decided to call it Mini Meadows Farm.

Mark got new parts for all the bikes and we found Timmy a new bike.  Brian helped switch the gears on his bike.  We are ready for more biking!

I took the minis up to the ranch and some of the kids helped wash and make them into pretty unicorns.  Emily took some great pictures for me.

My little ponies!

We went biking at the bike Oakley bike park.  We got Emily mountain biking one time!

I happened to get a video of Mark taking a fall at the bike park. I think it is kind of funny only because he didn't get hurt.

Mark did some great grilling in July.  Yum!

Kids still spend some good time in the sand at home.

I started clearing out a section at the back of the property for a future petting farm area I am going to open.  We will see how long this takes me to get up and running. Maybe Covid will be over by the time I am ready to launch.

Loving fresh farm produce!