Oh, Christmas Tree ~ Oh, Christmas Tree~~~

 The Christmas tree has been adorned for the Holiday Season...

The beautiful tree this year is covered with pearl beaded ornaments, vintage beads, burgundy glass bulbs with hand-painted reindeer, cinnamon pinecones, dried red roses and absolutely covered in dried Russian Sage and Lavender from my garden last Summer.

Of Horses and Chandeliers...

The things that excite you are not random...

Like beautiful chandeliers...

This beauty was found at a yardsale and it is now proudly hanging in my new office, I need to get some pictures soon.

And beautiful horses...

This is "Prada." She is a 2 1/2 year-old filly born at our farm...

If you 'Fall,' I will be there...

Except today~~~
Today, I was busy raking up all of the Autumn leaves and cleaning up the front yard...

When I was finished my front patio pots looked so empty. I detest empty porch pots, it's a phobia I have, well that and parallel parking...

I went for a walk wondering what I could do to perk things up on the front patio and the sagebrush and rabbitbrush along the trail were just breathtaking. I came home and ravaged my garden for some dried flowers and walked up into the brush and cut some seed heads and branches from various desert bushes and I filled those beautiful pots with some dried florals.

I used wild rose branches with some leaves still on them, dried wild sunflowers, some sagebrush seed heads, Russian sage, rabbitbrush with the yellow seed pods in full bloom, some dried yarrow flowers, dried sedum flowers and some raspberry canes with some leaves still clinging on...

A temporary home for the milk cow...

My hubby had a few days off this week, so he spent a little time building a temporary shelter for the bovines. Cows are similar to children I'm learning. New things really excite them. My cows LOVE straw. I'm not sure they've ever had it before, but they have developed quite a love of it this last month at our farm. 

The cows were sleeping in this morning...

We have been having record-breaking COLD weather here in Central Utah...

The water troughs have been frozen solid. I've never seen such a thing this early in the year.

We have discussed putting up a barn for Clara and her calf, but we just haven't had to the time. We do have the possibility of moving them across the road to a stall in our horse barn, but it's not quite ideal.

Then, this record-breaking cold front moved in...

Day 24 with Clara the Dexter milk cow...

I had a hard time sleeping the night Clara kicked me over. I was pretty sore. She made a direct hit on my wrist and arm and let's face it, a 700# cow, cow kicking you over with a direct hit on your wrist is painful. So was falling over backward on a metal stool...

I'm not scared of Clara. We have horses, we have sheep and we have big dogs - I've been kicked before, well not a direct hit on the wrist, but I've been pretty beaten up by the hair kids from time to time. Years ago a horse kicked my front teeth out while pitching a fit. I've been through a bit of drama over the years living on a farm.

Clara is an easy fix~~~

Day 23 with Clara the Dexter milk cow - October 21st~~~

So, the first week I let Clara and her steer calf get settled in. I spent a lot of time with them, but I didn't have a stanchion to try milking her and as was relayed in the previous posts about Clara, I was calf sharing with her steer calf Billy, so I didn't have to milk her right now. He was doing all the milking for me for the first little bit which was perfect...

The second week, my husband made me a stanchion and the milking began. Aside from the delay getting Clara up on the stanchion and the circus getting her calf penned off of her to get any milk, I was starting to milk out 3/4 gallon for home use. It was going great. I was penning Billy at night, so I could get the morning milk. Clara was kind of working into a routine and it was getting easier. Then, it started to get cold at night and Clara started to hold back her milk. She was only giving me 2 cups now. No matter how hard I tried to get more milk, it wasn't happening and I was changing schedules milking in the morning and at night trying to get more...

The third week... October 21st~~~
October 21st is a day that will live on in infamy at our farm...