Our Fishing Expedition

First I have to start with a few photos that my brother and sister-in-law took on their super duper fancy camera. They took awesome photos! And they let me keep the ones I wanted. How great are they! And the best part was I didn't have to lug the heavy camera around. Because I would be highly likely to break it. I usually break my camera every year or two, and in fact both my cameras are cracked, one from a caving trip and another from photographing calves. But I digress.


Here are my brother and niece Maria clearly enjoying our gorge adventure.

A little assistance now and then made it possible for the little ones to do most of the trip on their own. Desert Boy's cowboy boots perhaps weren't the best choice for climbing footwear, but he managed. I have a feeling he would have done most of the hike wearing just about anything.

Oh my goodness, I look pregnant again! That's just Desert Girl tucked away next to me. She was a happy camper. And now we're ready to start the next adventure, the adventure that got Desert Boy into the van. We were going to go fishing.

We went to the rocky shore of the nearby lake. After we all piled out of the van, the two guys who had been camping there left. I guess we were making a little too much noise for them! Usually no one is at this lake, so we were surprised to see them.

Desert Boy loves to go fishing, even though he's never caught a fish. We knew he wouldn't catch anything here, even though there were Sacramento perch and catfish in the lake. How did we know? Because we took off the barbed hook to avoid painful injuries and replaced it with
a sinker.
Maria's approach to fishing was using the net in the puddles. You might be able to tell that her pants are soaked from the knees down. She was so happy to do fishing her way.

The pole was a little long and heavy for Desert Boy, but he didn't let that stop him.

It was a perfect day for a fishing excursion, with the rocks blocking the wind, the warm sun keeping us comfortable, and nothing else on the agenda. We would have stayed longer, but somehow two little kids managed to get very wet in a short amount of time. Desert Boy was already in his second outfit of the day and didn't have any other dry clothes in the vehicle, so he got to go home wrapped in blankets.

Adventure Walk in the Gorge

We started an adventure walk the other day with a beautiful sight--a flock of ibis flying overhead. These slightly-funny looking birds looked so graceful flying in a flock, all turning and swooping at the same moment.

They flew over our destination, a gorge just a few miles from our house. There are wonderful little canyons (or ravines, depending on your perspective) and badland-like formations. I had never really explored the gully, and it seemed like it would be a great time to do it while we had our adventurous company visiting.

We started off going down a steep path to get down into the gully. Then we found a way across the creek and started hiking with the steep, sandy walls rising above us.

Maria enjoyed the obstacles in the narrow ravines and got a little help now and then to surpass them.

She did the tunnel all by herself, though, in both directions. Sometimes it's really good to be small.

We enjoyed looking at a layer of sea shells in the ravine walls, indicating wetter times.

We also got a nature experience when we noticed Henry chasing tiny baby rabbits. Although he scared them, he fortunately didn't cause long-lasting damage. They were really cute and found places to hide from him relatively fast. The ravine was full of little burrows and hiding spots. It would be interesting to go at night and see what else was there.

My sister-in-law Sarah looking for more wildlife. I love her pose! She was truly awesome on this hike, squeezing through the tight side canyons, climbing up and over the stream, carrying Maria at times, and all this while she's seven months pregnant!

Maria was having a blast, and she even ventured fairly far from her parents to go see what else was in the canyon.

I missed seeing an owl fly from this hole, but the white droppings extending below it show that it's active.

After a while, my brother decided to climb out of the ravine, and he found a fun bone yard.

Desert Boy and Maria had fun checking out more "dinosaur" bones.

Some of them were heavy. They must have been big dinosaurs.

We found another fun-looking ravine to descend into the main gorge. It was tremendous fun going up and down, and the erosion patterns on the walls were fascinating. There were several small soil-pipe caves, where the water had eroded crawling-size holes through the softer sediments.

Once we got down into the main gorge and headed back to the van, we found that the bushes were too dense. So we found another ravine to head back up. Then we went across and found another place to go down, cross the side ravine, and then another gully to head back up. It was even more exciting than what "the map*" had told us.

*"The map" refers to Dora the Explorer, which has played a big role in many of our adventure hikes. This time we got out "the map" when we reached the dinosaur bones. It told us we had to go through the bushes, down a deep, dark gully, and then up a sandy hill to get to the van. What do you know, the map was right again!

My brother and Maria against a gorgeous background. We had such a good time and were never far from where we parked. This will definitely be a place to go back to for more adventures.

We made it back safely. Hurray, we did it! Lo hicimos! (Sorry, that's more Dora-speak. I've been indoctrinated.) And for a fitting end, we concluded the adventure walk with a snack. After all, we needed some energy for our next adventure, which was just around the corner (literally).

Fun Visitors

We are enjoying a visit with my brother, sister-in-law, and their cutie pie daughter Maria. Desert Boy and Maria started off the visit by playing in water. Clean water (for a change). I thought Maria took Desert Boy's welcoming gesture with quite a bit of grace. Desert Boy is learning a little about fairness. After he poured water on her head, he asked her to do the same to him. And she did.

The next day we went on an adventure walk. Maria is also familiar with Dora the Explorer, and it is amazing what you can get kids to do if they think they are exploring like Dora. We even got out the map (a stick drawing in the dirt) to learn that after we went through the willow tunnels, we had to jump over the cow pies, walk in the ditch, and cross the gate to get to the van. There was excitement in the air! We had a destination and obstacles to cross to get to it.

Maria and Desert Boy were a very good height for negotiating the willow tunnels. They could go many places the adults couldn't--or wouldn't go.

The willow tunnels also held surprises, like a cow skull. They had fun examining it. Then we had to look for other bones.

And we found the best surprise of all--a huge dinosaur bone. It came home with us and is waiting to be excavated in the sand box.

Like Desert Boy's irrigating boots? They are his favorite footwear for adventure hikes so that he can get wet. We didn't get wet on this particular adventure walk, but in an upcoming one you will see him drenched. Despite the irrigating boots.

Thinking Outside the Box

The other day Desert Boy declared he wanted his train tracks to go in the canyons. Apparently that meant under his train table. I helped him make a circuitous route and he brought down the accessories.

He arranged the accessories quite nicely. In the background, you can see Desert boy pushing the little train under the table.

This table is low, even for a preschooler. That didn't stop him. It stopped me, though, so I wasn't able to chase his train as much as he wanted me to. He's big into chasing, on the playground, on the train table, and through the canyons.

He did manage to take a break long enough to flash me a smile. What a charmer.

It was fun watching how entertained he was running his train in a slightly different way.

So I guess I should have titled this post under the table, but that didn't have quite the right ring to it. Now that Desert Boy saw me writing this post he wants to return his train tracks to the ground.

And here's a photo totally off the subject, but I figure a little bit of drool is a good way to help get through the day!

Desert Boy's Elmo Cupcakes

Desert Boy is turning three, and to celebrate with his preschool class the other day he wanted some Elmo cupcakes. I thought about it and told him okay. After all, last year he wanted a train cake and if I do say so myself, it came out pretty spectacular. We had an engine and three train cars, all decorated with bright colors and an assortment of trimmings. Never mind that the cake was literally held together was frosting, it still tasted and looked great!

Back to the Elmo cupcakes. I looked on the Internet and saw the photo above and thought how adorable those cupcakes were. Surely I could make something similar, especially since I had a new icing doohickey with different tips.

So I gave it my best try, and this is what I ended up with:

My husband didn't even know who the cupcakes were supposed to represent and said they looked scary.

This poor Elmo even had a runny nose.

Note to others aspiring to make Elmo cupcakes: if you don't know how to work icing doohickeys, take the shortcuts. For eyes cut large marshmallows in half or use little candy eyes. For the nose use an orange gumdrop so you don't have to mix food coloring for half an hour to try to get an orange color. For a mouth use some black licorice or half a wafer of an Oreo cookie.

Of course I didn't have any of those ingredients on hand, and I didn't have time to drive an hour to the grocery store to get them.

Fortunately, Desert Boy didn't care. He was so happy to have candles to blow out on his Elmo cupcakes.

And his friends were delighted to eat them. Mission accomplished. And those of you who have made picture perfect Elmo cupcakes, just keep it to yourself!

More photos from the calf roundup

Here are some more scenes from the old-fashioned calf roundup and processing day. Above is a shot of the cowboy getting both of the calf's hind legs roped. Success!

Although mostly the cowboys were doing the roping, cowgirl Tana gave it a try. She got right in there and started swinging that rope around her head.

Here she is concentrating. See the rope going across her thigh? She roped a calf!

Here's Tana and her horse keeping the horse in place as the processing team goes to work. Tana said she didn't think she was going to be doing any cowgirling that day, hence she didn't get all dudded up.

Here are three cowboys wearing the "proper" cowboy attire. They're waiting as the calves they caught get processed.

Back in the truck little Aron and Desert Boy didn't really know what to make of each other. It will be interesting to see if they grow up to like what their outfits reflect. Aron may be a cowboy like his daddy while Desert Boy may prefer tractors and machinery like his daddy. Or maybe not!

Even Ashley got into the action helping, despite being nine months pregnant. I wish I looked that good when I was nine months along!

It was a busy, fun day.

Here's a mama cow checking on her calf. All the calves quickly rebounded after getting their shots and found their mamas for comfort.

Caleb and Desert Boy watching from the back of the truck. Caleb also got down and sat on calves and carried supplies.

This is a cowboy from another ranch who came to help.

Here's cousin Clay. He roped quite a few calves. Clay was the youngest roper, at age 16, while Lee was the oldest, at 90. Both did very well.

Ranchhand Tim was having a great day. He much preferred processing calves this way to the calf table in the corral like he did last year.

Here's the processing team waiting for the calf to get the last vaccination before being released.
Merlin is from another ranch. He was clearly experienced in roping and consistently brought back a calf every few minutes.

Fortunately it wasn't a very windy day, because the horses and calves did raise a bit of dust!

Definitely the action was more exciting, but the back of the truck crew had fun watching! I was glad to have the opportunity to be there for awhile on the warm spring day. This was the first time our ranch had done the calf processing the old-fashioned way, as far as anyone could remember (although I didn't ask Lee, and he would be the one to ask!). I guess it's time to go practice my roping skills so next year I can help out ;)