Wacky Weimy Wednesday: Together Again

For the last couple of days I've been outta town, on a rare "mini vacation" with my travelin' man. It's always nice to get away but, of course, I miss my Wacky Weimies like crazy every time! I got back into town this morning, but had to work today, so I spent all day looking forward to picking these two up. We have a little boarding place that we found that's really close to our house. The owners are great; all vet records are required of course and they encourage family members to feel free to come by to check on the critters, especially for people who are dealing with leaving a pet for the first couple of times. They have very reasonable rates, and the dogs absolutely love it there. They get to share a really big enclosure, which feeds out into a large run that they can tear up and down and explore. We feel so lucky to have found this place so close to home. It took them a couple of stays to completely get used to being away from home, but now they get super excited and willingly jump out of the car as soon as we pull into the driveway. They know that they have a fun couple of days of running around ahead of them.

As much as they love it there, though, I still know that they must be missin' me like crazy...right?? I hope so anyway...this time, Cabela didn't even say "bye" to me. She just went right to work exploring and sniffing! I felt kinda like a mom dropping her child off at pre-school...the day always comes when the little one is a little less clingy and a bit more confident. ;)

I felt better when I picked them up today, though. They could tell I was there before I even went to get them...they've learned the sound of our car. I wouldn't be surprised if they heard me coming up the road! I got out of my car, only to be greeted by two Weimy voices loud and clear. I took care of the bill and then went to go fetch my crazies. Since the place is all fenced, I usually just let 'er rip and let them jump into the car. Cabela usually heads straight for "her door" of the car but this time she had to pause to give me a great doggie greeting. Yay! I'm not chopped liver after all! ;)


The pictures above are all from the ride home...they were so excited.
My favorite part about picking them up...they are dead tired for the rest of the night! They sure do get their fill of fun and exercise!

Sunday Stills: Textures

Sunday Stills: Textures

A couple of nights ago I got to have dinner at my mom's and afterwards we headed out to the garden to pick raspberries. There's nothing much better than raspberries fresh from the garden!

While we were out there, I started noticing all sorts of things with texture so I hijacked her camera and then she e-mailed these to me...thanks mom! :) Hopefully I haven't overloaded everyone with the "bees on flowers" pictures, because here's a couple more. These are allium, which are in the onion family. Mom says they winter over and she pretty much just keeps them around for the bumble bees to enjoy...which they certainly were! I really liked the hairy texture of these. I might have to dig a couple of hers up and put them in my garden next year! They're fun to take pictures of!


This one is the inside of a fava bean.

This one is actually from today. I spent the entire day spreading a compost/grass seed mixture. It was really warm and before I knew it, all these butterflies were coming in to hang out on it and sun themselves.

Thanks for visiting!

A Follicular Epiphany

After fourteen years of internal struggle, I've had a major revelation and I have finally come to terms with a very important fact. Ready?

I.AM.NOT.A.NATURAL.BLONDE. Nor have I been for about twenty-four years now. Since I was a little California punk running around in the sun all the time.

Question…why do little kids always have the prettiest hair?! I would love to have this head of hair back. Nice sun streaks, natural wave, and no maintenance other than an occasional brushing.

No hair products required. No deep intensive conditioners, straightening irons, etc, etc. And do you think I appreciated this hair when I was younger? Of course not! I wasn’t even thinking about it!

Just look at this smug little punk!

But trust me, I started thinking about it when I hit about nine and my mane started taking on a life of its own! By eleven, my hair could have applied for its own zip code.

Hel-lo-o?? Kuntry Girl? You in there under all that hair?!

Like most gals, I definitely have had a love/hate relationship with my hair over the years. However, I think I am finally in a place where I can appreciate my hair for what it is. This comes after years and years of total denial. For about half of my lifetime now I've tried to convince my hair that it wants to be blonde and straight. However, persistent as I have been, that darn mane of mine just keeps coming back brown and curly! C'mon hair, work with me!!

The struggle started at fourteen, when I poured the cheapest bottle of lightener you could find over my head, only to learn that "color results may vary from the example shown". Uh-huh. They sure did. My "results" were more along the lines of carrot orange. This was the day that started the whole cycle though...I truly think that since that day I have never had a full head of my natural color!

Lately, though, it's been pretty close. For the last few months I've been trying to convince myself that I should just keep letting my hair grow out and let the sun bleach it. I've been putting lemon juice on it and going out with it wet...it's been working a little, but I usually have my hair up when I'm outside, so only my hairline was really getting lightened.

So last night I caved. But this is where the epiphany comes in. I made the command decision to do subtle caramel highlights, rather than dramatically lighten it. This way, my grow-out will be less noticeable and it won't be quite so damaging.

Care to join me on my journey to caramel highlights?

Check out my sweet "tack box"! I got this for myself a couple of years ago and I love it!!

So, when I'm foiling my own mane, I generally start at the bottom and work my way up.

That way, I'm not obstructed by all sorts of foils on top of my head, which would make it very hard to reach back there.

After doing the bottom, I then section out the next hemisphere and follow the same process.

I always pull it forward and brush the dye on from the underside. Otherwise, I would be reaching behind my head and it would never work. Not for me, at least...that would equal big mess, just waiting to happen.

Another hemisphere down, two to go!

Ah, sweet victory. By this time, my eyeballs are starting to hurt from looking up from underneath the foils. Letting 'em marinate. You can see here that my hair has some left over highlights starting to come through. This is pretty close to my natural color, but I did have some root issues going on. So it was either put some darker low lights in to blend it, or go with some summer highlights...highlights triumphed.

Ta da! Just what I was going for...summery highlights without being too dramatic. Not convinced that I absolutely love this specific color, though. It might take some experimenting to get the exact color that I want. But now that I've had this epiphany and broadened my horizons, my options are much greater!
Of course, there's still a lot of summer left...I can't guarantee that I won't revert back to my old ways. It's just so fun to have blonde, blonde hair in the summer! I'm going to try to stay strong, though. For my follicular health, if nothing else.

You never know, though...don't be surprised if you see "A Follicular Epiphany, Part Deux: I Cracked"! ;) Ha, ha!! We'll see!

Wacky Weimy Wednesday: Slap Me Some Skin Sista!

One of our favorite tricks. :)

When life gives you lemons...

...go make yourself a fruit tart. And then go plant some daisies.

Okay, so yesterday was one of "those days". I haven't had one of "those days" for quite sometime and I have been very much enjoying the lack of drama or major strife in my life these days...things certainly haven't always been this way. My 28 years on this planet have definitely been full of ups and downs, and I'm well aware of the fact that sometimes things are just out of our control.

Having this awareness, I really strive for a drama-free existence and for the most part enjoy a pretty darn simple life. Which suits me just fine. However, with this being the case, I think having one of "those days" affects me more now than it used to...even when it's not really all that bad. I'm a pretty upbeat person, though, and will generally try to see the positive side in most situations. It just might take me a day or so to get there. Having said that, I do feel much better today. ;)

You know how the saying goes...when it rains....yep, you got it. When it rains, it pours. Well, I guess I don't need to be quite so dramatic. It didn't really pour on me yesterday. It was more like a drizzle. A heavy drizzle though.

The crappiest part of yesterday was finding out that our trusty truck has sprung a major oil leak and will need the rear main seal replaced. Which just happens to be the most expensive type of oil leak repair there is. The whole transmission needs to be pulled in order to get to it. The part itself is cheap, cheap, cheap, but the job is super labor intensive. If you were lucky, you might just be dealing with cracked valve covers. Oh, but wait! We have those too! Cha-ching! Not to mention a whole laundry list of other maintenance issues that need to be addressed. Cha-ching, cha-ching!

The other crappy parts really weren't that big of a deal at all, but they didn't help my sour mood. First, I had an appointment to go get hay. The sky looked a little threatening, but so far it hadn't started raining. Until I got the trailer hooked up and was heading down to the barn. Of course. Thankfully, it was just a light drizzle passing through. Then, after unloading the hay, I leveled one of my temporary T-Posts with the trailer. Comical. Then, the trailer got stuck on my towing ball. Had to try all sorts of trick maneuvers to get it to lift off. Took the dogs for a walk after all this, thought it would be good to clear my head. Dogs not so cooperative. Caleb gave me a "flat tire" in his excitement to get his leash on. I might have cursed when this happened. Neither felt like walking politely, but instead wanted to pull me in two separate directions the whole time.

After the walk, I decided to to work with Caspian a bit. I took some deep breaths first...no point in working him up too. I felt like I was in a pretty good state of mind and everything started out well. We were working on "round penning" without the lunge line and he was doing great until he decided it was time to be done and that he didn't want to trot clockwise. Which he demonstrated to me by kicking out at me when I was getting after him. Buger. He got in some trouble for this one. Don't be surprised if you don't hear about it on his blog. I think he's a little abashed about the whole thing. Thankfully, he wasn't really packing any oomph behind it and he just barely grazed my hand...didn't even leave a sore spot. But still, way to kick your Kuntry Girl when she's down!

I finally just had to get a good chuckle out of it all...most of it was comical. Then, I started singing that Wynonna song, "I Feel Lucky"....ya know how it goes at the beginning "the stars are stacked against you girl, get back in bed"? I kept telling myself, "you should just call it a night and get in bed before something else happens!"

So anyway, back to the truck. After finding out the good news we went through the usual debate...fix the truck or break down and get a new one? My hubby has actually been dreaming of a new truck for at least a year now, but it just isn't all that practical at this point in time. We can't see forking over a big ol' down payment as well as taking on a car payment (and increased insurance) for a truck that would sit for 6 months out of the year. However, if we traded in our truck, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. But, it really is a good truck and we always said that even when we do get another one someday, we will always keep this one around. It's a perfect little workhorse...which has also happened to be a great every day truck for us.

For the most part, we've been lucky with it...we've taken care of the regular maintenance...timing belt, brakes, etc. This is the first surprise it's pulled on us.

Anyway, after mulling it over, we decided that the best option would be to fix it. Hopefully, this will get us a few more good years of life from it. Neither one of us is all that comfortable with taking on a new truck payment in this economy. Not for the kind of truck we would want anyway!

I feel thankful because at least we have the means to get the repair done. However, I'm irritated because that means I'm probably going to need to re-evaluate the current state of my projects. Again, I always try to find the positive side of things so here goes:

• I will now be seeding our lawn, instead of laying sod. This is going to save quite a bit of $$ and won't be so labor intensive. I was initially overwhelmed by the thought of doing it this way, but I think I'm gonna do it in sections so getting it established will be more manageable. Another benefit is that I will be able to follow the contours of our flowerbeds easier, rather than having to cut a ton of sod to the correct shape.
• Rather than buy new plants for the landscape, I can divide ones I already have. Also, I've been meaning to dig up some of our native daisies for our flower gardens. So tonight I did. I really love them and they were free! :)
• Instead of getting overly ambitious (which I tend to do) and starting all sorts of new projects, I'm going to hunker down and focus on finishing ones that I've started. I will work on collecting rocks around the property (for free!) to finish placing around the pond to cover the liner. Instead of stressing about getting all of our fencing up, I will focus on a couple of areas. I will work on digging into our dirt mound (free native dirt left over from excavating) to build up our flowerbeds around the house. This list could go on and on. The point is, I have plenty to finish and most of it won't cost a dime. I think every once in awhile it's good to get a little reality check.

And now, for those of you who have been patient enough to read through this lengthy diatribe...thank you. I shall now share with you the recipe for the tart I referred to at the beginning of this post. For those of you who got to this post by clicking on my "cooking" label...very sorry about the novel that preceeded this recipe. ;)

CREAM CHEESE FRUIT TART

• 1 pie shell...regular or graham cracker. Your choice. I used graham cracker. And I really liked it. Not that you have to like it the way I like it. (Does anyone know what movie that's from? If you do, I will be super impressed.) Moving on...
• 2 8 oz. packages of cream cheese (let it soften a little)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons of lemon, orange, or lime rind (whatever kind you're feelin' like)
• 2 tablespoons of juice from whatever fruit you chose
• Whatever fruit you feel like arranging on top (see my selections below)

1. In a medium bowl, combine the cream cheese, sugar, fruit rind and fruit juice.
2. Beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, scraping sides of bowl often, about 1 to 2 minutes.
3. Transfer into your chosen crust.
4. Chill at least one hour before placing fruit on top.

Super, super easy (and way yummy) recipe.

For this tart, I used orange juice and rind. The fruits I used were kiwi, banana, mandarin oranges, raspberries, and a pineapple bulls-eye in the middle. I felt compelled to elaborate on my selections due to the foggy plastic cover obscuring the view. What kind of food photographer am I anyway?!

This was my first attempt and for it I used lemon. I liked this one, but not as much as the orange one.

Alright, so there you have it...even when things aren't so great, I think to myself...there's gotta be somethin' good about it. If nothing else, it could probably always be worse, right? Not that I'm hoping for that. Now I'm crossing my fingers. Hopefully I didn't jinx myself. ;) Thanks blogger buddies for letting me ramble on!

Keep on keepin' on!

Schnauzer Sunday

Well, I've been a total slacker this past week with my blogging. I even missed Wacky Weimy Wednesday! Aahhh! What can I say...it was kind-of a crazy one! So, since I just know that everyone's lives were totally turned upside down with the lack of a Wacky Weimy post, I hope to make it up to you with...Schnauzer Sunday.

This is our neighbor's dog, Bruno. He's a hilarious little guy with a big personality to make up for his little size.

In these photos he was trying to make his way outside to visit with us on the deck, but couldn't muster up the courage to bounce past the fan...which he's definitely capable of. Bruno and "bouncing" are synonymous.

So instead he stood there barking at it, with his moustache flying in the wind. Maybe we're just easily amused, but it was HILARIOUS! I even took a video of it, but had trouble transferrring it to my computer. Darn it!

Sorry Bruno...we were laughing with you, I promise!

Sunday Stills: Wildflowers

This week's Sunday Stills challenge is wildflowers...yay!! What a fun one!

Kicking things off with native Yarrow. I haven't really paid much attention to this plant in the past, in fact, I didn't really like it from a distance, but getting up close to it, I realized that the flowers really are quite pretty!

Thistle. Ugh. This stuff is everywhere around our house. Thankfully, it stays on the other side of our road and has not (yet) started populating our pasture. I told myself I would be weed-wacking these this year, before they went to seed, but the flowers are so unique that I decided to keep 'em around.

A few days ago, my neighbors came back from a walk exclaiming about this beautiful orange flower that they encountered on their adventure. I thought it might make a good subject for this post, so I had my neighbor drive me by the area when we were headed to dinner the other night.

Turned out to be native Tiger Lily! Wow! These were just at the edge of the woods, where they were able to get sunlight, but still have moist soil to grow in.

Native lilies...what a trip!

Baby's Breath buds. Okay, so these aren't actually native wildflowers, but ever since I sprinkled out a teeny tiny seed packet of them our first summer here they have been growing everywhere...spreading like wildflowers! Note to self: don't necessary believe the seed packet when it tells you the plant is an annual. Good thing they're pretty!

Daisies in the road...why is it that anything and everything will grow in gravel, but I can still manage to kill plants in a nutrient rich garden bed?

Even though I had Foxglove in last week's post, I would be remiss not to include it in a wildflower post. This is certainly one of my most favorite wildflowers around here.

Clover. The bane of my existance.

The end. ;) Thanks for visiting!