We woke up this morning as we always do, and we went out to feed the animals. This time I brought a camera to take pictures of all of the ridiculous animals.
Because of the weather, we’ve been keeping the below three horses in the “large paddock.” Today, we let them out to run around in the field. They ran around for a good 10 minutes.
From left to right is Maple, Onora and Aspen.
While I was out in the pasture I took a picture of our house in the snow:
Donald and Amber made our first snowman of the year. Hopefully there will be many more to come:
Anna got a “Make Your Own Snowman Kit” from Diana Henderson for Christmas, and Anna knitted a scarf to match. Here’s a picture of the builders standing next to their creation so you can see how “ginormous” the snowman really is:
(This was before they added the arms.)
Enjoy,
Ashton Anna
We have had 3 to 4 feet of snow fall here in Montana so far this Winter. Right now there is about a foot of snow on the ground. And since I’ve never gone sledding for more than a couple of feet, we went out and hit our neighbor’s hill. Anna purchased a sweet snow tube at the beginning of last summer, and we had some 1 person tubes we used on the river. Here’s Anna and Ashton in our river tube:
We’d estimate that this slope is 300 feet long. Here’s a video of some of the crazy slopes we took:
Then we got tired of hiking that ridiculous hill, so we had Cory pull us behind his old Toyota Land Cruiser.
Happy New Year,
Ashton Anna
First off, if you didn’t know, our neighborhood is awesome. Everyone is very down to earth and nice. One of our neighbors, raises cows. Yes, it’s the same neighbor that herds his cows in front of our house. Our horses have gotten better about the cows now that they’ve seen them a number of times, but they still need some work.
Anyway, to get on with the story, we decided to purchase half of a small cow from this neighbor. We talked about it last winter, and last Thursday (day before Halloween), we get a call saying, “Your half a cow is ready to be butchered. How would you like it cut.” We didn’t have any sort of warning, but it was too late to do anything else, so we told them what we wanted, and today (Monday), Anna went and picked up 3 heavy boxes full of meat.
Here’s some pictures of the tiny fridge that Anna purchased filled with most of the meat (about 30lbs had to go into the kitchen freezer):
We got:
81.85lbs of Ground Beef
106.84lbs of steaks, roasts, ribs, etc.
Totaling 188.69lbs of Beef
The cost of the 1/2 cow including butchering came to about $723 (approx. $3.83/lb). Which not a scream of a deal, but the cow is grown on the pasture right next to my house, so it’s 58x better than what you would by in the store. =)
(Random side note: We just realized recently that both Anna and I (Ashton) have “O” Blood Type, which thrives on meat. Good thing, too.)
That’s all from the Farm today,
Ashton Anna
*Edit: As brought to my attention by the newlyweds, I forgot to mention why Anna and I went to Maui in the first place: (I blame lack of sleep – that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it ;))
Anna’s father & step-mom decided to get married in Lahaina, Maui and invited all of his children and grandchildren to celebrate with him at a large house right on the beach, which they kindly paid for. (Most of the sunset pictures below were taken from the back porch!) We had a great time. Thank you John and Lisa for inviting us and providing such a great place to hang out and relax.
After Anna and I got married, we decided that we’re going to go on one vacation/honeymoon a year. And since we were married on September 21st, going to Maui for John and Lisa’s wedding in October was a perfect “Honeymoon Version 2.0.”
I think I have finally gotten all of my blog-worthy Maui Pictures cropped and uploaded. I’m not going to lie: I’ve posted way too many pictures, but it’s better than the alternative. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to add captions to all of the images, but I’ll try grouping them.
Anna’s sister, Diana Henderson, is an amazing photographer and posted some of her Maui pictures on her photography blog. I definitely recommend checking those out. (You may have to scroll down a little.)
Okay, let’s get started with a picture of us:
Now that we got that out of the way, time for some babies:
Madeleine
Jace
Mason
Turtles
Biggest Single Tree Ever
Etc.
Just because it was ridiculous, Anna and I will tell the story of our trip home to Montana from Maui:
On Sunday, we helped pack up the cars, and drove to the airport with the family. The family left on a 2:00 PM flight, and we left on a 7:00 PM flight. After dropping off John’s rental car (hehe), we “relaxed” in the airport until we could check our bags at 4:30.
We got on the plane in Maui at 6:30 and landed in Kona, Hawaii at 7:30. After sitting in the plane for another 45 minutes, we left again, arriving in Seattle Washington approximately 5.5 hours later at 5:30 AM (Ashton got 2 hours of sleep, and Anna couldn’t sleep.)
We switched planes again and finally arrived in Spokane, Washington at 8:00 AM on Monday. We got in our car, and drove for 4 1/2 hours arriving home at 2:30 PM (with baggage and lunch).
Yep, ridiculous.
Enjoy,
AshtonAnna