We’re back home again, and trying to settle into the real world again.
I worked at Camp Cherry Vally for one week, and it was a dream. I never thought I could have so much fun in one week, and be working for 16 hour days… Life is definitely very exciting out on the island.
It’s very distracting to know that right now, there is an cove full of scouts playing games and having fun without me =)
Enjoy,
Ashton
Hey All! Anna and I are coming to LA! Yea!
We’re leaving tomorrow morning, and our friends will be house sitting for us. We’re stopping in Las Vegas for a wedding, and then we’ll be in LA Monday Morning!
Unfortunately, we’ll only be in LA for a week…. =( *Sadness*
On the next Sunday, I’ll (Ashton) be going to Camp Cherry Valley for a week, and Anna will be coming home.
It is my goal to see all of my friends while we’re down in LA, so if you’re my friend, call me, and lets get together.
See you all soon,
<3
Ashton
Here are some humorous/cute pictures of my cat, Mocha, helping me make websites during the last couple months:
First step is the nap:
And then she walks in front of my monitors a couple times before deciding to jump onto my shoulder…
And then triesto get me to take a nap with her:
Okay, so she doesn’t actually help out at work any… it’s just a nice thought…
-Ashton
Yes, that time is upon us again for the quarterly hair cut. (We are about 5 weeks before the end of the quarter, but nonetheless, the time has come.)
Pics first, story later:
(Notice my inability to have a picture taken without a computer in the background… hahaha!)
Quick Story:
I’ve been trying to get Anna to learn how to cut hair. I mean c’mon! If she wants to be a real ranch woman who grows her own veggies, gets eggs from her own chickens, rides horses, and all that, she’s going to have to learn how to cut her children’s hair. And I don’t want to waste an hour driving to town to sit in a chair to pay a guy to mess up my hair. I’d rather get my hair messed up in privacy and save the money and time.
So Anna’s cutting my hair… Okay so she only used a shaver, and (as unwise as it was) I let Anna figure things out as she already didn’t really like doing it, and I didn’t want to completely scare her off by telling her how to cut my hair…
So she chose her own shaver lengths and started trimming the back of my head. Suddenly she says, “How about a buzz cut?”
“Uh…. I’ve never had my hair shorter than 1 1/2 inches… I don’t think so.”
“Ah C’mon, I think you’ll look great.”
“I don’t, just try to trim it down to an inch.”
(long pause…)
“….Too Late… Your getting a buzz cut.”
So Voila! I now have the shortest hair I’ve ever had, (except for a couple months after I was born).
-Good Times
-Ashton
Ah, they must be behind our neighbors house…
Oh yea, I guess.
*An hour passes*
Where the heck are my horses? I’m going to go find them.
*5 minutes later*
Ashton! My horses are gone!
WHAT!?!?!
That, my friends is a very entertaining start to what is sure to be an unproductive day. Anna grabs some halters and lead ropes, and we jump into the car on the quest of trying to find our four disappearing horses.
As noted in a previous post, all it takes is a couple of cows for Liana to break a fence… but this time she was on a good 10 acres of land, so we figured she would have enough space to run and hide (from the evil cow goblins).
Apparently not.
The Quest Begins:
LEVEL 1: Finding our steeds. We started our quest by driving off down the road for about a mile. With luck on our side, we found them without any problem:
LEVEL 2: Putting on two halters. (If we could lead two of the horses, the other two would follow, being herd animals.) The horses didn’t run off as we approached, and Anna got a halter on Liana and gave her to me.
During this time, a friendly neighbor by the name of Patty brings over a Folgers can full of “bribery” (grain). The other three horses were more difficult to acquire, but with the expert application of the afore mentioned “bribery,” Anna finally got a halter on Ossette.
With two of our four horses haltered, and our car sitting on the side of the road, we began on the journey back to the ranch.
LEVEL 3: Cows. Yes, that’s right. Cows… On this dirt road back to our house, we have a field of cows on the right-hand side. Thankfully most of them were napping a good distance from the fence, so it only freaked out the girls a little bit. (Jett, the stallion could care less.) With lots of love, coaxing, and hard pulling on the lead ropes, we managed passed Level 3 without too much of a problem.
LEVEL 4: More Cows! Yes… it gets worse. After another 100 yards or so we come upon an entire herd of awake cows on the right side of the road. The more afraid of the cows our horses got, the more interested the cows got. There must have been 100 cows pressed up against the fence. (I apologize for the lack of pictures as it took two hands minimum to keep Liana on target.)
We worked at getting past this level for a good 5 minutes. At one point, I lost the level (and the lead rope), and had to start all over again. =)
But in the end we did get through this difficult level.
And just as we did, I had a great photo opportunity with Liana and Onora:
(I think this is my favorite horse picture of all time.)
Little did I know, but these very attentive horses were looking at…
FINAL BOSS – LEVEL 5: Horse Stampede. On the left side of the road, is just over 40 acres of land and 30 mares, who are normally all eating grass. As I look over at them after taking the above pictures, I see at least 20 of them galloping straight at us….
I was praying that the girls wouldn’t spook as the herd drew closer, and my prayers were answered. The herd (thankfully) stopped at the wire fence, and the girls stayed calm. Jett even went over to say, “Hi!” As he sniffed noses with five other horses, one of the mares got her foot caught in the wire fencing, she panicked and ripped it away from the posts.
This freaked everyone out, and the stampede ran off into the distance.
After defeating the Horse Stampede, we had a short walk back to the ranch and completed the quest.
It turns out that the cows were making a ruckus this morning, and must of scared Liana into the fence… She broke down three fence posts and got a small cut on her chest:
The weird part is how she managed to get to the other side of the cows… She would have had to run past all those cows to get to where they were. That will be one mystery that probably will never be solved.
-Enjoy
-Ashton
(P.S. On a positive note, we met another very nice neighbor, Patty, and she gave us a ton of rubar leaves!
)