Juniper T Ranch Quietly Changes Scenery As The Seasons Of Life Continue On…

06 Oct 2012 74 Comments

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Hot Rod Cowgirl, Juniper T Ranch, Lifestyles, Photography, Sunrise, Sunset, Wild Bill Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Juniper T Ranch quietly changes scenery as the seasons of life continue on with Autumn’s golden light on the landscape…where did summer go?

Life has been a bit crazy and I have not been able to blog as often as I usually do…I love to write and write and write…I love to photograph tons of various pictures to share with you and I like to yak a lot:)

I have missed reading your blogs…which makes me sad, as I enjoy hearing about your lives and seeing your photography…seeing a glimpse of your world.

A week ago Thursday my hubby Wild Bill had surgery on his neck. He was pulling hard on a wrench under a vehicle on the hoist last July and all of a sudden he heard a snap and loud pop sound in his right shoulder…instant pain…but “Mr. Tough Guy” did not say anything to me until about 5 days later…”Oh, uhhhhh MJ…can you call in and get me a doctor appointment, as I did something to my shoulder a few days ago and it hurts like heck.”

I have NEVER heard those words uttered out of his mouth before in 36 years of marriage…so I knew he was in pain. I was able to get him in right away so on July 25th he had the first MRI and our family Dr. sent him to see a shoulder specialist. At first they thought it was either a rotator cuff tear or that he tore his bicep muscle.

We had to wait until later in August to see the shoulder specialist. He ordered more tests and we saw the MRA’s and the MRI’s and you could see his bicep was still intact but had several frayed tears…and the rotator cuff was ok thank goodness! The Dr. was going to set up bicep surgery and Wild Bill was saying how much the back of his arm hurt too as well as he had two numb fingers on his right hand.

The Dr.’s eye brows went up and he said ok that is indicative of a neck issue. I want to send you to a nerve Dr. to do a nerve study…sure enough we heard his nerves screaming in agony in his neck on the nerve study and the next stop was the spine Dr….we saw him in early September.

Note: The above picture of WB was taken before his injury…and he was having fun!

Bill injured his neck July 20th…that is a very long time to live with the kind of nerve pain he was living with…but he did and we saw the Dr. who did another MRI on his neck and you could see the two vertebrae under the two that were fused 6 years ago, and a very distinct nerve under the bottom vertebrae looking pinched…surgery was scheduled for September 27th.

In the mean time I teased the heck out of him:) Imagine that! I have found that humor always helps:)

It was tough to have to wait as he was suffering intense pain..I have gone through a lot of surgeries but nothing like what WB went through. Nerve and bone pain is the worst pain you can have. I had lots of nerves involved in my surgeries but not bone…and yah nerve pain hurts and once it heals it is annoying…I get an itch and scratch but can not feel it….LOL:)

While we waited WB sat out on the patio with me in the evenings…we have not watched TV since last March…once the  time change happens with Spring Forward, I want to enjoy each hour of daylight. Winter is coming and it will be dark again at 4:00. During this time of the year I want to be in the middle of the glorious light and experience the clouds and feel the warmth. I love the evening light, the beauty all around us…seeing the wildlife, watching my horses, petting the dogs, counting the stars, hearing the crickets and frogs and just taking in all the wonderful country smells of summer and fall:)

 I love the colors of the sky during the magic hour each evening as the sun slowly sinks down to its bed for a good rest while the moon takes its place.

And if we’re lucky it will be a harvest moon that slowly peeks out at you.

And slowly rises over the hill across the road.

A shot of the log fence with our 10-12′ sagebrush that you see across the road in the background along Juniper Creek. We love our sagebrush and it is amazing when you stand in it as it truly is that tall. When I was growing up I spent hours over in the creek catching tadpoles and pretending various scenarios that always revolved around my horse and I…we played Annie Oakley or I was tracking buffalo or elk or cowboys and looking for the Native Americans:)

As September 27th drew closer we both became nervous. WB has only had two surgeries in his adult life…when they took him to surgery in 2006…I cried and could not stop. I took his clothes out to the car in the parking garage and was still trying to stuff my tears and emotions…and then I heard this beautiful music coming from somewhere or someones car. I looked around and did not see anyone…the music was a song I knew from church about God… how He loves us and will always watch over us…I knew then that WB was going to be ok and he was:)

This time when they took him to surgery I began to choke up and tear up trying to not let him see me doing that…it is so hard to see your loved one go to surgery as you feel helpless, worried and scared. Just as they began to take him through the swinging doors I noticed there was someone walking towards us down the hall…it was two of our best forever friends John and Tara…with big smiles. I grabbed the arm of the nurse to stop Bill’s gurney for just a minute so he could see them too. What a blessing it was for us that they came to be with us:) Having Tara spend the day with me was answer to prayer…she is a sister to me. And John, who is our family too, stayed to visit and encourage me before he left to join his wife for the day. John has been with us through lots of life stuff…God is very good:)

The surgery went well…as the Dr. lifted the bone off the nerve that was pinched, he said that even though WB was sleeping he let out a sigh of relief. Later when WB woke up in his room he said “Wow, my shoulder does not hurt anymore.” The Dr. also repaired the vertebrae using new bone and once they were done they attached a steel plate to the vertebrae with steel screws. The surgery was about three hours with almost two in recovery.

It is not an easy surgery or recovery. In 2006 they went in through the back of his neck and this time they went in from the front of his neck which involved moving the esophagus over to be able to get to the vertebrae. WB’s pain has been pretty intense the last week…he has three months to go before he is able to resume all his normal activities.

In the picture above right across from our house…see the joys of country living…dust gently hanging in the night air…drifting closer and feeling welcome enough to come into my house! It does add to the picture but darn it as I just dusted the house!

The first month of recovery is the toughest…the most he can lift is 5 pounds and he can not reach up over his head or reach to the sides or reach towards the floor etc. We have been home a week now…in fact they allowed us to go home that night about 9:00…I was Nervous Nurse Nellie…but it was good for him to be home and to sleep in our bed. And I have gotten into the role of being Nurse Nellie which means I give him his meds every 4-6 hours 24/7…and give him the stink eye when I see him doing something he should not do!

“Don’t worry WB, you will be perfectly fine…it just takes a bit of time to heal”. I love his smile:) Besides the surgical pain the hardest part right now is that he felt he would be further along after a week…this recovery stuff is all new to him yet…so I watch him like a hawk as he wants to do more but NOT now WB. I feel like a nag but he forgets and will start to bend over to reach for something and I say “No…Wild Bill, quit that”…then he looks at me like a little boy who was caught…it is hard for him to just rest and rest and rest and not feel guilty for resting. I remind him that yes I know…I had to be very good for six months after my year of surgeries…and it took me a good year to regain all my strength and energy back but I did and WB will too if I can keep him under house arrest:)

Melody says it will be ok WB…and do you happen to have one of those awesome Apple Berry Treats for me?

And Kiah loves you and says all will be fine Dad…now can I finish getting into your lap?

I have not fallen off the planet or quit blogging…just taking care of my hubby to get him well and healed back up:) Whenever I get the chance I head outside to capture pictures to share with you….which is a vacation for my mind and heart…I love the artistic part of me that gets fired up:) And I want to develop it more and more and more:)

I hope you have a wonderful Fall evening and weekend wherever you are…look around at the beauty that is all around you and smile:)

HRCG over and out for now!

Sky Paintings…Created By God…Captured By Hot Rod Cowgirl

12 Aug 2012 46 Comments

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Clouds, Hot Rod Cowgirl, Photography, Sunrise, Sunset Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A few nights ago I had the chance to capture one of God’s incredible sunsets that we are blessed with out here in Juniper Canyon.

Sky Painting By God

We have a very artistic and creative God full of beauty and grace, as He paints the sky with…

Hot Rod Cowgirl

 Ever changing colors of golden orange, rusty reds, majestic purples, shades of blue  and glimmering gold.

And with a stroke of His hand…

He creates a burnished beauty in the luminous evening sky above.

And in the blink of an eye He changes it with magical colors of pinks and blues adding ethereal light.

Enchanted inspiration stirs my creative spirit…

As I stand in awe on a warm summer night.

Beauty that can only come from “Heaven” above:)

As the sky was on fire…

Ever Changing…

Moments of wonder and divine creativity….times in our lives when we can’t help but stop and take notice of the beauty around us that God has masterfully brushed into our lives. Watching a gorgeous sunset with magical light and color that fills your soul with wonder…as we create our own moments to remember.

I love summer evenings, when the first stars come out, the warm glow of sunset still stains the rim of the canyon, while yet coloring the western sky.

The moon was visible for this shot, a pale white globe, while the sun slowly sets on another incredible summer night in Juniper Canyon.

Sunset

If you look around you…you will see the creative gifts of God…the artistic beauty of His love for us is everywhere:)

Happy Sunday!

Hay Hay Hay…Fall Is Coming!

07 Aug 2012 28 Comments

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Hot Rod Cowgirl, Landscapes, Photography, Wild Bill Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Sometime soon we will feel the breath of fall…right now we are hotter than hot with 100 degree days but soon it will begin to change…I can’t describe it exactly but around mid August…you feel it, nature clicks and the season begins to change, the light changes as well as the air.

Remember last year going with us to the hay-field the end of September…this year it is was last weekend.

We were pulling the trailer along as they loaded the hay right out of the field which means it is nice and fresh:)

The tractor has a front end loader on it so it pick can pick up 1-4 bales at once…if you are a seasoned tractor driver you are good at loading each bale with precise perfection! It is an art as it is very important how you stack it on a trailer that will be traveling down the road.

Wild Bill is getting the ropes out to begin securing the hay to the trailer as we have about 80 miles to go home…with big hills and many corners.

Here he comes with one of the last bales to load.

Touchdown!

We live up over the hills in the background…not that far to fly but driving it takes a couple of hours.

Wild Bill is checking his ropes and the load before we get on the highway.

We have a little over 6 tons with this load. Our barn here actually holds 100 ton and when we ran the cattle it was always full…now with just my horses we usually buy 15-20 tons a year. I always buy plenty so we will not run out in the middle of winter! Back when we wintered the cattle on the winter ranch, about 100 miles from here, we fed over 300 tons of hay…now that was a huge stack!!!

“Like A Rock!” Seriously this Chevy Pick Up Rocks with the Duramax…talk about power! It pulls a fully loaded four-horse trailer up big hills, mountain hills quick and will pick up speed as she climbs! Of course Wild Bill being Wild Bill had to put in a chip last winter for the heck of it and now the pick up launches off into space fully loaded! I do have one of those Oh S*** handles too!

And then…we were only about a half hour from home…bang!

Uhhh…Houston, we have a problem!

We are smiling…wow…not normal at all…but

My sister came to help us and so did Ry-Man:) We were on a slope, right where you can not pull off the highway either…hassle. Yes we have a floor jack under the trailer…the man killer jack is only for extra precaution.

And my sister always brings her camera and wants a photo op…so yah…I was trying to hide as we were to pose for the ding-dong camera person:)

We made it home…all is well on the Western Front…and Kiah was pooped:)

My ponies are happy…as they love their grass hay.

It is 101 degrees right now outside…we are inside staying cool…hope you all have a great night wherever you are:)

Heritage And Home Speaks Softly To My Heart…

01 Aug 2012 20 Comments

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Harvest, Heritage, Hot Rod Cowgirl, Landscapes, Lifestyles, Photography Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

As I was standing this evening on my front porch…

Looking out at the same view I have looked at all my life…I was filled with a grateful heart that was full of honor for my parents and for my ancestors that came before me. I am so incredibly blessed to live where I grew up…where my family has lived forever, as my Great Grandmother would have stood on the same front porch looking out at the same view…as did my Mom.

 To me that says a lot about living your heritage and breathing it in every day.

I live in my forever home…this is me when I was 3 or 4…it was taken on a snowy Christmas Eve as my folks and I were getting ready to join Grandmother T and all of Dad’s brothers and sisters with their families. I loved the family get togethers…I had lots of cousins my age and it was always fun!

And here is my beautiful Mom…she was such a lady…full of style and grace but mostly lots of love:) She would make homemade cut out cookies every Christmas and would take about 200 of them to the family get together as all us kids loved them! She iced them and decorated them…they were delights! I still have the cut outs…and guess what…she found a cut out of a horse so I could have horse shaped cookies too:)

And this is the front porch today…where I often stand to watch the weather or sit on the porch swing to cool off after a hot day…or watch the horses play in the pasture. It has always been front and center in the life of this house as when you want to see what in the world is going on outside…you go to the front porch. Right now it looks a bit bare as we moved all the furniture off the patio including the porch swing…and my pots of flowers as we are working yet on the patio as it needs some TLC.

Several years ago now I had the opportunity to travel to the Middle East with my sister in law…it was a gift of time for me to see another part of the world.

The above picture is of Jerusalem…we spent almost a week there touring the Old City as well as all the historic sites…it touched my heart and spirit deeply.

This photo was taken at the “Wailing Wall” in the Old City of Jerusalem, I am in the blue skirt and black t-shirt.

We were gone for three weeks and the night my plane touched down in Portland I was thankful to be almost home again…we saw many incredible sites in Israel and Jordan…Syria and Turkey…but the best site that I saw, was in NY at JFK Airport, it was a Burger King!!! Humus, strange meat and weird veggies did not cut it at all…I lost 20 pounds due to not eating unsafe veggies and meat…so an American Hamburger was “Manna” from heaven for this American Cowgirl:)

The first morning I was home I stood on the front porch and thanked God that He chose for me to live right here…where I have lived forever…and not in Syria or Jordan or Turkey or Israel…but here in Juniper Canyon:)

God blessed me with my parents and blessed my parents with me…they had waited a long time for me to finally make an apperence…I was their little cowgirl as I grew up and still a cowgirl today,  we had lots of good times together and good memories…and then God directed my path to meet Wild Bill and we made a family together of our own…God was determined that we would meet…we came close to meeting many times when we were growing up!

What a blessing it has been to live here in the same old house my parents and I lived in with Wild Bill…we have made lots of good memories here…where my family lived before me…leaving me lots of heritage, traditions, hopes and dreams…mostly though they left their love for us.

Often when I stand on the front porch or saddle up my horse to go out riding into the country or be in the kitchen cooking dinner I will smile and laugh as God brings back some good memories of my folks and I when I was growing up…good memories of Wild Bill and my folks…and our family. Living in a forever house does that…it brings back comforting memories, sounds, smells and love.

I look out the same window that my Great Grandmother looked out of and the same view that my Mom looked out at…now it is my view of life today…but for some reason I would rather view life the way it was…being an only child I know that all the heritage and memories will be lost with me, part of my wanting to view both the past and future is to write all the history down.

I can close my eyes and imagine what my Great Grandma saw and felt…I can hear the sounds of horses and mules with the noise of harnesses…men talking about how many acres that can be done today in the heat…or maybe she was baking homemade bread and pies…or Norweigian potato cakes…maybe not simpler times but they did things the old-fashioned way…and created family times…working together on the land…with hearts full of heritage and hard work for the future of their families.

This photograph would have been in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s…pull combines pulled by tractors without cabs or air conditioning…no CB’s or communication…you had to watch the machines in order to tell where a combine was in the field…sometimes the pull combine would be down in a canyon so you could not see it…but if you listen and watch for a puff of smoke from the Caterpillar tractor pulling the machine up a hill, then you knew…truck drivers always sat on top of the hill in the field, trying to figure out where they were needed. Today’s truck drivers have the luxury of radio or cell phones…and they know where they are needed.

In todays techno world…combines are outfitted with a GPS, that can program the machine to drive themselves…and the driver does not have to drive it as the combine is satellite guided. We have come a long ways baby!

Farming has gotten as high-tech as my office is high tech…smart phones…satellites…gps…computers and all the incredible bells and whistles.

Todays equipment does not compare to yesterday’s equipment…today they have 40′ headers that flex in the center, with their own wheels to help drive and turn them.

This is a Gleaner combine with the 40′ header…you can go with a 42′ or a 45′ header as well.

The smaller John Deere combine next to today’s machine is a 1955 model…no cab and a 10′ header compared to the 40′ header…it held 40 bushels of wheat while todays model holds 400 bushels of wheat…when I was driving truck we had one of the JD 55’s and my uncles always used it to open up fields and draws or canyons…I can not imagine the 40′ header today…WOW!

Harvest has changed a lot since my Grandfather homesteaded the land out here…often I wonder what he would say today if he saw the equipment and how much our way of life has changed.

Back when WB and I farmed the land, the machines we had were considered the art of technology…20′ headers and a bulker that held 120 bushels of wheat. Here the combine is leaning as it is using the automatic leveling to unload the wheat into the back of the truck.

The first summer I drove wheat truck, I was 15. Our harvest started June 25th on the winter cattle ranch…if all went well with good weather and no huge equipment breakdowns, we were lucky to be done by my birthday in late August. We had a total of about 5000 acres to cut…we ran four pull combines with tractors and two open cab combines that at the time we called pushers as they were the first of the machines you see today. Harvest took a long time as the machinery moved slower and the headers were small…as were the wheat trucks. My little truck held 2.5 dumps from the combines and I would be off to the elevator to dump it…my truck had a hoist which means I would stay in the cab of the truck and would activate the hoist which would lift my truck bed up into the air at an angle so that the wheat would dump out the back of the truck, falling into the grate on the elevator floor, going into the elevator bin below, where it would be stored until we sold it. Today, the old cab of my truck sits out in one of our fields behind the house…someday I hope that we can restore it…I loved that old truck!

As the world of farming evolves each year with new farming practices, along with equipment that has all the bells and whistles…I am blessed to have the old memories of farming during a different time when life was a bit slower and time seemed to stand still…and with the old stories that were passed on to me about my Grandfather coming to America when he was 13 years old…eventually homesteading 10,000 acres.

My imagination carries me back in time when he was here farming and my Great Grandmother was seeing a whole new world as she stood on the front porch watching her son farm…I am reminded of the past and how hard my ancestors fought for this land, working long hours and days to leave a lasting legacy that today blesses my life.

I was born country right here where I live today…with a 100 years of down home, filled with rural heritage and hard honest work…I was born country and this country is what I love!

Born Country

By Alabama

Clear creeks and cool mountain mornings

Honest work out in the fields

Cornbread in my momma’s kitchen

Daddy saying grace before the meal

Family ties run deep in this land

And I’m never far from what I am

I was born country and that’s what I’ll be

Like the rivers and the woodlands wild and free

I got a hundred years of down home, running through my blood!

I was born country and this country’s what I love

Moonlight and you hear beside me

Cricket’s serenadin’ in the yard

What more could two people ask for

Laying here in love beneath the stars

Now this is where I wanna raise my kids

Just the way my mom and daddy did

I was born country and that’s what I’ll always be

Like the rivers and the woodlands wild and free

I got a hundred years of down home, running through my blood

I was born country and this country’s what I love

I was born country

And I will always be that same country cowgirl, farm girl…this is what it is all about. Traditions, family heritage and the incredible land and soil of the ranch. I thank God for His blessings and His incredible beautiful land and scenery…His animals and His world:) For harvest time and the blessings of those who went before us and those who someday will follow in our footsteps after us.

In remembrance of Donna Goff…she was a great lady and a good friend. 

The Mighty Columbia River Gorge Of Oregon…Round Two!

23 Jul 2012 18 Comments

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Hot Rod Cowgirl, Photography, Ranch Life, Weather, Wild Bill Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As  side note…if you click on my photos they will enlarge so you can see them better if you choose.

Last weekend we attended our niece’s wedding in the small town of Carson, WA.

This was our view out the window in our very classy hotel room…we loved seeing the green trees and the mountains cloaked with weather…and hey…there is the Columbia River!

We stayed at Skamania Lodge…in Stevenson, WA. I highly recommend it…they have spa services and excellent restaurants for small snacks, as well as nice dinners or maybe just a relaxing sandwich at noon…we missed out on their Sunday Brunch which is famous for the food and atmosphere…next time WB. They offer a golf course, swimming and lots of great trails to hike that are mapped out from easy to difficult.

When we walked into our suite and saw the view…we instantly relaxed:)

Looking back across the Columbia River towards Cascade Locks, OR. The bridge you see is called “The Bridge Of The Gods”…it is one of the many bridges that crosses the Columbia River into either Oregon or Washington.

Looking East towards home for us…the Columbia River is a river that you respect as it is wide, deep and fast-moving. We have boated on it lots as our ranch is only about 30 miles from it…being able to make a quick drive to the river during the hot summers always appeals to you…I love boating, as long as the boat is big enough to ride out the waves with a V-Hull!

It was truly beautiful to see our niece look so very happy…you know without a doubt they are soul mates…like WB and me:)

Before we knew it, time passed quickly and it was time to head home. We decided to travel home on the Washington side of the river until The Dalles, where we crossed another bridge to reach the I-84 freeway…seeing the river from both sides is worth it, as the views on each side are vastly different.

We had quite a bit of wind on the way home and look who is out on the river…the windsurfers…they pray for windy days like this!

They fly across the river with the wind…they are true athletes and fun to watch…often we see 100’s of them on our trips down the Gorge to Portland.

I am enjoying the view but, I would not care to be on the water with the white caps…as you can see the wind is blowing pretty good…and about perfect for the windsurfers!

I was standing down there on the concrete deck when WB took my picture.

Looking West…pretty view huh?

One more view of the Gorge Wind and my flaming red hair!!! What a great hair styling job…ala natural…which I love anyway:)

Another stop for photos…we are getting closer to The Dalles and home…

The closer we travel to our neck of the woods…the Columbia Basin of Eastern Oregon…Cowboy Country…Let Er’ Buck…Yee-Haw…the less trees and green. Western Oregon receives several inches of rain a year, where we usually have around 9-10″ a year…we are on the dry side of Oregon.

Crossing back over the Columbia at The Dalles Damn…tried to grab a quick shot of the spillway…could not talk WB into stopping in the middle of the bridge so I could take pictures…geesh…he said something about cops and mumble mumble…hmmm?

And then we drove on another 100 miles into Eastern Oregon…to our home…to the North Country of Juniper Canyon…into wheat country:)

As far as you can see wheat fields…that are almost ready for the harvest of 2012!

Once we were home we had lots of petting and loves for all our animals, as they missed us…our dogs are so protective of us but so sweet to us too:)

And our horses came over to see us as soon as we pulled in the driveway…it is funny that they know the car…

And the real “Boss!” I know she missed us….right?

“Minnie….I missed you!”

Minnie said back to me “Oh sure…what am I chopped liver? Going to see the dogs first…hurumph!”

And then she took pity on me as I love her very much…”Well ok…just this once I will forgive you about the dang dogs!”

“But do not let it happen again Mom…”

“Ok already Mom….I am so glad you are home:)”  Me too Kitty Girl…my Min-Min Kitty Angel:)

We had only been home for a short time when the incredible clouds rolled in for a rock and roll thunder storm…

The summer of 2012 has gone down in history with different weather and clouds such as these…

Reminds me of Wyoming weather and not Eastern Oregon where for the most part we have mild weather…with four seasons.

It keeps it interesting and keeps me grabbing my camera trying to capture the strange weather…how about you…is your weather odd this year too or is it just here that it is a bit crazy?

Hope you have a great week! Enjoy your summer with warm days and magical nights! Find time to relax and take it all in as summer will be gone before we know it!

My New Favorite Day!

17 Jul 2012 23 Comments

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Hot Rod Cowgirl, Life, Lifestyles, Photography, Wild Bill Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Good Morning To My New Favorite Day!

Grab your coffee and read on:)

I recently had a chance to meet Shannon Pruitt, of My New Favorite Day…here is a link to her blog http://mynewfavoriteday.com/.

Shannon is an incredible wife, mom, daughter and friend….she brings good into life with a beautiful attitude and she is one awesome lady! She lives in CA. with her husband and their children. Here is Shannon’s introduction of herself from her blog.

“My name is Shannon Pruitt and I am a childhood surviving, divorced, now happily married, IVF success story, working mother of 2 amazing babies who were born 12 weeks premature. While my children are now 2 years old, my son, Q, has thrived while our daughter, E, has had a much more difficult journey.  She is considered special needs with a tentative diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy, and so as she grows, so do we as individuals and as family. How to help her, how to celebrate our differences while allowing ourselves to cope with the challenges that we never knew to expect.  So while much of this blog is based on our experiences (good and not-so-good), it is also based on how we must not let ourselves become victims of our circumstances but rather advocate in our own lives.”

“After being in a bit of a self-imposed emotional isolation for about 18 months, 6 months ago an ordinary moment in our living room became extra-ordinary and I thought perhaps sharing these stories of hope and inspiration can help and motivate others going through similar circumstances.  So that night, with my nerves on fire, I created my first post for ‘mynewfavoriteday,’ and what I found out from so many of you was that these emotions and feelings were not unique to us or our circumstances, but rather permeated all of your personal experiences through your relationships and situations with parents, conception, siblings, IVF, prematurity, parenting, children, special needs, terminal illness, and everyday stress.  It became very clear that we are all united by common emotions of love, fear, hope, faith, sadness, happiness, strength, and joy and most importantly, we are all doing the best we can, how we can.  We all need one another and if we can remember to find the little nuggets of inspiration and motivation we can try to make each day ‘ournewfavoriteday’.”

A very good friend of mine who lives in Central Oregon sent me a link to Shannon’s blog site last winter as she knew Shannon’s best ever friend who lived down the street from her. I clicked on the link and the friendship with Shannon began developing that night. She grew up in Ashland , Oregon and has been to my neck of the woods in Eastern Oregon…and has attended the Pendleton Round Up.

I felt a connection to Shannon immediately as we share a lot in common with life and an artists heart.

So today July 17th Shannon interviewed me on her blog and if you go to her web/blog site you can see the interview:)

http://mynewfavoriteday.com

I am humbled that she wanted to interview me…my life is truly just like yours with both good and bad times…we just keep a going and find something each day to be thankful for and grateful for…then we look for a really good belly laugh to get some of those feel good cells moving:)

And there you have a pearl of wisdom from Hot Rod Cowgirl…and Melody:)

Shannon calls her blog “My New Favorite Day”, as it is her choice each day to find something amazing in her life that day and that one day becomes her new favorite day!

What an awesome way to look at each day as we roll out of bed…no matter if we have something fun to wake to or something hard to wake to, each day “CAN” be our new favorite day if we want it to…

We just have to make that one choice and decision…

At times with serious determination…we can choose to be upset or we can smile even when life seems to hit us hard…there is always a way to find hope…the choice is ours…

To either let it ruin your day or your life or choose instead to carry on and find a way to survive it with grace and a can do attitude with heart.

We can survive the whatever it is with the belief that things will get better and life will go on…and we can survive with strength and joy.

Hot Rod Cowgirl and her dogs choose to find a good belly laugh each day:)

Along with my horses…

And Minnie too:)

And my hubby Wild Bill:)

Be sure to check out My New Favorite Day at http://mynewfavoriteday.com

Ok this 4:00 am stuff is not bad usually but I have been up for 24 hours…I gotta go take a nap…yawn…we have had terrible lightning storms nightly and various other things like wind, hail, more thunder and last night was four hours solid of every kind of lightning there is over the top of our house from 10:00 pm-2:30 am…kind of scary when you think about it.

We have an abundance of dry fuel with dried out cheat grass and mustard…the right combination for a raging fire…and an 80 plus bushel wheat crop waiting to be harvested…which was postponed again due to heavy rain and flooding last night…pins and needles for the farmers around us as well as for us too.

Our small town is under water tonight…this was early yesterday morning…once the water recedes then the clean up of mud begins…it has been a long week here…and harvest is on hold. This is a place where we have a choice of giving into the negative or we can choose to have a brand new day become our favorite day…I am gonna choose a brand new day:) How bout you?

Harvest Traditions and Family Heritage In Juniper Canyon

08 Jul 2012 77 Comments

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Hot Rod Cowgirl, Landscapes, Lifestyles, Photography Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The smell of the wheat is in the air tonight…that smell speaks to my heart and soul:) It is a smell you never forget…much like a cattle truck pulling up to the barn or corrals to load out cattle or deliver cattle…I can hear the trucks as I write…familiar sounds…smells…memories that bring comfort as…

Times past speak softly to me of heritage and family…traditions and hard work.

My heart can hear the sounds of my families history…the sounds of the horses pulling the combine…with the men it took to run it…dry dusty hot days for man and animal alike.

Before the farmer had a truck to haul the wheat into the elevator he had men who would sew the sacks of wheat shut…can you imagine harvesting thousands of acres and having to put the kernels into gunny sacks and then sew them shut…then you loaded your wagon and went to the elevator to unload the sacks of wheat…often driving your team of horses with the wagon several miles to reach the elevator.

My Dad remembered having to take the wagon loaded with sacks of wheat to Vansycle Elevator which is 8 miles away…16 miles round trip…he said it would take the day to take one wagon and the horses or mules would be exhausted when you reached home…all of Grandpa’s horses and mules were very well cared for and loved…they had to do their job but they were cared for. Dad used to come here to the barn (our barn is older than our house) and ride some of the work horses bareback…he spoke often of the various ones he remembered…Grandpa kept around 80 head.

Today we have semi trucks with double trailers hauling wheat out of Juniper Canyon…night and day.

Heading on down the road to the Columbia River…

Where the kernels of Juniper Wheat are loaded onto a barge…and they begin the journey to feed the world:)

Self leveling combines…hillside machines…can you see how the combine is leaning a bit…it is leveling itself.

This photo is better so that you can see how the combine keeps itself level rather than leaning…I heard that most farmers do not buy the combines with the automatic levelers anymore due to the price…

Wild Bill is showing how the leveler works as he is touching the spout. I could not imagine not having the machine level as we have some really steep hillsides!

Here is an older picture of the land when we farmed it…sorry this is a scanned image before digital…the house complex is our home and the green fields are the wheat crop of that year…see the road over in the dirt?

That is WB’s air strip for his plane…looks cool sitting in the wheat…actually it is on the strip.

Tucker is hiding in the grass…she follows me everywhere keeping an eye on me:)

Soon farm families will once again put in long days to bring the wheat crop in…as has been done for over a 150 years.

150 years of country strong…we dig deep when it comes to toughing it out.

And if the going gets tough…the tough get tougher:)

No matter how hard!

Harvest is a time of hard-working families working together for the same reason…the goal to get the crop in…harvest is like gathering cattle with my Dad in the mountains…we shared our work effort together to round-up the cows and that is what makes memories and heritage!

It is the working together and sacrificing…and harvest time is a sacrifice…husbands leave the house before sun up and come home when it is dark…often putting in 18 plus hour days in the heat of harvest.

I grew up driving wheat truck through my high school years with my other cousins…then after WB and I married, my Mom taught me (no this picture is not of Mom and me…more like my Grandma and Great Grandmother) the tradition of cooking a large lunch for our men and the crew. While it was a lot of work to cook a huge meal by 1:00 each day it was my family…I came to enjoy hearing about what had happened in the field and then all the joking and funny times too…I felt very much part of the harvest crew and was always sad when they finished the fields around our ranch moving on to the fields around my Aunt and Uncles homes.

Food was in abundance when the crew came in for their hour lunch break…we had home cooked meals with meat, potatoes, gravy, salad, vegetables and desert…and home made ice tea…no not sun tea or tea made by a tea maker…real deal tea!

Here is the recipe:

Get a small sauce pan and fill with cold water…buy Lipton Black Tea…loose leaves….put 2-3 heaping tablespoons in the pan and boil…then cool it and strain out the leaves…dump the tea water into a gallon jug and fill with ice-cold water and ice and you have real ice tea…all the good caffeine and antioxidents…and so refreshing!

Harvest skies and harvest heritage…have a good night wherever you are! HRC has her eye on the land…will post new pictures as soon as harvest begins….stay tuned…I keep hearing the song Country Strong going through my head…in fact I am going to go listen to it now!

Country Strong

I know you see me, like some wide-eyed dreamer
That just rolled in, off a dusty Midwest bus
Yeah on the outside, Hallowed fragile
But on the inside something you can’t crush

I’m Country Strong, hard to break
Like the ground, I grew upon
You may fool me, and I’ll fall 
But I won’t stay down long 
‘cause I’m Country Strong

I have weathered, colder winters
And longer summers, without a drop of rain 
Push me in a corner and I’ll come out fightin’
I may lose but I’ll always keep my face

‘Cause I’m Country Strong, hard to break
Like the ground, I grew upon,
You may fool me, and I’ll fall 
But I won’t stay down long, 
‘cause I’m Country Strong

America The Beautiful!

03 Jul 2012 25 Comments

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Hot Rod Cowgirl, Landscapes, Lifestyles, Photography Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

America The Beautiful

By Hot Rod Cowgirl July 4, 2011
I am re-blogging this post from a year ago off of http://www.holtonsecretlab.com
Happy 4th Of July America!

Sing With Me…America The Beautiful

O Beautiful For Spacious Skies

For Amber Waves Of Grain

For Purple Mountain Majesties

Above The Fruited Plain

America America!

God Shed His Grace On Thee

And Crown Thy Good With Brotherhood

From Sea To Shining Sea

God Bless America

Hot Rod Cowgirl Wishes You A Happy 4th Of July

So Does Annie

And Kiah Too

We Pledge Allegiance To The Flag Of The United States Of America And To The Republic For Which It Stands…One Nation Under God, Indivisible With Liberty And Justice for All.

God Bless America!

The Mighty Columbia River Gorge Of Oregon!

03 Jul 2012 26 Comments

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Hot Rod Cowgirl, Landscapes, Photography Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Today I thought for fun I would do a post about the Columbia River Gorge of Oregon. If you ever get the chance to drive through the Gorge I highly recommend it!

Whenever we make a trip to Portland, Oregon we travel down the I-84 freeway, which runs along side the Columbia River most of the 200 miles to Portland.

The Gorge has some of the most scenic and beautiful views you will ever see…

And it can be hell on earth if the weather hits it just right in the winter with ice or snow or both.

The Gorge has its own weather systems during the fall and winter….

And when it feels like being nice it can be beautiful!

The West end of the Columbia River Gorge has several water falls…this is Multnomah Falls… a 611-foot-tall roaring, awe-inspiring cascade of icy water, lets you experience the power and beauty of nature up close.

Looking down from Crown Point…on the old highway, before the freeway….you find amazing views.

This is Vista House on Crown Point…it is worth it to travel the old road…stopping in at Vista House to learn more about the history etc.

The mountains and the ever flowing Columbia River that flows along side of the freeway make your trip interesting…never boring…I have traveled the 200 miles to and from Portland all my life at least twice a year to shop…

And I have never grown tired of the incredible river view.

The Columbia River Gorge is a spectacular river canyon cutting the only sea-level route through the Cascade Mountain Range. It’s 80 miles long and up to 4,000 feet deep with the north canyon walls in Washington State and the south canyon walls in Oregon State.

Coming home from Portland traveling back East you experience the beauty of the water falls and trees until you hit The Dalles.

This photo shows the dramatic difference in the environment. Each mile east you travel in the Columbia River Gorge, you find less and less annual rainfall.  You can see the spring green hillsides I’m standing on, Interstate 84 heading off towards Idaho, on the southern side of the gorge, and the arid hills in the more easterly portion of the gorge.

It changes quickly…all of a sudden…you are without trees and moss…as you travel home to Eastern Oregon…the dry side of Oregon.

Becoming more barren…yet still pretty:)

The Columbia River is a huge river that  is wide and deep. Looking across the Columbia to the Washington side….getting closer to home….

On down the freeway we go…we are on the home stretch now!

Heading down the last hill into Pendleton…

Welcome to Eastern Oregon!

Can you see the mountain in the sunset? You will have to click the picture and enlarge it to see the mountain that is Mt. Hood which is close to Portland, 200 miles away…I took this photo last fall on top of the hill behind our house.

Looking towards the Blue Mountains. We still have the wild west going on in Eastern Oregon…drier, isolated country and down home country folk!

Spooky And Stupendously Spectacular!!!

25 Jun 2012 61 Comments

by Hot Rod Cowgirl in Clouds, Hot Rod Cowgirl, Landscapes, Photography, Storms, Weather Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wild Bill and I decided last Saturday that we need to get more of our outside projects done…I would mow yards and deal with weeds etc. while he uses the trencher to dig a trench for the new pipe for the new well…as you can see in the picture below it is quite a process.

We have 2000′ feet of new pipe to install for the house, shop, barn, irrigation etc…it is a huge job with trenching, running the backhoe as needed, and laying the new pipe and fittings etc.!

As I was finishing up the mowing I looked up on top of the hill behind our house and saw these ominous black clouds drifting in overhead.

There was no doubt that a storm was imminent…I got WB’s attention and pointed towards them…then I ran into the house to grab my camera!

Why is it that when I see clouds like this that I think of ET or Jabba The Hut???

I couldn’t seem to fit the incredible clouds into my lens…the cloud cover was massive and I knew I had a short window of time to capture the magnitude of the storm…I needed to get as far back as I could!

Finally I ran hard down into the pasture across the road and I captured this photo…you can see how the clouds were transforming the blue sky into night…at 2:00 in the afternoon!

Ok Toto this is not looking good…HRCG get your buns back to the house!

The storm slowed to a stand still overhead…something was going to happen as I could feel the temps dropping from warm to cold…which was an odd feeling.

I ran back to the front porch…whew…pant-pant…whew. Running is not my thing…walking fast is good or riding a horse!

I could feel a brisk breeze on my face as the air got colder and the dark clouds began to turn white.

And then the heavens opened and all hail broke loose!

Thankfully the hail began to turn to rain within a few minutes…heavy rain where you could almost not see through it like a fog…we actually got 1/4″ in 10 minutes!

By late afternoon we were back to life is good in Juniper Canyon…blue skies with the sun shining and birds singing…I could not help but break out into song:)

The hills are alive,
With the sound of music
With songs they have sung
For a thousand years

As the day slowly ended, God blessed us with one of His beautiful sunsets…I never grow tired of seeing all the incredible colors of nature and the world God created all around us:)

Buck says the day ended well:)

Minnie says…hmmmm…ok well kiss my stripes…why…no reason…remember I am the “Cat” and my goal is to keep you guessing:) I know Minnie Mouse and I loves you lots!

With that said…follow your heart…take along your forever friends and family…they will keep an eye out for you as they travel along with you…they are your heart and a blessing from God to your life:)

Wishing you a Sunny and Shinny Day:) Happy Monday wherever you are!

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