Two Thousand Twelve

New Year's with Sister Two

This is George, he is a cowboy at the feed lot

His family and friends are making us one of their favorite meals.
He started with a half of pig, cut and trimmed, salt, and some grease. There
could have been a little bit of beer added for flavor.

Stirring the pork with his board.
After it had cooked he melted and browned some sugar.
Then poured over the cooked pork.

The wives came in next with a huge bowl of pico de gallo,
green chili sauce, and dough for fresh tortillas.

She used a wooden press and turned the dough into flattened tortillas.

They placed the dough on a heated grill until the tortillas turned golden.

They worked hard for about an hour. While the rest of us enjoyed the New Year's feast.

Mean while Krista mixed up a pitcher of Cherry Limeade.
We enjoyed a great food, drink, and desserts.

Here is to a great New Year.

The Day After New Year

Today we spent the day at Brandon and Kristle's.

With our varied schedules we had not been

 able to get together to celebrate Christmas.

We had asked what we could bring and Kristle had it all under control,

 but humored us and told us we could bring bread and ice cream.  

On our way to their house we stopped at the

 Evil Empire and picked the two items up.

The first thing I heard upon entering the much

 despised big box store was,

 "Tttttrrruuuuddddyyyyyyy!" 

 I turned around to see one of my students grinning his mischievious grin,

and happy as all get out to see me.  

That alone makes all of the endless meetings at school bearable.

I quickly grabbed what we needed and then 

drove to Kristle and Brandon's new house.

They recently moved into a log cabin.

I loved their new place --- it was so cozy and homey.

Brandon, the boys, and I went out to talk about where he should 

put his garden next spring.

Talking with Brandon about gardening transported me back a year or two ...

surely it couldn't be more than that!

The day was beautiful and Nathaniel showed me his "King of the World" pose.

We went in and enjoyed chicken chili and then the kids opened their gifts.

We got Kaleb a dinosaur chair.

The dinosaur looked happier than the kid

but I managed to get a tiny grin.

The older boys were happy with building their heroes,

but the real hit of the day was Trinity's knitting machine.

Okay, so I lied.

The real hit of the day was playing with their new pups.

New Year's Resolutions

Bill Watterson obviously channeled me for this cartoon!

Several years ago I resolved to quit making resolutions.

I had been pretty successful at keeping this one

until I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disease and then ...

http://trio-of-sisters.blogspot.com/2010/09/lifestyle-changes.html.

I still need to do better with the lifestyle changes

and I really am going to try, but I have decided that I have really missed writing the blog so I am going to try to begin writing more regularly again.

It's a great outlet and I do enjoy it, but  tend to have trouble coming up with ideas.  My kids complain about the same exact thing and I tell them to suck it up and to look at their idea book.

Now I'm going to take my own advice.

I just need one of those darned idea books!

All ideas for topics and stories are welcome.

If you don't make suggestions, then you can't complain when you're bored!

What's One More?

About three or four weeks ago Sister Three called me and asked if I would consider taking a dog that was a known biter.  She knew that we had experience with a biter and she was hopeful that we could keep the dog from being put down

.  She sent me a picture because she knew that I'd be a goner.

I was a goner once I saw this grin.

 

This picture was taken by Stephanie Rausser, a world famous photographer.

Sister Three is the office manager for Stephanie and heard of Harry through her.

Sister Three is convinced that I am on my way to becoming a "dog whisperer".

I do have a way with animals and dreamed of becoming a vet when I was in grade school, but I don't think I'm necessarily a whisperer .... although I do whisper my hopes and dreams in their ears as we're cuddling in a chair.  Does that count?

At any rate, I talked to my better half and her response was, "What's one more?"
 so I emailed Sister Three and she set the wheels in motion.

We met Harry's family in Cheyenne yesterday. 

They drove him to us.  Can you believe that?

 That is true devotion on their part.

After a tearful parting, we headed home.

The beasties didn't quite know what to make of our newest member.

After lots of sniffing and checking each other out, they have all decided that

Harry is okay and have started to try to play. 

He is still a bit overwhelmed and doesn't want to play yet, 

but he went hiking with me this morning.

Yesterday, somebody found my geocache, but reported that the coordinates were

450 feet off.   I figured Chip or Maybelle had carried off the container, so

Maybelle, Harry and I set out to find it.

We checked out the first stage of my multi-cache and it was securely
 in place just as I had left it.  We trudged on to the second and final stage.


Along the way Harry startled a heron, which in turn perplexed him.

We found the cache and  put it in it's rightful place.

 Then we hiked to the end of the pasture.

It was beginning to snow a bit, but nothing to speak of.


We got to the end of the pasture just as the wind came up and the snow let loose.
We headed for home and Harry was content to trot beside me.


About halfway home he began to frantically pull at his leash.


I had to jog to keep up with him.
The wind was howling and I didn't hear my better half calling my name,
 but Harry did and he hurried me right along.


He's definitely going to be a great addition to the family.

Carhenge

I think we three sisters have mentioned it before that outside our little hometown sits 30 cars stuck in the ground to replicate England's Stonehenge- named Carhenge.

http://www.carhenge.com/



by WillyZ.


It was built in my junior year of high school and I remember going out to the field that used to be farm ground to get pictures of it for our year book.

The local towns people were split on it: " it was a great work of art in Western Nebraska." Others fell into the group: "it's a junk yard and why would anyone ever stop there and look at a bunch of old cars stuck in the ground."

The first elven years that Keith and I were married our farm was north east of Alliance, and we would drive by Carhenge to and from home. Keith's niece always referred to it as "car wreck." But the thing that always amazed me was that someone was always there pulling in and looking around. Always out of town license plates on their vehicles, usually out of state plates. People liked this? During the summer months it would increase in traffic ten fold.

A summer a couple years back, Sister Three and her family came home for a visit and we went out there so she could get pictures. We walked around and looked around. My kids were amazed as they had never done that. I hadn't walked around since 1987 when I took the year book photos, but it was really neat. You don't get that driving by on the road. You have to stop, get out of your car and walk around.

Last week the Friends of Carhenge announced they could no longer keep enough volunteers out there to man the visitor booth it now housed and would be offering it up for sale.

So if you have $300,000.00 you could purchase a local "land mark" and the sky is the limit on what you would be able to use it for. Some suggestions have been to have a RV camp ground, a go kart race track, and a restaurant on site to help generate revenue. All would be excellent ideas, but now we will wait and see what will happen.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/31/us-nebraska-carhenge-idUSTRE79T29420111031