Chrysalis (n) a protected stage of development

The Vikings dominated for 3.5 quarters, but the during the 4th quarter, everything fell apart. We made a few mistakes and the referees chose to spend most of their time watching us and calling penalties. It was very sad to have so much interference on their part and have it be so focused on the Vikings. Nine major penalties on us in the 4th quarter….three on them the entire game. We all just wished that the referees had been a bit more impartial and let the boys play football. The Cyclones ended up taking home the title by taking advantage of a few Vikings mistakes and a LOT of bad penalty calls. Oh well, such is life. Our boys should be proud though…they have made it to the championships 4 years in a row, ending 2004 & 2006 as State Champs; 2005 & 2007 as 1st runner-up. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself!

I shed a few tears at the game thinking about how much I will miss watching Slim play. He loved it and it showed. He had so many tackles in the first half of Saturday’s game that many joked with him saying, “I thought you were a one-man team for awhile!” I think this “last game” is just the first of many “lasts” this year….and it really brought home to my heart how much I will miss this one when he leaves home for college next year. He is always ready with a witty, insightful comeback that keeps me on my toes. We have such fun with these little debates. Yes, I will miss him very much.

Thank you Lord for protecting all of the players and travelers on Saturday…and thank you for Slim!

I have sorely neglected my blog for an entire year now. Though I have had many good intentions of starting things up again, good intentions don’t get you very far if they aren’t acted on! Last spring, I had the idea of showing everyone a “year of ranch life” by taking pictures of the different seasons throughout the year and posting them here for interested surfers. Anyone interested?

It seemed quite appropriate to start up my blogging again this week because my last post, one year ago, was about the Vikings football team heading to the State Championship game…and this Saturday, we are going again!! What a run it has been for this year’s senior class, making all 4 years of their high school careers to the 1A State Championships. And here I am….still leaving you hanging about the results of last year’s game. We WON! What an exciting game it was, too! We were behind most of the game, held the Cokeville Panthers from scoring on their own 4 or 5 yard line for the longest time…and then in the last seconds of the game, scored a safety – 2pts – to win 14 to 12.

Last Saturday, we headed off across the state to once again meet up with the Cokeville Panthers, however this time it was 2nd round play-offs and the ticket to the championship game. We won 24-14…and as many said, “Last year we won, this year we beat them!”

Saturday, we will face a rival school from a neighboring county. It is sure to draw a crowd since the game is being held so close to both towns. In past years, we have beat this team many times but this year in week 2 of the regular season they beat us. Our offense was new and still working out their plays…and they outweigh us by a huge margin. We have one player on the entire team who weighs in a bit over 200lbs, while their entire line weighs between 230 and 280!

But the Vikings have spirit and work together as a team better than most. I think they can do it! We are excited for the game but it is a bit bittersweet since it will be the last game ever for our son, Slim. He is the one who took us down this road when just before his freshman year he came to me and said he wanted to play football. As I told him after the big win last weekend while we were all out on the field celebrating….”I love you, son. And thanks for asking to play football 4 years ago because I have had an absolutely wonderful time watching you!”

Go Vikings!!   Win this one and you will have 3 championship titles in 4 years!

Lord, may we bring glory to you and not ourselves in our endeavors and may all those participating and traveling to the game this weekend be under your protection.

The Vikings won their second playoff game tonight!!! WOW! What a game it was. Final score 8-6! So they are off next weekend to the other side of the state to play in the State Championship! Two years ago they won this game against the same team they will be up against on Saturday. That marked the first state championship ever for this school. Last year they made it to the championship game and lost on a terribly cold and snowy day.

It is so fun to see the boys playing and loving it. And tonight, I got an added bonus. After the game, everyone goes out onto the field (and prays an Our Father together if you can believe it) and then congratulations abound. I had not had the opportunity to introduce myself to the new head coach, who was hired just before school started, but did so tonight after the game. My reward….he told me that Slim and Bubba were the nicest two boys he had ever met!! He said that if he had a whole team of boys like them, he would be one happy coach and would be able to sleep soundly every night!!

Music to a mother’s ears! Isn’t that what we are about? Raising children who will make a difference? I later shared this with the boys and told them they should be proud of themselves because even if their peers don’t appreciate them, there are people who are noticing and whose lives they are affecting.

Lord, thank you for small consolations that give us the strength to keep on keeping on.

It has been awhile since I have found or taken the time to write here. We are into a busy season on the ranch. In October and November, we ship the yearling steers that we have been running all summer on lease. This year we had extra riding due to the summer fires destroying so many of the fences in the pastures. Try finding missing steers in 40,000 acres of hills and trees! We finally shipped the steers we had gathered up and are still searching for the rest.

Once the steers leave, it is time to work our own cows. That means we have to gather them from the pasture, bring them to the corrals, wean and ship the calves and then pregnancy check the cows to see which stay for another year and which get shipped to the sale barn. We are just beginning this process.

We will be gathering the cows and calves in the next few days. Plans are to sell/ship the calves next Tuesday and then work the cows on Wednesday. While I am writing this post, I am also watching and listening to the calf auction at the local sale barn about 45 miles away from the ranch. It is the largest sale barn in the area and they just put in this live internet auction feature. Today they are selling 3500 calves!

For the past few years we have been selling our calves privately to a wonderful young man. Cowboy and Bubba are out moving the new cows that came in yesterday, so my job is to watch enough of the auction to determine whether or not we are getting a fair price from our buyer. Since it is only about 30 degrees today, I am happy to sit in my warm office and watch the sale online. Did you know that buyers pay more for black claves then they do for red or white calves? And that steers (male calves) bring $25-$50 more than heifers (female calves)?

Another interesting fact is that ranchers and farmers, for the most part, cannot set the price for their commodity like other “suppliers”. We take whatever the market dishes out on any particular day. Some crazy thing that is reported on the news or discussed in Congress the day before you ship could drop the market by $5 or more! If you are selling a 500# calf, that is $25. When your only income for the year is selling 200 of those calves, that amounts to a $5000 pay cut!! My best friend always says the biggest gamblers in the US live on ranches…not in Las Vegas! That could change to some degree if the ranchers would unite and form a union…but they are a proud breed and I can’t see it happening in my lifetime!

Here are a few photos from when we gathered some of the steers last week.

Lord, bless us with enough for our calves to hang on here another year!

Hope is crucial today when there is so much suffering and devastation. It can be easy to fall into despair when it seems our world is crumbling around us, but we must remember what I heard Fr. John Corapi say the other night on EWTN as he was holding up a Bible…”We have read the last chapter. We know the ending. God will prevail!”

Today I was visiting a few blog sites and found this link Four Candles on the The Woodland Word . Thanks Tracy (or should I say, Tracy’s mom). It touched me and I pray it touches you, too.

Lord, infuse us with hope so that we might also be sources of peace, faith and love to the world.

I would like to ask anyone who stops by my blog in the next 3 days to offer a special prayer for our Rachel’s Vineyard retreat that begins tomorrow (Friday 10/13) and ends on Sunday.  It is truly an awesome work of God and I feel honored to be involved in this ministry.  Hopefully I will find/take the time to write more about Rachel’s Vineyard in the future.

Thanks for the prayers!

Lord, bless the retreatants this weekend, touch them with your healing grace that they may know your abundant mercy.  Give the team the wisdom and grace they need to be instruments of your love.  Amen.

Two years ago we experienced a new dimension in our homeschooling. After 12 years of keeping our contact with the local public school to a minimum, our second oldest son, Slim, announced that he would like to play football. I was rather surprised since he had never shown any interest in football, or any sport for that matter, other than the “sport” of cowboying!

Although I had a few misgivings about adding daily practices and weekly games into our already rather chaotic life, as well as concern over how our son(s) would be influenced by the kids in town, I agreed to look into it. Since our son(s) are all 6′ or better and stout, the local school was thrilled to have them on the team and after jumping through the Wyoming Highschool Athletic Assoc. hoops (and paying the $100 activity fee they require), our boys were welcomed with open arms.

Yes, it has been somewhat disruptive to our lifestyle to have the boys making the trip to town every day at 3pm and having games every Monday (JV) and Friday (V), but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world! I had no idea how much fun it would be to watch my own children participate in organized sports. I was an avid athlete when I was younger and have a rather competitive spirit…which they don’t seem to have inherited…nonetheless, they love playing and I love watching!!

This year Bubba started playing, too, so now it is double the fun! The sad part is that the JV season is already over. They had a winning season with a great win over the neighboring rival town for their last game on Monday, but for me, it was bittersweet because I don’t want it to be over yet. It is one of those funny things – you don’t look forward to it starting in August, then you wish it would last longer once it has begun.

There are still several Varsity games left and it looks like they will be going to playoffs again this year. Slim will be starting on Varsity for the first time ever this Friday night and we are proud of him for having acheived this level of ability. Two years ago when he started playing, he had never even watched a football game!

And my fears about the influence of the public school kids was unwarranted. Instead of infecting the boys with worldly ways, they are more committed to their faith and family than ever before. It has also truly cemented their commitment to chastity and courtship as they have seen their peers trade and swap each other like chattel. They have seen that these kids seem to fear being alone and are almost desperate to couple up. There have been a few times when they felt somewhat left out because they were “different”, but it has passed quickly and honestly given them confidence in the long run to just be themselves – who God made them.

Has it been worth it? You bet!

Thank you Lord for these strong, athletic boys to love and teach and enjoy! Protect them from injury and draw them ever closer to You!

Though St. Therese’s feast day is past, after finding this awesome photo of her at

Mary Evans Picture Library , I couldn’t help but post it here. I am very moved by this photo of Therese, though I am not exactly certain why. Maybe it is the serenity and peace that seem to emanate from her…even in a photo. There seems, at least to me, to be an incredible sense of strength and beauty in her face. Not necessarily “earthly” beauty, but a beauty that comes from grace and Wisdom and Truth.

My quote for this week is taken from St. Therese (on the sidebar). I find it to be so true in my life and also in the lives of so many homeschoolers with whom I come into contact. Our parish priest, a very wise man, has told me often that neurosis comes from not living in the present…or as he would say, “in the presence”!

If we spend too much time mulling over the past or likewise, too much time anticipating and having anxiety about the future, we will lose emotional stability and find ourselves in a funk. Therese seems to have known this. We, homeschool mothers, need to heed her advice. We must be cautious about spending too much time worrying about our past mistakes – what we didn’t do for Johnny in 3rd grade; what we didn’t know about when Bobbie was in Kindergarten – as well as watching that we don’t exhaust ourselves worrying about what is yet to come – will I be able to teach algebra and chemistry; will Susie be ready for high school or college; I am doing too little…or too much?

We can and will cause ourselves what has been coined as “burn out” if we allow ourselves to reside in the past or the future for too long. The remedy?  Faith.

St. Therese, pray for us. Teach us your “Little Way”. Help us learn to stay present to the Presence, knowing that His grace is sufficient.

We are taking a trip around the world this year, using bits and pieces from several different resources, including Around the World in 180 Days, Galloping the Globe, Runkle Geography, and other tidbits we have found on the web. The Runkle Geography has a method of memorizing the countries of Africa that has been fun for everyone. We all know 10 of them now…only 40 to go!

Today we have had a great time watching this watering hole in Botswana, Africa Webcam. We were able to see an entire herd of elephants watering before it got too dark! There were even several very small babies in the group. They are amazing to watch. Tonight, we had it on and saw a crocodile in the pond.  We also got to see the sun come up in Africa before going to bed in Wyoming.  The elephants returned as well as wildebeasts, guineas and more.  Everyone wants to make the webcam a daily event during our study.

In preparation for our tour we did a little redecorating with maps! I have been amazed at how much time the children have spent discovering since putting these out.

This is actually a shower curtain that I found at Target this summer. I wanted to hang it in the bathroom, but dh thought it was a bit too much. Yesterday, we put it and a white liner on the table. It works pretty well as a tablecloth and is wonderful for spills!

On Saturday, I purchased this new world map which we decided to hang on the wall in the dining/school room. All of the world flags are on the bottom of the map and everyone has enjoyed looking at the differences between them. It was a unanimous decision that Libya has the most boring flag….just a plain green rectangle!

Last week we watched “The African Queen” with Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. I had never seen this move before so it was a treat for me to watch it for the first time with the children. We all thoroughly enjoyed it and everyone now knows where Lake Victoria is.

Each of the children will be making a book, a report w/ pictures or a poster about an African country of their choice. Slim is doing South Africa; Bubba, Kenya; Anne w/ an “e”, Nigeria; Squeaker and I will be working on Morroco. Everyone will include information about the animals, climate, resources, culture and whatever else they find interesting. We are also including a study of Saints from Africa – St. Augustine, St. Monica and St. Charles Lwanga.

Another week or two in Africa and then on to Australia!

As you can see, I have been playing with the site. I am intrigued by all the new things to know about html, css and such. I guess it is my nature to have to figure it all out; jump in and get my hands dirty, so to speak. Though it isn’t connected with computers, it reminds me of a time when I was first dating Cowboy.

We were at a branding at his brother’s house when a call came in from the highway patrol. Seems a fence was down and some of the bulls were out taking a stroll down the 2-lane highway. Everyone was settled in for the meal after a hard morning in the corrals, so I said I would go and check things out.

When I got to the pasture, about 10 miles away, I saw that the bulls had had a run in with the gate and if they were going to stay in the pasture and off the highway, it was going to have to be fixed. This was before the days of cell phones so it looked like it was up to me. Now you should know, that I was still a bit of a greenhorn, having been raised in the city of Tucson, and I had never fixed a barbed wire fence before in my life, but I jumped in with both feet – I thought it was what any ranch woman worth her salt would do.
Getting the bulls back into the pasture was the easy part. The fence was a different story. (Did I mention that it was about 100 degrees outside and that I had on a sleeveless blouse and no gloves?) I studied the part of the gate that was still intact to see if I could tell what it was supposed to look like and then tied into it with all the tenacity of a tiger (dh might say the stubborness of a mule!) – pulling and twisting and bending and stretching that wire until I had a serviceable gate that would hold a couple 2000 lb bulls.

I left feeling quite satisfied with the repairs and my euphoria over accomplishing this task held until I reached the ranchhouse and saw Cowboy’s (and his father’s) jaw drop. I looked a mess! That barbed wire is a little vicious for sure, but no one ever told me that you weren’t supposed to try and fix fence without gloves…of course I never asked either. My hands were cut, my arms were scratched, sweat was dripping down my face and my shirt was torn…but I had done it!

Later that day, I found out that no one had ever expected me to fix the fence. They had only sent me to check on things and come back with a report…but that just isn’t me I guess. I learned how to fix a fence that day and how to do thousands of other things over the last 20+ years on the ranch. Yesterday fences….today, html!

Lord, may I never stop learning and growing in wisdom and virtue and love!