Idyllic Iowa

Joe, the kids, and I took a drive today in the Jeep and I couldn't resist taking some pictures of these cows. They looked so content to ramble around the hillside. Tate loved the brown calf and keeps asking where it went. Tate was the reason we stopped in the first place, as he was worming his way out of his seatbelt and we had to stop the vehicle to get him to put it back on.

Joe thought Tate was talking about the cream-colored cow, because he was asking "Es bloun cow go, Mama?" and Joe interpreted it as "blonde cow." Tate loves riding in the Jeep, even more so today because Joe took the windows out so we could all see better.

There have been some beautiful sunsets lately and I have been quick enough with my camera to capture some of them. It's nice to have had mainly clear skies for about the past week. Things are finally starting to dry out!

With the warm weather finally here, I have been working on shaving the Shih Tzus fur. Chester looks so handsome with his fresh haircut-he probably feels a lot better, being a black dog. So far I have Chester and Kolby finished, and Bailey almost done. So that just leaves Josie, Daisy, Violet, and Zoie.

I finally figured out where Big Stripe's litter of kittens under the trailer is. I found a hole in the plastic that holds the insulation, so I took my camera and stuck it in the hole and took a picture. Sure enough, I saw a kitten, so I stuck Big Stripe up there to get all the kittens to come out and took some more pictures. As far as I could tell, there are 3. She has started moving them to the barn today; I saw 2 of them down there and actually caught and pet one of them, who tried and tried to bite and scratch me, but eventually he calmed down a bit.

I have also really gotten into dyeing my own yarn with Kool-Aid. I bought a bunch of undyed wool for socks, and also some worsted weight, and I have been doing some experimenting. It is really easy to do and nearly impossible to screw up. The pink with bits of green is to make something for myself, though I don't know what, yet. The blue, orange, and green is to knit some socks for the boys. Now if I could just stop dyeing more yarn and actually knit or crochet with the stuff I have done :)