Home on the Range

Sorry it has taken me so long to post, I wanted to get some good pictures of home in this blog but it's been raining for the past two days, so it's been difficult to get any good ones.

We got home Thursday night at about Midnight so I didn't get to see anything of my new home until the next morning. When I did, I opened up the door and was struck by bright sunshine, clean air, trees everywhere and about a bazillion grasshoppers. For some reason or other, there are grasshoppers everywhere right now, I mean literally thousands. They aren't really bothersome at all and they don't seem interested in invading the house, but you definitely notice their presence. Elijah of course was delighted, especially upon remembering that Auntie Sierra had just bought him a new bug catcher. After searching box upon badly packed box, we located the above mentioned bug catcher and he set right to work catching and accidentally mutilating grasshoppers.

After awhile we decided to "go into town" to get a bite to eat. Halfway there the unthinkable happened. The Expedition died. It stopped going into gear, making it obvious that it was the transmission. Our transmission was officially toast. We were shocked and stressed, but pretty thankful all in all that we didn't get stranded in Nowhereville, Idaho. While we waited for Jack to tow us home (it's pretty amazing what an F250 can pull) we got out of the car and said hi to the friendly neighborhood sheep we were conveniently stranded next too. We then strolled the street to say hi to some of "Jimmy's" horses after picking and eating some roadside raspberries. About four different people (two Jay knew and two he didn't) stopped to see if they could help and shoot the breeze a bit. I have to say it was the nicest stranded-on-the-side-of-the-road experience I have ever had.

Later that day we went out for a ride on the golf cart (everyone rides them around the ranch here) and rode around the golf course located near the house and creek just up the road. There are wildflowers everywhere, they are so pretty!

The next day Jack towed us to one of the local mechanics (whose shop is nicely located in the barn in back of his house and guarded by his fierce-looking tow headed tricycle riding four year old and about 8 assorted cats) to find out he could have it fixed in about a week for only $2100. Since that was a reasonable price compared to some of the other estimates we got, and since Jack has apparently "heard good word about him in town" we decided to stick with 'Freedom' Automotive.

Here's some Pictures I took on the drive over to the mechanic:

National Forest

You cant really see it but this field is covered in tiny purple and white wildflowers.

Jay took Elijah out for a ride on the quad and they found some wild choke cherries which they picked and brought back to me.

Elijah has been going with Jay and "Papa Jack" to try and catch an unruly mare that Jack bought and is trying to transport to camp with some other horses in hopes of getting her acclimated apparently. Anyway, Elijah got to ride a horse named "rony (Wony)", so he thinks he's a cowboy now.

We are really settling into things here, it's kind of hard not to. It's such a beautiful, peaceful place and I already feel at home here. I miss everyone already though.


View from the house on a cloudy morning

The inside of our apartment, as viewed from our doorway looking in. I've got more Pics of the house on the Flickr page I created (check it out on the right of the page) .