And the Give-Away Winner Is~~~

This give-away thing has been a lot fun!! I've met bloggers who've never left a comment before and that was very special. I really enjoyed reading everyone's comments...and learning their coffee likes and dislikes!

AKPonyGirl gets the story teller award for the best story! Wouldn't we all liked to have met her grandpa?!?

LatigoLiz gets a high five for the most adventurous...I now know what a Faceplant is!

Sydney gets the most desperate award...I've never tried to get my truck and trailer through a drive through...you go girl!

Jocelyn is a cowgirl after my own heart...Pendleton Coffee...black and strong...YES!

Some like it sweet...some liked it REALLY sweet...and others had to have the white stuff in it...of many varied flavors!

Lots of stuff added for specific tastes...cinnamon, alcohol...oh boy...lots of alcohol flavors...yum! Ice cream? That was a new one to me, but I'm going to have to try that one!

Mugwump had the strangest additive. Salt to cut the bitterness...that's a new one to me too. But, I'm not too sure if I'm going to try that one ;~) No offense mugs...I promise to make your coffee just right when you get out here for the wild horse inventory!

Of course coffee mugs are not only for coffee. We've got hot chocolate, Diet Pepsi, hot apple cider, egg nog, Dr. Pepper, tea...lots of tea...how 'bout a Margarita with Laughing Orca Ranch Lisa? I could do that girlfriend!

Well, after all that fun stuff, we come down to the draw...

Everyone who told me their favorite

drink got their name on the paper...

The names were cut and folded over once...

and placed into the big basket.

I held the basket as My Man assisted me...

...and he drew the winning name...

Andrea at Mustang Saga!!!!

And the crowd goes wild!!!!

WhooooHoooo!!!

Congratulations Andrea!!!

Send me an email with your snail mail address and I'll get your package of goodies off to you next week! My email is at the top left on the blog.

Thank you everyone who participated. You made this a really fun give-away!

Don't forget to turn your clocks back an hour tonight...ahhhh...an extra hour of sleep. I can do that!

Happy Trails everyone~~

A Week in the Life~Day 6 of 7

1. As always, everyone is always welcome at the Rough String

2. We enjoy our sunsets lookin' to the east~with a moon this time

3. My ol' man Toby's kind eye

4. Stetson's lips...I had to hold him to keep him still!

5. A horsey yard ornament...who'd a thunk it?~?

6. My singin' cowgirl

7. Rohan's BLM freeze brand

8. My favorite wine glass

9. Coyote's double whorl star on his forehead

Hope everyone enjoy's a fantastic Halloween weekend!

A Week in the Life~Day 5 of 7

Gosh...where did the week go?!? Only two more days of this photo challenge!

1. Snow pellets on Colt this AM

2. My new handy dandy Ulu knife my friend, neighbor,

and author Paty Jager gifted me (which I love!) cutting

up veggies for chicken soup

3. Cindy Sue tucked in and ready for bed

4. One of the "Girls" on their first snow day

5. The first semi-truck load of hay for

the year leaving our place today...AMEN!

6. No more leaves in the elm trees

7. Neighbor Herb loading the truck

8. An antique hurricane lamp with a soggy background

9. Some perennial flowers I bought on sale; hope they

make it through the winter

I really needed that chicken soup since I came down with a bad head cold two days ago. YUCK

OH yes...last call for entries in my 1 year blogiversary give-away. Entries close Friday night 9 PM PST. Go HERE to enter! My Man and I will draw a winner and I'll post it on October 31.

A Week in the Life~Day 4 of 7

Thanks for following along...this has been pretty fun! You can click the photo to enlarge.

Mare & foal drawing on a card done by my good friend Michelle Severe

One of my favorite forms of cooking: Crockpot

The morning sun on the rock cliff behind the barn

My hollyhocks after last nights heavy freeze

19 degrees in the barn Wednesday morning

Our Buckaroo coffee table book and the tray my friend made

Morning shadows inside the barn

Whiskey, Colt & Brego at the breakfast buffet

Ice on the water trough

A Week in the Life~Day 3 of 7

I thought I'd try something new today with a slideshow of my nine photos. From what I could tell from the preview, it looks like the quality of the photos went kapoot after uploading them to PhotoBucket...they went tiny on me. Has anyone else experienced that?

Other than that, life is good...enjoy your day!

UPDATE: OK, I totally agree with dibear...this slideshow thing goes way too fast...I'm not overly fond of it. So, I did the collage thing too!

A Week in the Life~Day 2 of 7

The last of the cabbage from the garden :(

The horseshoe on a barbed wire wreath

My picture window during the wind/rain/mud storm

Apples bobbing in the wind

Wine bottles

Morning sun coming through the lilac leaves

Abby

Fresh eggs from the "Girls"

Colt at breakfast

By the way~~

If you haven't already entered my Blogiversary give-away, please do on this post! Help me celebrate 1 year of good times!

A Week in the Life~Day 1 of 7

I've been challenged!!! In a fun way of course. My two challengers are:

Holly at dogsnhorses

PrairieRunner at Just Another Day on the Prairie

Quoting from ShutterSisters blog:

Week of Life calls for 7 days captured in 9 photographs in each day. 63 photographs that make up a small documentary about one’s life, which can help to create a large documentary about the world. I like that idea. So, with that in mind, let's see something from your week this week. Shed a little light into your world, and ours.

Sounds like fun! If anyone wants to take the challenge, please by all means do so! Start any time and let me know you've decided to do it so I can follow along!

You can put up your photos in any way you choose (Flickr, PhotoBucket etc). I liked Holly's way of doing a collage. So, I've chosen to do mine that way.

The hub of a wagon wheel

Scarecrow

Cindy Sue...looking backward

The horseshoe birdhouse

Tat the barn cat

Burn pile

Colt & Brego

My goofy seasonal banner

Leaves floating in Abby's doggie pool

Thanks for coming along and enjoy your day!

Sunday Stills ~ Landscapes (Fall Foliage)

I couldn't help but chuckle with this week's Sunday Stills photo challenge...sorry Ed ;~)

Freeze dried doesn't produce much color...but it was still fun finding something that was typical for our area here in the high desert.

Colt and I rode to the top of our hill.

There's lots of dried out grass on the ridge

where the horses don't frequent too often.

As a desert lover, I think it's beautiful.

We had a nice frost last week. This is my

favorite time of day...as the sun starts coming up.

I like the golden hue with a lil' bit of fog as

Brego and Whiskey come up for breakfast.

Ahhhhh color!!!

It may not be on the tree...but it's in the tree!

Check out lots of other "Landscapes with Fall Foliage" at the Sunday Stills comment section.

1 Year Blogiversary Give-Away!!

Yep, one year ago October 25 it all started!

And it's all because of my good Dogster Mom friend Kathleen at Life Earth Sky. Her Rat Terrier pup Cloud is one of Cindy Sue's best pup furiends on Dogster.com.

Kathleen is a wonderful artist and does totally amazing animal portraits, among other great stuff. She showed us the link to her blog to see the progress she was making on her latest portrait of Cloud. BTW...Cloud has his own blog now...you gotta check him out...he's one funny pupster!!

Well anyhow, after seeing what she was doing...I decided it might be fun and a way to meet more people...never in my wildest dreams did I think that friendships would blossom and blogging could take me virtually all over the world!!!

Hi, my name is Karen and I'm a blogger.

I'm hooked...so are you!!! Otherwise you wouldn't be reading this!! LOL!!

To celebrate this milestone and show how much I appreciate everyone's friendship, enjoy all of your comments, and just give thanks to all my followers I'm going to do my first give-away.

'bout time huh?!?

These cute cups were a find at the Pendleton Roundup this year and they started my collection of items for the give-away. Everyone can use a lil' bit of Cowboy/Cowgirl in their home!

I know that many readers aren't active "horse" people, so I've worked it out. I've got a stash of stuff for "horsey" folks and a stash of stuff for "non-horsey" folks. Either way, the cups are going to be part of the stash for one lucky winner.

Here's what ya gotta do: leave a comment on this post telling me your favorite coffee drink. Leave the recipe too if you want! If you're not a coffee person, just tell me your favorite beverage that's going to get poured into these cups!

That's it!

Entries close at 9 PM on Friday October 30. The winner will be drawn and posted on Saturday, October 31. SPOOKY YES?!? Nah...I promise not to put any spooks in the package!

If you leave an anonymous post, please leave your name at the bottom of your post.

From the bottom of my heart...Thank You everyone for a great year!!

Happy Trails and Good Luck!

Wordless Wednesday

See lots more Wordless Wednesday photos here.

Chores on a Beautiful Fall Weekend

I want to thank everyone who listened to my rant in the last post. It made me feel much better! Thank you also for the wonderful, supportive comments that you left. We really appreciate your thoughts and concerns. Phone calls will be made, research will be done and I'll keep you posted about where this is going.

We have faith that this view will remain as it is.

Beautiful.

Thank you again for your support.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My Man kept himself busy this weekend with splitting and stacking 4 cords of wood. We're very thankful that we have use of a splitter from a friend. Juniper is wonderful to burn, but it's a bugger to split by hand.

I heard the loud hum of the splitter all day Saturday as

My Man worked at making little pieces out of big pieces.

He's just about got it whipped...or should I say that

the Juniper whipped him...he was one tired pup last night.

It sure feels good to have wood in the shed

and hay in the barn...we're ready for winter!

I finally got the dog houses painted. The last touch will

be the lath edges going around the doors...in red.

They say it means prosperity...I want my dogs

to prosper...even if we don't!

The chicken coop got it's paint too...My Man thinks

I over did the red...he's probably right.

But, I think we can call the Girls the "Jail Bird Girls" now!

Three of the Girls tried to commit suicide yesterday by going into the pasture where the hill horses and burros are. Coyote didn't like them and tried to stomp them. Thank goodness there are no pics of me herding chickens back into the yard...that would be totally embarrassing for a cowgirl~LOL!

There's plenty more to do yet...

There are plenty of leaves to be mowed...

yep...I just use the mower and bag them up!

Enjoy your Fall days~~

What Would You Do...

...if they proposed to put one of these across the top of your house?

OK...well, I just found out that they won't be that big...probably more like this...

Either way...I DON'T LIKE IT!!!

Well, anyhow, that's what came in yesterday's mail for us; a letter requesting our permission to enter our property as they "...conduct an assessment of the environmental impacts associated with alternate routes being considered for an electric transmission line..."

We still can't believe it's true.

We knew that the Echanis Wind Energy Project had been approved...which in itself is surprising considering the close proximity of its location...just north (and in plain view) of the Steens Mountain...one of the most pristine wilderness areas in the State of Oregon.

Along with the letter and "Access Agreement" form was a map showing the proposed route. This intended route will plant at least 3 of these poles in a diagonal line across our alfalfa field...past the front of our house (by a couple hundred feet)...and leave our property at the end of our driveway.

Remember this video?

This is the alfalfa field in front of our house...our beautiful, serene landscape will be marred forever.

Our land value will be in the toilet.

They talk about compensation if this route is approved...right...pennies on the dollar...all of our hard work and all of our money that we've invested into this land for retirement will be devalued in an instant...as soon as some big mucky mucky chump sitting at a big desk in a big city high-rise tower signs a piece of paper to approve this route...who doesn't give a rip about anything but his big paycheck and the even bigger bonus he's going to get when the deal goes through.

When I went to this company's website, I couldn't help but notice the logo at the top of the page: "Harvesting the wind...saving family ranches...building stronger local economies as part of a greener world." LMAO (sarcastically)...how many lil' ranches are put out of business to keep one ranch in business?

Yes...I'm angry today...what would you do?

End of Garden Season

It was a perfect day yesterday afternoon to get some garden chores done. I started out with a jacket and pealed it off in less than 5 minutes!

The chicken coop is next to the garden and the Girls were givin' me the "one eye look" as usual...which means they want something...they don't really care what it is, they just want it.

They have not been out of their coop...ever...so, this seemed like a good time. I just hoped they would go back in when I needed them to.

The "Girls" strutting their stuff!

They had a great time pickin' bugs 'n grass...and

they even came back into the coop when

it was feeding time!

Well, onto my sorry lookin' garden. I knew it was bad...I just hadn't been close enough to see how bad it really was...

What a mess!

And what a shame I had to toss out more

tomatoes than I could count.

Underneath all that tangled mess were tons of

huge, beautiful...but green...frozen tomatoes!

My acorn squash never did have a chance.

They and my zucchini had a lack of calcium

which gives them what is termed

"bloom end rot."

They make a foliage calcium spray to help the plants,

but no one in Burns carried it.

For next spring I have to supplement my ground

with calcium and that should take care of the problem.

But, look what's under all that mess of vines!

Yummy Walla Walla Sweet Onions!

After a couple of hours, the mess was transformed.

And, with the Girl's approval, the job was finished!

Pickin' bugs...yum...eesh...

My labors did not go without reward!

I think liver & onions is on the menu soon...well, for me anyhow...My Man won't touch the stuff!

The day wasn't all work...Cowboy had to get a lil' fun in!

Which Season Is It?!?

There IS a reason I'm confused...

Last week it definitely felt like winter with the cold temps that we had and a bit of snow too.

This week is feels like fall again.

Friday is supposed to reach 72 degrees and Saturday 74...back to summer again?

Oh well...just takin' each day as it comes.

The past couple of days, we've had typical Harney County fall wind. It doesn't want to let up and it makes going outdoors undesirable to say the least. As I fed the herd last night, we had a good rain shower too.

But the clouds across the way were very eerie.

The setting sun brought out a beautiful hue.

Call me crazy, but the clouds reminded me

of a sows udder.

Maybe I need more socialization ;~)

Colt brought this with him to breakfast.

This is a real cheap way to desensitize your horse!

They're every where and we'll have to pull them

out of the fence lines and burn them.

After feeding time, the wind and rain quit and it was as still as could be. Ahhhhh...much better!

Cindy Sue found some ol' bone

to chew on...maybe a deer neck.

Cowboy's givin' me the

"come on Mom...kick the ball" look!

Today I've got to get out to the garden and dig up the rest of my onions and tear out all the frozen, dying tomato and zucchini plants. I'm sure going to miss my tomatoes...we've only got a few left in the fridge...

Enjoy your fall day!