6-26-10 OK - last pic of chicken broth - isn't it beautiful????

6-26-10 Mike & I enjoyed these beautiful fireworks at our friends' early 4th of July party (thanks, Jason & Karli!), while the boys were with Aunt Jenny & Uncle Matt - see next couple of pics...

6-26-10 The boys' first concert!! Here they are with Aunt Jenny.

6-26-10 ...and here they are with Uncle Matt. Swimming+snacks+loud music+late night=VERY TIRED BOYS!! They had a great time!

6-26-10 Brotherly love...

6-27-10 This morning we found "Golf" with his mom, Rene. He's our 7th bull.

6-27-10 Got a call from the Shultz family, that their bees had swarmed & wondered if we wanted to catch a swarm - YEP!

6-27-10 Our bee mentors (Brooks & Jen) let us borrow their supplies to go capture the swarm. :)

6-27-10 Got 'em!

6-27-10 Ready for the drive home...

6-27-10 And here they are in their new home! (Didn't Paul do a great job taking these bee pictures?!)

6-30-10 And finally, our last calf of 2010! His name is "Hotel", and here he is with his mom, Sarah. Our final tally was 6 heifers & 8 bulls!

6-30-10 Hotel wanted to be different from the rest before him - he walked with his mom from the field all the way to the barn!!

6-30-10 ...almost there...

6-30-10 ...what a tired baby he is...Michael will help him the rest of the way!

7-1-10 And now we're on to hay... The Boys were such a big help this year! One boy would be our "bale surfer" (roll the bales from the top down to me so I could load the elevator...)

7-1-10 ...and the other boy would be up in the hay with Mike, rolling bales to him for "stacking"!

7-2-10 ...about 550 bales or so....

7-3-10 ...about 900 bales or so...

7-3-10 Mike ran out of wagon room towards the end of baling, so he left the last 50 bales on the ground & we came back later to pick them up & manually stack them in the now emptied wagon. (Yes, that's Michael driving! He did such a great job!)

7-3-10 Mike picked up the bales from the field and tossed them in the wagon. My job was to stack them in the wagon. Can't say that I'm a huge fan of this chore... :/

7-3-10 ...and FINALLY...about 1300 bales or so...DONE!!!!!

This pic was actually taken on 6-30, at Michael's baseball party...sorry I'm out of order! The Boys just LOVE to swim - didn't MaryJo take a GREAT PICTURE?!

7-6-10 Today we're bringing our other bull "LittleT" up to the future dairy (& beef) herd in Mordor. Here is everybody coming to the gate to see what's going on...

7-6-10 ...and here he comes...

7-6-10 ...and there he goes!!

7-6-10 "Welcome to Mordor, Little T!!"

7-8-10 Lodi apples have been ready on our trees. We're SO THANKFUL Mike's Mom has been making applesauce for all of us! I freeze one cup portions in these containers and pop them out to make applesauce icecubes. We sweeten ours with evaporated cane juice...YUM!!

Another out of order picture... Mike's Mom & I picked red & black raspberries last week at Dillon's Fruit Farm between Lisbon & Guilford Lake. WHAT A BEAUTIFUL YEAR FOR BERRIES!! Between the 2 of us, we picked 29 quarts of berries! Of course, in our house, everything gets converted to how many pies that makes... I should get about 16 pies or so with my bounty!! :)

7-8-10 Groundhog hunting 101...