Experimenting with Camera Angles

Rereading Freckles

Freckles is one of my favorite books. I love it! I reread it this past week and wanted to share just a couple of my favorite quotes. 

 

"I have been studying over this matter." Answered McLean. "I am not so sure that a man no older than you and similar in every way could do this work very well, if he were not a coward, and had it in him to be trustworthy and industrious"

Freckles came forward a step.

"If you will give me a job where is can earn me food, clothes, and a place to sleep," he said, "if I can have a Boss to work for like other men, and a place I feel I've a right to, I will do precisely what you tell me or die trying."

I love how freckles presented his argument to Mr McLean of why he should be hired. He wasn't trying to be a showoff, he was presenting his moral values and saying -at least to me- take it or leave it.

"That winter held the first hours of real happiness in Freckles' life. He was free. He was doing a man's work faithfully, through every rigor of rain, snow, and blizzard. He was gathering a wonderful strength of body, paying his way, and saving money. Every an of the gang and if that knew that he was under the protection of McLean, who was a power, this had the effect o smoothing Freckles' path in many directions."

I love how Gene Stratton Porter so skillfully captivated how when you have a job or a purpose you are naturally happier. Even though Freckles was working very hard he was happy because he had a purpose.

"Well, if life ain't getting to be worth living!" he said wonderingly. "Biggest streak of luck I ever had! 'Bout time something was coming my way, but I wouldn't ever thought anybody could strike such magnificent prospects through only a falling feather."

It it amazing how he appreciates life s much, and can see the beauty in just small things.

"Well, maybe you are going to be a great scholar," she said, "but you don't look it. Your face isn't right for that, but it's got something big in it - something really great. I must find out hat it is and then you must work on it. Your father is expecting you to do something. One an tell by the way he talks You should begin right away. You've wasted too much time already."

Our life misions are built inside us, it is in our very genetic makeup and we all have the potential to become some thing 'really great' but, as the Angel said, we've all wasted too much time already. So go and seek out your missions! Our Heavenly Father wants us to do something, so do it!

"I'll do anything you want me to," said Freckles largely "and if I can't do what you want I'll go to work at once and I'll try 'till I can"

I Love his dedication to the Angel. Ladies, this is a real man, a man that will take care of you no matter what!

"Anyone who knows you even half as well as I do, knows that you are never guilty of a discourtesy, and you move with twice the grace of any man here. Why shouldn't you feel as if you belonged where people are graceful and courteous?"

It doesn't matter our social status, if we act graceful and courteous than we have every right to associate with people who do likewise!

"I want you to be my real knight, Freckles, and come o me and tell me that you -like me-a little. I have been counting on you for my sweetheart from the very first, Freckles. I can't give you up, unless you don't like me But you do like me-just a little- don't you Freckles?"

I Love how devoted the Angel is to Freckles, and how sweet she is.

Just some thoughts...

I guess I've forgotten about blogging in the last little while. No, I don't have an excuse. :) Here's just a couple of thoughts for ya.

• Life of Fred is the best Math Book EVER!!! I have never liked doing math for years until I started doing Life of Fred, if it just awesome! 

Flex-Force Pellets are awesome, I've been giving them to Idaho for a couple of months it is super cheap and works GREAT! I keeps her from getting stiff as I train her. If I had a horse in more stressful training I would probably buy something like this. But for now this works great and is about 1/3 of the price. I buy it here. They usually have the best prices and shipping etc.

• Feed Flax Seed to your horse for extra shine, better hoof quality and overall wellness. I feed 1 TBS a day(1 oz) but you can feed up to 1 cup(8 oz) a day. I love the stuff! I buy it in bulk from Winco.

 

• If you live in the Magic Valley the best radio station ever is 88.1 The Bridge! They play 100% Christian Music. I'm not a huge fan of the styles of the artists, but hey, it's clean music! So it's better than nothing!

• Roxy aborted her baby right before Christmas so we will not be having a baby this spring. She is healthy at least, I still have no idea what caused it. I have a secret fear that it was EHV, but none of the other horses were sick around that time and none of them have been exposed to other horses in MONTHS!! I am really hoping it wasn't EHV! She had a little bit of retained placenta so some oxytocin fixed her up. She was fine for two days and then got super sick and we gave her lots of antibiotics and NSAID's for a couple of days. It wasn't too fun to have to be running all over town to get drugs on Christmas Eve when we had a bunch of family over! But she was fine again after a day or two and she's been fine since then. I am going to have her cultured this month (hopefuly!) to make sure she is still good to breed this spring. It was cool I got to see the placenta this time(I didn't see Que's because Bailey was at the vets).

Sorry if this grosses you out! It was pretty awesome!!!

•  Christmas was good, we got to see lots of family which was sweet! We were able to have our big family dinner at our house this year, something that hasn't been able to happen for a while. :)

• We also were able to go to the Care Center again to deliver lap quilts on Christmas day. It is a special tradition that I love! 

(Kayti, Justin and I) This is the only picture we got...and it's super blurry...and it was super last second so it's all kind of silly looking. I love all of our faces. :)

 Hopefully that's all! See ya later...

Festival Pieces

These are my two pieces for Festival next month. They are so pretty!

So God made a Farmer

Lets get this straight before I show you this video. I did not watch the Superbowl. Good, now that that's out of the way, I heard this ad on the radio this morning and it was pretty cool so I found it on youtube. Oh, and it has DODGE PICKUPS!!!! My favorite! Gotta love dodges...oh yeah...and farmers. This is a perfect mix :)

Thank You

Thank you Wendell for that priceless gift you gave us 8 months ago...the gift of life!

 

Get better soon!

'A labor of Love'

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope we all have a great Christmas and remember WHY we have Christmas!
I found this poem on a website. Enjoy!


'A labor of Love'
 
It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David's town

And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother's hand to hold

It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love

Noble Joseph at her side
Callused hands and weary eyes
There were no midwives to be found
In the streets of David's town
In the middle of the night

So he held her and he prayed
Shafts of moonlight on his face
But the baby in her womb
He was the maker of the moon
He was the Author of the faith
That could make the mountains move

It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love

And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
It was a labor of love

Favorite Song! And some I have been playing lately!

This is one of my most favorite songs EVER!!! (I also LOVE the movie that this comes from!) I have been playing this one a lot lately. I've got it memorized, I play it alot! I love Einaudi's music! It can seem really boring, and sometimes I think it is, but I love how it is simple, not complicated not confusing, just pretty!

Just for laughs!

This post is just for fun!

Isn't she so cute!!!!

My cousin Erica and I both went over to my Grandma's house to pass out candy and hang out on Halloween. We got a hold of my Grandma's ipad and went to town taking silly pictures of each otherin between trick-or-treaters. Oh, and we laughed ourselves silly in the process!

Oh, and Erica crocheted the skirt that she is wearing (plus her belt and headband!). She was a crochet doll for Halloween. Isn't it soooooo cute?

Great Article

This is a really great insightful article on horsemanship click here to read it.

Teaching a Horse how to Neck Rein

So I got a crazy hair today and I decided that I wanted to ride Idaho. I knew that she was broke because she was raced. I wouldn't have just jumped on her if I didn't know that! I don't think that she's been ridden in 5+ years.

Anyway...I got on her and she did sooooo good! She was waaaay better than I thought she would be! She acted like a good old broke mellow horse...not a racehorse at all! She didn't have any bad racehorse manners except for she hates her ears being touched at all. So it took a looong time for me to figure out how to put a headstall on her, especially because that one is a sliding ear. She was happy to walk around and trot a little bit. She didn't try anything at all. Caleb rode her around the arena by himself a lot. But she was trained to run, not to be a good usable horse. So she is really green. She's probably the greenist (is that a word?) horse I've ever ridden. She knows zero neck reining and knows nothing about moving off of your leg. She has no buck in her or anything but she knows nothing except for a kick means go forward and whoa means slow down or stop (oh and she backed up when I asked her to). She was soooo sweet and was trying so hard to do what I asked her to she just didn't understand the cues I use on my other horses.

She is a really jumpy easily spooked horse so I was kind of nervous about it but she was soooo steady. Que was running all over the arena and she didn't even bat an eyelash! She has the SMOOTHEST gait i've ever ridden, even more than Bailey, and Bailey is really smooth!

But anyway, I found these videos on how to teach neck reining, I have always taken for granted the fact that my horses have always known how to but I'm going to see if I can teach her to because it is sooo much more fun to ride a horse that neck reins vs. on that doesn't!

The House: The Library Room

Sorry for the bad lighting! Here the boys are studying hard in the Library.

Lots of shalves for lots of books!

This is a cool little shelf in front of the window with a BOM and Dictionary along with some atlas' and random books!

The House: The Basement

Shelf in the Stairwell going down



Our couchless family room. Until we get couches it is a great play area since there's so much open space that's carpeted!

Piano area of the family room. (Please excuse the dollhouse!)

Nice big storage room!

Caleb's room

Luke's room (he has a desk in the corner you can't see)

Jared's room

My room (ignore the books on my bed...it's kind of like my desk!)

The House: The Bonus Room!

When you look to the left as you come up the stairs this is what you see...my sewing/music room!!!
(It's already messy! Oh no!)

Closup of the sewing part of the room.
On a side note, I LOOOOVE having a real design wall, it has been sooooo nice!

When you look to the right when you come up the stair this is what you see!
We're planning on having dances up here! It should be super fun!

This is a little family room on the very end of that looong room!
The bunkbeds are for when people come over and us kids are kicked out of our bedrooms.

This is our 'wii area' there's just the perfect amount of space to play the wii!

This is the view from a dormer window! The arena, then beautiful pastures and handlines :) and then the mountains!

View to the left from the same dormer. Can you see Bailey's head sticking up in there?

Closeup of 5 of the horses out in the pasture.
(in case you were dying to know Fanny and roxy are the ones standing, the other 3 are lying down and Bailey is over in the corrals since Que is being weaned)

This is a bad view of the cool chandelier that is in the stairwell going upstairs. I'll have to get a picture from the outside at night, it looks really cool!

More later...

The House: Main Level

Some people have requested pictures of our house via. email so I figured that this would be the easiest way to show everybody. Let's just say I took a LOOOOOOT of pictures!!

This is the Living Room

This is the Kitchen from the Living Room

Kitchen view

Mom's butler's pantry

The Mudroom

Closeup of the lockers

The washer and dryer (in the mud room)

Laundry area, for sorting, folding clothes etc. in the mud room

Half of the garage

 

The guest bedroom that is sheetless

The Master Bedroom