I can't believe I haven't posted anything since May! I have been remiss, I vow to do better. How much better,  you might ask. I refuse to say.

Let's see, a quickie recap of June through September would seem to be in order, no? Here's what happend:
                                           

My son's 8th grade graduation

                               

Trip to Italy and Spain

After being gone a month, there was a lot of weeding and cleaning up on the farm!

Soccer started up again, a very important thing in our family.

September:

Drive, drive, drive. (We live an hour and fifteen minutes from my son's school and forty five minutes from my daughter's school)

October:

We are already half way through it and I don't know where the first two weeks have gone!

Why is it that when it is a sunny glorious day outside I get grumpy? Well, actually, let me rephrase that...when it's sunny out and I have to go to town...then I get grumpy. I absolutely despise leaving the farm when the weather is lovely out and I could be outside doing a million fun things. I get even grumpier when it's nice out and I don't have to go anywhere but I have to do indoor chores like opening mail, paying bills, cleaning bathrooms and kitchens, or cooking. Oh, the horrors!

Before running errands and going to town or doing anything in the house or kitchen...here are just a few of the things I'd rather be doing:

Grooming Horses

Helping my husband with the bees

Playing with Poppy and Lady

Playing with my Gypsy girls

We are having so much fun with our baby girl, everyday there is something new to experience.  My dear friend Jeanie showed me how she brings out a bunch of fun "toys" for her foals to learn about so, I thought I would do the same. I bought Bliss a new pink ball and brought out a bag full of goodies as well. She is so curious and interested in everything...loving this!

Don't tell me you don't adore her "chocolate" dipped tail!

My dear little Bliss (aka Cougar Hill's 72% Dark Chocolate Bliss) is almost a month old, we are so blessed. It's hard to believe how quick the time goes by, seems like just yesterday poor "Truffy" (aka Cougar Hill's Chocolate Raspberry Truffle) looked like this:

Poor thing, she was getting so huge! And now we have this:

~Bliss just an hour old~

~Bliss, 5 days old~

We got our new paddocks done not more than a month ago and I am so loving them. I can stand in the living room and look out the window and see the horses. I can stand on the back deck and gaze out on the beauty of my dear, sweet Gypsy girls. It is a huge blessing and I am having so much fun watching how they interact with one another and the quirky little things they do. I also splurged and put in a Nelson waterer that serves both paddocks...did I say I love it, love it all. God is good!

I often stay up later than I should and then I get hungry...it's better to just go to bed and get enough sleep and not eat late at night. However, when I am up late I do enjoy some little something to keep me working those late hours. Luckily I adore smoothies. I think when the kids are grown and gone (sniff, cry, whimper) I shall have smoothies for two of my meals and just eat a meal I actually have to chew once a day. Just think...no prep time, hardly, and minimal clean up, which equals more time outside. That works for me. So here is one of my late night smoothies...raspberry dream...yummy.

Why choose such a small glass? It has flowers on it and looks like spring. As you can see from the obvious overflow, it was late and I miscalculated grossly. Such a waste!

Mastiff Girls

When we bred Lady we  did so with the intention of keeping one of the pups and we were thrilled when we ended up with four of them to choose from. Choosing was difficult though, because we liked them all. We finally ended up keeping the only female as we have always had female dogs and that is what we are used to, so we went with it.

But, as always happens when you get a puppy, it began to be a lot of work. My kids' schedule was a bit hectic and I was feeling overwhelmed and we thought we just might sell her after all. But we haven't... and I am so glad!

She is almost potty trained I would say...no thanks to us...we have really done a horrible job of being consistent. But, in spite of us, she is a dear sweet girl. She sleeps on her bed in our room at night and actually cries when she wants to go outside. Lovely.

We decided to continue with the flower names and picked "Lady Poppy." Her mom is "Lady Daisy" so we thought that would go well. We had an entirely different name picked out but it just didn't work, she wouldn't come to it. I finally realized that she was so accustomed to being called "puppy" that she thought is was her name. So, we figured "Poppy" sounds about the same in "dogese" and it has worked well.