Montana Dung Beetle

This is another video I took while the Midwest Boys were having fun at the crooked cabin. I have never seen a bug like this before...

Who knew that there were dung beetles in Montana that enjoy elk poop?

And personally, I like how the second beetle in this video is just hanging on for the ride. The "worker beetle" has to push so hard he's pushing with his back legs.

Crazy stuff happens in the wild...

Birthday Quiet

Today -- (after looking at the clock I should say yesterday) -- was my birthday. I'm not big into birthdays. I'm not growing old gracefully. I want to fight it every step of the way. I don't like some of the things that are happening to my body: the mass of grey/white hair that has popped up in my bangs; the fact that I have to go potty ALL THE TIME and I can't hold it for days at a time (i.e. Girl's Camp experience); the many "character lines" that are popping up around my eyes, my forehead and my mouth (I like to say it's because I'm basically a happy person and I smile too much. It helps me feel better about them!); the fact that I have become a lot more blunt when people ask my opinions; etc. etc.

My daughter likes to point out that I'm OLD... my son likes to point out that when a person turns 50 they are "Officially OLD" and that only gives me 8 more years. (Our bishop is a funeral director. I think my kids are having secret meetings with him to pick out my casket!) My husband just loves me... thank heavens. -- Although, he did casually mention the grey hair the other day... "So, darling, why don't you just go have it colored?"

I am slowly moving into the different age category on surveys and censuses. I am inching closer and closer being out of the 38-45 age range. GAH!!!

When I was in my 20's, I told a very young Buttercup that when I turned 30 I would start getting younger and younger and eventually she would be older than me. My darling daughter, who never believed her mother could be so deceitful, totally believed me. It was with great sadness, a few years later, that I had to confess that her mother is a liar and a cheat and that I wouldn't get younger after all. This is the year, had I actually had the "Case of Benjamin Button" (my idea first!!!) that Buttercup would officially be older than me... she turned 18 and I would have turned 17. **Heavy Sigh**


I digress...

In spite of my abhorrence of birthdays, today was a GREAT birthday. I (along with my children) went to MY MOUNTAINS of Montana and spent time with my nephew and his friends who are on their Great Western Adventure, visiting from the Midwest (all 3 just graduated from High School). We had a great day doing all the "touristy" stuff we never do anymore: souvenir shopping in West Yellowstone; watching the Yellowstone movie at the Imax theater and going to the Grizzly Discovery Center. For lunch we roasted hotdogs over the fire at a local campground.

After we exhausted the town, we headed out of West and around Hegben Lake and took the boys to one of our favorite spots... the Crooked Cabin.

Back in 1959 there was a major earthquake in this area and there are still a lot of old buildings around that became uninhabitable but didn't totally fall to the ground. The Crooked Cabin is one of them. My parents took my brother, sisters and I there on occasion when we were younger and we have rediscovered it in the past couple years and have taken our kids and friends there... frequently.



My nephew, Sonny, went to this cabin last summer and wanted to take his friends there. My kids LOVE going there so everyone was in agreement. Off we went!


It's only about a mile from the parking lot to the cabin, so we left Grammy and Papa with the vehicles (they wanted to take a nap) the kids and I took off up the trail. Once at the cabin, the kids rushed in and started goofing off and I just hung around outside. I found a nice rock up the trail and away from the cabin where I could sit down and look over the lake, soaking in the sun while listening to the birds sing and the squirrels (ground squirrels) chatter. There was an occasional thump thump thump from the lake as the pelicans flapped their wings on the water.



The kids goofed off in the cabin (carving names on the floor) for 1/2 hour or so while I soaked in the silence, peace and solitude (and Vitamin D since Mother Nature gave me the gift of sunshine). It was the most blissful 30 minutes I've had in EONS!!



I took a short, one minute video during my time on my rock. I will share it with you here. Turn up your speakers, turn on your fan (to simulate the slight breeze that was blowing) and you can possibly be magically transported to my Quiet Birthday moment! Just hit "replay" 30 times and you can have the whole 1/2 hour experience!





I will clean my camera lens! Sorry for the smudge!

A Study in Silliness

Steck came over tonight and reamed me out that I haven't been blogging more lately. I mean... sheesh! She goes months and months, never reading a post, and now she thinks I need to be writing more!! (Ha! Steck.... you know I love ya!)

Okay, so I have neglected my blog lately. But to be honest, I don't feel like there is a creative cell in my body and I can't think of anything to write about. I could drone on and on about Girl's Camp and the preparations I'm doing for it and how I DON'T want to go this year and how glad I am that this is my last year... but who wants to read a depressing post like that?

I could write a travelogue about our recent trip to Portland and how much fun we had even though we were only there for the weekend... but that's not exciting reading.

I could write about Max's new job contract and how relieved we are that we can feed our family and make our house payment... but how stimulating is that?

There is just nothing that I can think of to write about!!

So, to make Steck happy, I decided to make another slide show:

Finally, FINALLY, we have warm, decent weather so after dinner, we took a walk to the park. Max is out of town, so it was Steck, Buttercup, Inigo and I. While Inigo was playing on the equipment, out came my trusty best friend... my Canon PowerShot. Buttercup and I goofed off taking pictures of ourselves using as many different faces and poses that we could think of. People around us thought we were weird, except the lovely couple sitting on the benches behind us who obviously couldn't afford to get themselves a room.... (you'll see them in a couple pictures).

And so I give you, Buttercup and Me, A Study in Silliness

(oh yeah, there is an overabundance of chins in these pictures... just try to ignore them!)

Free photo slideshow generated with Smilebox

My Boy Doing His Thing

Buttercup is at Youth Conference... her first and last as a YW (thank heavens they let the new H.S. graduates go, otherwise she wouldn't have had one Youth Conference her whole YW career). They went to Manti to the pageant on Friday night and Welfare Square and This Is The Place Monument today and this evening. ETA is around 11:30 tonight.

That left Inigo an only child.

Some would say, "poor kid." Others would say, "Luckyyyy!"

However you look at it, he was the focus of my attention the entire weekend. Sadly for him, I had my camera in my purse. "Sadly," because he is simply sick and tired of the "mamarazzi" always pointing a camera at him saying, "Inigo... INIGO!!! Look at me!! Smile! Are you Team Jacob or Team Edward? Inigo! Look at that ________ . Will you stand in front of it and smile? INIGO!!"

This slideshow is what happens when the "mamarazzi" takes the camera to Wingers and tries to capture every moment before the meal comes. It also shows the subject ducking under the table to avoid the shot. (Like a true movie star ducks to avoid the paparazzi.)

There's also a few extra "filler" photos -- from the Farmer's Market here in Florin to our weekend hike.

I give you My Boy... Being a Boy

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A Question

I have heard that my blog causes problems for one of my readers and I'm wondering if anyone else is having a problem?

When she opens my blog, it opens itself up "a bazillion times" and she has to log off the computer to get it to stop.

If anyone else has this problem, can you please let me know? I don't know what to do to stop it, but maybe I can contact blogger and see if there is an answer.

Thank you!!

Good Old Fashioned Comfort Food

Who doesn't love a good oatmeal cookie? Okay, Little Miss Doolittle is allergic to oatmeal and can't eat it in cookies, but other than that.... WHO DOESN'T LOVE A GOOD OATMEAL COOKIE!?! Especially when it's chock full of chocolate chips, or butterscotch chips, or chocolate chunks or some chopped up nuts, or M&M's, or toffee pieces, or ....

I draw the line at raisins though. Yuck. I have made the pledge -- a solemn vow -- that I will NEVER EVER EVER add a dried up, shriveled grape to anything that I bake. It's just too horrible to contemplate, to terrible to consider, too horrific to ponder... (shall I go on?)

YUCK!!!

Today's recipe is a standard-no-frills-down-home-good Oatmeal Cookie Recipe. It's the same cookie recipe that your grandma would make for your visit on a Sunday afternoon or your mom would make and pull out of the oven as you walked in the door after school. It's warm and comfortable and GOOD!!!

(I don't remember where I got this recipe from... sorry I can't give credit to the proper person!)

Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup crisco

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla

(Some people prefer using butter but I definitely prefer using shortening in my cookies. I think the cookies spread less. However, you can't beat the butter flavor!! The perfect compromise is butter flavored crisco. Of course crisco sticks are totally easy to use.)

(Also, at this point I add a tsp or so water or milk to the mix. I like the added moisture it gives to the cookie.)

Beat in:

2 eggs

Add:

2 cups oatmeal

1 1/2 cup flour

1 tsp soda

1 tsp salt

Stir until mixed together.

Add your yummies... Chocolate chips, etc. etc.

Place on cookie sheet

and bake at 350* for 7 - 10 minutes (or until done, which in my oven is about 11 minutes.)

(Don't let the cleanliness of my oven intimidate you....)

I made these cookies for my guys to take to their Father/Son campout. It was cold and wet and they had a great time!

Again I ask you:

WHO DOESN'T LOVE A GOOD OATMEAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE?!?

They're Baaaack

We finally found the owls!! We were so excited!

They aren't living in the same tree they lived in last year, but they're still fairly close. I was so happy we found them before the baby (we can only find one this year) flies away!

*********************

Isn't this creepy? It was getting a little dark, so I turned the flash on. Yes. I could use the red-eye editor and get rid of them, but why would I?





The baby -- Look at its eyes!!


All last summer, when I was trying to take the owl's pictures, its eyes were always open. This is the first time I've seen it sleep!



I think these are the same adult owls as last year. Great Horned Owls mate for life and they tend to come back to the same nesting area every year. Since they seem to be permanent members of the neighborhood, I think we should name them. What do you think?