State RA Congress 2010

This past Saturday was the annual RA State Congress. The Royal Ambassadors of the Pearl where there in force and ready to compete. Dad has been working as an RA leader and Bub has been involved in RA's for 5 years now. Saturday we took 25 boys to the Congress. Pretty impressive numbers. Our first activities were track and field events. Here Bub and several of his RA pals watch while others compete.
Bub takes on the high jump.

Nice form. This may be his first attempt at high jumping.

Here all our boys goofing off. Bub won 4Th place with his relay team.

Here Dad is giving the boys a pre-race pep-talk before we race our RA Racer cars. The boys build these themselves each year.

Bub did well with his car but not good enough to place. Better luck next year big man.

One of the biggest competitions at Congress is the campcraft competition. Campcraft is part of what RA's learn about through the year. It involves getting out in nature. It's camping, cooking outdoors and those types of activities. Here Bub is tying his Knots. The team (we have 5 boys on ours) must tie four of six knots in two minutes, saw a 4 inch log in half, and pitch a tent.

Here our boys work on the tent.

They really did a fantastic job. They have been working and practicing these skills all year long.

Here we were signing in and strategizing what steps we would take to do better than the 3rd place we won last year.

It worked. 1st in state. RA Campcraft team. YEA!!!!

The boys compete in other activities throughout the day. Here Bub shoots an air rifle.

And here he tries archery.

5Th Best in state. Not surprising as he won 2ND in state last year.

Here are our boys at the end of the day with all of their medals and ribbons. We had a great time and Bub did a great job.

Clan Daniel takes the farm on tour.

This past Friday was rodeo day at sisters school. She was "cowgirled" up for the day! She's the real deal. No drugstore cowgirls around here.
She's ready to go. Sister though is not the only one going. The Mrs. offered up our bottle calf and one of our goats for a visit to the school.

So Babe and Lucy got loaded into the trailer and away we went.

Loading is one thing...unloading something different.

The kindergarten kids were all dressed up and ready to get hands-on with the livestock.

They were a little shy at first but that changed pretty quick. It still amazes me even in a small town how many kids these days never come into contact with animals.

Since Sister owns the animals (so to speak) she got to show off a little by feeding the calf. All were appropriately jealous.

Tree planting

Our Sunday after church was a complete wash-out as working around the place goes. It rained all afternoon so we just hung around the house. You need that from time to time. But since Dad is such a great guy he gave Mom the day off and he made dinner. Nachos for everybody!
Monday after work and school Dad and Bub went back to planting trees.

Bub is getting his first tree planting experience. He has a way to go before he masters the art of the dig.

What a he-man.

This is how a hole is dug. These are 30 gallon trees so the holes have to be really big.

We are planting 2 red oaks and one live oak. Bub asked me if we didn't already have enough trees and I told him I was building a forest for his grand kids.

The Mrs. decided that this was a pic that needed taken. Explains why I wear a hat most of the time.

Another Saturday at the Pearl

As with most Saturdays, I had good intentions of what I would get accomplished around the homestead today. Unfortunately, intentions are like opinions, and we all know what opinions are like. It started out with the Mrs. abandoning me and going to town to work a fundraiser for Sissy's GA camp. After she got home the weather appeared near to pour so we decided to go check out a couple of livestock trailers for sale near by. That proved fruitless so we came back home and decided that we would salvage this day in some way so we decided to clean up and re-do our sitting area. This is an area off our back porch that we like to hang out in and drink coffee in the mornings. Just as we finished planting the last flowers the sky fell out and it started raining and has not let up as yet. Well at least we got it done. Hopefully tomorrow after church we will have a pretty day and we can get some other work accomplished.
We are hoping to clean out the front flower bed and I have 3 - 30 gallon trees to plant. Not to mention the corral I still need to complete for the show steers.

Maybe tomorrow after we are finished we can relax in our new sitting area.

Rocky - Day 3

Swelling is starting to go down. She is feeling better about it. Black eyes draw a lot of attention in a small town and that's right up Sissy's ally. Keep smiling gorgeous!

Springtime in the Pearl

Just a few images of springtime at the homestead. Gotta love this time of year! bluebonnets
wildflowers

field of wildflowers

somehow a repeat

iris' by the barn

hack berry tree

wild grapes

bluebonnet

Rocky 12

Day after wreck. She's feeling better but looks like she's gone 4 rounds with Mike Tyson.

She's still a beauty!

Black eyes

My beautiful oldest daughter has been spending every afternoon after school driving the go-cart around the homestead. Sissy has had quite a time with her driving over the years. She drove a lawn mower into a fence post once and tore it to pieces. She has been really loving all the driving though and has been getting pretty good at it. That is until today. She actually rolled the go-cart over on it's side. Fortunately she was wearing a helmet and a 5 point harness and the go-cart has a good roll bar, but unfortunately she somehow hit her eye pretty good.
Can't wait to see that shiner tomorrow! She swears she will never drive again. We'll see...

RA Races

Bub has been involved in the Royal Ambassador program at church for 5 years now. We have had many good times including building wooden race cars each year and racing them. This was the first of 3 times we will race them. Saturday was the county RA association race.
We will race 2 more times this year with this car. Once at state congress and a third time at our local chapter race. Here Bub watches his car win a heat. He won 2ND place overall in his grade division.

11 year old boys are pretty goofy. Hey, they are sitting down. This is good behavior.

This is one of the RA leaders from here at the Pearl. We act goofy sometimes too. We just don't have to sit down.

animals, animals, animals!

Well, our bottle calf is coming on strong. He's drinking 4 times a day, 3 quarts at each feeding for a grand total of 12 quarts a day. He's getting bigger and bigger. We will hang on to him until he reaches 500 to 600 pounds and then sale him for per pound pricing or we will hang on to him until he's around 900 pounds and put him in the freezer. He's got the good life so far.

Here sister holds a bottle. It's as big as her!

This is one of our horses, Jake. He is a strange horse.

Or should I say nosey? That's it. He's a nosey horse.

Weird horse!