Firsts

Our little tank. Four months old on Tuesday!

Had her first taste of rice cereal today.

 Playing tug-of-war with mom. Not fond of that spoon leaving her mouth! It's amazing to watch them figure out what those flailing appendages are for.

Giving it all she's got. She seems a bit disgruntled that her best just isn't quite enough yet. She did roll from her stomach to her back for the first time but, of course, the camera wasn't rolling.

We're not in Portland anymore

A piece of Portland (or LA or Seattle or any such large confluence of people) plopped itself onto our freeway. Yep, a good old traffic jam. A full-on dead stop, 85 to 0 in a hurry, out of nowhere style jam. There are quite a few obstacles that we know how to confront: 30' wide implements, herds of sheep or cattle. But this here mass of cars was a new one to many.
Well, unlike Portland, none of us knew what to do at first. Do we go through the median to the other side? Do we cut through the ditch to the frontage road (which I very well may have done had there not been a pesky fence in the way), do we park and just walk the rest of the way? Should we call the Sheriff? Should we go get the horses? Cars were swerving in and out of lanes, trucks were switching lanes trying not to hit cars. Bumping a bumbling bunch of bumpkins out of our comfort zone can be dangerous!
So, getting us all stopped was interesting, but what followed would blow an urbanite's mind. I had to pinch myself myself. See, the reason we were all screeching to a halt was an upcoming construction zone where the left lane was closed. We were still a good 1/2 mile from the lane closure and things continued to back up behind us so that there was a SINGLE line of cars about a mile long in the right lane leading up to the lane closure. There were many a "No, please," and "After you," and "I insist," going on as people scrambled to get to the right lane as quickly as possible. We all oozed single file into the construction zone and crept along for miles. That's when I, and many others I'm sure, started looking for a good exit through the sagebrush.
Now, I ain't sayin' it's right or wrong. Just curious. Very curious.

Jam!

Let's get the obligatory shot of Emma out of the way.

On her way to the land of Nod. That's what made the rest of this post possible.

 We plundered the neighbor's apricot tree the other night. The thing was plum loaded with them. The small dent we made in the tree turned into 24 8 oz jars and two quarts of jam and a cobbler. Coming to your local stocking in a few months...

Trade you a clean stove for a jar of jam.

And an obligatory picture of the other child. There's not a crumb or drip or drop to be seen on that floor. Seriously Scout. You already got them all.

On a side note: plums in our tree! It didn't produce last year so we weren't sure what variety of leafy foliage we were babysitting. Now that we know it will actually produce fruit we really ought to do a better job of babysitting!

No one's forcing you to watch this.

But we know you want to. Everyone wants to watch babies jabber for hours on end. Getting her to jabber for the camera instead of fuss is a bit of a trick however. It's genetic- her dad doesn't like cameras pointed at him either. So, enjoy take number 35, edited. (The fuzzy picture is probably your readers or dirty screen or some such error on your end. Get it looked at and I'll try to figure out what I'm supposed to be focusing on next time.)

Getting ready for work- single handedly. 

 Little critters peeking over the edge.

 And pooping on our porch. This little family moved out of their summer home this week. Next year they're going to be encouraged to use a nesting box that will be built away from the house...

Shauna's been busy attacking our weeds. The whole side of the yard where we filled in the old ditch was supposed to be landscaped and manicured this year. Not sure what the wife's been doing. 

This section is going to be an extension of our parking area. Our neighbor-down-the-way-a-bit has a Bobcat. And he's retired. And bored. Thank goodness for neighbors with toys and time to spare! He's going to finish our little project for us: level off the dirt and fill in the gravel.

Those weeds made a right good bonfire the other night. Got helped along by some juniper branches we pruned earlier this summer.

 Our sad little spot of new lawn. There is some nice new grass under those weeds- last I checked. As I mentioned before, we had great visions of getting the whole side yard seeded and established this summer. Now we have great visions of having a slightly less hectic spring next year and maybe being able to keep ahead of the yard. 

Delusional? Nah.