carrots wait for no one

that's why vaughn eats them now.

this carrot was plucked out of the ground, washed, and eaten. i was surprised how big and straight this grew, especially since mom said they would come out gnarled and stringy. this was our first attempt at carrots, and i consider it a success. we also planted a second batch in sand to see if they would grow any straighter (these carrots are in the black tubs behind vaughn). vaughn ate quite a bit of it though, and i thought it had a pretty good flavor. i'll have more garden reports as more things ripen.

synchronized cows?

our bull died last year, and instead of replacing him, we decided to synchronize the cows. we injected them with gnrh, breed whatever comes into heat. then 7 days later we inject them with lutelase; breed what comes into heat, then breed everything after a second gnrh injection. we ordered some new straws from montana (murray grey and waygu), so i was worried that we'd have a lot of cows that didn't come into heat. but i think we only had 1 cow that may not have been in actual heat. mom had to breed 10 cows in one day, but only 6 at one time. i think it worked really well, but i guess we'll have to wait 9 months to know for sure.
vaughn has learned some animal noises, and one of them is a cow. we brought him out while we were working the cattle, and he'd moo at them while they were in the chute. he liked to pat the cows at long as they were confined in the head gate. he would also play peek-a-boo with them while he was confined in his playpen.

here he is trying to herd the cows out of the barn. he found that making a scary face made them move faster.

pin pricks and pin heads

mom says i don't put enough of myself in my posts. that they are more like news reports and less like a journal. so as a special treat for mom, i will recount my day at the immunization class.
i drove down early this morning to learn how to be an immunizer. the class was half pharmacists and half new grads, waiting to take their exams. i couldn't believe how annoying the new grads were and that they were soon going to be my fellow pharmacists. i fully expected these things to come out of their mouths:
'when i become licensed i'm going to be the smartest, most specialized, helpful pharmacist ever!'
'i have the same awful haircut as two other girls in the room, but luckily i know how to use bobby pins to make it even more awful with a bump in the front'
'because i'm thin, i like to wear shirts that are so tight, they show off my bra straps'
yes, they were pretty horrible, and one of them (the first example) kept asking these stupid questions to try to show off what she knew, which didn't work because it just made it obvious that she didn't read the class packet beforehand. the class was informative, and the actual vaccinating was easier than i would have thought. i have to go to cpr (yuck) class tomorrow, but at least it gets me out of going to work.

to ikea

mom, vaughn, and i went to visit rachel this weekend. my nephew ellis turned three this past weekend. we went to the park to celebrate with bug cakes and hummus.

in addition to going to eli's third birthday, we went to ikea. (which is what ellis kept repeating the WHOLE trip there) i wanted to get vaughn a table and chairs and some storage units for his toys. while we were at ikea, vaughn needed a nap. rachel made a makeshift bed out of kitty pillows and a blanket and vaughn slept about half an hour in the cart. ellis decided that he too needed a cart bed, so we stuffed his cart with pillows too.

i had a hard time of it trying to choose something juvenile, useful, and something josh might like. i decided on this.
josh helped me put the bookshelves together, and dad and vaughn put the table together this morning. vaughn had juice and a biscuit at the table and was pretty proud of his little dining area.

monday we helped rachel pack up some of her things for the move to vermont. since she's hiring a moving company, there wasn't a lot for us to do, so after ra and trey took us to dinner, we drove home.

oooink

on monday vaughn got two more birthday presents. aunt carol got him some puzzles and bridget sent him this:

thanks to his aunts for such thoughtful gifts.