I am really weird because I am posting a photo of my swollen and bruised foot that I jammed or stubbed or did something to just as I was starting to come out of the illness that had me in its clutches for 4 days. 
I am getting rested and well read and writing pointless posts. I hope you enjoyed it.
I am drenched in sweat again, so I gotta go change and lay down. So strange.
I will keep you updated on her progress and hopefully the next photos will show her slimmer and under saddle with rider.
Here is our little farmers market stand with our farmers market leader talking on the phone with our local radio station. They wanted to know what my cows were doing and I said, "chewing their cud". I wonder if that went on air!
This year we added potatoes to our booth. We have Red, White and Blue potatoes. Patriotic spuds. I planted a whole lot of tators, but we ended up sharing with the gophers. I hope they pay.....big time.
So we officially had 'meat and potatoes' kind of booth. Someone suggested I grow horseradish next year to stay with the theme. I'm thinkin on it.
Today I had some lovely french lavender to sell as well. It was a real hit with the customers and the bees.
I am enjoying myself this year and find that I learn a lot from all of the wonderful visitors to the market. Every one has been super sweet and upbeat. Today I made a few trades. I traded a sirloin steak for a butterfly bush and some ground beef for a cheese and vegi calazone and some Portuguese sweet bread. In the past we have also traded for goat cheese. I love anything made from goats; milk, cheese, or meat.
or a well trained, do everything mare (Stormy),
drop us a line.
Stop on the north side of Golden Gate Bridge.
And then we walked across. Cody had to think about this.
Back in the car and into the city to drive the crookedest street -Lombard Street.
Then on to a bay tour.
Under the Golden Gate and
around Alcatraz island and
A stop for me to goof around with the gold man and
for Cody to meet the Silver Man.
We then watched a brother, brother, sister team from London perform some circus stunts and entertain us with their wacky humor.
Time to eat. Cody is a rock fan and a good guitarist so we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. Cody enjoyed seeing the memorabilia there and his burger although he was a bit disappointed that the music videos were mostly pop stars, not Rock Stars. Apparently there is a difference.
The aquarium was our last stop and while it isn't the biggest one I have visiting it was very nice and user friendly. I might add that the guitar fish in the touch pool came up to both Cody and I. The naturalist said it meant we had good hearts. I am not sure what that means for Mark!
Here is Jo after she had attempted to gut a bird. She was a little queasy. A little disgusted... at herself. She looked at me and said, " I can do autopsies, but I can't gut a chicken?!" For you see, before lovely Jo married Eric the Bold, one of her jobs was as an assistant to the coroner and she loved it. But here she sat pale after one little bird. Poor thing. So she decided to do an autopsy of a chicken.
Here is the heart. She said this bird had a lot of some kind of fancy named fat that I can't remember the name of, but apparently it is not good in a person. But in a chicken it will probably mean it will be tastier.
These are the lungs... sort of. The lungs are hard to get out without tearing them up.
The liver and the gallbladder, we think. I looked up chicken innards on line and all I got was how to cook them, I could never find out for sure what this little green organ was.
The large intestine. It was kind of pretty all laid out like this.
Part of the small intestine.
and we think this was the colon. It was in the right spot.
This is unique to fowl, it is a gizzard. The gizzards chew their food, because as you probably know chickens don't have teeth. It is a very hard organ. First time I saw one, years ago, I thought it was a tumor.
Here it is cut open. A very pretty yellow and it was very, very rough inside. It felt like sandpaper.
After about half the birds had gotten done, Jo decided it was time to cook one. So she took a freshly laundered bird and
rubbed it down with olive oil,
sprinkled on some of Rick's Rub and
and showed us how pretty it now looked.
She then carried it outside and stuck it's bottom over an opened beer can. 'Beer Butt Bird' she called it. We Lit the barbie at let it cook until the breast meat registered a 165 on the meat thermometer. It seemed to take a few hours, but it could have been shorter as I was a bit tired of cleaning birds at this point.
My goal for the day was to get all the meat chickens butchered and still have time for a swim. It almost didn't happen because my crew began to burn out. But then Jo's dad showed up and saved the day. He was a chicken butchering pro and finished the last 5 birds off in record time. Thanks Mike, Eric, Jo, and Mark for making my day a success.
Sitting around a campfire last night we talked about what Independence Day meant to each of us. Freedom was the resounding call, as well as hot dogs, hamburgers and fireworks of course. Let Freedom Reign. But what is freedom? Websters states that free is something not bound or controlled, without obstructions, without charge and that freedom is the condition of being free. I wonder if I am really free or if my own self imposed limitations and fears hold me back.
This is the first fawn I have seen this year. Usually we will begin seeing them mid May, but not this year. Weird. I took this photo out of my car window, sorry it is so blurry.
You might wonder why in the world I made Beef Stew on the 2nd day of July. Well, the day dawned cloudy and cool and nothing comforts like a warm bowl of stew. I have been trying to regroup, do less, sleep more and recapture that center of God's peace. (And killing chickens, but we won't talk about that.) This stew definitely helps one feel better. It was made from some top sirloin that we just got back from either steer #15 or #16 and it was delicious. It is melt in your mouth beef yumminess and will be on sale at the G-Ville Farmer's Market next Friday. I also dug up some of our red potatoes to add to the pot. Nothing says home like a home cooked meal.
On another note, here is a little more grossness. Poor Sequoyah skewered himself on a t-post. Mark and I were gone south at a nephew's wedding, so Eric and Jo hauled him into the vet. The wound goes in about 8 inches. Every day we have to flush it out with a betadine water solution. It is grisly sliding the hose into the little guys chest that far. He just finished a round of injected antibiotics and will be starting a granulated antibiotic in the morning. The vet's office loved him for his sweet and willing temperament, we all do too.
This is Meeme. She belongs to Casey the friend who boards her horses here and lives here part time. Meeme had a run in with a fence about 2 months ago and she just got all of her bandages off. Tough season for the youngsters. We think Meeme was chased into the fence, probably the same for Sequoyah.
For all of you neighbors who wondered what in the world was going on yesterday: it was a CalFire training day on the Chapman Ranch. We had dozers, helicopter water drops and a water bomber. We probably should have told folks ahead of time. It would have saved a few of you from getting heart palpitations. We will be better neighbors next time.
