At Home in the Mountains

We've been plagued with the nasty devils this week. We accidentally left dog food on the porch one night. Fortunately, Aaron saw the raccoon sneaking a snack before he headed to bed. We chased it off but woke up to find one of our chickens had been it's victim. I have been super careful to make sure no food has been left out but the raccoon has been back. I heard a terrible confrontation in the woods on Tuesday night between a raccoon and SOMETHING in the woods. The SOMETHING whimpered as the raccoon hissed and spit. I hope that whatever the SOMETHING was it is ok. It sounded like a dog so I am wondering if it was a coyote vs. raccoon showdown. One of our cats stays out all the time and I thought at first it was her. I was out banging a bucket with a stick and yelling trying to get the raccoon to leave. Turns out the cat was on the deck cool as a cucumber. We had been letting Whiskers and kittens stay outside as well but now we go through the nightly routine of putting them in ...

 It looks like the last update I posted on animals was about going to the sale barn and getting cows. As a reminder we got a calf/cow pair and a "weaned" calf: Chloe, Midnight, and Mooey. Chloe and midnight are some kind of black angus mix and midnight is part Holstein. Midnight and Mooey will eventually be our meat cows. We hope to AI Chloe sometime in the near future for another calf. Midnight, her calf pictured below (much littler in the pic than he is now) is a very good looking steer. He could go to the fair if he wanted. This is a picture of him getting out of his fence and coming in the yard. He still gets out from time to time. Having a mama calf keeps both the steers in line though. They are much better about not getting crazy, unlike some other steers we could name from the past, but won't. We ended up having to feed quite a bit of hay this winter as we had snow cover from November to end of March. We got our barn built about January and began collecting more ...

 This year we became official ski bums. We got season passes to Monarch. It was great year to do it because all of the slopes in Colorado had a great snow year. Monarch had a 90 inch base for much of the season which was fantastic. Ski season started at Monarch on Thanksgiving weekend but we did not go until December I think. The girls were kind of back and forth, love/hating skiing, all season. Kelsay ended the season really loving skiing and having a lot more confidence and skill. Maddy ended with definitely better skill but not sure her confidence or desire to ski increased that much. Some days she had a blast and some days she didn't. We also got to ski Powder Horn, Crested Butte, and Cooper and Copper and Aaron got to go to Park City and Deer Valley in Utah with a work trip. Ski season was not without it's hazards. In February, in Crested Butte, Aaron had a wreck on a double black run and broke three ribs. That put him down for a solid month but he is close to back to 10...