At Home in the Mountains

 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

 On Monday, we borrowed a stock trailer from Aaron's grandparents and went to get ourselves some cows. We had been wanting to for a while but we had a really dry summer and a busy summer. It finally started raining in July so we decided to go get some cows with more of a long term view in mind. The girls and I wanted a calf/cow pair and Aaron wanted a steer. The nearest sale barn is in Calhan which is about an hour and a half to the east of us. The sale started at noon. We got there and got our number. They were auctioning pigs at the time so we decided to get some hamburgers and corn dogs at the sale barn cafe as we weren't interested in pigs. The food was good. We finished eating and then watched some goats and sheep get auctioned off. Finally it was time for the cows.  We knew there weren't many calf cow pairs available so we were nervous about getting one. The first pair that came out was really pretty but went too high. The next that came out had a wild mamma. She

...or do I mean Three Stooges: The Lost Episodes? It all started in March when Aaron decided to get 5 chicks from tractor supply--two barred rock and three golden comets. The golden comets were the type of chicken we already had. The idea was to replace some layers that got killed one night when they were left out in the cold. We had since built a covered chicken run to prevent predators. The main question about getting these chicks is where we'd actually keep them once they became stinky, ugly pullets instead of cute little chicks. That question, however was never really answered. So the chicks grew bigger and bigger, were transferred to the garage and became very, very stinky. We finally decided that maybe it was time to try to integrate the pullets into the new flock. We put them out in the coop and separated the pullets in the coop and the big chickens in the yard for several days. Things seemed to be going well so we left the coop open and the new chickens mostly stayed in t

Clearwater Marine Aquarium, Clearwater, FL  This past week we took a 5 day trip to Anna Maria Island, FL. It is about an hour and a half drive from Tampa. Aaron bought this vacation fall 2016 at an auction for Maddy's school. He planned to use it as a work trip for Bios Research, but it never came together until May 2018. So the Fletchers, Mom and Dad, and two of Aaron's employees went to the beach house for the vacation. The house we stayed in was huge and really nice and maybe a 1/4 mile walk to the beach. We started our trip off by having flight delays and then rental car problems.  I was 1:30 a.m. when we got into Tampa. Then took forever to get our mini van we rented. As we drove to turn out of the airport the back of the van popped open and would not shut! So we turned around and went back to the rental place. The guy got it to close but then the back wouldn't open! So they gave us another van and we finally got to our hotel at 3 a.m. We all slept in the next mor