Dan went skydiving 10.22.2011

Dan did great but it was only a one time thing.....
Kendyl, Tasha, and Curt all dove too.  It was Kendyl's second time and Tasha and Curt's first.  It was their anniversary present (married 6 years).  I watched little Bella.   

Bella's Baptism - 10.16.2011

 Bella was baptised on 10.16.2011.  We had a big crowd for the event.   Bella did great.  Afterwards we all went to The Olds house for some homemade lasagna with all the fixin's.

Guest at The Olds Ranch

Dan's game camera captured this Buck at The Ranch.  He had flushed him out earlier this weekend, but he returned.  We think he beds down on The Ranch every night.  If he is smart he will stay on our Ranch where he will be safe this hunting season.  We would like for him to get bigger!! 

2nd Annual Olds Ranch Fall Festival

We have purposely delayed our fall event thinking we might get some rain and then the burn ban would be lifted.  However, not to be....  we are still in the grips of a bad drought.

But the 2nd Annual Olds Ranch Fall Festival will happen.
Tracy will cook in the kitchen and we will gather under the porch and have some country fun.

Please join us for a cactus spray paint hunt and lots of good food and fellowship.

Saturday, November 12th  from 11:00-4:00p.

Bring a non-perishable food item for the local food pantry  ....See you then!!

We own a piece of Steamboat!

Dan and I researched and debated and finally decided with the current market it was time to purchase a condo in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. This is our favorite Colorado town because the people that live here are just so friendly AND it has the best skiing in Colorado. Our family has been going to Steamboat for over 25 years - our girls learned to ski here. When we do decide to go to another resort, we have that moment of why did we do this... we should be skiing The Boat! So we bought a fixer upper at The Rockies. It had been partially remodeled and needed alot of work to make it our mountain home. Here are the pictures of our almost completed remodel.   The bathrooms are not quite finished yet, those pictures will be added later.  It is a 2 bedroom, 2 bath unit with an air dream sleeper sofa in the living room.  It sleeps six very comfortably - all are queen sized beds.  We knocked out walls in the bathrooms to make them bigger and also added a combo washer/dryer in the unit.  We do have it in the rental pool with Mountain Resorts and can be requested as your preferred rental at the time of the reservation.  The Rockies is an older complex but the pool and two large hot tubs were redone a few years ago - both are heated year round.  Needless to say we will be there skiing this year - some days in February and in March.  We are also planning on going this summer for some fishing and river tubing!  The market is still very favorable to buyers and I have the best buyer's agent in town and also have made lots of contacts for remodeling and repairs if anyone else is interested.... 

Tank Makeover

Dan and I had a long discussion about the tank here at The Ranch.  We decided to go ahead and spend the money to have it expanded and deepened.  It is dry anyway.  

So here are some work-in-progress pictures.  We have had a scraper, trackhoe and dozer out here working for over a week.  And wouldn’t you know we are not done yet and we got 1.5 inches of rain last night  and now the tank has water in it…..  Good news it still holds water… bad news…we have to pump it out so we can finish lining the bottom with clay….  As soon as The Olds family starts any kind of a building project outdoors… we get rain…..

We think we will have close to .33 acre tank when done

Ranch cabinets

  

 

The ranch kitchen finally looks like a kitchen.

The cabinet maker completed his work and Dan is still doing his trimming and

Tracy is still staining their handiwork. 

It will be awhile before Dan is done with all the trim work because of his busy work schedule, but we are in no hurry now because the kitchen still functions whether we have baseboards or not.  Good thing we got our kitchen done because we have had a burn burn all spring and summer and no sign of it lifting.  This means no grill or fires outside.  We have had some major wildfires in the county and one was caused by a person grilling.

This is my new dual fuel range - it has two ovens...

This is my poker corner

Living room bookshelves... the left side upper has been stained.



Drought update

Our tank is officially dry.

The turtles have either moved on or have fallen prey to coyotes and herons.  We did not know we had fish, but their remains are at the bottom of the tank.  They too have provided a feast for the herons, etc.  We did find a snake skeleton too, I just hope it was the mean one that chased Dan on the tractor and me in the truck…

This is a turtle moving out of the tank......

Bella's first flight

Bella fly to WV to meet the family in August. 

 Here is little Bella with Tasha at IAH as we are checking in.

   Bella meeting her Great-Great Granny Brake.

Bella meeting her Great-Great-Great Aunt Rose.

This is a five generation picture of Spadafore's!

A Grandmother is Born!

I know… that is a weird way to announce that I am a Grandmother. 

On July 9, 2011 at 11:22pm , Tasha gave birth to our precious little Bella Rayne Proske.

Dan , Kendyl and I were on a cruise and had just made port in Athens, Greece when this happened.

As soon as we got back home to Texas… we showered and changed and made a beeline to Tasha’s house to see our sweet baby!! 

Bella is a wonderful baby and we are just so Blessed!   

2011 July Vacation

Dan and Tracy went on a European cruise this month.  We left July 2^nd with Kendyl and Pauline and Andrea and traveled to Rome, Italy.  We saw the sights in Rome and then hopped a train to Venice, Italy where we picked up our cruise ship and were joined with some more folks we know from Texas.   Princess Cruise lines did a great job as usual and we cruised Croatia, Greece, Turkey and Italy.  We had a wonderful time and highly recommend this trip.  We just wished Tasha and Curt could have joined us, but there we busy adding onto their family while we were gone….

Updates on The Olds girls

Me and my Mother's Day flowers from my girls.

Kendyl completed her first Half-Ironman in Galveston. She did a great job - 70.3 miles in 6 hours and 46 minutes. Just so proud of her racing achievements!!

Of course, for those of you who do not know yet... Tasha and Curt are expecting a girl in July. This is a picture of Tasha at her first baby shower. Kendyl hosted the shower at her house. Tasha's friend (bridesmaid) from Illinois (Katie) flew in and surprised her. Also her Aunts (my sisters ) flew in from West Virginia and North Carolina.

Yes, The Olds family is truly blessed!!

A new addition to The Ranch

Dan purchased a new tractor. He has been looking for this particular type for about 2 years.

It is a 1959 (or so) John Deere 630 LP (runs on propane.)

This is his project tractor. It runs just fine... his job will to make it pretty....

We lost another tree - The Old Cedar Tree

This was a traumatic loss. Our annual Christmas card in 2008 was taken in front of this tree. It was an old cedar tree. Probably close to 150 years or so old. We had bad wind storms in February of this year and this old tree succumbed. I was deeply saddened by this loss. Dan took it down carefully and saved the trunk. (It split in two). and saved the bigger branches.

This is the stump. About 4 feet across or so....

Our cabinet maker recommended a lumber guy ... so he came and picked up the wood and hopefully, my porch swing will be constructed from this wood. Maybe a bench for The Ranch...

Momma Squirrel in The Woodlands

These pictures were taken in the backyard in The Woodlands. Dan and the girls bought me a "squirrel proof" bird feeder. Well, this momma squirrel figured out how to retrieve the birdseed.

She jumps from the tree branch onto the feeder. It is a crazy scramble while she positions her body weight evenly hanging onto the breakaway perches. She sometimes falls and has to start over.

So then she hangs on with both back feet and one paw and uses the other paw to rake the birdseed out of the holes.

Then she hangs upside down to eat her reward.

My job is to keep the neighbors dang cats out of the backyard. I have brooms and squirt guns handy for the big crazy chase when I catch them in the backyard. I have caught cats sitting under the bird feeder just waiting....

When we had the greyhounds, I just turned them loose to take care of the cats....

If I were allowed to shoot a gun on my property in The Woodlands... I would not have a cat problem... I would use them for target practice!

Dan checking the roof and taking pictures

View looking towards the country road .. can see our tank on the left. looking towards our 40 acre hay field.

behind the barn - this is what the porch faces....

Dan on the roof!

Whitni visited in January

Whitni flew to Texas for a quick vacation and we visited The Ranch and stopped in Anderson and toured the Fanthorp Inn. This was an old stagecoach stop in days before Texas was Texas. It is impeccably maintained. Since we were the only visitors, we got a personal tour of the house and stagecoach. The park ranger even simulated how the stagecoach gives a bumpy ride....

The Fanthorp Inn is in Anderson about 6 miles south of The Ranch.

Catching up on news at The Ranch

Picture of a rainbow at the ranch. This was actually a double rainbow, but the picture does not do it justice. No rain fell at the ranch.... storm went around us. My washer and dryer at the ranch and laundry sink.

Picture of the big brush pile burning.

Well, it has been a long time since I have had time to sit down and compose an update. My apologies to friends and families.

January - Dan and I spent a lot of time just working on some small projects at the ranch.

Dan installed my washer and dryer and hooked up my laundry sink. This is not all the way done yet, but everything is functional.

We burned the big brush pile. It was a monster burn.

We also contracted to get the kitchen cabinets, poker corner, and bookcases built in the living area. So that is under way as well.

Dan completed building the shelves in the pantry and I got them painted.

ANOTHER RANCH RESIDENT

Dan and Tracy spent New Year's 2011 at The Ranch.

Dan was out brush hogging around the tank and noticed a big hole ... well a little while later look who made an appearance... we have a "diller" ( armadillo)... The tractor must have disturbed his slumber since they are mostly nocturnal creatures.

Maybe it is a Mama and we will have little "dillers" - Dan hopes not!

Dan received a game camera for Christmas -so far all we have captured on film is a cat...

hopefully, we will capture something more interesting on film in the near future.

He also received some night vision binoculars and we think we saw a skunk pass through... we did not go check that out any farther than the back porch....

another update... Tracy is getting her kitchen completed. The cabinets are being built and the new stove is ordered. Won't be long now before some real cookin' can begin. hopefully some canning as well. Dan has completed the shelving in the pantry and that is in the process of being painted.

We have been busy pulling out rusty barbed wire fence that is has been discarded in odd places and clearing fence lines. we seem to get branches down with every wind storm.

pictures will be forthcoming later as the kitchen build out progresses....

Safe Travels!

PICTURES FROM THE RANCH PARTY

The morning of The Ranch Party, the Dans (Dan, Sr. and Dan, Jr.) and I were sitting at the kitchen table enjoying conversation and coffee and look what we saw running from the persimmon tree to the gully.... YEP... a big ole' coyote. I spotted it.. it peeked out from behind the persimmon tree - it knew we were in the house ... I squealed and ran for my camera... everyone did the same... This is the only picture I snapped all day long.
Bummer... our brand on a cookie cake..... it was yummy and did not last long.