Fun Fall Festivities

These last few days things have turned seriously cold (like, middle of the winter, for real, below freezing cold), but it's still technically Fall, so I thought I'd share some of the fun we've been having lately. :)

Fall is hunting season in large part for this house full of boys. We've most recently been going after pheasants on Saturday mornings- obviously in this trip above it wasn't below freezing yet! This year Stephen got me a shotgun of my own that is a bit smaller and lighter- it's been fun honestly. I really want some cool rooster tail feathers to decorate with, but we've only come home empty handed so far.

This year Stephen and Taron tried harder than they ever have before to get Taron his first kill. Cooper got to go out with them some and obviously couldn't have been much more thrilled about it! :) Dad and Taron had general deer tags and went out twice to no avail. Then Stephen picked Taron up from school one day on his way to clean a tank in Aramo, thinking they could just look around briefly in the process...

... and, of course, that'd be the winning go. I love the look on his face in this picture. So proud of him! and Cooper's been including being thankful for the deer Taron shot in just about every prayer since... :)

Fall calls for pumpkin cookies with cream cheese frosting! That recipe is HERE if you should like- easiest thing ever that Lundyn shared with our family several years ago. They are Ryder's favorite... I just love pics of kiddos licking beaters :)

Went to lunch with Mom and everyone just before Halloween- Brylee and Ryder got a big kick out of the all the great decorations. I told them to try and look like the skeletons did :) 

Family fun at the U Pick Pumpkin Patch. This year they had these cool go carts and a track around the patch to ride them on. They were even big enough for adults- the boys all loved that part!

And Halloween! This year we got to trick or treat around Moore and Mackay since we were there for Stephen's Idaho Falconer's meet. It really was fun- Halloween just like I remember.

More than anything, though, this Halloween will be remembered as the Year of the Dog Bite... Stephen's dog Rocky didn't like seeing Cooper in that fur hat and all the leather fringe all over his moutain man costume! When he stepped up on the step above Stephen, he latched right into Cooper's leg- yikes! So we doctored poor Cooper's crummy dog bit on his thigh for the next two days :/ Bummer but it all worked out in the end.

And just for the fun of it I thought I'd share these simple little gifts the boys gave to their teachers at the end of their first week of school at Ucon. A Fanta pop with a striped stick of hard candy I got at Zurchers! "Thanks for helping us have a fanta.stick first week!" Kinda fun, eh? :) Here's some tags you can right click and save to print if you should have a use for a quick easy little gift too. I thought they might be good for aides and front office ladies and such for Christmas, so I whipped one up quick for that too- enjoy! :)

Utah Sky Trials 2013

Have I mentioned recently that my husband is a falconer?

He is. Ya know, one of those guys you see carrying birds around on gloves in medieval-set movies?

He needs these crazy birds in order to be happy it seems :)

Salt in the Wound

I fear this post might be like salt in the wound for Stephen,

but want to document these thoughts none the less...

I make no secret of the fact that I'm no animal person. Or that I have a degree of continual angst for my husband's falconry addiction. But I've also long since figured out that if I can't beat em', join em'. Not on every flight for sure, but on occasion at least. The boys love these birds and my husband simply can't be happy without them.

They make awfully cute little models in the soft evening light during a family flight, eh?

It wasn't that long ago that Stephen had quite a few birds- seriously, like 14 of them or something.

But when we moved and when he took on aquariums as a bigger part of his world again,

all of that changed. For the past two flying seasons, there's been

just one.

One bird that he had to recover from beyond the horizon the first three or four flights.

The bird that I told him needed to belong to someone else at that point.

The one bird he stuck with anyway.

The one bird that, in our minds at least, won the Utah Sky Trials last year.

The bird that caught Stephen one of his beloved sage grouse on just his third flight out this year.

The one bird that he has loved and enjoyed more than any other, ever.

And the one bird that crazily, unknowingly, slipped his transmitter in a broad piece of desert near Arco last weekend. After a stunning flight, Stephen started to track him and realized his transmitter- the small device he attaches to the bird to be able to get a signal telling him where it is- was on the ground without the bird. By the time he found the bird without the help of the transmitter, it had eaten enough to no longer be interested in Stephen, whom it basically only sees as an easy food source.

After scouring the lonely desert for two days, real life had to kick in again.

We don't live in the broad desert near Arco.

We can't take a week off of work or school on a strand of hope that,

I might add, has a way of getting thinner and thinner

as you peel your eyes for a speck on the hill or in the sky.

So, we packed back up and drove home, feeling like we had left a piece of our family behind.

Even I felt like that. Even I was... sad. For real sad.

I think Stephen has dealt with it by not thinking about it too much... 

In usual form, his network of falconry cronies have rallied around him

with kind words and, believe it or not, offers of new birds.

So he won't be without for long, at least not physically.

Emotionally is another story. He'll be glassing the Arco air forever, I daresay. Maybe even the anywhere air... I doubt he'll ever let go of that last thread of hope that the bird that was the one will somehow show up again... 

September Stuff and Things

Could they get any stinkin' cuter?!? 

Indeed, puppies are around again at the Buffats. For a few more short weeks, these little devils are keeping the boys entertained by playing around the grass most evenings :) Even I can tolerate them at this cute, curious stage! I love these pics: 

Fall time means my husband starts to lose his head for the birds again... So, we decided last weekend to turn his flight in the desert into a final camping trip and spent a fun night at Birch Creek, not too far from Mud Lake. Some new falconry friends of Stephen's came along and brought some fun campfire entertainment:

They had a strip of copper pipe, maybe 8" or so, just round enough for an equal piece of cut garden hose to slide into. The pipe had several small holes drilled through it. Then they hammered one end of the pipe closed, slid the hose piece inside and put the hole thing into the campfire. It produced some pretty cool looking flames as the hose started to melt! Now... I Googled it so I could add some other picture to this post and discovered in a hurry that this is actually really quite bad for you- like hugely TOXIC! Our friends knew to wait for everyone to be done roasting marshmallows before putting the pipe in, but if I'd thought very well, I sure would've moved my chair back so I made sure I wasn't breathing the fumes either! At any rate- if you try it, don't breath it in! It does look cool though! There's more information here :)

The next day we bashed around the desert looking for sage grouse to fly on and Cooper was beyond thrilled when he found his newest pet:

A horny toad! Or "thorny devil" as he likes to call them thanks to Wild Kratts. :) Kinda unique, eh? I couldn't convince him to let it go "free and in the wild" though. :/

At this point, I'm thinkin' it's ok that camping is behind us for another year. Our inflatable pool has been flattened and will also wait another year to be used again, along with the slip n' slide and bike mister. We can't sit outside while the last bit of light fades away without having a hoodie on. We need socks and slippers on in the mornings. (Speaking of which I got these adorable crocheted ones below by swapping here.)

And we've been eating this for breakfast and snacks:

Zucchini bread- or bikini bread as Ryder calls it ;)- yum! I use this recipe :) 

Bittersweet Sagebrush

There is one thing in Idaho that is flat unavoidable.

You can get around the lava flows, the awesome mountains, the winding rivers. But no matter where you go, as far as I know at least, you can't escape the sagebrush. The Big Desert determines what is where and how you're gonna get there. 

It's a curse in some ways. The curse of an hour's drive to get home again, of that and more to get about anywhere. But you could also call it a gift. The blessing of open space and the best. smell. ever.

The boys and I ventured out with Stephen to fly in the middle of all this beautiful sage this last week. I remember back when we were dating, we were driving down the road and as I looked out the window, I said, "Ya know, I actually love sagebrush." I'm pretty sure that comment sealed the deal ;) Big open sagebrush like this is home to my addicted husband.

The boys sat on the hood of the truck and ate Fun Dip while Stephen gathered up the bird... after a pretty amazing flight, I might add. For the first time ever, I saw sage grouse fly up out of the sage right in front of us! It caught my breath for sure!

Indeed, I do love the sagebrush. I love the mountains too, admittedly even more than the broad desert. But when I have the chance to be in huge open, sagebrush filled space like this, I feel blessed and grateful, small and touched. Never will I gain rejuvenation like this inside a shopping mall or as part of an excited crowd- that's just not me. And driving through the endless sagebrush, wishing we could just beam ourselves to where we're going instead, surely isn't either...

but the times when it can actually be enjoyed are at least closer.

And in other, boy/country type news- check out how the puppies are growing and getting loved on:

Coop and Ry get excited over the moon when Dad brings them in a couple of puppies to play with!

Stephen is forever getting compliments about the pair of English Pointers he has now, especially these guys' Dad (I know that's not what they're called in animal terms, but I don't really speak animal lingo, so oh well!). There are seven puppies and only two of them are still up for grabs!

And I just love this sweet pic of my sweet Cooper! He's sporting the little habitat he made for his leopard gecko- he's forever making "homes" for stuff and things!

Love, love, love these little boys- puppy smell, lizards, stained mouths and all!

Stephen and the Spectacular, Impressive... Unfortunate Day

or flight, rather...

Every year in mid-February we trek down to the Lehi area of Utah for the Utah Sky Trials.

See, my husband has this addiction...

called Falconry.

He could survive and figure out ways to try and be happy without a heck of a lot of things.

But, these nutty birds of prey are not one of them.

He requires them to be really, truly fulfilled.

See... addiction!

Usually I just let him drive down the road on Thursday and Friday, sometimes Saturday, afternoons on his own, Zues (bird) and Rocky (dog) in tow. But Utah Sky Trials are different somehow.

I go along to watch the boys dig in the dirt, feel small in this beautiful valley, conjure up potato chowder or some other soup over the propane stove on the tailgate, and be pretty darn proud of my hubby as he hobnobs with people who have this same crazy addiction.

So Friday is the day that 20 flights get narrowed down to 10, based on things like how close the falcon stays to the falconer, how high it goes, what kind of stoop it turns in to try and catch the pigeon they release, how well it responds to the lure when it needs to come down.

Stephen flew Zues when the sky was clear blue and we had all taken off the heavy coats in favor of hoodies.

And the flight was spectacular, impressive! He climbed higher than any bird had so far. He stooped long across the sky, hit the pigeon three times and turned on it six times!

And when the pigeon was eventually gone, having bailed into the tent they set up in the middle of the desert for who knows what reason, well, Zues started climbing again. And enjoying the warm thermals. And not paying attention to Stephen's anxious lure tricks. The judge covertly tells Stephen, "You need to get him back, because right now, you have the highest score." Thanks, thanks for that.

I should mention here that falconers can't use live bait to get their birds out of the sky. Bummer for a game falconer like Stephen (who actually does hunt with Zues, rather than just toss pigeons for him). 

Anyway, alas, Zues was waiting for the next target and Stephen had to drive out to toss him a live pigeon to ensure that he would get him back. Disqualified. But, wow, the best flight of the day and the best feeling we all had for him!

Really, I just go so I can hang out with Ryder in the truck and eat Vanilla Wafers :)

Stephen did get to do an exhibition flight on Saturday after all... No cash prize at the end, but, yet again, one of the best flights of the day. He really might just have won. 

Stephen was really pleased about how things went no matter what. He still has Zues and that's what mattered in the end. Because now he can load up on Thursday and find some sage grouse- his real prize :)

Or medicine, whatever you want to call it...