Y.H.E.C. State Competition

On the second weekend in June we trekked out to the desert by Millican for the Y.H.E.C. State Competition.  We arrived with camp trailer in tow late Friday night and the events would run on Saturday and Sunday.  There were eight events total:

Archery

Shotgun

Wildlife ID

Muzzleloader

Orienteering

Safety Trail

.22 Rifle

Exams: Responsibility & Muzzleloader

This was followed by an awards ceremony late Sunday afternoon.  In the middle of all this chaos we also attended a FNRA (Friends of the NRA) dinner & auction on Saturday night.

I have a few pictures of Archery & .22 Rifle to post.   The young man you see with Hunter during archery is Conner.

Shooting .22 while standing

The squirrel does not make it…

Shooting in a sitting position…

Watching the progress out in the field

And shooting prone trying to…       flip these little targets over.

And then we had the banquet in Bend on Saturday night.  This was a special banquet put on by the friends of the NRA to give out their yearly awards and to provide a special dinner for the Y.H.E.C. kids they sponsor. 

Here is the auctioneer and the kids all lined up to hand out auction & drawing items to their winners.

 The big deal for the evening was a Rugar 10/22 that they were giving away to some lucky Oregon Y.H.E.C. kid that was present at the banquet.  When it came time to read the name from the ticket they said “Hunter Espinola” and….it took a second for it to register.  All of us were cheering while it dawned on him and then he got really excited!

The package included the gun with a wood stock, a synthetic stock, a scope, a pair of safety glasses, some ammo, ear plugs and a nice carrying case.  Each of the stocks had NRA coins embedded - nice touch!

On Sunday everyone took written exams, ate lunch and waited for the final scores to be tallied and the winners announced.  The kids got to take in some cowboy action shooting with the Pine Mountain Posse during all of the waiting.

All of the winners were announced and there was a lot of happiness among all the kids.  There were hunts, ammo and all sorts of things given away for special awards and then the final Senior and Junior teams were announced.  Up to this point there was a secret that Warren was hiding for the 1st place showing on both the Junior & Senior team…

The Oregon State Y.H.E.C. Junior Team

And the Oregon State Y.H.E.C. Senior Team

And this picture lets the secret out….

Warren brought rifles & ammo to present to the 1st place winners on behalf of Nosler.  He also had a box of t-shirts, caps and stickers to give away to all the kids.

Nosler is AWESOME and so are all the Y.H.EC. kids!

Here is Warren with the 1st Place Senior Team member Cheryl Shaver and 1st Place Junior Team winner Brian Staebler-Siewell.

I am not totally positive but I don’t think Cheryl stopped ginning for at least a week :-)

Hunter did really well overall for his first year and we are very proud of him.  After he came down off of his winner’s high he crashed.  What a long weekend and with a lot less sleep than he had hoped for.

He wants to be a real contender for the 2011 Y.H.E.C. Nationals so he will be practicing on all 8 of the sections of knowledge and skill until next June…

Good luck next year Hunter!

One Last Parting Shot of Spring Kids

I have a few parting shots that I have to share of my babies this year.  The two most colorful kids this year were Blackie and Cocoa.  Maybe they knew they were different because they always liked to hang out together.  I loved them because they were characters and they really stand out in a photo.

Here they are hanging out by the power meter post while everyone else grazes.

And just being silly…

And with their mamas…

Silver was an excellent mama and a great friendly goat.  I had a nice lady looking for an Alpine and I knew she would love Silver as much as I did.  Since we were cutting back it seemed like a great opportunity to reduce the herd and of course she couldn’t just leave with one goat… Silver and Ruby now live in Alfalfa on pasture.  Terra is still with us along with her LaMancha sister, Flora.  It will be interesting to see what color their babies are this next year.

Cocoa and Blackie went to a wonderful couple in Redmond.  The couple also purchased Dandy and Crystal.

We still have a few more for sale but they are welcome to stay for now.

The Last of the Spring Kids…

If you are reading this in your email and you cannot read the writing - please go to my blog; the link is at the bottom of the email.

Sweet little Moose had her twins on May 30th and I named them Thomas & Betsy.  They turned out to have some really cute markings also.  I think Thomas' little solid head looks like a cow calf.

 Moose also decided to have her babies while we were gone and she did a great job!

This is Betsy...

 And this is Thomas...

These two just live up the road a bit in PLA1.  We sold all of the babies this year except Sweetpea and Nelly's girls that were bottle raised.  I am still amazed that we had 19 kids this spring.

I think we may be in for fall babies before Thanksgiving.  It appears that Tessy bred back after her still birth in May.  I will have to keep a close eye on her since most of the girls will be going onto pasture the first of October.

Return to the Kuyper Ranch

We enjoyed our trip to Eagle Point so much in April that we decided to go again in May.  This time we went to hunt turkeys but we also got to visit a bit more which was very nice.

The boys went turkey hunting in the mornings and in the evenings.  We got to tour town with Rusty chauffeuring and Norma acting as our tour guide.  I wish I would have taken more pictures but we did not stop too often.

The town was full of flags for memorial day and I do mean FULL!  You could not look anywhere without seeing a flag and it was beautiful to see such a little town so proud of our flag and Memorial Day.  We drove up by the cemetery and Norma pointed out all of the important landmarks and family information along the way.  The cemetery was built on a sight knoll and there was a flag on every single one of those gravesites - very breathtaking!

Rusty and Norma took us to one of their favorite Chinese restaurants and we had a very nice lunch.  The hometown feel was sure there because they knew everyone in the place.  After that we got to tour the museum, the grain mill and an antique store - we enjoyed every minute of the tour!

Saturday night we went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant with Rusty and Cindy.  Very good food and we visited until the poor guy wanted to close his business :-)  Sunday night Cindy made a fabulous dinner for all of us and we just really enjoyed ourselves.

No one got a turkey that weekend but Hunter got a taste of living on a cattle ranch - we got to feed the cows both mornings!  Of course that meant loading the bales of hay onto the truck, driving to the property where the cows were and feeding off the back of the truck.  My job was to take pictures :-)

Here is Rusty way up in the barn throwing hay down to be loaded.

Hunter was the shuttle to the truck...

And that was just one bale...

The truck gets loaded and we are off to feed the cows.  They are so hungry that they start to chase the truck.  We only saw a few cows to begin with but as we start climbing the hill they are coming from everywhere...

And then the feeding begins...

 The trick to this is not going off the back with the hay when Rusty drives over one of those huge rocks :-)

 After the feeding is complete we get to pet the "baby" bull.  This is one of Rusty's favorite bulls because he is such a gentle giant.

As all good things must come to an end we had to head back home after the last feeding.  We sure enjoyed our time spent with the Kuypers.  I hope we get to go back again before winter sets in.  Spending time with family and friends is always fun no matter what you are doing.

ATCs From Awhile Back

I found this picture hiding in a folder the other day.  I don't think I have posted this one...

I made these for an ATC Name Swap last year and I really like the way they turned out.  I think I may make a set for myself but with purple of course.

Scrapbook Sister Gift

Here is some more scrappy mail that I received from my Scrapbook Sister on Scrapbook Sister Studios (SSS).  I received this back in about April and sent another package to her afterwards.

I have not heard from her since I sent off my last package so I think that we are done.  She had a hard time even wanting to do it so as usual, all good things must come to an end.  I really enjoyed all of the scrappy goodness Jana - Thank you!

Stimulus Packages

Another swap but this one was a “Stimulus Swap”.  A lot of scrappy people have cut way back or cut out their spending entirely.  It is nice to get scrappy mail and everyone likes new product.

People signed up with requests if there was something specific.  The whole idea was that you only had to spend $10 on product and then ship it to the person assigned.  Names were drawn at random and given out so no one knew who was sending to who.

I drew a person who does all digital scrapbooking – that is a tough one for me!  I picked out a scrapper’s quote book that I have and love.

This is what I got in the mail from my Secret Stimulus Sister on Scrapbook Sister’s Studio.

 I totally love everything in here!  Thank you so much!

I Won Something!

I did win something – unfortunately it was not the lotto!  But hey, I will take it because it is free and I love it…

Fortunately for me, I won a card contest and I didn’t have this set of acrylic stamps!  I won with this card…

I made this card for Hunter’s birthday and it is a covered CD.  It was kind of fun to make!

I love acrylic stamps and I think I actually hoard these.   I am in the middle of organizing my stacks of acrylic stamps and I will post that whenever I finish which might be in this century :-)