This long hot summer: The End.

Our summer was so hot, but so fun! We made our annual pilgrimage to Auntie Danielle's house for her town's hertiage days. One year she rode her awesome quarter horse Haze in the parade. This year, she walked Silk in the parade. Yep, Silk is her cow.

Silk was her horse before she had real horses and she is halter broke, trailers, gives kids rides and is pretty much a dream to work around. Except when she gets playful, then she kind of freaks me out.

When Silk was little she was supposed to be sent away from the dairy because she was born a twin...a sterile twin. Which means she can't have babies, or make milk. And that isn't very good on a dairy. Some how Auntie Danielle talked Farmer Gary into saving her and letting Danielle keep her. Now she is an ambassedor for the dairy. And she helped us hand out string cheese in the parade!

We got to see brand new baby cows at the dairy farm too. This one was just born a few hours before we took her picture.

Uncle John lives, breathes and of course, works at the dairy (their farm has some yearling cows and horses and Silk). He took a break to take his godson on a tractor ride. On a REALLY BIG tractor ride.

It was a beautiful ride through their farm land. They have 400 acres and consider themselves small. We have four acres...boy, we must be tiny!

This is some of the corn we grew. It was an heirloom variety and it the ears were very small. But the kernals were purple! And so yummy they were irristable right out of the garden.

We also grew green beans (we froze about 4 gallons!), pumpkins (sugar and an heirloom kind), tomatoes (including green zebras!), lemon cucumbers, zucchini, squash, green peppers, mustard greens and spinach (which failed miserably).

Brayden missed the horses pretty badly. When we got home, he decided he was going to ride Grizzly. Grizzl didn't seem to mind. It was pretty funny when he had enough. He would stand up his front half (into a sitting position) and then B would just slide right off. :)

Jack spent most of his summer time in the tree swing in the front garden I was working on. From the moment he was born that child has loved swings.

He sure is getting to be a big boy.

My goodness, so is this lil' stinker (check out his shirt). Get it? Lil' Stinker? That is what he calls his shirt. Ha!

I am really enjoying my time home with these little stinkers!

Jack can reach and get into anything. We have to be so careful with the stove. And I have to put a gate in front of the oven any time I turn it on.

They both still love their baths. Jack sits back and kick, kick, kicks up quite the splash. I don't know how he kicks that much while he is sitting down. Brayden lays down to do his kicking and I am just grateful to slam the shower doors shut and not get soaked. Jack cries when we take him out of the tub. He loves the water THAT much.

See?

Here is a comparisson of the two fellows...Jack is nine months, Brayden is eleven. It was almost the same dang picture, so I had to put them up together.