Spring is for Baby Animals

Ah, spring!  Of course, for me, every day here is like spring....sunshine, temps in the 70’s, fresh air…. (try not to be jealous…or just come visit and see for yourself!).  Spring is a time for fresh growth, excitement for the pending summertime, and for the birds and the bees (which of course leads to lots of new baby critters!). 

Spring is in full swing here in SLO.  My flowers are blooming in my yard (whoever planted these had a heck of a green thumb!).  The only ones not blooming are my hibiscus bushes, which are my favorites.

And even more exciting than my flowers blooming is my acquisition of my new dog…Gunner!  I have been trying to get a new stock dog for months, and was finally able to lay my hands on this little guy from a breeder in Parkfield, CA.  He is 8 weeks old in these pics (about 10 weeks old now).  Isn’t he lovely??

He is seriously SUCH a great puppy!  He is almost totally house trained (super easy! score!), crate trained, and already has a down command, a recall, a sit, and a stay.  He is so smart.  He comes and hangs out with me at the horse unit all day and has started a little bit of basic puppy training for stock dogs (I’ll post a video soon).  It is so cool to see his instincts at work and the intense herding blood flowing through him when he is working! 

Sydney has now accepted the fact that she has a little brother.  She was pretty resistant to the idea and thought that if she pretended that he did not exist, he would disappear.  Untrue.  

Now, however, she has established her dominance over him and they play non-stop.  I literally have to separate them to get a moment’s peace from the snarling and wrestling (and also humping….goodness gracious those two are in some kind of crazy humping phase right now that I can’t wait to be over).  I feel like a mom with little kids (minus the humping….ha).

Check out this video of how cute he is if you are interested:

My little ducklings are growing up and are almost ready to leave the vet clinic (where they are growing up a little under heat lamps and safely guarded from coyotes, owls, myself, and mountain lions) and come home to the “duck motel” that Fletcher (one of my student managers and my neighbor) built out of a covered dog kennel.

Provided that these guys can survive my ignorance of how to raise ducks, getting herded (and hopefully not chewed on) by Gunner, the coyotes, the snakes, the owls, and the mountain lions, they will get eaten by myself and Fletcher.  Caroline is having trouble wrapping her head around this idea.  I do believe “sick and twisted” were words used to describe me.  But I am genuinely excited to raise these guys up to slaughter age and to play around with new recipes for duck.  If you have any, please share!  They are Peking ducks (i.e. they are delicious), and will serve as an excellent training tool for Gunner in the mean time.

And this little guy wandered into my office the other day (little baby California king snake):

We also have had a few more foals born at the Horse Unit.  Only 4 more mares left to go until foaling season is over!

Hope your spring time is as filled with flowers and cute critters as mine is!

Alaina

Catch up...big time.

So, life has been crazy lately (I know, I know.  I think I say that phrase to folks every single week of my life, but each time I say it, I legitimately mean it!), and my blogging has taken a significant backseat.  My bad.  But let's face it, we all know that I'm no whiz at this whole internet machine thing anyway, so is this really a surprise to anyone?

Ok, operation catch you up on my life:  ready, GO!

Recall that I am lazy and am stealing blog posts from Hales/Lauren.  Well, she posted about the second half of her visit here on her blog, so check it out here (please note that she came to see me in early March.....this is how behind I am...).  It includes a recap of our time in SLO.  The short version:  we made good meals, watched Jeopardy and Friends, went hiking, went horseback riding, and checked out down town.  The fact that she is also way behind in blog posts makes me feel like much less of a blog failure :)

That next week involved a lot of catch up with work and a few spectacular social hours with my friends in SLO.  There is a phenomenal little hole-in-the-wall bar called "Spike's Pub" down town.  The perks:  it is filled with "old people" like myself (i.e. not college kids), has 40 beers from around the world on tap, and kind of has an old-west themed feel to it.  Translation: it's my favorite.

At the end of March, I had a most wonderful, spectacular, exciting visitor!  My mom came to see me!  For those who don't have the best relationships with your mothers, my heart really goes out to you, because I couldn't imagine life without my mom.  This woman is amazing y'all!  I love her a ridiculous amount.  I'm so blessed to have someone that is such a great mix of "motherly instinct" and "best friend" all in one :)  I hadn't seen her in seven months, so I was super excited and had all this awesome fun stuff planned for her visit.  However, being the graceful individual that I am, I sort of had to put all of that on pause by breaking my ankle.  And the things that I had planned unfortunately involved a lot of walking, hiking, and beach time.

But who better to sympathize with your situation better than your momma??  So at least she understood, and instead we ended up doing a lot of shopping and home-decorating type stuff (she even painted my walls for me!  I tell ya folks, she's a keeper!) and we threw caution to the wind and went on a few adventures anyway.

Picked her up in San Francisco, so we stopped in Cannery Row for lunch and then drove down Hwy 1 along the coast, through the pretty areas like Big Sur (this time I took Dramamine so that the windy road didn't make me carsick):

On the way home we stopped in Cayucos to look at the harbor seals (it actually took quite a bit of discussion to convince mom that they were not rocks).

We spent a few days in SLO hanging out at Avila beach and doing some general Susy-home-maker things.  A trip to Morro Bay was also in order.  Mom tried to get attacked by one of the huge wild turkeys that lives in my backyard and we spent some time with a friendly old sea lion who was begging for fish at one of the restaurants in Morro Bay.  We may or may not have watched a lot of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman and drank wine during this entire process.....

At the end of the trip we decided to spend some time in San Francisco.  Due to the bum leg and the fact that it is about the hilliest city in America, we concentrated our efforts on the Fisherman's Warf area to help my poor triceps out a little bit from all the crutching.

I seriously love this area of San Fran for these reasons:

It was really a sad day to put her back on that airplane.  But I was so glad to get to spend the time together that we did!!

Right as mom left, the spring quarter started with a whole new set of classes.  Foaling season is still in full swing (we've had 11 mares foal out, 5 more to go), but I've got a great group of students, so I haven't been getting up and going to the barn in the middle of the night much lately!

I started going to a new small group/bible study (look for more on this later) and I'm SO excited about it!  These women are awesome :)

Took the Cal Poly Equestrian Team to the IHSA Zone championships, where Caitlin got third in her class and did a phenomenal job.

My good friend Katie Bauer got engaged, which is super exciting!  She has been serving in the Army overseas for the past 3 years and is coming home this month to be stationed in Colorado, and she is so happy.  I'm so excited for her!

And my old roomie/bestie from MSU, Katie Davis, is pregnant!!!  Which is also super exciting :)  So much love in the world right now....I love it!

Cal Poly held it's Open House this past weekend, which was IN.SANE.   No exaggeration, I think I talked to between 500 and 700 prospective students/parents, and answered the same questions over and over and over again for two days.  Needless to say, there was a tall margarita waiting at home for me when that was all said and done.

And last, but not least, I got ducks and a puppy.  And that, my friends, is your teaser to tune in tomorrow, when I post a ridiculous quantity of adorable baby animal photos.

Whew.  There.  Now you are all caught up.  In fact, that was a little bit ridiculous to write, so I'll try really hard not to wait so long for the next post!

TTFN!

Alaina

Food for thought:
C'mon people.  This post is already ridiculously overwhelming.  Did you seriously think I was going to add some food for thought?  Y'all have a feast of useless life information to chew on already ;)

Patience is a Virtue

I don’t know about the rest of y’all, but I have problems.  How silly of me…we all have problems, don’t we?  Our days are filled with them!  Even if you are having a “great day,” I guarantee you that some little problem has crept up in there somewhere that you had to deal with at work, at home, in your finances, in a relationship, with your wardrobe, with your computer/fancy electronic device that I don’t know how to work/car etc.   It seems like we always strive to have that “great day” where we don’t encounter problems.  Which is pretty ridiculous, if you think about it, because they will always be there. 

At work or at home, there will be some form of miscommunication between yourself and someone else during the day 9 times out of 10 (however small the incident may be).  We have worries about ourselves (ugh my hair is gross! I have got to lose this weight!  Is this outfit appropriate for ____?).  We have financial stresses.  WOO HOO my tax refund is huge!!!  Wait….what if that is the amount I owe????  Oh, no, that’s not right, that really is my refund!!   Wait…. “estimated refund??”  Oh, ok, actual refund is enough to get myself a new mule after all!  J (this may or may not be a personal example...).

Problems come in all sizes.  Sometimes they are ginormous and life-altering.  Some of them are just “big,” but they seem a lot bigger to us at the moment than they turn out to be in the long run.  Some are so insignificant that we don’t even realize they are a “problem” unless you start looking for things in your day that went wrong.  God is teaching me a lot about problems lately.  More specifically, He is teaching me about patience and faith.  And the fact that I have significant holes with both of these areas that need to be filled.

We don’t like problems because they are out of our control, something we can’t direct.  When we can’t control something, we worry.  God teaches us that we are supposed to transform worries into prayers (Philippians 4:6-7) and an opportunity to seek His perfect guidance and wisdom instead (James 1:5-6; Ephesians 5:17) and turn the reins over to the one who has promised to always provide enough for us (2 Corinthians 9:8). 

One of my favorite areas of scripture comes from Romans 8: 35-39 :

“Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love?  Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?......No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.  And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love.  Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow-not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.  No power in the sky above or in the earth below-indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord”

If nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from God’s love, and if overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, then why in the world would anyone worry about anything?!?!

Because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.  In times of trouble or distress, the true feelings in our heart are revealed, whether we like them or not.  And the chain reaction begins.  Pain.  Doubt.  Worry.  Fear.  Panic.  The way we react to a problem reveals the truth about our faith in God’s love for us and plan for our lives.  Fear takes God’s place in our hearts, and it grows rapidly, pushing faith out.  And I have been majorly convicted by this over the past two weeks. 

I don’t know about you, but my problems always seem a whole lot bigger when I’m facing them directly than when I get the chance to look at them in the rear view mirror some time down the road (ha! “road”…. Rear-view mirror?  Pun! Get it?). 

Things that I’m struggling with now seem so big, but I’m so thankful that God is patient enough to teach me about being faithful….. again, and again, and again….  I know that He keeps his promises to those who follow him (Hebrews 10:23) and that He will never fail me (1 Peter 4:19).  After all, He can see the world from a much better vantage point than I can, and He knows what is best for me much better than my limited 25 years of life experiences thus far.   And that is an encouraging thought J