Windy days

Wow that wind last week was just a little bit more than crazy.  I am glad that it has finally slowed.  Our farrier showed up Tuesday morning, and was able to trim all the horses in our barn.  He knew he would be able to use the barn, otherwise he would have rescheduled.
This weekend the girls had 4-H club days.  Allie is the president of our club so she was able to make it through the model meeting.
Allie also played the piano and gave a project talk on Grass Fed and Grain Fed beef.  That was a very broad topic, but we were able to help her condence it down to a 6th grade level talk.  Addie gave a demonstration on how to make a thank you card, and then write it.  She also played the piano.  Weston made a project talk on coyotes, but since he is not really in 4-H he didn't give it to anyone except us.  He made me print out a bunch of coyote pictures and he glued them onto a poster board.
Cousin Levi got to show off his weather balloon in the Show-and-Tell category for first year 4-H'ers.  He got up and shared his big smile and talked about finding the balloon out in a field with his dad.  He also gets to use it for his science fair project.
Then the boys played hard at our house all day Saturday.  They went and played in the sand pit, played basketball and just as the wind came up and the front started coming in the wanted to ride horses.  So Luke saddled up two horses.  Weston claimed Goldie was hard for Levi to ride, so next time he would let Levi ride Diamond. It's interesting that Diamond is easier for them to ride, because she is certainly the hardest horse to catch.  Not only does she know every trick in the book, I think she wrote the book.  Goldie on the other hand generally allows me to walk right up to her and catch her.

Roll or get rolled over

This week some of the girls from the office and I attended a class at KSU about Social Media Marketing.  We met around 5 AM on Tuesday and headed to Manhattan.  So, what does that mean?  The class was about how to get platforms like Facebook, and Instagram to work for you and your business.  Most of the other attendees represented some type of organization or a private business.  One thing I learned, was to roll with changes, or get rolled over. 
It’s interesting, media is changing so quickly.  How does a small newspaper keep up?  One way I think, is to offer something that other papers don’t.  The Rural Messenger offers many columnists that share a story or a humorous point of view.  Some share personal stories, and life lessons from their past. 
We also offer classifieds, that come from sellers who are from the most part from central Kansas.  Not everyone likes to point and click and read on a screen.  We offer a paper that comes out weekly so that you can sit and read the paper when you get the opportunity, rather than rush, rush, rush.
On to the kids, this is a big birthday time for our family right now.  March 1 is shared by three people, along with 3 February birthdays and three other birthdays in March.  Two of them are adults, the rest are nieces and nephews. 
Allie told me that they could not have made it one more morning without me.  Weston seemed pretty happy to have me home.  Weston got to dress up and have Dr. Suess week at school.  His favorite day was dress like a farmer.  He told me that he didn’t want to dress like an ordinary farmer, he wanted to dress like my dad.  I didn’t try and tell him that my dad dresses pretty ordinary most days.  I think Weston didn’t want to dress in overalls.  So, he dressed in a tractor shirt, some of his work jeans, boots, plyers on his belt and a ball cap.
Addie has been enjoying the new Cricut that I got for my birthday.  It is a die cutting machine.  Now we can cut paper, fabric, and wood. We can even do some embossing with a special tool.   She has made several thank you cards and other projects. I have invested a small fortune is paper to cut out.  However, this is one electronic I am happy to let her play with.   We made some birthday cards for the cousins. 
I finally got a picture of one of our road runners.  I have seen three at our house, but I don't think they all say here at once.

The last dribble

Allie's team took the court for the last time on Saturday.  The ended up in 4th place.  They ended the season 2 - 4.  Overall they really enjoyed them-selves and improved their game.  Several of the girls are fifth graders and they will be ready to play next season.  Allie will be a seventh graders so she will play at the school and not in the rec league.  She has already commented that she misses practice.  I guess she will just have to practice her piano instead.
Weston and Allie went out to cousin Levi's house.  They played hard all afternoon.  On the way home Weston was so tired that he fell asleep on the way home.  He hasn't done that in a while. 
Addie enjoyed going to Rock Springs Camp this last weekend for 4-H ambassador train-ing weekend.
Luke got me a Cricut maker for my birthday and now I need to figure out how to operate it.