Buffalo Clover Spring Fling 2012

Our first annual!  We had so much fun - as I think everyone else did.  A rough count includes 13 total families that attended.  That number included 26 adults and 44 children!  WOW!  What a turn out!

Course, when you send out an invite like this, who could resist:

Join us for our first annual spring fling on the ranch!  

We will be cooking up hotdogs and hamburgers, providing horse rides, pig chases, basketball, playing bean bag toss and horse-shoes.

For their comfort, please dress your children in camping clothes and tennis shoes.  Your little ones will most likely get dirty! ;-)

Please bring a side dish or a desert to share.  (If you would, please indicate what you are bringing when you RSVP so we can get a good balance of both.)

There will be parking in the drive or along the road in front of the house.

Hope to see you there!

We planned to run the party in shifts.  We had stations set up, so that while kids waited for horse rides, there were other things to occupy the time.

The Horseshoe Station:  To our surprise, this was the most popular!  Especially among the adults!  By the middle of the party, there were some serious competitions going on!

The Bean Bag Toss Station:  The kids didn't really go for this game.  I am not sure why - I thought it was lots of fun!  I think the person who I saw playing with it the most was Wyatt!

The Lasso Station:  We had set up a large hay bale with a fake sheep head attached to it.  James lent his two lasso's to the effort and was looking forward to giving lessons on how to rope.  But, again, this one wasn't all that popular with the crowd.

The Basketball Station:  This one was actually pretty popular.  It didn't take off until the sun started to go down and the heat cleared out a bit, but the older boys played a LOT of basketball!

So what were all those kids doing if they weren't at the stations?  Mostly, petting and playing with the animals! :)  Buffy was a huge hit for the crowd that was waiting for June Bug rides.  With her pretty bows, the request was often to brush her.  I dug out her brushes and the kids had a great time showing Buffy the love.  And of course, Buffy loved it too!  She's such a prima donna!

If they weren't brushing Buffy, they were chasing the pigs and/or feeding the goats!  It was great!  The parents got a huge kick out of seeing their little ones chase around the potbellies!

The other thing that turned into a popular activity was giving wagon rides.  Our old, red wagon turned into a huge highlight for the little (and big) kids!  The little ones would pile inside and squeal with excitement as the bigger kids pulled and pushed them around.

I think mostly the kids just enjoyed having the space and freedom to run around and be kids.  It was great!

JL doing what he did most of the time - giving horse rides.  With 44 kids, at 4 minutes each, it took some time.  :)  I would say this was definitely the favorite of almost all the kids.  How can you not love June Bug?

Part of the adult crowd.  With good friends and conversation, this scene didn't change much during the party.

Here's most of the other part of the adult crowd.  It was difficult to get a shot of everyone all together!

If they weren't hanging around the patio, the rest of the crowd was up by the animal corral.

Once JL fired up the grill, everyone settled in for some fabulous food!

Most of the kids occupied the bench around the big shade tree on the deck.

Here's a picture of the mini van brigade!

Wyatt enjoying his dessert!

At some point, he snuck the entire bag of Cheeto's and decided to eat them inside the wagon!  When his buddy Jack asked for a few, Wyatt was more than happy to share. :)

Isabel giving her friend Dario instruction while Roman takes his turn on June.

TUG!

At the end, my crew was still alive and kickin'!  The kids had such a good time!! 

It was a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun!  We plan to make this an annual event!  It's just so much fun to have people over to share and enjoy in the things that we love about the ranch.

The Prep

Last Saturday we had our first annual Buffalo Clover Spring Fling.  We planned it to be a big bbq/party complete with horse rides and pig chases. :)

But - before all that, there was the prep work.

Our beautiful Agaves were kind enough to bloom out for the party!

The Saturday before, the boys were outside all day doing yard work.  JL weeded, James and Wyatt loaded rocks into the tractor for our new rock garden, and Isabel helped me clean the house.

The boys taking a lunch break

All the kids got involved when it came time to unload the rocks

James practicing his cowboy

We worked June Bug out a lot during the week to get her back in the groove of giving rides to anxious kids.  Isabel has come a long way since the fall - she doesn't even ask me to walk along side her now holding her hand! 

During the week, we had 10 yrds of mulch delivered to the ranch.  In my innocence to measurements, I expected a truck with a trailer (at the most) to show up to deliver it.  What I got was a super dump dump-truck!  I wasn't even sure it was going to fit through the gate.  Then when it did, I wasn't sure it would clear the trees.  It barely made it!  I video'd the dump for the kids (and JL) to see.  It's currently the favorite video among James and Wyatt. ;-)

Um, really?

Whew, it fit through the gate!

Getting ready to dump.  When the bed went up in the air to release  the mulch, it was SO tall it cracked a few of the branches off that top limb!

And there it is!

Naturally, a party means new yard art!  I loaded up the kids the Tuesday before the party and headed out to my favorite store.  We finished our outting with lunch at a local place called "The Hungry Moose" where I had a moose burger and a moose milkshake!  The kids enjoyed their mini-moose lunches and scoops of their favorite ice cream.

Our shopping cart

Wyatt taking in the Hungry Moose.  They had fun decor!

Isabel eating her moose fries

My new addition from my favorite store!

Naturally, the prep work also included a good mow of the grass.  James and Wyatt are always eager to help when the tractor gets involved!

And of course, the grocery shopping trip the Friday before.  I'm pretty sure I have never bought food for 70 people before!  The check out lady could hardly believe her eyes when I came rolling up!

Price check on hamburger buns!

One of the last things we did was beautify.  JL cleaned out the grill (since that was going to be one of the big stars of the party) and I gussied up the horses (since they were a very very close second!)

Buffy lookin' all beautiful - day of party

An update

You remember our discover of wheat on the ranch a few weeks back?  We concluded the seed most likely came from the chicken feed.  All of the stalks were around the coops, so it seemed logical.

Well, Buffy ate every last wheat stalk yesterday!!  Little rat!  So, I guess I won't get to see it turn all golden and pretty!  Rotten horse. ;-)

A Few Things

Things have been going good here at Buffalo Clover Ranch.  We've been getting rain every few days, the chickens are laying consistently (average of 6 eggs per day!) and the animals are healthy.  We're battling sticker bushes, that have also enjoyed our rain, but we are also enjoying the flourish of wildflowers that cycle through our land. 


The most recent one is called a Prickly Poppy.  Now, I'm not sure if this is an actual wild flower or a weed, but it sure is pretty.  Plus, it is growing wild and it has a flower - so we're going to call it that for now! :)

The flower is really delicate!  The petals flutter like tissue paper in the wind.  

It grows on the most hideous looking stalk, but I still think they are pretty. :)

The other thing to flourish lately has been our landscaping!  Take a look at my roses!  The bushes are HUGE and they are covered in red roses!  I've never seen a rose bush this full and colorful before!  Normally there are a few roses on at a time and the bush cycles through color.  But these plants have constant color - and lots of it!  They are my favorite at the moment!  I can smell them from a mile away!

See what I mean about the size?  They practically cover the truck which is parked right behind this one bush!

JL has been enjoying the nice weather and gracing us with plenty of meals from the smoker!  We've had hamburgers, hot dogs, ribs, and brisket lately.  It's one of our favorite activities/past times!

Wyatt basking in the fruit of Daddy's labor

The kids running around with the chickens.  We gave them a day out the other day to forage and eat a few of our bugs.

JL doing what he loves best!

Our strawberry plants are producing like crazy.  The berries are all small and not very sweet.  We've decided to give the plants this first year to establish their roots and grow in size before we try to harvest anymore fruit. 

Is that ... wheat?

It sure looks like it! JL discovered about 4 stalks of this stuff this past weekend. It is just hanging out behind the mini barn! Best we can figure, it got her via June Bug's hay? We're not quite sure. But we're very interested to watch it over the next few weeks to see what becomes of it.

We did it

March 24th - We actually got a strawberry from our garden!

About a week before we picked it
Just seconds before we snapped it from the plant
There it is!
It was a tad tart, but we ate it down anyway! Cutting it into 4 super tiny little pieces so me and the kids could each have a sample!
Not only that, but there are several more getting ready to be picked! The first one, we decided we'd jumped the gun a bit, so these next few, we are leaving on the plant just a little bit longer to see if we can get more sweetness to them.



The kids absolutely LOVE having strawberries growing on the ranch! They check them probably twice as often as I do! Especially Isabel! She's always had a love for strawberries, but I think she's even more into the ones that come from our own dirt! It's fun to watch the kids get so excited about nature. :)