Three Guesses

 Can you guess what this is? I'll give you three guesses and the answer has to include how it got there.

 This suddenly appeared on the ceiling......Have you guessed the answer yet? It is on both sides of the kitchen ceiling.
Oh all right, I'll tell you. It's pinto bean juice! I made pinto beans and ham the other night. I had the beans soaking all day and all of a sudden, I thought, "Darned, that's a lot of beans!" They didn't look like so many when I put them on to soak. Any hoo, I put them in the pressure cooker with the ham and some water. Hmmmm The pressure cooker sure looks full.....very full. What the heck, onto the stove they go. It seemed to take forever for the steam to build up. Then I noticed the little rubber stopper on the lid was bulging a bit so I turned the fire down. The thingy on the top that rattles, never did start rattling so I turned the fire up again and the next thing I knew, the rattle thingy hit the ceiling and the pressure cooker looked like a volcano going off. Spewing right out the rattle thingy's spout up to the ceiling. I ran the cooker over to the sink and started pouring cold water on it. The entire time, it was spewing out bean juice. It was dripping off everything including my hair. Finally got the darned thing cooled down so I could open the cooker. I spooned out a bunch of beans and then proceeded to finish cooking the them and washing off the ceiling and what ever else got coated. The ceiling still had some staining on it so I repainted the spots the next day. Lesson learned? That little line on the inside of the cooker that says do not fill past this point? They are darned serious!  The beans and ham were delicious, by the way.

 Another project finished!!!! I am so proud of Pa. He worked so hard on the entire fence project. Not sure what the next project is... probably getting some wood stacked for the winter. Yipee! no more cows.

 Pa put up this sign to warn people that there is a gate around the corner. We didn't want anyone plowing into it.

 I was visiting Tom today and his dog Max caught a squirrel. Neither Tom or I have ever seen one of these out here. It was munching around in his garden. I noticed some digging in my garden this morning. It was trying to dig out and we saw nowhere that it dug to get in so I am wondering if we have one of these around here. Where's the pellet gun!!!!!

 This is the pot that Tom found in pieces. This is the Holy Grail to find something so complete out here. We are going to go out to see if we can find the rest of it.

 How incredible to find something like this!

 Pa and I went out exploring yesterday. This is sure a rare find. It was lying amid some pottery shards. Crystals aren't native to this part of the country so you know it was brought in by some ancient Indian and left when they departed. Pa found this.

 It's very worn so ya know it has to be very old. I'm going to find someone who does wire wrapping and have it made into a necklace for me.

 This is Henry. I found this baby Horned Toad over by Wayne's the other evening. He is so darned cute. I'll probably let him go soon so he can get prepared for winter.

Can you see the hand on this pottery shard? Tom said he has never seen a stick figure on a piece of pottery. Pa found this and I wish I knew at the time what it was because I would have looked for other pieces.
  My green beans are finally doing great. Not enough to can but enough for a meal. The tomatoes are so small and slow to ripen. My Beef Master tomaotes are finally starting to turn red. I picked a huge bell pepper today. That's about it for the garden.
   Fabulous news! My mom and her husband are coming for a visit in October!!!!! I'm so excited. I haven't seen her for a couple of years. We had the devil of a time figuring out where to fly in to. If she flew into Flagstaff, she would have been flying for hours and hours, changing planes 3-4 times. I finally told her to fly into Vegas and I would pick her up but she opted for Phoenix so we will pick them up there. There are only 3 airlines that fly out of Eugene, Oregon and none of them had a direct flight to Albuquerque unless they got in at midnight or later and even then, I can't remember if she had to change planes. She is 87 years old and all those flight changes would have made her a nervous wreck. At one point she asked me to fly to Oregon but I really wanted her to see the ranch and all we have accomplished. She saw the bare land once in December a few years ago. I am so happy she and hubs are coming. I am so blessed to have this woman as my mother. She is my very best friend. I can tell her ANYTHING and she never condemns me and loves me no matter what. She is a real prayer warrior. I used to say she had a direct line to God because He always answered her prayers. She is an amazing woman and I love her with all my heart.