Hay camp, cow camp, we camp, and camp and camp and camp....

Happy kids (for the moment).

Chansy absolutely adores Hayes. He is so good with her! They are playing in the sheep camp.

Sorry, I couldn't turn the picture. Dally and Choc dog.

This is an I-spy picture. Who can find the bluegill?

Okay, August for the Bailey's was pretty much a blur. We hayed, hauled hay, and then hayed some more. Our hay fields are about 17 miles away. To solve the problem of so much running around, we hauled the sheep camp to Chester and spent a lot of late nights in the fields and a little bit of time sleeping. The kids had a BALL for the most part. They got pretty sick of the hay hauling part. 4 kids and mommy in the 2 ton with no air. Not the best situation for sibling bonding. We DID survive though and hopefully created lasting memories. There is a circle pond with a flowing well where we camped that is full of 3-5" blue gills. The kids fished and fished and fished some more. Kalon fell out of the trees a couple of times but survived as well (it was pretty scary for mom and dad though). All of the kids ended up wet from the well but we just counted it as baths.

Earl and Kalon

We also spent a week herding cows on the Skyline permit. It started out pretty good. The fences suck so it is a full time herding job. Earl took Hayes and Kalon and did some good riding but it is almost useless with the fence situations. Plus a trough wasn't working so the cows wouldn't and couldn't stay where they were supposed to. Earl was pretty frustrated but it was beautiful up there! Again, the kids had a ball. Hayes and Kalon stayed in the tent while Earl and I listened for bears all night every night. It turned out that all we really had to worry about was cows. This is one of our pairs. It was funny that they are the only ones that dared come in this close- and it was definitely close. The boys were still asleep.

Earl hurt his back pretty bad a few days after we got up there and it pretty much put him out of commission. We had to lead all of the horses to a trough a little bit down the mountain twice a day. The kids thought that it was pretty cool to ride bareback and I must admit so did I. They did awesome.

I got a couple of chances to go for some great walks. Can I just say that I LOVE MY ATS (all terrain stroller). I LOVE MY STROLLER!

Kalon and Dally in the "fort" that they helped Hayes build.

Chansy also started crawling. I know that it's late but it's pretty good for a baby that has spent most of her life in a car seat. It was really nice for me because I never had to worry about her getting into anything out of reach. That has now changed!! Immensely! She is into everything now. She had her 1st birthday on the 28th and now we are working on walking. Hayes and Kalon started school on the 27th. Hayes is in 3rd grade and Kalon started kindergarten and so far, they love it. Hayes started reading Harry Potter books and made it through the first 3 books in August. (That's how the younger siblings survived the hay hauling-older brother was reading). Kalon is starting to read as well and doing awesome. Wow, our kids are growing fast! What a great month August turned out to be! Now for cow hauling season.