Fireflies!!

Guess what I saw today?? Fireflies! Well, we actually saw them Monday night, but I saw them again tonight. There is a hidden away park (well it's really a parking lot) that we like to go to and let the dogs run around. Cyrus and I usually throw sticks, play catch, or whatever. Its like a little piece of nature right in the middle of Fort Worth. Anyway, Monday night as it got dark, we caught a glimpse of a firefly, and then we realized there were a bunch of them.

We both realized we hadn't seen fireflies in many many years. It reminded me of when I was little and we would go out to my Grandma Sicking's farm in Muenster every Friday to take care of her when she was sick. But even before that, we would go visit and sometimes spend the night. Night time on a farm in the country is about the most amazing thing in the world. In addition to fireflies there are all the smells of "farm" life (hay, horses, cows, dirt, fresh air). We would wait until dark, then go out and hunt for fireflies. They are easy to catch. We would catch them in a jar, poke holes in the top for "air" and sleep with the jar in our room that night. We literally used them in place of a nightlight! Cyrus said he did the same thing when he was younger on his grandparents' farm. Life was so good back then!

Here is a pic of a small piece of the park - it's so wide open.

Them are some real cowboys!

We recently celebrated our 1 year anniversary of the opening of our Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory store! We opened our doors on May 16th, 2008. We're still hanging in there and business is beginning to pick up.

Taylor thought the best way to celebrate the year was to cook out some steaks at the farm. We all thought that would also be a good opportunity for all the girls (including me) to see what life on the farm is really like. It was really muddy that day, but we got the job done.

You start out by getting the big cows in the chute. Then you can doctor them with stuff like Katie and Cyrus are doing.














Then you get the branding iron ready - thanks, Jen!














Katie operated the side of the table to squeeze the calves in when you get them in the table. Taylor did the branding (see the smoke!).














Jen held the nose pinchers while Taylor tagged the ear.














And then...the poor little calf is too small for the table. So you have to do it the old fashioned way....which is... put a rope around its neck, let the calf out of the table, and Taylor and Cyrus run after it and get it on the ground and tie it up!!














More branding. Awesome cowboy shot!














Taylor's favorite baby, Bandit. Isn't he cute?














Here are the chocolatiers / cowboys - Cyrus, Taylor, Katie, and Jen. I'm taking the picture, and Erin is also missing (somebody had to run the store that day!).