Around the Ranch

Has been drawn, and the winner is…… Adalia!

Congratulations for winning our Easter Giveaway. Please check your email and respond.

Both to the world and to the blog.There has been so much to be thankful for this year already. From the birth of my grandson, to having only minor storm damage done. Black Iris’s are about to pop open (I can’t wait to get photos of them fully opened), strawberries coming along nicely, along with the rest of the garden. Horses are looking good, and feeling good.  I felt it was also time to give Cloud 9 Ranch Blog a new look and feel.

Okay, so truth be told, I totally messed up my other theme on WP, so I have started from scratch. All new colors, a new header, and a whole new look. Don’t fret, I still have more work to do. Nothing like getting a fresh new look to help brighten things up a bit.

I am proud to say that I made the header myself, with my easy little Infranview program. It’s awesome for working with images, and I sometimes forget just how much this little program can do. Although, I do still want to add some personal images to the header. I think it is a good start.  I know the program works on all OS up to and including Windows 7. I started using Infranview several years ago, on my XP OS, and it works just as good on the 7. There is also a plugin you can get that allows you to do even more. I just haven’t downloaded it, so not sure how it works, or what it will allow me to do. Maybe tomorrow I will get a chance to do just that. OH! Did I mention the program is free to download?

I’ve change the theme to Mystique,,  a WordPress theme, for those interested in checking it.  Because it offers a lot of variations, from the background color to the tabs, and is very easy to work with. Of course, I’m sure it can be customized even further, if you know your stuff. Since I’m still learning CSS and how it all works, I’ll leave that part to the experts. After I created my header in Infranview, I just uploaded it to the theme in the Mystique Setting

Wishing everyone a very Happy Easter and enjoy your family.

I was up before sunrise this morning. I am sitting here in my Lazy-boy recliner, watching the sun come up and show her beauty to the world. Shadows of darkness are receding, and it looks to be a pretty day out today (regardless of temps). I only wish it was warmer out so I could sit outside on my porch, and listen to the sounds of morning around the ranch. Oh, how I long for those mornings! Specially now that I have my new laptop, and can actually work in different locations!

As I went through my Tweet Deck feed this morning, I thought it would be fun to share some of the tweet links that caught my attention. So, here is my list of links from Twitter. These links are from the hashtag #agchat

US Sees Increase in Women Farmers

Organic vs Conventional Agriculture (I found this post after I published Sustainable or Organic ~ Which is Healthier?)

Values Before Facts in Animal Agriculture

Turkey Burger Recall for Salmonella

Organic Farmers & Seed Sellers Sue Monsanto

I hope you find the links above informative, and I’ll be back later with some pictures and ranch updates!

What a wonderful week this is turning out to be. It’s Hump Day, so if I can make it through today, I’ll be good to go. I did manage to get some of the vegetable plants put into larger pots yesterday, and brought some of the smaller ones that weren’t doing so well inside.

It can’t get much more soggy around here, but we are due rain the rest of the week, with snow in the higher elevations by Friday.  Where, oh Where, has my spring time gone! Only one day left in March, and it is our wettest March on record for quiet some time. April is looking up to be a wet month as well.

We really need to work on our dam for our pond, before the end of the rainy season, so that the pond doesn’t get to low, like it has in the past. Maybe next week, when Nathan is off, I can bring a load of dirt home after work, and we can put in some more sand bags to build the it back up.

What are some of your spring projects for your place? Has Spring hit in your area yet?

Since I have gone back to work, there have been mornings and evenings when I wanted to write something real quick, but didn’t feel comfortable leaving you hanging without any real details. I came up with a solution to this problem.

Be on the lookout for tags, and the new Categories ”Morning Toc” and “Evening Chatter“.  These new features will allow me to post quick thoughts and let me expand on them later, when I have a little more time.

I look forward to keeping you updated with these quick little notes.