Thursday, September 15, 2011

It's A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Except for the part where it is still hot & dee-are-why, DRY! It is a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Why? Well for starters, we have been very fortunate to not have our property burned to a crisp by the fire Labor Day weekend. It was super scary & we are very thankful for the firefighters who did such a tremendous job & ultimately tamed that beast & a favorable wind that pushed the fire away from us. Said wind was not helpful at all to others & certainly made fighting the fire that much more difficult. The picture to the right is of a tree that the wind took out. I'm sure age & drought gave it a good start in weakening its trunk & the wind finished it off. None of the leaves went to waste & you can see an eager eater foraging for any green leaves that might be left. You can also see from the brown ground that the trees & weeds are the only green things we have on this place right now!
It is also cooling off a little. Kinda funny to consider it cooler when you aren't hitting the 100 degree temperature mark until well into the afternoon instead of by 10am. I'm gonna need a sweater if we ever hit 80! Dang that will be chilly. There is a small chance of rain soon, but I'll believe that when I'm outside soaking wet & not sweating. Otherwise.....
I love catching the calves doing their cattle guard grazing. There is always a little green grass under them & those little ones can still fit their noses through to get some of that tasty grass. Caught these kiddos while I was feeding the horses. Had to run them off shortly after this picture though because my little heifer girls were waiting for their breakfast.


Speaking off my heifer girls. I heard strange noises in the carport & found these two thieves in the night to be the culprits. Guess they wanted a bedtime snack & couldn't open the cookie jar since they don't have thumbs. I just gave them the can of range cubes since there weren't many left & it was mostly crumbs. Don't know what I'm going to do. I need to figure out some way to keep them out of the carport since Miss 48 has already put a nice dent in my rear fender. Rat fink cows!! What to do, what to do. I'll be kicking them out of their current pasture soon anyway as they will be graduating to join the big herd of commercial cattle. Come Spring, they'll get their chance at being mommies & I'll have a new crop of freshly weaned babies to get to know & spoil as rotten as these girls.
Here we have Dog grooming Miss BB. She was taking a little siesta while Dog fixed her hair for her. So cute to see them like this. BB is getting so big & I'm gonna miss that little varmint next month when I put her out in the pasture with the big girls as it will be time to wean her. I'll leave her out there long enough to break her 6 bottle a day habit & then bring her back into my young heifer herd. She's too young to hang out with the big girls anyway. They'll do nothing but teach her about boys, how to fuss & cuss & probably how to smoke & play bridge. Not all of that knowledge is helpful to young little ladies.
We will be working cattle within the next few weeks now that WB is done with his treatments for his back. I hope to keep him from doing too much when we work the cows, but there is only so much I can do. The physical exercise is good for him, but I don't want him to overdo & it's easy to forget that he's 80 when he can do 10+ times what most people his age can do. Getting all the cows worked is going to be quite the task, but it needs doing & that is also when I'll kick the BeeBs out of the yard.
OK - off to finish up laundry before figuring out a plan on what to make for dinner.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Who Wants to Go Swimming??

Yesterday was one of those days that seemed like it would never end. No complaints as I enjoyed every minute of it, but I was one exhausted cowgirl by the time I crawled into my bed.
7:30 - 11am
Feed large square bale of alfalfa to both big herds of cattle - mind you that means I'm on the back of a trailer pulling off the flakes one at a time, splitting them in half & kicking them to either side of the trailer
Climb in tractor & move one of the calf creep feeders & store an unused hay ring.
Cows are occupied with hay so back to the house & get the truck & dump 450 lbs of creep feed in the 2 creep feeders for the calves
Unload rest of feed in feed room
Feed horses & let them out. All 11 of them are coming up for breakfast instead of just the usual 8
Feed heifers
Feed BB
Feed BB's boyfriend. We'll call him Junior
Let BB & Junior in the yard so they can munch on the green grass in there.
Mix & deliver mineral to the 3 herds.
Put repaired Kubota tire in the shop.
Fill 8 gallons of water for the house (you can drink it, but our well water doesn't taste very good)
11 - 11:30
Eat lunch & watched an interesting show called Oddities. Appropriately named show. Watched some guy find a skeleton for a stage show & a lady who is a former mortician & now clothing designer try on scoliosis braces from the 1900s. Told you appropriately named show!
11:30-1:30
Get my goods together & off to town to get:
Donuts for WB
Gas in truck
More mineral from vet clinic
New gloves at Tractor Supply
Qtips for WB to use at the caboose - something to do with reloading ammo, not sure & didn't ask
Hook up to trailer & pick up Kubota from service repair
1:30 - 6
Back home & unloaded truck of purchases.
Offload Kubota
Drop trailer in back pasture
Switch to other Kubota
Put out 5 bales of hay in the tractor to the 3 herds.
Check on washing machine repair man
Toss 7 bales of hay from hay barn, load in Kubota & then toss in horse hay manger. Wish there was a better way, but you gotta move the hay 3 times!
Back to house to change clothes so I can go water trough diving
Get in said water trough & find out that the chain has broken on the float which is why the trough is over flowing.
Get chain & wire to fix float down at work shop
Back in the trough & fix the problem.
Evening
Shower &, oh yes, I did have a shower beer because there wasn't time to enjoy them separately
Friends arrive from Houston
Start dinner
Eat dinner
Finally go to bed at 11:30

Here's what made the whole day worth it. The baby bull in the pictures is #159. He came over to me & inspected all my tools prior to trough repair & tasted my hand. The rascal goosed me while I was bent over reattaching the float & scared the dickens out of me! Then, he decided to check out what it was like to get in the trough too. 2nd picture is him jumping backwards out of the trough. After his little swim, he came back over to me & tasted my whole hand & checked out my toes. I can't wait to get these calves away from their mommies & in the pasture next to the house. I'm ready for the next generation of babies to love on. All my other babies are big girls now & will be ready for motherhood next spring.

Hope everyone has a fun & safe Labor Day weekend.
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