Life on a ranch continues to move forward, even when time stops for a minute.

Monday was the first official day of Spring Break.  Anna checked Monday morning. Then her and Kaine caught the steers and fed them. Anna had a tennis match in College Place Monday, so dad had her at the bus by 1:15. Anna played in College Place and won her match, yea. Toni and the boys put up 5 sections of fence. When I got there I helped them move all of the vehicles out of Double’s pen and then Toni and I went and got Piper and Red Robin out of the alfalfa field, circle 6. Jackpot is in the middle of circle 6, and they want to be back in that pen. Then we fixed the fence and went home. Dad went and picked Anna up from school when she got back from her game. Kendel went down and harrowed circle 5 for a little while.

On Tuesday Anna had tennis practice at 9 in the morning, so her and Kaine got up early to tie up the steers and feed them. Our corn rolled in around 6:40, so Kaine showed the semi driver where to put it. Dad took Anna into practice. After practice Anna, Kaine and Kade clipped their three steers going to Pomeroy on Friday. Jax doesn’t have to show in Spokane as that is an “extra” show. The kids do make money, hypothetically, but there isn’t a decent profit margin at that show. They go more for the competition as it is the biggest cattle show in the Pacific NW.  Toni and the 4 kids finished the wood section of the old horse pen. Toni had a meeting in Othello, so she had to run. The three older kids left to go and feed their steers. Jaxsen and I went and checked the horses and cows in circle 5. After taking just Jaxsen with me, I now realize what a good passenger he is. He just talks the whole time, there is not need to participate in the conversation. Then I dropped him off at the house , picked up the dogs and  went to go down and get the poor cripped bull in, Bub was fighting with Biscuit and 848 and hurt his shoulder, so now we are down a bull. The dogs and I got up to the corral and then Ben, Kicker, Kade and Jaxsen came down with the gooseneck and we hauled him up to the house.  He is now in Sagebug’s pen, so it is a good thing we didn’t move those panels out.

Wednesday Anna had a tennis game early in Wapato. So her and Ben caught the steers before we went to work and fed them. After the two hour drive, the other team didn’t show up so she did not even get to play. So she won anyway. Per the norm, we worked on fence Wednesday night.  Toni and the boys move the panels around so there are only green panels for the panel part. Some may not look green, but they were originally green, so that counts.  Then we took out the extra panels and called the first 2021 fencing project done. All by Wednesday, so efficient.  Toni thought that was early, so they started digging post holes and putting in posts for the second project. The next project is redoing a portion of the yearling colt pen. It is barbed wire and complete crap, so needs to be redone in wood.

Thursday dad and Jaxsen took a load of cows to Toppenish. The three older kids finished up clipping and packed the tack to put into the trailer. Kaine and Kade were supposed to pack the tack box on Wed while Anna was at her match, but they were informed that they didn’t do it correctly, or nicely, or something like that. So it had to be redone. They went down and did chores. Toni took them over and they put a couple more posts in on project 2. After that they went back up to my house to pack the trailer, since it was back and Ben had washed it out. When I got home I helped them finish up so we were ready to go on Friday.

Friday morning Anna and Ben got up and got everything fed, then Anna and I went out and checked the cows and horses. Kade got there and we got everything packed up in the trailer and then went over to Connell so Jay could help the kids finish up clipping, do some touch ups. We ran into town and got pizza for lunch, Jay was done about lunch time, so the we packed up, waited for dad to bring Toni over and headed to Pomeroy. We got there, got all of our stuff unpacked, steers weighed in, clothes into Kayla’s camper.  We had 3 boys and 3 big girls showing, with two little girls participating in pee wee. The steers all came out of the trailer really well considering they haven’t been anywhere.  Kayla and Yo came in and hung out with us for a bit, but it was an early night.

We were up half the night due to the howling winds. We woke up to wind, so we washed the steers in the wind. Then it rained, hailed and snowed, while the wind blew. Welcome to Pomeroy. Every year at this show the weather is crap.  Despite the wind and cold the kids all showed great. Anna got third in her class with Sundance Kid.   Anna, Kaine, Kade, Ady and Julian went back into the championship round in showmanship. Savannah and Kayla got to show in PeeWee. And Savannah picked out the grey/blue pig she wanted.  We were told there were 83 head of cattle at the show and 50 some pigs for the jackpot pig show going on at the same time. The show was great and we all had a great time. We got to see people and catch up. Then we loaded up and headed home. Ben and Kicker did chores for us both Friday and Saturday night, so we were VERY happy with them. Thanks guys.

                Early Sunday morning Colonel was messing around in his pen and caught a front leg on the fence breaking his leg.  We are so thankful that we had him the years we did and had him as part of our breeding program. We were able to keep some wonderful daughters out of him, and many of our friends have foals by him. Colonel was always a little different, but he loved his people.  2021 will be his last foal crop. 

After we took care of Colonel, we had to get a weekends worth of work done.  We caught all of the steers and heifers, and the kids washed everything and unpacked the trailer. Toni and I hauled Gunner and his mares back out to the desert. We got Lura in and worked her, moving her out with Gunner as well.  We put Bailey with Sagebug. We moved Bell to the heavy pen. 

Life on a ranch continues to move forward, even when time stops for a minute.  Our breeding program was stronger with the addition of Colonel, and with his daughters we will continue to build.