The month of November is all about being thankful.

Where has this month gone?? Monday Coco left for CA, and Toni went down and helped her load Money and Penny to take back with her. On Toni’s way to check the cows, she found a trucker sitting at my house with a load of pellets that we had ordered. The poor guy didn’t have Ben or my number so was just sitting there hoping someone would appear to show him where to dump the pellets. These are a weight gainer pellet for the show cattle. We are excited to see if it works. We bought a semi load, so lets hope they do. Dad broke his glasses so went to Kahlotus to get a new pair. Toni was busy with clients most of the day and did not get lunch until almost 2, you like to get Toni lunch at noon, or she gets hangry. Toni tied Benjamina to Tulip Monday and broke another lead rope. Kade had a basketball game in Mattawa, but since he had a concussion, he could not play. But he went to support his team and keep score, or something like that. The rest of the kids came home and did chores.

Tuesday Toni tied Benjamina up to Tulip again, she did really good on Day 2. Toni had virtual court and wore her new leopard print kimono she got for her birthday. Anna is driving everyone to school, so they get home to do chores a lot earlier. It is pretty great because chores are now getting done mostly during the daylight hours. This deal with having a 16 year old is really slick.

Wednesday was a half day, Kaine and Kade went duck hunting with Kicker and did not go to school. Anna and Jaxsen went, the roads were slick in the morning, but she drove great. There was only 4 of us at work, so 3 of us decided to get Seoul Fusion for lunch. Anna went and picked up lunch when school was over so the people at home ate Burger Factory, as is their tradition on ½ days. Benjamina and Kit Kat are the two foals that are in and are both doing really great. Benjamina is just tough minded, but once she gets it, she gets it. Kit Kat is a Leroy so was “perfect” until Wednesday. Wednesday is the day we found out she doesn’t like to cross water. Some foals you can work through issues with a minimal amount of effort. Others are hardcases. Kit Kat is a self assured filly that wants to do what she wants to do, and getting her pretty little hooves wet isn’t something she likes. Toni worked with her for over 40 minutes, most of that in the dark. At the end she went into the water forward, backward, sideways, but not happily. And this isn’t deep water, this is a puddle in the driveway. The trust component can be one of the harder concepts to train into a foal. There are horses that trust naturally, and they are usually pretty easy to work with and break to ride. They may not be your super smart horses, or they could be. Then you have the independent thinkers that you have to gain their trust over time, through repetition, effort, carefully, so you don’t set yourself backward. There is still a third group of horses that have no trust, are not people pleasers, and are not smart- we try to have zero horses in that last category. Kit Kat is a thinker. She may be a challenge, but we are up for it.

Happy Thanksgiving. We had our low-key, friends and family celebration where we gave thanks for everything we have and everyone that is in our lives. After a huge feast we played an aggressive round of spoons. We have some competitive people in our family, finger nails got broke. Lots of laughs and memories made. After our big meal, Toni and I went down, Toni walked Kit Kat back through the puddle, then turned her out. We got Blackie’s colt in. He was already halter broke but Chad was coming out on Friday so we needed to get him in so Anna and Ben could be efficient with their Chad time. Blackie’s colt is a typical Double- easy. We got all of our chores done then went home to eat leftovers.

Friday we went to Uncle Don’s Funeral. It was good to see family, but a pretty sad reason to see everyone. Aunt Phyllis wanted the service to be small due to covid concerns, so a skeleton group from Connell went to the funeral. Those of us that went got to meet Uncle Doug’s fiance Ruth. Uncle Doug’s wife Gladys passed away about a yearish ago. We are all extremely happy that he found someone. While we were in Hermiston celebrating Uncle Don’s life, Ben, Anna, and Kaine were at home helping Chad get through the long list of horses that needed to get trimmed. The list didn’t get completed, but they made good progress.

Saturday we got straw. That took most of the morning. They are little bales that we can stack in the barn, so hand load going on the trailer, and hand load coming off the trailer for stacking. We checked cows a couple of times. We have some heavy cows that are ready to calve. Per the norm, we fixed fence. Did chores, checked the horses. I had to listen to Ben tell me how much he doesn’t like certain horses that they had trimmed on Friday. I don’t really listen to him about the horses. Ben and I got ready to leave for Idaho.

Sunday Ben and I left early for our trip to Idaho to attend Ben’s sister-in-law Trisha Gail’s funeral. This is our third trip in a few short months. Toni, Kicker, and the boys came back from Clarkston. Benjamina got loaded out to her new home. Benjamina, being Benjamina, refused to load. She never blew up, didn’t hurt anyone, nothing like that, just wouldn’t load. Kicker finally was asked to come down and help assist her into the trailer. Everyone was pretty fatigued after working with her for over an hour. After Benjamina left, Freckled Son got to come in and get haltered. Because it is so muddy, Toni actually hooked him to Tulip to get him across the driveway into the far pen for halter breaking. Freckled Son got renamed to Ol Son. It took about 15 seconds for him to get the pressure release of leading. He is very smart and responsive. We are glad he isn’t a filly, which he was supposed to be a filly, we would keep him if he was. He has a really fun pedigree. Plus bay is one of our favorite colors.

We have been getting really fun videos from Jordan Pace who is riding our two young studs, King and Tank. King was started last year by our good friend and great cutter, Tim Johnson, so King was already ahead of Tank. But both studs are doing great with Jordan. Jordan has moved back to the Prosser area where he is building a very nice training facility. If anyone wants to go see Tank or King while they are with Jordan, just contact us and we can give you Jordan’s contact. We will be standing both of these studs to the public for 2022 for a limited number of mares. We had 2 foals out of King this year, both selling quickly. We bred Tank to some powerhouse mares, so are very excited to see what we get out of him in 2022. We are pretty stoked about both of these studs.

The month of November is all about being thankful. We are thankful for our friends, family, our ability to lead this life. We have been very blessed and we recognize that fact and are thankful everyday. So thank you for reading this blog and being part of it all.