We got some much needed rain Monday morning, not a lot but every little bit helped. Anna was told Monday morning that she needed to be at school early, as an FFA officer, for the drive your tractor to school day. So her and Kaine went early and Toni took Kade and Jaxsen. Kaine got to ride in a tractor to school with his friend Maxx. Toni was behind them and Kaine thought it was some random person waving at them in a Tahoe that looks like Toni’s. Mom and Dad went to Spokane and took Francis Faye out for a drive and to lunch. Francis Faye is one of dad’s cousins. Toni and the boys put the last of the poles on the fence after chores, Toni has told them they can have the rest of the week break now, she is really swell. Anna had a Zoom Nile Heifer meeting after chores.
Tuesday we had a lot of foals, Mud had a cute colt by Jackpot. BB had a fancy dun filly, possibly roan, by Sagebug and Rosie B had a stunning dun filly, looks like a possibly dunalino, by Jackpot. All foals are doing great. After chores Toni, Jaxsen and I reset a rail road tie that has a heavy gate on it. It is still pulling it so we are going to cement it. The men are still feeding some cattle, most are out, and the mares. They are also getting the circles ready to run.
Wednesday Toni and the boys cemented the rail road tie in after chores and school. Then the boys topped some of the taller posts, of course they made it a race. Kade had Toni’s reciprocating saw and Kaine had the mini chainsaw. They both kept having difficulties, Kaine may have won. They didn’t do the best job because they were in a hurry. After that they went to help Anna with chores. Toni and I went out to put some more clips on the mesh fence until we ran out of them. On Wednesday we only had one foal, Lona had a palomino colt by Leroy and mom was so mad she had not named him yet. She has been wanting a filly to keep for years. I have put in a random name until she decides to name him. Her and dad also price this colt. The price reflects lots of over-discussion about how great Lona is, how great Lona’s dam was, etc.
Thursday we decided to let the cement settle for another day, so after school, chores and work, Toni, Jaxsen and I went out to finish putting the clips on the mesh fence. We are also still working on Spunky who everyone thinks is a pet. She also thinks she is a pet. She isn’t getting out of pet mode very well. The kids all went up to do cow chores because Ben had to work late. Lots of babies on Thursday Bailey had a fancy grullo filly by Sagebug and Charlie had a chromy filly by Dude.
Friday dad took the big Hereford bull to Connell to get his horn cut, and after Toni loaded him she went out to check. Piper D had a chromy long anticipated red dun colt, yes, I am disappointed it is a colt. Tessa had a stunning grullo colt. Dad then took the bull up to his new home, so one less bull at the house. We are excited to get these bulls out to their new homes. The boys got the steers in to take the weigh in on Saturday. Toni, Marlo, and I put the gate up at the corral. We couldn’t get it to go in very well, so we had to get serious with it and bring out the sledge hammer. It is up now. We also spent some time Friday trying to organize a big weekend with way too much to do.
Saturday we had steer weigh-in in the morning , we had a full load with 12 steers. The halter broke 4 had their own compartment and barely fit. The trailer pulled like a lead sled. It was good to see people at steer weigh-in and see everyone else’s prospects. There are going to be some really tough classes at the fairs this year. Anna drove home and Kaine, Kade and I went down and got everyone coffees, chai teas or smoothies. We went home and sorted off the 8 heifers that are being sold and turned the rest out with the bulls. We went down and got circle 5 in and sorted mares and turned Gunner and Sagebug out. We got done pretty late. By the time we got done with circle 5, we went from having 37 mares in that field to 13. So lots of movement. We also had to west nile and work the mares before they got turned out. We also cleared out a couple of the open mares from mom and dads and got them out with studs.
One of our Apache Blue Boy mares, Crystal, went up to Allie’s to get Aied to NZ Scotch Time. We asked Codi (NZ Scotch Time aka Rip) to only send sexed semen since we want another filly! She didn’t make us any promises. Sunday we weaned the fall heifer and tied up the fall heifer and Jaxsen’s two Angus steers. The other three kids washed their steers and Angus heifers. Jeanie and Sonny brought out some horses and Ben’s long horn calf. He is tiny. Ben is happy. We continued to move mares and got studs out. Leroy has now been moved to mom and dad’s in Double’s old pen. We need an old stud that isn’t related to the majority of the mares, so he was it. We had to move Crossfire and Cappy over to the other side of the corral, except Crossfire, as a coming 2 year old stud, felt he should also breed mares. He went through two fences to get back where he wanted to be. Somehow he was being watched over because he got some minor surface cuts and that was it. So we got to fix some fence and talk about how we are going to make it stronger and more resistant to young studs, if that is possible.
We needed to get some videos for some people, so here some of them are.
KT Ranch 
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