Crazy, tired day on Monday, Toni had to be at Yakima first thing for court. Ben had to go to work early, Ben and Anna normally do morning chores, so Kaine got to get up early and help Anna with morning chores. Mom texted that Frieda foaled, finally, and Coco texted that Money also foaled. Both had Jackpot babies. Both Jaxsen and Kaine had baseball games Monday night. Kaine’s team, and Jaxsen team lost, but Jaxsen played like a super star. He told us all about it. Toni says he actually did play really well, because according to Jaxsen he ALWAYS plays like a super star.
Tuesday Kaine and Jaxsen had baseball practice, Kade did most of the horse chores and Anna most of the show cattle chores. Ben has been working late planting, due to them being behind due to the weather, so that leaves them shorthanded doing cattle chores. So Kade has not stayed to do fencing projects after he is done with horse chores, so I feel like Toni thinks her and I are behind on fencing, since it is just her and I. I feel like I am still tired from Spokane. Dad went and picked up the boys from practice so Toni and I could continue fencing. We have decided that once the current project is done that this will be our last new build for the year. We still have fence fixing and our seasonal fence, so plenty of fence work left for 2022. Also, Molly B was a month old Tuesday, happy birthday Molly.
Wednesday Kaine had a game in Othello so dad went and picked him up. We are shipping Blue Starlight to his new home, one of our really great repeat customers Austin and Brita, so we got Blue Starlight in to work on him. He was pretty opposed to being a real horse and wanted to continue living the life of luxury out in the yearling pen. He still got caught, messed with, and loaded three times. Toni likes to load everything three times when we are practicing. The first load can be a fluke, second load can also be a fluke, but if they load three times, then that is good. Toni and I continued our fencing project. Anna clipped the heifer Jaxsen is showing, #1, and Kade worked on his heifers. I went and picked Jaxsen up from practice, so Toni could continue with her goal. I was texted that the corn for the cattle had not shown up yet, it was supposed to be at the house the beginning of the week and we are past the hump on hump day. So I texted Stefan and asked him the status, he said he would get back to me.
Stefan texted me first thing on Thursday, that the corn has been ground, they are looking for someone to deliver it. Which he texted a few hrs later that it should be on its way. Anna and Kade headed to Tri Cities first thing in the morning for FFA state convention. Anna and Kade were both competing. Anna is competing all week, so she is not going to the WA Angus field day with us in Ellensburg, just Toni, the boys and I. Fun Fun. Only 10 of us going in total, Leslie, Traci, Ady, Natalie and Julian, plus us 5. I said to Leslie, we only need 10 breakfast sandwiches?? Are you sure? It does not seem like enough. Mom and Dad went to pick-up horse stuff at Hale’s feed in Ephrata then had lunch with Cousin John and his wonderful wife Cindy. That left Toni in charge of Molly B. Molly B got her halter off and took a run-around, but she was fine and came back to Toni when she was done because she was hungry. Molly B is getting really big and likes to run. Jaxsen had a game on Thursday, dad went and watched it. Toni continued fencing, practiced loading Blue Starlight and did the horse chores. Kaine and I went up and did the show cattle chores, hooked Butte up to the gooseneck, packed up some stuff for the trip, etc.
Happy Friday the 13th. Anna went back to WA FFA State Convention on Friday. Toni texted that half of the yearlings were out, they got the man gate open into the pasture and escaped. Her favorites came to her since they did not know why they had gotten out in the first place. But the mini Blue Devil wasn’t voluntarily coming back in to her pen. Toni left them out until early chore time. Even Blue Devil came back for grain. So all the yearling got put back. Blue Starlight got his last day of loading practice. We went to Ellensburg Friday afternoon for a Jr Angus Show. Anna was competing in Ag Sales, the competition was Saturday, so she could not go to the Angus show with us. However, she was running for Angus Queen, so they called her on Friday and did the interview over the phone. Kaine, Kade, Jaxsen, Natalie, Ady and Julian all showed at the Angus show. Traci was a meanie and left Savannah and Kayla home with Manny. Toni, Leslie and Traci took the kids and I met them there since I had to go to work on Friday. We ate at the pasta place and had a good time
Saturday we woke up at 5 and got out to wash, we started at 9:30 with no fit showmanship, so we did not have to get out there at 4:30. We washed and got the heifers ready to show. Showmanship started with oldest to youngest, without Anna there we only had one intermediate. Kaine was reserve champion intermediate. Kade got to come back for Jrs to the championship round. All of the kids showed really well. We had a fitting contest and then a lunch break and started with the breeding classes. Kade’s fall heifer and Julian’s heifer both won their classes and Kaine’s April heifer got second in her class, so those three heifers made it back to division champions. All of the heifers did really well. Kaine got to show one of Sydney Rylaardam’s heifers in the championship round, she had two come back. Kaine was third overall with his Evergreen heifer so gets a nice check for buying and showing her at the show. Then we packed up and came home. All of the kids had a good time. We got to see lots of our friends and start making plans for the trip to Angus Nationals. Also, Blue Starlight made it to his new home in Ellensburg on Saturday and Brita and Norman came and watched the kids shows.
Sunday we were all home and had lots of ranch work to catch up on, except Ben who was at work all weekend. Anna got back from State convention Sunday morning. I went and showed horses Sunday morning, got lots of pics. The Meachams worked on stretching the fence that Toni and I had been putting up. The kids washed their heifers and steers to prepare for Wheatland on May 21st. Jaxsen and I hauled Frieda down with Jackpot and hauled the two year old Hereford bull to my house for Luis to borrow. The three older kids and Camas emptied the feed out of the Titan and then rode horses after they got done washing everything. Once we finished chores we went out and sorted mares, putting a couple of new heavies in the heavy pen. We also had to grab Spunky and work on her because she is getting ready to move to her new home. We are finally getting down to our keeper yearlings. We still have the grade quarter horse filly that we need to get halter broke and marketed. She is pretty and will look pretty in a new pasture! Molly B also had to be moved, which mom wasn’t particularly thrilled about, but that filly is getting big and needs a permanent pen.
The kids have shows the next two weekends, but one of us will be around for everyone having to wait to look at foals. We have some availability to actually show some horses.
Life has been pretty busy lately. But busy in a good way. Hopefully things are back on track with mother nature and life in general. We are still getting more rain than normal, but that is great because it will allow us to leave the horses on the desert ground longer. We still have quite a few mares left to foal, but hopefully most of them are pretty close. Lots of exciting foals still expected and some really exceptional ones on the ground. I am pretty sure we think every year we have the best bunch of foals. Maybe we do!
KT Ranch 
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