Reality is seldom perfect. Reality is knowing you are way behind and realizing that it is ok.

Monday started out bad, when Ben and Anna went out to feed, Kade’s really nice half clubby steer had died during the night, it looks like he got himself on his back on the hill. Cattle cannot be on their back very long. Anna took Riggs back in to see Sheena, her leg rebroke so she was getting plates. Anna fixed the fence in between 4 and 5 again, some of the calves crawled through it so the hot fence wires were wrapped and thus not hot. It was hot again. Dad was working harvest Monday, so we did not see him. It was our last day to see Coco and Shae before they went back to CA. Kade has been practicing roping at nights, him and Slick are getting good. We, mom, Sherri and I, have been telling Toni she should take him for lessons, since we all only know pretty basic skills so cannot teach him much. Dad used to rope and has worked on fundamentals with him. To rope something moving, Kade has roped Jaxsen a few times. Especially when Jax tries to hit him with a football. So Kade can rope his brother. It might be the only moving thing he ever ropes, but he has that down. Luckily Jennifer Casey is doing a roping clinic in Othello, so Kaine and Kade get to go to that the first weekend of Aug.

We have heat warnings again on Tuesday, and actually through Saturday. Jaxsen worked on both of his steers. The rest of the kids worked on all 3 of their steers. Kaine and Anna caught their baby heifers and stated halter breaking them. Anna went and picked up Riggs from the vet, she got an implant in her leg and a plate. Poor Riggs. Marlo showed up in time to help Toni and I move water. Mom made muffins and cookies for us to take with us to Ellensburg. Tuesday was the day Summer (the filly out of Strawberry) decided she didn’t need to be friendly anymore and didn’t need to let us pet her. So we are going to need to wear her down. Game on little horse.

On Wednesday Anna took mom and the boys over to see Grandma. They all had a good time visiting with grandma. After they came back they worked on steers. McCall stopped by after work to help Anna clip Roarke. The kids are really gearing up for this last jackpot before we get our break before the fairs start. Anna is taking her homegrown steer for his first show and Roarke and Jax is going to take his Connell steer who hasn’t been anywhere. Jax’s Connell steer is named John Dutton. He is a nice steer, but unclear if he is deserving of the name.

Thursday more of the same. Working on animals, chores, etc. Thursday Jimmy was a little sore on one front foot. Kaine cleaned it out really well and could not find anything in it. Ben looked when he got home and nothing. All of the other animals were doing well, just hot. We have water on in all of the pens trying to keep the animals as cool as possible.

Friday Jimmy was still lame, so I logged on to the show app and registered Emily for the Ellensburg show, and we went and got her in. I had turned her out last weekend because she was supposed to be done. Toni said, don’t turn her out. Luckily old Em came right to Kaine and the grain bucket so got brought in for a show. We finished getting everything loaded into the trailer. Anna and Kade finished clipping Jax’s steer John and then we loaded them up and headed for Ellensburg. We did not get far, we got to Othello and had a flat tire. So we pulled into Les Schwab and they got it fixed fast. I guess  when you have a trailer full of steers and heifers in 100 degrees they want to get you back on the road. Especially when you say, ok, I get there is a wait, but we are going to have to unload this livestock into the parking lot because they can’t stay in the trailer. Bing bang boom- you have service. Thank you Les Schwab. We rolled into Ellensburg and pulled up to the wash rack and got everyone off and onto the wash rack to cool them off. Toni and the kids pulled around and started setting up beds. We got checked in, steers weighed in, went to the showing demo and then to Ellensburg Pasta for dinner. The AC in our hotel room did not keep up with the heat, so we had a long, hot night.

We woke up Saturday morning and went and washed and got ready to start showing. We started with heifers, Kade was second in his class with Emma Frost, Kaine was second with Emily and Mia was third, so 2 out of the 3 went back to the championship round. Next we moved to steers. Anna was second in her class with Roarke, Kade was first with Emmet and Anna and Jaxsen were towards the bottom with their non clubby steers. Kade made it back to the championship round in showmanship. They all showed well, two of the steers had not been anywhere, and they all showed and acted great. Old Em did kick Kade. First time she has ever kicked anyone, but in her defense, she had been turned out and brought back in. Clearly she needed to express her displeasure. The only other boggle was due to the arena being overwatered which made a mud hole. Jax tripped in the  staging area right before his class, went down right in front of his steer in the middle of all of the other steers.  Old John did exactly what he was supposed to do which was to jump over Jaxsen without hurting him. Jax got up, mud covering his side, took a deep breath, the comb went back into his pocket and into the show ring he went. So if anyone wants to fault John Dutton the steer, we probably think he is pretty great.  We had a great time with the majority of our show friends and most of our show family. They let Toni run the gate with her friend Kyle, so they kept everyone really moving. Cousin Bobette called Toni the Gate Bitch. Then we loaded up and headed home. Thank you for the great show.

                Sunday morning Hunter came out to see Call. Pete came with our new halter breaking donkey, which was supposed to be a girl donkey (Jennet) but when he got off the trailer he had boy parts. Ben is naming him Basil as a compliment to Tulip. Unclear how those names go together. After unloading, Toni and I gave Pete the tour. Due to Toni’s backseat driving, Pete figured out she was older than me.  Pete got a bag of Mom’s cookies for bringing the donkey over. He also picked up his new showbox that Ben and the kids had picked up for him in Ritzville. We are pretty excited about Basil. The kids worked on their animals. 

After Pete left we sorted Tank’s pen and took the three pair to Mom and Dad’s, putting Tank back out in circle 3 with Rita. There is plenty of feed down there but the foals need to get used to humans and be ready to be weaned. Mini Tank is on the older side. Toni and I then went down and did most of the chores. Strawberry went out to the big pasture. We moved water and did everything else we needed to do in the heat.

It is amazing how quickly time flies. We have this expectation that summer is going to last a long time and allow us to get all of these projects done, spend lots of time with the kids, and just have the perfect summer. Reality is seldom perfect. Reality is knowing you are way behind and realizing that it is ok. Reality is taking the time with the kids even when you don’t have extra time. Reality is realizing that we still have real jobs in the summer and we don’t get a 3 month break as adults. Reality is a funny thing.