Expectations for 2023 are high. And why not?

Monday we had rain on top of the snow, with the promise of warmer weather. Dad went and got Camas and Lane came over. So we had two extra helpers building a new section of fence around the corn field. So we got it all done in one day. Pounding rebar posts into the frozen ground is always a lot of fun. We had a few new calves Monday, but with the AI cows done they are slowing down. T and Absolute were main streamed on Monday with the other foals. With the weather warming up they were pretty frisky in their smaller pen and needed to stretch their legs. Kaine, Camas and I did horse chores, Todd, Ben, Lane and Anna did cow chores. When Kaine and Camas checked the cows at 10 705 had calved by Emerald’s calf and was being mean to Emeralds calf. So Ben and Todd went out to move 705 and her calf away and Ben may or may not have been nudged by 705 and Todd got her off of him as he tripped and fell. Luckily Kaine and Camas were getting the pickup to take out some straw and were out of the way.  Sometimes cows nudge a person that gets too close to their calf. Those cows are called motherly. If a cow is really motherly, you want to wait a week or so to tag her calf, if you know what I mean.

Back to work for me on Tuesday, it had rained all night, and was hovering at 32/33 at our house, so the hill was a sheet of ice, so it took 4 wheel to get out. However, it got warmer as I drove towards Pasco, so once I got out onto Hendricks Rd the roads were fine. 17 and 395 were clear. Meachams headed home from Clarkston. With the increased temps, there was water everywhere on their way home, including across the road. Anna caught her cows, 006 and Amora and put them in the heavy pen and  then Anna, Ben and Kaine turned the rest of the cows onto the new stalks. Everyone did their normal chores and then Kaine and Kade drove around checking fences.

Toni signed everyone up for a virtual in-hand trail class, and Wednesday was the last day to get it done. The original plan was for us to all show weanlings. Because clearly you want to show a freshly halter broke weanling for in-hand trail. It really adds to the element of excitement. Due to weather conditions, inclusive of ice, snow, wind, etc., we didn’t get a chance to really work on the weanlings we wanted to show as much as we had hoped. So after Toni’s court and meetings her and the kids went down and got that done. After they got the videos done, they did work on a group of weanlings just for fun. The weather wasn’t terrible and a little mud never hurt anyone.  Terry and Erina did theirs as well and sent us the videos. Terry feels like his and Hot Shots was so good they should hit the circuit. I printed off Kaine’s driver permit, so he can drive the adults around now. Toni is swamped at her law office with end of year stuff. Ben, Anna and Kaine ripped some of the old carpet out at our house. We having been slowly working on our floors for years. I have most of the flooring bought, it is just hard to find someone to come clear out to do it, and it hard to find the time to do it ourselves.

On Thursday Toni had Kaine drive her to Othello in-between calls to pick up a dessert for our holiday party that evening. They had lunch at the Cow Path bakery, Kaine really enjoyed the soup and bread bowl.  I hear his driving was excellent for his first “real” drive. He got to drive on the highway and in town for his first outing. Some of the cousins questioned Toni’s sanity but she said she had nothing to lose. Kade also went along for the drive. After chores and everything else, we headed up to our annual holiday party with our neighbors. We had a lot of fun at the party, we all got to meet baby Havi for the first time.

We got our yearling weights on the bulls and show cattle around the house all done. The weather was pretty good.  Anna tied up her steers and the few steers she is halter breaking for other people. I decided to buy a puppy. It really worked out great. We sold our last mini colt- Weeman- to a friend’s sister. The friends took him to the coast to the sister. Then when they were over there, after they delivered the mini, they went and picked up the puppy- a beautiful black mini poodle. Our friends have 4 smaller children, so there were 4 kids and 2 adults in a crewcab pick-up with the puppy on the way home. Cec (the friend) was calling it the dog and pony show, because truly it was.

Happy New Years Eve. Saturday we got more heavy cows in. We are probably close to ¾ done calving. We decided to wean Summer, our last 2022 foal. She was born in July, but with the weather and feeding, we decided she is better off weaned. She is really gentle so we basically pushed her into the weaning pen. Then we brought Holly in to be with her. They are our two youngest foals from 2023, so maybe could use some extra TLC just because. Then we went to Connell to the show barn party and played games until midnight. Lane came over and went with us.  We had a great time, the weather wasn’t terrible and Kaine got to drive us over and back, so got some night driving in. He had lots of backseat drivers both directions, but he handled it like a pro.

And we are off into a new year! Welcome to 2023. We started the year out right by finishing getting yearling weights on the heifers and looked through them to decide who we are going to sell of the Herefords and AI heifers. We had to go through them multiple times to narrow it down. Toni wants 2 of mine so she kept chiming in that I should sell those. The whole point of selling some is that we have kept too many, so I am not sure how selling them to her would help the situation.  Toni tried to buy a new stud. She had a stupidly low budget for what she wanted to buy. She did not get it done. The weather was decent, so the first day of 2023 was good. All of the horses and cattle looked good.

Expectations for 2023 are high. And why not? We are really excited to see what this year brings in the way of new friends, new challenges (as long as they are fun), our new foals and calves, along with the everyday challenges of ranching.