Monday was rainy, not complaining, everyone needs rain. The neighbor’s sheep was back, Toni dogs were flipping out barking at the sheep, the cows were running since the dogs were barking and the sheep was in there. Made checking slow. So the sheep is a black ram, if you don’t realize he is in the herd he can really freak you out. You are wondering what this deformed calf is doing. Then you realize, nope, big black ram running around chasing cows. Identity crisis, or species crisis? Kaine had driving and drivers ed after school. Jaxsen had basketball practice after school. So dad was a taxi service after school. Toni and Kade did horse chores, Anna and Ben did cow chores, we are still doctoring a few calves for pneumonia. We color tested Fabby and Cash and got our Fabby results back. Animal Genetics was running a special over the holidays. Fabby is EE so we have another HZ horse in the herd!
Tuesday morning the kids had a two hr delay due to freezing fog. When Ben and Anna did morning chores they heard a lot of mooing, the sheep was upsetting the cows, the gate got knocked down, so around 20 cows took that opportunity to go and eat hay from the stack. We got some DNA back from calves on Tuesday. When Toni went down to check at around 11, she noticed two heifers had crawled through two fences, through the horse pen and then into bull pen, and gotten in with the bulls. So the chase was on. When she finally made it out with the cows the sheep was herding the clubby heifers around. By the time Toni got done chasing everything and checking everything, her pick-up was overheating and she had to race down and park it at mom and dads since that was the closest house. Dad took Kaine to driving school and Toni went to Jaxsen basketball game after they got done with chores. Jaxsen’s team won. Anna and Ben fed the cows.
Wednesday was a beautiful day. Toni told the cows to start calving while the sun was shining. No one listened. Toni was in Kade’s pu as she hadn’t had time to look at her pick-up yet. Ben hauled his pickup into Deweys in Othello, it would not start, ended up being the starter and he had it back the next day. Dad went and picked Kaine up at drivers ed and dropped Jaxsen off at practice. Toni and Kade put coolant in her pickup and she made it home, but the pickup was fresh out of coolant by the time she made it the few miles home. So clearly there is an issue. Cash’s test results came back and she is body aa, so that is great. Toni continued to work on Summer and Holly in the rain all week. Summer is really easy and nice to work with. She ties well, leads well, catches well. She loves humans and is very interested in where you are going to pet her.
Thursday Kade drove Papa Bear’s pickup down in the morning, ran out of gas, but made it to the middle of mom and dad’s driveway. Toni drove Kade’s pickup since hers was lock out tagged out. We had Zach come out and look at heifers on Thursday night, it was so wet out that Zach and Ben got stuck, they had to walk to mom and dads and get the battleship (or whatever they call that tractor) and get out. Anna and Ben got stuck feeding, So Kaine drove in front of them in the tractor keeping them going. Ben got stuck again checking ponds and Kaine went and pulled him out with the tractor again. Toni had both fillies out leading them through mud puddles, so at least all of this rain is good for something. Jaxsen had a basketball game on Thursday. They had their second win. Jaxsen played really well. It is hard to imagine because of how tall Kaine and Kade are, but Jax is really tall for his age too.
Friday Toni doctored calves while she was checking. Her pickup is still out of commission. Luckily Kade’s has 4-wheel drive because everything is a mudhole. Marlo came out to do chores. She got to lead Summer in the rain, through the puddles, and all around. Summer did not care. Then Coco and Shea showed up with Shea’s grandma Sherry. We haven’t seen Shea in months so we were all excited to see her, pass her around, love on her. Toni took her to pet Holly and Summer. Summer nuzzled the baby a bunch, Holly didn’t care about her. Shea says “dog” and really liked the dogs. She will be 1 at the end of Feb.
Kade had his first trap shooting competition in Colton. He shot really well for his first time out, we are all very proud of him. Anna and Kaine caught their steers on Saturday, the steers are doing really well. We checked cows, doctored calves, got heavy cows in, etc. At chores Toni and I worked on her two pets, Summer and Holly. Kade did not quite make it back from Colton in time to do chores, so I helped Kaine feed hay while Toni fed grain. Anna and Lane went to Moses Lake after feeding cows and went ice skating.
Sunday we did more ranch work, checked cows, doctored calves, Ben and Anna tagged calves, Kaine and I put out mineral and checked the heifers and horses. While checking the horses we found 149 and 215, both Angus bulls, down with the heifers. So we got them in while Anna and Ben were pulling a calf. Anna and Ben came down and got them while when we got done and Kaine and I went and fixed the fence in-between circles 4 and 5. Marlo came and helped do chores. A random dog showed up and Toni’s house, I posted him on FB since Toni does not have FB, thanks Melissa, she tagged his owner who was located within 30 mins. Turned out he wandered in to their house and they never found his owner, so sounds like he is a wanderer. But it sounds like he found himself a great home and he was picked up right away.
KT Ranch 
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