Another crazy week has gone by.

Monday Toni was supposed to go to court in Yakima, but found out she could call in. Which was good, since she was in court for 30 min. So she was able to check in the morning and make a list of sick calves. Ben took two bulls into Sheena to get semen checked in the morning, he dropped them off on his way to work and picked them up on his way home. Thank you Sheena. My hair appt was changed to Monday after work, Tennelle’s daughter Grace has a competition in Reno on Friday they are trying to go and watch that. So I picked Kaine up from driver’s ed. Second from last day, final test is Tuesday. Then final drive. Because Kaine was gone Jax had to help with chores and was “forced” to lead one of the weanlings, Summer. Summer is pretty much a pet so was fine for Jaxsen and just followed him along. Now that we have Summer and Joker in Toni can’t lead them together because the Joker bites Summer and isn’t nice to her. He is a great colt, just wants to be the boss.

On Tuesday Jaxsen helped Toni with the foals, she tells me Summer is 100% halter broke, Jaxsen was working on her again. Jaxsen doesn’t know why we are still catching the foals because clearly they are halter broke. Kaine had his written test for drivers ed on Tuesday, he passed. He is ready to roll like firestone tires now. We were hoping on Tuesday to start chopping trees, but our guy hasn’t gotten over to start the project yet. We want to get it done before we start foaling, which is soon.

Wednesday was a beautiful sunny day and Toni send pictures of the calves basking in the sun. The weather was so great that everyone was in a good mood and ready for spring. Our little bull calves are ready to be big bull calves and are starting to ride cows at 2 months old. After we AI the cows then we will end up splitting the bulls off from the heifers to try to minimize injuries. But for now we are still calving and aren’t quite ready to split everything up. Bulls will be bulls, no matter what the age.

                On Thursday Anna had an FFA practice after school, so Toni went and got the boys and had appts for them to go down and get their hair cuts from Tennelle. Well, Jaxsen is the only one willing to cut his hair. Kade at least got his cleaned up. Kaine still looks like a fur ball. Or Toni tells him he looks like he is wearing a clown wig that isn’t died red. Then she had to take them to the quick mart to get food because they were starting. So picking them up from school was expensive. When they got back Toni made the two long haired kids work on the foals. They just wanted to take them for a walk, but Toni showed them that we are working picking up their feet, working getting them to move away from pressure, actually doing things with the other than admiring how pretty they are. The boys still took them for a walk around the ranch after.

I was home on Friday, so I checked the calves in the morning. Then I ran into the school and took pics of the FFA officers for the year book. I edited the pictures at lunch time and sent the album to Heidi. After lunch the dogs and I went out and got pictures of the bull and pulled up wire, so the Russian Olive trees could be mowed out of circle 4. That night Toni and I worked on The Joker and Summer. Kaine went snowmobiling with his friends for the weekend so he was MIA again. Kade did not have Jaxsen help him with chores because he said even with Kaine gone he is faster at doing them alone than with Jaxsen helping him. I am not sure that is teaching Jaxsen anything. Normally Marlo would have been out but she took a trip to Kansas to see her sister, her friend Mary, and go to a Ian Munsick concert. Hopefully she had a great time.

Kade had shooting practice Saturday morning. Anna went to Richland for FFA. The rest of us worked on fencing the rest of the corn filed. Kade got back and came out and helped. We got done fencing and went down to do chores. Kade rode Stormy around, Toni and I worked on Summer, The Joker and T.  T got selected because she was by the gate. That is our selection process. We have quite a few coming yearlings that we want to keep, so we are just going to continue working on them and whichever one is handy gets worked on. Kade had some problems with Stormy. Normal stuff when a kid is a young buckaroo and needs to be reminded that his mom and aunt actually DO know what they are talking about. We got Kade and Stormy back working together so that was good. Grandma talked Kade into leaving her in the roundpen so get the water trough flipped over and filled. Sometimes when a person is breaking a horse it is good to remind them that fundamentals are key and you don’t stop working on them. Ever.

On Sunday morning we went out and checked the cows, after Kade and Anna tied up their steers, and then we got the cows in. We sorted off a handful to go to Topp, and a couple heavy cows. We turned the rest out on the newly fenced stalks. Kaine was back, and him and Kade rode. Kaine finally got Pow caught and got her rode. Thanks to Rachael for such a wonderful job getting her broke. Toni went out and caught Wild because she was next to the gate and worked on her for a bit. Then we went to the Sale Dinner and BB Cattle and watched the super bowl, saw family, saw friends, and met some new people. None of us really cared who won the Superbowl, but I did prefer the Chiefs, but it was fun to watch.

                We found a new stud we want to try to buy. The problem is that we haven’t done a good job selling the studs we want to sell. We have Jackpot and King that we need to sell but Toni has a real problem selling them. So far she hasn’t found the “right” person but I have told her she needs to be less selective on the deal. We can’t get a new stud until we move at least one of these. So if you know of anyone that wants a stud, they are for sale. They are great studs but we have way too many related horses and we need a non-creme stud that isn’t related. Until now we hadn’t found the right stud to bring in, so it wasn’t a huge deal. These studs are both broke to ride and good to pasture breed. Let us know if you want to talk about them. We all want them to go to a good home as we raised them both and are emotionally and financially invested in them, but it is time to see them off to their new adventures. I told Toni a guy at work told me that when people want to go on vacation they just post their venmo handle and that they want to go on vacation and people just send them money, I thought we should try that. King and Jackpot are below.