You know what a half dead Russian Olive tree is? A live Russian Olive tree.

Monday on my way to work I saw Gary (Gary is a Hereford cow from Gary Ottley) was in circle 5 and her calf was in circle 4, so I texted Ben and Toni. Toni got them both into circle 4 when she checked. She said that Gary is a very annoyingly smart, meaning she was problematic to get moved, but it happened.  Dad met Jana in Dusty on Monday to pick up Stormy, the clubby heifer Anna is going to show. He got home around 7:30. Kaine and I started packing a few items out to the camper each night, so maybe it will be packed before we go to park it on Saturday. The men were out starting circles until late and disposing of Russian Olive Trees. Toni worked on group #1 which is Cash, Glo, and PBJ. Glo and PBJ were great, Cash was more reactive. She got the bareback pad on them, PBJ and Glo didn’t care. PBJ was typical- can’t pass a feedpan without checking it out no matter how many times she has passed it. It may have mysteriously gotten grain in it. They are three really good fillies.

We are still impatiently waiting for a foal. At this point I think any foal. Anna had FFA practice after school so Toni picked the boys up, her and Kaine were supposed to get their hair trimmed after FFA practice but Kaine pretended he was a small child and was too scared to wait by himself at the school. He really just didn’t want his precious hair trimmed/cut.  Dad and Stave took a bull to meet Ralph, they were supposed to meet at Lookout Pass, but Ralph left early, so they met this side of Look Out Pass. Dad said they had a good trip. Toni worked on group #2 of the two-year-olds and I went out and took some pics of foals.  Group 2 is Doll, Fabby, and CanCan. Also, all wonderful. Doll only has one eye. She got her eye kicked out when she was a baby by another horse, so we really are just catching her and messing around with her so she gets consistent work. CanCan and Fabby got the bareback pad. Again, so great.

It is really starting to warm up on Wednesday and feel like spring. Still no foals, the mares look miserable. The grass is coming up in Gunners pen, so they are not cleaning up their hay but still seem to think they need it. We had a really cool email from a gal with a Easy Move Whiskey daughter that she wanted us to have. Easy Move Whiskey is a pretty trendy horse, so without seeing this new mare, we went ahead and bought her. No, we really don’t need anymore mares, but if the right horse comes along, what do you do? Our last Hereford heifer calved on Wednesday with a black baldy bull calf. She is one of our favorite heifers so we were pretty excited.

Still nothing on Thursday. Anna worked the FFA Plant Sale after school, so Toni went and picked the boys up. Then she went to Knivetons after to look at Emmett’s steer. Toni and I worked on Group #2 again. Kade came down and had them all caught when we got back from checking Gunner pen. Then we went out to catch Stormy, who did not want to be caught, but he caught Pow and Jojo and Stormy finally relented. Group 2 did great. I laid Toni across Fabby and CanCan’s backs then we worked on lunging, which they picked up pretty quickly. It’s always fun to have smart horses.

Guess what, Friday Ceecee finally had a baby, a giant buckskin colt. I had a whole pickup load of groceries delivered. I did not account for how warm it was and how much stuff everyone had added to the list. So not a lot of ice in the coolers with the groceries. Anna worked the plant sale all day again on Friday. I also had a message about someone needing a show steer for Othello, we were going to go look at the one Mike Pink had left, but discussed it with Mike and we were taking  a step back and let the other person come and look first, since he would have been an extra for us. And if we need an extra we can always get a beef calf out of the fat pen like last year.  Marlo was out and helped Toni with feeding and checking. Then helped her lay across Glo’s back and learn to lunge. Glo is out of NZ Scotch Time and Mil, so she is another one of the favorites.

Saturday Ben had to work, they started planting corn on Wednesday. The normal crew took the campers to Spokane to park. We head to the Spokane Jr Livestock Show on Tuesday, the kids show Thursday and Friday if anyone wants to watch. The sale is Friday if anyone is looking for beef, pork or lamb. Anyone that wants to the come by the kids will try to sell you their animals. Toni helped Anna and the boys load Gunnie for the Youth program project Anna was working on, then went and checked, cut trees like normal, then went and got Jax to start rebuilding Circle 6 fence. I had the West side of the fence up, but when the farmers came through and cut the trees, they laid the trees right on the fence ruining the fence again. So complete rebuild. I got back and the three of us worked on the fence until about 6 pm, then went and did chores. We were pretty tired. Kade also got his new fall heifer to show from Traynham’s. She is REALLY cute. 

Sunday we tried to get everyone out with studs, etc for the upcoming week.  We had a guy, named Scott, coming to look at bred heifers, so Anna, Kade and Ben got them in and sorted. Then, Kaine and Ben went to help Todd work his five cows. Anna, Kade and I met Scott, and his friend Scott, and they bought heifer #171. Toni and Jaxsen went down and got the yearling horses in to west nile,  deworm and sort the colts off of the fillies. They also got Rudy in so she can get moved with Tank. I can’t remember everything we did, but we got the pairs from Tank’s pen down to Circle 6, went to lunch, then got Tank, Dally, Butterfly, and Rudy down there as well. There is so much grass that none of the horses even left the alley area, just started grazing. Then we moved the colts down to Tank’s pen. We got a mare named Lucy in to breed, so she went out with King, then we turned Twist out with King. Then we went and got CeeCee and Hammer in and put them with Sagebug. Dally had already gone through the fence in Circle 6, so went back got her back in, she got out again, caught her again, fixed the fence. Then we got our new mare, the Easy Move Whiskey daughter from the shipper. She is a doll. Camas was out with Kaine by that time so the boys and Camas did chores. The kids are also still packing the trailer for Spokane, and Ben helped them get the chutes up into the nose of the gooseneck.

You know what a half dead Russian Olive tree is? A live Russian Olive tree. The Russian Olive war continues. We are still cutting. Found at guy at U of I that is a Russian Olive expert, so we had a consult with him. We hope to get on a trial for a mite that has been located in Europe that only eats Russian Olives then dies. We heard about the Russian Olive trees from a bull buyer named Forest, who had just been at week school at U of I. We will see.

We are very excited about these yearlings we have. There are some colts left for sale and two fillies. They are just so so good. Great minds, curious, good to handle. It will be interesting to see if 2023 can beat 2022. 2022 is pretty damn good.(We have updated pictures of them on Toni’s camera from when her and Jaxsen gave them their spring worming and West Nile, so hopefully uploaded soon).