On Monday dad took Butte to Reardon and got more grain for the horses. When the grain was being unloaded the hydraulic hose broke on the tractor. Luckily all of the grain was unloaded first. Our little guy Monte got hurt, so we are doctoring him every night. He is really easy to work with, even though he isn’t very old, so it is an easy job. Kaine and Kade had football practice after school, dad picked them up. For some reason Kaine then took his shirt off to do chores, which prompted Kade to do the same thing. Teenage boys are interesting. Jaxsen went to Silverwood with his sixth grade class trip. He had a great time. He rode rides, spent money on a goofy hat, ate junky food and got to miss school. It may have been the best day of his life. Toni fixed fence in Kings pen and got it back up. Neighbor George came over and preg checked a couple of heifers and a cow we had sold. I went and saw grandma.
On Tuesday dad and Toni went to Otis Orchard and took Cammie and Cinder and brought Annie and Oak back. It was a quick, uneventful trip. We were all disappointed that Cammie was open, we had hopes that she was bred to Leroy before he passed away, but no such luck. The Goodbye Blues is a stud up at Allies that we have bought 2 breedings for to get these late mares bred, at least we hope! Then they took the Wilson into Othello to get the tie bar welded on. King’s pen was out again, the fence is not down and is hot. Damn those horses for not being afraid of flags. Dad brought the boys home from football practice. Kaine and Kade loaded up some hay on the flatbed trailer and hauled it down to mom and dads.
More football practice, chores and fence fixing on Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon we went to Dick Moore’s funeral in Kahlotus. The Moores have been long time family friends, before my lifetime ever began. Dick and his wife Melette used to play cards with Grandma and Grandpa and were two of our grandparents very best friends. Melette passed away about 6 months ago and now Dick. The service was very well attended. We were glad to be part of the celebration of Dick’s life. We saw lots of friends, ate a wonderful meal catered by Mike Corrales, and tried to support the family. Dad was not able to pick up the boys, we thought they were getting a ride home with their friend Kelten, but he was not at practice so they rode the bus. We were tracking them on our phone to see where they were on the way home, and it showed we were right behind them, but Kelten’s pickup was not in front of us. The bus stopped at mom and dads and guess what, two boys got off. We then proceeded to do chores, get horses in, etc. The normal.
Happy Birthday mom. For mom’s birthday Toni and mom went to see grandma. Then they went to Red Lobster for coconut shrimp and the Euro bakery for cannoli. Toni also bought a cake for the birthday party on Sunday, a spartika cake with lots of layers and whip crème and goodness. Mom’s back had been hurting, but luckily it was a bit better for her birthday. We took her a couple of presents even though we weren’t celebrating until Sunday. Mom likes her presents, we all do.
Friday was the kids last day of school, except Kade who was going to go on the actual 2 hr last day to see his girlfriend. We all found that amusing. However, when you are not old enough to drive you have to do what you can. The kids had practice, fed steers, etc. Jaxsen came home with 12 awards that his class had voted on- things like most likely to be a lawyer, most likely to be a scientist, most likely to become a famous football player, best vocabulary, things like that. It was pretty amusing. He said one of the girls got more awards than he did. But not a competition or anything. Othello Welding called and our tie bar is in the Wilson, so pretty excited about that. We have been working on getting the tie bar for a while. It was more complicated that we expected to get it and get it installed, but Luft Trailer Sales in E-burg really helped, got it ordered and Shawn with Othello Welding is amazing and got it installed. Toni told Shawn to make sure the tie bar is tough and installed right and he took her seriously based upon the amount of welding and brackets that are up.
On Saturday Willy came and got the 4 heifers and the cow and calf. The kids got all their heifers and steers washed in the morning. Kade’s girlfriend Abby and Anna’s boyfriend Lane came out in the afternoon, so we spend the afternoon building fence since we had so many hands. We got a lot done. Then we did chores, Abby had not ridden a horse so Toni had her get on Gracie, then later her and Kade rode Slick. She got to feed hay, move water, etc. Lots of fun things. But things that if you want to date a ranch kid, you had better get used to. Lane is a ranch kid, so he is used to our version of “fun.” Mom wanted Libby, her pet cow (picture a 1700 lb black Angus beautiful cow) moved in with Dude so she had more shade from the hot sun. I picked up a piece of baling twine, made a halter, and we led her out of the big pasture over to Dude’s pen. A baling twine halter on a fat cow that wants to graze as you walk isn’t a great way to move. Toni had to walk behind her and twist her tail quite a bit. Dude came over to see her but stopped about 15 feet away and ignored her after that. A big cow is not of much interest to a stud that is probably outweighed by a good 500 lbs.
On Sunday we had mom and Erina’s birthday party. Ben made bacon wrapped shrimp, roast, brisket and Dutch oven potatoes. Toni made rolls, salad a cheese tray and some infused vodka drink. I cooked a pie mom had made and was in the freezer. We all had a great time. After everyone left Anna, Kaine and I went for a ride. Anna rode her green broke horse Jag, who did great. Then we went down and did chores.
I went out and checked Gunner’s pen on Saturday morning. We try to get out there and check all of the pen’s, just to make sure everything is ok. What a view I had. We all joke about who owns which stud, whose stud is better, normal family banter. Gunner is my stud. Gunner has the mares we knew were open, or the mares that were not crème based with the oldest foals. Gunner gets his mares and there are no mares coming in or going out, that is what he gets. So that pen has some Gunner foals, a Tank filly, a couple of Jackpot foals. It is impossible to pick a favorite. What a fantastic group of foals. Then I went to the Sagebug pen. Same thing, wow. But they are not better than the Tank pen, or the King pen, or the Dude pen. These foals really look outstanding. You can go from pen to pen and just know that the quality across the board is outstanding. We have some weekends open before we head to Jr. Nationals if anyone wants to come out and take the tour to see these foals. It is worth the drive.
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