Well, the race is on towards the end of summer.

Monday dad went back to wheat harvest. The kids worked on their steers and heifers. Cash came in to get grain Monday night, so Toni and I worked on her, she is one of the two years olds. Cash did great, we lunged her with the bareback pad. Cash has needed extra time because she is on the hotter side. Kade and Anna worked on their 4-year-olds. Kaine chopped down Russian Olive trees. Toni and I also had Kaine and Kade help us switch pens with Voodoo and Shasta. Shasta’s colt injured his leg and we are doctoring him, and we are doctoring Monte. Monte has been in getting doctored since he was a week old. Voodoo stepped on him right off the get-go. Monte is pretty much used to us doctoring on him, but I forget that he doesn’t like Toni because of it. I can be just petting him, half holding him getting ready for whatever Toni is going to put on his leg next and as soon as he senses Toni coming, he tries to bolt on his three good legs. Poor little guy, hopefully he will heal up.

On Tuesday mom went to Connell and stayed with Grandma. Toni took Kade and Jaxsen to Dr appts, Kade is 6.1 ½, Toni did not tell us how tall Jaxsen has gotten, then they got to go to Foodies for lunch. We all love Foodies. Anna ran some beef into a customer in Connell. Kaine chopped trees. They all worked on their steers as well. I picked up mom on my way home from work and Toni went over to spend the night with grandma. Toni and the boys did most of the chores and doctored the colts. I moved the middle sprinkler and fed Gunner weeds. Kade came down and worked on Stormy, Anna rode Jag. Those two love their Double babies.

Wednesday was hump day. After the kids did chores the big boys went and helped Townsends load hay. Toni and I did all our chores and doctored our colts. We messaged on a cute black stud colt we found. I do not think he is homozygous black though and mom did not love him. Toni also found a mare she wanted to buy out of Montana. This one is actually a possibility. Not crazy expensive, pedigree is right. Now she just needs to convince all of us to get on board, and she is working hard at that.

Anna and Kaine flew to LEAD, an Angus leadership conference, in Modesto, CA on Thursday. I took them to the airport bright and early, so then I was at work an hour early. Kendel and Scarlett fed the steers lunch on Thursday for them. Toni and Kade went to a roping for the day with Kass Newman. Kade really wants to be a calf roper. None of us are calf ropers. In fact, Dad roped and rodoed, but Toni and I were never allowed to. Ben rodeod, but didn’t rope. Basically, Kade has no one to teach him but YouTube, and Toni took Kade and Kaine to one roping clinic with Jennifer Casey (they both learned a lot there). Luckily Kass agreed, so they spent the day over there having fun. They took three horses, but Kade only ended up riding Slick. When we got home, we did chores. Then Kade and Toni went for another ride. Kade is pretty dedicated to making Stormy a good riding horse. Stormy proved her value on Thursday when the colts came running out of the trees right at her and she didn’t lose her mind. In fact she barely spooked and pretty much acted like it wasn’t a big deal. Toni says she spooked hard enough for everyone, my horse that Toni was riding also didn’t think it was a big deal because Friday is great.

Friday Kade went to Pullman meats judging. Mike came out and harvested another steer. Toni, Jaxsen, mom and Chad trimmed yearlings all day, they got 11 out of 13 done. Chad was running late, so Toni was worried something happened to him, because he is NEVER late. But luckily, he was just running late. To make the trimming go well, Toni, Jaxesen, and Mom (the A team) ran the colts down the alley to the house. That just made it easier to catch them, mess with them, more options if any of them were bad. Because we are so far behind this year, most of the colts were just getting their first trim. Mom also helped Toni take some pictures of the ones we want to sell. The trimming lasted for 5 ½ hours without getting them all, but only 2 left. Jaxsen and I started chores then Toni and Chad got done so we finished. We had to run the colts back, but they did pretty good. The alley and driveway can pretty much be blocked in, with just a few iffy spots. They can’t really get out, but in a few spots, they can go the wrong way. Mom also made clear on Friday that The Joker is her favorite colt. Willie is actually her colt but Willie is big. The Joker is pretty laid back, doesn’t really push or do anything offensive. So, Mom really liked him. Jax hates them all. It was unclear if that was a general statement on horses, colts, yearlings, ag, who knows with him.

Amazingly we were actually home for a weekend. Except Anna and Kaine who were in CA enjoying themselves at LEAD. On Saturday there were some bull calves that had gotten in with the heifer calves, so Ben, Toni, Kade and I got them in and sorted them off, then decided to sort off the culls cows and the clubby steers. So that was all day. Ben seemed to think we needed to cull more Hereford cows than we planned to cull. But he isn’t in charge of that. He does let his opinion be known. Overall, the calves look really good. After we got done with that, Toni and I went down for chores. Toni was once again trying to talk to me, Mom and Dad about this mare she wanted. We were all outside. The hose was on and Dad was sitting in his outside chair. I was like, wait you guys, don’t you hear that rattlesnake? Mom and Toni thought it was the hose, but noise was not consistent like a hose, it would start and stop, like a snake. Toni went over and the rattlesnake was about 2 feet from Dad behind the planter. Dad couldn’t hear it at all. So he got up and went and got some shovels and wanted Toni or I to kill it with him. We were like no thanks. Kicker and Ben both ended up coming down. The rattler had 11 buttons on its tail and was pretty big. That was our big excitement for Saturday. Then I went and spent the night with grandma. We watched RFD TV.

On Sunday we decided to wean the bull calves and sort off the remaining cull cows. Ben and I did that. Toni showed Sting to his new owner, who also wanted to look at some other horses. His kids were also excited to look at the horses so that made it fun. Kade practiced roping. Toni and Kade rode out in the circle. They try to alternate on just relaxing rides and drills/work. Like working on spins, backing, just the work that needs to be done on a young horse. We also replaced the water trough in the colt pen with a bigger one. And because we were all down there, we went ahead and caught King 2, King 3, and Willie for new pictures for their sale ads. All three have really grown and changed. Willie is huge. His full brothers have both gone to be rope horses and I could see Willie doing that as well. King 2 is a tank- short, stocky, quick, but muscle and bone that won’t stop. King 3 has a prettier more refined look without being feminine, he has tons of eye appeal and would make a fancy show horse. We did chores and then Ben and I went to Foodies for dinner before picking up Anna and Kaine from the airport. They had a lot of fun at Angus LEAD. Everyone thinks Kaine is older than he is, so he got to hang out with the 17-20 years olds, instead of the kids his age. He felt that was great fun. He also found out that not all Canadians speak French, which he felt like was a common misconception, which, I do not think is…

Well, the race is on towards the end of summer. Not that we want it to end, we don’t. Once again, full schedules, full weekends. Lots of projects to get done before the kids go back to school. We still have some really fun foals left for sale. We are also working on the weaning schedule because we start weaning NEXT MONTH!