Another busy Monday, Toni was busy working all day. Anna was on her way to Reno with CX for the big Hereford show. Jaxsen had a basketball game and then Toni went and stayed with grandma. Jay hauled wheat straw over and started unloading it until Ben got home, then Ben moved it around and restacked it. Hector came down and install mom and dad’s waster and dryer, now mom can wash clothes again and has a dryer! The boys are doing both the cattle and chores after school with Anna gone, which takes until dark. This week we have Fancy Like, Baby Blackie, and Halo in to get halter broke. With the amounts of mud and grime, the halter breaking process was going slowly. Baby Blackie and Halo were pretty much born halter broke, but Fancy Like had been out in the pucker brush so was a bit more fresh. Toni used words like reactive, strong, gritty, tough, smart. All positive connotation words. But basically, Fancy Like was going to be a challenge.
Tuesday Toni was still busy catching up on work. Anna was busy in Reno washing bulls. I was busy at work getting ready to be gone for the rest of the week to a conference. Jay hauled more straw over and Ben stacked it when he got home. Toni and the boys worked on the three fillies. Baby Blackie and Halo were already halter broke, so they got tied. Fancy Like got tied too. Very strong filly with no quit.
On Wednesday I went to Spokane for the rest of the week for a work meeting. Toni tied Fancy Like to Tulip on Wednesday. Tulip was not happy with her. Fancy Like has a lot of grit and try. If you need a horse that will pull a bull out of a mud hole, Toni says this is the one for you. Tulip couldn’t do much with her and got pulled around more than she did the pulling. So it was not productive other than to teach Fancy Like that she would pull a donkey around. Baby Blackie and Halo did not get tied to the donkeys. Rosie came in to get treats so Toni left her in to tie Fancy like to on Thursday. On Wednesday Toni could get Fancy like to give a little but still could not get her to lead. Jax had another basketball game. He continues to improve as the season wears on. He will tell you that basketball isn’t his sport, but it gets him out of chores.
Toni gave the donkeys lots of treats on Thursday then tied Fancy Like to Rosie. It was a battle. Fancy like can really pull but so can Rosie. Rosie drug her but was upset at Toni and may or may not have kicked at her multiple times. Rosie can be pretty good but she is not trust worthy. She is a strong donkey that you really need to watch. We are careful not to let people just anyone handle her. The other two girls are doing great. Jaxsen had a basketball game on Thursday. #7 had twins and another heifer also calved.
It snowed on Friday. So the first day of December started with heavy snow. No one at our house was impressed. The kids got a 2-hour delay. When school was ready to start Kicker drove the boys in. Kendel went down to Mom’s and told Toni that Kaine had gone off the road a couple of times, but he only admits to one time and he got himself back out of the ditch so that probably doesn’t really count. And the tracks in the snow where Kendel said “he went off” are just on the edge, so I do not know if I would call it going off the road. Chad still showed up to trim horses and it was determined that Toni needed new shoes after her feet almost froze off. She now has a nice new pair of Bogs to keep her feet warm. They trimmed everything that was easy to catch, easy to hold, and needed done. I think they did 7 or so mares. It warmed up by the afternoon. Toni got mom to make her a grilled tuna and cheese sandwich, Dad made her and Chad hot coco and they had fresh cookies. If Mom knows Chad is coming she always makes him a fresh batch. So it was all-in-all a good snowy Friday. Marlo came and her and Toni worked on the fillies. Toni told Marlo to lead Baby Blackie and Halo and Toni chased Fancy Like around until she could catch her and hook her to Rosie. By Friday Fancy Like really wasn’t fighting the donkey anymore, so it wasn’t productive. With Marlo talking behind Fancy Like, Toni was able to lead her from the big pen to the round pen. Fancy like isn’t a fan of people being behind her. We are making progress with this filly, it is just slow. She is one of the strongest minded fillies we have had. Her mom, Fancy, is a hell of a good ranch horse. Standing at 14.2 (maybe) she is tough enough to pull bulls. She went and lived with cousin Jake in SE Idaho a few years, and she was his favorite horse. Out walk anything, go anywhere, pull anything. She also gets bored easily, so if she is turned out with the cows she will separate calves from their moms and chase them until she gets bored. So it only took one time of seeing her doing this that she was moved. She is quite the mare.
On Saturday Kade decided he was going to pony Stormy off of Electra and he took them around the block. They did pretty good. We checked cows, tagged calves, sorted the heavy heifer pen and turned the pairs out. Took new pics of bulls. Sandrygrens came and bought a bull, thank you, they are repeat buyers and send people our way. You can’t beat customers like that. I put mineral out with the horses and heifers and bulls. I worked on Halo and Baby and Toni worked on Fancy Like. We turned Halo and Baby out since the round pen was so muddy, but Fancy Like needed to stay in another day. I went to stay with grandma and Toni worked on Glow, who she pulled out of the feed line and angered. Anna got back from Reno Saturday night, mom and dad went to pick her up. She had a great time with Coxs, Bill was the herdsman of the year and the bulls placed great, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd and 4th. Anna picked out two favorites.
On Sunday it rained and rained, so our plan to wait and get pics on Sunday was a failure. Ben brought the tractor down to put big bales out since Red was going to get stuck. It was also foggy, did I say that?? We took pics of Fancy Like and Halo in the foggy rain, the pics are really great if you can use your imagination. 012M had a heifer calf, she is a cute little thing.
We are supposed to start calving in December. For some reason this year we got started a bit early, but that is fine. Strong, healthy calves are always our goal, no matter when they are born. As always we are really excited to see what we get. We also counted up the foals left to halter break and we are down to 8. The problem is that we decided on Sunday that it is just to muddy and sloppy to halter break right now, so we are taking a break. They are all growing like weeds so it will be that much harder to get them done, but it is just not safe when it is slick out. We did get some really pretty pictures in the snow. The horses always look so pretty with a clean white background. I also updated the website home page to include a winter theme.
If you know of anyone looking for dude horses, Billings Horse Sale is having an online only sale Dec 18-20 with horses from Morgan Lovejoy- they are listed as owned by South Fork Outfitters. There are some really solid dude and pack stock in this sale. Here is the link:
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