Happy New Years Day. Only one calf on Monday when we checked. Toni and Kade went for a ride out in the stalks on Electra and Stormy. Kade rode MC out in the pasture for the first time. Ben, Anna and I checked cows and tagged some calves, and pulled some wire out of the corn field we found. Ben and Kaine went to roll it up and found out the wire roller was not working. So they spend the rest of the day working on it and rolling up the wire. Anna went to circle 6 and continued rolling up the wire down there. Toni and I worked on Ink and Bellini. Both are doing great. At this point in the halter breaking process we are haltering foals that haven’t sold yet or that we plan to keep. We plan to keep both of these for now. Bellini had scratched her cornea so we were also doctoring her eye and on Monday it wasn’t getting better so we scheduled for her to go live at the vet for a bit.
On Tuesday Ben had to go back to work after being off for most of December, so Anna and the dogs checked on their own. We had two new calves on Tuesday. Kaine went out and chopped down Russian Olive trees and Kade rode MC. Kaine and Kade worked on Ink and Bellini with Toni. It started raining again on Tuesday night. Kade also got a new work pick-up off of Musser Brothers Truck and Auto on Tuesday night so he has something to drive around the ranch again.
It was still raining on Wednesday morning. Toni got down to my house in time to help Anna load Waffles the miniature to go to his new owner. Then Anna went and helped Toni load Bellini to go into see Sheena and get her eye looked at. Bellini loaded awesome and stayed in with Sheena, the port in her eye to dr cannot freeze, so she needed to stay indoors. Mom went in with Toni so they went to Cow Path after dropping Bellini off. They of course bought lots of goodies. Anna and Kaine came down to Tri Cities and picked me up to go the dr. Toni and Kade worked on the foals and did chores. Kaine fed cattle grain before we left since they would not be there to help with that.
It was a cool, damp, foggy Thursday. Dad took mom’s embroidery machines to Yakima to get worked on. Electra the show heifer calved on Thursday. Toni worked on Ink in the mud, but he was really coming along. We have Ink marked as a potential stud prospect. He is out of Highbrows Lil Shadow on the top side and an Educated Guess/Just Plain Colonel mare, added to the fact that he is HZ black, good headed, good bone and foot. So we are pretty excited to see how he progresses. Kade also rode Stormy out and about alone. Stormy has done really well so far. Both Kade and Anna have Double foals that they ride and love. The Double foals are just really solid minded so they make good “youth” foal. Our good friend John has asked why we kept Cappy, but that is why. We love our Double bred horses. We are really hopeful that Cappy will be as good of a producer as his sire. We had Cappy trained by Jordan Pace and couldn’t be happier with how he did.
I did not work Friday and the kids were on Christmas break still, so Anna and I checked and took pictures of the bulls and calves. Lane had school, so Anna went to Ritzville to surprise him after school. Kaine and I took Jackpot to the corner of Highway 17 and 260 to load him up and sent him to Texas. We were a few minutes late getting there because when I went to halter him I said are you ready to go to Texas, and he must not have been ready because he took off. So Kaine and I had to corner him. Then the dogs and I checked cows and Toni and I went down to do chores early because she was staying with grandma that night. We took new pics of Ink and messed around with my new lens some.
On Saturday Toni went to a baby shower, she has helping too so she was gone all day. Kade was at a trap shot all day. Kade did awesome at the trap shot, he got 1st in buddy shooting twice and won in Annie Oakly once (he maybe only did it once??). So Jaxsen got to help get heifer yearling weights and fix fence. He had a great time with us. Lane came and helped as well. Then we went down to do chores. Kade and Kaine went and spend the night with Cyson so they could go hunting in the morning. I went and stayed with grandma.
On Sunday we checked the cows and took pics when I got back. The cows were out in the pond before I got there, so Anna and Ben were just getting back from fixing it. Kaine and Kade were hunting. Anna caught her show steers and worked on them. I went out and got some more pics of a few bulls. Ben went to Moses Lake to get a new hot water heater and new dish washer. We put them in when he got home and then did chores. Toni and I decided we need to start working on Cash and not let her be a brat, so we got her in and got her lunging, bareback pad on her, etc. We also got Dandy and Spark in to halter break. After these 2, there is Jex and Smo that are weaned to halter break then the 2 tiny babies that aren’t weaned yet. The end is in sight! Dandy and Spark are really funny because they were born 1 day apart, raised exactly the same, yet one is a Sagebug and one is a King and that is exactly what they act like. Kaine and Kade put out grass straw bales with the horses.
We had a really great first week of 2024. We are excited with MC (trying that out on the new stud), and excited to see what the year brings. We have some AI breedings this year, but really want to see what some of these young studs do for us. With the weather turning colder, we are still hard at work keeping things moving. If people want to come see the horses or cattle, feel free!
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