There is no better feeling than having a ranch full of family.

The weather turned cold on us, I guess Jack Frost wanted to remind us it was still winter. Toni sent me a random snap, about how I told her she can not keep all her pets. She has not narrowed it down to 2, the snap had about 10 filles all gathered around her. She is quite the challenge. She also said 5 head of cattle were out from the fence we just put up. There is one small old barbed wire side, Ben said when he got home the cows had found a hole. He fixed that hole and moved the fencer. Toni is also trying to work on Anna’s old show heifer Devo’s calf who is still in the heavy heifer pen. The calf, that Toni is calling Devon but I refuse to call him that, is really tiny so Toni wants Anna to show them cow calf. The rest of us are a hard no.  Kade worked on Wild Monday night. Toni worked on the colts. They are both doing great.

On Tuesday Toni said more cows are out, so they must have made a bigger hole. Do not worry, they are just going to a different pasture, they are not out out. Charlette the Charolais calved on Tuesday, she had a bull calf. Dad named him Alan. Toni told City and Shooter to use their cute face so she could get a pic of them. It was just their normal face. Kade worked on Wild. People around us may have snow, but we didn’t have snow yet. Normal chores but Toni really likes these two colts. She is talking stupid that she wants to keep them. No.

Dad and Skip went and picked up meat at Bryans on Wednesday, mom stayed with grandma. We had a skiff of snow. It was junky. The Central Washington horse sale catalog was out and Toni sent a bunch of us a picture of I think the second lot which is an intact mini donkey. We started a betting pool on what he would sell for. The bets range from $1,000-$6,000 with a $10 buy in. Lord Farquaad was back in so I got a video from Toni with her precious pet and the little filly. She is going to change his name to Young Thug because he respects no rules, like fences. Toni worked on the colts. Kade worked on the horses. Ben and Kaine worked on the cows.

On Thursday Toni went to check her miniature horse pet had crawled in with the show steers. One of the bred heifers pushed him out of the feed bunk a few days ago and he figured out how to crawl out and back in. Now he is kind of a pain in the a** pet. Thursday was cold a lot of time was spent breaking water and feeding and making sure everything had water. For anyone worried about Opal, she has a shed that she basically refuses to go into since she is a range mare, and straw both in and out of the shed. Janette came out to stay with Skip on Thursday, so mom and dad went to town and had lunch. I stayed with grandma Thursday night. We got some pics of Sarge as a stallion prospect but they would like him to be older.

Friday it was spitting snow in the morning. Toni had some meetings then one of her really good friends that moved away came for a visit and brought a homemade chocolate cake. Addy, Coco and Shea flew up on Friday, so we got to spend the weekend with them. We didn’t know Addy was coming so it was a wonderful surprise to see her. We haven’t gotten to see her in the last few years because of her schedule. She used to come spend time with us every summer to show cattle.  I think the kids all had a lot of fun. Anna got home on Friday too.

Saturday was cold and snowy, but do not worry, Addy, Kaine and Kade went riding. Pow Pow, Big Kev (and Kade went and grabbed Minnie out of the field who has not been ridden in at least 2 years and is pretty pregnant).  I do not think the horses were as enthused as the kids. Addy did not bring enough snow clothes, so we were rounding up things for her to wear. We also had her drive around a bit to get used to driving in the snow. She is from CA so unused to snow driving and going to go to Pocatello to college next year. She needs to learn some snow skills. Jax went in the vehicle with her to give her tips.  I hauled down some grass hay to mom and dads at chore time. Toni and I took pics of Shooter and City with our cell phones, since neither of us brought a camera. We also did an Opal update, and next Saturday we will have a live update so people can ask questions at 4:00 on Facebook live. Prince the donkey at Central WA Livestock sold for $6k! So Cousin Leslie won the bet.

Sunday it was cold and snowy again. And Addy, Kaine, Kade, Pow Pow, Big Kev and Benelli went out and got a sick cow in with her calf. They did a great job getting her in and Addy got more saddle time. Anna and I were putting out mineral and we drove over to assist when we got done. Ben was out putting up a hot fence around the pump house, the cows had been rubbing on it. Then we hauled more grass hay down. Got the colts in and left Laroy and Sarge in to work on. We had a bday party for Shea as her birthday is at the end of the month, and so is Addy’s. Then we went to the BB Cattle Co Sale Dinner. At the dinner we had some presents for baby Tel who turned 2. He came up with his mom from Wyoming for the bull sale. We got all of our kids for the weekend.

There is no better feeling than having a ranch full of family. We were missing one of the kids, but otherwise we had all of our kids from far and wide. We sacrifice so much to build a strong family but the return on that investment is well worth it. We had a wonderful week followed by one of the best weekends of the year.