Posts Tagged With: #angusfamily

Last Week in Pictures

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Fall = Football, weaning, halter breaking, cattle sales and more

Monday was still in the 80s and it is October. Weather is beautiful, grass is still growing, however, the circles are getting tired of running and keep breaking down. Toni and Tulip, with Kade’s help, worked on Mug, Call and Blaze. Mom, Dad and I went to Kaine’s football game in Connell. Mom and dad brought Jaxsen in to practice on their way. Toni reported that these three are not as easy as the last three, the last three were unusually easy and these three are normal. Men and Anna did cow and show animal chores. Kade went up and helped when he got done helping Toni.

Tuesday the beautiful weather continued. Marty came and picked up Stormin, he is the first foal to leave to his new home. Kade had a game on Tuesday, so Toni worked on the foals then Meachams and mom went to the game. Kade played a good game, they played a hard team. Anna did the cattle chores, Kaine and I did the horse chores, I worked on the foals some more and moved the water and Kaine fed.  When we got home Anna, Kaine and I cleaned out the red trailer from the show supplies, so it was pretty late by the time we got in. Ben got home and worked on circles, then they had a picker vs semi accident at work (everyone is ok) so he had to go back. He got home at around midnight.

On Wednesday morning Toni took Wild and Mug into see Sheena. Wild got injured in the eye so needed at lavage and Mug needed travel docs. Tulip went with Mug because it was just the third day of halter breaking. Mug was so good and Tulip was a good sport like always. When she got home she practiced loading Call and Blaze as well. This is only day three in halter breaking, so they are all are doing very well. Toni and mom continued to dr Wild and Absolute throughout the day. With these eye injuries it is recommended that the horse (foal) be medicated 3-4 times per day, so we are doing 4 every day. Anna had an FFA Officer retreat in Quincy after school, so Jaxsen rode the bus home. Toni has been going to get magnetic therapy on her hip, so she had that in the afternoon. She brought the trailer down when she got home, we got to moms around the same time, and we practiced loading the three colts some more. Call and Mug probably would have done a lot better if they had not had the same pickup weekend and got weaned at different times. They are pretty mothered up. After the boys finished chores, they went up and did cow chores. Circle 8 had to be restarted Wednesday night, I guess it is getting tired of running. Mom made a rhubarb custard bar on Wednesday, it was really good.

                Thursday the colts were worked on twice, Jaxsen had a makeup game in Ephrata, so Toni worked on them before she left, then I worked on them again when I got home. They did really good. Kade, Kaine and I did horse chores, then the boys went up and helped Anna with the cattle chores. Toni and Jaxsen got home pretty late from their game.

Friday mom and I went to Tennelles and got our hair done in the morning. We doctored the two fillies before we left and when we got back. Dad did not go into work until later in the day. I hooked up the gooseneck and fed the show cattle, so when Anna and Kade got home we could head into Evergreen sale. Marlo, Jaxsen and Toni worked on the colts and did horse chores. Blaze was Marlo’s to work on, and he knows no strangers, he has been a typical Double. Easy and funny.  Shasta also came in with her colt, Dun Bug, who we have been trying to wean for a week now. Shasta recognized the trap as soon as she went in the gate, but it was too late. So Toni and Marlo got Dun Bug weaned. The men did the cattle chores. Kaine went to Toppenish for a football game, and caught a ride home with Jade. Kade, Anna and I got to Ellensburg, unhooked the trailer, Anna got in her Queen clothes and we went to the banquet. We had a good time, sat with cousins, Lyyskis, Wanda Burris, cousin Jill. Mom sent lemon bars and rhubarb custard bars for the dessert auction; they were very good. Toni and the men sold the Titan trailer, to cousin Jill’s best friend’s son. We had never met Luke and Eric before but I hear that we know all kinds of the same people so they were at the house super late talking.

Saturday McCall, Stacy, Kathy and Adrian brought Kaine to the Evergreen sale. Kade, Anna and I got up earlyish to have breakfast at the palace with cousins. Toni got up earlyish to doctor the fillies. Wild is getting really bad to doctor. She is not mean, she is just big and wasn’t halter broke before this injury situation, so she just kind of runs a person over.  Absolute has been in almost a week longer so is resigned to her fate.  The kids all judged, you get a sale credit if you do well, Kade won and received a $500 sale credit, which he used to buy Payton’s heifer. Kaine bought a Steve Jachetta heifer. We bid on a few others. Adrian bought a heifer, and a heifer for her brother. We hauled two heifers back for Kim and a steer back for Mike. We also stopped by Jarmins and picked up two clubby steers, one for us and one for Adrian. We had a great time at the sale talking to people and bidding. The Seldom Rest sale in Michigan was the same time on the same day. We were also able to get 2 heifers for the kids at Seldom Rest. Our good family friend, Ryan Cotton, has been very good to us in sifting through those heifers and helping us select that best heifers in our budget at that sale. Scott and Andrew at Seldom Rest treat the kids great and really help them at the Junior National Show. Jaxsen had a good football game, got some tackles, had fun. He had his special cousin Kasen come watch him (he calls Kasen his mini-me) along with Leslie, Jolene, and Reese. Toni left as soon as the game was over to load out Call with Hunter. Call loaded really well and he was off to his new home. Hunter has been out a bunch to play with Call since he put his deposit down so Call already liked Hunter. Hunter was really surprised at how big Call was. Call and Mug are on the bigger end of our weanlings. They may be the biggest two. Anna also got to go to Homecoming on Saturday night with her boyfriend Lane. McCall got Anna home from the Evergreen and then Anna wen to Toni’s for hair and makeup. Anna looked amazing and Lane looked pretty good too. Anna got to do some teenager stuff and enjoy herself.

Sunday morning Toni loaded out two more colts. Wes and Beth showed up to get the steer Mike bought. Ben made his own birthday lunch. McCall came out and her and Anna worked on the heifers going to the Nile. Marlo came and had birthday lunch with us. Dad was working so not there. Mom made fresh apple pie and rhubarb custard pie. After lunch Toni and Kade went down to halter the next group of foals.  Anna and McCall packed for the Nile. Kaine, Ben and I sorted out heifers, Spokane steers and fall show steers and moved a bunch of stuff around. Kale came and picked out his Nile heifer and his mom came with him and bought a heifer. Kale did not like the one Krystal liked, so they needed to get both. Ben had to go back to work to fix a picker right as Kale got there. Anna and Kaine started the cow chores, I went down and helped Toni finish the horse chores. Kade went up and helped Anna and Kaine when he got done.  Wild broke her pick line on the last dose of meds Sunday, so a new pick line had to be put in, but there was no new port, so medicating Wild got worse. We also needed new video of Cappy for a gal, so got that. Cappy is another typical Double and every time we work on him, Toni again says she doesn’t want to sell him. Cappy looks like a Double, moves like a Double, acts like a Double. Tons of personality and potential. He is going to be a hard one to sell for us.

We are in the thick of it now. Probably 1/3 done weaning foals, more like 1/4 done (at best) halter breaking foals and thanking Tulip every day for her contribution to the program. It is amazing what a donkey does for the halter breaking. She just helps the foals learn to give. We normally leave her hooked up to the foal once or twice for 15 minutes at the most, that is really all it takes. Every once in a while a foal may need more time with Tulip, but it usually doesn’t take much for the result you get. Tulip is pretty patient and has been a great protector and companion for the foals on top of being useful.

It is once again time for a Molly update. Molly has been cut back to three feedings of grain per day. No, no other foals get that much grain unless they are will Molly. Molly is also shedding out a dark bay or possibly a brown. Mom is very unhappy with this color change and would like Molly to go back to a blood bay. We were told today that we need to be loading Molly because she may want to travel. Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. We will be informed when we are informed as to what Molly wants. The reality is that Molly is a really great filly. She could be a spoiled brat, and maybe she is, but she loves all of us so we can’t see any devil in her.

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Last Week in Pictures

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Our Last Fair is in the books, now it is time for Football.

Monday back to school and work for a few days, and then we will be at the Othello Fair. The boys all had football practice. Toni had a lot of phone calls to return. Dad worked at Pioneer Monday. We got steers ready, paperwork ready and food ready for our last terminal show. Othello is one of my favorite fairs, and as tired as a I am, I am actually really looking forward to Othello. They have some different events to watch that are fun, mounted shooting, draft pull.  The food is great and cheaper than the BF fair. It is a smaller, more community oriented, fair.

Tuesday the kids went to school, the boys to football practice, and Toni and Anna hauled our steers into Othello. Leslie hauled their steers in. So it was Toni, Anna, and Leslie to unload all 7 steers and the 5 heifers. Monica and Vixen were pretty anti going to the fair. Monica tried to load herself back up in the trailer to go home when she realized she was at a fair. After she realized there was no going back, she settled in ok. Stacy brought Adrian, Kaine and Kade after practice. I got there after work and chores.  We made a deal with Stacy that as long has he hauled the kids to and from practice, Adrian could stay with us and Stacy didn’t have to stay at the fair. He thought that was a good deal. So did we!

Also on Tuesday, we heard our good friend Gary Moore lost his battle with cancer. Anna is riding his horse, Katie, she has had her about a year now.  Gary and Judy have come and watched the kids show the past few years. Gary was a great man and will be missed by many.

Wednesday we had market and heifers, it did not start until 10, so we slept in until 5:30. We washed everything and then Simplot made us breakfast. It was great. FFA showed first and then 4H. Anna was grand champion in Market with Pumpkin and Kade was reserve with Kid Curry aka Silver. Kade really wanted to beat Anna, but his steer was just a touch too light to win overall. Both steers have been awesome in the show ring. Kaine took his homegrown extra steer that hadn’t been worked on as much and didn’t have a club look. He was a good steer, just not a show steer.  We had lots of kids in the championship round. Next we had the heifer show, FFA, 4H then Open. Anna was reserve champion overall with her Angus heifer, Beth.  This was Beth’s first show, as she is a 2021 AI calf. She was a rockstar other than a few kicking incidents.  Kayla, Savannah and Grace, who are 2, 4 and 5 years olds, all had division champions in open. I was named the Ringmaster by the Beef Superintendent so I got to run the heifer show the way I wanted to, so it was great. Then we went back and had lunch burritos and washed. I went home and did chores and then came back.

Thursday was fitting and showing. The kids all showed great. They all made it back to the championship round, even Kaine with his steer that had no experience. I would just like to say that Kaine handled the steer like a pro, even when the steer wasn’t cooperating.  Anna was Grand Champion Senior showman, Kade was Grand Champion Intermediate showman and Julian was Grand Champion Jr Showman. Anna was also overall 4H showman and Judge Toth said if he had a reserve it would have been Julian (Kade also showed very well in the final drive).  When Judge Toth told Julian he liked Julian’s belt, Julian replied “I do too, but it would look better with a belt buckle.” That kids is witty! He must have made the perfect impression because he was the top Jr and showed like a rockstar. Then Kayla and Savannah went and showed PeeWee sheep with the Shattucks. They had A LOT of fun, so Savannah helped them put away the lambs.  The bad thing was that after showing the sheep, the two littles thought they owned those sheep. We got to hear over and over, I want to walk my sheep.  How many times can one sheep be walked? Thousands. Then we broke for lunch and the kids went around to learn how to show all of the animals. The beef kids all started out together and before we knew it there were 15 kids all in a group working together to learn how to show each other’s animals. It was pretty cool. All of the kids made good friends with some of the kids from other species on Thursday. We saw many of those kids during the rest of the fair as they came to hang out with our group. Thursday night everyone celebrated a belated birthday for Marlo, she had gone to Kansas for her birthday so we did not get to celebrate it then.  It was a really fun celebration that ended with cupcakes from the Cow Path bakery in Othello. If you haven’t tried the Cow Path DO! It is really good.

Friday I had to go to work. However, the kids had judging in the morning, and Ady beat Toni’s judging scores, so she won a milk shake from Toni. Toni had a respectable score, but Ady was the Grand Champion junior and had an awesome score. The kids had round robin at noon, and then an awards ceremony after, to find out how they did in the round robin and get their awards. At the awards ceremony the kids found out that Fedex had lost their belt buckles. Julian was devastated, it is his first one and he was really looking forward to it. Anna won the senior division of the round robin. After the awards ceremony the kids went to do their homework.  I went home and did chores on my way to the fair Friday night. Toni had 8 box seat tickets to the rodeo that night, so Traci and the kids all went (that is with Traci holding one kid on her lap).  Thanks Traci for the sacrifice because the rest of us were way too tired to make it through the rodeo. I guess the cows for the wild cow riding were woofy, like hunted some of the competitors. Of course, that leads to reminiscing about Ben’s days doing the wild cow riding at Othello with our good friends Hugo, Luis, and his brother Chad. Once Hugo quit going and it was just Luis, Ben, and Chad they won the wild cow riding both nights. And Hugo never did while cow riding with them, and some of the pics below are from the old days. LOL. They “retired” after that 2-night win. Not saying anyone was the weak link, but……

Saturday was the sale, the sale was great, thank you to our Othello buyers, Dale Bayley (Kaine and Kade), Edith Spencer (Anna), K’ntucky Turf (Julian), Industrial Ventilation (Natalie)and DC Drilling (Ady). After the steers sold we went and had fair food for lunch. Next we walked around, had balloon animals made, watch some more of the sale, bought a couple of pigs, told Whitney we bought her a duck (we didn’t). Then we went to the buyer’s diner and after that Kaine, Keegan and Ady got hypnotized. It was really funny. At home Ben weaned all of the calves and gave them a blackleg booster. He rolled up with wire in circle 5 that we were using as a pen for Gunner on the irrigated grass.

Sunday we cleaned up and went home, that was our last fair, now to get ready for a jackpot show in November. We get to start over halter breaking. And on to weaning and shipping foals, calves are all weaned. Ben made sure the fence was up below circle 3 and moved the big Angus bulls down there. We moved the new group of show heifers and steers in the big run so they had more room to run around. The kids did homework all day.

The weather has really turned and we finally got some rain! When the rain finally hits you can’t complain, even if you are at the fair and would like to complain, you can’t.  Now we start Friday Night Lights- the two big boys have been going to football practice and now it is time to start the games. Jax will start playing on Saturday. Fall is not officially here until Wednesday, but it is starting to feel like it.

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It is crazy to think we are already into the middle of August!

Monday the three older kids worked on their steers and then went over to Connell with McCall and McKenna to say good bye to them, and give Leslie and Jay a present with the twins for taking them to Nebraska. They then came home and did chores. I went to Othello for a working meeting and then back to Pasco.  We still have a mares on regumate, Cancan getting doctored, water to move, and lots of other fun fun projects. We are also getting Slugger tamed down to start halter breaking him so moved him to the corral so he can see humans.

                Tuesday morning Mike Chubbs came out and butchered three heifers and a pig. Dad went to Allie’s to pick up Stinger. Toni texted and said Chad was bringing some wheat straw out today. Anna and Kaine caught Monica and Addy to start halter breaking, we are going to try to take Monica to Benton Franklin Fair.  Toni texted me that she wanted to turn out Dime and Shi, they have been in with the old mares, so she turned them out in the big pasture with the other yearling fillies. Once Stinger was unloaded the kids decided which one of them was getting a driving lesson pulling a trailer on the way back to my house, Kaine won that so he got to drive.  On the way they saw a cow in heat and the bull calves riding her. So Toni and the kids went out to get her in. They had her in and she jumped through the fence and in into a different pen. Then Anna said that they already had her in once, she pushed the gate open into the wash rack and jumped the wash rack fence and got out. Guess who gets to go on a trip to town?  Jaxsen was not impressed with the cow and talked about how dumb she is for quite a long time after that.

Wednesday the kids worked on their animals. Toni and Jaxsen got down to do chores when the other kids were already leaving, so Jaxsen did not go and work on his steers, it was getting hot, so I feel like he was ok with this.  Dime and Shi had gotten the round pen open so were back in with the old mares, I guess they don’t like being in the big pasture. I got there in time to help change water.