KT The Flying Bug “Sarge” Colt, 6 panel N/N Sire: KT Gunners Sage Bug Dam: FQHR City Star “CeeCee” Date Born: 5/1/24 Click here for more pictures Color: Blue Roan (Color Tested a/a, E/E) Price: $6,500. Here is a big, fancy blue roan colt. He is by KT Gunners Sage Bug and out of FQHR City Star “CeeCee”. KT Gunners Sage Bug is out of Continental Lady Bug and is by KT Gunpowder N Lead. CeeCee is a fancy black mare. She came from a good friend of ours who knew we needed another black mare. CeeCee is from the Froelich Ranch in North Dakota. She was purchased as a yearling and brought to WA. CeeCee sustained an injury and is only usable as a broodmare now, which is why we have her. Froelich’s base their breeding program on foundation quarter horses. So, CeeCee has a very foundation pedigree. She is out of Blue Stars Fire. Her bottom side also includes Charlies City Girl. Sarge is sired by our good stud Sage Bug that is a favorite of everyone that meets him. He combines a truly fantastic foundation pedigree with some modern performers without sacrificing bone, looks, size, and disposition. Sage Bug is just flat cool and produces foals that have that stamp. Sarge has big bone, tremendous power, but a super clean neck and head. This is the colt for someone who wants an absolute beast of a black colt. He has a keen head and swift mind. We invite you to come take the tour and see his group.
Monday I felt pretty worn out, but I am sure lots of people felt worn out on Monday. Everyone was back to school and work. Rainy the miniature horse was out when Toni went to check cows, so she was a miniature horse wrangler and put her away. The old mares that Kade and Toni put down in circle 5, where they have lots of grass, were not happy about being down there. I guess they need more pampering. Toni stayed with grandma Monday night.
Because Toni stayed with Grandma on Monday night, she normally just goes to mom and dads and has dad drive her out to check in the side-by-side. There was nothing to see however. On Tuesday I told Toni all these buckskin King fillies look alike. She said no, Peaches has a spot, they do look a little different, but not a lot. Toni also told me we have to get down to 3 fillies we are keeping and put prices on the rest of them. I told her impossible. So we compromised at 3 each. And so we priced BBs to sell, and now she is sale pending. Toni really wanted to keep that filly, but she wants to keep them all, as do I. Toni, Kaine, Jaxsen and I worked on fence in circle 6 on Tuesday so we could haul Tank out. He is still up at Tonis and would like some more grass.
On Wednesday Jeannie came out and picked up the gelding that dad and Kade got for her at Moses Lake sale. Toni took her around to pet the foals. She really liked Almy, like most people that meet him. He is just a really friendly colt. The boys took the tack out of the Wilson so Toni could take it to Allie’s on Thursday with Benelli and Annie to get AIed. Toni, Jaxsen and I worked on some more fence on Wednesday night. Anna went to Puyallup with Hannah to take pics at the show. Anna had two steers showing there so she was really excited to go.
On Thursday Bell had a cute colt by Tank. Dad and Toni took two of the mares to Allies, Benelli and Annie. Annie is a re-breed to a Shiner Named Sioux and Benelli is being bred to GSR Rein N Bullets who is HZ dun and black. We are excited about both potential foals. Now just keeping fingers crossed that they take the first breeding and we get foals out of them. Benelli has a NZ Scotch Time colt at her side now that is AWESOME. This is our second NZ Scotch Time foal and we like them. On the way home Toni got pulled over, no not for speeding, but because the tabs on the trailer were expired. No ticket. Anna and Hannah took pictures all day at Puyallup and they had a long day. One of Anna’s steers she wold was Grand Champion for type and Reserve for Showmanship. Great job on that steer! Toni had a lot of phone calls when she got back from hauling mares with dad, so I did most of her and my chores, and I told her I had Friday off, so lets skip building fence.
On Friday the Meachams minus Jaxsen went to Wenatchee for Trap Shooting State. Anna and Hannah were in Puyallup shooting pictures still. Kaine and Jaxsen went to school. Ben went to work. Mom and Dad went to Moses Lake for fencing supplies. The dogs and I went to circle 6 to work on fence. Later in the afternoon some nice people from Oregon stopped by to look at horses, so the dogs and I got a fence building break. And the neighbor Cecily brought some coffee by for me and then I went and stayed with grandma. Jaxsen stayed the night with mom and dad, so dad went and got us all pizza from the Pizza Station in Connell for dinner. Ben was running around after work getting circles running. That seems like a never-ending job. Kade had a great first day/night at State trap. The Connell kids added a full team for 2024 so up to three teams at State. It is a great group of kids.
Saturday morning I stopped and picked up Jaxsen on my way home. Jaxsen and Kaine worked on their steers and heifers. Anna and I went down and got almost all the fence done by 1. We had one circle gate left but we had to go sort cows for some people to come and look at them. And besides the fact that Reynolds and Rush had gotten out (two yearling bulls that we had been using but got back in to feed and sell one and put one with the show heifers) and we had one sick calf to doctor, it was a complete waste of time. Not only a waste of my time of sorting but a waste of time showing them. The wife was nice. We turned the cows down to circle 5, so they have a little more grass and the circle is on. Kade shot his heart out at Trap Shot State and scored an 80. He shot great last year too but this is an improvement. Good job buddy, all the kids did an awesome job. Connell #1 team was 6th place. Toni went and bought us a new drill and some more batteries for the tools while she was in Wenatchee. We needed a bigger drill to put in the circle gates. Because I can’t smell, I may have burned up the other one. Ben and I went to a friend’s 50th birthday party Saturday night. We had a great time after a long day. Jaxsen stayed at my house Saturday night because his parents were later getting home from State than anticipated.
Sunday morning Toni and I went down and finished the fence. Kaine and Jaxsen worked on their steers. Anna worked on her steers and heifers. Toni and I took a lunch break after the fence then started moving mares into Tanks pen. The fencing projects always take longer than we think they should, so we got a late lunch. The mares were all happy to be on grass, there were too many of them in his pen at Toni’s house, so they were getting supplemented with Alfalfa and now they are in lush green grass. We also moved some of the older open mares down to that field because of the amount of grass available. We tried to put Revel in with Tank but even with all the grass, her or her colt went straight through the fence so they had to be brought back in and she got hauled back home. Now she is being bred to Cappy. Tank now has 9 mares and is a happy camper. He will get a few more before it is all said and done but they haven’t foaled yet. We also got our water going on Sunday. We have big guns in the little pastures to keep our grass green for the horses. The yearling fillies really ran and had a good time when we turned their sprinkler on. It is always fun to get the water on. It adds an extra hour of chores to move the water but so worth it.
“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” Henry David Thoreau. Such a good paraphrase of the famous quote, especially when thinking about livestock. There are so many choices that just aren’t worth the exchange. The price of livestock is always worth it. What they give back to us makes everything we put into them worth it. Always buy the horse.
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!
KT Gunnin For King, “3” Colt Sire: KT King of Blue, “King” Dam: KT Gun in a Million, “Mil” Date Born: 4/23/22 Click here for more pictures Color: Smokey Blue Roan (Color Tested Rn/n, E/E, N/Cr, a/a). Price: $7,500 Here is a skookum blue colt with a pedigree to match. His dam, Mil is a fancy brindle roan mare by KT Gunpowder N Lead and out of Wright on Sugarnic, “Stinger.”‘ Mil has been color tested by UC Davis as a smoky black and her brindle coloring cannot be explained by chimerism. On top of the crazy color, she is bred to the hilt. Mil’s dam, Wright On Sugarinic (Stinger) Won Pro division of the Cascade Cutters Futurity and is an own daughter of Lenas Wright On. Her dam, Just Plain Sugari has NCHA earnings of $111.31 and is an AQHA point earner. She is a granddaughter of Smart Little Mesa, Slide Me Again and Just Plain Colonel, who are all money and pt earners. She is also the dam of our Stallion, Just Plain Starlight. Top side, Mil is by KT Gunpowder N Lead (Gunner), a son of Cue Bars Laddie. Cue Bars Laddie is a roan stallion that has been shown as a reiner, cowhorse and rope horse. He was the recipient of the Open AQHA All Around Trophy and is a CCHA Hall of Fame Horse. Gunner is out of Charros Dandy Miss (Pistol) who was shown NFQHA and local shows. Great cow horse/ranch horse/rope horse. Gunner has greats on his papers like Peppy San, Doc O’Lena, Dandy Derby, Docs Jack Frost, and Imperial One. King is out of KT Copper Queen Isabelle, “Izzy,” and by Shining Blue DR, “Bish.” Bish is a very good looking son of Autumnator, who is sired by SMART LITTLE LENA. Smart Little Lena is earner of $743,275, NCHA Triple Crown Op Ch. Autumnator’s dam is AUTUMN BOON is an earner of $244,470 NCHA. Dam of 26 foals, 17 perfs earning $1,003,985 NCHA/WS. Bish’s dam is Plum Sparkling who is by Shining Sparkler, a gorgeous palomino son of Reining and Reined Cowhorse Leading Sire Shining Spark.
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!
And don’t forget, if you are looking for beef we have lots of sale, give us a ring.
KT Black Rifle “Coffee” Colt Sire: KT Gunpowder N Lead Dam: KT Mocha Fudsey Lean, “Mocha.” Date Born: 3/7/23 Click here for more pictures Color: Black (possible blue roan) Price: $5,000 Coffee is a striking black colt, he is possibly a blue roan. Mocha’s foals have coffee names, and Gunner’s foals have Gun names, so to a casual observer this could a confusing name. However, there is a coffee stand called Black Rifle Coffee, hence the gun coffee name that no one will understand except us. Toni is threatening to keep this colt, I told her we have too many that re related, so as of now he is for sale. However, in typical Mocha foal fashion, he came up to see us when we were checking. Mocha is a favorite mare to everyone that meets her, and her foals are favorites to everyone that buys one, so I am sure all of those people are siding with Toni. We are still talking about a barn name for this handsome colt. On the top side he is a granddaughter of Cue Bars Laddie, an AQHA point earning and producing stallion. On the bottom side his breeding includes Smart LIttle Lena, Docs Oak, Tuff Continental, Jackie Bee, Imperial Dixie, Thirsty Blue Boy, Coy’s Bonanza, Wimpy, Skipper W, Little Joe the Wrangler and more. This is a sold back colt without any white, nice sold black hooves and has a lot of bone.
KT Goldies Blue Star Colt Sire: KT King of Blue Dam: KT Roths Golden Girl Date Born: 3/9/23 Click here for more pictures Color: Black (possible blue roan) Price: $5,000 Our 2nd colt of the year is another impressive blue/black colt. His sire, KT King of Blue, is out of KT Copper Queen Isabelle, “Izzy,” and by Shining Blue DR, “Bish.” Bish is a very good looking son of Autumnator, who is sired by SMART LITTLE LENA. Smart Little Lena is earner of $743,275, NCHA Triple Crown Op Ch. Autumnator’s dam is AUTUMN BOON is an earner of $244,470 NCHA. Dam of 26 foals, 17 perfs earning $1,003,985 NCHA/WS. Bish’s dam is Plum Sparkling who is by Shining Sparkler, a gorgeous palomino son of Reining and Reined Cowhorse Leading Sire Shining Spark . Izzy is out of Captains Double Coy and KT Copper Queen Cleo. Izzy’s pedigree includes many greats like Major Bonanza, Sizzlin Hot, Major King, Docs Dee Bar and more. Goldy is very versatile mare, she was Ben’s pick to ride for many years and Toni took her to the Othello fair, where she was shown halter and western equitation. She is a big pretty mare that now she is a broodmare produces outstanding foals with a lot of eye appeal. Her pedigree includes Major Bonanza, Docs Rickashay, Docs Dee Bar, Lucky Lynx, Catechu and more.
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