Monday morning everyone looked like they were still where they were supposed to be when I left. Dad took Kaine and Kade to school early for weight lifting with the Football Team. The water went in the ditches at our house on Monday, the sand hill cranes are out and the water is in the ditch, happy first day of spring. Twist foaled Monday, finally another foal. Monday was Julian’s birthday so we named the colt, who is by Witty, KT Witty Twisted Jule, Julian’s nickname is Juju, so we have Juju. We also had some nice rain on Monday and things are starting to green up.
Tuesday I spotted the heifer on my way to work. So I took a pic and sent it out. It was proof of life since she is still holed up on the cattails and we haven’t been able to locate her hidyhole. Dad took Gin to Jordan’s on Tuesday to meet John Gray. Gin is headed to the other side of the mountains to get bred to “Sonny,” KT Son of a Gun. He is a really cool stud we raised out of Gunner and our old mare Big Mama. John has done a great job with him and is standing him over on the West side of WA. John’s ranch is bouldercreekqh.com The kids went to school at regular time on Tuesday. We took lots of pics of Juju when we were doing chores Tuesday, he is a super cute colt. We are really happy that Holly Miller (she is on FB Rafter HR Quarter Horses) is standing Witty- a son of our Colonel stud out of our super awesome Peppy mare, Witty is Friday’s full brother.
Wednesday was a crazy day. Toni got a call Wednesday morning that the helicopter could come in and spray the Russian Olive Trees as long as they could do it that day. We were not ready since earlier they said we needed to wait until it warmed up. She called McCall, who works at Wilbur Ellis ( if you need a good agronomist or suggestions on chemical call her). Got McCall and the helicopter guy group chatting about getting the chemicals. Next, she called Kendel and Kendel, Toni and Scarlett went to work. They got the horses out of circle 5, moved panels down to block the hole in the fence. Got the riding horses in, who then got out in the drive way and the mares tried to get Gunner to bred them and the geldings tried to herd them away. They got them back in, in the meantime Noisy, Jaxsen cow, was calving so they were watching her. Then they went down and got Libby in, who has been at the bottom of circle 7 trying to get the heifer in. We were trying to use Libby to bait the injured heifer out of the cattails. When you are an old show cow you do not even get a real halter, Scarlett lead Libby out of the back of the pickup with a bailing twine halter. They got everything in just as the helicopter showed up and started spraying. We are really happy to get the trees sprayed while we have the cows somewhere else. The timing was really good for us. It just came together really quickly.
Thursday Truffles the mini mare foaled and had a cute silver black colt, he was the only foal on Thursday. Dad loaded up a Hereford bull and took it over to Central Ferry. He was tasked with going out with Sonny and picking out two longhorn heifers for Ben after he dropped the bull off. The heifers were a touch wild, so they got in the ones they could. Dad wasn’t very impressed with them. They are very fun colored, so that is good. The heifers need some work if Ben wants to keep them as pets. Dad wants to name them after his twin aunts, Jeffra and Zephra, but we aren’t sure that is a good idea. I want to name them Wilma and Betty. We fed, did chores, etc. We are still putting fence in up the hill, so trying to put at least one post in per night. We are pulling out another barbed wire fence that has been in use as long as we have had the ranch. We are replacing it with a wood fence to keep King on one side and the old mare pen on the other. So not a high-pressure fence, but we want it to look good.
Friday I went around and checked everything and saw that Fancy had a pretty new filly. Lots and lots of chrome, beautiful Tank baby. Fancy likes to have mini-mes. Last year she had a mini tank, this year she has a mini her. I went to work on the riding horse fence after checking. Toni had a meeting in Othello and brought lunch home for us. I got quite a bit of the fence in. I also sorted all the heifers, bulls, and steers at my house to get ready for steer weigh-in. Any of the steers that the kids want to take to BF Fair or CBJLS have to be weighed in. One of our friends was short a couple so he came over and bought the last two ½ clubs that we had. We also needed to select one more for Jax. So after chores Toni, Anna, Kade, Kaine, and I went out and looked at the steers. Very interesting that Jaxsen wasn’t there to select his own steer, but whatever. We got him a steer out of his old show heifer Zora.
Saturday had steer weigh in in the morning. We hauled 12 steers in, 3 for each kid. Kaine and dad went to Camas’s game after, the rest of the kids worked on their steers and heifers. We worked on fence on Saturday and moved horses around. We also put the bulls through the chute to work them. The heifer had finally come out of the cattails and the men got her to the haystack area, so we got her into the corral to get her on feed and try and take care of any infection she may have in her leg. I took the trailer with 8 poles in it down to Mom’s and we put some poles up on the new fence. The worst part about putting a wood fence in is walking the heavy poles up the hill. Kade suggested that we hook a wench to the top of the hill and wench them up. It is a thought. Kade and Kaine left to untie their show cattle leaving Jax to help us put up the last few poles. Jax either needs to get good at using the power tools or get some muscle to hold the poles up. One or the other.
Sunday the kids worked on their steers and heifers again. We haltered the three that weren’t halter broke. Again, another long day fixing/building fence. Mom and Dad headed up to Allie’s with Abs who is going to be bred to Hired Gun (very exciting!). We also had some friends out to look at Twists’ colt, Juju. They have 2 mares that are his ¾ sisters, they are out of Twist and Colonel. They come out to visit quite a bit. While Toni was driving them around she saw that Ellie had a dunalino colt by Jackpot and Pinky had a bay filly by Gunner. A bay with a blaze, our kryptonite. After we got all of our Sunday projects done, we needed to get Twist out of the desert because she was the only one that foaled out there that could be rebred. We decided to see if we could go catch her on the 500 acres and lead her to the trailer, then trailer her and the colt out in the middle of it all. Luckily it worked out fine. We hauled her to the corral to watch her for signs of heat to do a re-breed. We got the bull in to haul to my house to put out with the cows and Strawberry was in heat so she was brought in to go to Gunner. Anna and McCall clipped Anna’s heifer to go to Reno. They did a great job and she looked fantastic after. I am sure we did some other stuff but I can’t remember. Every weekend day is just stacked with stuff to get done. Weekends here are not for resting.
