Sunday night Toni’s Idaho Shag Abby was missing and Monday morning she was in her dog house, and someone had shaved her. And not very well. The kids worked on clipping their steers and heifers for the upcoming show on Saturday. We had an email from someone traveling through that wanted a buckskin, they stopped and Toni showed them around. Their favorite was Bailley Bug, and they called back Tuesday morning to confirm they wanted him. Ben planted his last corn field for the year on Monday. After I got home we messed around with all of our foals. Minnie and Mouse are still in the dog run. Mouse is not a very friendly little girl considering how much time she had humans handling her. She is kind of ornery.
Tuesday Mom texted Toni in the morning one of the yearlings colts was out, which he was not out when I went by so he had not been out long. He must have been reaching grass under the fence, then he could not figure out how to get back in. And since he is a teenage boy he just could not figure it out. Toni helped him back in and fixed the fence. Then she went down to cut down trees bigger than her saw manual told her she should. Just to prove to the manual the chain saw can cut down bigger trees than they think. Tuesday Toni and I hauled Irish and Gracie back other to Holly’s to breed to Witty again. The kids worked on clipping their animals for the upcoming show after school. We put up flags in the circle track crossing to try to keep Tank from walking through them. There are wire gates, but he just walks on through. Jordan Pace did a great job desensitizing Tank to things, maybe too good? We also caught The Judge and measured him. As a yearling he stands 14 hands, so not small.
On Wednesday Anna helped with some FFA functions after school, so dad went and picked up the boys. Aram brought his steer over after school to get clipped and Kade and Anna helped him. Kaine dyed his heifers. Jaxsen was there, I am not 100% sure what he was doing. Toni and I went down and fixed Tank’s pen again. The question becomes, how do you keep a stud from walking through a circle gate when the circle needs to be able to walk through the gate?
On Thursday Ben took the red pickup and trailer to work to get shavings for the show and fuel Red up. Anna and Jaxsen dyed their heifers, I am unsure what day Kade dyed his, but they were dyed at some point. Kaine and Kade loaded feed and the chutes into the trailer to be ready to go on Friday.
On Friday we packed up to head to another show with our caravan. Kade and Jaxsen went to school and Kaine and Anna stayed home and packed. Toni called me in the morning to tell me Voodoo foaled and there was a flood at the corral. I told her to take care of voodoo and I will check out the flood situation. So Toni, mom and dad got Voodoo and the colt into the back yard, Voodoo is Molly’s mom, so did not take her foal last year. Mom wanted to give her a second chance. She likes the guy so that is good. The main line had broke, so I called Ben and Kicker, Ben put in an emergency off and Kicker told me what all to shut off at the pumping station. It has been a few years since I shut off or started the pumps. The alley road is lower than the corrals, so the water did not flood the corrals at all, it went down the alley. Then I helped Toni for a bit and went back to finish packing. Terry showed up with Livvy, actually early enough to help Toni with Voodoo, so Toni and Terry took Livy down to put with Tank. We got that done and did chores, Toni picked up the boys and we took off. Toni and Jaxsen took her pickup and the Wilson, Anna and Kade had Red and the Red Trailer and Kaine and I followed in Butte and the camper. Leslie in the Mini Pete and and Eby and Traci in the Escalade joined the caravan at Connell. About 10 miles from Ritzville the transmission overheated in the old red pickup, it was close to 100 degrees and we were headed up a steepish grade. So we pulled over, threw another steer from red into the Wilson, switched vehicles around, so Kaine and I were in Old Red and we moved to the back of the line with Traci following in case we needed to slow down. But it was downhill the rest of the way, so we made it fine. We unhooked and Nick and I set up the campers while everyone else set up the cattle. We had Ben’s meat balls for dinner.
We had the Wheatland jackpot on Saturday. Uncle Joe brought Grandma down to watch all of the kids show, she had a great time. All of the kids did great. Ady and Kade were first in their classes so made it back in for first call and everyone else was second so on standby for the championship round. The show was great. Everyone showed great. At the conclusion of the show, we had dinner with the Angus Association and ice breakers (or a water fight whatever you want to call it) and a Jr Angus meeting.
On Sunday we had the Jr Angus show. Again everyone did great. Natalee, Anna and Kaine had Grands and a Reserve champion in their divisions in Bred and Owned. Jaxsen had a champion in his division with Emma Frost (aka Fatniss Eversteen). Kade and Natalee made it back to the championship round with their owned heifers. Kade’s fitting team won so he got a gift card to the Sullivans table and got a nice fitting comb. Natalee and Kade’s owned heifers made it back in to the championship round. We had McCall both days to keep us all in line. Whitney came and took pictures both days, with my camera so I did not have to worry about it, so that was great. We got home without a hitch but had lots of stuff to get home too.
While we were gone the men, mom and dad had a lot of their plate. We lost Leroy, here is the post for anyone that missed it. Losing Leroy was a blow. Even at 22, we still had hope for many more years with him. The men were fixing the main line and lining up welders (Juan who bought Mercedes the weekend before works for Callie’s Welding and hooked us up, really great guy). Tank’s pen continuously got out, Toni and I worked on the fence when we got home. And of course there was the normal work load of chores, checking, water, etc.
KT Ranch 
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