Posts Tagged With: #WAlovebeef #ranchingheritagebreeders

Spring Break was over before it even started.

Posted on April 10, 2024 by horseshoeangusranch

                Well it is officially spring break for the kids so a lot getting done this week. Kaine’s pickup is in the shop and needs a new transmission, so he has been going to town chopping down trees. Halter breaking his animals is going so so, but trees are coming down. Kade is also doing minimal on his show cattle, he is into roping and working on the two-year-olds. I think Wild is the only two year old he has not worked on, because she sees the writing on the wall and will not come in when she sees him.  Monday, he worked on T (first time with T), Holly and Joss. Joss is the one he is working on to sell, so she has had the most work. Jaxsen is doing Jaxsen stuff, when Kade remembers he takes him down to work on his steers, but Jaxsen bought two halter broke steers from Anna, so he is already ahead of the game. Hopefully he does not need his extra steer or he is screwed. On Monday Kaine and Kade put in a rail road tie at the corral and Jaxsen, Toni and I put the poles back up. Cousin Scarlett has been coming down and helping Anna, she needs some girl time. So Anna and Scarlett have been washing Anna’s heifers and steers, and Scarlett might need to show Mottley, the extra show heifer, if she decides she wants too. Anna and Scarlett were doing lamb rescue on Monday, from the sheep that were abandoned last fall and are roaming around.

On Tuesday Carol O’Callaghan, a coworker’s spouse, brough in some really cool drawings her brother had drawn for me of Gunner. He did a great job. I am really excited to get them hung in my office. Kade roped and worked on the two year olds on Tuesday. Kaine only cut down a few trees because he needed to help Anna get ready for her photo session that night with Hannah Muhlbeier. Kaine has been gong to Maxx’s at night, they are rebuilding a 4 wheeler that Maxx’s grandma gave him. So Kade had to help with set up during the actual session. Toni did hair, makeup, outfits, etc. The session was great, we are excited to see the pics.

                On Wednesday dad and Kaine went to Wilbur to deliver bulls to repeater buyers, Dan, Rusanne and Seth Wagner. Thank you to them, they have been great over the years, we have some of their horses, they have one of ours, a City daughter out of Rosie. Dad also wants their red roan metallic cat bred mare. We probably want any other mares they have as well. Toni went and stayed with grandma on Wednesday night.

On Thursday Toni brought Leslie’s horse Sonic back with her, and then loaded him into Mr Dansie trailer, and he headed down for training with Will. Mr and Mrs Dansie are brought Jojo and PBJ back with them on Saturday. My new lens came on Thursday, so Anna went out and got some bull pics with it. The kids clipped their heifers and steers to go to Pomeroy and packed the trailer. Jaxsen and Toni put in a post on Thursday. Jaxsen was super excited about it. He feels like he is wasting his spring break. I stayed with grandma Thursday night.

On Friday morning Traci texted that there was snow in Pomeory, so only the Tracis and Leslies went to the show, the rest of us wimped out. And we did not feel bad about it at all. On my way home I saw Kandy Kane had foaled, so I stopped to check out the Leroy colt. He is a cute guy. I took my new lens down and got a bunch of pics of him. Then I told Toni it was the new lens (it is half hers not just mine) so she took some pics with it too. Kade has been working on the two year olds all week, and I got some pics of his first ride on Holly. She did really good. Anna and I also build fence on Friday, Lane showed up and helped us. We have one side of Tank’s pen done now.

On Saturday we got the cows all in, Jose brought his wife out to look at pairs, and so we needed to sort them off. We turned the cows out into circle 4. Jose and his wife showed up around 2, they picked out a Hereford cow and calf and Toni and dad delivered them on Saturday. I got some pics of Sagebug when I was out looking for more cows. Kendel stayed with grandma on Saturday, and grandma was reading Kendel the police blogger in the paper and Kendel was laughing. So she had to send us updates.

On Sunday Ty from Sunrise photography came out and did the video of Anna for FFA Star Farmer, she is in the top 4. Toni, Kade and Jaxsen got the horses in and checked them. Katana and Fancy both foaled, a fancy bay colt by Gunner and a buckskin filly by King. When I got done I headed down with the trailer and we hauled all of the mares out of circle 5, for the air strike on the Russian olive trees on Monday. We moved mares for the rest of the day.

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Toni and Mom have been watching Dale Brisby videos to try to come up with foal names.

Posted on March 28, 2024 by horseshoeangusranch

Well, so far this year all the fillies we want to keep and all the colts we want to keep. I guess that is the problem when you raise good horses. BB filly born on Monday was no exception. She is the sweetest, her and Laroy, and Smarty, and on and on. Mom went out this us to see her and Laroy. Dad harrowed the alfalfa on Monday, until the cable broke on the harrow, he says it is because it is 100 years old. Toni and Kade rode Monday night, and Kade worked with Stormy and roping his dummy calf.

On Tuesday Jaxsen had to go and get braces and Kade had to go for an appointment for his braces. They were both excited, Toni referred to herself as the braces taxi. They saw lots of Connell people in there. We bid on some panels on the Booker Auction, but did not get them. Dad continued harrowing. Kade felt good enough to rope off of his horse on Tuesday. I did not see Jaxsen, so I do not know how his braces were feeling.

Kade had an agronomy competition on Wednesday, his team placed 2nd, good job guys!! Ruth came out and dad took her around to look for birds. Just so you know, there are normally birds ALL OVER around my house. They knew Ruth wanted to see them, they did not see any birds, is what dad said. Really Sandhill Cranes is what she wanted to see for the Sandhill Crane Festival. We have so many of them that the town of Othello brings people out here in busses to see the Cranes. None on Wednesday though. I would imagine they saw some birds, just not the birds they were looking for. Dad and Ruth also went to the bull sale. They had a great time. Toni and I moved Tuffy in with Cleo on Wednesday. Tuffy has decided, even though she is 30 years old, the grass is growing and she does not need to come in and get grain anymore. And the two year olds were being mean to her. So her and Cleo have their own pen with a roof.  Then Toni went over to stay the night with Grandma.

We had a fancy red filly on Thursday by Sagebug and out of Shasta. Charlie likes to be a helper with whoever has a new foal, since you can not hear my tone, it is sarcastic. Out little Laroy boy is doing great, he is such a handsome boy. He is not going to be happy when he gets hair pulled this weekend for his DNA test. Rowdy Barry brought out some Zestera tubs, let us know if you need any and we can send you Rowdy’s number, and dad, Toni and I put them out.  We like these tubs because they also help with the gut health on the livestock. They are safe for cows and horses so we can put them everywhere. One of our buddies puts these same tubs in with his show steers. With as many older mares as we have and just the crazy weather, we are hopeful that these tubs will help with colic. We also have Zestera in a liquid from that we do give for colic or other emergency situations.

Friday morning mom and I went in and got our hair done. Ben also had the day off so he checked. After we got back I went out and worked on fencing to turn Gunner out on Sunday. Kade had someone come out and look at Mauney, and sold her. Good job Kade, now he gets to start working on the two year old, Joss, that he is going to break and sell. Our 30 year old mare Tuffy went down on Friday. We were all sad to lose her, but she had been going down hill fast the past week and we were going to have to make that decision soon. Dad also decided to help out a friend and hauled a bull from Pasco to Ellensburg. He got paid a little money and did a good deed, so that was good.

On Saturday morning we got up early for steer weigh in. Kade had trap shooting practice so we wanted to get done before that. We stopped at Cecily’s coffee stand on our way home and got coffees/drinks. She was set up at the wrestling tournament. The steers all did great coming off the trailer and weighed about where we wanted them to weigh. The halter broke ones all did really well, but most of them have been to a show. Kaine’s RJ steer was probably the worst acting because he hasn’t worked on him. Kaine’s RJ steer is also his best steer so we had his undivided attention to weigh in and back home were we talked to him about getting the steer ready for jackpotting. If he wants to try to win, he needs to show the best steer. There are lots and lots of really good steers out there. We got home and Jaxsen was going wash his steers but it started raining, so he put them away. Toni went home to work. I went out and finished the fence for Gunner. In the spring we have to fix all of the stallion pen fences since they are in corners, etc. so the wind, snow, heifers knock them down over the winter. Kade has make a couple of bosals, so Toni and I got some pictures with the two year olds with them. I then went to spent the night with grandma and Toni and Kade moved the round pen. By late afternoon the schizophrenic weather was back to good so it was perfect weather to move the roundpen.

Sunday morning I texted to go check the mares, the last time I stayed at grandmas we had two, and sure enough, Peanut and Jitter Bug had foaled. A cute colt and filly. We are really excited about the new mares we are adding to our broodmare herd. The majority of them are ones that we have raised, so putting these mares back into the program and seeing the results of our breeding, hard work, and dedication to these young mares is the name of the game. So far three of our “heifer” broodmares have foaled and we couldn’t be happier with how they have done. These mares are maternal, kind, and producing top of the line foals. Kade and dad went and delivered Mauney. Ben helped me finish up Gunners pen before lunch. Toni brought Jaxsen down and the kids caught and washed their heifers and steers. After lunch Ben and Kaine cut down Russian Olive trees. Anna continued to work on her heifers and steers. Toni and I got the mares in and moved horses all over. Gunner finally got to go out the desert. We could see on his face how happy he was to finally be back where he wants to be. Dude also got to go out with Lightening Bug and Smarty Bug. It is official- all the studs are out with mares.

Toni and Mom have been watching Dale Brisby videos to try to come up with foal names. So far their top Dale Brisby name is Gold Buckle Dreams. Naming foals is always a challenge. We have to recycle some names, or have a bunch that sound the same. Ellie (Ellie is the red one), Nellie (Nellie is the spot), Benelli (Nellie and Benelli are full sisters and look similar to make it worse). Or when you get mares that have the same name as someone else, Rosie, Ro, Rosie B (B is for Bay, not what you were thinking). The naming challenge is always a fun game, with the added fun part of Dad making fun of most of the names we like. Parents.

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Last Week in Pictures

Posted on March 26, 2024 by horseshoeangusranch
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Last Week in Pictures

Posted on March 19, 2024 by horseshoeangusranch
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As of Sunday we have bulls turned out and our AI program for the cows is completed.

Posted on March 7, 2024 by horseshoeangusranch

Another Monday after a short weekend. Toni had court all day, in two different locations. But luckily it is light enough now that Anna can check before school. The weather was nice on Monday. No new foals, no new calves. Toni texted the boys to do her chores and needed a confirmed receipt of text after the last time. Kade confirmed it and fed the babies and the olds. Then he rode Mooney around, she is a nice mare and meets him at the gate.

On Tuesday Toni had court again, but had time to check in the morning first. The sun was shining and she reported that the tractors were hitting the field. Already?? Come on guys, it is February, we just got to use all the corn stalks the beginning on this month. Take her down a notch. We bid on some bale spears for the Skid Steer in the Musser Bros auction. Jaxsen had FFA practice after school, dad went and picked him up after. Toni worked on Smo and Jexy and asked if I had secretly halter broke them when they were in Las Vegas. I said of course I did. Coffey Refrigeration came out and looked at the outdoor freezer on Tuesday. Thank you Coffey, you were the ONLY people that would come out and look at it out of the 14 people Ben called (14 might be a slight exaggeration). We do not live that far out of town. And Happy 2nd birthday to our Shea Bug.

Guess what I saw Wednesday on my way to work?? Goldie foaled. Fancy colt by Sagebug. Mom and I were disappointed it was not a filly we could name Shea Bug since Shea’s birthday was Tuesday and he could have been born in the night. Goldie is claimed by Ben and so is Sagebug so we are all waiting on Ben to name “his” colt.  Sonny got out and Scarlett caught him, Sonny is the mini colt we have left from last year. We moved Derringer up with the mares so Sonny had to go down to the barn and he is not super happy about it. Toni was in meetings/calls all day. Kade had agronomy practice. Kaine fed the horses and did not notice Dude colicing. Kade came down to ride Mauny, and noticed he was down and go him up, but did not think about him colicing. When Toni got down there she was not happy with them. Toni and Kade were walking him and had gotten immediate response down him and Zesterra. We got Dude through it but it was pretty stressful there for a bit. Toni went and spent the night with grandma, mom had been there during the day. Mom checked Dude every few hrs and I was on call. Thomassans came down and picked out a couple of Hereford steers. They were picking them up later in the week, so Ben and Anna put their EID tags in. The boys helped feed grain since Anna was selling steers.

                Toni checked in the morning, nothing new. Dude was still fine.  All of the kids except Kaine had FFA practice after school. So he did chores and when the other kids got home they helped him. Toni and I got Mage and Duke in and got them ready to leave the next day. Ben and Anna got the cows in to get ready to sort on Friday.  We are also still working on Smo and Jexy. Even though they are pretty much perfect, they still get their week of halter breaking, need it or not. But seriously they are pretty much perfect. Smo does not like her feet picked up and that is the only issue with her. Jexy doesn’t like it when you put a halter on him, he is more of a leader than a follower. As Toni wants to keep him as a stud prospect we need to get him beyond that mentality. Toni also wants Smo off of the for sale page. She is priced at $15,000.00 so I think it is pretty safe. Toni is trying to claim Smo as her next horse. I also claim her so we will see.

On Friday Ben, Toni, Marlo and Anna sorted cows, pulled CIDRs and then semen tested bulls.  In addition, Andy and Ilene came and picked up Duke and Mage. Duke and Mage really hadn’t loaded before so they were a touch resistant to load but so smart. They didn’t freak out at all just didn’t think they could get their feet picked up that far. Toni put a rope around Duke’s front foot and got him to step up. They ended up having to pull both of Duke’s front feet in to get him to load. Mage they only pulled one front foot up then he jumped in. But Mage had been loaded with his mom before so he kind of knew about it.  We are excited for Andy and Ilene. Both of those colts would have been keepers if they had been fillies. But I think we say that a lot about the foals. We pretty much like them all. Duke we may have spoiled a tiny bit. So they had a busy day. Coffey Refrigeration came out and worked on fixing the freezer. We continued working on the Smo and Jexy that night. Mom went to grandmas. Dad went to Tri Cities and brought me a coffee at work.

On Saturday we got our second foal- Ro had a filly by Gunner. We are super excited about her. We got up early Saturday and gave the cows their 2nd day shot to be ready to AI on Sunday. Then Anna and dad took the two Charolais cows to Alan’s to get bred, one of the cows is Alan’s, so it is not coming back. Kade went to trap and did really good, then him and Kicker went and picked up a tractor we bought for dad.  It is an older Ford tractor. Dad didn’t know about it. It was pretty fun when Kicker drove in the driveway and surprised Dad with the tractor. Dad likes a good surprise.  Lane came out and Anna, Lane and I checked cows. Ben and Kaine worked on Ben’s pickup, changing the leaf spring. Anna, Lane and I caught Shorty and loaded her and the two Hereford cows and took them to moms. Then Kaine and I hauled grass bales down. Toni came down and we worked on Smo and Jexy and dad and Kaine fed down the driveway. I stayed with grandma on Saturday night.

Saturday night the cows broke the water line. So Sunday morning early Ben and Anna started to fix it and then went to Othello to get the parts. Leslie loaded up lot 1 for me to bring home, so I turned him out at mom and dads on my way by (we are calling him Uno). Toni had also turned Libby out on that side of the road, and she was happy to have bovine friends. Toni and Kade hauled Stormy and Electra down to ride and Kaine caught Ol Kevin. I guess we went from Big Kev to Ol Kevin. Kaine watches too much Dale Brisby. His cat is named Ol Son and it is a girl cat. We sorted cows to AI and then Kaine and Kade rode out and got 034, the bull in. He was limping so the men doctored his foot for foot rot. Mark and Mike came out and we AIed cows. Then Toni and I went down and turned Smo and Jexy out after one last day of working on them. The boys fed and then Kade rode Friday, Toni is switching Electra for Friday so Kade made sure he could ride her as well. Anna washed her show steers and heifers that night when we got done. Kaine finished fixing the leaf spring on Ben’s pickup.  Toni put Electra in with Tank when they got home and moved Friday up to her house. Electra is decent to ride but she is way too mothered up to Stormy. Stormy is great. Both are out of Double so we think they are great. Stormy was awesome at my house on Sunday. That was only the second time she has been hauled somewhere to be ridden. Kade has done a good job with her, but she is a good horse.

As of Sunday we have bulls turned out and our AI program for the cows is completed. We are really excited about the new bulls we used for the program as well as the bulls that have such great calves on the ground that we are using them again. This calf crop is truly exceptional and we can’t wait to see how they grow. With the weather finally starting to turn nice it has been nothing but a trial on our patience to wait for the mares to foal. We have quite a few on our watch list. Let me assure you, checking them 10 times per day does not make them foal any faster!

Also a quick reminder for those that don’t know, the facebook page got hacked so we have a new FB page also under KT Ranch. It is a personal page so you have to friend request.

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Last Week in Pictures

Posted on March 5, 2024 by horseshoeangusranch
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There is always so much optimism when the end of January hits and we can all see spring coming. Of course mother nature usually has some surprises left in store for us in February.

Posted on February 21, 2024 by horseshoeangusranch

On Monday we all skipped work/school to go to the BB Cattle Sale. Kaine, Kade and Toni took horses, so they did not have to chase the bulls on foot. As kids we always used horses, but for the past few years they haven’t been, and the boys decided they did not want to walk anymore. Toni just rode before the sale with them, she was in bidding on bulls for us. We let Kade take Stormy and ride her in the morning. It was Stormys first ride away from home and she was a rock. A few things she kind of big eyed, but she was super great. She had to stay in the trailer when the sale actually started and Kade rode Electra. We had a couple of bulls we were bidding on and Toni had another couple  for a client. We did not get any. However, that is good for Joe, and we will just use one of his bulls or our polled bull, since we did not get one. Toni did get one for a client. Erina and Terry also came up to see us, and Morgan took Tel for a spin on Kevin, Kaine tried too but Tel did not want to ride with Kaine. Kaine also took Kayla for a ride on ol Kevin. I guess he took Kevin instead of Pow Pow so he could give kiddie rides? Kaine and Kade ran bulls back and forth with the twins and Nick. Anna, Traci, Marlo, Emma and I ran gates with Todd, Luke, Amy and Bree. Dad socialized. Ben sorted bulls with Jolene and Mar. Toni and I bought a dart medicine gun after the sale from Old Mill. We have been wanting one for over a year so were super excited about it. Then we went home and did chores.

                On Tuesday Toni was busy all day with clients so she texted Kaine and Kade and asked them to do her chores for her, she included me in her text. So when I got to the house dad asked me if I knew if Toni was stopped on her way to grandmas to feed the “colts?” Toni stayed with grandma on Tuesday. I said she is not, she asked the boys to feed them and the old horses, dad said he did not see the boys feed them. So I called Kaine, he said I did not get a text, I said not looking at your texts and not getting it are not the same thing. Did Kade feed the foals? He did not know, even though they are doing chores together he does not know if Kade fed them?? I called Kade, he also did not look, see or check his text messages. Lesson here, Kaine and Kade don’t read texts. Since they are always staring at their phones does that mean they are snapping?? Gina, Blue and Abs were NOT happy about the tardiness of their grain when I went out there, they had all been fed hay, just not their grain.

On Wednesday mom went over and stayed with grandma. Happy Valentines Day, and it would have been grandma and grandpa’s anniversary, so mom and dad stopped and got flowers at Kaffrins on their way. Toni chopped 2 poles and put them in her pu to take down at chore time. The poles left in the pile are all huge. Luckily she got to cut a bunch off of them as we only need to fix two spots on a 12 foot width fence. Kade and Anna had FFA practice after school so Toni, Kaine, and Jax  fixed the fence at mom and dads in Dude pen. An old pole broke and was a little leany. Toni now wants to work on the fence along the top of Cappy’s pen to get it shored up before breeding season. Kade went down after chores and started riding BB, the mare he has for sale.  It was dark out but she did a great job. Kade is just riding her in a halter.

Guess what, on Thursday we woke up to snow and it was snowing. Groundhog, what happened??? My drive to work was not too bad headed south, but the drive north for Ben was terrible, he said the worst he has had. The kids also said it was terrible going to school, Kaine needs new tires on his pickup and he spun out a bunch of times driving slow to mom and dads. 006 (an old show heifer) felt that Toni needed to feed her some corn when she checked due to the cold. Jax had more baby teeth pulled on Thursday. He had to have 7 removed before he could get braces, so that is next on the agenda.  Kade rode the black mare on Thursday night and Toni got some pics and videos for him to post. Then Toni went up and dug a couple of holes for railroad ties.  The ground wasn’t so frozen she couldn’t dig. Then she had clients that night so she didn’t get as much fixed on the fence as she wanted. Her and Jax had tried to lift the railroad ties but they needed more muscle. These railroad ties have been on the place long before we moved here back in the 80s and they are all of 10 feet tall and still heavy as heck. We had a cute black ballie calf on Thursday out of a Hereford cow.

We still had some snow on Friday, but a lot of it had melted. Avery, one of the clubby cows, had a cute Angus cross calf on Friday. Toni showed horses and Chad came out around the same time, so a lot was going on.  Mom and Dad had gone to town so Toni and Chad were on their own to get everything done. The yearlings came in great, so the people that came got to get a good look at the colts we have left for sale. They really liked a couple of them. We are color testing Mage for them to see if he is going to be gray or stay buckskin. Marlo came about the same time as mom and dad got home. Marlo told Toni that Kaine and Kade were broke down at the intersection of 17 and Hendricks. We found out later that Kaine’s transmission went out. The boys had someone help them push the pu off of the road as they were blocking the intersection. Then Anna had to go find Ben to go tow them home. Marlo and Toni did most of the chores before the boys finally got there for chores.  Toni asked the boys to come help put up the two railroad ties as she had the holes dug. It took Marlo, Toni, Kaine, and Kade to get the railroad ties up and in the holes. Once both were up, one of the boys said we just had to put the ties up right? Toni said yeah, so the boys took off. In their defense they still had to feed circle 5 and had a long day. Marlo and Toni tamped the ties in, put a cross bar up, chopped the fence out of the tree and got the fence fixed. When they stopped it was 6:50 pm and they could still see a little bit, so it is getting lighter out. Toni still wants to fortify the fence. It is basically at the top of the hill so it is pretty prone to sloughing.  Kade took a snaffle bit and rode BB late again. She is just a super cool mare. Too bad she doesn’t have papers. If she was reg we would probably keep her!

On Saturday we got the cows in and sorted them to put in CIDRs and put the rest out with the bulls. It was still pretty cold, so I let Toni ride my horse, Shimmer, and rode with Jaxsen in the pickup, Toni was going to have to haul her horse down. Anna rode Jag and Kevin and Kaine rode Pow. Kade was at a trap shoot.  We got all of the cows sorted, bulls moved out of the pasture, the AI cows into that pasture, cull cows sorted, the few cows that need a little TLC in, all of the ranch stuff we needed to get done we got it done. The horses were great. We had a small technical difficulty with Pow. We were out in the middle of the cornfield and her bridle just came off. Luckily Kaine was able to get her stopped with the halter so he switched bridles with Anna. Shimmer is not a horse you can ride chasing cows without a bridle. She is on the hotter side even now that she is older and likes to chase. Basically she will chase cows just for the love of the game. So a great horse to chase cows, terrible to try to trail ride. Good thing we don’t trail ride. Kevin was fine with the bridle switch. Pow and Kaine had some adjusting to do, but they got it done and we got the job done. Luckily we chose Saturday because even though it was cold, it wasn’t as bad as Sunday when we had snow and rain spitting down all day. We had a long Saturday but a really great one. We were all really cold by the end.  I went and stayed with Grandma Saturday night.

On Sunday we woke up to the snow rain mix. My drive home was fine. 039 calved and had a pretty nice bull calf. Even though it was snowing it wasn’t terribly cold so we didn’t take her to the barn. She had the calf down in the weeds so it was dry and warm. Kade and Kaine went over to help Marlo move a couple of couches. It didn’t take long and they were back before lunch. Lots of ranch stuff to get done, but we all kind of took it easy on Sunday, or as easy as we could anyway. Kaine worked on one of his show heifers and his steers. Anna went to Warden to see Lane, so Kaine helped feed the cows before we went up to do horse chores.

There is always so much optimism when the end of January hits and we can all see spring coming. Of course mother nature usually has some surprises left in store for us in February. The last two years we have had bad weather all the way into April. Lets hope that this year this last burst of snow is the last of it. We are all looking forward to warmer weather and green grass.

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Last Week in Pictures

Posted on February 20, 2024 by horseshoeangusranch
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Last Week in Pictures plus a few from January that I found on my camera.

Posted on February 14, 2024 by horseshoeangusranch
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To quote Kaine’s favorite singer Walker Hayes (Kaine does not like Walker Hayes but I do so I enjoy making Kaine listen to him) –  it’s good times, right. 

Posted on February 7, 2024 by horseshoeangusranch

Monday was a Monday of Mondays. Toni went to check and 10 heifers were out and one Hereford pair (who was not even in the same pen). She chased them around, Murtaugh and Meranda showed up to help her at precisely the wrong time and ran them back over her. She got them in with the cows, but not before they went through a couple of fences and got Sagebug out with pushed over panels in all of the excitement. Sagebug proceeded to run through the fat steers about three times but did not go over the hotwire. After his three rounds of running he wanted to know what Toni was doing as she was trying to pick the panels back up so he just came back to his pen without any chasing. After everything was put in some type of a pen and the cows checked, mom sent her a picture of the coming two year old filly Absolute out and eating hay. Toni got down there to find that Absolute was covered in cockleburs, but unscratched besides that.  Angel the tb stepped on something out in the circle and injured her leg, so mom and Anna went down and got her, they had to lead her up the hill since it was too muddy to get the trailer down there. And guess what else they found in there? 5 bulls that were out and in with the horses. Due to all of the run off there is water across Horseshoe Rd, so that is fun. But, it is warm enough we do not have to get up to check every two hours. Toni and Kade worked on the fence Monday night were Absolute got out, and Kaine went to help the others feed. And Debbie, I know you told me last Friday that Jaxsen likes to help more than we give him credit for, but I did not hear of him helping with the fence or feeding…

                Tuesday morning Kade had a dentist appt, so Toni ran him down to that after checking, she called on her way down, and told them she was running 5 min late, they told her she was actually 10 min late, and she had to reschedule. So they rescheduled for Wednesday. Kaine made himself a hair appt after school, he said he was tired of his mullet, but his hair did not look that much different when he got home. Cows were out eating the corn and hay that night and Anna and the men spent a lot of time chasing them in the dark and fixing fence. For some reason we were not getting power from circle 3, so they had to run down to circle 5 and steal that fencer, so I do not know what is keeping those in. Ben’s transmission stopped going in reverse, so Kaine had to go down and pull them backwards. So they then came up and got my ranch pickup, which I am currently very concerned about since Ben is not easy on anything. And Debbie, Jaxsen helped Toni build fence on Tuesday

On Wednesday dad and mom went to tri cities, they brought me a coffee at work and mom came in to check on George 2.0 (the fish). Toni brought Kade down to the orthodontist after checking cows, the last char heifer calved. Kade wants to do leather work so they had lunch with aunt Peggy and uncle Tom then went and got some of the leather working tools Tom has. Uncle Tom also has a bunch of surgery tools from some random lot of stuff he got at an auction so he gave Toni more forceps, some tiny scissors, and some other cool stuff that we hope we never need.  We had a load of grain delivered, Kendel went down to show him where to dump it and he got stuck, and he dug himself out by hand. MC got his gate open and went down to the house, so he was at the house. When Toni and the boys got down to do chores they saw the chain was broke and put him back and fixed the chain. They also put a few poles along the middle pen. It is time to get all the fencing projects that we need to get done, done.

On Thursday 958 calved, one of the heifers that Kade showed. She had a big bull calf. One of my lucchese mules got chewed by Ben’s dog. However, Ben is denying it was his dog. Most chores in the mud, they are feeding the cows pulling the flatbed with the tractor, Old Red the pickup can’t make it through. Toni can barely make it thought with her pickup checking the cows. Toni stayed with Grandma on Thursday night but they got some fence worked on before she left. We are actually fixing a section that the colts had destroyed, so it is really annoying because it shouldn’t be on the list of fencing projects. But we have to get it done so we can take the panels that are there up the hill for the project that we really need to do to replace one last hill fence at Mom and Dad’s to use that pen for a stud. Barbed wire fence is not ideal with stallions, so we are trying to replace it all. This is the last high pressure barbed wire fence we have left to replace. We will still have some barbed wire, but not much.

Ben was home on Friday, they are working 9 hrs and get every other Friday off. Which is the opposite of the Fridays I get off. He hauled the heifers back up to the house and turned them in with the cows. Chad came out and trimmed the riding horses, Tank and a few others. We finished the rebuild fencing project and started on the actual project. The boys are still going and feeding circle 5 so they negotiated a stay on packing the heavy Powder River panels up the steep hill until Saturday. Everyone is busy, lots of mud, so whatever. We let them have a break. I stayed with grandma on Friday night.

Kade had a shooting meet on Saturday, he got second in buddy shot.  He did great. The Connell team did great overall with a second-place finish and some of the other kids won some great awards. The trap team is overall an amazing group of kids. Ben and I ran down the power, and why we did not have any at circle 3, 2 fuses were blown, so we got that fixed and fixed the fence and turned the cows out into 2. Anna worked on fence then went to Milton Freewater with Lane. At moms and dads Toni, Kaine, Kade, Jaxsen and I worked on the fence in the middle pen. Toni got some new tool for the cockleburs in Absolute’s hair and worked on that for awhile. I told her she already has that tool but she is always getting new tools to try to get the crap out of the horse’s mane/tail. Absolute didn’t want to walk through water when her grooming session was done so we worked on her for awhile. The big boys packed panels up the hill and Toni and I tied them up and hooked them together.  We were one panel short to reach the spot we wanted to get to with panels. Even if we put as many panels as we can up there we still have a bunch of heavy, long, terribly back breaking poles to pack up the hill and get on the fence.

                Sunday was a nice sunny day and we spent most of it building fence around the corn field. Prior to fencing Kade took Stormy out for a ride.  Kaine’s girlfriend Kendra came out and rode along. Kendra has one of those home ec fake babies that you have to pack around for a school grade. Funniest thing ever to see Kaine packing a car seat. Hopefully we don’t see that for real for about 10 years or more. Kaine’s dog Andee was freaked out by it and would not get near him and hid behind me. Both Kaine and Kade got their pickups stuck. Toni, Anna and Jaxsen got a lot of posts in while I pulled them out and Ben rolled up wire. We were amazingly efficient because the ground is so soft. Ben said that isn’t going to be great when the posts fall over in the mud, but we are all positive about the fact that we got all the posts in we needed to and can get the cows out on more stalks and into cleaner areas.  Mom made us sandwiches since we were all starving. Then Kaine and Kade packed the last panel up the hill and Toni, Kade and I put two poles up. Now to the pole sections.  We have 6 ½ sections left so that means 26 poles. We can do it. We can do it.

To quote Kaine’s favorite singer Walker Hayes (Kaine does not like Walker Hayes) –  it’s good times, right.  No really, we joke, but the crew worked hard this week.  We are about to start the countdown to our first 2024 foal. We used to have a fun Facebook challenge on who would foal first, but haven’t done that for a while. If anyone has any guesses, just for fun, put it in the comments. We are checking mares, but should be a few weeks off. Exciting times ahead, and not fence building exciting, actually really exciting.

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