cattle and dirt

Another productive day on the ranch. Right after morning chores today, we caught our horses and saddled up to head out to the dry cows.

Stephanie was back today, so we had four riders and Jeff on a four wheeler. Rounding them up went fairly smoothly ... minus the bull. Jeff found him in the next pasture over and got him all the way to the gate with the four wheeler when he decided to turn around and head back. So then Merle was chasing him around and then I joined and then eventually Tina joined in the fun. We eventually got so sick of him that Merle roped his front legs and Jeff went to get the trailer to load him up and ship him out. But, in the process we managed to push him back down to the right pasture...very carefully! We got that group moved home and then went up north to round up the other 23 of them. They were all together at the gate so we just took a quick look around and then moved them right on through. Right about then, Tina (not me for once) brushed up a rattle snake that struck at Tanner (her horse). She pretty much screamed for Merle (which was hillarious) and he came up and killed the dumb thing. It was actually really strange because he was right at his hole but never when down in there- we were just looking at the rattle tonight (he just cuts them off and keeps the rattle-kinda cool) and we decdied that it must have been a male. Who knows- the point is he killed it and it was a pretty darn big one- I will have to get some pictures up of the snake and some other stuff around here someday soon.

After we got all of them moved down to the calving pasture so they are ready to ship out on Wednesday we went in for dinner. After dinner, Merle went to bale, Stephanie went to try and hook up Merle and Sharla's new dvd player, Tina and Jeff went out to hay, and I went out to farm. It took me almost an hour to get there, fuel up, grease up, check everything, and set the disk down. But, I got it done and managed to put a pretty good dent in the field. I even saw a coyote in the middle of the day out there- kinda cool. If it doesn't rain I want to try and get it done tomorrow. It was actually pretty funny looking when I started because there are lots of hills and I took a shot in the dark at where I thought the opposite corner might be...I was a little off and the sun made it hard to see my line so needless to say I was wide awake trying to make it all look decent!

I came in for chores eventually around 5:50, but Tina had already done them so I just fed Ace and Joe (referred to as "my horses", haha) and then had to run in and shower quick so we could be to town by seven for supper. Since Nancy and her family are here and leaving tomorrow they decided to grill some steaks, and boy were they tasty! It was really nice to just relax and hang out with a super family! In fact, I even met another new person, Matt, who is Nancy's son who actually lives in Martin, I just hadn't run into him yet. We had a nice supper and visited for a while, then we made a couple stops in town and headed back home. It's Monday night- card night. I sorta kinda learned how to play cribbage- I really like the game but I'm just starting to catch on. Either way, I still won, haha! But, after a game I headed home and now I'm sitting her itching my stupid bee stings. I managed to get five today, a sweat bee got me three times in the shoulder and then once on the neck when we were moving cattle. Then, later on, I just happended to set my hand on my shoulder right when there was a bee sitting there and he stung me and left the stinger in my hand...boy what a nice feeling. I scraped it out with a pocket knife and went on with my day.

Here's to another great day (minus the bee stings!) out here on the ranch. Tomorrow we are moving the fall calvers and haying/farming depending on the weather.