Not so Handy Man...

Today was full of lots of little jobs.

I started out chores as usual and went through the morning loops. I fed Bart (my fish) then went down to the corral where Ross came and joined me followed by Dean later and Merle and Adrienne. Our first task of the day after chores was to sort off a calf that had gotten into the neighbors pasture. It wasn't far from home (just between chief bears and the first housing house) but the Dean and Ross and I took off cross country on four wheelers to find the little fart. Adrienne had spotted him from the road last night- so we weren't really sure if there was a cow with the calf or not.

Well after finding a red calf within a sea of black we found out that it is Merle's orphan calf ...the mother was dry. So I cut him out of the herd and the chase began. With three of us it wasn't too terrible to get him out of the pasture- once we did everything fell into place because a couple of yearlings in the next pasture over convieniently placed themselves in our path. We ran them all home and dropped off the calf at the barn to add to the bucket calf herd...it's now up to 11! We ran those yearlings back to their pasture and then headed home to saddle up.

After letting the ponies eat some oats we grabbed our horses (I grabbed Tanner today- I really like him:) It was also a day at the barber shop for the horses- Merle went around and trimmed bridle paths and feathers- we are sure lookin sharp around here! haha! We loaded into the trailer and headed down to Dicks to load up that lame bull we left there and find the missing red bull. Well we didn't have much luck with the missing red bull so I just pushed the black bull towards the corral. Then, things got interesting. He was huffy and just plain mean. After taking Joe, Ross's horse, and about taking Ross with him, and randomly running whatever direction he felt we finally got him in the corral but the fight was on. With a slick throw of his nose he threw a gate off the hinge and tried to take Joe again. We all got out of the corral and managed to get the sucker into the tub but didn't get the gate closed fast enough and he got out. That led to plan B. We backed the trailer up to the end of the alley way that he wanted to go down so badly and chaned and strung ropes from gates in hopes to make things work. After some serious coaxing and chasing him on horse from outside of a corral that he could have easily run through we got him in! At that point Merle decided to take him straight to Gordon to the salebarn...and so they did! I had to note that Tanner was deathly afraid of this bull from the start- I mean we could chase him, but he would never let him take after him - Ross used to ride that horse quite a lot and admitted to me that a bull had banged him up once or twice...apparently he didn't forget! It was kinda funny because I had tied him up by the reins (which we do a lot when you're doing three things at once) and came over to find him untied and munching on grass. Well he was withing ten feet of the corral and Ross had to untie him before he broke his reins... o Tanner!

We didn't dare load up the horses with this bull in the front of the trailer for fear that he woudl bang up everything so Dean and Ross and I stayed and rode the heifer pasture and the neighbors pasture to put five back in that had apparently jumped the fence. We didn't find an extra bull but we were at least happy to ride the fences and get those five back where they needed to be. Then we were able to lock our horses in the corral and take Johnny's pickup home with plans to bring it back later.

After a late lunch Dean headed out to Techs to fence and Ross and I took the inside dual off of the fire truck to send to town to get fixed. Then we stared in on parking feeder wagons and jacking them up to avoid flat tires in the fall. After the first one Ross had to leave for home for something so I stayed and did one more. Backing the double axled sucker up was probably the most obnoxious experience of my life...but after some time and patience I got it where it needed to be and proceeded to jack and block the wheels up. In the process the "not so" handyman jack (as I like to call them) kept on jamming up in the pins. Handymans tend to do that alot so I would just mess with the pins until the dumb thing dropped or raised. Well, on one particular occasion I was not holding the jack bar and managed to get smacked in the head pretty darn good- but I"m pretty sure I'll live. I'll bet that would have been funny to watch! After that one I parked and locked everything up for the night. I quick swept out a wagon that needed sweeping out and went and did chores. It takes a little longer by yourself but it's not too bad. Dean showed up from fencing towards the end so he was able to help hold down the new orphan calf and we got him to suck a bucket of milk down so that was good. Afterward I radioed Merle to see if he wanted me to meet them down at Dick's with Johnny's pickup but apparently they had tried to get ahold of us all day and couldn't and they had already picked up the horses so I guess we'll have to take it back another day.

We unloaded the horses and chatted about he day over some leftovers while watching Adrienne's show, The Biggest Loser. By the time the season finalle was over we were all ready to hit the sack. I think that's just what I'm gunna do!

"Common sense is the collection of predjudices aquired by age 18." -Albert Einstein