Ugghhhhh......

Have you ever had one of those days? Ya know, the ones where everything seems to not go as planned...well enough said.


Ok fine, I'll explain a little.
Everything started out pretty normal. I got up and ready to go, ate a bowl of cereal and headed out the door to do chores. Chores were fine-got our new orphan calf to suck down a bucket of milk again so that was a plus. Dean and Ross and I loaded up four wheelers into the trailer and Merle drove us to the red cow pasture to look for our missing bull. After spreading out across the pasture and wandering around in an "easterly" direction, I managed to find two bulls. After a while I called Merle in order to figure out where to go next after I made it to the opposite fenceline. He told me to come back so I did and helped poison prairie dogs while Ross and Dean were on their way back. After a short conference we realized that we only had seen four of the five bulls that are supposed to be in the pasture- not to mention that we were hoping to find six there to make up for the missing one. We decided that there were probably five in there and we missed one and at this point we were ready to take off and headout to the next pasture. I'm sitting on my four wheeler and put it in first and realize it's not moving so well... Come to find out I had fun over an open five gallon bucket of Rosall (prarie dog poison oats) and put a huge dent in the pail. What a dork- blonde moment. Strike 1. Regardless we headed off to the next pasture to look for Mr. Bull.

In the heifer pasture we spread out again and this was the interesting part. I did my section and then headed down the creek to find the culvert to cross. After finding it and crossing it I wandered around the hillside and didn't see any cattle so I wandered until I saw someone else. When I met up with Ross he was on the other side of the crick and didn't hear me so he just took off...super. After a few minutes I finally caught up with him and we made a plan to go in opposite directions and meet up later. Part of my path was to cross the creek at the other culvert- after passing it once because it is pretty washed out, then coming all the way back after realizing that I mistook it for deeper water than it looks I crossed the dumb thing. Then, I ran through some heifers and foudn no bull and headed for the gate. I had to go the wrong way up the fenceline first of course. After turning around and going through the gate I realized that Dean had already been through this spot that i had been tryhing to get to for fifiteen minutes. Strike 2. I went up to the pickup and got some directions from Merle for how to get into the next neighbors pasture and headed out. Before I could go the complete wrong way he came up behind me and told me that they had found the bull and were headed our way. So, I backtracked and caught up with them and the bull. We were able to run him in and load him up ten times easier than yesterday's bull.

We loaded up the Ross's four wheeler and Dean opened the gates ahead of the pickup and I closed them behind the pickup on our way out. We let off the bull with the dry cows and loaded up our four wheelers and went to check the well. Electricity was coming to it but no water was pumping. As we are all fidgeting around with different parts and pieces, Ross gives the electric well box a hit and the dumb things starts pumping- it was kinda funny.

After we got all unloaded and got home Dean headed up for dinner and was off to fence afterward. Ross and Merle and I cleaned out the trailer and fixed the mats and then Ross and I went and put the dual tire back on the fire truck. Afterward we managed to think of the inside valve stem...super. We weren't about to take it off so I just hope I'm not the next person who has to air up that tire! Then, we headed in for lunch.

We finished the last of Adrienne's left over steak- and it was tasty. After lunch Ross and I loaded up 20 bags of salt, 20 mineral, and some blocks and headed out. We went through Techs, Chief Bears, and Hisle Dam but were short on troughs basically everywhere and didn't get near as far as we wanted to. On our way home we also managed to loose a lick barrel and had to backtrack a couple miles to find the thing- it's worth $10 so we figured we better go find it! :) While we were up on a hill my phone rang through and it was Merle. Delbert was wondering if we could help move some cows at five. We said no problem- he has been having trouble with loosing calves in the water tank because the darn thing can't keep up and some of his calves weren't feeling good so we suspect they may have been jumping in because of fevers- in addtion he helps us all the time. Either way- five o'clock rolled around and we were already out there with the four wheelers.

I followed Ross out there and when we got to the gate of the pasture he went into he said someting to the effect of - he was gunna go check the south gate to know wheather we should move the cows from one pasture or two. I assumed that he mean the pasture we were in and that he would open the gate if it wasn't already so we could push the cattle that way. Ross had taken off and Dean showed up right as I was closing the gate so we rode the pasture that we were in. About 20 minutes later my cell phone rings (amazingly)- it Adrienne. Delbert didn't have my number so he called her and she called me to tell us we were in the wrong pasture. STRIKE 3. Seriously...who does that? So things started making sense about what Ross said in my head and we headed out and found that Ross had rounded them all up and Delbert and a small crew (with a lot of little kids) we there beginning to push them out. The move didn't go too bad- but it was long. We went from the steel windmill pasture to Levi's Camp- I'm not sure how many miles that is but when you have lots of cattle with young calves it takes a while. The move went pretty decent and they paired out alright. We had one calf the had to be hauled but other than that everybody made it. I really don't like four wheelers much but I certainly got my fair share of them today. The people on horses when we were moving cattle had an advantage in all those ruts- but we could sure move on the four wheelers too. Moral of the story: we got the cattle where they needed to be and went home.

Chores were already done so all I had left to do was feed Bart and shower. Now, I'm headed to bed. In heinsight- the day wasn't so bad, it just felt stressful. Everything I touched broke or went wrong. Oh well, tomorrow is another day!

"Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace."