Burning Barrel

Every day out here is interesting...and today would definitly fall into that category.

I woke up to the soggy, grey rain...again. Last night I ended up staying up pretty late because I was being overly productive with some bookwork on my computer and then made hotdish...which went remarkably well- guess I won't know until I hear a taste report. Then, I decided to make a little sign for Merle and Adrienne's door...just for kicks. So, it was fun- but ended up later than I realized!

When I reluctantly rolled out of bed this morning I gathered all my stuff for the day and headed down to do chores. But first, I took some time to put the hotdish in their fridge and decorate the door with the sign and a couple balloons...how can you go wrong with balloons? :) Amazingly, for whatever reason Dean was there early and had started chores while I was putting my hotdish in the fridge so we had a pretty good start on things. We ended up spending a ton of time looking and looking for this one bucket calf that hadn't shown up and here he was in the barn! Oh well, at least he was there! So, we got the calves fed and everybody else grained and headed out to start the days work. Dean spent most of the day building salt troughs..cuz we really need them! I think he ended up with 7 total, so that was pretty good. But, throughout the day we interrupted his work quite a few times. Ross and I started out the day by washing the disk off with the fire truck. We decided since we were already wet from the rain we may as well do it right and get soaked. So, I powerwashed the disk off pretty good. Then, went and filled the truck. In order to make the hose reach the truck I had to literally park the back end in a mudhole. You know what comes next...of course I couldn't get out when the truck was full, so Ross gave the truck qutie a pull with my pickup and we managed to get it out and back up to the shed where I defeated the entire pupose by washing the mud off the truck and using almost as much water as we put in. I just hooked up the hose in the shed and let it fill while we went off to do other things. While that was filling, we started cleaning out the pickup we use for fuel and tools on teh north end of the shed. Over the last year, it had accumulated a lot of extra junk that needed cleaned out so we spent quite some time on that.

While we were up at teh shed I decided to go and get Rocks and Chica, Adrienne's dogs. They had been couped up in the yard for two days and I figured they needed some attention so they "helped" us out quite a bit. When we finished cleaning out the pickup we started to pick up that part of the shed. After cleaning out junk and metal for an hour or so it appeared no different...but at least we tried. So, we spent some time sorting through the junk we picked up and putting it in it's proper place. We couldn't even make the hill up to the iron pile so that all had to stay in teh shed- but we put a decent dent in the rest of the junk. After dumping our stuff off we headed back up to the shed and Ross backed up to it...a little too far. I wasn't paying attention (so it's really my fault too) but Ross saw that half the door was open and didn't notice that it wasn't pushed all the way open so we eneded up backing into the edge of the shed door....this led to a whoel new project. The three of us hammered, drilled, and put in bolts on that door before and after lunch. We eventually got it to close better than it did before I think! So, it wasn't an all bad thing- just added some work to teh day was all. I told Ross not to feel to bad it was a toss up between which one was dumber: falling in the creek or hitting the shed door.

After finishing that lovely little project we spent the rest of the afternoon hauling out obvious trash and junk from the south part of the shed while Dean worked on the troughs. We got it all moved and sorted and had one heck of a burn barrel fire as well. Then, we did chores a little early, and I was just headed out with the four wheeler to poison some prarie dogs when Delbert pulled through the yard with his four wheeler. He was checking cows. We stopped and talked for a while and just then Merle and Adrienne pulled up with the new arrival! We went and saw her and talked shortly and then let them unload their stuff and relax. I went down and cleaned the water out of their cellar (I totally forgot about that) then went up to see the baby.

Rylee Jo is her name. She was 6lbs. 12oz. and is of course, quite adorable. I got to hold her for a while tonight and she was really good! Of course babies change, but for now, she seems pretty quiet for the most part so we'll see! It was fun to finally meet the much anticipated "new ranch hand" (as I like to call her). She has a bump on her head that is harmless and the doctors say will go away-they will check up on all week to make sure she doesn't get jondice, but other than those normal baby things she is doing really well! I think Adrienne and Merle were super tired so I hope they get some sleep tonight.

After visiting down there I closed up the shed and went home. Now, I'm going to bed early to try to catch up on some lost sleep! :)

"The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see." -Winston Chruchill