Learning Curve

Today was not neccesarily a "good" day. But it was alright.

After spending a ridiculous amount of time chasing bucket calves in this morning I did chores. I always find it interesting that little critters that seem to want their milk sooo bad, don't wanna come in to get it! Sorry that i'm not like the cow and don't just carry the buckets around with them! haha

After chores we all lined out a few different tasks. We didn't have much time to do anything too big becasue Delbert was bringing a crew over at 9:00 to brand a few late calves. I took the hour and a half and started blowing crap out of the haybuster so that we can park it for the summer. I used the air compressor for quite some time and then we decided that wasn't the easiest approach- why not add a little more fun by using some water. So, Merle got the fire truck out and fired it up and I "pressure washed" away. In the process I became basically soaked of course, but it did the job pretty good. By the time I was done rinsing off the tractor as well, Delbert and a couple other trailers were pulling in. I didn't have time to go change from my mud boots to my work boots so I just went down and caught my horse. I ended up wearing those dumb mud boots all morning (riding and wrestling calves) because I didn't have the others with me. My feet were dry but definitly hot!

There were a few people that I didn't know with Delbert but Mike's wife Laura and Dustin and Brady were there as well as three friends of Delbert's and one of their girlfriends. Bewteen them and Ross and Dean and I we made a decent sized round up crew. We just rode a couple pastures out towards the northwest and rounded up the cows pretty easily...minus one calf. I rode up on a group and one calf was laying down and wouldn't get up. His mom took off without him and so the fun began. I started by letting Nelly push him around with her nose and when that got old Laura came by and we loaded him up on her horse with her. Well, for whatever reason, Ace (the horse she was on) didn't think much of that and the calf wouldn't hold still and kept wanting to slide off so she just let him go. We tried getting off and leading him around but that didn't work too great either. Then, we tried putting just him on the saddle and having one person lead and one person hold him. Yeah...not so much- he fell off again into a deep draw this time. For fear of not wanting to kill the little fart we just ended up walking him on foot and leading the horses behind. His ears made pretty good handlebars and the tail served as an anchor. Once we got across the creek (I knew I wore those boots for a reason) and up the hill we were able to flag Delbert down and he came and got him iwth the pickup that Merle met us with.

Once we finally got up to the corrals they had just finished sorting but Ross was hollering for me. So I walk right up to him on his horse and he hands me his rope. At this point I realize that I'm pretty much standing on top of a rattle snake. I hit him with the rope a couple times but didn't quite kill him so Merle came over with a spade and finished her off. It turned out to be a female- I beat up the rattle a little but not too bad anway! For someone who never swings a rope I decided to give myself the benefit of the doubt.

When we finally got to going it wasn't too bad. There were only 39 calves and 5 calf throwers. Delbert was grabbing a branding iron, branding, and then coming back and throwing calves with me! It was actually pretty funny- I think he got his workout for the day. It didn' take us long at all and we were suddenly done. After standing aroudn for a while we loaded up panels and the stove and rode home. We all ate a tasty grilled lunch thanks for Adrienne and her sister and then it was back to work.

After changing into a decent pair of shoes, I went down and loaded up oats for the feed room. It's not a bad job- just one that takes time. After getting that done I went up to the shop and finished cleaning out and parking the haybuster. I had to have Dean help with the dumb hitchpin because by the time I would get out of the tractor and to the hitchpin everythign had bound up so bad I couldn't even drive the thing out! But, we fainally got it out and a managed to accidentally yank a hyraulic hose right with it, but it was fine and no one got hit in the head with it so I guess that can't be totally bad!

After spending way too much time getting the hitchpin out I started in on the fire truck. First I tried to clean off the front of the hydroswing tractor but there just wasn't much water left so I drove the truck down to fill fuel and water. By the time I got to the water spout by my house that has some decent pressure, I realized that I had no ride back and no house keys with me to get ahold of my car keys so I just walked back to the shed. I learned the hard way that that walk isn't as short as it looks. But, despite my wining I made it back in due time to go on to the next task while it filled. I hopped in the loader tractor and decided to unload some unused lick tubs from the semi that they are kept in. That turned into more of a task that I thought. First, I couldn't understand Merle on my crappy cell phone and basically thought that I understood how to stack them and where. So, I ran the tractor and Dean helped load and we got started movin g them north of the shed. Before we got too much moved I decided we had better go check the fire truck. Well, the water runs faster than I thought and the dumb thing ran over. So, I had to let some water out the back so there is room for air in the tank- otherwise it'll crack under pressure. After gettting that squared away I drove it up the shed and we kept on loading adn moving barrels. While we were gone the loader settled on the running tractor and dumped out the barrles we had already loaded...how nice. It took some time to get the all moved but we got it done. We were sure to cover them up good so minimal moisture would get inside the barrels. And managed to get the 11 that were left stacked up. After parking the tractor, I did a little cleaning with teh fire hose on the hydroswing tractor and then backed it in, we jacked it up, and then filled in the water I had used cleaning the tractor. Right when it was full Merle drove through the yard and I figured it was about time to get going on chores. We closed things up at the shed and headed down for chores.

After chores I was telling Merle what all we had done today and found out that we were supposed to put the barrels on the north side of the shed...meaning- insided the shed, under the roof! Ugh! That was super frustrating to me! So, we went up and Merle hopped in the tractor to move the dumb things again. I had conveinently forgotten the barrlel tipper bar and the tire to tip them on in the bucket so I got started on that and we moved them all pretty quickly. During one of the trips back and fourth to the shed to stack them I managed to hit my head so hard that i knocked myself down. Boy, that sure felt good...not! But, I survived and we got them stacked in their new location. Then, he asked about the fire truck and I told him I wasn't watching close enough and overfilled it but let some water back out. Then, he goes and points out that when you overflow it you get water in the storage compartments. Sure enough, there was water in one of the boxes with hoses in it. So, we laid out the hoses and took the carpet lining out of the box.

After putting the hydroswing tire back on that we sent into town tomorrow, the days work appeared to be done. I helped Merle set a couple coon traps (we got two today!) and then headed home. I'm not sure that anything I touched went right today- but I guess like goes on.

It also seems as though we are getting pretty close to baby time out here so we'll see when that happens!

"Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught." -Oscar Wilde