Jeremy was pretty tired after the clinic today and was hoping Steele wouldn't push the issue of riding. We looked over and he had strapped on his helmet and was trying to figure out how to get the bridle down off the wall. Of course daddy gave in and let him ride. He had to tear him off kicking and screaming again.
Steele has decided lately that he wants to do everything daddy does. Including and especially riding. And chasing cows. We turned the herefords out of the pen yesterday and he wanted to ride over and check them. Jeremy wasn't really prepared to saddle his own horse so he just led them over the hill to make sure they knew where the water hole is.
I drove the car around so I could watch them and take pictures. They were just so darn cute. Jeremy ran into some of the neighbors that have a cabin up on the mountain.
I sure wish my camera was better. This doesn't even do justice to how beautiful this whole scene was. It was a perfect afternoon with no wind and so quiet. Except for the toads in the pond.
When they got back Steele wanted to keep riding and racing daddy. Sage and I left to run to town and Steele kept riding til Jeremy finally had to drag him off kicking and screaming. He said he tried to reason with him and say that Chico needs to eat too. 
This was today during the lunch break of the Horsemanship/Trail Clinic makeup date. He is riding Min. 
Here is the pen of horses that looked on while we branded. In the front is Poco, Glo (Sid's filly) os on the right, Chico's butt is showing while he eats, and the black head you can see is Paul's mare that came out of the mountains in Tehachapi. We are pretty sure she has a baby in her belly so Paul has been working hard to get her gentled. She is coming along real nice. 
I thought these mountains were so pretty with the clouds coming over. This is looking to the northwest of where we were working. Do you like how I said "we" were working. I was very spoiled yesterday and didn't have to help. 
My girlie, she wanted to help real bad and I just didn't want her to get hurt since it was all mostly in the chute so I said no not today. She responded sadly and said "well, don't any of them need their nuts cut out?" She kills me! I wish there were some for her but not this time.
Moving em up to the chute. Isn't it great I got to just take pictures and hang?! It was great, and then I came in the house and fed everybody lunch and went to sleep! 
The cows waiting for their turn to get a pretty new eartag and a brand so they can be put out on the pasture. Wasn't it a beautiful day? I was so darn lucky to not have to bust my butt since we had Travis and Paul there helping out. You guys are awesome! So I got to enjoy the day and watch the mountains and the sky change throughout the day. 
Gettin her new brand.........
Can you see the brand?
Okay how about now?! 
Isn't the scenery around here nice?!
So as I sit here posting Sage is sitting next to me making signs to help find her beloved Moose. We will be heading out to drive to the pound soon and make up some signs to hang around. I am really really afraid that it is the wild dogs since it isn't like to many people live around here that could have picked him up but just like I told her through the tears last night, We can't give up on him. He is a tough little dog. This picture was taken back when we were using the outhouse.
Just in case any of you wondered what he looks like, this is Moose. Please make it home Moose.
This is what we were up to yesterday in the rain. We had to drive to Acton to pick up 12 Herefords and some crosses. Travis came down to help us thank goodness. I didn't get to take any pictures of the actual loading since I was also knee deep in the much helping to get them loaded, did I already say it was raining? Okay well truth be told it stopped just as we were getting ready to put them in the trailer. It rained on Jeremy and I the whole time we were sorting a few out of another pen and moving them and then we built a small area to help the loading.
Then we loaded some hay so we could keep them in the pen for a few days with some of our herd. These cows have been in a pen all their lives so it will be interesting to put them out on pasture. Two of them are also pregnant, it sure would be nice if they would have their calves before we put them out.
Fattest cows ever!
Here are the new girls and one boy. He will look nice in the freezer!
Here is our new chute we got from a friend of Jeremy's. We went to Tehachapi to pick it up after dropping the cows off. We will need to brand all of them since they are all SLICK HIDED! Can't have slicks out on pasture! It was a fiasco getting it in the trailer but it is here now. 
This was this morning when Jeremy headed out to gather so we could rope. I had driven down and fixed one of our signs and then headed up the hill knowing he was by himself and we didn't have much time before people would be showing up. So I drove up a few miles to see if they were by the upper pond so he wouldn't have to ride all the way up there. Finally I located the cows and let Jeremy know where they Trusty Kate and Jessie with him.
This cute new bull calf makes all our hard work worth it. There is nothing like finding a new calf on the wet grass..........his momma brought him in after we had gathered the rest of the herd this morning. I think she was teaching him how to sneak into the feed barn!
Check out the big ol fat cow pony, Ojos holding the rope. He is a pretty nice boy. I sure wish he would get over being so touchy of other people around though. I will hang a note on his corral. I am sure he will get right on it.
Nice loop in the air, can't remember if it caught or not. I am not that into roping. I can enjoy it sometimes, but I was thrown into the fire with this lifestyle. Not that I am complaining but I can go in and get a job done but I get bored roping over and over without having a job to do. Besides I had to be available to help the vet cut a colt we have sold this morning in the midst of the roping day. Thank goodness that colt finally had brain surgery! I was going to kill him! Jeremy will put 30 more days on him and then he is off to his new home! Yeah!
Can you believe that dirty face?! Him and Sage played outside all day. Happy as pie to be in the dirt with his tractors. 
My sweet girlie with Gator the cat. He is the silliest cat. I bottle fed him when he was a baby so I think that is why he is nutty. He will sit on the calves while we have them roped and on the ground branding. Just sit up on top of them wrinkling his nose at the smoke. He provides plenty of entertainment for people when they come over. 
That is Joe with his rope in the air and Lane on the head. 
Jeremy and Beverly on her sweet mule. 
How could I forget one of my favorites?! I call her Charlene. Get it? 
This is one of our original cows from when we started our herd. I call her Horny. Notice I said I call her that. The other half around here wouldn't dream of naming them.
This is a cow that is about two years old now. Jeremy loves her, I think she is rangy and kind of ugly. I just asked Jeremy who her mother is and he said her mother is Horny, funny huh? He remembers all of them.
This is, are you ready for this one? Herfy. Get it Herfy cause she is hereford! I kill me! We bought her at the Lancaster Sales Yard a million years ago at the same time we bought a yearling paint filly we called Annie. It was just before we bought the rest of the original herd. She has had several pretty nice calves.
This cow is a couple years old at least. She was a tiny calf when we moved the cows to this pasture from Tehachapi. We had already moved here and had planned on moving the cows eventually and keeping the pasture in Tehachapi for the horses. We got a call one day in July saying from the gal that had been watering the cattle saying it was on fire. I could hardly understand her she was so hysterical. Jeremy and I had been gathering cattle out by Neenach for Centennial and I was just finishing tying my horse up in the trailer. Which also meant we were a solid hour away from our pasture in Tehachapi with a empty tank of gas and not a single gas station between the two places. Sage was at Nana's in Tehachapi (I was about five months pregnant with Steele) so I was sure to answer the phone in case it was her. We hurried and put some diesel from the ranch tank in the truck and got up there as fast as we could to see what we could do. I had told the gal that called, since she was screaming at me "I don't know what to do" over and over again. Just cut the fence, open the gates, whatever you can and get out of the way so they can fight it. Of course we finally get up there and all we could do is park a couple miles down the road and wait. The smoke was so thick you couldn't even see anything. And of course they had the road blocked off. The worst thing we could do is get in the way and risk our lives. We just hoped and prayed they animals got our of the way of the flames. We did have some friends in a jeep that had gotten up on the other side and told us they saw some of the cows but we didn't know where my little mustang mare was. Our pasture was near the windmill company in Tehachapi that Jeremy used to work for. Thankfully one of the road maintence guys came along and was able to take Jeremy up and see if he could find my horse. The Morantes' also run cattle up that way so they were there with a trailer so when Jeremy finally located Cheyenne, and get her caught up (several miles from where the pasture was) they hauled her down to me. I cried and cried. Damn it, I didn't know I liked her so much. Plus I was pregnant so I guess I was extra emotional. Not to mention we didn't know if we had lost any animals yet. In the end (since this has become quite a longer story than I intended) it took us several days but we got everything caught up and moved. Only a couple of the cows had melted ear tags and whiskers.
What is the darn deal with this?! Does he speak a different language that "smile" has some other meaning to him? The little rascal.............
Jeremy and the kids checking out the peacocks at the fruit barn on the side of the 58.
We stopped at a fruit barn on the way home from picking up the little Arab mare yesterday. It gave the kids a chance to run around a bit and let the horse rest a minute since she had just finally stopped rocking the trailer. This was the view looking out of the parking lot, looking out to the 58 freeway. We couldn't get over how green it was! Ahhhhh, the pastures are looking so great! We are lucky and always have had fat cows, even on the desert side. But last year they started to look a bit on the trimmer side. We are so happy about all the rain we have gotten and the cows will be happy. 
He's a big boy now! Daddy took this picture with his cell phone. Is this not the cutest thing you ever saw? He went the whole day without a pull up and enjoyed it very much. I am so proud of him.........oh and the hat, jeez he is killing me. He has been wearing that hat everywhere cause it is like daddy's. I just want to bite that little cute boody!
Today we had to head to Bakersfield to pick up a new training horse. It is a little Arab mare that someone rescued from the big rescue operation of 80 horses (they all happened to be resued from a supposed rescue, just to add insult to injury) that happened around here a few months back. Anyhow, Jeremy had heard motorcycles all morning. They just love this weather cause they don't have the heat and dust. Isn't that nice of them? Anyhow we decided to call the local deputy that has been patrolling the area and we also called dispatch. Well, they got their butts right out here and on our way out to pick up the little Arab horse we run into this. I absolutley LOVED it! The lights were the kicker. I sure wish he would have turned on the siren too! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts Kern County Sheriffs!
I think he though he just got a heart shaped box for Valentine's day. And then when he realized there was chocolate in it!!! Wow!
Me and Sage with out Valentine's day goodies. I don't know why Sage wasn't smiling, the silly girl. I think she was just tired. She sure loved her gift from daddy.
Daddy and Steele eating their chocolates. Good thing they shared cause the next morning Steele snuck his off the counter and took them under his bed and ate them all!
Can you tell I am over this whole snow thang?! I guess the kicker was waking up to find the two dead baby goats frozen into the ground a couple of mornings ago.......call me crazy but I am kind of sick of the snow.
Tracking cows......it is always easy to find them in the snow.
The old Oak tree to the east as your heading out the front gate. The great side of 
Whatever they call it this is all I have with all this crappy weather and snow we have got lately. The cows come home, begging for a meal...........like they live in Montana or something. SHEESH! Okay fine, I am kidding. I love to see them. But they had better be ready to stay out of my garden this year. I plan to have the best garden ever this coming spring! Wish me luck! Oh, and the blueberrys I planted last year should really produce this year. I can't wait!
This was the view out of my back window Saturday morning. I had met several of the people signed up in the clinic at the pavement to guide them into our place for the clinic. We had been threatened with bad weather for a few day before. Come Saturday we still had half of the people signed up ready and willing to stick it out. I couldn't believe it. Jeremy had talked to a couple that was signed up and that had come from a couple hours away on Friday and they had wanted to stick it out so he said he would be available to the ones willing to still come despite the weather. For the ones that it would have been too dangerous to drive we set a rain date. We still had a great time. We got extremely lucky and stayed dry the whole weekend. Saturday it rained pretty good for about an hour. The same hour we had all come in the house for some chili and to warm up. A big huge thank you to those of you that stuck it out with us!
This is what our world looked like this morning. Nevermind the date the camera says it is on the picture. It lies. I was standing in the driveway looking south when I took this picture. Sage and I watched the snow start falling when we woke up this morning. As we laid there the flakes got bigger and thicker. It was beautiful. The feeling has now worn off and I wish it was dry again.
This was on the way to town to get groceries and see a movie. Ummmmmm I think the cows are on the wrong side of the fence......... There were about 20-25 cows on the wrong side of the fence. We aren't sure how they got there but it wouldn't be too hard for them to step through it in some places where the butthole dirtbikers have either cut it or pushed it down. We were able to get them back in pretty easy and headed to town.
This is what the gate looked like on the way home. The snow had began again and the wind was howling. Poor Jeremy, I always think I am so funny to drive away while he is trying to get back in the car. I felt bad for him when I heard him yelling over the wind, "don't, it hurts!". The snow was a cross between hail and snow with the wind driving it home. Poor guy!
Sorry about the blurry picture, just pretend you have been drinking! Here are the renagades that were on the wrong side of the fence earlier. They were all trying to hide in that bush to get out of the snow/hail. 
