Ramblings

So life has continued to be a whirlwind. A couple of weeks ago we brought in the cattle and sorted out some we wanted to sell so that we didn't have to look after them through the winter. I held back about a dozen steers to sell next year for grassfed beef. Of course there were severall things to deal with. We tagged a few of the calves and will have to brand them soon. We really need to start pulling the bulls out so we have a regular calving season. Even though this is California we still get some crazy weather in the winter.

The kids are in full swing with their homeschooling work and really are getting into a great routine together. This is the first year they seem to be working in sync really well. Of course I am still chained to the table with them to help along and read text book sections. Meaning I cannot clean the corrals and see my animals.....It seems like I hardly get out of the house during the week unless we go to town. Speaking of town, thank goodness soccer is over! As stinking adorable as Sage was playing it was pretty taxing getting her to practice twice a week and then a game every Saturday. Her first year was full of fun. She had a great coach and met alot of really neat girls. She even got to have one over to the ranch as Steele buddyied up with the girl's brother and they came to his birthday shooting party. It was really fun for Sage to get to share our lives with her.

Back to some news about my animals....a mare of ours went missing. The smaller of the two wild herds had started coming down lower and lower. Well you can do the math....she is most likely pregnant. She finally showed up a couple days later pretty beat up as well. She is in a corral now and we have some friends that have expressed an interest in the foal if she is in fact pregnant. I should sell raffle tickets for the darn thing. I will haul her in to work one day soon and have her checked. There is just hardly any spare time for anything extra.

On that note we finally found the time to trade in our Jeep. Following the advice of our mechanic/friend we found a used Toyota 4runner. We absolutely love that car! We even checked cows tonight and it handled great. It is much nicer and I am feeling pretty spoiled. Hopefully we won't tear it up to bad!

The windmill project out here is in full swing and we are just hating it. Everyday except Sunday we can hear the heavy equipment making huge roads all over the hillside. There is even going to be one just over the hill so it will most likely be visable from the house.... :(

Until next time.......

Halloween Indian

Halloween Fireman

Catching up.....

So Fall has fallen. We had snow on the mountain tops around these parts. We have had a fire in the wood stove the past three nights. We are back in full swing with homeschooling and having a great time with it although I miss cleaning the corrals. Does that even make sense?!
Remember my future milk cow Blossom? She is officially knocked up! All those nights shopping for semen online we nailed it....figuratively speaking. She is due May 5th Cinco de Mayo. I think I'll call it Fiesta!
We have the vet coming out tomorrow to put our brand on the horses. I finally ordered and recieved the copper brand so that we can freeze brand them. We have planned that for years and have never had the time to make it happen. It will happen finally tomorrow. How good it feels to finally be doing the things that had gotten set on the back burner for so long. With the kids getting older and being able to help out it seems as though things are happening around here faster and more efficiently.
We were blessed with a two stall barn over the summer and have gotten it put up. We also have aquired three two sided shelters and are getting them up for the horses.
A very good friend of ours staying here at the ranch has allowed us a few trips this summer. Well I take that back, we have only left once. Jeremy roped in Carmel Valley with Bruce Sandifer a couple weeks back. It was a very fun trip. I wished we had more people interested in the ranch roping around here.......
With that rambling of updates I had better head to bed. Morning will come early. With the cold weather maybe I will be updating this blog more often.....

My Redneck Romeo

Belle the leppy calf

This little doll is Belle. Jeremy named her that in memory of her momma. Her momma we called Anabelle and was our very favorite cow. She was one of our original cows and never failed to have a baby every year for us. She was old when we got her and that was at least 8 years ago. New Years day we went out to check on the cows and see what new surprises there were when we were introduced to this little one. I have started taking pics of all the new babies and mommies so that when we brand we know who belongs to who. It was a darn good thing I did.

Thursday morning we had a friend come up to deliver hay to us. He was unloading when he says "what's wrong with that #1 cow?" We gave her the number one because she was our favorite.

Well last we knew nothing was wrong with her. He says she was just laying in the middle of the road miles from where she should have been......

Of course we were still up to our eyeballs in chores around here and really didn't have the time to go on another adventure but we dropped everything and hauled the trailer down there to see what we could do. We have the good doctor meet us there and we all decided it was best to put her down. The entire time we were there we were looking for small tracks because we knew she had a calf. None were to be found. We thought for sure the coyotes had gotten her and we were left to just deal with the situation at hand. We finally got back to the ranch where Jeremy resumed trying to unfreeze our pipes and get us water. We had been without for days, thankfully Jeremy had just watered the animals so they were all good. I packed up the kids and off we went in search of this baby. You can imagine our delight in finding her! Getting her in was another adventure in itself!

Santa is a bad mistress......

So a couple days ago Jeremy, the kids and I got a rare trip to town together thanks to all the rain. We almost always start a trip to town with stopping at the post office. Jeremy came out with a package and the mail. I did'nt think anything of it since I had been doing a bit of shopping on ebay. So he says what did you expect in the package? To which I say "oh I don't remember probably a shirt I bought on ebay." and he says "well why does it have my name on it? And why is a shirt so heavy?" So then I start paying a bit more attention. I tell him well heck I don't know, who is it from? We didn't recognize the name so he decided to open it.

Good think it wasn't explosive the way we were ripping it open. Looking back I sure wish someone had planted a camera in the car and we had it videoed. As he started pulling stuff out of the box he is saying "OH MY GOSH!!!" And I am driving down the freeway yelling "What is it?!?!" He is insisiting I must have had something to do with it. He is just sure I at least know something about it.

Turns out this little mistress is a Hansen String Cutter sent by none other than someone named "Santa". Still ripping things out of the box and swerving to, as Jeremy put it "rudely rip the card out of his hand" that is who signed the card. That's all we know. Santa.

Sooooooo Santa are you ever going to reveal yourself?! Such a wonderfully generous and thoughtful gift we sure would love to be able to at least say Thank You!