For my dirtbiking friends.

I think you boys are silly with your anonymous comments. Your just classifying yourselves with the bunch you call "renegades". There is no reason if your butt is clean to not post your name with your comment. Specially if you want to be so "neighborly". I can't even imagine what your presentation for me is or how you plan to "present" it to me, but I find it equally amusing your spending so much time worrying about what I am doing. Oh and driving the number of visits up on my blog. Thank you for that! Anyhow, the bottom line is if you stay on your land we will have no problems. I could give a rats ass what you do on your own property. Have fun and if it is not yours don't touch it. I am reasonable like that! Oh and by the way in California when you raise cattle on the range it is called a "ranch" not a "farm".

Bully.........

We finally arrived yesterday to pick up the new dude. I have no idea what Dustin was doing with the other ugly one. Dustin is our friend that found the bull for us. He is an auctioneer all over California so he was able to find us a good one.

This is what he looked like when Jeremy was walking into the pen to sort him out and load him. The kids and I hid out on the loading chute hoping he didn't get ran over.

Yep, good boy. I think he is going to work.

This cow was hot in season and we are hoping the darn longhorn/corriente bull didn't get her first.

Checking out the girls on the outside of the pen.

It's hard to tell but up on the hill is the new calf from the other day.

I just can't believe how pretty the flowers are right now..........makes me sad to think how brown everything will be in a few months.

Mustang Makeover 2007 pics

I found these old pictures on CD when I was wrestling with my old computer for my tagged challenge. It sure is fun to look at old photos and I sure wish I could have gotten my old computer to work!!!! I think I will have to take it in.

This is Jeremy and Joe Misner in New Mexico at the place where we met up and all stayed the night. This was the next morning on the way to Texas for the competition. They both wanted to get their horses out and go for a quick ride.

And this............I know I know I say this all the time. But really, can they get any cuter?! The gal the owned the ranch where we stayed had a litter of pups while we were there and one of them died. I have no idea why but she let Sage carry the darn thing around. Poor sweet Sage, I think she thought if she got it warm it would come back alive. She was ready to load it in the truck and haul it to Texas with us. I made the lady take it from her finally.

I believe this was also Steele's first lesson at giving her flowers by her direction.

I've been tagged!

I am so darn excited to be tagged in blogland! Thanks for including me gtyyup over at http://jksroughstring.blogspot.com/ It's my first! I think I might take the challenge twice if I can get my old computer fired up. It has way old pictures on it. But for now here is the tenth picture in the tenth file on this computer, which I haven't had very long so you might have already seen it.

This was from the day we hauled the old bull to the sale along with a couple others. Ironically enough we just picked up the new bull today.

Some of the feral horses on the mountain

Can you believe these clowns? These horses are wild. Someone forgot to tell them I think. Tonight we had to head over to Tehachapi for our appt. with Sage's teacher. We decided to go over the mountain instead of around since we had a bit of extra time and we wanted to check our cattle on the way. We are very lucky to have permission to pass through all the private property on the way through. We came around the corner and there they were. They were a couple of stud colts. One was licking the ground and was too busy to be bothered by us needing by.

Look at that face. I just wanted to bite his ears he was so cute!

The studs are alway so curious and confident.

Ummmm, hello..........car and your a wild horse, remember?! I guess they probably get this all the time in Nevada.

I put my arm out to him hoping he would come and touch me. For a second I thought he was going to and then he remembered himself. Sage was in the back carrying on about why we were stopping, we need to get to McDonalds. You know they have a playground for goodness sakes and she gets to see the horses all the time!!!

More new calves!

They don't get much cuter than this little girl! We have been worrying lately (well, I have. I don't thing Jeremy does much worrying) about why we haven't had more calves yet. We do still have the wild dog problem and you never know. But something has changed and in the last week we have had several hit the ground.

This is the latest. Jeremy and Linda found her when they went out on a ride today. I got to see her when we headed over the mountain to meet Sage's teacher.

You can't ask for better grass than that in Southern California! We are soooooo thankful for all the wonderful rain and snow we have gotten this season. Of course we won't complain if we get more........

The new bull

Here is the new man in town. We are going to try and get him picked up on Friday. We have only been without one for three months..........we don't like to rush into things around here..........

We think he will work out pretty good, don't you?! He is a bit flighty and looks like he might have some fight in him but will most likely settle when we pair him up with the cows. We will see how he works out. As long as he is not going to go after the horses I think we will get along with him. We had the gentlest Brahma bull that would lick your face and at the same time he had no respect for the horses or going anywhere that was not his idea. He lifted Jeremy and one of the horses off the ground one day. We didn't make the decision he had to go though until he blasted through the feed barn and helped himself and the rest of the herd to the hay.

My Sweet Girl.

Sage is so darn sweet. I am not sure I have said that so I just wanted to cover that base. I saw this today and wondered what on earth she was doing to the poor pony. And at the same time I thought how sweet it was he lets her come right up to him when he is sleeping. He is blind after all. I also thought it was so cute that all her animals were sitting right by her. You can't see the cats she claims in the picture. So of course I ran for the camera and then got closer to see what she was doing to him.

She thought he needed his feet cleaned out. I think she got the idea from Jeremy's old horse Carver. We had to put him down a few months back but he was a retired cutting horse and had very bad arthritis and Jeremy would trim his feet while he was laying down.

Animals are so amazing what they do for kids. I had to hurry and get my picture and get out of there cause just him hearing my voice close he was going to get up. I sure didn't want to disturb this scene!

Spectacular Spring color!

Can you believe how darn beautiful this is? I feel so lucky to be blessed with my sight to get to experience this! The picture hardly does it justice. This was on the way out of our place heading to the hardware store today. I am always the lucky gopher since the guys valuable time is better spent working on the place. This picture is looking over the west side of the Antelope Valley. The pink you can see below is a peach orchard off 170th st west. Then the green and then you can't hardly see it but at the base of the small hill in the middle of the picture is the orange of the California Poppies, at the Poppy reserve off of Ave. D. Then on the hill is the yellow flowers. Then the dark green of the bigger mountains in the far back of the picture. Just spectacular and I am sorry you couldn't see for yourself and all you get is this lamer version with my even lamer description! I hope you still enjoy it!

Home Improvement............

So our poor old house is challenged. We know that and we still love it. Some of you may remember awhile back when I had to use the outhouse for a couple of weeks. Oh yeah........smack in the middle of winter. And poor Jeremy had the flu something awful the day we replaced the sewer pipe so the last thing he wanted to do is mess with the drain pipe too. He barely survived the sewer pipe. And although we knew if the sewer pipe went out most likely the drain pipe should be replaced too but like I said he barely survived it.

So about a week ago the drain started backing up and smelling really bad............ugh! I haven't bugged him too bad about it til today. I need to be able to take a shower without worrying. I need to stop brushing my teeth in the kitchen............blah blah blah. It rained and snowed all weekend so I though it would be the perfect time to dig it up while to ground was wet. Not to mention our friend Paul was here to help us out.
Here is my poor tore up front yard........that is Paul finishing his beer in the background. He dug this whole thing while I was at the hardware store torturing the poor man helping me with my woman's list of what I needed. Don't they educate these guys on what a thingy is? Jeez! Jeremy was riding and Paul was digging, what a great friend. The trench is right next to where the pipe is laid out.

This is what I was doing when I got home. I also thought the wet ground was a great time to weed everywhere. This particular planter is where I want to put some of my berry plants. There is a fence in there somewhere. Once I get it weeded the rest of the way and the brush cleared it will be perfect! I am so excited!

I really don't even know why I took this picture. Or why I posted it. I am not proud of our poor old falling down garage. Like I have said so many darn times, there are sooooooo many projects around here it is always hard to decide what to make a priority of. There used to be a line of trees down the driveway and the time we moved in they had died off and the wind had blown them over. I remember the first time we saw the place you couldn't even drive up to the house there were so many downed trees on the driveway. Several were still standing when we moved in and we hurried and took as many as we could down so they wouldn't fall on stuff. Unfortunatley the woodshed on the side of the garage fell victim to a couple trees. So did my old Ford truck! It still drives but is pretty much only driven on the ranch now. Anyhow, I guess my point was the garage is still waiting not so patiently for it's turn to be repaired. I hope it can hold up til we can get to it!

Dirtbiker

There isn't too much to say about these jerks. But this is an on going battle around here. Like I said before I had been up and at em early last Tuesday morning to be at the meeting in Tehachapi that only a few landowners were invited to. It included the Forest Service, PCT officials, BLM rangers, Kern county Sheriff seargents and a Lt. and Mary Beth Garrison from the supervisors office.

I had rushed home after feeling like crap just barely recovering from a nasty cold. It was the first day I was even sortof functional again. I still had to take the dog to the vet and run a few errands before I could get home and rest like I needed so badly. So I get home and not long after these two so boldy drive into our canyon wanting us to tell them how to get back to their truck which was parked on 190th st west and Ave. D (just for our LA County sheriff friends!). I am getting letters ready to send out to all the law enforcement people about this issue. I think I will include these guys' picture just for impact. Jeremy and Paul were right smack in the middle of trying to get a halter on the wild mare Katrina for the first time. We are running out of valuable time with her because she is now bagged up (for those of you that might not know what that means, she is going to have a baby real soon.). So it would be real nice to be able to halter her if need be. Back to the inconsiderate buttholes..............they thought they had done us a huge favor by driving in real slow. They also somehow thought this was a showing of respect. I hardly think so since they admitted they knew they were trespassing. They admitted they had in fact passed several no tresspassing signs but were already too far in. They said they had been way up on top of the mountain too. Come to find out they had also cut another landowners fence trying to get out. They could have at least put it back!

If you look in the background of this picture you can see his friend leaving. At least he had half a brain and decided he had better just leave instead of standing around to argue. I mean really what is there to argue about? They are completely in the WRONG. We are not against dirtbikers completely. We are not extremists that want to see them all burn in hell. No, only the ones riding around here. If you are going to have a bike and want to ride it, do your homework. Find out where it is okay to ride. AND RESPECT IT if it is not okay for you to go somewhere. Anybody with even a small portion of brains in their head can do some research on the internet and find out if it is or isn't okay to ride somewhere. (You found my blog didn't you? sorry another personal message) Then again, you have jerks like the ones pictured that KNOW they are riding where they shouldn't and are only sorry when they get caught. Don't waste my time and offend me by even bothering to apologize when you know you were wrong in the first place. Your only sorry you got caught! Another thing to note, just in case anyone is wondering most of this land out here is private. The BLM land here is not accessable and not authorized for offroad use. Speaking of that the BLM is supposed to be out here this weekend and next writing tickets............I just remembered! YEAH! It has been snowing off and on today and yesterday we were gone. I wonder how it is going with them.
Back to the buttheads that were here the other day, I took their pictures and the picture of their green stickers and the sheriff is going to try and get a photo line up for me and then issue a warrant. I can't wait to see it through, if only to make an example out of these guys! We will keep it up the fight for our land and lively hood back. We have had several new calves born recently and you would think that when these guys eat meat they can remember the people that bust their a$$es to make a living the old fashioned way so they can still eat beef and maybe they could respect the land and the animals they are crapping on. Respect might be a word they will have to look up in the dictionary though.

Saturday

Saturday we had lessons to do in Bear Valley all day. Since Friday was my birthday and I didn't really get to spend it with Jeremy, I continued to milk it and asked him to puleeze buy me a coffee from Starbucks on out way.

This silly bird was in the car up ahead of us. He was so darn cute! He was even pinker than the picture shows. Can you see the straw in his mouth? Even the lady in the car in front of us is smiling. The kids just loved him. I wish we could have seen him closer and got to play with him!

This is the pond at the Equestrian Center where we (don't you just love how I say "we"?) were doing the lessons. The kids and I were playing near the pond and I was cracking up at these two black birds chattering at each other. you can't tell in the pictures but they had the most beautiful orange on their necks and wings.

Here are the ducks Steele was in love with. He took this picture. I love how there is a circle ripple around them.

My sweet girl finds the beauty in even dandielions (sp?). She is such a clutz like me, I think she fell down five times by the end of the day. Goofy girl!
I know the buttheaded dirtbiker is waiting for his story so I will get to that soon.

Another day in the life.......

I had such a fun day yesterday, getting to hang out with my animals and ride. But...........I am not used to it anymore and after a couple days on the couch being sick, my butt is sore! My legs are sore, I am so tired.........ugh. I just want to go to my room and go to sleep. But it is my birthday and I want to hang with the family for the rest of the day milking it.

I just had to go to town today and run some errands, go to the bank and make some phone calls. So on the way out of the property I got to see the mares grazing. Jeremy put out his little filly, Itchy yesterday and she is loving it! That is her in the middle. Jeremy had hoped she would pal up with Cat cause she is such a solid minded mare. Cat is on the right and Sueana his buckskin mare on the left.

Grumpy wench! Isn't Cat a pretty mare? I love her.
She is Poco's mother. Cody is Poco's daddy.

Just beyond our bottom gate on Tejon land we saw this. It is so darn neat that the kids get to grow up like this. I would have given my right arm to grow up on a place like this. Thank God I did get my first horse at 13 and I did run amuck in the desert with my good friend Julie. But a place like this............ahhhhhh. I can't wait til they are old enough to disapear on their horses for hours at a time. Not because I want them out of my hair but because this is a kids paradise. They will have so much fun!

A couple of miles further down the road they are running sheep in the desert.

I thought this guy was very cute.

And this guy..............can you see his hat?! He was very proud of himself. We were almost home and I had gotten back in the car from closing the gate and I hear look Mom! It is a hat! Sage and him had gotten big ol huge gum balls out of the machine at the hardware store. Oh yeah, it's his gumball. He is still wearing it in his hair as I write. He keeps asking me, "will you get this out?". Poor guy, I hit this chair and cannot drag my butt up again. I keep telling him "sure Buddy, I will get it in a minute." I swear I am going for mother of the year!

I got to ride all day!

This is the only picture I have from yesterday. I asked Mary to come and hang with the kids so I could ride all day. It was great! Beautiful day, I got to ride my Poco for a bit and then I rode Cody out to gather and sort. I sure love that horse. I thought he was going to be a raving punk. He has been so concerned with the mares being turned out all he has done is pace and watch them. So I thought for sure he would be a brat when I got him out to ride. I should know better than to under estimate him, he has never let me down. I sure wish I had more pictures but the dinosour camera I have it too hard to carry with me. For so many of you that have asked, I will post the story on the dirtbikers picture later tonight. I have a ton of catching up to do as far as errands and phone calls so it will have to wait. Not to mention I need to drop off the hard copy of the guys pictures to the sheriff!

Have you seen this dirtbiker?!

I want to apologize to my other readers as I have a personal message for this guy. I will be back to my regular fun stuff real soon!

So big guy, I guess you will get to be acountable for your bad decision! Oh and the landowners fence you cut up on the mountain is not happy either. I think he is a lawyer............you should have drove a little further and went to Cal City where it is okay for you to ride. All the way from Calabasas is quite a commute already I know. And when someone is VERY upset and FED UP with grown men riding where they know they shouldn't be, shoving their lame excuses down your throat and expecting someone else to get them out of their predicament that doesn't make her a B***H. It just makes you an A$$HOLE with no manners! Do you like my blog?

How my day went.

My day started out at 3am for some strange reason. I don't know why I was up so darn early. I had to be at a meeting in Tehachapi at 830am. So I guess I didn't want to miss it. The meeting was with the Forest Service, BLM officials, Sheriff Dept., PCT officials, ORV Watch Kern County and a few of us concerned property owners that are having such a problem with the unlawful dirtbikers. It felt like a huge waste of 2 hours (not counting the 2hour drive time) of my time. We are all still sitting with our hands tied. BLM did say they would be in the area the next two weekends enforcing the no offroading out here. I hate to be a pessamist but time will tell if the problem will improve. Funding issues have cut back how responsive the Sheriff has been. You know the story, the country is going to hell in a hand basket...............

So I rushed home from the meeting to pick up the kids so Jeremy could get some work done. Not to mention I needed to get Moose to the vet since he has developed kennel cough after being picked up by the pound a week ago. Moose and the kids were very good at the vet. Even Steele gave me the sweetest smile I think I have ever caught on film. What a little rascal, I want to print the picture and hang it from my forehead so I can see it all the time! Sage gave a sweet smile too, but she is always sweet!

We left the vet with our meds and headed to McDonalds to get some late lunch. Then I headed to Big Lots to hopefully get the Polaroid camera they had advertised for a really good deal. Darn! They had sold out!! So we headed over to the local feed store to beg them to please load two bales of hay into my little jeep liberty. We will be getting a delivery tomorrow but needed a few bales to get us by in the morning. We feed two bales per feeding, not to mention some of the horses eat cubes. Lotso hay and money we go through around here..........YIKES!
This was within about a mile and a half from home. I thought it was so pretty with the wildflowers blooming and the clouds peeking over the mountains.

Calendar?!

I think I could get into the calendar making business! If my photography skills were better that is. But the scenery sure isn't lacking! Sorry poor husband for exploiting you! I couldn't help it! She is a pretty horse.......This is a two year old filly that is not halter broke. We were wanting to move her and remembered, she needs to be worked with. So he stopped everything else he was doing to get her out and do what should have been done a long time ago. She is a tough little cookie and put up a pretty good difference of an opinion. By the end of their session she was using her head much better.

Riding their cars at Grandpas

Sunday was my dad's birthday, so we took him out to brunch at the local Mexican place. I don't know what I would do if we lived somewhere where they didn't have good Mexican restaurants.

Afterward we went over to Grandpa's to let the kids play on their cars. They just love these darn things! Steele kills me, he has rode this motorcycle like he knows what he is doing ever since he was 18 months old.

The new baby goat

So my Saturday turned out nothing like I had envisioned. I had big plans of saddling my sweet little Poco filly and riding with the kids on Chico. Jeremy had lots to do and was riding like usual to catch up on some days he has missed on the outside horses. Well, I woke up grumpy as can be with a wicked sore throat. The wind was howling all night and I wound up sleeping on the couch cause I don't think our drafty bedroom was helping me sleep. This poor old house is so challenged and still needs lots of TLC. The wind comes down out of the north and right into this canyon and that side of the house has taken a beating over the years. Anyhow, back to my day. Being a grump I didn't want to deal with the kids and them fighting over the ONE horse so I just puttered around. Jeremy was saddling Chico for Sage and Steele and I were getting ready to make sure the gate was unlocked for some company that was coming to bring me berry plants! As we were leaving the house we passed by the goat pen and noticed one of the really young goats had a foot hanging out of her. JEEZ! She shouldn't be pregnant!!! She is so small I knew she would need help. So I drove my little golf cart over and got my rope and then figured I had better get help. Mike and Paul were both here and Jeremy also came over. Great guys! THey stopped everything they were doing to come and help me and my poor damsel goat.

The darn thing is almost as big as her! It was not an easy delivery on the poor girl. Her pelvis was just too small but we got him out and they are both doing fine. I had to milk her and bottle feed him the first couple of time since it took her awhile to be able to stand steady.

What the boys were up to today.

Isn't this some pretty country? Way off in the distance Jeremy and Paul were loading telephone poles. We were given permission to take the remaining poles from a telephone line that has been there forever. I am not even sure if it was ever used and over the years people cut them down and took them but this stretch of poles was on Tejon land so they were never taken. This is only about two miles from our place.

Can you guess which horse this is? Just in case you don't know him the horse is Ojos, 2007 Extreme Mustang Makeover Finalist. There is a whole page dedicated to their journey on our website www.jbcattleco.com Jeremy thought he would be perfect for the job at hand. Some of the poles were up on hills way away from the road and instead of tearing up good pasture with the truck, and some places you couldn't even get the truck, he used Ojos to drag the poles down to the road and then him and Paul would load them in the trailer. Of course I didn't get pictures of them working cause I was off sipping ice tea in town. I am such a trooper, I tell ya! They parked up on top and worked their way down. Paul would drive the truck and Jeremy on the horse.

Did I mention that I ran off to town to have lunch and do some shopping? Did I mention a phone call I got about a certain couple of guys that wanted me to pick up some beer? I get home to find this..........then to our relief Uncle Bill pulls up and says "quite a predicament, huh?" Thankfully he offered to unhook his trailer and pull our truck out. It wouldn't have happened but the 4-wheel drive has not been working on the ol dodge for quite some time now. And my husband reminds me regularly that he is a horse trainer not a mechanic. ARGH!

Bill Perez and Bobby Linn had been out doing some work around here today were heading out at just the right time!

Misc pictures

This is where my grapevine is going to be. There used to be one years ago and then the fire came through. You can still see burn marks on some of the posts. I weeded it out last year and tried to repair it the best I could. I tried to plant some grapes there last year but the water situation was not worked out yet and I wasn't able to keep them alive. I will have better luck this year I am sure.

Here is what the kids were up to after I kicked them out of the house cause they were making me nuts! Poor blind Squeakers, he puts up with so much! Those sacks thrown over his neck are their lunch sacks. And Yes, Steele is in his pajamas. I am mother of the year. I didn't get out of my pjs either!

This is Beau Bunny. She has been out running around in my garden for the last two weeks having a blast.

Jeremy and Linda heading over the hill for a ride yesterday while the kids and I were out playing.

The mares are settling in real nice. It is so great to see them out like they should be instead of standing around looking at the same four walls.