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!

Here's for Zach and Ana!

What is a trip to Knott's without an old west pic?!

How should I do this? clockwise starting at the top;

January (the other tech), Jeremy, Dr. Byerly, wait how do you do clockwise if there is another row......crap. Anyhow below Dr. B is his wife Andrea, all around her are their boys, Steele is in the middle on the bottom, I am below Jeremy, Sage is to my left and the other little girl is January's daughter. What a great group. We all had the best time!

This is what we do to our kids in our spare time! It was so funny, the next day we asked him which was his favorite ride and this was it. He keeps telling everyone he only made that face for the picture! So funny!

Knott's Berry Farm

We had talked about going to Knott's for Steele's bday and then decided not to since the stagecoach and the steam train was not running during that time.

Then the vet that I work for said we were doing a Knott's trip. Sort of a Merry Christmas to us trip. We were all over it!

The little turds, I had to threaten to leave if they did not get over there and give me a picture of them with Snoopy. I mean really, is it a trip to Knott's without one?! Snoopy was so cool, he tickled them when they tried to walk away. Take that suckers!

You know my favorite ride was the stagecoach! Steele and I rode on top while everyone else rode inside. The little girl next to him talked his ear off. It was so cute, you could tell it embarassed him but he was polite to her. I think he thought she was cute!

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the stage coach. Made me miss Denzel Cameron too.

He was a horse trainer for the movies that I was lucky enough to spend a couple of years with.

Steele carries his name as his middle name.

Steele, of course loved all the trains and the Calico Mine was no exception.

Sage on the other hand rode the whole way on the floor of our train car! She was so scared. It wasn't even a thrill ride, she just did'nt like the dark. Poor girlie.

This is the same girl that rode the Pony Express ride while I chickened out and watched.

Steele and I on the bumper cars. Poor Steelie was so upset because everyone else was going on a water ride that he was not tall enough to go on. So we went and took it out on the bumper cars!

He loved the carousel, but watched it go around while we were waiting in line to carefully select the one that did not go up and down. He is so funny.

One of the things I wanted to do was see the glass blowing. There are so many things that are a dying art and I was so happy to see they were still making these things by hand and not buying them in Tiawan or somewhere like that.

We had the best time and I have a few more pics to share and stories to tell about them.

Since I haven't been to good about updating this thing I will have to give you a couple posts today. Specially since we are all grounded to the livingroom today with a sick girlie.

Stay tuned!

Pickin Apples

We had to run errands today and Jeremy came along since it was raining buckets at home. And he needed to see the chiropractor again......

I have always wanted to stop at this cute little place and pick apples but never had the time.
Today we made the time. It was so fun. My kiddos are adorable. I love how they are game for anything. Jeremy and I wanted to ones on the ground for the cows and goats!

My little rascals. They just don't come any cuter. Of course I am bias.

Playing with the scanner.

I was looking for something yesterday and came upon a bunch of pics I thought were neat. In looking at this one I think, looking at the tire tracks and the look on Jeremy's face, I must have driven through the gate and then wanted to get a pic so I backed up and made him close the gate. Aren't I sweet? I am sure I had the heater on in the car.....

This is a couple of friends of ours at one of our brandings. Mike Bromley is standing. He is a blacksmith in the area and a darn good one too. On his horse is Freddie and his horse Brutis.

And this my good friend Angie and her stud Heck. We have a baby of his that no one fails to notice when they are here at the ranch.

A lazy Sunday.

This wasn't actually this Sunday. I think it was a couple of Sundays ago. It was a beautiful day and we all got to just laze around and do whatever we wanted with our time.

My handsome little man. Doing what he does best. Digging in the dirt and playing with his tractors. Is he not the cutest thing you have ever seen?

This is what I found Jeremy doing. I think it was right before I called him a sissy and told him to get naked and get in with her.

He took me serious and did it!!! This is all I will show of the pics though!

hahahaha!!!

Prissy Poopie

So I have a story to tell. Well, I have alot of stories lately just no time to write them. Our trip to Alturas was a much needed getaway for us. We had a wonderful trusted friend to watch the place and we were able to be carefree about leaving the ranch. Of course our truck was another story. We had great friends here with us from Sweden that traveled with us. We finally got to meet Martin's family and Sage and Ida were almost instant friends. In fact she rode in their car all the way to Alturas. It was a pretty easy drive for us with just Steele with us in the truck. Well, easy is a relative term. It would have been easy if it were for the truck overheating and the tires on the trailer blowing out. We broke up the drive in two days since we were hauling horses and kids.......not to mention we have a great friend that lives halfway between here and there. Mary always rolls out the red carpet for us and this time was no exception. We all had a wonderful meal (my favorite, pizza!), great company and comfy beds.

Friday we moved on to Alturas and thankfully got there relatively uneventfully. We were able to set up camp at the fairgrounds and get the horses settled in. I thought I was so smart thinking we could just camp at the fairgrounds. I mean afterall it is summertime. I wasn't able to pack many blanket since there wasn't much room left in the truck. We had bought a real nice air mattress on the way up there for Jeremy and I and we pitched the tent for the kids. The kids had all their blankets and pillows and were all snug but let me tell you I froze my butt off! I had given up and gotten in the truck about 3am. Saturday we had our turn out roping and as I should have known I got nervous and blew it. We still had a good time though. Annelie, Martin's wife was just the greatest help ever with my two rascals while I was off riding and making my attempt at roping. I swear, I am surprised I didn't embarrass myself when it came time for them to go home by hanging off of her leg to keep her here. Saturday night we all went to the local basque restaurant for dinner and it was very good! Martin and Annelie brought us their blankets from the hotel room so we didn't freeze and it was a much better night than Friday had been. Sunday Jeremy was entered in the stock horse and considering his horse Flash, a colt of ours,that was bred, born and raised on our ranch, had never ran anything down a fence much less circled a cow before, he did remarkable well. His mother was a TB mare of mine and so needless to say he can be a little "hot". So when we didn't have to go to the emergency room so I was very happy. I have to say my heart was pounding watching the whole thing. Jeremy also had the cut and rope event to rope in Sunday. I could not wait for the end of the day as I needed a shower and a good nights sleep very badly. We had planned to get a hotel room and get a good nights rest Sunday so we could head home Monday. As Jeremy was visiting with one of his team members, Destry Campbell, he said he had turned his garage into a bunkhouse and that we would be welcome to it. I was concerned about the horses since we had Cody, our stud with us and thankfully he said it wouldn't be a problem. So it was settled, and I was very relieved to know I would get a shower and a restful nights sleep. We also had two of our five dogs with us. Priss of course and Kate the wonder pup. They for the most part were staying in the trailer and Priss was not very happy about it. She is my little diva dog you know. So we got the horses settled in and then got our things hauled into the very cute bunkhouse. Let me just say how stinking tired I was by this time. We had taken ourselves to a very yummy mexican food dinner and I was very much looking forward to showering and getting the kids clean. I caved and let Priss into the bunkhouse, just while were showering I thought to myself and then I will put her back out in the trailer. The kids were equally as tired I think. Sage had cried herself silly (and seeing her sad and crying I was as well) having to say goodbye to her new friend. It was the sweetest thing really. So we got them settled in and Jeremy and I stumbled in to check out the little bedroom where we were going to sleep. It was the cutest thing and the bed was the fluffiest bed I think I have ever seen. I was just going to lay down for a sec and next thing I knew Sage was tapping on my foot telling me something was wrong with Steele's foot. Normally I hear every sound in the night specially the kids making any kind of noise. And most certainly when we are in a different place than home. Not to mention it was dark as dark could be. Apparently Sage had carried Steele into the bedroom and set him in the big, beautiful, fluffy chair that was next to the bed. I, in my horror of not hearing the kids even wake up much less hearing them come into the room being as tired as I was, lept out of bed and went to rubbing Steele's foot, trying desperately to get my witts about me. All at the same time I was trying to figure out why my sweet little baby boy that I put to bed clean has a wet, slimy, grainy foot. About this time I hear Sage say to me "I think Priss pooped".........Aren't you glad your not me about now?! All I could do is walk away to the bathroom and tell the kids not to move a muscle. I stumbled to the bathroom trying not to touch anything and hoping like heck not to step in anything in the darkness. Thankfully I made it and got washed up, got the kids washed up. Somehow got the floor to exactly the state it was before my mangy, purse puppy had assaulted it. I was mortified I had let my dog into someone else's place without even asking and she had been off her normal schedule so I really should have known better but I was so darn tired.......
Sooooooo anyhow, that is why I now call her Prissy Poopie.......it just isn't always a glamorous life for me.

Wild ponies

well, these three aren't wild.....

now these kiddos don't know how lucky they are.

Alturas Vaquero Fiesta 2010

Our camp ;)

Morning Meeting....

Jeremy's team members, Destry Campbell and Weston Albrecht.

Pics from the clinic in Tehachapi today

A peak at more of what we have been up to.

Some weekend fun.

Friday night we all headed down to the local arena to teampen. I have mixed feelings about teampenning but if you keep your head and don't blow up your horse trying to get a good time it can still be fun. We like to visit with good friends and watch the kids ride. They have to share Chico but one day before too long I can see Sage taking over my Poco. She is getting to be pretty handy.
Yesterday we had friends over to work with their horse with Jeremy. This is how the kids occupy themselves. Pretty cute little swamp monsters. It was almost too cold to get in.

Here is Jeremy and Flash & Ron and his mare Corona. Jeremy has been really working hard at helping Corona see a better way. Yesterday I think all the good colors were showing. I sure hope she keeps it up. Ron did an awesome job on her yesterday.

My little swamp monsters.