The Picnic

My sweet little muffins decided to go for a picnic a couple of days ago. Sage requested I prepare their lunches and put it in their lunch bags.

There they go. Can you see the flowers in Sage's hand. She always picks flowers and makes Steele give them to her. She should be an actress! When he gives them to her (at her instruction) she will say "Oh! Your so sweet! I love them!" Then she gives him a big sappy hug and kiss. I am surprised he goes along with it!

Here is my girl having her picnic alone after Steele fell down, hit his head and scratched his arm. He was screaming bloody murder, I ran out there and up the darn hill barefoot thinking he had broke his dang arm. Thankfully Jeremy had come in to make his lunch and so he went out and had a picnic with Sage while I tried to get Steele to stop crying.

Making friends

Steele and Daddy taking a break, looking over the herd. It is so sad lately, all he wants to do is ride and hang out with daddy. The sad part about it is it is too dangerous to be out with him and the training horses. So we went to the park yesterday to keep the kids busy. They rode their scooters and I roller bladed. We had a blast!

Getting Diamond's halter off

Sorry about the crappy picture. All I had was my phone today. And I had so many cool moments to take pictures of. Anyhow, this is what else we were up to today. About a week ago we got an email from a client about a friend/aquaintence's mustang mare that had her halter cutting into her face. He had adopted her about two years ago at the local BLM adoption. The gal that contacted us was so upset and I asked "where is this horse?" As she told me I remembered I have seen this horse dragging the lead rope for a long time and always wishing somehow Jeremy could help the horse. She lives on a road I travel frequently. I figured the owner just didn't know what to do. It is very hard not to be judgemental in situations like this but the mare was in good flesh and he had good intentions. He just didn't have the know how he needed for the situation to be successful. So the day I got the email I happened to be with Jeremy and told him what was going on and I asked him if I could volunteer him (since of course the owner had no money to pay) to go over and get the halter off. I knew he would say yes but I felt better asking him since it could have been a dangerous situation. You never know. It took about two hours and he was able to cut the halter off of her. We had stopped at the tack store and bought some bandage scissors so it would be safer to not cut her. It was really neat to watch (through the rain on the windshield!) he was able to touch her finally and the owner thought it pretty neat. As soon as the halter fell off of her face you could just see her sign and let down. Jeremy worked with her a bit more and got his rope off of her and left the pen. It is so neat that I get to first hand witness things like this. I always try and tell Sage to watch what Daddy is doing hoping she will see what I see. That mare never took her eyes off Jeremy even as we got in the car and were driving away she watched the car go...............I wish we could save them all but at least we can make a small difference.

Happy Kids!!!

This was in the parking lot an hour and a half after getting to the pound to pick the little tramp up. The poor kids had to be so patient. Jeremy, Sage and Steele guarded his cage the whole time.

Guess who we found?!?!

So we got up this morning with a normal day in mind. Sage and I had cereal and then started our school work. Jeremy and Steele were out feeding. Sage was taking forever on her particular project so I was checking a few things on the internet on my laptop sitting right next to her. I decided to check L.A. County Animal Control's website for lost and found pets one more time. I start scrolling down not thinking I was going to see anything exciting when about four or five animals down I see MOOSE!!!!!! Just about the same time Jeremy and Steele had come in. I am running in circles, and I mean it CIRCLES, screaming "They have Moose! They have Moose!" I was still in my pj's and hadn't even brushed my teeth so I just couldn't figure out where to start! So as I am getting dressed and Jeremy is ready to load the kids in the car, we found a phone book and got the phone number to call them. Thankfully I did since it was only 9am and they didn't open til noon. They also told me to bring verification he was ours and any vaccine records. So since we just couldn' wait we went ahead and headed into town. We killed as much time as we could and arrived at the shelter at 1130am. There was already a line around the building! Long story short we waited an hour and a half in the office for our turn to do paperwork and pay the fine to spring him. I asked them just out of curiousity where they had picked him up. For those of you that know the area, they picked him up in Quartz Hill!!!! L-14 & 55th st west. For those of you who might know the area, that is about 45 miles from home!!! He had another collar on him so we figured someone had picked him up and planned to keep him and he ran off from them. That is our best guess anyhow. Thank goodness he did! And we are grateful to the animal shelter for picking him up and doing what they do. I am sure it is a dirty job but someone has to do it. And sometimes there are happy endings! We saw several today that ended well. And several displays of very poor behavior by grown adults.............yuck. But we are all happy and Moose is happily under the covers with Sage as we speak. Bathed and happy. Oh, and a brand new collar and ID tag with his name and phone number should this happen again! We plan to take all precautions but just in case!

He.....lp! Hellllpppp!!!

This was so darn funny I just had to post it. Jeremy and I have watched it

over and over again laughing our butts off!

A true Vaquero story.

I got this note from Jeremy's grandmother about some of his family history. She thought this would be neat to add onto something that is on our website front page. http://www.jbcattleco.com/

I think so too and I will get it added sometime soon...........hopefully. For some reason I have had trouble with motivation lately. I hope you enjoy this story!

Hi Jeremy, Brandie and children: As I was reading your recent message I could not help but want to add a sentence to your wonderful Californio Vaquero story.
Where you say Jeremy has a deep seated respect for the history that is the Californio Vaquero dating back to early California history, you may wish to mention that he is descended from an early California Vaquero; Anselmo Campas, his Great, great grandfather. Anselmo began his Vaquero career at the age of twelve at the Tejon Rancheria. He was also very interested in medicine and he became the person to call for illness or for delivering babies. He was Yaqui Indian and his family lived farther north inthe San Joaquin Valley until the United States government, in the late 1800s, decided to make the Indians go to reservations. The U S hired German Hessian mercenaries to see that the Indians were sent to the reservations.
Anselmo's father did not wish to go to the reservation they wanted him and his family to, (The TuleReservation) he wanted to go elsewhere to another reservation, so to punish him for disobedience, they cut his fingers off. (This is a true fact handed down from Mary Campas Rodriguez, Jeremy's Great Grandmother.) They fled down to the Tejon Rancheria when Anselmo was twelve.
The priest from the Tehachapi area would make occasional trips to the Rancheria to baptize babies, marry people, say Mass and bless the sick and the graves of those who had died. Tehachapi, in those early days did not have a resident priest until 1887 and even then his area to minister to the people extended as far as Needles to the east, San Fernando to the south , Lone Pine to the north.This included towns in between. He rode horseback and later was allowed to ride the trains up in the engine with the friendly engineer, a Patrick Greaney. Consequently, Tehachapi still only saw him periodically.
Anyway, it was so interesting I thought maybe you would like a little more history. Naturally you would not want all the info I gave you but I thought the part about him being a direct descendant of an old time Vaquero might spark some interest for readers. Grandma Pat Gracey