Weekend Started

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Carol

Busy day!

I was a tad bit early to the show… so I took some time for wildflower photography…

Then I helped begin the AI process… which consists of a shot of Lutalyse, which is a prostaglandin. It synchronizes estrus, in other words, all our heifers should come into heat in the next few days… Then the boys and Victoria will Artificially Inseminate them with purchased semen. All I had to do was slap on the sticker on their backs. This sticker works like a scratch off game ticket… it is silver now, but it will be bright green when they are “ridden” by other heifers, an indication they are in heat.

We broke for lunch, and afterwards, I stayed home and hauled trash, worked in my garden, picked up sticks out of my yard (still a TON left to do!), and added the sticks to my unofficial hugelkultur beds. I mowed some areas under bushes, but EVERYTHING seems to need mowed right now!

At one point, I sat and watched my lilac bushes. Yes, there’s some honey bees on my lilacs, but I can’t for the life of me see which way they are flying towards home! At least, some are alive and working away (somewhere!)

Vernon and I did a little high wind reorganization. The gusts had blown some of our pivot sprinklers over the rods… I drove my little Mitsubishi underneath, and Vernon reached up and tossed them back over into place! It took only 10 minutes or so, but I thought the photo was cool!

Throw a few burgers on the grill and open a bag of chips! Let’s get this weekend started!

Windssssday Gusts

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Carol

The topic of the past two days just HAS to be the wind! It’d be so much nicer if the wind just wouldn’t come after having all this great rain and moisture, because it just sucks it right back out of the ground!

Plus, we’ve had it much more severe than usual… 74 mph is what I clocked last night after midnight! That’s pretty intense, even for this ol’ Casper girl! It shook my house, and ripped one piece of my new roofing off! The wind direction was from the east, definitely not typical. If it’d been out of the usual westerly direction, the tin would have just laid down, but this way, it was lifting up the leading edge.

Sticks and branches litter my lawn, it blew open the shop doors and bent one… but nothing too serious! Some of our neighbors had it worse, destroying chick housing, ripping roofs completely off of out buildings, trees downed and blocking roads, loss of electric lines.

Today was still gusty, but 50 mph is just much quieter than 74! Hopefully, this little storm system is playing itself out and we can get back to normal!

Cattle work is tomorrow… we’re starting our big AI Weekend… It may be a holiday weekend for most people, but for us, it’s a chance to have more people here to WORK! We’re hoping for no more windssssday gusts!

Wordless Wednesday – “Swallow Moon”

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Carol

Cliff swallows settle on a power line under the moon.

All In All

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Carol

That hot tub I haven’t bought yet? I sure could use it now!

I spent the morning spray painting my garden shed and garage, at least as far as I could get on a ladder! So there’s the up and down, the weight of the backpack of paint (only 8#, but still…) and the reaching and spraying with the sprayer. Wow. Glad I only had 3 gallons!

I wasn’t sure how far it’d go in the sprayer, so this was all kind of a test drive for doing my house. Getting used to the technique, and figuring out how I’ll protect the windows and brand new soffit.

It looks tremendous, don’t you think?

Then, I threw some seeds in the ground…

This time, green beans, dry beans, and corn. I’m halfway done, with the squash, cukes, peppers, and tomatoes to go!

I’d say, all in all, it was a pretty productive day!

Make My Own

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Carol

Small fact. Too much rain is a direct link to a rancher spending too much money!

See… it works like this.

Rain falls in abundance… rancher can’t work in fields or haul out supplies to fix fence or clean muddy ditches or travel anywhere… EXCEPT on highways. Rancher decides to take day off and use the highway to go someplace… anyplace.

Highway trip ends in Sheridan, Wyoming… where rancher buys wedding present and wedding shirt and wedding cowboy hat. Rancher’s wife buys wedding dress boots and more tomato plants (which has nothing to do with the wedding) and looks for wedding clothes (yeah, right… ) and finally remembers to buy that new broom (which has nothing to do with the wedding).

We also perused Honda 4 wheelers and side-by-sides… but did not fork over $12,000. Choke. Gag. Choke!

We also wandered around a furniture store… that had absolutely nothing we wanted…

I did find one thing that may go on my list of “Might Have To Build One”… Cost? $260! That’s why I might look up some interesting sticks and make my own…