Wonderful!
Taylor wrote: I have a couple questions. 1: Where did the name the Badlands come from? 2: I don’t know a lot about dog breeding. Might some of Dally’s puppies be sable, because of Elsa? Or will they be tris like Dally and Hustler?
Taylor, 1) Badlands is just a descriptive term that’s stuck. They don’t grow grass like the creek bottoms or lush mountainsides… in fact, there’s much worse parts of the Badlands than what we use. Probably what made them so BAD, too, was the lack of water. Without the water development that ranchers have done through the years, the wildlife and everyone would still consider it BAD country. 2) Two tri’s should produce just tri’s… BUT there’s a slim chance they could produce *clear* sables (kind of palomino looking) because they both have it in their backgrounds as a recessive gene. Lucas and Elsa are considered *shaded* sables (dark tips on their hair).
pam ryan wrote: Carol,,,you have now moved to the Old Mills Place. My questions are… WHY did you move? was their property adjacent to yours and you wanted more land or did you just want the house? & you may have mentioned this before, but what is the average lifespan of one of your cows to stay on your ranch?
Pam, we bought the Mills Place when the opportunity arose and decided with the boys both interested in coming back to the ranch, that someone needed to live here to keep an eye on things. I won. Most of our cows get sold around 9 years of age.
Donna Gunn wrote: My question for this month is “How are you coming on your saddle blanket?”
I keep threatening to just sit down one day and do nothing else and finish it. I’m that close. It just seems I haven’t sat down to do crafts in a while!
Sheila wrote: I’m so happy to learn that Dally is preggers. Can you tell me how long the gestation cycle is for this breed? How many pups is typical for the breed? Can’t keep track: is Dally 2 years old now? Is it likely that all her pups will be the same coloration as Mom and Dad; or will recessive colors come through in a pup or two? Can you tell I’ve got puppies on the brain? :o)
Sheila, you ARE excited! Let’s see… typical gestation cycle is 62 days. Though with Elsa’s 3 litters it turned out more like 60 for her. I know people that have had two pups and people that have had 12 pups. Elsa had 9, 10, and 11 pups… I imagine Dally will be like her mom. Dally is 3. See Taylor’s question above!
Valerie wrote: I am curious about whether or not you take advantage of local cuisine – any elk, antelope or bison hunters on the ranch? Do you prepare and/or eat Rocky Mountain Oysters?
I grew up on antelope, deer, elk, moose, fish, sagechickens, dove, whatever. Here, we eat beef. I stopped hunting just because no one wanted to eat the meat with me! I would LOVE to shoot a bison, I like the meat and would take EVERYTHING… hide, skull, stomach! Daniel does like to hunt elk, I think he got that gene from me! No one here likes Oysters either, which cracks me up! I used to eat them even in college, ordering bull oysters and we’d have a huge fry! Of course, we band our calves, so we don’t have any oysters at branding anyway.
Tom wrote: Carol Love your blog. Do you know what happened to the Noisey Plume blog?
Sorry, Tom, never heard of it.
Marilyn wrote: My question is: how far from your ranch is the nearest gas station??!!
There’s a gas station in Ten Sleep, so 20 miles. If you’re asking where do we buy our gas?… like most farmers and ranchers we buy in bulk, a couple hundred gallons at a time. They deliver it in Big Trucks every month or so.
Rob McMillin wrote: From someone from a warm climate — why would one need a snow fence?
Rob… to keep the snow in. Seriously, it *IS* to keep the snow in a certain place. When the wind blows and drifts the snow, it’d close a lot of roads. You place a snow fence in the right area at the right angle and the drift builds up behind the fence and not across the highway. There’s a science to it… but they do look funny in the summer time, just a 10′ high fence going nowhere…
Holly wrote: How many of your acres are irrigated? Sprinklers, gated pipe, flood, tube? any artesian?
Gee, Holly, can you ask Vernon that when you come this summer? I honestly couldn’t tell you… Yes, we have one field with a roll line sprinkler… (everyone hates it). We have one field here at the Mills Place with gated pipe. Everything else is flood. The Mills Place does have an artesian well.
Kate wrote: I know horses, whats the difference between a cow and a hefier? both girls right? Will you keep all the puppies? Did Boomer ever get found? How many acres does it take to raise a cow in your part of the country? In the southwest it can take a couple hundred to support 1 steer, I always wondered what the walking off the muscle mass to find enough to eat balance was.
Kate, think mare and filly. Heifers are young cows, once they’ve had that first calf, we call ’em cows. Heavens, no, I won’t keep all the pups! Three dogs is enough for me. Boomer is happily back home and he lives with Daniel and is still the Stick Dog. Acres/cow is a trick question. Depends on the country, the availability of water, and how long you leave them there. You’ve got to average that all out… plus figure you don’t want to use ALL your feed, (duh), and see if it’s a good grass year or a drought year. Any number I say can be wrong… and right. So, I’ll just say… quite a few.
JudyC wrote: You have puppies on the way. Yay! How do you come up with puppy names?
First litter I gave Wyoming names… ones from the poem, “This God-forsaken Land”. The second one I gave names from 1909 since we were celebrating our centennial that year. The next I just pulled names I liked. This one… I hope to give the girls Wyoming names, and the boys Nebraska names! About half of the new owners keep the names I gave them, the others change it.
Sandy wrote: if you could live any place other than wyoming, where would it be and why?
I really don’t think about that… I’d *VISIT* other places, but have no desire to live somewhere else. Guess I could hide in Montana… maybe… pretty much overrun up there though. I bet I could live in New Zealand for a couple of years. Gotta have my wide open spaces, but I could easily try the ocean too! But, I’d have to come back to sagebrush…
GD wrote: My question: What are your top three things you love about your lifestyle and where you live…and what are the top three things you hate about it?
Working/living with my family, the animals, the country. I love to dance, but don’t get to do it very often. I love to go to movies, but haven’t in years. Sometimes I wish I could order takeout delivered. (They’re not really *hates*, but that’s the best I could do!)
LE wrote: I guess your blog kinda answered my question…..do yall grow your hay and why squares (as opposed to rounds)?
