On Monday we all skipped work/school to go to the BB Cattle Sale. Kaine, Kade and Toni took horses, so they did not have to chase the bulls on foot. As kids we always used horses, but for the past few years they haven’t been, and the boys decided they did not want to walk anymore. Toni just rode before the sale with them, she was in bidding on bulls for us. We let Kade take Stormy and ride her in the morning. It was Stormys first ride away from home and she was a rock. A few things she kind of big eyed, but she was super great. She had to stay in the trailer when the sale actually started and Kade rode Electra. We had a couple of bulls we were bidding on and Toni had another couple  for a client. We did not get any. However, that is good for Joe, and we will just use one of his bulls or our polled bull, since we did not get one. Toni did get one for a client. Erina and Terry also came up to see us, and Morgan took Tel for a spin on Kevin, Kaine tried too but Tel did not want to ride with Kaine. Kaine also took Kayla for a ride on ol Kevin. I guess he took Kevin instead of Pow Pow so he could give kiddie rides? Kaine and Kade ran bulls back and forth with the twins and Nick. Anna, Traci, Marlo, Emma and I ran gates with Todd, Luke, Amy and Bree. Dad socialized. Ben sorted bulls with Jolene and Mar. Toni and I bought a dart medicine gun after the sale from Old Mill. We have been wanting one for over a year so were super excited about it. Then we went home and did chores.

On Tuesday Toni was busy all day with clients so she texted Kaine and Kade and asked them to do her chores for her, she included me in her text. So when I got to the house dad asked me if I knew if Toni was stopped on her way to grandmas to feed the “colts?” Toni stayed with grandma on Tuesday. I said she is not, she asked the boys to feed them and the old horses, dad said he did not see the boys feed them. So I called Kaine, he said I did not get a text, I said not looking at your texts and not getting it are not the same thing. Did Kade feed the foals? He did not know, even though they are doing chores together he does not know if Kade fed them?? I called Kade, he also did not look, see or check his text messages. Lesson here, Kaine and Kade don’t read texts. Since they are always staring at their phones does that mean they are snapping?? Gina, Blue and Abs were NOT happy about the tardiness of their grain when I went out there, they had all been fed hay, just not their grain.

On Wednesday mom went over and stayed with grandma. Happy Valentines Day, and it would have been grandma and grandpa’s anniversary, so mom and dad stopped and got flowers at Kaffrins on their way. Toni chopped 2 poles and put them in her pu to take down at chore time. The poles left in the pile are all huge. Luckily she got to cut a bunch off of them as we only need to fix two spots on a 12 foot width fence. Kade and Anna had FFA practice after school so Toni, Kaine, and Jax  fixed the fence at mom and dads in Dude pen. An old pole broke and was a little leany. Toni now wants to work on the fence along the top of Cappy’s pen to get it shored up before breeding season. Kade went down after chores and started riding BB, the mare he has for sale.  It was dark out but she did a great job. Kade is just riding her in a halter.

Guess what, on Thursday we woke up to snow and it was snowing. Groundhog, what happened??? My drive to work was not too bad headed south, but the drive north for Ben was terrible, he said the worst he has had. The kids also said it was terrible going to school, Kaine needs new tires on his pickup and he spun out a bunch of times driving slow to mom and dads. 006 (an old show heifer) felt that Toni needed to feed her some corn when she checked due to the cold. Jax had more baby teeth pulled on Thursday. He had to have 7 removed before he could get braces, so that is next on the agenda.  Kade rode the black mare on Thursday night and Toni got some pics and videos for him to post. Then Toni went up and dug a couple of holes for railroad ties.  The ground wasn’t so frozen she couldn’t dig. Then she had clients that night so she didn’t get as much fixed on the fence as she wanted. Her and Jax had tried to lift the railroad ties but they needed more muscle. These railroad ties have been on the place long before we moved here back in the 80s and they are all of 10 feet tall and still heavy as heck. We had a cute black ballie calf on Thursday out of a Hereford cow.

We still had some snow on Friday, but a lot of it had melted. Avery, one of the clubby cows, had a cute Angus cross calf on Friday. Toni showed horses and Chad came out around the same time, so a lot was going on.  Mom and Dad had gone to town so Toni and Chad were on their own to get everything done. The yearlings came in great, so the people that came got to get a good look at the colts we have left for sale. They really liked a couple of them. We are color testing Mage for them to see if he is going to be gray or stay buckskin. Marlo came about the same time as mom and dad got home. Marlo told Toni that Kaine and Kade were broke down at the intersection of 17 and Hendricks. We found out later that Kaine’s transmission went out. The boys had someone help them push the pu off of the road as they were blocking the intersection. Then Anna had to go find Ben to go tow them home. Marlo and Toni did most of the chores before the boys finally got there for chores.  Toni asked the boys to come help put up the two railroad ties as she had the holes dug. It took Marlo, Toni, Kaine, and Kade to get the railroad ties up and in the holes. Once both were up, one of the boys said we just had to put the ties up right? Toni said yeah, so the boys took off. In their defense they still had to feed circle 5 and had a long day. Marlo and Toni tamped the ties in, put a cross bar up, chopped the fence out of the tree and got the fence fixed. When they stopped it was 6:50 pm and they could still see a little bit, so it is getting lighter out. Toni still wants to fortify the fence. It is basically at the top of the hill so it is pretty prone to sloughing.  Kade took a snaffle bit and rode BB late again. She is just a super cool mare. Too bad she doesn’t have papers. If she was reg we would probably keep her!

On Saturday we got the cows in and sorted them to put in CIDRs and put the rest out with the bulls. It was still pretty cold, so I let Toni ride my horse, Shimmer, and rode with Jaxsen in the pickup, Toni was going to have to haul her horse down. Anna rode Jag and Kevin and Kaine rode Pow. Kade was at a trap shoot.  We got all of the cows sorted, bulls moved out of the pasture, the AI cows into that pasture, cull cows sorted, the few cows that need a little TLC in, all of the ranch stuff we needed to get done we got it done. The horses were great. We had a small technical difficulty with Pow. We were out in the middle of the cornfield and her bridle just came off. Luckily Kaine was able to get her stopped with the halter so he switched bridles with Anna. Shimmer is not a horse you can ride chasing cows without a bridle. She is on the hotter side even now that she is older and likes to chase. Basically she will chase cows just for the love of the game. So a great horse to chase cows, terrible to try to trail ride. Good thing we don’t trail ride. Kevin was fine with the bridle switch. Pow and Kaine had some adjusting to do, but they got it done and we got the job done. Luckily we chose Saturday because even though it was cold, it wasn’t as bad as Sunday when we had snow and rain spitting down all day. We had a long Saturday but a really great one. We were all really cold by the end.  I went and stayed with Grandma Saturday night.

On Sunday we woke up to the snow rain mix. My drive home was fine. 039 calved and had a pretty nice bull calf. Even though it was snowing it wasn’t terribly cold so we didn’t take her to the barn. She had the calf down in the weeds so it was dry and warm. Kade and Kaine went over to help Marlo move a couple of couches. It didn’t take long and they were back before lunch. Lots of ranch stuff to get done, but we all kind of took it easy on Sunday, or as easy as we could anyway. Kaine worked on one of his heifers and his steers. Anna went to Warden to see Lane, so Kaine helped with the cow chores before we went down and did the horse chores.

There is always so much optimism when the end of January hits and we can all see spring coming. Of course mother nature usually has some surprises left in store for us in February. The last two years we have had bad weather all the way into April. Lets hope that this year this last burst of snow is the last of it. We are all looking forward to warmer weather and green grass.