On Monday we were all tired and maybe suffering from a little bit of heat exhaustion from working cows. Kade still rode Honey at his house, then later in the day rode Joss out of the round pen, she did really well. He also moved her to a hackamore. Toni and I brought For down to the house for Tim and Gina to look at. They bought Gin last year and she has a fancy buckskin colt by Sog, a stallion by Gunner and out of Big Mama. Tim and Gina had their niece with them and she fed the horses and donkeys treats and gave everyone pets. We did normal chores, moved water, petted foals, kept things alive.

Tuesday Kade roped off of all his horses. He is working on his extra steer, since his smokey steer might not make weight. His Hereford steer is doing great for day 2 of being caught. Toni had a long, lots of people, zoom meeting most of the morning then did normal work. Kaine brought dad to Kennewick to pick up his lawn mower, they went to lunch and brought a coffee to me at work. Then dad, Kaine and Kade went and looked at a boat. Toni and I went out to pet foals after chores. We got lots of pictures and sent some of them to Janice, she ended up wanting South for her next foal. It is always fun to have a repeat buyer like Janice. We pretty much know what she wants so we can get her the info she needs to evaluate the foals. We are excited for South to get such a great home.

Wednesday it was hot again. Kids washed their animals to try to keep them cool. They are in the barn under fans. Anna is working on halter breaking a handful of calves to sell as show steers, 3 of them we are taking to the Evergreen sale in October. Kade went roping in the morning.  Kade hauled Honey down to mom and dads and him and Toni rode her around. He practiced loading Joss, since she had not been loaded before. Joss is really smart so once she figured out what Kade wanted she proceeded to load twice more with no issues at all. We normally haul our horses around, at least a little, so they normally at least have been loaded with their moms. We are also working on disease panel testing the majority of the foals so we put together a spread sheet and take around snack bags to pull hair and send it off to Animal Genetics. Getting hair out of 40 head of foals is not an easy task. I think we might be 20% done. We didn’t test the ones we plan to keep.

Happy August 1st, I am not sure where July went. Jaxsen came down with Toni in the morning and they brought the yearling colts down again and Toni sold Blue Star. Then they hauled Crystal and Santana in to see Sheena, he has an ulcer in the back corner of his right eye. We used to try to doctor eye issues ourselves but Sheena does such a good job getting that lavage in that it makes it way easier to put eye drops in 3 times per day and get a good heal. The horses stayed at the vet over night to get the lavage and make sure there weren’t issues. Anna and Kaine tied up the calves we are halter breaking. We have some steer calves going to evergreen we are going to take, 3-4 of them. I have not told Marlo yet, so she can get ready to go. They also got some pictures of some steer calves for someone looking for a spring show steer. Kade brought Honey down again Thursday night and him and Toni went for a ride around the alfalfa field. Toni rode Shadie who proceeded to prance around and acted like the green horse, not Honey. Dad brought pizza home from Connell, but Toni did not want any because she thought it was too hot for pizza and had food in the crockpot, so I gave Jaxsen a piece of ours since Toni ripped him off. We also still had bad wasps in our gate into the colt pen, even after using 2 cans of spray, so it is now tied with twine and chained so we can hopefully open it far enough way those flying villains can’t get us.

On Friday Toni had court in Davenport, so she headed north. Kade and Jaxsen ran to Othello to get Crystal and Santana. We had some people come out and get meat, so Anna met with them. Toni stopped at a super cute mercantile on her way home in Harrington. The kids washed their steers and worked on their calves they are halter breaking. Emma came out Friday night to ride Honey, so her and Kade went on a ride. Kade rode Electra.

On Saturday we had lot of people by. We had outside mares leave that are bred, some bull people come out, meat people, etc. We were busy all day showing people around and meeting with people. After all the fun stuff, we got a bunch of the 2 year olds in and started working on them. Wild got saddled and lunged, Holly got a ridden, Tee got saddled and lunged, PBJ, who is 3, also got ridden.

Sunday we got the open cows in to go to Moses Lake to the sale yard. Since we were just sorting those cows off Kade and Anna spent a lot of time riding their young horses in the interim. Kaine rode Shimmer to get cows in, Toni on Friday, Kade on Electra. Anna had Jojo at the house helping Ben sort. We had everyone working together get the cows in and sort off what we needed. Kade also had Honey at the corral so both Anna and Kade rode their young horses in the herd and working on sorting, pushing cattle, and getting their horses to latch onto an animal they were sorting. I am ready for it to cool down a little bit. Even though we were only sorting off a handful it still took most of the day by the time everything comes in, gets sorted, and stuff goes back out. We had a few bad eyes to dr, bulls to move around, all the fun ranch stuff. We were all covered in mud/sweat by the end of Sunday.

Since wasps are the villains of this episode, dragonflies are the heroes. As we have been walking around the ranch at various tasks, the sky has lots and lots of dragonflies. Dragonflies are absolutely cool insects and they eat lots of little insects AND will eat wasps. Whatever we can do to encourage that activity, we will. I wonder if we can start a dragonfly breeding program?