It was time to move the cows to a different pasture on the BLM property. The children were terribly excited. Rob loaded the 2 4-wheelers onto his trailer. He took Debbie, Jaci, and Karen with him. I loaded the other 6 children, snacks and water, onto the side by side and drove the 10 mile to Riley Butte. We strapped Reece's car seat on the seat, he thought he was king of the road! It took me about 40 minutes to get there.
There are 4 different ranchers that have cattle there so every time we would spot cattle we would push them toward a designated area. I had the pleasure of finding a bull and a cow, the children didn't think our ride had enough power to outrun the bull if he decided he didn't want to follow the cow and would try to chase us. He stopped a few times and looked back at us but he wasn't about to chase something that made that much noise!!
Rob and Karen
Debbie and Jaci
Debbie would have preferred to ride on the back of a horse but she hasn't
convinced her Dad that he really needs one yet!!
There were three 4-wheelers, two horses and the side by side with a load of kids. I hung back pretty far till they got all the cows headed in the same direction.
The children loved getting up close behind the cows. Even 10 month old Reece got to do some hollering to keep them moving.
It only took a couple hours to get the cows moved. While Rob stood and talked to one of the other ranchers, I took my load back home. I was only home a few minutes till Rob and Debbie got back.
Checking Cows at Crane Creek.
We always had little helpers every time we headed out to the pasture or when we drove to Crane Creek to check the water supply. On this day we were checking the Crane Creek cows, making sure they were all there. Carter Lance, Jude, and Tesla went along.
We tried to count the cows, it seemed some were missing. Rob saw some cows off in the distance in a canyon. The terrain was too rugged to drive close to the cows so he walked to see if they were ours. The children and I waited. They were hot from riding in the back so they crawled up on the seat.
Jude and Lance decided they were going to look for mice or snakes, whichever they found first. I wasn't too worried about the snake deal, they were making too much noise to see a snake. Even the mice were pretty scarce.
They did find a dead, dried up weasel.
They all had to take part in paying their last respects.
Even though I took this picture, I was unaware that Jude had picked it up
and carried it back to the mule and
then dropped it. As I was getting in, he exclaimed,
"Grandma don't step on the weasel!!"
I did a fancy two step and missed it by an inch!!
Rob came back and reported the cows were the ones we were missing plus there were a couple others that didn't belong to us. That is pretty normal. We haven't gone through a summer yet that we didn't have some strays mixed in with our herd.
When we got home there were some calves in the driveway. They are still small enough to scoot under the electric fence Rob had put up around the yard. The children love chasing them back under the fence and the calves seem to know where they belong.
As we were walking into the house Jude asked, "Grandma are you a cowgirl?"
4 year old Tesla piped up, "No Jude, she's not a cowgiwl, she's a jolly rancher!"
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