Branding Day 2020

Branding day 2020 will probably be remembered for a long time. Social distancing and the stay at home order put a damper on our preparations. Branding day is considered the social event of the year. Neighbors helping neighbors. Friends dropping in to watch...and then the camaraderie around the lunch table.

This year we had to limit the amount of people that attended. We had 9 people working at the different jobs, When a person or a horse got tired of roping, they would trade off with somebody else.
We had 5 people who knew how to rope, since we only needed three at a time, it was easy to trade off.

One of my sisters wanted me to video the event this year but I am not good at that type of thing. And I didn't prepare ahead so my camera card was full. I did get a few short clips. I would rather watch the cowboys swing their ropes...and miss..  :) ...than watch the actual branding.  Somebody left the calf, in this first clip, loose before they were finished with it, so several of the guys tried to rope it again.


The day was windy and cold as you can tell on these clips.

Once a a while the guy manning the nordfork would miss the calf's head so another rider would rope the calf's front legs.

It didn't take as long to brand 98 calves as they were anticipating. They were all finished by lunchtime.I didn't get pictures of how we practiced social distancing during lunch,  :)   but I found a couple pictures from our 2019 branding.

There is usually a lot of bantering taking place as the guys gang up on each other and share the mistakes that took place during the morning rush. Its also a time to catch up on the neighborhood hotline. Virus or no virus, branding day is for friends and family to work and fellowship together!

A week later we moved the cows and calves to their summer pastures. A few pictures I snapped of some contented cows!

A Mama's Love

Working a ranch has it's interesting moments. Spring calving we have found, can be discouraging and tiring from the long hours outside looking for new calves in cold rain or blowing snow.

This year it has been the extreme opposite. Calving season started in early February, with mostly sunny skies and clear cold nights. The cows and calves thrived!

We have a cow, #120, that started losing weight in the fall. By mid December we didn't think she was going to live through the winter. Every time we went out to feed I would look for her, every time, I thought she looked worse. We figured out there was something wrong with her mouth, she could eat hay just fine but when she chewed a cud the saliva would run out of her mouth like water. It had us baffled.

The beginning of January, Rob declared she looked better, she was gaining weight. To me she still looked bad. We continued to watch her, she did start to look and act a little better but far from normal! On March 6th, Rob came in from checking cows and said, "You will never believe who had a calf." We only had about 60 cows to calve yet so... you better tell me!!  "#120" Are you serious!! Is she still alive? Is the calf alive?

Our next big concern, Would she have enough milk to feed the calf? Rob thought we should take colostrum to the calf so armed with warm milk and towels, we headed out to check up on the calf. The mama cow stood right by her calf making those little mooing sounds that tell the calf to "run their coming to get you!" or else it means, "if they try to take you, I will chase them down". Both have happened before!! But this time the calf stood there and watched us approach. #120 didn't even try to lick off her baby, so we knew there was something not right with her mouth. I fed the calf the colostrum while Rob rubbed it down with the towels.

His next question was "should we just take the calf to the barn and keep her there?"  My mother heart couldn't handle that! No, the calf needs her mother, and 120 needs her calf! We can bring milk out every day to supplement and see what happens.  Several weeks later,  Nate and Ryan wanted to check the cow out and see what really was wrong with her. They took their horses out and roped her, got her down on the ground and looked in her mouth. They came to the conclusion she must have some kind of throat cancer. Now what do we do? 

Nothing! She seems to have good days and bad days but she still hovers over her calf. The calf seems to give her the will to keep plodding along. Since the cow doesn't have the milk supply the calf needs, we still take milk out morning and evening.  For awhile the calf would let us stand next to her while she drank her bottle. Now we need to sit in the side by side and she comes to us. If we get out, she runs back to her mother. The side by side is her substitute mom!! 

I'm dreading the day we have to sell this little gal! She has the best of both worlds. She gets most of her nourishment from a bottle, but she also has a mama's love!!

In Times Like These...

                                               In times like these, you need a Savior,
                                               In times like these you need an anchor...

                        In times like these, with the world practicing social distancing and
                          many quarantined,  I need a distraction. I like to look back on
                                        pictures from the past. sometimes a song
                                pops into my head. It just felt like a good blog post!!

                                                           This Changing World,
                                                makes the burdens even harder to bear,

                                 in times like these when we're laden with disheartening dispair.

                                            (I took this picture less than an hour before the
                                                 Challis earthquake rattled our windows.)




                                                 On the Wings of a Snow White Dove

                                                 
                                                          God sends his pure sweet love...




                                                       God Put a Rainbow in the Cloud
                                                   

                                       When it looked like the sun wouldn't shine anymore...




                                                 I Will Sing of The Mercies of the Lord

                                                        Forever, I will sing, I will sing..




                                                    The Holy Hills of Heaven Call Me

                                                   To mansions bright across the sea..




                                                           The Lord My Shepherd is,

                                          I shall be well supplied....What can I want beside?




                                                      I Love to Steal Awhile Away...

                                                      ... Where none but God can hear....



                                         
                                                         Tell Me the Stories of Jesus,
                                                                    I love to hear

                                        Things I would ask Him to tell me, if He were here..

The TSA and Me!

Flying was one of those unnecessary evils I thought I could live without! I was perfectly happy to travel through life with my feet firmly planted on the ground! Than one lovely spring day when I was about 47 years old, our feed consultant offered us an all expenses paid farm tour to MO. We would be touring the Purina calf and heifer facilities. I wanted to go very badly, anything to better my dairy calf operation! There was one drawback...we had to fly! I just knew I would hate flying! And I was right!  I was sick the whole way to St Louis! We finished our tour which was well worth the rocky flight down! Going through security in St Louis for the flight home I was jerked out of line and given the special 20 minute pat down, even the bottoms of my feet were under scrutiny. Our whole group of 30 people stood off to the side and tried not to watch! I had never went through that before and I can say I haven't gone through one that excruciating since!

 Am I the only one who has issues with the TSA? I can count on three fingers the times I have gotten through security without a hitch. If I do happen to breeze my way through security, opening my suitcase at my final destination brings the TSA up-close and very personal!

When I walk through the scanner, there are always three points that light up on the screen..my head, because of all the hardware I have in my hair, I understand that! My hip, as of 2013 is now full of titanium, which I also understand. And my left wrist! why my wrist?  I don't wear a wristwatch and haven't since I ran over it at the bank about 27 years ago, so what is the attraction with my wrist? They don't have a clue, but it gives them a good excuse to pull me aside to swab my hands and the bottoms of my feet, and run their magic wand over me. I know it will happen every time I fly now, so we try to give ourselves extra time for the TSA to enjoy their little mission.

Now my suitcase is another story! I always seem to find that nice little note that reads something to this effect, " your luggage has been chosen to be physically inspected by a TSA official." It is always plastered to the bottom of my suitcase. That tells me they take everything out and then they must stand 50 feet away to throw it all back in!

One time I opened my suitcase to find trail mix scattered through all my clothes. It was in one of those plastic containers you need  to tear a plastic strip off to get it open. I had planned to use it for a hostess gift but instead I had the pleasure of shaking peanuts and raisins out of everything!! And there at the bottom I found a nice little note!

Another time I was transporting frozen bacon from PA to ID...Okay! I have gotten a lot of grief for this one from my own family!! Who flies with a suitcase full of bacon...long story short...I don't anymore!!  :) I had it in ziplock bags then double bagged in grocery bags...so my clothes wouldn't smell like bacon! I might as well not even bothered! and then there was that note again!

The last time we flew, I wanted to take carryon's for the 10 days we were going to be gone. After filling two small suitcases with just Rob's clothes, I knew I had two options. Either wear all my extra clothing or break down and check a bag! Since my experiences at the security checkpoint are less than favorable, wearing all my extra clothing probably wouldn't go over well. So we checked a suitcase! We enjoyed our ten days and arrived back at the Boise Airport to discover our suitcase was still back in Detroit! Three days later our wayward suitcase arrived home. As I started emptying it I found total chaos! I try to keep things organized to a certain degree, so to help save space I put all our toiletries in three or four ziplock bags. Every bag was slashed! Thankfully nothing had exploded, which has happened before too! Then I found some smashed and broken items! I don't know how you can smash a medication organizer box, but the TSA did! My 5 lb. block of cheese and the fruitcake that I acquired from my niece were unharmed! That was a huge blessing! :) and then I found the note!

I always thought of myself as pretty easy to get along with, but the TSA has just stood on my last nerve!

Next time we fly...we are going with the bare minimum...so if you see me at a church function and I am wearing the same dress all week, its not the only dress I own...I just don't enjoy picking up the pieces left by the TSA. 

The Secret to a Happy Marriage

                                                                 

We have reached a milestone, 40 years of living happily ever after!

What is a happy marriage?

What keeps a marriage together?

What tears a marriage apart?

I don't have the answer to any of those questions! As I see the marriages that fall apart in Christian circles, it scares me! Do we even have what it takes to keep our marriage together?

As I look back to the day we got married, we were two kids that had no idea what we were doing! We didn't know where we wanted to be in 10 years! We definitely didn't know how we were going to get there.

We didn't start married life with a hefty bank account, two vehicles and a new house. It took everything we had to buy several appliances. Thankfully our mobile home came with the job. We were ready to face the world together but we didn't have a clue what it was going to cost.

As the hurdles started flying at us, we would blunder our way over them. Sometimes we would try to take different routes, then it would take a while to find our way back to each other. Some of the hurdles turned into mountains that we thought we would face every day the rest of our lives. We didn't have Dr Dobson, Gary Smalley, or Dennis Rainey to see if this was normal wedded bliss! We didn't give up, on our marriage or each other!

Phillipians 3:13 ...."forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before", I'm taking this out of context here but it works!! This works in our Christian life as well as our marriage! We forgave and forgot all the past hurts.  Trying to carry all that stuff through the years just bogged us down. Forget what happened yesterday and start each day with a clean slate!

We are two different personalities. We don't always like the same things. I like an omelet with as many veggies as you can stash into it, he likes a meat and cheese omelet and that's it!! I say its boring, he says its good!
When we go on vacation, he likes to head for the hills or mountains away from people and as close to nature as he can get.
 I'm not a shopper, but I do love to stroll through the gift shops, looking at everything, buying nothing. We do both, he endures the gift shops, while I follow him through the mountains.

I think God put me in Rob's life to balance his orderliness. he has a place for everything and everything is in its place! When he does misplace something, I want to jump up and down! It happens so seldom.
I on the other hand, have spent most of my life looking for stuff! When I use something, that's where I leave it! I can stand at my desk, write out a grocery list, pick up the list, and walk out of the room. Ten minutes later I'm ready to head for the store but I can't find the list anywhere! It has completely vanished!

Then there are the times when our personalities take different directions....
He has had a full week of tilling and sowing and wants to spend Sunday afternoon at home. I start to feel like a caged lion after 6 days of just doing my normal chores. I remember how many times he has said, "I know of a place you would really like to see...."
So we're sitting there reading but I want to do something...anything! Even a walk...(I hate to walk!!!) So I say, "Lets do something" and he says, "What do you want to do" Now I know where this is going, so I say, "Nothing, just forget it" Then he says, "I hate when you do that, just tell me what you want to do and we'll do it" And I'm thinking "You are the one who had all these ideas of things you wanted to show me and now you can't think of a single one of them???" So we sit there in silence for several minutes, till finally he says, 'You wanna go for a drive ?"  "Yes, Yes, Absolutely, that's exactly what I want to do!!". I am so happy, he suggested a drive!...even if I did goad him into it!!

We spent a Saturday morning digging potatoes. Till we were finished the sun was hot and we were feeling a little over heated. We took a lunch break then Rob wanted to take an electric fence down around our dried up river bed. He planned to move the fence across a new alfalfa field that he had started but he didn't want the cows to graze it. The field wasn't that wide so he decided to drag the fence to its new location instead of rolling it up and unrolling it again. It sounded like a good plan to me, except that it kept getting hung up on sunflower roots. Till we got the fence down and moved to the new fence line we were both exhausted. We were two hours beyond the time he told me it would take. I didn't have any snacks and our water was running low. Rob was overheated from pounding all those T-posts. I hadn't eaten lunch  so I was suffering from acute...I don't know what... but I was sick! He had been putting up the fence as he pounded in the T-posts so we were making progress.  We just had to put more plastic posts in to stabilize it and unravel the knot, that had materialized at the end of our fence as we were dragging it. We finally got the knot out! Rob tried to push a plastic post into the ground but it wouldn't penetrate. The ground was harder than concrete! I could have cried, I was so tired and hungry, we were only about 15 minutes from being finished. Rob said, "I'll take you back to the house so you can rest, get my drill and come out and work till midnight till I get these posts in." I don't know why, but all of a sudden I saw red!!  I don't think it had anything to do with my upset stomach. "You can rest" and "I'll work till midnight" did it!  Thankfully I was too sick to respond! I knew he was discouraged but I felt wounded by that remark. I said, "Can we please eat supper before you come back out?"  It was almost 11 hours since breakfast and I was fading fast! I was right, it was food we needed! We were both in better humor after we got food! I went back out with him and drove the side-by-side while he finished putting posts in the ground. He didn't need to drill too many postholes, if he found a crack in the ground the post went right in. We were a happy couple heading back to the house, and it was a pretty long time before midnight too, I might add!!

So you see, we still don't have any idea what we are doing, but God took our imperfections and made us perfect for each other. We still blunder our way over the hurdles, we just try to jump them together now!

We were visiting with some close friends who were married over 60 years. They were having a good natured argument about something that happened a long time ago. We said, "Hey, you guys are being a bad example for us young ones!!" They both stopped and looked at us, "We aren't arguing," they said, laughing, "we're just having a moment of intense fellowship!!" Half the fun of "intense fellowship" is laughing at the silliness of it afterward!


Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage.  (Laozi)


The secret to a happy marriage remains a secret! (Henry Youngman)

A Summer with Landon!

We had a very interesting visitor at our ranch this summer. Six year olds are the most fascinating little people! They have no idea what their next adventure will be but they face it head on. They quietly listen to grown up conversations and form their own opinions, or fears... as this little boy happened to do. He came to our ranch with the opinion that we see wolves and coyotes on a regular basis. He is terrified of wolves and coyotes, but he came with his family with the healthy fear that if he saw one he could outrun it!

                                            Landon would rather lead Sugar than ride her!

He wasn't here a week when he was riding his bike up the road past our windmill, a distance of about  3 tenths of a mile from our house.  A little later he was out in the driveway with his Dad and saw a car go up the road, "Oh, No, there goes my bike!" His dad asked, "Where's your bike?" "Well, you see, I was riding my bike up the road, when I got to the windmill I thought I heard a wolf so I jumped off my bike and ran back here!" He even took the time to take off his helmet and lay it on his bike! He walked up the road to get his bike, it was still there, all in one piece!

About a month later he was talking to his cousin on the phone. Damian asked him how he liked living in the west. Landon replied, "Well, I'll tell ya', I haven't seen or heard a coyote and I haven't seen or heard a wolf so I think I'm gonna be okay!"

Our son in law Nate, told Landon if he pushed an empty water bottle against both of his bike tires, he can turn his bike into a motor bike. Nate proceeded to put water bottles against his tires. Landon would race around the house on his motor bike. It really sounded like a swarm of angry bees were after him. He wore out two water bottles and put two more in their place. Then his motor bike started throwing him. Every day he would come in with a new scratch or bump. He finally took the bottles off the tires thinking that was the problem but his bike continued to throw him off. He came in the house one day all upset. He declared that whoever made his bike, made it a jerk!!!

The young people would spend their evenings playing card games. Black Seven became a favorite. Landon was too young to play but he would walk around the table and tell everybody who had the rook or any other card that was holding up the game. He watched and listened so well that one day a bunch of us were out in the barnyard working with the horses, he came out of the house with a hand full of cards. "Anybody want to play black seven?" he asked. Somebody asked him, "What did you do, stack your hand?" "Noooo", he said slowly, "I just got the rook, all the black, and all the sevens!" He didn't know how to play but he had all the winning cards!
                                                            
                                                                    

We started playing with him. He always wanted to sit beside Jaci, he thought she was a pretty cool girl. Sadly the feeling wasn't mutual, but she humored him. When he was dealt his hand, he would look at it and moan, "Oh No I got the worst card, the rook!" He never knew where to play it so when Jaci couldn't go and needed a card. Landon would give her the rook. Jaci would say "No Landon give me your worst card" "No Jaci, I always give you my best card" He did too, none of the rest of us got treated like Jaci did.

                                        He had no idea Karen was getting ready to wallop him
                                        on the head. He had just announced that he had the "worst card ever"!

                                        

                    Jaci and Karen were getting ready to fly back to PA, Landon was Jaci's shadow!

He heard somebody say if you set real still a hummingbird will land on your finger. He sat real still for about 30 seconds then proclaimed that it doesn't work and he's never doing it again!!

The boys found fish in a culvert under the road below our place. The water was slowly drying up so they were on a "Save the Fish" campaign. They transported them back to our stock ponds. I lost count at how many they transplanted, somewhere around 200, I think. Landon was pretty proud of the fish he caught with his net.

Adventures With the Meyers Family Part 3

Horseback Riding.                                            July 18, 2018                                       

One thing everyone wants to do when they come to Grandma and Grandpa's is ride a horse. This gang was no exception. It was the 5th week of their stay and we still hadn't found a horse to ride. We had friends about an hour south of us that had a horse they would loan us for the duration of Deb and the children's stay but SOMEBODY had to go pick it up. NOBODY would go after it, so we were stuck!

I finally called on our neighbors, Jimmy and Lisa. They have two horses but they are working horses not kid friendly horses. It turned out that Lisa's was kid friendly and they invited the whole tribe over to their place to ride. The girls were ecstatic, finally it was happening.

                                            Jimmy getting Cramer ready for the children.

 

Jimmy giving Jude instructions on how to start, turn, and stop Cramer

 

 

I don't think Jude was expecting to ride the horse entirely by himself.

 

 

Lance taking his turn.

 

 

Karen

 

 

For the first time of riding, Carter did really well.

 

 

Tesla was a little wary of her first time.

 

 

Cramer followed Jimmy around the corral while Tesla held on for dear life.

after each ride she got a little more comfortable, till the end of the evening "Cramer was the bestest horse ever!!" and she was sitting tall in the saddle.

 

 

Jamie

 

 

Jaci

 

 

This is what Deb really came to Idaho for!!

Now if she could just convince her Dad that horses really are an asset!!

 

 

Jimmy became Tesla's greatest fan.

She latched on to every bit of cowboy wisdom he had to offer.

 

 

Jimmy drew quite an audience.

 

 

After the boys had two rides each they started to get buggy so we

 decided to walk home and let the girls keep riding.

When we passed a pond they began looking for stones to see which one could throw from the road and get the stones into the pond.

 

 

The competition got quite intense. 

It soon became evident they were going to need to get closer if they wanted to hit the water.

Any closer and they would have been in the pond!