If you give a man a gun....

he'll need a new scope to go with it.

He'll shop and shop and shop for "the perfect scope", and order it; a smashing deal from the local gun smith/buddy.

When the scope is finally delivered, he'll be SO excited that he'll call all his friends! (Two, total.) His friends will be excited, too, because it's a new gun with the perfect scope!
They'll have to get together to try it out.

If the buddies are coming over to try out the new gun and scope, the man will need more beer.
So, while he's mounting the perfect scope with great precision and nerve-wracking holding of breath, you'll have to go to town to get the beer.  It will not be the right kind, but it will just have to do, because when you return you'll find...

an informal shooting match going on in the back yard!  All the buddies (two, remember) brought THEIR guns to shoot, too!

This will take most of the rest of the daylight hours and nearly all the ammunition.
They'll come in to the house for a beer and "snacks" (full meal) when they're finished.

As they're refreshing themselves, the man will start admiring one of his buddy's guns.  The more he talks about it, the more he realizes...
He NEEDS it. Desperately.

So, for Christmas, you'll give a man a gun...

(Have you read the children's book "If You Give a Pig a Pancake"?  Then you recognize the form of the story!  This is loosely based on real-life events, details changed to make the story work. I would NEVER be able to give a man a gun, because I have no clue whatsoever about them...men OR guns.)

*You can plug in anything and make this story work.  For example, I'm sure Tracileeg could say, "If you give a man a tractor..." and have the same sort of outcome....*

Today was shipping day on our ranch! 
As Angus says (and he really DOES say this, by the way), "Huz-zah!!"
The steer calves are G-O-N-E, GONE.

In a brief summary of the day....

The Highlights  :) 

• The steers weighed EXACTLY 625 pounds, average, which happens to be the EXACT weight we contracted them at. 
• The day was perfect.  And when I say perfect, I mean: sunshine, light breeze, 57 degrees F., no precipitation.  Perfect!  Yesterday, we read predictions of snow, wind, ugliness.  Today we saw...perfect.  (And I said, "Thank you, God!")
• We had a terrific, experienced crew that all showed up AND no one got hurt.
• The food turned out and the crew ate it!  Okay, my mother-in-law's food is always great...ALWAYS....but I worry every year that the coffee refreshments (my responsibility) will bomb. 
• My father-in-law didn't have a heart attack, stroke, panic attack or any other sort of awful medical emergency caused by stress.  And this was without the aid of the Valium we threaten to drop in his orange juice, the morning of.
• It was payday, rancher-ly speaking...we now have money to buy feed for the cows to get them through the winter to do it all over again next year. 
• The Farmer and I are still speaking.  This is BIG. I got yelled at for legitimately messing up, but I didn't cry or yell back.  (I quietly plotted what to put in his meal, later, to create gastric distress.  She laughs best who studies herbal properties and applies them, last....)
• Angus had a friend to play with all morning!  Jackson, the scale man's son, came and spent all morning with him, chasing around and having fun while the rest of us worked.  We love Jackson; he loves us.  Too bad we only see him once a year!

The Lowlights  :(

• Heifer calf #704 may be ruined for life on trailer loading.  It's not for lack of trying, that's for sure.  She is our new poster-girl for the term "bullheaded", closely followed by a picture of the Farmer, who was certain we could just shove her on there because...well....he wanted her to go on THAT trailer. 
• I screwed up.  A lot.  But they won't can me, because I bring the breakfast burritos and the cinnamon rolls. 
• Speaking of breakfast burritos, it was pointed out to me SEVERAL TIMES that the cattle buyer and the scale man really and truly were hoping for Scottish eggs.  They looked everywhere for them and even though they each ate a pile of breakfast burritos, the lack of Scottish eggs was a sincere disappointment.  To the point that I'm not sure we'll get that great a price on our calves next year unless this is figured into the negotiations. 
• My bum calves, Lily and Willie, had a really traumatic day (much like the buyer and scale man).  They were separated, loaded, hustled, mixed with strange calves, run around, re-hustled....it was awful.  The minute they were reunited, they went together like two sides of a sandwich and were completely content.  The heartache of bums....my inability to emotionally detach.  
•  Maggie had to go to school, missing all the excitement...the thrills, the chills.  She has made it her life's ambition to get a horse.  Several of the neighbors helping us today HAVE horses.  This was a monumental missed opportunity. (They don't bring their horses, mind you; she just shmoozes and bats her eyes in the hopes they remember her when they retire a good horse.   So far, nothin'.  But she's no quitter...)

It really was a perfect day!  Now the heifer calves are being weaned at the Big House and the next week or so will be fraught with anxiety about them breaking out and running amok.  I'll keep ya posted. 

Through the Window Friday

Or, in this case, from the porch step through the garden shed door....

Here's a photo story taken yesterday when I got a holler that "Lily's in the garden shed!"

No.

No way.

Um...yes way.

She found where the calf crumbles are stored and when Wayland left the door open to get something else for the shed, she just helped herself.

This is her SECOND break-in of the day, so I grabbed the camera and documented the caper.

Busted!

The best part of the pictures is Willie, standing as the look-out....

And technically, she isn't really IN the shed, if she's just on her knees "looking", right?

"I told her not to do it, Mom!! She's in big trouble, right?"

Not that she cares...

You'll notice the "Good Calf" is gone, now that the law showed up...

Out, out, out,  Naughty Calf!

She's trying to sweet talk him into leaving the door open and turning a blind eye.  And who could resist a sweet, naughty calf face like that?

It didn't work.  And now, as you can plainly see, she's calling him all sorts of names as he walks away.  I won't repeat them here, because this is a family blog.  (You'll note Good Calf on the other side of the fence, saying "I TOLD you so....")  He was called a couple names, too.

Word-y Wednesday

Other blogs have Wordless Wednesday.
Mine tend to be Word-y.

BUT....I'm trying very hard to become a self-contained, quietly restrained, organized, rule-follower this year. 

QUIT LAUGHING!
Everybody has a dream...

These pictures are from our family vacation taken a week and a half ago, and I'm NOT going to caption them.  I'm going to let them speak for themselves. Step One in Reformation 2011....

The harvest is great, the workers are few....

That verse in the Bible is very literal, to me, this time of the year!  Really, the kids and I aren't very involved in the harvest process.  I help move augers, move guys who move trucks, make cookies, take phone calls, run for parts.  I like taking pictures of the whole mess, though. 


Vern is cutting the Willow Creek winter wheat, here...it's an incredible awnless wheat variety that makes great hay.  We hay some of it, but also sell the seed grain, so that's what they're cutting here.

The grain gets dumped in the short truck and wagon...it's alternated, so while one is being unloaded, the other is sitting empty, waiting to be filled.  The reason they are both here is that the Farmer hustled around and got one emptied quickly.  You can't see it, but he's sitting in the pickup truck, reading Men's Journal or a gun magazine...

Dumping the winter wheat into the wagon....

It always looks so rich, to me...bushels and bushels of red winter wheat, pouring into the truck or wagon.

Wait...wait....Angus is carrying a container of scotcheroo treats for PopPops and Dad, but he can't go until he gets the signal.  *Maggie is barefoot.  Remember that Merle Haggard song, "Mama Tried"?  I sing that a lot. 

I felt obliged to warn you about the bare feet, because they are showcased here in all their filthy glory. See how the red wagon looks sort of fuzzy and out of focus?  Chaff in the air, still, from dumping the wheat!

Why is Angus running away?  Well.  It turns out that he handed PopPops the scotcheroos and PopPops handed HIM a salted nut roll candy bar.  He is disinclined to share with his sister and thought he'd beat it back to the car to eat it in private, like a little raccoon. 

He was called back.  And manfully put away most of the salted nut roll, since his sister decided she didn't want slobbered-on peanuts.

This is the kind of bouquet farm girls like!

Well...it's not a salted nut roll, but still pretty cool...

This just makes me smile...

Back to work...

And the load of wheat, headed to the bin!

She's my first Jew...

Not everyone finds this as hilarious as we do....

But I laugh everytime I think of this! 

Sue and I have been writing back and forth, asking questions about each other's lives because we live on different planets, really.

One time, after asking a particularly dumb question (I'm sure) about being Jewish, I told her she was my first Jew and she cheerfully said I was her first rancher.  I said, "We should get tshirts!"

And so she did.

I love it! And we both laughed!

And that's how we started Sue's visit....crazy t-shirts, t-bone steaks, blueberry pie, and Red Sox gifts.

That's right.

We've not had a baseball team in this family, being completely underexposed to that sport, but NOW we're part of Red Sox Nation! 

Witness the gear, on the family:

Mags is holding the team mascot, Wallie.

The kids wore their tshirts to bed, even!  And Angus has not taken the cap off in three days...

We picked Maggie up in Cohagen, so Sue could see the little school and meet Maggie's teacher.

Then we went back to the ranch and fed my bum calves, Lily and Sweet William.

(All my bums get flower names, so we thought Lil and Will would be fun this year.)

It's mucky, ucky around the corrals and calves tend to be quite slobbery, especially when they're hungry, so Sue got to wear my very glamorous covies and Muck boots. 

Sue fed Will, because he's gentler on the food source.  Lily will almost take you down for the bottle and shows no mercy when you run out of milk.  More on those two, later...

 

Here's Lil, looking to rough up someone for more food...

 Brand spanking new calf on the other side of the barn...

We went home after that and checked email, watched Red Sox youtubes, watched Mags dress up in costume after costume, talked about life and so forth.

When the Farmer got home, Sue asked if she could see his guns.

After he picked his jaw up off the floor (we're usually telling him to put his guns AWAY), he started hauling firearms out for show-n-tell! 

First time she ever shot a gun!  I think she's hooked....

It's a fair trade: Sue started the Red Sox obsession, we gave her gun fever. 

 A little souvenir from Eastern Montana...

We tried to send home kittens, but she seemed to think she'd have a hard time getting them on the plane.

Excuses, excuses...

And the next day, we went out for a while to tag calves and look at the cows.

It was such a good visit!

I wish I'd been able to make it to Sue's book reading and signing, but the Farmer had EMT testing so I stayed to "help" Vern with the cows.

(I think I may be more of a hindrance, but even bad help is better than no help, right?)

If you have the opportunity to read

You can read a synopsis at Nebraska Press.

It's a true story about the Smith Mine disaster in Bearcreek, MT and every time I read it, I see something new.  Two coffee cups up! (The thumbs have been done...)

Changing Gears

At one of our bookclubs, we had the rare privilege of hosting the author of our selection that month, John Moore.  He's a rancher that writes or a writer that ranches....I'm not sure which.  Anyway, we asked him if ranching hindered his writing process and he explained that actually he did most of his writing horseback, in his head, hurrying home after the work was done to get it down on paper.

I have to say I can completely relate to this.  I write blog posts by the bucketful when I ride my 4-wheeler, moving cows. I write letters that never get sent. I change recipes and write cookbooks. I make "to-do" lists that are quite grandiose.  And I revisit memories, hitting the re-wind button in my brain; enjoying some and cringing at others, of course. 

The other day, when we were moving the yearlings...the coming twos....I recalled my first "ranch" date with the Farmer and the guys of Pluhar ranch. 

I grew up where we rode horses to gather cows and work, and my dad made fun of motorcycles and wheelers. I'd truly never sat on a 4 wheeler until I started dating the Farmer....golf carts, yes, but never a wheeler. And it had been some time since I'd moved cows at all.   

The guys were going to move yearlings from Grants, where our house now sits, to across the road and I guess they thought it couldn't hurt to let "the girl" come along.  I got a crash course (not literally) in riding my own 4-wheeler. It sounded something like this: "Here's the start button. Shift up with your foot like this, shift down with your foot like this, here's the brake, let's go."

 And they took off, going at what seemed to me to be 50 mph, but in reality was more like 25 mph.  Pluhars are great guys, but they don't baby girls along very much, so I finally figured out the shifting up thing and caught up.  Sort of.  By the time I was getting to cruising speed, they were shifting down to turn.  (How do I shift down?!!! Think, think, think. Think faster!)

I've told you about moving yearlings, how they are the hardest bunches of cows to manuver, because they are flighty and silly, like junior high girls.  Yeah.  And me on a wheeler.  I don't mind telling you that I was a little nervous.  But I really wanted to prove that I could do it, so I followed along and went where they told me, feeling like I'd tip over the wheeler on any little incline, fighting the gear thing the whole way.

Looking back, I give the guys huge credit for their patience and willingness to even let me go.  Or perhaps they just wanted something funny to watch for awhile. 

The one little instruction they neglected to impart was how to put the wheeler in reverse. 

On a horse, you pull back the reins and pivot.  It's pretty intuitive and quick and you don't even really think about it. 

On a wheeler, you have to shift all the stinking way back down to neutral, push down a little red button on the left handle by the brake and pull back, shift the gear down into reverse, THEN hit the gas to go flying backward after letting go of the brake you've been holding on the left-hand handle.  Who the heck is going to figure THAT out on their own?  Especially someone as mechanically impaired as me.

Pulling back on the handles does nothing. And believe me, I tried that.

I got a little heifer into a corner, and there we sat.....she didn't want to leave and I couldn't.  I couldn't go forward, I couldn't go backward, I couldn't turn.  She finally tossed her pretty little head and left me sitting there, MAD.  Mostly because I could hear at least two of the guys (one was the man I was dating) laughing. What I wouldn't have given for one of my Dad's horses right that moment....

Finally, after pulling himself together, the Farmer (risking life and limb) came over and showed me the complex system by which one puts a wheeler in reverse. Is that all? He politely backed my wheeler out of the corner and got me readjusted, headed the right direction.

I was finally able to rejoin the guys and the herd and follow them across the road to the next pasture. Vern very kindly told me he liked that I didn't get all excited when moving cows, waving my arms and hollering.  Well, yeah.  I was pretty much immobilized in the corner during most of the project.  But let me tell you, it was getting pretty close to the waving and yelling stage.....

I didn't realize at the time that it was a pretty big deal to go with the guys.  Pluhars have always had ample male help and sort of discouraged women around the cows, because as my father-in-law told the Farmer one time, "Cows just work harder with women in the corral."

But that's another story....

Wow! Willow Creek Winter Wheat

Big Chief Crabby Pants

Hay bottoms just north of our house...

See the little tiny dot on the horizon? That's A tree, Jason Harold!! We're so proud of it.

Twillabie running like the wind!

Willow Creek winter wheat is a variety we grow for forage (hay) and also some to sell the seed.  I'll include a link at the bottom of this post from MSU about the variety and there will be bar graphs and everything! But one thing I find remarkable is that it will grow as much as 3/4 an inch per day.  So if you stood out in the field for a couple hours, you could probably actually see it happening. 

This wheat floors me, every year, with its freakish height.

Some pictures for you from this morning, in one of the fields we rogued on Tuesday.

Keep in mind that the Farmer and I are both about 5'8" tall, and wearing boots....

Willow Creek is an awnless variety, which just means that it has no "beards"; a nice, neat head which is part of the reason it's so palatable for livestock.

She's SO happy for the little adventure! I love the pleased look on her face.

For more stats on the Willow Creek, go to: http://animalrangeextension.montana.edu/articles/forage/2007_willowcreek.pdf

It's amazing!