Wings on the Ranch

Phenomenal Wheather

2012-01-31T20:32:00.003-07:00

Well, for a week or so it got pretty cold but it is back up into the 40's and 50's. Yesterday it was 52 and today was 46. There is no big cool-down in sight. After last winter, we are so thankful for the beautiful winter.

This was last winter, around this time.

This was taken yesterday.

Record Temperatures.

2012-01-05T20:21:00.006-07:00

Today it hit 64 degrees. That is over 10 degrees over the record for the fifth of January as well as a record high for January. We have been taking advantage of the weather and today we [with the exception of me (I was sick)] weaned calves. We are extremely thankful for the beautiful weather. It is supposed to cool down a bit, but we aren't complaining.

DJ

Update

2011-12-28T15:35:00.003-07:00

Recently we got our house jacked up because it had settled 3 1/4 inches. It had been settling over the years, but this year it settled so much we couldn't open the doors or windows on one corner. We found a company that screws steel piers down and then jack up the foundation. Here is a picture of what they screw down.

Here is a picture of them screwing the piers in. Normally they can hit something solid at 15 feet or so, but they had to screw them down to 60 feet here.

This is what sits atop the pier. They put a hydraulic jack in the open space and jack it up until it gets where it needs to be then tighten down the nuts.

Here is the gap that was left after they jacked the house up.

This is a crack in the wall before they jacked the house up.

And the after picture.

Now, all our doors and windows open.

However, to have the house jacked up, the deck had to be taken off. We managed to take it off in just two pieces. It was a job, but not as bad as trying to take it off board by board.

We also had to put it back on. Luckily we had really nice weather. Here's some pictures of us putting the deck back on.

We are so thankful for the beautiful weather. Today it hit 54 degrees.

There is barely any snow, which we are extremely thankful for. It looks like the weather is going to stay good into January. They are forecasting mid 40's
in January.

Since these pictures were taken the snow has melted even more.

This picture was taken December 6th 2010... Over a year ago. I'm so glad it doesn't look like that now.

We are leaving our calves with our cows while the weather is still nice. It seems to be working quite well.

DJ

First Snow

2011-11-07T12:51:00.006-07:00

Saturday night we got our first snow. We got maybe an inch, but it has melted quite a bit already.

We have been frantically trying to get everything done before winter hits. One of the tasks was putting in over a mile of pipeline. When Dad went to start the trencher a month or so ago, the governor stuck and it started over-revving. The fuel shutoff didn't work either, so he had to pinch the fuel line to get it under control. We had to take it to Dickinson and it took three weeks before we got it back. We finally got our trenching done at the mountain before the cold weather hit (so we thought). Saturday night Mom and I went to get a pickup that was still at the mountain and noticed water bubbling out of the ground. We shut the water off and went home. The next day Dad had to go dig the pipeline out when it was about thirty degrees with a thirty mph wind. He got it repaired and turned down the pressure. One of the problems was there is a 325 foot drop from the highest point in the pipeline to the lowest.

This is the pipe we used. It is actually gas line and comes in 2000 foot roles. After unrolling one roll with just Dad and me, we recruited Mom to help as well. Things went a lot better after that.

A picture I took a while ago of one of our future milk cows chasing deer out of the yard.

Extracting Honey

2011-09-24T19:35:00.001-06:00

Last Sunday, Sept. 18, we extracted our first crop of honey from Danny's bees. We used the meat cooler room in our shop, which is about 5 feet by 12 feet. We warmed everything up to an uncomfortable 90+ degrees to allow the honey to flow.

The picture below is of the "supers" that hold ten frames each.

Danny is holding one of the frames that is full of capped honey.

We are using a capping scratcher to take the wax cappings off the honey.

We borrowed a two frame extractor to fling the honey out of the frames.

Oh! How exciting to see the honey begin to flow. We attribute the very light color to an overabundance of sweet clover this year.

A five gallon bucket filled almost to the brim! About 57 pounds.

Bottling time.

Below are a few pictures of the finished product.

Bobbie--pictures by DJ

Selling Steers and a Fly-in

2011-09-15T09:42:00.003-06:00

On the 7th we gathered the steers and put them in the trap.

The next day we brought them in and (after some excitement) loaded them on the trucks. We drove in to Dickinson to watch the sale. They were lighter than we thought they would be, but they sold well.

On the 9th we loaded up the airplane and headed to the Badlands fly-in at Hot Springs, SD. This is the second time we have attended. We had a lot of fun last year and this year wasn't any different.

I got a couple of pictures of Mt. Rushmore on the way down.

When we arrived, there were already quite a few airplanes there.

Shortly afterwards, several more showed up.

3 RV-10's and an RV-7A.

An RV-10.

An RV-9A

Another RV-10

RV-4

RV-12

RV-9A

RV-8

RV-7A (I think)

A bunch of RVs

A nice RV-10

We also went to a mammoth dig site. It was once a sinkhole that mammoths fell into and couldn't get out. Since they say a picture is worth a thousand words...

What We've Been Doing

2011-09-02T12:41:00.008-06:00

We finished haying a few weeks ago. We ended up with over 2,400 bales for the year. Dad finished hauling bales from across the river, but we still have to haul 1,400 or so bales over on this side of the river. We got all the bales bunched and ready to load on the trailer though.

These pictures were taken three weeks ago.(I forgot to post them)

It has cooled down a bit. Highs in the 70's lows in the 40's. It has been kind of dry recently. The other day we looked out the window and saw this. Evidently the cat was kind of cold.

A couple weeks ago Dad got his wheel loader. It is a John Deere 544H with approximately 1850 hours on it. Dad found it online, drove to Minnesota to look at it, and bought it. One of the main reasons he got it was to plow snow in case we have another bad winter. It is handy for other things like loading rock too.

DJ

Happenings on the Ranch

2011-08-09T11:22:00.007-06:00

Back on Friday we got our weekly shower. We got just under an inch.

Pictures of the clouds.

It was raining pretty good.

After the storm it cleared up.

A couple pictures of the steers.

We finished our haying at the mountain today. We've gotten over 2,000 bales so far this year and should get another 500 or so bales across the river from our second cutting.

DJ

Savage Montana July 29th Storm

2011-08-01T10:05:00.001-06:00

These pictures were taken on Saturday after the storm Friday night.

The old Greenway Dairy.

Notice the water tank in the corner of the building. It was on top of the hill.

Farm south of Savage.

A wrecked pivot.

Uncle Del's pivot.

Hay bale blown across the field.

Farmstead by the river.

Savage cemetery.

DJ

Haying and Thunder Storms

2011-07-30T13:04:00.006-06:00

Not exactly a good combination.

We are still busy haying. We have gotten over 1400 bales put up this year so far and have a lot more to go.

Finished with that field. You can see Blue Mountain in the background.

That field finished too.

A field with a lot of sweet clover.

Dad cutting hay.

Mom standing in the sweet clover.

A picture of the breaks down by Devils Canyon.

You can see baled hay, cut hay, and yet-to-be-cut hay.

Nice pretty windrows. Wish they still looked like that...

This storm came through a week ago. We got 1.1 inches out of it.

These pictures were taken yesterday.

Mom and Dad went up to the mountain to try to hay yesterday. We thought this storm would miss us. We were wrong. We didn't get it too bad at the house, but at the mountain where the hay was there was more rain and wind. Some of the windrows blew. We will have to rake to get the windrows back together. However, compared to some, we didn't have it too bad. We went flying today and towards Savage there is a lot of damage. Power poles are snapped, pivots are toppled, and some buildings are damaged. I took some pictures and will try to get them up soon.

We got about 8/10 of an inch in the storm yesterday. That is 3 inches in 3 weeks. Not typical July weather.

D.J.

Cutting Hay

2011-07-16T18:43:00.001-06:00

We started cutting hay just east of the house yesterday. There is going to be a lot of hay.

Last night a thunderstorm came through. We got about an inch of rain in half an hour. There was also a terrible wind and hail, not a good combination. It pretty much wiped out the garden. Fortunately the hail wasn't really big. If it had been we might have lost some windows.

Now for the haying pictures.

A big patch of clover.

A close up of the clover.

Tall grass.

Nice windrows.

The hay here was so tall it was lying over.

We went flying this morning and I took some pictures of the hay. Luckily the windrows stayed put during the storm.

New Camera, Haying, Flying, and Moving Steers

2011-07-13T15:03:00.012-06:00

On Monday my new camera arrived. Our old one (Canon Powershot S3-IS) has been a really good camera, but is hardly pocketable. I ordered a Canon Powershot Elph 300 HS and have been really pleased with it so far. It doesn't have quite the zoom, but is really handy because of its size.

Our old camera (S3-IS) on the left and my new one (300 HS) on the right. All the pictures other than this one were taken with the new one.

We finished haying across the river. We ended up with just short of 700 bales off of 160 acres.

An aerial picture of some of our cows. My new camera seems to do better taking pictures out of the airplane.

The "sand rocks" towards Blue Mountain.

We started having problems with our steers getting into the neighbor's cattle (because steers tend to be curious) so we decided we should probably move them home a few weeks early. When we flew we saw they weren't too far from the gate, so we decided it would be a good time to move them.

If you enlarge this picture you will be able to see the steers.

So we took the stock trailer down part way. (The road is too bad to take it all the way down) Then we rode from there. Dad and Jessi split off to get six steers out of the neighbor's while the rest of us went to gather the rest of the steers.

A picture from the top of a ridge looking towards the river.

Gathering the steers.

Moving the steers.

They had to stop at the mud hole.

Another picture of them.

Waiting at the gate for the steers Dad and Jessi were bringing.

Mom looking for Dad and Jessi.

Danny on Dundee.

Mom on Poco.

Taking the steers across the ridge.

Trailing the steers home.

Mom, Dad, and Danny.

If you look closely you can see Jessi in the lead. We found that if you have her ride in front of the steers they tend to follow her.

Mom Danny and Dad again.

Headed down into the creek.

We got them home and dropped them in a nearby pasture. We will bring them in and haul them to another pasture pretty soon.

Haying, Airplanes, and More.

2011-07-10T19:53:00.002-06:00

Lately Dad has been busy haying. A few days ago I went over and helped bale hay while he raked it. Here a a few pictures I took.

Here is a picture of the Super Cub.

And a picture taken from the Super Cub of our place.

A weird cloud from a few weeks ago.

DJ

Water

2011-07-09T00:57:00.000-06:00

A while ago, I went canoeing on our reservoir and got some pictures. Most of them are a few weeks old since I was slow getting a blog post up.
The reservoir is completely full and doesn't really look like something from the Montana plains.

Some geese with large goslings.

A pair of goslings who thought Sam and I were after them. (One is surfacing after diving underwater.)

My silkie hen, Cotton, and her chick. (She is a really good mother.)

A neat cloud to the northeast of our place.

Jessi

Branding Pictures

2011-06-29T21:56:00.002-06:00

We had a small branding on Wednesday. I think we branded somewhere around 70 head. This is probably the last branding of the year. A friend from Iowa flew up in an airplane and spent a few days with us. He is the one that took all these pictures. The branding went really well and we had really good help.

A long range picture.

Bringing the cows in.

Bringing them through the gate.

Pictures from the branding.

DJ

Aerial Photos

2011-06-28T19:44:00.004-06:00

First a picture of our new airplane. It is a '56 Super Cub. We got it in mid June. I'll probably get some better pictures and write more about it later.

Here are some aerial pictures I took out of it last Thursday.

There is a lot of green grass.

Blue Mountain.

One of our hay fields.

Looking down Dry Creek.

Dry Creek.

The field just east of the house.

Update

2011-06-22T21:45:00.000-06:00

I don't have many pictures, but I needed to post something. We had our branding on the 11th and things couldn't have gone much better. Since then, we have been busy moving cattle and fixing fence. Once we are done with that we will need to start putting up hay. There is grass everywhere.

Here's some pictures of one of our hayfields.

Just some grass out in a pasture.

The house.

A picture of a rainbow. We haven't been getting that much rain recently, but it is still pretty wet.

DJ

Cows and Grass

2011-06-09T16:06:00.003-06:00

Here are some pictures I took of the cows yesterday. There is a lot of grass.

Brandings and Monsoons

2011-06-07T21:00:00.001-06:00

Luckily not on the same day.

We had brandings on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Here are some pictures from Sunday. It was about 80 degrees and there wasn't much wind so it was a bit warm.

Buck and his horse.

The crew.

Dave roping.

Me(DJ) dragging out a calf.

Dad and I.

Another picture of the wrestlers.

Well, it wasn't quite a monsoon but for a while it looked like one. We got about a half inch in half an hour. I'm glad we got the cows in this morning.

It was really raining for a while.

Just another picture looking south.

Update

2011-06-03T21:32:00.003-06:00

It's been over a week since my last blog post so I decided to post something.
In May we had over 9 inches of rain and have had over 12 inches in the last two months.

We have been pretty busy with our livestock. We have quite a few neighborhood brandings to go to and we are trying to get ready for our branding on the 11th. We branded about twenty head of calves yesterday and hauled them and their mothers out today.

The weather has been pretty nice except for it was really windy today. Yesterday I think it came close to 80 degrees.

The apple tree is in full bloom.

Did I mention the wind?

Because of the warmer temperatures the grass has really been growing.

Yellowstone River Flooding

2011-05-25T19:39:00.002-06:00

On Monday Dad and I went flying in the T-craft. We were amazed by how high the river was. This is because of all they are getting to the southwest. We told Mom, and she wanted to go see it, so we decided to take the Bearhawk. Dad, Mom, Jessi and I all got in and Dad hand-propped it (low battery) and got it started (I was surprised he was able to hand-prop an 0-540). Then we went flying. I won't do too much describing since the pictures speak for themselves.

This is the Intake Diversion dam. This is where the water for the canal comes in. They have spent 40 million dollars trying to fix something that doesn't need it. All to put in fish screens. And now the water is only a few feet from washing it all downstream. Take a look at the picture. You can see the old intake on the left.

These cows aren't in a very good spot.

The 'Fishing Rock'.

Flooded fields.

More pictures of the flooding.

Check out this landslide. The whole hill slid down quite a ways.

DJ

New calf

2011-05-23T20:30:00.006-06:00

Yesterday, Angel, my Holstien milk cow, had a heifer calf that is three quarters milk cow. To our surprise, she is whiter than either parent. I think we will call her Ivory, or Ivy for short.

If you look closely, you can tell the black hair is flecked with white, so what black she has will probably turn out to be more of a blue roan color like her older sister, Misty.

Here are our other three calves, Snowball(the big black bull), Molly(The black and white heifer), and Elf(The little brown heifer.)

Here is a close up of a dandelion.

And we also have tulips and daffodils blooming.

Jessi

More Rain

2011-05-22T21:39:00.004-06:00

We got 2.5 inches of additional precipitation in the past week. That brings our total rainfall for the month over 7 inches. Over ten inches since the first of April. This is nearly unheard of up here. Anyway, here are the pictures.

These two pictures were taken on Friday when it was really raining.

We got showers off and on today. Looking towards Indian Prayer Rock.

Looking west.

Looking towards Blue Mountain you can see the grass is really growing.

Pictures from Today

2011-05-15T20:38:00.003-06:00

Today we put out SweetPro (a mineral supplement) for our livestock. I took a few pictures of the cattle.

A picture of some of the cattle over on Cottonwood Creek with Blue Mountain in the background.

A cute calf.

We also went to the river and put SweetPro out for the steers.

They are looking pretty good.

The road to the river is really bad. It got bad when the snow melted and hasn't gotten any better. If you don't believe me look at the pictures below.

Yeah, that was the road.

We found some flowers on the way home.

Because of the rain some of the steeper hillsides slid off. Mudslides in Montana, who would have thought...

Rain (4.6 inches!)

2011-05-11T13:05:00.000-06:00

We got 4/10ths of an inch on Sunday night. It really started raining Monday evening. There was a lot of lightning. By around 10:00 P.M. we had 2.6 inches. By Tuesday morning we had over 3.5 inches. It rained throughout the morning and started to taper off by evening.

All and all we got 4.6 inches of rain in less than two days. I never remember seeing this much in the rain gauge. It is really muddy. The ground was already pretty saturated before we got the rain. Now it is very saturated. It didn't run the creeks as much as I thought it would though, but it still took out some fence in the creeks. This brings our total rainfall amount up to around 8 inches and that isn't counting the snow. That is like 2/3 of our average annual rainfall.

The proof.

The cattle-guard was full of water.

We were able to get up and check cattle Tuesday morning between storms. Luckily for you, I took the camera.

Looking towards the reservoir.

The heifers weren't too bothered about the rain.

The rain filled some reservoirs.

The three-year-olds. (You might have to enlarge the photo to see them.)

Blue Mountain was covered in clouds.

Today we flew again. I didn't take the big camera, but I did get some decent pictures.

You can see the cows on the far side of the reservoir.

Look closely in this picture. See the snowdrift? Today marks 6 months of having snow on the ground. We first got snow on November 11th and it never did completely melt off. Then we got more and more and...

In the center of the picture there is a pile of about fifteen calves. (Click to enlarge.)

Down on Cottonwood Creek.

The steers were happily grazing at the river.

The Yellowstone River is really high from all the rain.

DJ

Blizzard Aftermath

2011-05-02T18:00:00.001-06:00

I don't know if I should title this 'Blizzard Aftermath' or 'Mayday'.

The power went out.
The phone went out.
The heifers went out.
The steers went out.

The blizzard let up around 2:00 PM Saturday. At times visibility was below a hundred yards (probably closer to a hundred feet). Saturday around noon we lost power. It is still out. We hooked the big generator up so now we have some electricity. We called the electric company and they said that they are hoping to get our power up tomorrow afternoon. I heard on the radio Williston is still without power. There is an estimated 20,000 without power in North Dakota and Montana as of this morning.
After hooking the generator up to open the hangar door, Dad and I flew Sunday morning, the first of May, to discover the carnage. Just about everyone had cows and calves on someone else's land because the wind blew them into the fences (When I say blew, I mean they were trying to get away from the wind and eventually went through a fence, not that the wind picked them off their feet and sent them flying). Just about everyone lost some calves. The snow drifted up in the corner one of our pastures allowing the heifers to walk right over the fence so we had to get them in. The steers bunched up against a gate and broke the gate-stick; therefore, they got out. All and all, it could have been worse. Especially if it had lasted more than 12 hours. It still did a lot of damage in the time it had though.

You know it is windy when...

Icicles are at a forty-five degree angle.

These were taken Saturday evening. You can see the ice still stuck to the deck.

As I mentioned, the heifers got out. The wind blew them about two and a half miles. Luckily they wandered through an open gate into a small pasture. So on Sunday morning we loaded three horses in the trailer and took them to where the heifers were. Mom drove in front of them with the trailer. Here is a picture of the road-grader plowing snow.

Here is a picture of Dad bringing some heifers back.

Jessi, DJ, and Dad.

Taking them up the road.

They wanted to race Mom instead of letting her pass.

Yeah, that wasn't supposed to happen. They went through a open gate instead of straight down the road.

Mom and Dad went down to the river with the four wheelers and got the steers in. Most of them had already gone back though because they wanted to get back to the hayfield.

As you can see, there are still several drifts. They weren't here before the blizzard.

Dad, DJ, and Jessi.

The yard is green though.

Even the pasture is green.

But there are still some pretty bad drifts. Some are easily 8 to 10 feet deep.

DJ

Telling the gender of chicks and other things

2011-04-30T10:58:00.005-06:00

Earlier in April, I hatched out 36 chicks and bought ten more pullets from Runnings.
Since people are always wondering if their favorite chick will be a hen or rooster, I decided to make a post about it. These pictures were all taken before the storm.
One way to find a cockerel is to look at combs, like on this chick. (His comb is unusually large, even for a cockerel.) Pullets don't start getting much for combs until they're much older.

Here's a more normal looking cockerel. One way to tell he's a cockerel is because of his comb. He was also clucking for the young pullets whenever he found something to eat.

Another good way to tell is how their bodies develop. Some cockerels end up getting bigger than pullets but they have fewer feathers like this one does. (Note the normally feathered chicks in the background.)

Overall, it is a lot easier to tell what is a pullet and what is a cockerel if all the chicks are the same breed. With all my mix breeds, some tend to mature slower and that makes it harder to tell what gender they are.

Here's a picture of the chicks when they were younger and cuter.

The geese are also nesting. Here's a picture of a nest I found. The nest is two feet above the water.

We had a power outage on Saturday and Dad had to hook the generator up to the chicken coop to keep the chicks warm. DJ will post more details on that.

Jessi

Blizzard

2011-04-30T08:52:00.005-06:00

Yeah, that is the title and it is the 30th of April.

It was raining yesterday and at seven we had about an inch of rain in the rain gauge. During the night we got a bit of snow and a lot of wind.

The pictures kind of tell the story.

You can see the snow is stuck to everything.

There is a horrible wind making it hard to see. The shop is about a hundred yards away and is hard to see. It was worse than this at times.

The snow stuck to the door.

There was an inch and a half in the rain gauge this morning. I'm not sure how much was rain and how much was snow. I hope the calves are okay.

DJ

Just a picture...

2011-04-29T09:51:00.005-06:00

Here is a picture Mom took of us yesterday after we had brought in some of the yearling heifers. The horses weren't behaving very well as you can tell. I just figured I should post something.

DJ, Comet, Danny, Dundee, Jessi, and Smoky.

DJ

Wednesday

2011-04-22T09:55:00.001-06:00

Wednesday we brought some of our cows in and sorted them so we could split them into smaller groups. It was about fifty degrees and was really wet.

We had to haul some of the cows out. Once we loaded a bunch of cows in the trailer we couldn't get enough traction to get out so Dad had to pull the pickup out.

Luckily we were able to make it to the pasture (barely) and let the cows out.

Here are a couple of pictures I took of the Blue Mountain.

And here is a picture of Sam.

Today it is in the thirties and raining. It is supposed to warm up soon though.

DJ

Steer pictures

2011-04-17T08:44:00.001-06:00

Yesterday morning we gathered some steers and bulls out of the trap, brought them in, and loaded them in the trailer. Then Dad, Mom, and I took them to the river. The road to the river was pretty bad. In one place we drove right next to a four foot washout. Once we unloaded our stock we drove up to where the rest of the steers were and took some pictures.

A steer,

Steers are very curious animals,

A few pictures of the steers,

A close-up of the steers,

A few more steers and a bull,

Another Day on the Ranch

2011-04-13T21:56:00.002-06:00

Yesterday Dave and I (Bobbie) rode to the neighbors' land on Cottonwood Creek to gather some stray cows--ours--that had left the herd sometime last fall. It was our first opportunity to get to them because of the snow (and now the mud).

Bobbie on Patch

After too many miles, we found the cow and 2 calves. Guess what happened to the other cow.

Not a soul in sight.

This is pretty close to the middle of nowhere.

Letting the cattle rest at another neighbor's reservoir.

And finally, a picture of Dave and Sunny. The camera stopped working after this.

It was a beautiful day. We rode for four hours, didn't see people, cars, roads, or houses. It was "quality time".

Bobbie

Introducing...

2011-04-12T17:08:00.010-06:00

The title says it all. Click on the picture to go to my new blog and check out the progress of my airplane.

A few pictures

2011-04-11T21:21:00.004-06:00

This morning we brought our heifer calves in and sorted the ones we were going to keep off from the ones we were going to sell. Then in the afternoon we had the vet come out and Bangs vaccinate them. After we got that done we hauled our replacement heifers out to a different pasture.

Here are a couple pictures of some of the heifers in their new pasture.

Here is a picture I took in the yard. The grass is getting pretty green.

Winter pictures

2011-04-09T21:42:00.006-06:00

I was getting some pictures off the camera today and found some pictures I had taken earlier this year.

The following pictures were taken in late January.
A picture of the calves.

Dad cleaning the snow out of the haystack.

Dad plowing a trail.

A picture of the snowdrift in front of the shop.

Dad also brought the Cat home from the river and used it to push snow.

A very bright sun-dog

The next four pictures were taken in early March when the snow had already started melting.

Thankfully the snow has pretty much melted off. These pictures were taken today.

Spring Ranch Work

2011-04-08T10:02:00.010-06:00

Sorry no pictures today; I'll have to write instead. Other than a few drifts, the snow is pretty much melted off. We have been seeing temperatures in the fifties. Yesterday it was 55. It is really wet and the grass is starting to green up.
Last Friday we brought our younger cows home from the river. We had to ride from Buck's because of the mud, so it was a good twelve-mile ride.
On Tuesday, we gathered the yearlings and brought them in. We then sorted the heifers off from the steers. After that was done, we put the heifers out in their pasture and put the steers in the trap (small pasture) for the night. We combined the herd bulls with the steers as well.
Wednesday we gathered the bulls and the steers out of the trap and took them to the river. It was another long ride (over twelve miles), but it went well and it was warm.

I've been messing around with the design of the blog. I think I'm happy with the design now, but I need to get a new header for it. The one that is up now must be over three years old. I also added a 'Follow by Email' gadget on the top right of the page. Type in your email and push 'Submit' and you should receive email notices whenever we update the blog.

DJ

More pictures of the ice jam

2011-03-20T13:44:00.004-06:00

Here are some pictures of the ice jam that I took on Friday. It has since gone out.

The mouth of Cottonwood Creek.

The ice jam.

Some flooding. They say a picture is worth a thousand words so I don't need to say much.

I think this hay is pretty wet.

Pictures of the ice.

The mouth of Dry Creek.

A picture of the calves.

DJ

Yellowstone River ice jam

2011-03-17T15:49:00.006-06:00

Wednesday we flew and got a look at the ice jam(s) on the Yellowstone river. We also got some pictures.

An island that is normally above water.

A picture of the jam.

Fields under water.

This property is now 'river front' but I doubt it will help its resale value.

More pictures of the flooding.

The ice jam at the 'fishing hole'.

The snow finally melted enough to allow the cows to graze.

There is hardly any snow up at Blue Mountain.

Looking down Dry Creek.

A warm day in March

2011-03-13T17:53:00.007-06:00

Since this blog has not been very active for awhile, I decided I'd post on it and not my other blog.
On Thursday it was really nice(in the forties) so we were outside a lot. Later in the day I went to the barnyard and took some pictures of our calves. Not much else to say so here are the pictures.

Molly(Or Maully) and Sam.

Molly playing with Sam.

Misty wanted to hog all the attention.

Sam and Snowball.

Molly and I.

The snow.

Danny

Wolf

2011-03-09T09:33:00.006-07:00

For practice, I decided to draw one of my wolf characters howling. I thought some of you might want to see how I did it. Since I only saved the final product, all but the first image are layers of the final result. This is why you can't see what I changed part way through the drawing.
Night scenes are much easier than normal drawings since they're dark enough very little shading is needed.
I started with a basic sketch done on paper. I only used a little reference for the wolf's head.

Next, I made a basic sky for the back ground. It was pretty easy to do since I used the gradient tool on Photoshop.

I used my lineart to do a silhouette of a wolf with a slightly darker color than the sky. (You can't see it since this is only some layers of the final result and I deleted the lineart layer.) When I first did it, it was more like the drawing but I used copy and paste to turn the head so it had a shorter neck. I also changed the mouth a little so it looked better.

Here, I added the light from the moon. It's a lot easier than it looks. For the highlights, I chose a color that was lighter than the sky. I also added some stars.

I decided the rock's highlights made things too bright so I put a darker color over the rock to darken it. I also added the darker spots on the moon. I flipped the picture around because I realized my wolf had the wrong ear torn. That might have messed up my moon a little and it's now backwards. (I had to look at a few real moon pictures to do the moon.)

I used Photoshop CS4 and a Wacom Bamboo fun drawing tablet. If you want to experiment with digital art, you can download a free program called GIMP, which I used before I got Photoshop.

Jessi

Haying the chickens

2010-12-18T12:10:00.003-07:00

For those who are wondering, we give the chickens hay in the winter. Chickens don't like to walk in the snow so they need to have boards, or hay or something to walk on if you want them to go outside in the winter.

Here's the inside of the coop. As you can see the turkey gets the highest perch, in this case, the door. This picture was taken during the daytime so not all the chickens were on the roosts. They just like to perch when they're not doing anything. (Chickens who are hurt or sick often perch to avoid being picked on.)

In the winter, I let the chickens in the brooder room. I have the saw horses there for perches so they can perch in here if they want.

Danny spotted and photographed this hawk perching on his beehives. I think it's a female goshawk, which worried me a little since I've had trouble with goshawks and Cooper's hawks getting my younger chickens. Luckily, I think she was just passing through.

Mom and Danny spotted this hawk. I'm not sure what it is. Any guesses? I'm guessing it's in the Buteo family, meaning it's related to red-tails and rough-legged hawks.
In the background, you can see some of our calves grazing.

Here's an older picture of a rough-legged hawk.(note the feathers on the hawk's legs)

When it comes to chicken eating varmints, I generally consider hawks one of the least dangerous predators. Unlike most mammals, hawks and owls aren't the type of animal who gets into a chicken coop and slaughters every last chicken. Around here, we mainly have long-eared owls, great horned owls, kestrels, red-tailed hawks, and rough-legged hawks. None of these species have ever killed any chickens. (Though I have no doubt the great horned owls would eat a chicken if one was sleeping outside.) The best way to protect your chickens from hawks is to have lots of cover (like trees and brush) for the chickens to hide in. Owls shouldn't be a problem since chickens should be in their coops at night where they are safe.
The only chickens I've lost to hawks have been young ones who were lost when the goshawks and Cooper's hawks migrate through in the fall. Luckily, we've never had one of those take up permanent residence here.

Jessi

Hot Springs Fly-in

2010-10-01T09:49:00.001-06:00

Earlier in September(10-12) we went to a fly-in at Hot Springs, SD. The fly-in was for the type of airplane I am building. About 120 people and 54 airplanes showed up. I had a lot of fun just looking at the airplanes and talking to the builders. The highlight of the trip was getting to ride in, and fly the same model airplane I am working on (an RV-9).

We flew over Mount Rushmore on the way to Hot Springs,

The Bearhawk,

Here is the RV-9 that I got to fly,

Some of the RV's

An RV-8 (Borrowed Horse)

A nice RV-10,

Dad admiring another nice RV-10,

A row of airplanes waiting for fuel,

A nice RV-6,

A funny shirt,

A map of where everyone came from,

The Bearhawk sticking out like a sore thumb,

On our way back we flew over Crazy Horse,

And Devils Tower,

We also flew over the Medicine Rocks,

Snow and watermelon

2010-09-29T21:49:00.006-06:00

I'm still playing catch up. Here are a couple of recent things that have happened.

We got a couple inches of snow on the eighteenth of September. It melted off pretty fast though.

A shot looking towards Blue Mountain,

It also got cold enough to freeze the watermelon vines so we were forced to pick all of them. Fortunately we have a meat cooler to put them in.

Here is a picture of me with the biggest melon we harvested this year. It weight in at twenty-two pounds.

And a picture of it being cut up.

Recently it warmed up and has been really nice. We are in the process of hauling hay. I might make a blog post for that too.

I'm also hoping to get a blog post written about our trip to Hot Springs SD sometime.

Spring and summer recap

2010-09-23T22:04:00.001-06:00

Now for the yearly post. Well, not quite that bad...

Early in June we got hit by a freak thunder storm. I would say it passed over in half an hour, but our rain gauge still showed eight tenths, but I have to wonder about its accuracy. One of our neighbors who lives a couple of miles up the creek got two inches and Buck got one and a quarter inches. The creek really ran. A few days later dad was riding in a draw and there was debris in the trees about eight feet high. The rain wasn't very widespread though because it was dusty about five miles away.

Here is a picture I took once the rain started letting up.

The trees got watered.

And so did the garden.

The water tank by the shop was overflowing.

Here is a picture I took of our field east of the house showing how tall the grass is.

Here are some pictures of some cows and calves.

Another interesting thing was when someone Dad and I know buzzed our place in a P-51 Mustang.

We went to several brandings this spring. Here are some pictures taken at the brandings.

DJ and Danny,

Dad, Jessi and DJ,

DJ on Comet,

Danny and Dad,

Dad and Jessi,

DJ

No, we didn't drop off the face of the earth...

2010-07-30T17:21:00.001-06:00

We've just been busy and the blog got abused. We have put up a lot of hay this year(probably around 850 acres). I think we have put over 1,500 bales on the baler this year, all on dry-land hay! We put up a bunch of hay and our neighbor hired us to do his as well. Most of the time Dad would cut out a field and then Mom and I would take turns cutting. Danny and Jessi would usually rake although Mom got her fair share of it. Dad and I were the the balers. It took us about two weeks to get everything finished. The rain kind of tapered off starting late in June so we hardly had any hay get wet. However, we could use the rain now.

Now for the pictures!

This picture was taken from the tractor in "thinner" hay,

Here is a blurry picture of some windrows,

Good hay,

Here is a pasture we decided to hay. We worked it up about five years ago and planted alfalfa in it. The hay wasn't too bad considering it used to be almost bare here. We still got about a bale and a half an acre, but compared to the field in the above pictures, which we got about three bales an acre, it didn't look so good. Although what it lacked in quantity it made up for in quality.

Here I am baling.

An aerial shot of our best field.

I still have an extremely late post I started in the middle of June that I still plan on posting.

D.J.

Drawing Sam

2010-07-10T15:34:00.000-06:00

Since I like to draw, I decided to post how I digitally drew a picture of Sam.

First, I drew and colored a picture of him and scanned it onto the computer.

When I got it on the computer, I drew lines on it so I knew how to color it. (The lines are on a separate layer.)

After I did that, I used a grass brush to draw the base coat of fur. (This was done on a layer just under the lines.)

I then used the mouse to draw the main fur that you can see on a layer above the one in the above picture. Unlike the base coat, I had to make sure it went the right way.

To finish off, I blurred the fur so it looked more fuzzy, put shadows and highlights on the head, and I added smaller furs and stuff around his head. After that, I added grass with the grass brush and made the sky.

I used a picture as a reference. The program I use is Photoshop CS4. For someone who doesn't want to buy Photoshop, my advice is to download a free program called GIMP. Though not nearly as good as Photoshop, GIMP is a good program to experiment with.

Jessi

Chickens and stuff

2010-06-01T10:09:00.000-06:00

I decided to do a post on chickens in general. Here is a picture of the chicken coop. As you can see, it has three rooms in it. The room in the middle is the main coop. The room on the right is the brooder room. The other room is a spare room.

In the main room, the roosts are attached to a rope so I can easily lift them when I clean the coop. The feeder is under the nests.

The brooder room. The extra saw horse is for the chicks to perch on. (This picture is an older one so the chicks are smaller. The really small chicks are the broilers and leghorn.)

One of the chicks. These chicks are now free ranging but they don't go far from the coop yet.

A few weeks ago, my family went to town but I didn't go with them. They called and said that there were some chicks at the feed store but from the description, I thought they were close to the age of my chicks. I told them to get five white leghorns. It turns out they were about three or four weeks younger than my chicks. After I got them, I kept a close eye on them to make sure the other chicks weren't bothering them. Everything seemed fine until I realized four of the five chicks were not white leghorns but cornish crosses. I figured it might be a good thing they were broilers since they would grow fast so they'd catch up with the other chicks.

All was going well until I got a cold. Mom was taking care of my chickens when the other chicks decided the broilers, who by this time were about the same size as the other chicks, tasted good. Luckily, I went to the coop before they were all killed. One was dead so I separated the three remaining broilers and the leghorn and put them in the other room.

Pictured here are the three broilers and the one leghorn. They are the same age and you can see the difference in size and shape.

Here are the wild geese and their goslings. This is the first year they've raised their goslings on our reservoir.

They are a little older in this picture.

Jessi

May

2010-05-29T10:54:00.001-06:00

I thought I would tell you about how our month went as it draws to a close. It started out kind of cold, but warmed up as the month progressed. We started calving late in April and into May. We are pretty much calved out now. We didn't have any real trouble calving so we are thankful for that. Danny also picked up his bees early in the month. You can read all about it on his blog, Beeginning Beekeeper. One of the biggest highlights was we had much more rain than usual. (More on this later.) Dad fortunately got the alfalfa seeded across the river before it started raining.

Here is a picture of Blue Mountain that was taken on the twenty-first of May,

Like I said, it was much wetter than usual. These are pictures that were taken the twenty-second when there was supposed to be a branding. Needless to say, the branding was postponed.

Last night at about 12:45 I woke up to rain and hail hitting my window. Luckily the hail didn't get too bad. When I checked the rain gauge this morning this is what I saw,

Our other rain gauge showed an inch, but I didn't take a picture because the markings are almost worn off. With this rain it increases the rain for the month to around five inches!

Our neighbor who lives about ten miles away has a weather station you can check from the internet and see stuff like temperature, rain, and other stuff. You can access the weather station here. This is what it shows for rain right now.(They only got three tenths last night when we got an inch though) Update: I just found out that it updates on here so now the month rain is for June.

That is a lot of rain for where we are. We might have gotten even more than they did though. I think our average yearly precipitation is around ten to twelve inches so we already have a really good start.

It is really wet so the grass is growing and should continue to do so.

Looking west,

Towards Danny's beehives,

Looking south towards some of our cows,

Looking east,

We collect water off some of the house and shop for Mom's garden because our well water has high alkalinity and isn't good for plants. With all the rain we've gotten we figure we have about 11,000 gallons of rain water stored! We won't be able get anymore though because we ran out of water tanks. What a good problem to have!

Here is a picture of the shop with the 1,600 gallon water tank. There is another tank in the shop that holds about 1,800 gallons.

This is a picture of Mom's new garden.(Notice the water tanks on the left side of the picture.) She has another garden by the creek, but she watered it with well water(when we didn't have rain water) so the soil isn't very good and gets really hard. We still planted stuff in it just in case this one didn't work out. This is the first time we have planted this much in the new garden. We only planted potatoes and a few other things in it last year. Dad put manure on it and plowed it last year. He disked it in April and we (mostly Mom because all of us kids got sick) planted it.

Here is some corn that is coming up,

Some radishes,

The onions came up really fast,

We tried putting plastic on over the watermelons to keep them warmer and moist and it seems to be working. The only problem we had was the plastic kept trying to blow off. Notice all the dirt we have on the edges.

Here are some of the watermelons that are coming,

The peas seem to be coming really well. That is good because they never have come very well in the other garden.

A picture of our house,

D.J.

Snow

2010-05-02T21:06:00.001-06:00

Today we woke up to a couple inches of snow. Yes, that's right, snow in May. Here are some pictures.

Looking east,

Looking west towards the barn,

A picture of the snow and grass,

By afternoon the snow had all melted off and the sun even came out. As you can see from the pictures it is starting to green up due to getting about an inch of rain in the last couple of weeks.

Here you can see Blue Mountain,

Here is a picture of the sun,

I hope it warms up a little bit since we are now calving. We normally try to fly every day to check on the heifers that are calving. All that flying is just fine with me though. :)

Happy Easter

2010-04-04T10:38:00.000-06:00

The eggs I put in the incubator started hatching on the 30th, one day before they were supposed to hatch. Only two hatched that day. Most of them hatched on the 31st but one hatched on April 1st. Normally, the hatch drags out more than that. I think the reason they hatched more uniformly this time is because I swapped the eggs close to the edges of the incubator with the ones in the middle of the incubator twice. (The temperature in my incubator varies and eggs near the edges aren't as warm as the ones in the middle.)
All in all, it was a reasonably good hatch. Out of 54 eggs, I got 41 chicks. About eight eggs were infertile and five died before hatching. Normally, I have a lot of eggs that get a small hole in the shell and then die but this year, the only one that died when it was near hatching was backwards. (For you cattle people, when I say the chick was backwards it means that the chick's head was in the small end of the egg.)
I think the reason I had less die near hatching was because I got the chicks out of the incubator as soon as they hatched. Sometimes, chicks in an incubator will roll the hatching eggs upside down and the fluids in the egg will drown the hatching chick. (When I say upside down, I mean the chick's beak end up on the bottom side of the egg.)
I have a still air incubator so I tried to keep the temperature at about 102 on top of the eggs. I moved the thermometers around the incubator to make sure that there were no really cold or really hot spots. I also candled all the eggs at least once a week so I could find the dead or infertile eggs and get them out of the incubator so they didn't take up space.

Here's the incubator with the eggs in it. Some have already hatched and you can see that a few are hatching. I tried to give each egg as much room as possible so the air would circulate well.

A chick that just hatched and is still in the incubator.

The first chick to hatch.

The chicks in their box. I leave them in the box until they're all done hatching and learning to walk then I put them in the brooder house.

This is a deformed chick. The outside and middle toes are connected by the webbing. So far, the chick seems to be able to walk fine so I'm leaving it alone.

Happy Easter everyone!

Jessi

Chicken breeds

2010-03-27T09:33:00.000-06:00

I noticed a post in The Poultry Journal about breeds of chickens so that inspired me to tell about the breeds I've had over the years. I haven't been able to figure out what breeds lay the most eggs since I have so many breeds in the same coop. I often order pullets so I rarely get roosters. I don't think I've got all the breeds listed here since I only had a few birds of certain breeds and I didn't have anything to say about them. Here are some of the breeds I've had:

Golden Campine ~ I never had many of these but they are pretty. The roosters don't have normal saddle feathers. The rooster got frostbite on his comb during the winter. In this picture, he does not have a tails since he lost it to cannibalism.

Silver and golden Lakenvelders ~ I only had hens of this breed but they were nice hens and they tend to be pretty healthy. I also noticed that the scaley leg mites don't bother them as much as some other breeds. (The chicken in the back is a mutt.)

Buff Orpingtons ~ The hens are calm and range long distances which I like. It seemed like it took a long time for the cockerel to mature which seems common in the heavier breeds.

Rhode Island reds ~ I only had two hens so I can't say much about them.

Cookoo Marans ~ I only had hens.. I liked the dark shelled eggs.

Welsumer ~ The hens I had seemed to be good birds that weren't too wild flighty.

Silver Spangled Hamburgs ~ Hamburgs have a very rebellious streak. Mine decided they wanted to sleep outside so I had to bring them in at night. Next thing you know, they're laying eggs outside so I had to start hunting nests. (The remaining one I have does behave.) Because of their small size, they lay smaller eggs. They are very hardy birds though. The rose comb is a trait I'd like to breed into my flock since rose combs seldom get frost bite. The Hamburgs do tend to be flighty and they are very good at flying. They have a body built like an overgrown bantam.

White and Brown Leghorns ~ These chickens are considered good layers by many people. I have no brown leghorns left but I still have some white leghorns. I've had some that died on me but others seem pretty healthy. The white leghorn hens seem very calm and are quite intelligent. They range a fair distance too. The biggest problem is that the roosters have a huge comb that tends to get frozen in winter.

Silver Phoenix ~ This breed is smaller than a Hamburg but larger than a bantam. Even with their small size and the fact that they can fly well, they tend to be calm. The problem is, they also lay small eggs. They are very broody but I've never let one raise chicks so I don't know if they're good mothers or not.

Partridge Plymouth rocks ~ This breed will travel a long distance to forage. We lost three to heat stroke. They will go broody and raise chicks too.
(The Plymouth rock is the brown one. The one beside her is a buttercup and the one under her is a buff silkie.)

Polish ~ I got a Polish mix and got about one of each breed. None have died yet but I had one hen who had an eye problem and is now sickly and blind in one eye. These chickens aren't really something you want for your layer flock. Some are healthy and do fine but in cold weather, the ones with really big top hats tend to get the feathers wet then the water freezes so the bird has icicles on its head. Because of their top hats, they're easy to catch so I'm guessing predators would think the same thing. (I had to cut the feathers that got icicles off some of the Polish and I also cut some feathers so another one could see better.) I haven't had much trouble with the other chickens picking on their head feathers. The rooster I kept was aggressive and had to be butchered. The cross breed chicks I got from the Polish tend to have smaller top hats that are not a problem. I personally like half Polish birds better than pure Polish.

Molted Houdan ~ I've only got one hen so it's not much to go on but she's a calm hen. She has the huge top hat that can be a problem but it's not as big as the top hats of some of the Polish.

Black Sex link ~ These bird are good sized and seem to be good hens for laying.

Gold Star sex link ~ The ones I have now are very intelligent and calm. I really like them because of their laid back personality. They tend to be good foragers too. (If stealing dog food counts.)

Dark and Light Brahmas ~ I had one light Brahma that was hatched in '02. She died last winter at age seven so these are pretty hardy birds. The Brahma cockerels take a long time to mature so they're not a very good breed for butchering because the other breeds of cockerels are ready to butcher before the Brahmas are. They are a very calm breed and the one that hatched chicks was a good mother.

Easter Eggers ~ These are pretty laid back hens and they were good layers. I've still got one that was hatched in '04 and she lays pretty well but the egg shells aren't perfect any more. Some of the Easter egger roosters can get to be very large while others are medium sized. Their combs don't get frost bite easily.

Black and Buff Minorca ~ These hens reminded me of leghorns because of they look a lot like them. They are nice hens and lay good sized eggs. One hen killed a pheasant chick that hatched under her. Some of them are good foragers.

Blue Andalusian ~ These hens are a lot like Minorcas and leghorns because they have the same body structure. They will come up to the front yard so I class them as good foragers.

Black Australorp ~ These chickens were good layers. One hen would kill chicks if her eggs hatched but another one was an excellent mother. I have an Australorp/brown leghorn cross and she's seven years old and still lays eggs regularly. She is also a very good forager.

Gold and silver laced Wyandottes ~ I only had three of these birds. If I remember correctly, at least one of them was a bully toward the other chickens.

Sicilian buttercups ~ I thought it interesting that these birds were a light breed but the body structure reminded me of a larger chicken. They were not too flighty.

California greys and whites ~ They are much like white leghorns and they have an intelligent personality and are good foragers.

Blue, black, buff, and white silkies ~ This is not a breed for anyone who wants eggs. If you want a natural incubator, this is the right breed to get. I never trusted the blue one with chicks because I caught her pecking one but she never killed any. I put five eggs under each of them and kept two of the birds in the same box while they were setting. Using this method, they would fight over any egg in sight and thus keep the eggs underneath them. Since they liked to sit in low nests, it was easy to train them to stay in a box on the floor. My other hens like high nests so they generally left the silkies alone. I've hatched a turkey egg, a pigeon egg, duck eggs, and chicken eggs under silkies. They normally don't range too far from the coop and they can't fly.

Old English bantams(I think) ~ I got three of these tiny things from a friend and I think they were Old English but I'm not sure. I have no idea how old they were when I got them and two have died now. The other one no longer lays eggs. One was a good mother and another one went broody on a hidden nest and died. They seemed to be resistant to scaley leg mites. (I think they may be the ones who brought the mites into the flock.) The surviving one is calm and not flighty.

Other Poultry

Turkeys ~ I had some black mixed breed turkeys. They went wild but I managed to grab some of their eggs and hatch one. The turkey poult was raised with the chicks and seems to think she's a chicken. She does lay in the summer but tends to go broody. Turkeys are the smartest species of poultry I have had. One of the original seven turkeys had a broken leg and the others would stay close to her and protect her from the wild turkeys that they eventually joined. The tame turkey hen I have now sometimes lays in the chicken nests even though she is too big. (She hasn't laid any good eggs this year.)
So far, I have had no problems with blackhead even though the turkey is with the chickens every night. She is a bit of a bully since she's the biggest bird in the coop.

Ducks ~ I had three Roan(I think) ducks, one female and two males. (One was butchered early on.) They like to try to flip water out of the water buckets to take a bath and it makes a mess. They also fill the buckets with mud. I never figured out how they can get that much gunk in a bucket when the coop has just been cleaned and new wood shavings are on the ground. Before the hen got sick, she laid eggs almost every morning. One thing I like about ducks is that they herd well so I could herd them to the creek in the morning. After some training, they stayed at the creek all day and came back at night. Later on, they started staying there over night but I think they did that because the hen was sick and did not want to go up the hill to the chicken coop. After she died at the creek, we butchered the remaining male. I like duck meat almost more than chicken but ducks don't have much meat on them. They're all bone.

Ring neck pheasants ~ I got the eggs when dad cut hay and ran over the nests. If you think chickens are dumb and flighty, just get a pheasant. The things have a death wish and I could write pages on the different ways they will kill themselves. If you get some and more than fifty percent make it, you did a good job raising them. I found out the best way to raise them is with a hen or chicks that are slightly smaller than they are. They will never get tame and most are so flighty that they can harm themselves in an attempt to escape people.

Wednesday

2010-03-18T10:20:00.001-06:00

It was really nice outside yesterday. It got up to fifty-five as you can see on the picture below.

As you can see, quite a bit of snow has melted off, but there is still quite a bit in some places.

There was water running in some places.

Another picture of the water,

With the nice weather the calves were able to get out and graze.

Aerial pictures

2010-03-14T08:54:00.001-06:00

On Thursday we took some friends up flying. I took the camera and got some decent pictures.

Here is a picture of our place,

Some of the younger cows at the river,

Flying down the river,

A picture of the Yellowstone River,

Dry Creek. Where we winter the cows,

This is a picture from today of the calves on the feed ground. This picture was taken from the haystack.

And here is a picture of Sam,

Frost

2010-02-27T12:10:00.000-07:00

On Saturday morning we woke up to see frost covering everything so we went out and took some pictures. Here they are.

A Russian olive tree,

Another Russian olive,

Down the draw,

A woven wire fence,

Danny,

A close-up of the woven wire,

The clothesline,

A close-up of a clothespin,

A close-up of a blue-spruce,

A close-up of a branch with frost on it.

A close-up of a piece of barbed wire,

P.S. Here is a link to Danny's blog. CLICK HERE

D.J.

2010-02-15T11:28:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I (Bobbie) took D.J. and Danny to Bozeman as Danny and I were scheduled to attend a beginning beekeeping workshop on Sat., Jan. 30th. We went up a day early and stayed at my brother's place so we could go to Bridger Bowl Ski Area on Friday. After going with Duey to feed the cows, the boys and I took a snowboard lesson. First time for me on the hill in about 20 years. The weather was 40 degrees and calm--a nice change from eastern Montana. The picture below is of my brother Duey, D.J., and Danny on the deck of the ski lodge.

RV-9 Part 2

2010-02-03T18:22:00.001-07:00

Well, as promised, here are some pictures of what was in the boxes. I had to inventory all the parts to make sure I had everything.

This is the big wing box:

And here is what was in it:

Here is a picture of one of the wings:

Earlier I said the two smaller boxes contained the fuselage kit, but I was wrong. The fuselage kit was in one of the smaller boxes and parts for the wing were in the other. Here is a picture of the rest of the the wing parts:

And here are most of the contents on the table:

You can see the flaps on the left side of the table, the ailerons to the left, the wingtips on the far side, and various parts strung all over the place.

Here is the fuselage box:

And here are the parts that were in it:

Some more parts. It's amazing how much stuff can fit into one box:

You might have noticed that there was a lot of paper in the boxes. Here is a picture of where the paper went:

DJ

RV-9 Part I

2010-01-21T08:45:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was a big day for me(DJ). My wing and fuselage kit for my airplane arrived!

Here is the truck it came in:

And here I am standing next to the boxes. The wing kit is the one on the left and the fuselage kit is in the two boxes on the right,

Okay, now for those who didn't know I was building an airplane, I'll explain a little, well maybe a lot. I have always liked flying with Dad and decided I wanted to build an RV-9. Now, Dad has an airplane (actually two), but I still wanted to build an airplane that was faster and more economical. So a few years ago I bought a tail kit for an RV-9, a fast two-place all aluminum low wing airplane made by Van's Aircraft. You can find more about the RV-9 here. There are four different kits, the empennage(tail), wing, fuselage, and finishing (canopy, landing gear, etc). I started working on it last winter and finished the horizontal and vertical stabilizer. I am working on the rudder now and was hoping to have it finished by now, but with the warm weather, we had to do more outside than normal. I still have to finish the elevators as well. A few months ago I ordered the wing and fuselage and they got here yesterday, as you already saw. I got the quick build kit for the wing which means the wing has been nearly finished. The fuselage is a standard build, which means when I open the box it will just be a bunch of aluminum parts with prepunched holes in them. Well I think I've described enough so on to some more pictures. If you want to find out more(like you would) you can look at the link I supplied.

Here is a picture of the horizontal stabilizer:

Here is a picture of the vertical stabilizer:

Here is a picture of what it will look like when I finish it:

I haven't opened the boxes yet, but when I do, I'll post some more pictures. Stay tuned for RV-9 Part II!

P.S. Here are a few pictures of Sam running I took the other day;

DJ

Beehive

2010-01-16T20:36:00.000-07:00

Today we took the four-wheeler to the beehive(see post made in October). It was pretty nice out at 42, give or take a few degrees. We didn't see any bees, as you would expect in January. We found out a while ago we could climb the tree and look into the hive so I took the camera and tried to get some pictures. I had some success, but it is hard to take pictures through a small hole.

Well, here is the best picture I got. You can kind of see the combs that run across the tree.

This picture is to show why I had such a hard time taking pictures of the combs:

Here is a picture of Danny by the hole where you can look in at the combs. The tree isn't very easy to climb.

The draw where the beehive is located is rather pretty and has quite a few trees, as you can see in the following pictures. Don't be fooled into thinking there are a lot of trees in Eastern Montana though.

Danny, Sam, and DJ

DJ, Sam, and Danny

D.J.

2010-01-10T19:17:00.001-07:00

Today the heat wave hit; 38 degrees! Seventy degrees warmer than it was Wednesday night (minus 32). It was so warm we put laundry on the line! Actually, the dryer quit last night so we put the laundry out this morning. We have a bit over one foot of snow.

The following are pictures that were taken last week when taking salt to the cows on Dry Creek.

If you enlarge the following pictures, you will see cows way up on the ridges.

Bobbie

First Pheasant

2009-12-09T21:36:00.000-07:00

I turned eighteen yesterday. I don’t feel any older today but it does seem odd that I’m legally an adult. That means that I could join the military and in three years I could get a concealed weapons permit. I find it strange that the government considers me mature enough to go to war but not mature enough to carry a concealed weapon.
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Also, I got my first pheasant today. I hit it at 40 or more yards with the 22. rifle. The rifle has a scope on it and I managed to hit the pheasant in the neck. Of course, I did lean the gun on the windowsill since I was shooting from inside the house. (Who wants to go outside to hunt pheasants when it’s below zero?)

The weather is cold and there’s snow on the ground so the chickens are staying inside even though I opened the chicken door so they could go outside if they wanted. The hens have started laying better now that I leave the light on all night. I hope it warms up soon and the chickens will be able to go outside but I don’t see any warm weather on the way.

Jessi

Thanksgiving Weekend

2009-12-02T10:27:00.000-07:00

On Thanksgiving morning we butchered a bull that had an attitude problem. This summer, Dad(Dave) found him in the cows so he went to get him out. Well, the bull took his horse, but Dad escaped with only a few bruises. Dad decided to leave him until we gathered the cows thinking that he would just follow the cows in. When we gathered the cows a couple of our neighbors that were helping went to get him. They came back without the bull and said his attitude hadn't changed, so we decided to turn him into hamburger. Dad shot him on Thanksgiving and brought him to the house. We went to work skinning him, then hung him in the meat cooler.

The day after Thanksgiving I (DJ) shot a mule deer buck. I had walked quite a bit looking for "the big one" but I hadn't seen any really big ones, so I decided I would just get a decent one. They taste the same anyway. So I walked about two miles from the house and saw some deer. I saw the one I had picked out and shot him. I was sure I saw him go down, but when I started looking for him I couldn't find him. I was starting to think I might have missed, but I kept walking for about twenty minutes before I finally found him. He had dropped when I shot him, but he was further away than I thought. (When you're looking through a scope things look a lot closer.) He had fallen off a cut bank (only a couple feet) and I couldn't see him. I hit him behind the ear so it was a long ways from a miss. Dad cut off some breakfast steaks yesterday and we had them for supper. We didn't have any leftovers.

Here is a picture of him:

I shot him with Dad's 220 Swift. I like shooting it, but at ten or so pounds it gets kind of heavy. Here is a picture of it:

We have a meat cooler in the corner of our shop. We used to have to use our cellar, but the rail and rollers in the cooler are a lot nicer than what we had in the cellar. Here is a picture:

Here are its contents:

DJ

Trailing cow/calf pairs up Dry Creek

2009-11-16T21:07:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday (11-14-09) our family and a few of our neighbors gathered some of our cattle from the rough country down Dry Creek and moved them a little closer to home. The high temperature was around 40 degrees with lots of sun early on.

This is the pasture where we started gathering. If you look closely in the center of the picture, you will see some cows on the top of the far plateau. (click on picture to enlarge)

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Crossing Dry Creek. We are almost to Gumbo Hill. (notice Poco's ears)

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We are now almost to Buck's place. Only about three miles to go. A few clouds are coming in and the breeze is getting cool. Fingers and toes are getting cold.

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Bobbie

Look what showed up

2009-11-11T08:22:00.000-07:00

A few days ago something happened that was odd. A wild turkey showed up! She's been hanging around the chicken coop for the past three days and evidently wants to stay.
Here's some pictures.

Our milk pen calf named Copper.

Our long horned cow named Killer.

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Our dog, Sam, trying to play with our yearling milk pen calf named Ebony.

My calf from my half-longhorn cow named Clover.

The turkey that showed up.

Danny

Weaning some of the calves

2009-11-09T20:20:00.001-07:00

Today we weaned the calves that we brought in on Saturday. We also sorted off about twenty cows off that were getting old or had bad feet.

Here we are taking the cattle in.

Taking them into the corral.

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Jessi and Mom sorting the cows and calves.

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Danny watching the gate.

D.J.

Gathering cattle

2009-11-07T19:24:00.002-07:00

Today we gathered the 2 year olds and 3 year olds along with a few old cows that we are going to ship. We brought them in to a closer pasture so we can wean the calves Monday. It was a beautiful day for the 7th of November. Everything went well, so well we had time to put more tin on the ceiling in the shop. I think everbody is going to be glad when that job is done.

My four helpers, DJ, Danny, Jessi, and Bobbie.

Heading down off of the ridge a couple miles south of our house.

Various happenings in October up until November 3d

2009-11-03T21:11:00.001-07:00

We will try to update our blog at least once a month, maybe less, maybe more. I will try to fill in what we have been doing in October.

Around the middle of October we helped Dad ship his steers. It was a foggy morning. We had a couple neighbors helping along with our crew of kids. The following pictures are up near Blue mountain at the corrals.

We needed to plow our alfalfa down across the river this fall. That usually turns in to a big job especially for this cowboy that isn't all that crazy about farming. Not only do we have to plow, but disk, mulch, and level. Fortunately I can rent a mulcher, disk, and leveler from my brother-in-law Del. Bobbie ran the mulcher quite a bit for me, and DJ got to start plowing this year. He did quite a bit of plowing. Sure was nice to have the extra help. We may not get done leveling this fall since we did get quite a bit of moisture.

Some people have asked what a roll over plow looks like so here it is.

Some have also asked what a mulcher looks like too, so another picture for them.

This is a picture of the equipment over across the river. The most important one is the airplane. I might be a little biased but I would hate the thought of having to drive back and forth all the time 45 minutes compared to 10. Besides it doesn't matter how bad of day I have farming as soon as the airplane tires leave the ground it's a good day.

Brother-in-law, Del digging beets.

Neighbor, Keith Nelson digging beets. This was when it was dry. They had about half the beets done when it turned wet. That looked like a miserable job then, but they did get them out in pretty good shape.

In our spare time we are trying to work on the new shop/hangar. This is my crew helping put steel on the ceiling. We picked up a gantry crane at a farm auction down in South Dakota this fall. After we got it home I thought it would make a good cart for a scaffold. It works really well. It rolls easy, so easy you forget that you need to stop close to 4000 lbs that is rolling. Keeping it from going to fast with three kids is the main thing to concentrate on.

Three of my helpers.

Helpers in action. They think I don't hurry fast enough when they are holding tin up. I don't see what the problem is. They look like they have everything under control, don't they?

Yesterday we gathered the yearling replacement heifers and brought them in close. Today after I got done helping the neighbor ship his calves we gathered the heifers, ear tagged them, year branded them, and Ivomected them(it kills the parasites). We didn't Ivomec them for several years but just got tired of seeing cows with no hair in Feb. when it was cold. It takes a lot of feed when they lose their hair. We have enough parasites in our government with out having them on our cows too.

After we got done working them we hauled them down to the river pasture on this side of the river. The following are pictures of that.

Bees!

2009-10-23T11:44:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday D.J. and I were going on a walk. We were kind of getting tired so we decided to go sit in a tree. We sat down in the tree and heard buzzing. It kind of sounded like flies on something dead, but then I saw bugs buzzing around a tree. I thought they were wasps and I was thinking about running (because I have wasp phobia) but I realized they didn't look like wasps. After a while of watching, I borrowed my brother's jacket and wrapped it around my head so if they were wasps they couldn't inflict as much damage to my head. I slowly approached. As I got closer, I became more and more sure that they weren't wasps. That's when I realized that they were bees! I slowly walked a little closer and realized that they looked like honey bees. There were two openings in the tree. One was a hole about three or four feet off the ground, the other was a small crack about three or four feet from the top of the tree. They weren't aggressive and it was really fun watching them. I now know that they are honey bees. It is really odd because we've never seen honey bees in a hollow tree before! It's also really neat because I'm thinking about becoming a beekeeper. Here are some pictures:

The lower entrance.

A few bees I took a picture of.

The entrance again.

The top entrance.

The hollow tree.

Danny

Snowbird flyover

2009-10-14T18:58:00.001-06:00

This was September 28th the day after the airshow.

We need to be more careful about who we give our GPS coordinates to. Sure glad they were friendlies.

Wings of Freedom Airshow September 26-27

2009-10-05T21:12:00.001-06:00

We attended the local airshow in Sidney, Mt. the last weekend of September. We really had a good time visiting with pilots, making new friends and of course looking at airplanes.

We were asked if we would bring the Bearhawk in and put on static display which we gladly did.

We sat a lot of kids in the airplane and visited with a lot of people about it. I think Bobbie really enjoyed herself.

I know Danny and DJ did. Danny found a guy from Bozeman that is going to be a glider instructor that offered Danny a ride in a glider if we make it up to Bozeman. Danny also really enjoyed the airshow.

DJ pouted all day about having to look at dumb airplanes. Just kidding. I would say DJ enjoyed the two days more than any of us. He got to meet a guy that has an RV9 that is only about 150 miles away. The Rv9 is what DJ is building.

Bobbie and I went in for the meet the pilots supper Saturday night. We met Jim and Cathy Pietz along with several Snowbird pilots. Really nice people. Afterward we followed a bunch of the pilots to another hanger and sat in on their informal jam session. They had guitars, fiddles, and harmonicas. That was really fun to listen to.

Sunday was very windy and chilly so just Bobbie, DJ, and I flew into the airshow. We introduced DJ to Jim Pietz and then they both promptly disappeared. We saw them back in between the airshow planes looking at Jim's Extra 300. Then Jim took DJ and introduced him to the airshow pilots. I thought maybe he was going to run off with them.

Tim Lynn's restored 1952 Cessna 195, really beautiful.

Spectators looking our Bearhawk over.

Ken Flikkema's Harmon Rocket. (Notice the graphics)

The Canadian Snowbirds.

Warren Pietsch flying his Clipped Wing Taylorcraft.

DJ visiting with Jim Peitz, Warren Pietsch(behind Jim) and Gene Soucy.

DJ checking out the Canadian Forces F-18

2009-10-03T12:28:00.000-06:00

The economic crisis has hit our dog Sam hard. He's worried himself into a sweat about the price of dog food.