February

The weather has been pretty good recently. We will get a few cold days, but it never seems to last too long. We don't have much snow, but there is some ice. I guess there isn't a lot to post. Last week Mom took some pictures of us feeding the cattle so I guess I'll put them up.

On bales with a lot of leaves, like this third-cutting alfalfa, sometimes we have to pitch some of it off, or it will fall apart in a pile when we try to unroll it.

 DJ

Starting a New Year

Well, it's been quite awhile since I've made a blog post. We had a good Christmas and New Year. The weather has been pretty decent. It was above 40 today, but it sounds like it is going to start cooling down. We finished weaning the last of our calves today. (We like to try different ideas). All the cattle looked pretty good. Since the last post, we have ridden the three-year-old colts quite a bit. We have mainly been working with Pistol(the dun) and Bandit(the mostly black one). When spring comes, we will probably start working with the roans more. 

Today after we had weaned the calves we took some family pictures of us with our horses. 

From left to right: Dad-Jack, Jessi-Smokey, DJ-Bandit, Danny-Dundee, Mom-Poco, Sam. 

 I don't see any need to re-type all that. It is really hard to get five people, five horses, and one dog to cooperate.

Just the kids. 

DJ

First Snow

Yesterday it was 70 degrees, sunny, and dusty. This morning it was raining then turned to snow. By the end of the day, we ended up with about and inch and a half of moisture. We are extremely thankful for the moisture since we haven't had much in months.

 A few days ago we picked our watermelons because the vines had frozen. You can see how dry the grass was.

The snow was coming down pretty good.
















We had a couple of inches of snow on the ground. It was pretty much melted off by evening.
















 DJ

Fiber Optics, Fires, and More

I'll start with the fiber optics. Earlier this summer, we went 40 days without a phone. We didn't get the phone working again until they got a new, fiber optic line plowed in. We also have gone from satellite internet to internet over the fiber. It is over 4 times faster than satellite. However, we did have a bunch of problems with it, but I think we have gotten things worked out.
Here they are plowing in the line.


It's pretty dry now. We were trying to watch a movie one night when we saw lightning. There wasn't supposed to be any thunderstorms, but one had popped up. We went upstairs to watch to make sure the lightning didn't start any fires. I was trying to take pictures when a bolt hit less than a half mile away and instantly started a fire. Dad and I ran out and jumped in our firefighting outfit, (A pickup with a water tank and a pump on it) and headed for the fire. There was a little bit of rain, not enough to put it out, but enough to slow it down. We got there and were able to put it out easily.

Where the fire burned.


Luckily there wasn't much wind. You can see our haystack and our house in this picture.


We finally got around to hauling our portable panels home from the mountain. We didn't want to make two trips so we were able to carry 30 at once.


Thursday of last week we sold our yearling steers in Dickinson. Their weight exceeded our expectations averaging 1,020 pounds per head. When we got home, we took off in the Bearhawk and headed to the Badlands Fly-in in Hot Springs SD. We had a really good time. This year we toured Wind Cave which was pretty neat. I created a web album with pictures I took.

DJ

Lightning

Last night a thunderstorm came through. Fortunately, we got about 3/10th of rain which was enough to put out any fires the lightning started.

I took these pictures with a fifteen second exposure with the camera on a tripod.

I saved the best for last. This one started a fire about a mile and a half away, but it went out when the rain hit. Notice how it lit up the hill.
















DJ