New Blog

Jessi here. As you've noticed, this blog is pretty dead, and it will likely stay that way. However, I have started my own blog for writing related things, and I'm trying to update it weekly. This week, I decided to do an update about the ranch on my blog.
Non-writing Update

Summer 2013

Well, we've had quite a summer. It was really dry until mid-May then the weather changed. We got 8 inches of rain in 12 days and then a few more inches in June. It made for a lot of grass and hay. We finished haying for the year today with 2,601 bales this year. Here is a wall of pictures with captions.

A thunderhead forming as we were getting ready to go to branding.

Our smaller branding.

Most of the crew.

Riding at a branding.

Outlaw.

Moving cattle.

The grass was unbelievable.

Haying.

A picture of the mountain.

There was some pretty amazing dry-land hay.

Tractor hooked up and ready to go.

Looking across the hayfield at the house.

DJ

August 13th Storm

First of all, sorry I've been neglecting this blog. I'll try to better in the future and I will be doing a mega-post soon with the various things we have done this summer.  This post however is about the storm that came through a few days ago. The storm didn't have much hail or lightning, but it sure had the wind and the rain. It lasted for 30 minutes and in that time 2.4 inches fell in the rain gauge. I say that because with all the wind, I'm not sure how much we actually got. Dad had gone to the river to get a load of hay with the truck and got a flat tire on the front of the truck. He was about five mile from our house, but he didn't get any rain down there. We had to hurry down and get him before the creek came up though. That shows just how isolated this storm was. 

The storm rolling in.

It was raining the hardest I have ever seen.

Right after it quit raining.

These were taken at least an hour after it quit raining.

The day after the storm came through, Danny and I went out to fix the fences in the creeks and found this. There was trash piled up in what was left of the fence. It took us most of the afternoon to fix it.




















DJ

Wet and Muddy

Well in my last post there was still snow on the ground, so I guess I should give an update. Calving has been going well for us and we have been going to a few brandings. After that last snow, the moisture turned off. We didn't get anything until a couple weeks ago. But when it turned back on, it really turned on. In the past two weeks we have gotten eight inches. Four inches in the last 36 hours. It is really wet and green now.

These pictures were taken before the last rain.


Gathering cattle at a branding.

DJ

Update

I thought I better give an update since my last post was in early March. We've had quite a bit of snow since then. It normally melts off before we get more though. The temperatures have been below normal recently. About a week ago, we had a snowstorm drop about a foot of snow. 

Here is a picture of Blue Mountain covered in snow.

We have just started calving as well. When we were flying one day, we saw that a new-born calf had slid into a draw with really steep sides and couldn't get out. So, Dad landed and after a bunch of slipping and sliding, we reunited the calf with it's mother. 

The snow was still pretty deep then. 

Today was pretty windy, so we rode to check the heifers instead of flying. As you can see in this picture, the snow is melting off pretty good. It is really wet though. Once it warms up, the grass will really take off.

DJ

Snowstorm

I thought I would give you an update about what has been going on. Saturday and Sunday were in the fifties. However, Sunday night the moisture moved in. It started out as rain, before quickly switching over to snow.

When it is nice out, Danny and I walk out and try to gentle down the heifers. These pictures were taken before the snow.

Monday was kind of a blizzard. Visibility was far worse than this at times.

We were unable to get out and feed the cattle on Monday due to the whiteout conditions. When we went out to feed Tuesday, we found some rather deep snow. As you can see, we basically buried the pickup. After quite a bit of shoveling we got it out. We had to go back, get the wheel loader, and plow a path to the cows so we could get them fed.

Looking east of the house, there is quite a bit of snow.

We aren't going to complain about the snow. It will melt off pretty soon and soak into the ground, giving the grass a good start.

DJ

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