Tractor Tipping, Chicken Plucking and Cable

While Emma has been in Montana, we've been busy! We've cut all of 1st crop on the east side of the river. Alex took the swather over to the westside at the whopping pace of 5 mph. Fortunately our neighbor lets us use his bridge, so it cuts the distance in half. Everytime we move equipment I think of that Craig Morgan song " I'm a God-fearing, hardworking combine driver,hogging up the road in my p-p-p-plower, chug-a-lug luggin 5 miles an hour in my International Harvester". The line "I make a lot of hay for a little pay" is sadly appropriate as well. Basically, that song describes our life.

Since we're making so much hay, someone has to haul it and that would be Jim. (He also rakes and bales; a multi-talented farmer!) Thursday, the cable on the balewagon broke, tipping him straight up in the air. It reminded me of the movie "Cars" when Lightning McQueen goes "tractor tipping" with Tow-Mater. I was sent to town to get a new cable, as in at 4:25 I get a call : "Can you go to town (30 miles away) and get a cable before the shop closes at 5:00?" No problem. Of course I'd been working in the yard all day and hadn't showered for who knows how long. That is why God invented baseball caps. Thankfully, parts guys don't seem too judgmental about appearance. We also stopped at Wal-Mart, where anything goes as far as appropriate shopping attire. I realize when most people say they are going to get cable, they are referring to something else, but our cable only cost $7.47 and should last for some time.

We also processed 20 of Will's broilers. And by processed I mean we cut off their heads, dipped the carcasses in boiling water, plucked all the feathers, clipped their feet and necks off and stuck them in freezer bags. Sorry if that's too graphic for non- farmers, but this is how we get our food, people! Will was a little upset at first, but he got over it when he realized we weren't going to kill any of his Black Giants. Ahh, life on a ranch... so very glamorous. I will get a little culture next week, though as my friend Veronica and I and our two boys head off to New York for a broadway play (Lion King) and a Mets game. More about that in a later post. Until then, Happy Ranching!

Graduation Week

8th grade graduation was on Thursday. The decorations were beautiful and the kids looked amazing. The next night was an emotional high school graduation(two members of the class had died) and then Emma was off to Montana for a mission trip with members of her youth group. It's been an

exhausting, but great week. Summer finally arrived, with blue skies and temps in the 80s and we are cutting hay like crazy.

Skinny Sheep and Poor Grammar

We sheared our sheep on Wednesday and they

are looking very good (although much smaller). We have a cool shearer who trades for hay. When we do it ourselves it takes about 45 min per ewe. Multiply that by 80 and it would take us approximately 60 hours to get through our flock. I think. I'm an English major... you do the math.

Jim is on his way right now to pull the bulls (sounds scary) from the cows. We'll cull off a few open cows (not bred) and sell them. Then they are off to the neighbor's pasture for about a month until it's time to take them up on the range where they will spend the summer.

Our guru explained how to keep the internet from kicking me off every time I post or download a picture (Thanks Dave!). That should help to keep me blogging. Which I've found is surprisingly therapeutic. And hopefully, not terribly annoying. (I know those are incomplete sentences, but I don't care.) (I also know I am using too many parenthetical statements, and again, I don't care. I'm freeing myself from grammatical correctness).

Happy Ranching

Kids and a puppy

This is just too cute. Who can resist kids and a puppy?

Sheep and Teenagers

My friend, Amy, and I and two of our children went to San Francisco last weekend with 60 some 8th graders and parents. First we went to a Giants game (they beat the Diamondbacks 5-0), then rode Hummer Limos around SF for 3 hours. The next day we drove down to Pier 39, had lunch and then took a boat out to Alcatraz. As you can tell from our sunburned noses, the weather was beautiful. It took us almost an hour to get from the parking lot at Pier 39 to the Bay Bridge. We are just not used to city life! (Getting flipped off twice on our entrance into the city should have been a clue!) The kids had a great time and the parents are almost recovered.

Today Jim & I took our lambs to the sale in Orland, a 3 hour drive. I'm becoming quite familiar with that stretch of I-5. Unfortunately the sale is not on Tuesday, but Wednesday. Jim had called the day before, but, in typical male fashion, asked "Is the sale still on?" Not, "Is the sale still on for tomorrow?" The person on the phone, undoubtedly a male also, responded "Yep." Not, "Yes Wednesday is lambs and goats and Thursday is Beef and Pigs," as the female receptionist informed us usefully today. While we were standing in front of her. After getting up at 5:30 to load lambs and get our kids to school. Fortunately they penned our lambs and will sell them for us tomorrow. We took 61 lambs and 3 cull ewes. We hear lamb prices are up, so we're hoping to get a decent price.

Interestingly, hauling 64 sheep is actually quieter than hauling 5 8th graders.