Life Lessons

This three-day weekend was a welcome get-away....We had a fun and entertaining visit with Mitch & Heidi in Bear Lake (and I am always having too much fun chatting it up to take pictures)...then stopped in Lava at the Hot Pots (we stayed for a record one hour!!  Usually it's more like 20 minutes for me)...then spent Sunday and Monday with my family. 

This morning we went and watched my dad feed the cattle.  He was really brave and put the boys in the truck while Katelyn and I scrambled for our coats and shoes.  It was a beautiful crisp morning!

The kids thought it was funny how the truck rocked back and forth while Grandpa was loading the bales of hay on the flatbed...this morning's load was a double-deck-er.

See?  Gorgeous morning.  Usually there's miles of five foot snow drifts in this field along the road....not this year...yet!

"FINALLY!  We've been waiting since sunup!"  ...so we got a late start...

"Neyummm, ummmmm, ummmm, ummmmm."

At one point, Tanner said to Taylor, "Yup - Taylor!  Those are bulls.  There is steam coming out of their noses!"

I thought Katelyn and I were going to die laughing in the feed pickup.  When we told my dad what Tanner had said, we had to have a little lesson on cattle ranching:  Bulls are boys, and cows are girls.  THE. END.

There were all kinds of questions...like "What are the big poky things for?" and "Why is Grandpa pulling off the string" and "Is Roxy a predator or is she prey?" and "How does she know how to track us in the snow?"  Oy.  These kids need to get out more.  

Kortlen couldn't take his eyes off of the beautiful beasts!  And I must admit - Roxy was pretty entertaining, taking charge of the whole morning.  

See...I told you we scrambled....I was in the middle of a grueling workout when I was hollered at to grab some boots...stylish boots meet worn-out yoga pants.

This is going to sound nerdy, but my favorite part of feeding is pulling off the bailing twine.  Yup.  Nerdy.  It's just so....cool.  Especially when it's frozen to the feed.  Definitely "cool".

Speaking of cows licking...What am I going to do about Taylor's double cow-lick?

We all learned to drive at the ripe ole age of about 7.  (But I'd NEVER let Tanner do that....he's a city boy.  LOL!)  Katelyn had the pleasure of driving us over frozen ruts down the road to the pasture this morning....lucky we didn't lose a load!  Though we did swap stories of the loads we DID lose growing up.  Talk about hilarious!  I so glad our dad survived us.  :)

Needless to say, we learned some life lessons today that I've taken for granted.  And then we played hard....in the snow.   Because you know, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.  

yippie!

Thank you, Stevie, Ryan and ZAR.  :)  You rock.  Like totally made my day!!!

I'm only missing the pictures of me on horseback with my nekkid baby and other boys, along with another 50 or so, but I'll live.

Loving this beauty right about now.  Miss it!

Even {more} pictures

Happy Birthday to my wonderful Father!!!

This morning was breathtaking.  You couldn't see anything more than
fifty yards out.  The morning fog was so thick and gave light to
some beautiful pictures.  

He spent the morning moving cattle with his sweetheart and two sons up on the summer range.  I woke up early enough to slip outside in my pajamas, with camera in hand, to capture a few fun shots.  Again, just working on learning this camera and having fun with it!  I'm not perfect, but have these wild ideas that I want to make happen.  :)  Enjoy!

Roxy, ready to go.  
Just watching from the doorway.

loved this.  If only the previous owner of the ranch hadn't have used
mainline water pipe to build the corral and something more beautiful like..
wood...
these pictures would have been even better.  :)
We got a good laugh out of the 'elephant' fence those first few years...

Bringing in the loyal steeds. 

This is my baby brother.
He looks like my grandpa Crandall in this picture...
about 70 years younger.
The pants.  Nuthin' to hold em' up but a belt or
suspenders.  Love it!

Sadly, I neglected to fully download the rest of the morning's STUNNING pictures before deleting them.  I'm crushed.  I had some cute ones of the horsemen (and my mom) on their horses riding off into the sunrise to move the cattle to the summer range up on the mountain.  Totally sick about deleting them.  Anybody know how to recover deleted pictures from the camera???  Stevie???


A few more I thought I had taken, but, derrrrr, my mom took them with her camera...I obviously had my hands full...hardy har har!

Just for fun:

I switched my mom horse for car, about 3 miles from home.  Totally got sunburned on this 20 minute leisure ride.  LOL!  Got back to the barn, and my mom was standing there with a camera and my baby...to which I discovered had had a blow-out, but because my mom wanted to 'get a picture of us', just put a diaper on and wrapped him in a blanket.  Good thing it was warm this day, despite the wind.

remind me to never do my hair like that.
and to make sure I lose about 25 lbs, pronto.

__________

Tanner and Taylor have been quite the outdoorsmen this week.  They've killed two baby water snakes and a bird, and befriended a third snake.

I caught Tanner running into my mom's kitchen from the garage with a baby snake by the tail (about 8 inches long) and hollered after him, "Get out of here with that dead snake!!!"

To which my mom chased him down in the yard and made him throw it over the fence into a swampy area behind the house...because it WAS NOT DEAD!

"Why did you bring a snake into my house!"  my mom chastised.

"Because it needed a warm place to live,"  Tanner innocently replied.

I'm so glad I am going home today...my kids have officially had too much fun and killed too many innocent animals.  And traumatized my dad's chickens by "being chicken farmers" and looking for new eggs no less than a dozen times a day!

Oh, the joys of the wonderful outdoors!!!  I don't know what we're going to do the rest of the summer in a teeny-tiny apartment.  We might just have to plan monthly mini-vacations to my parents' home in the wind-blown open country in the middle-of-nowhere.

I wonder if Tanner's swim coach will count swimming in grandma's pool as practice, or if the garden will plant and weed itself, or if Ryan would miss us if we stayed.  Cause we've been gone a week and the car is packed, yet nobody want's to go home.  :)

I can't wait to get to the hundreds of moments I've captured this past week....there's some good ones!  Stay tuned for some more excitement.

Spring Round Up 2011

I married a city boy.  And I love him to pieces... But I miss the country life.  And for the past five or so years I've even missed working calves...because I've either been growing babies, working, or both.  This year I was determined to be a part of the nostalgia, and wouldn't you know it, I was in the way half the time.  :)  Like really in the way...like in the gate so the cattle wouldn't come into the right pen.  oops!  Sorry, Dad, and Keith, Reed, Clay, and everyone else. 

Luckily Spring Round Up was the same day as my mom's birthday, between Katelyn's HS Graduation and Memorial Day and a million other things.  I decided to make a mini-vacation out of it, and just stayed at my parents' house for a week.  It was fabulous.  

**Please don't cringe too much at the pictures...I'm learning as I go and thought I had the logo placement/specifics worked out...so sorry if they're driving you bonkers...but I am too tired to go back and take them off right now.  

Right in the way.  I thought I was out of sight,
but those cows and their calves saw me from  clear across the corral.
Still, I had some fun shots from this perspective, 'hiding' behind another fence.

Beautiful back-light.  The dirt was perfect...not dusty, not muddy.  

From L to R:
Tanner, Kortlen, Katelyn, Deseret, and Taylor
In the calving shed, out of the way in the way

This little calf made us all smile.  He was one of the ones to get past my mom
and Clay tackled the little thing to work him.  Isn't that face irresistible?
Such a cutie.

My dad.
♥

Sorting the calves from their mamas.  Loud, fun, and what needs to happen.

The weather this week was absurd; rain, snow, sun, wind, actually, that's all normal.
This particular day was beautiful, cool, damp and perfect.

Keith sorting...

This is my little brother...he's a financial guru and has an awesome job in SLC.
While he wasn't working, he was working.   You can tell his horse understands.
Best day of the year; closing deals (four, to be exact!  Go Keith!) and  having fun on the ranch.

Bar-C-X is my dad's brand.  Stephanie is  probably responsible for the embroidery.
And it's a given that neither my brothers or dad can't go anywhere without their pen. 

My dad and brothers have some serious leather-working skills.
Beautiful workmanship and talent right there.

Reed had two friends (both on the right) come up from SLC to experience working cattle with nordforks.
Here, they are getting instructions on how to use the nifty contraptions.

Nordforks, sometimes all five going at once,
 in the foreground; eliminates the use of a calf-table (takes for.ev.er) or tackling,
though some calves manage to  get full-on contact when they aren't caught in the forks.
My poor youngest brother, Clay (upper right corner) got to castrate...
but once he got it figured out he was on a roll.

getting worked

Funny how everyone does their 'own' thing their 'own' way.
This is Keith (or Calvin?) branding.  
My dad brands from behind, or from the topside of the calf.
The brand still has to be on the back left hip, but each does it from their own vantage point.

Happy Birhday, mom!!!
She manned the gate and ran it like a pro.
Those chaps were made for her by  her youngest, Clay, if I have my story right.
She spent 20 years growing babies and caring for them and feeding the men and
hoodlums she called her children so 'the job' got done...
now she's in the corral with her sweetheart, instead of behind the scenes.

Ryan had to work in I.F. this day, but my boys stayed with me.
I told them if they got off the back of the truck they'd get
shots and ear tags, branded and ear-marked.
They were angels and stayed right where I sat them,
looking like the brothers off "Second-Hand Lions"
and driving us crazy with those pretend bb guns.
Kortlen slept like a baby in the house for the majority of the morning. 

Deseret made sure all the tags were handed out in order...
and she helped me quite a bit with my boys. 

Katelyn with the tagging gun...She looks gorgeous no matter what she does.  :)

Reed roping calves.

Dad watching his operation run smoothly.
We were fortunate to not have any rodeos or mishaps...
Such a wonderful day! 

While a roper (Reed) holds the feet, the nordforks hold the head and
the calf is worked: branded, ear-tagged and marked
with notch in each ear, castrated if need be, and vaccinated.
It's quite the show when every fork is full, and runners doing their jobs.
In fact, it's pretty awesome to watch, and be a part of!

Reed, again. 

My dad (left) and his little brother, Calvin (right)
observing the younger generation get 'er done.

"I'm hungry," says Tanner.
"It's eleven o'clock.  Lunch is in two hours.  Drink some water,"
as I'm loading my tagging gun again.
"But I'm hungry!!!"
"Cowboy up, son.  Lunch is a long time coming."
This kid got lucky his Auntie had to pick up a friend and
grabbed him some Cheeto's from the lunch table.  

We finally got smart when I had to got to help.
Gave Desi the baby, and had her hand tags to the boys
who handed them to me and the other help.
Brilliant way to keep hungry boys busy.  :) 

It was a fabulous day, finished off with some birthday dinner and some pool time...

Can't hardly wait to get back for Fall Round Up...which is more or less 'less' exciting and more work.  :)