You ever been in a car crash? For that matter a good crash with a horse, motorcycle, bicycle, camel, water truck, street sweeper or shopping cart will suffice for what I am trying to explain. I have had the joy and pain of experiencing all of the aforementioned items. Well, not the camel crash but back in the first gulf war I had a nightmare that I crashed an explosive laden camel with a spoiler on it into a 7-11 but the Slurpee juice splattered up and killed the fuse and I ended up in jail and that was plenty frightening in its own right.
This latest crash of mine was basically fairly mild in that it just affected my online presence. True, part of it was the few times I did have an internet connection the last thing I wanted to do was post a blog but mainly it was just plain lack of connection. I have been busy as well, some days it seems in my mind I get very little done but without much of an internet connection I have still found plenty to do. April somehow came and went in a total blur. The weather has been very cool and wet and we are an easy 3 weeks behind normal in growing days. On the plus side the grass looks good and I have had plenty of chances to skip moving a handline without fear of grass burning up the next day. We had a reporter and a cameraman from a media agency here on the ranch in April. These two fellas must have missed a few prayers at some point in life to get stuck with the assignment of following me for a day. Brad and Colin were so professional and made me and the rest of my family feel totally at ease. Thank you both for working around us and thank you for doing such a great job. These guys took tons of video and had to condense it into a short presentation for NCBA (National Cattlemens Beef Association) Cattlemen to cattlemen program. I was nervous about the whole thing which is not something that often happens to me but it went well and I was pretty happy with the final outcome. They say a camera adds 10 pounds but I swear there must have been 5 cameras on me and not just one as they filmed this. Oh well, I am not fat, I am just hard to kidnap! Here is the final story Brad and Colin produced.
The start of May brought spring branding, vaccination and castrating day. Once again my family and extended family and friends helped immensely making a tough job easy and enjoyable. We also were helped that day by two young ladies attending Washington State University and Tori and Chelsey were great help. Thank you to these young women who are each going to spend part of their summer with us as interns learning about the beef cattle industry. I and a local irrigation company have been working to get a new center pivot up on part of the ranch and hopefully early next week we will be putting down water with the new system.
With the time away from this blog I have had ample opportunity to reflect on how maybe I could change things here to make it easier but more consistent. One thing I need to do is not be so desperate to keep things the same. Some days maybe all I will get time to do is post a picture or a short quote or story and I need to be satisfied with that. I have yet to buy a new camera because to be honest money is really tight right now with the situation of putting up the new circle. Dakota completed her 8th grade softball season and I want to congratulate both the 8th grade girls on their undefeated season and also the Connell Eagle ladies high school softball team that won the state championship last week. I also want to thank all of you that have waited patiently here wondering where the heck I have been. Between the ranch, WCA business and spring I got to feeling a bit overwhelmed but I think with this new reliable and faster internet connection I will be more consistent here.
Today’s picture is old 5288w and her last calf she had last fall. This little cow was 16 years old and I really hated to see her go but she leaves behind a 3 year old daughter to carry on her legacy. Well it is almost 1 a.m. and just to do something different I am not posting a species from the ranch today but more to come in the near future!
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