Sunshine

sure is nice when you ain’t had any for a spell. The boys went out with me this morning to build us a snowman, but the snow wasn’t just right, so I saddled up Beaver and pulled them on the calf sled. You may remember that Beav is not to crazy about pulling the calf sled or much of anything else except bovines on the end of a rope. So it was good for him, fun for the boys and a riot for me! 🙂

I’d take them over humps and jump and these silly boys have little to no balance it seems! 😉

But they sure enjoyed it. Poor little Lige would land face first in the snow every time. Really gonna have to work on his dismount before I put him on any bucking horses! 🙂

Poor man’s fertilizer

is what I’ve heard a wet snow like this one called. And it’s wet! And I know there are those calving in it who are calling it ano5ther word for fertilizer that starts with a B and has an s in there too!

Must be 6 inches anyway. If you like snow balls or building snowmen, you’d love it. Many other people? Not so much.

Grandsons haven’t quite drove us over the edge of insanity. In reality they have been very good but are cooped up all day as it’s been a keening cold wind out of the southeast. They just go out with me to feed and “supervise”. They must be good at it cuz’ so far we’ve managed to get them all fed. The cows look like wet drowned rats in this stuff. At least it’s not terrible cold. And there is green grass under it and in a couple days when this melts off it’s really going to make the crested wheatgrass pop!

No change in Cindy’s Mom. We sure appreciate all the kind words, thoughts and prayers. Thank you all.

Cindy’s post

Cindy wanted to do this one and update everyone so here she is……

I just wanted to say thanks to you all for all the well wishes and prayers for my mom.  She has had 3 pretty big surgeries, and will have a long recovery.  She had an aneurysm on her aortic artery in her abdomen.  She didn’t have good circulation in her legs, and only one functioning kidney, and colon problems due to plaque build up in her veins and arteries.  The first surgery was to repair the aneurysm.  They also tried to help out her kidney by bypassing a clogged artery and putting a graft in.  They also tried to help out the colon in the same way.  That all worked fine.  However, after restoring better blood flow, some of the grafts in her legs began to fail.  The next 2 surgeries were to restore blood flow to her legs.  She will be in intensive care for awhile.  For the time being, she is still on the ventilator, and they were giving her blood to bring up her hemoglobin when I left there today.  It is a little scary to go in and see her with all those machines, and such attached to her.  The Dr. expects that her recovery will take 2-3 months.  It has been a long few days for us, and I really appreciate all of your well wishes and prayers.

Grandsons

are a lot of work!

Who’d a thunk it?

But also lots of fun. We pulled the calf sled behind the tractor while we fed. I used the tractor, as it’s a little cold and windy to take them little fellers out there for very long. I can haul two bales in one trip with the tractor so it went a bit quicker. They both rode in the sled until we got out to the cows and went to take the strings off and Lige was a little intimidated by the cows I think, as he wanted to ride on the tractor. Either that or was scared of my driving! Don’t know why, just cuz I pulled them over every hump in the snow I could find to make it more fun! 🙂

Didn’t faze Gabe tho’. He even stayed on while I unrolled the bale and eventually had to drive the tractor backwards so he hooked the sled on to the front of the loader.

Now we’re are eating orange slushes made from the snow. Sure, it’s probably radioactive from the deal in Japan, but it’s always something ain’t it? Been eating snow in slushes all my life and other than the slight greenish glow I put off after dark, I can see no harmful effects!

Cindy’s mom is doing as well as can be expected. Lot of surgery for a woman in her shape. Cindy wishes she were home, but I am afraid as soon as she got here they would call and tell her she needs to come back, so she will just have to stay put for tonight at least. Maybe tomorrow sometime she can sneak home.

We have about 4 to 5 inches of good, wet snow and not a real hard wind so it’s not too bad out if you aren’t calving in it.

Well…….

Cindy called about 9:30. They had gotten the new work done on here mother and then decided they needed to do more. She wasn’t getting enough blood flowing, so they started in again about 9 or so. I ran down to get the boys and lend moral support. Still haven’t heard back at 5:40 as I write this. One surgeon did come out while I was there and said all was going good. they had planned on doing this other surgery, just not so soon as she is pretty frail, but when then they discovered that she wasn’t getting the blood flow she should they decided it must be done now. Hopefully all will go well.

I got Lige and Gabe and we went and got some cheap mud boots and then on to Sam’s club for a couple things. They only had one that I wanted but I ended up getting more, of course. I hate that place! We got our shopping done, then stopped by Mickey D’s for some french fries for the trip home, late lunch. I am told that pancakes are on the menu tonight! When we got home we hurried around and got the chores done. Windy with a skift of snow yet from this morning and almost foggy. Supposed to get about 5 inches in the next 12 hours. Sure glad I am not calving yet.

Snow

We got a little. More supposedly coming in. and wind. How exciting! 🙂

See how idiotic them skiers sound? 🙂

Cindy’s mom got thru’ surgery late yesterday. 10 hours or so. The doctors said it went well.Then about 2 am this morning Cindy called to tell they had taken her back in. Not real sure what they had to do or redo but she is out and resting now.

A neighbor from south of me brought us a new pussy cat yesterday. She is about half grown. Likes people and dogs and is house trained. Purrs real loud. Real Loud! When you are trying to sleep!

She will stay in the house for a while until she and the dogs are friend, other wise Bob will find her delicious! She has no problems with the dogs, but Bob thought she would make a great play to. He was trained upon!

By the way, she was already named by the neighbors grand daughter. Loveliness star shine. Yeah, that’s what I thought too!

Cindy is supposed to bring Gabe and Lige out with her this afternoon/evening. Woohoo! Grandkids to play with Grampa for a week or so! Wonder if Lovey will like little boys? 🙂

Whew

Got up and took off for Rapid this morning. Met up with Tate and looked at the coolers, but decided not to try and load one and haul it. Maybe if I was Superman strong I would have. Heavy? Lets just say, I am glad it wasn’t my brother?

It was worth the trip tho’ as Tate gave me a real cool little table he made. I asked why and he said, “Well, you whined so much at Christmas about Tyler getting one and not you, I decided to shut you up. ” or at least, words to that effect. 🙂

See, sometimes whining pays! 🙂

I went to several places and shopped and got a few things I NEEDED. Hey, that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it! Got the camera fixed. It was just the little card that goes in it that holds the pictures. I had accidentally moved a little button on the side when I last downloaded. No big deal. Other than the shop didn’t open until 10 am. Who doesn’t have to go to work until 10 am? I mean besides all the stores at the mall? Sheesh!

I got a wagon for grandkids. And BB guns for grandkids to play with at Grampa and Gramma’s house. Yup, necessities!

Picked up a low cost floor jack. Always wanted one. And a small green house. Oh and pellets for the wood stove. Headed over to Wall and met up with my buddy Marty from down in the Sandhills. He was swapping horses with a young couple. They had a younger horse who needs a cowboy and Marty had an older horse who needs a kid. I think they both got the best end of that deal!

Marty and I giggled and laffed thru’ lunch and then the horse swap, then we all headed home. I harnessed up and fed and then came in the house and been on the phone all most nonstop since.

Cindy’s mom did not have surgery. They ran into something so admitted her into the hospital and will try again in the morning. Cindy stayed in town with Fr Tyler for the early morning surgery tomorrow, if they pull it off.

Addy had to have her stomach enlarged. She is just so little that she can’t eat enough to grow right, so they pumped up the poor little kids stomach to expand it so she can eat more. Guess she cried all night. Tuff being a little kid! But she got to go home today.

Snow and wind headed this way tomorrow night. Wheeee. Spring? Storm!

Yup, same old same old.

By the way, if you see Brad A, ask him how his doctoring went?

😉

Sorry Brad, I just couldn’t resist! LOL

Cooler

But still pretty nice out. tho’ it cooled off this evening and the wind is picking up. supposed to howl tonight and tomorrow and we have a chance of a couple inches of snow.

Fr Tyler came out today and we shot some trap. I have a hard time staying on them when they come from the side.

Went to feed afterwards and the team were up on edge. Had a almost run away but I got on the wagon and got ahold of them and we trained! Too much oats I guess. They need more work. If I hadn’t been waiting on a couple of loads of hay I would have hooked onto the disc and gave them some exercise.

I am supposed to run in to Rapid in the morning. Tate is working on a remodel of a bar/restaurant and they have a couple of old beer coolers that I am going to get. See if I can make one into a smoker, as it sounds like it is all metal. Stainless steel too, it sounds like. Also get some pellets and get the camera fixed. Then on to Wall to meet a buddy who is swapping horses with some friends. Hopefully the weather will cooperate.

Linda sent me info on how to upload the song I was working on to Youtube, so maybe I will get that done. If so, I will let you all know.

Cindy’s mom is having surgery in the morning. She’s pretty nervous and so is Cindy. Say a prayer if you can, please.

Hope took Addy to the doc today and she has lost a little weight so they are going to do some stuff at the hospital to her. Empty her stomach or something. On these early ones they really want them gaining all the time.

Song

Windy today. But up in the 50’s, so not that big of a deal.

While working on my Lenten guitar lessons this morning, I came across a new chord progression and got to thinking of  a poem Ken Cook sent me some time back. At the time I told him it would make a great song. I thought Chance would help me and we’d try and come up with a tune for it, but he wasn’t too interested. I messed with it a little, but wasn’t happy with anything that came along. While playing this chord progression today I got to thinking of that poem so found a copy of it and went to messing with it. Ended up pretty cool. Figured out how to make a copy of it using Garageband in the computer, but not sure how to go about posting it anywhere people can hear it or a way to send it. Oh well. It’s still rough, but I think it’s going to work. I put the call out to some pretty musically handy friend and will get their input with it. The guy who wrote the poem is really liking it, so that’s cool.

When I fed this afternoon it just kept running in my head. Probably won’t get it out for awhile. Wonderful! 🙂

I also pulled the shoes off the front of Roz and Ron. Hope we are done with bad ice! I’ll try and pull them off the back tomorrow. Fr Tyler is supposed to come out and sounds like we will try and get behind some trees and shoot some trap.

First day of spring by the calendar. I’ve seen lots of snow after the first day of spring!

Sunday, March 21/11

Another nice day, tho’ the wind has blown pretty hard the past few days.

Went to Mass at 10 and we had a crowd. Nice to see a full church. Especially them young folks with the little kids.

Harnessed up the horses and waited for Cindy, then went and fed the cows. Afterwards I dropped her off at the house and hooked on to the other wagon and hauled some bean out and then trotted down east and fixed a broken wire next to the road. Jeff Long stopped on his way by to show his son the team. We had a good visit and he left, I fixed the fence and trotted home. I started a roast earlier and Cindy is cooking some potatoes and going to make gravy. Mmmmmm.