1/3/11

Dang! I never did my blog on the first which would have been 1/1/11! Next time!

 

Kids and grandkids are all gone. 😦

Kind of quiet around here again. But Hope stayed in Rapid for a doctor appointment so Cindy is supposed to bring her back out later this week and I will have two munchkins to “help” me. 🙂

Takes a little longer to do the chores now with the new cattle of Chances.  I need to get some more hay in too.

Sun is shining and it’s not real warm with the wind blowing, but still way better than it was. Come on January thaw!

Thursday 12/30/10

T’ain’t fitten’ out there!

When I looked it was 9 above, but a hard northwest wind blowing about 30 mph.

When I was last in the big city, I went to a popular outdoor store, that has stores all over, but who shall remain nameless. I looked and hunted and talked to supposedly “experts” telling them I wanted a pair of real warm, real tough gloves. They don’t make them in both, so I settled for a pair of gloves with some kind of leather in the palm and all that “wonderful” man made new tech material. Against my better judgment, but a man has to try something new once in awhile. You just never know, one of these times some of this “new and improved” crap might be just that!

Well, it ain’t happened yet. Did I mention I told the people why I needed really warm, really tuff gloves? Well I did and I was assured that these would be way more than adequate, to go out in the cold and harness and hold a pair of lines in my hands? Flexibility plus warmth! Can’t beat that!

Bullshit!

I was better off with my lined elk skin gloves with a lite pair of gloves on underneath. Just as I suspected. What I really was looking for was a pair of shooters mitts, which are mittens with a spot for your forefinger. Now what they call shooters mitts are some crappy wool mittens with a top that slides off and it exposes all your fingers that are encased in partial gloves with ALL your finger tips sticking out. How damn many finger do you need exposed to pick your nose or shot a gun for cry out loud?!!!

As I have found out many times before, I will just have to make what I want That is the problem with being a Luddite, no one makes things you want or need.

Maybe if I go online to a store in Alaska I will find what I want.

Nazi, sales people! :- (

Wednesday 12/29/10

This year is about shot and sounds like it is going out with a bang. We are supposed to have howling winds, very low temps and snow. Looks like a New Years Eve blizzard is approaching.

The man who fixes my stove came yesterday and after much mumbling and grumbling (he mumbled, I grumbled) it is working again. We never did figure out for sure what was wrong with it and why it started working again. He just pretty much tore it apart and put it back together and then it worked. He said I should be able top handle it next time. Yeah, right! I think it’s time to save up for a different one that doesn’t set inside the fireplace. It would put out more heat and be lots easier to work on when/if it quit working! Now, if I can just save up the bucks! 🙂

If you guys south east of me see my hat or one of my horses go blowing by in the next few days, please grab it and give me a call!

Oh, Larry brought the cows to Chance yesterday afternoon. Nice red cows. Cool.

12/27/10

Wow! Nice day out! Must have gotten almost up to 40. Got snow melting, getting ready to turn to ice when the high is 5 above in a few days. I suppose I am going to have to get a guy here to shoe my horses.

I had decided that if it was going to get that cold and stay that way for a while as it sounds like, I might as well get the other cows in closer and start feeding them hay every day. Got that pasture pretty well picked over anyway. When I went to feed the calves and cows I have here close, there were the rest of the cows waiting at the gate. They must have read my mind. So I let them in and put out more hay. Then Cindy and I went to Punkin Center and got more bean and ate lunch at the cafe. It may close, the fist of the year. The lady who was running it is not going to anymore after the first anyway, but hopefully they’ve got someone else lined up to take over.

When we got home I fired up the tractor and unloaded the big bag of bean (weighed about 1300 pounds) and set it in the shed and then cleaned up some hay doodles that were laying around and that the horses and colts had pushed back, while I had the tractor running. The cows will eat it. There were two of the big bales with broken strings so I set one and a half on the wagon. It’s all that would fit and the one bale broke as I was loading it. I’ll have to pitch the rest on tomorrow when I feed.

The pellet stove quit working the other day and just as always I can’t get the damn thing running again, so I have a guy coming from town tomorrow to try and get it going.

I had a cylinder leaking on the loader so I removed it and put another one I have on hand, on in it’s place. The price of oil, it gets pretty expensive, pretty fast when they leak and I already have enough small leaks on the old bugger.

I cleaned out a small tank that I had used for watering and moved it out to use to put bean in for the cattle. It was plumb full of ice so took me quit a while to chop and throw it all out.

That’s about all for today! 🙂

Merry Christmas!

I hope all of you and your loved ones are having, or had, a very blessed Christmas.

I drove Cindy in to work yesterday as the roads were very icy. Never spun a wheel. I drove down to Rapid to see and hold that new baby. She is a cutey, but then, she’s related to me, so I wasn’t surprised at all! 🙂

I did some shopping and then we hurried home and drove up north of here to the little church at Mud Butte so I could provide music for them, as they have no one who plays any musical instrument. We rushed out of there afterwords so as to get back to Red Owl for the 6:30 Mass. Made it right at 6 and turned on the lights and I started to play as the people were coming in. I warned everyone that Fr Marcin would probably be late as it was terribly icy on the gravel between Mud Butte and Red Owl. So we sang until 6:30 when Mass was supposed to start then waited for Father. And waited. Then waited some more. Finally someone went outside and called him on a cell phone and he was off the road up north. Several took off and eventually came back with him. He had slid slightly off the road with his car. Didn’t take much to get him out. After he arrived we had a wonderful Christmas Eve Mass. A neighbor came over afterwords and ate with Cindy and I and stayed and visited pretty late for both of us old guys!

Now it is Christmas morning and I have much to be thankful for. Hope you and yours have a great day and a wonderful New Year!

12/23/10

Brrr.

Got some freezing rain last night and into this morning, so Cindy didn’t go to work. Sounds like there were lots of cars off the road. Even the sander truck went off the road according to a story I read.

So we haven’t been to town to see that new baby yet and Granny is chomping at the bit! 🙂 They named her Arabelle Ruby Ann, the Ruby comes from Cindy’s grandmother. She and the mommy are doing well they tell us. Now, if I can just keep Cindy off the roads until they are better!