Today is Gabes 14th birthday…man, I am getting old.. I notice it with this winter.. I can think of lots worse winters.. Chance claims last year was colder, longer, but I don’t remember that.. ah, the beauty of losing you mind, with age!But this one seems to be dragging on and on…

Yesterday just as I was getting done feeding, the tractor acted like it was gelling up.. just so happened Chance was in town taking the kids to their mother, so I called him and he brought home a new fuel filter.. on this tractor, you have to unhook from the loader and back it up a bit to get to the filter and the water separator… I just had the bale spear on the front and it isn’t very heavy.. you kind of need the bucket on the front to help balance the weight of the loader outI guess.. we got backed up from it, but it wasn’t exactly level ground, so it was setting a bit crooked.. when I went to rehook after we got the filter changed and the tractor running again, it was a bit scary……….evidently I pulled the wrong lever or ran it the wrong way.. Chance seemed to get a bit excited and I was just scared!

We did finally figure out which way to move what lever and got it back together.. life was easier when I just used a team of horses to feed with, but it was colder too and took longer, with as many bales as we’ve been feeding in this cold..

I went to chop ice on a dam for the cows down south and it was pretty thick… not even sure they watered there, they have water at a tank, not real far away, but wanted to make sure they had easy access to water.. there is another tank close to where I fed them yesterday, but it is all full of ice……..hopefully I can get it going and thawed out today.. life was easier when I just used windmills to water cows in winter.. until the wind didn’t blow or something quit working…

Odd, how when you need to work on a windmill it’s always real hot or real cold…

Anyway, I am sure ready for warmer weather… we have about 8 to 10 inches of snow that drifted in the wind the other day and night…I did get most of it plowed out like I needed, but probably will do some more now.. I am just killing time, waiting for it to warm up a bit more.. cold is hard on iron tractors and such….. and, evidently, old grump’s! Happy Birthday Gabe!

Been having some water problems at the corral and Chances house… got to cold in the basement of the old house and it caused the pump to malfunction.. we got it going again day before yesterday.. then yesterday afternoon, Chance noticed he had no water.. usually happens when the cattle are drinking a lot and there are quite a few drinking on that tank.. he went to look at the tank last night and saw no water in it, so went and checked the pump and the basement of the old house was flooded with water… about 4 feet deep at least.. he shut the power off and this morning we tried to pump it with my small gas powered pump I use for firefighting.. just a small trash pump… we could make it work

So I went on and fed some cattle while he tried to locate a different pump.. he found a big one and brought it home and we got it going and water was just pumping out the basement of the old house like you was fighting a fire… I went on and fed more cattle and stopped in later.. he and the little boys had it mostly pumped out and trying to find the leak and what all was wrong.. a very good neighbor came over and he and Chance worked on it and finally came to the conclusion the old pump was shot and we needed a new one… found where it was leaking and got it shut off.. it isn’t needed any more so we should have that fixed.

So we called the place in Belle that handles them and told them not to close up on us.. we made a flying trip in there and the Lord was looking over us as we never found much for poor roads and no cops or slow drivers got in the way.. got there about closing time with the old pump and they fixed us up with a new one, for half or less than we were afraid it was going to cost! Woo Hoo!

We grabbed a bite to eat and headed home.. when we got home we assembled the pump and stuff as best we could and decided we’d go to hooking it up in the morning..

Today was Chances 34 th birthday so it was an odd way to celebrate it.. ah, the wonderful life of a rancher!

I took Pilgrim in yesterday to have an eye removed as he had gotten and infection some way and it was shrunk away and mattering… while I was in town I ran to Rapid and got Chances kids… hopefully they will get to spend some fun time with him tomorrow..

Oh, and I have a flat to fix on Cindy’s car, that we drove…what a wonderful day!

23 as I write this at non… no breeze to speak of..

It got cold enough to mess up the pump in the old house, so there was no water to the corrals or at Chances last night.. the boys put a couple heaters around it and this morning it still wasn’t working.. we went to prime it and when we took the gauge off, water shot out, so we knew it didn’t need primed.. just on the off chance it might’ve changed something, we went ahead and turned it on..it sputtered a couple times and took off! Praise the Lord.

The hydrants worked, but the water inlet in the tank for the livestock was froze up so we got buckets of hot water ad poured over it, twice and still it was froze up.. so we fond our little steamer, I made some years back, Chance went and got a propane bottle filled while I started feeding.. he got it fired up and in just a little bit we had water at the tank! Them little steamers will really cut the ice..got everything fed and access to water and it is a nice day!

Here it’s been from below zero to barely above for a week or so and supposed to warm up a little today and tomorrow, and our thermometer sez’ it is 23 above…not sure if it is wrong or not.. seems pretty nice out there.. cattle standing around soaking p sunshine, not hardly a breeze.. we have a couple inches of lite powdery snow and it isn’t even blowing around.. weird..

9:30 am, -1 degrees, a stiff breeze making it feel colder.. snowing with about 2 inches of fresh fluffy snow… it keeps this up, like it is supposed to according to my weather, it is going to make me think it could turn in to winter!

Groundhog day, they say… we don’t have any so it doesn’t make any difference.. I don’t trust him anyways…

Nice, got up to 50 or better… we went and got some protein for the calves/thin bunch and then moved the other cows down south.. better grass there than where they have been.

It is slickery and muddy out there and froze underneath.. we went to close a gate and it was froze down so had to chop ice away with a tee post so we could free it up and shut it.. seems like a person ought to hang them gates back on the fence when it is going to freeze them to the ground… 😀

Got up about 50 today and water is running this afternoon… pretty cool!

Cindy has been sick for awhile now and is finally getting better. She can smell things again! She is pretty excited about that. We ran in to town today to get more pellets for the stove, groceries and a beef we had butchered.. so it’s steak for supper tonight, we will see if the ol’ girl we butchered is good eating! We split her with Tate and Kass.

Chance and kids worked on putting some hot wire around some stacks as we plan on moving cows back down south tomorrow.. there is lots of grass left down there.. but we were afraid they might want to eat hay instead. We drove around and checked the fence down there.. we need to put a gate stick on a broken one.. and shut a few gates, but shouldn’t be a problem.

Chance and kids went around the hog pasture fence and we turned the calves out in there and put the thin bunch in with them.. we need to get some protein for them.. not sure yet what it will be, but something to go along with their hay.

We had a couple bulls and fence crawlers in the corral with the calves and needed to sort them off, so Gus helped me do that until Chance and crew came to help us. They will have to stay in the corral, but we are betting the cow will be out by morning.. she is a rip and needs sold, but ain’t worth much.. guess we could make her in to hamburger, but that ain’t much better.

Oh well, sure am enjoying this nice weather while it lasts! And I always like seeing that water run down the creeks and draws. Supposed to get cold again starting Sunday night.

Bit nippy out there this morning.. 0 when I looked…and still wind. Ahh, the wind..on the up side, I just read on Facebook , a story that claimed the extreme cold might keep the Emerald Ash Borer , a little bug that is supposed to kill all our Ash trees, at bay. So… we got that going for us!

Took Cindy in to the Doc yesterday.. they said she has some kind of pneumonia. Gave her some pills. She sez’ she ain’t feeling any better, yet, this morning. I bet she will in a few days.

I went and watched Lige play some basketball last night. His team lost. But to be fair, the other team really played well and kind of had them on height. I am supposed to take him to Faith this evening for another game. The windchills supposed to be down below 0 quite a ways on the way home… seems so silly to me that they have these events when the weather gets this cold. But we all just drive and go. Amazes me that more people don’t get hurt and frozen. I guess the Good Lord looks after drunks, and fools.

Stay warm!

Well, we had a great time in Hulett. Chuck Larsen and Paul Larson and I had did a show out there this afternoon. D & K rode out with Cindy and I and we had a great visit all the way out and back. they all said they enjoyed the show. We stopped in Spearfish on the way home and had supper.. the roads had some snow and ice on them out there in the hill country.. interstate and 34 were fine. Some snow on the gravel, but not bad on the Red Owl road, a pretty good sized drift on the Stonveville road. hence did the feeding and then went to the Stockshow, I guess.. Fr Tyler will be home sometime tomorrow for a late Birthday celebration. Supposed to get fairly warm tomorrow and then start getting colder with coldest on Tuesday or Wednesday, last I looked.. haven’t checked it for awhile. We shall endeavor to perserver.

Got pretty chilling, night before last. Around zero… bit windy and not real warm yesterday but then warmed up into the 20’s in the night and supposed to stay that way today and warmer tomorrow and Sunday.

Headed over to Hulett, tomorrow for a gig there in the afternoon. Sounds like D and K are going to ride along. We will need t take the pickup s Cindy’s penchant for staying warm has about run us out of pellets… not sure what’s the deal with that!

Sam had his 11th birthday yesterday.. so he and Gus are the same age for the next month or so.. Irish twins..10 months apart in age. They helped me feed this morning.. and of course, Bitty.. she always thinks she has to go along. Because she is a “cow eating wonder”… in her estimation, anyway!

He got a pistol for his birthday so we need to make him a holster..and probably go see if we can hit a can or something…

Supposed to get colder and real windy into the start of next week. It is the big Stockshow in Rapid and I was supposed to go meet friends, but with what they are calling for weather I may not make it.. going place in below zero windchill has lots it’s appeal t me, some time back.