Not the best pictures, but you should be able to get an idea from them. Pretty simple. Makes it handier to get my pocket knife out when I am wearing chaps. And less apt to lose my knife.

A friend up in Canada who ranches with her husband and also works at a feedlot, just posted this to our local ranching community board. If this don’t speak volumes, I don’t know what does!

“Yesterday while we were at work a call came in that a tri-axle cattle truck lightly loaded with cows and calves had tipped while trying to make the corner off the main road onto a driveway.  The driveway was narrow, with steep shoulders, and it sounds like the soft shoulder gave way and the trailer slowly tipped and over it went.
My boss and the feedlot owner’s son headed over to help, and the owner’s son then called the feedlot for someone to bring a gun.  Sure, no problem.  As she gets there, the office gal thinks about the paperwork (registration) that the gun doesn’t have, and the fact that neither the boss or owner’s son have an FAC (firearms acquisition certificate), which is a moot point since the gun is unregistered anyway, so she pulls up alongside the boss’s truck and slips the gun into the back seat, then goes to check with the boss, who is shaking his head as in, ‘don’t bring the gun out’.  The RCMP are there in force, so the boss didn’t want to drag out an unregistered gun.  Okay, so the RCMP are going to shoot the animals that need shooting, but they are scared to get close to them in case they get eaten or something.  The boss asks the cop to give him the gun so he can put them out of their misery, but no, that wasn’t going to happen.  The boss said it was enough to make you cry watching the cop try to kill a big charolais cow, and if anything, the SPCA should have been called on the cops for shooting them anywhere but in the kill zone!
I’m sure glad the Canadian government (Liberals, at that time) brought in gun control so that poor suffering cows have to suffer some more rather than be quickly dispatched by dangerous unregistered guns!

In the end, they shot one cow and four calves, but there could be more yet.  The vet will be rechecking them for several more days, but hopefully the rest will be okay.”

“I am reminded that the Declaration of Independence was a long list of grievances set forth by Thomas Jefferson who wrote “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them (the People) under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and to provide such new guards for their future security.”

Want to read where this came from? Go here,

http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/

Yesterday, Chance and I gathered our little bunch of cows, sorted off the steer calves and hauled them to the sale. We kept back one small later calf. Chance consigned them 3 weeks ago or so and I don’t know what happened, but they weren’t even on the list and were the last ones to sell. The price stayed the same thru’ the sale so that was fine but they sure got plenty of shrink on them.

Yesterday we awoke to icy roads. Cindy made two attempts to go to work and get there on time and turned back both times. Then she rode in with a neighbor lady who isn’t bothered by driving on icy roads. Oddly, the gravel roads were worse than the blacktop roads.

My crew and I, (two old farts like me who I have neighbored with for years) gathered the heifers and got them penned and waited for the trucks. We played some pitch and laughed and joked for about an hour until the trucks arrived. Got the heifers loaded and I took my crew to the village cafe for dinner. We got misted and rained on and were kind of chilled down. After we came back I got a short snooze, then took a shower and ran in and picked up Cindy and we went to Rapid so she could do some shopping. I got a couple new paper backs and some templates to make all kinds of sweeps and swoops in my layout of the carving on leather. I think they will really help. We ate at a favorite restaurant and then came home.

I have Gus today so we ain’t getting much done. Hopefully we will both get a nap in this afternoon. When Gramma gets home I will try and do a little to get ready to ship our little bunch of calves tomorrow.

The sun came out yesterday afternoon and it was really a nice day. Cloudy again this morning, but I think that is going to change. Supposed to warm up for the next while. I hope so. I got things that need to be done before wintert sets in.

Got the fender carving done. Here they are.

We moved the heifers across the road to the north side this morning in preparation for shipping them out tomorrow. Rode in sideways snain. Snow/rain mixed. South, south east wind.

Fun.

Lots of fun.

Real cool, if you get my drift.

I think I’d rather stay in and work on leather! Moving south and working with my buddy Corky, in Arizona is looking like a much better option all the time! 🙂

I have a chat board I am on a lot. There is a link to it on my blog roll. Ranching Country. Ranchers, Cowboys and their ilk, from all over.  One feller  just posted this. This is in a smaller school in Texas. This is what the world is coming to because of the Liberals and their stupid policies!

This really pisses me off!

“Twice in the last few weeks there have been incidents involving “weapons” at school. In one a high school aged eagle scout who is a straight A student and school leader trying to apply and be accepted to West Point was found to have a pocket knife in his car survival kit (along with blanket, candle, MRE, etc as you would expect to find in an eagle scouts cold weather car kit !). When asked about it he admitted it and gave it to the officials. Never lied or tried to get out of the fact he had it (in his car). The second case I saw today and involved a six year old that had just joined the boy scouts. He snuck his swiss army knife with a spoon, fork, and knife to school to use it at lunch because he was so excited about becoming a boy scout. Wrong, yes, criminal ???

Both boys were suspended for different lengths without any consideration per “Zero Tolerance” policies. The 6 year old has to attend a reform school for troubled kids for 45 days !!!!

This also happened several years ago in my hometown, a young man picked up a small piece of metal pipe in the parking lot at school, less than the size of his hand, probably a 1/2″ by 3 inches or so. He liked to make welded sculptures, I had seen several and they were cool. He showed it to a teacher because he was excited about the sculpture he was working on and was suspended for the remainder of the school year! He had never been in trouble before. The piece of metal was deemed “drug paraphernalia”. The kid never had nor has ever since been into drugs.

I think that zero tolerance is an excuse to absolve administrators of the duty to make rational decisions. Why do we pay administrators so much money and then don’t expect them to use common sense and analyze issues on their merits ???

My wife is a teacher and I know many administrators, this is not meant as a knock on them, usually their hands are tied by the school board etc.

May God help us when we no longer have the ability to think for ourselves and consider whether a kid is a problem and danger and when a kid simply makes a mistake …”

Drew this up and tried it. I like it better. Only problem, I went to throw the old pattern out and decided to cut up the flowers and leaves from it for tracing out new patterns. Picked up the new pattern and cut it to pieces by mistake!

Oh well, I just drew a new one and it has the best of both, I think. We will see. I have some stirrup fenders, or rosadero’s, to cut out and I will stamp this 3rd pattern on them. I’ll post a picture when I get them done and they look good.

Got a couple inches of fresh snow last night. Oh joy!  (insert emoticon of smiley face rolling eyes in disgust) It’s melting but still a little here. Temps got  up to about 36 today. Hope it’s all gone in a couple days. I ain’t quite ready for winter yet. Supposed to be in the 50’s by Thursday.

A practice piece I drew up and stamped today. Might make some small changes and put it on a saddle I am building.

Just got this off another blog called Amazing Facts. It made me laugh!

http://amazinglyenough.blogspot.com/

First Lady Fires White House Gardner BREAKING NEWS Oct.11, 2009 It has just been reported that the head gardener at the White House has been dismissed after 28 years of loyal service to the many US presidents. When interviewed the elderly, Caucasian gardener protested his innocence and said, “All I know is I was walking past the Oval Office window and I yelled out to my assistants, ‘Has anyone seen the spade and the hoe..’ “The next thing I knew I was fired.”