Had a buddy stop in last night on his way thru’ to the west coast. He’s a photographer and he has published a book called Ranchers, about the people who live in this area and what they do. Mostly pictures (great pictures) that he captured while in this area over about a 5 yerar period. If you want to check it out, go to http://www.carlcorey.com. He was setting up a meeting to sahow his work and this book in Rapid City next summer. He is already booked to do a show in Rapid, next January. Hopefully it will co-incide with the Stockshow.

This afternoon or evening, I have a couple friends from Iowa stopping in to look at horses and cattle.

Guess it’s Dennis Ranch B&B again!

We always enjoy the copmpany.

Been working on this saddle this morning. I made some alterations to the tree to special fit a muscled bound mare that a lady was having a hard time getting a saddle to fit as it should. Hopefully this one will work.

I am just putting the bare essentials on the tree and I will ship it to her to ride and check the fit. Then if everything is hunky dory, I will go ahead and finish it, when it’s her turn to get a saddle built. I have several to do ahead of her. It’s not too pretty, but it has everything she needs. I’m just afraid she’s going to show it to people and brag that this is all the better I can do! LOL

If and/or when she sends it, I may have to quite screwing around and acctually go to work!

Oh, perish the thought! 🙂

Guess I need to go take more horse pictures as I think this is the last new one I have. Hell, I may have even posted it already! Aging is such a wondeful thing! 😦

A group of us, loosley called the Red Owl rejects, went on our annual trip to Deadwood to watch the single steer roping, or tripping, yesterday. Afterwards, we go find a local golf course, who hasn’t heard of us and pretend we know how to play the game and shoot a round of golf. They do make us take off our boots and wear shoes, but most of us still wear our hats.

Great fun and we don’t worry too much about the score, but I am pleased to announce that my partner and I won the 9 hole match with a score of 44 or 45. There was a little whining by our opponents when they discovered we had tee’d off on the womens tee on one hole, but hey, I ain’t going to walk up a hill to whack a ball where the mens tee was! We just added one stroke to our score to keep it even. And besides, we didn’t tell them guys they couldn’t tee off the woman’s tee!

We played best ball, which amounts to, who ever hits the best laid ball between partners, is the ball you use and make your score on. My partner could really whack that little sucker, and I was fairly efficient at chipping. We both got some lucky putts on the green.

By the way, Rich Skerton won the tripping.

It was a great day, a little on the warm side, but of course, that just made the beer taste better. 😉

Cindy brought Gabe home with her last night to spend the night and part of today, to give his folks a break. We had to get a shot of both the boys together. Evidently Hope has been getting enough sun! She didn’t want to be in the picture, but I talked her into it. 🙂

Been pretty hot, so I’ve been working on the grandkids saddle, some more.

Here’s a picture of the back of the cantle with leather on it. While I was waiting for the stirrup leathers to get ready to work, I went ahead and put the leather on the back of the cantle, to form it. When it is dry, I will remove it and carve and stamp whatever design I am going to put on it and then glue it on the back of the cantle.

Here’s the pattern traced onto the leather of the stirrup leathers or “rosadero’s” or sweat fenders, all names for this piece of a saddle.

Pattern carved into the leather. Now the real work begins!

Before and after. Every line must have a tool, tapped around it called a beveler. Then I use quite a few other tools. Each different mark is made by different tools of various sizes, through out the pattern.

Close up of the finished carving. Notice the real small cuts in the flower petals and leaves. They are called decorative cuts and they are the last thing I do. They are cut freehand with a small swivel knife.

I’m a little biased, but I’d say this is one good looking kid! 🙂

Don’t tell me this little boy ain’t going to be up to some mischief, sometime! 😉

Funky photos of Peaches and her filly.

Chance, Tris and I moved and doctored on some cattle yesterday and then shaded up till evening. When we went out to work, there was lightning to the west and smoke so we re-loaded up the firefighting unit and headed up on a high hill, while monitoring the fire radio. Found a bunch of neighbors and stood and watched for fire until the storm passed to the south of us. There had been several to the northwest, but they had them out or under control pretty quick. Everyone around here keeps a weather eye out for lightning, this time of year.

Chance and I unloaded the firefighting unit this morning and drove over to the neighbors and roped and drug a yearling into the trailer and put him back where he was supposed to be. He wasn’t real happy with us!

We drove by the church and I suppose they think we are heathens, but we wanted to get our job done before it got too hot. It was up over 100 yesterday and supposed to be the same for the next 5 days or so. Back to saddle making!

Hot and getting hotter!

Here’s Peahes filly. I’m afraid she is going to turn into a sorrel. I liked here better whaen she was going to be a bay!

Supposed to get to 108 on Sunday. I hope not, but there ain’t much I can do about it.

Chance and Hope are supposed to come out tonight. Maybe me and Chance can get a few things done in the morning’s before it gets too hot and in the evening when it starts to cool down a little.

Time to stay inside and run the AC and work on saddles! 🙂

Here’s a picture for Pixies ponies. 🙂

We’ve had freinds from Iowa here the past few days. Sue and Bob. They took off this morning and headed west to look around.

While here Bob and Tristin hauled and stacked up a bunch of little square bales in the horse barn and several small loads here and there, where we can use them handy.

And of course we played Farkle, a dice game. Pretty much everybody got to win eventually. Tristin really enjopyed their company. But then, so did we! 🙂

They threatened to come back in the fall. I ain’t afeer’d!

There you go Mad. 🙂

We have friends here visiting. So we are headed in to Deadwood.

Who knows what we might be doing tomorrow!

Went to Rapid yesterday and got a new pump for a firefighting rig. It is totally awesome! Shoots water at least 50 feet. I can suck water out of a tank or water hole to fill the tank in the back of the pickup with it also. I am so excited. Almost makes you wish for a fire!

Almost, but not really. 😉

Here’s a picture of Chink, I took last year. He looks about the same now, only bigger. It’s too hot to take a new one! 😉

Got friends coming to visit and shoot at some prairedogs that are over running a neighbors pasture.

Got a couple of mares dropped off here yesterday. They will wait here until the lady who owns them can come and get them.

Might not post too much the next few days as it’s hot and going to stay that way they tell me. I’m going into town and see if I can afford to get a better firefighting pump. And a few other chores.

Stay cool!

Here you go Pixie. This is Chance on Shorty when we branded last year.

Kind of a sad day here. We sold this hores to a feller who needed a good one. Shorty was the first horse that Chance started and went on with and he’s about the only person who ever rode him. But when I bought him, it was with the intentions of selling him, down the road.

Sadly, when you raise horses, you have to sell horses or they increase to where you have way too many horse. We have way too many horses!

Chance was sad about selling him, but realized that we needed to. We have lots of young horses that need rode and if we don’t sell of the older, better broke horses, we will not be able to run cows as the horses will eat all the feed and we will never ride the younger horses that need the training.

Yup, that is the worst part about raising horses. Having to sell them.

But I take comfort in the fact that he is going to a good home and Chance gets part of the sale price and he can sure use the money. As can I.

Here is what I accomplished on the saddle today.

I had to run some errands, fix a tire, put some cattle back that were out and ride on some other cattle, among other things so I didn’t get to spend all that much time on this project. I had soaked the leather yesterday and let it dry back some, but it never quite got good enough. So I put it in a plastic bag over night and then took it out this morning and let it dry to a mellow stage. Matter of fact, I kind of hurried it and would have taken more time on an actual saddle.

I like this design tho’ it is a little involved for me and will take quite a bit of time, but in the end, who cares how much time I take. 🙂

Here is the pattern traced onto leather, then cut with a swivle knife. I have stamped the flower centers also. I realized then I should take a picture to put on here.

Here is what it looks like after I got done with it. This took about 2 hours total from the time I started tracing on the leather to when I was finished, I think, ( I wasn’t wearing a stop watch 😉 )not counting the time to let the leather dry back to a good stage to trace and carve.

Maybe I’ll get a horse picture on here tomorrow for Pixie!