Cindy and I headed out bright and early Friday morning for Valentine, Neb. for the annual poetry gathering.. they had a bunch of great talent lined up and so we wanted to be there.. Marty called me o Thursday and said they had a few drop out for one reason or another for the day shows and asked if I’d be wiling to take their place and of course I said, heck yes! So, got to do a few songs and poems, met up with a lot of old friends ( and I do mean old! 😉 ) and just had a great time, tho’ we sure missed out on some sleep! Pretty drive home this morning and met up with a wet old world around these parts. Taking a couple young Haflinger tomorrow, to the Amish, to get a couple weeks of driving on them, so I can just hook up and got when they come home. I’ve worked with both some, but they still need someone along to open gates and unhook messes and so this should work out better..

Weather that is… ran down to Punkin Center and got the oils changed in my pickup and some stuff done while there i ate lunch at Bull Creek Cafe. Picked up some meat we had butchered as I had thawed out the freezer yesterday. He was a big ‘ol boy, over 700 pounds hanging weight.. 5 year old Corrientee Angus cross steer, grass fat.. and I mean fat.. delicious and cut the steps with a fork..worked on a new song today while waiting to pick the boys up from the bus.. Cindy and I are headed to Valentine for the weekend, to the big poetry show.. gonna be some great entertainment there… I ran the horses in and moved some cows down south this evening…

Got my “new” to me computer today when I had to run to the big city.. haven’t had much of a chance to check it out but seems to be working for this blog… Chance and I left here long before the crow pee’d this morning.. still dark when we got to the corrals we were going to ship from… rest of the crew showed up shortly and we unloaded horses and rode out in them rough cedar breaks and gumbo.. got them gathered with some little wild a here and there.. got the calves stripped off after one little wreck, shipped them out and I hear their heifer calves outsold the steer calve.. mostly Red Angus and good ones too.. good for them, they took a beating on them for some years and people are starting to realize how good them red ones can be… should be done with shipping for this week.. I helped neighbors up north ship they yearling steers on Monday, haven’t heard how they sold, but everything is so much better than last year, I doubt anyone will complain.. heard of 5 weight calves bringing over 3 bucks a pound.. that’s over $1500 for a calf… pretty good feeling until you go price a pickup or tractor or fuel up… and over course, we are just a bit past a year froAtlas that took about 40 t6o 60,00 had of cattle out of this country last year.. sure glad we ain’t seen another and hope I never do…

My computer is in the shop getting stuff transferred over to a new to me computer… I hate typing on this laptop… shipping some more pasture calves out tomorrow.. windy today and yesterday, gusts to 45 mph, I rode this morning in the wind moving cattle closer in for tomorrow..

17th Badger Clark Gathering is done.. had a great time with a great bunch of folks… some of the entertainers gathered in my room after and I got to laffing as it used to be we had a few drinks and talked about will cattle and horses and raising hell, the discussions last night were mostly about who had what operated on, who was gong to get operated on and the best pills for certain ailments… damn, we are getting old! Looking forward to Alzada next Sunday and Valentine the weekend after that…

Loaded out 50 pair, 2 bulls of H’s and 97 calves of G’s… Q, Eric and Robert helped me and Chance. Just got done loading out at 2 p.. sorted the other 5 bulls off and let them out on grass.. other cows and calves will bawl in the corrals until morning…

Chance and I saddled up this morning and moved our pairs down east,south of the road. Wind was wrong and it was getting hot, so they didn’t move easy, but we had fat fresh horses, so we got it done. We found there was a leak in the tank so rode home and then on to Punkin Center , ate lunch, got the fixin’s and came home and fixed it.. noticed some of the pasture cattle out so put them back this afternoon, looked back later and here they were all out again.. they keep crowding into a corner and tearing a gate down. They’ve got more feed than they can eat, but want that short green that has grown back up where they were before.. stoopid ol’ rips. So we just shut the gates and left them until morning as we are gathering, sorting of some of the pairs and calves to go home… we putted around and did some work in the corral and I took a borrowed hay rake home first thing this morning… Badger Clark Poetry/Song gathering this weekend in Hot Springs… supposed to break records for temps tomorrow but quite a big breeze blowing up from the south so it ought to be ok…

Last of the bales unloaded. Lots of hay setting out here, looks like we can feed a lot of cows this winter if we need to.. hot out there, they are claiming 90 by Friday.. we’ll see.. got a little rain last night… electric company got the power in to Tate and Kass’s house today… ride and move some cows tomorrow, need to put the post hole digger on and go dig a few post holes to fix on stuff and get me a wagon pulled up to the shed and start building me a new bale unroller/hauler for the team.. been meaning to for quite a few years, but with all these bales here weighing 1200 to 1400 pounds, I think it better happen now…

Being able to post on here… maybe this one will go thru’… seems on Firefox, all I get is the new editor, or at least that is what it’s calling it’s self… I liked the old editor and saw nothing wrong.. I am typing this on Safari.. I’ll see if it works..

I don’t know what happened, but I couldn’t post on here for the past few weeks… WordPress changed how I posted and that made it not work on my old Mac, evidently.. but all of a sudden the old format is back…

Let’s see, ate and Kass are bringing a trailer in and Tate has been here off and on for a week, digging in waterlines, and septic and getting all ready to se the trailer.. seeing as he has a backhoe rented, when he wasn’t using it I was on a bunch of other project…

We worked our calves a couple weeks ago, helped Cobb’s work their last week… we’ve had a freeze, but we covered the tomato’s and now it’s back up into the 70’s.. we’ve had some rain, still got green grass

Got some hay bought and Pete has been delivering it.. got 10 loads in so far, 6 more to go.. got the big Vee windbreak done, and the lady came out and looked at it to sign off on it seeing as it is a Govt project..

Gabe and Lige been playing football…. Addy Bear had her first day of pre school today..

Got a date to ship out some of the summer cattle here in another week or so..

Did the gig at Devils Tower with Chance, Marty and Mike Linderman..

Hot Springs is in a couple of weeks followed by Alzada and then Valentine, the next two weekends..

Bout all for now.. good to be back!