Went out with the Case and moved some snow around so we could maybe ship cattle tomorrow… of course, after talking to the owners they decided to wait until sometime next week… we have rain and wind forecasted for Thursday night until, Friday night and then more rain Monday night with a little snow maybe…. as I told them, it’s your call, your the ones at risk…hopefully all will go well…

I saddled up this afternoon and me and Pilgrim and the dogs moved all the cattle into the west pasture… they were scattered all over, with many in the rocky hill pasture and back in to Harry’s as I had forgotten we had left the gate open into there, had to get some out of Cobb’s 3 fence crawlers who will burn in hell if I have any say in the matter and some yearlings… hopefully they just went back and weren’t there the whole time… if they were, I will have to try and pay Delbert something for their feed…

It was close to dark by the time I got everything the way i wanted it… ion the morning my plan is to go around some fences that are drifted over and do some sort of patching and get the cattle all fed along the creek and move all of them on the south side so if they drift they come back into the corrals and the big tree patch, hopefully it will hold them thru’ another blow… most of the drifts have shrunk a bunch and the rain should help to melt more away…sure wish I had a bigger pile of bales but thank the Lord and some good neighbors who were willing to put up this hay we have at least we have what we do, on hand…

More numbers of losses make me sick to the pit of my stomach and ache with pain for the losses for my friends and neighbors…

I was informed tonight I was rather cranky thru’ this blow, but I think they are mistaken. Far as I can tell I was no more cranky than usual! 😉

He is kind and merciful to his faithful servants…. ( and even us sorry sinners!)

We are all fine and well. we came thru’ a historic major spring storm that just happened to come in early fall…we had over 2 inches of rain, switching to snow and got over 2 feet of heavy wet snow out here at this place…Hope was snowed in, in Rapid from Thursday until last night (Monday) Chance and kids and CJ, Hope’s sister were here with us all the way thru’ we lost power Friday morning and when we got home this evening just at dark, we have finally gotten power back.We had been in Rapid on Thursday to be with Cindy’s Mom, Karen and stayed with her at her bed side as she passed on to her reward. She was surrounded by her children, her husband and many grandchildren and great grandchildren…services will be at Kinkades in Sturgis on Monday at 2 pm.. her ashes will be interred in the spring at Ft. Pierre, Scotty Philip’s Cemetery……

We had all of out livestock next to and behind protection, but the yearlings wouldn’t stay so we brought them in her to the house and put them in the big tree patch. We had all the pairs in the hog pasture, just to the south of them. Just before dark, the yearlings broke out and got in with the pairs so Chance and I went and chased and fought and tried our damndest to get them back in to the tree belt. After about 2 hours we succeeded…we planned to drive the fence all thru’ the storm to try and hold them, but with record snowfall and winds gusting to 60 mph at least, we couldn’t see and could barely get around, even behind the shelter of the windbreak, so I sent him to be home with his children and we went to bed in the dark, listening to the howl of the wind… I put my faith in the Good Lord and he carried us through…the next morning when we could see, the cattle had all walked over the fence of the shelter belt but stopped at the barbed wire fence at the road…that evening as the wind died down, we went out, got the tractor started and fed them as best we could… they were so tired and worn out that mostly they just wanted a dry place to lay down… we opened the gate so they could go east as by then there were already bare patches on the wind facing slopes…we have been digging out and moving cattle around ever since…we had to put down one yearling who was down on the frozen ground with a broken pelvis or some such… I think we have a dead one who was sick and we left in shelter up[ the creek but we haven’t gotten back to check on him yet…we drove in to town to get the funeral arrangements made and try to settle up Karen’s affairs,on hiway 34, it is terrible, there are piles of dead cattle out on the gumbo, too thick to count as you drive by! I’ve heard of losses of 100 head in the town of New Underwood…

What a shame… people had not even had a chance to sell calves or bring cattle home from summer pasture, which is traditionally country that has little wind breaks and so is used in the summer and fall… people who did have cattle in what would be considered good wind breaks, and rougher more protected country, still had cattle drift and losses… there is no way of knowing how many we lost in this country, but they are talking tens of thousands…my heart goes out to those who are now trying to find cattle and deal with such horrific losses…

I took off about noon on Friday and headed to Hot Springs. Got my room, met up with friends and proceeded to have fun at the Badger Clark Gathering…. Had a great show on Saturday night and a great open mic session on Friday night. Nice crowd, about like we always get… I’d taken my pickup over to Punkin Center on Thursday and had the tires changed out, winter ones on summer ones off… I noticed on the drive down that the pickup was driving a little wonky, but thought perhaps it was just the way it was with the winter tread tires on it… On Saturday morning Paul Larson followed me to the cafe for breakfast and told me there was something wrong with my passenger side rear tire. I walked out to check it and when i kicked it, it wiggled… long story short, I had to pop the hub cap off and tighten all the lug nuts… I talked the boss where they did the work and he has new lug bolt, nuts and a rim ordered… just a oversight… could happen to anyone, but sure glad I caught it before it came off, especially while pulling a trailer.. Cindy’s Mom went to the hospital in an ambulance on Saturday morning, she had a stroke but is doing as well as can be expected…

Started last night with wind and lightning.. not much rain in it but then this morning it set in and just quit about 5 pm… maybe got an inch or better.. I drove out and slipped and slid around in Purple and checked the cows and calves… seen one the other day who looked like he wanted to have an ear down, but couldn’t find him today, tho’ I did find another one who almost acts like he could have an ear down…Saturday I drove down to Custer and watched Gabe in a football game. This is their first year as a team and they haven’t been fairing too well, but they led this 6 to zip until the 4th quarter when the other team scored 7… oh well, they are young and still learning…

Hot Springs is this weekend, cracking open Friday night at Woolies and then on Saturday morning, afternoon and evening at the Mueller center..gonn’a be a blast!

I left Friday afternoon and headed to Ft Pierre. Got there and went to the jam that night and then we performed on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon I had a talk to do for the Art’s Council on Tuesday morning so just stayed over. Got to listen to the Symphony on Monday evening and then I and several others had a jam session. Met a lot of new folks and had a good time. got home Tuesday afternoon/evening…then yesterday morning I ran in to the Hills. I had a checkup with the doc and some tests which all went smooth. I also got my new glasses, that were replaced when the others got scratched up, adjusted…we had a strong wind and a short burst of rain with a little hail come thru’ yesterday evening. then I had a gig around a campfire last night and never got home until the wee hours this morning…. I can’t seem to get enough sleep of late. be nice to get back on a regular schedule… cooler today, I had to start the pellet stove..

Went and helped Cobb’s work their calves yesterday.. they had their new chute, Clint and Delbert built last winter and it sure is handy. I am trying to make a trade with Clint to build me something similar…I went to get the Range Well readings this morning and look at calves and fix some fence but forgot a pen or pencil so just looked at calves and fixed some fence… and found some ripe plums so ate them…Cindy and Hope made some wild plum syrup and man is it good on ice cream! I love wild plums and anything made from them…I went to Punkin Center and got a new gate for the sorting alley/round corral… need Chance t help me unload and drag it over to where i will hang it or get the loader tractor and move it…picked up Gus from the bus this afternoon as Cindy was at work, Hope and Chance were working on her bakery and had taken Addy and Sam with them…last weekend Hope and sisters and friend went to a Christian Womens retreat of some sort. it was the first time for Addy Bear to be without her Mom ad it went real well. Sunday afternoon Cindy walked up to their house and Hope wasn’t home yet. Addy Bear came over and placed her hands on Cindy’s knee and calmly said, “Mommy is dead.” Cindy assured her she wasn’t but nope, she was convinced she was…where do they get this stuff? Got a gig with Cowboy Culture this Saturday evening at thew Pierre Opera House as part of their Heritage of the West  this weekend. Ought to be fun…Hopefully I will see some of you there…

Well, we got them done.. had a dandy crew to boot! Several came Friday afternoon/evening and camped with us. Got up the next morning and few of the crew were nursing “too much fun the night before” sickness, but nothing too severe! Got the cattle in, sorted off the bulls, a couple steers and a cow with a fairly new calf she surprised us with…we were done by 12:30 and some hung out and visited until after dark! I am about to load the bulls up and haul them back to their owner, who we leased them from. Got another calf works on Tuesday. Cool and a bit of dampness this morning.

Wedesday afternoon Chance and i loaded horses and headed south by south east and helped a couple of my buddies with their fall branding. there was 8 of us and it was a head and heel deal. got warm before we were done but we sure had a good time… I roped poorly and everyone else seemed to be on their game..we got done about 1:30 and went in and ate some lunch and them Chance and i headed home… we got home last night about 7. We’d had a flat going down and had to stop at De’s in Wall to get a repair job… looks like it may be time to be thinking of new tires…we got a crew coming tomorrow evening and Saturday morning to work these calves…Scott came down from Faith and looked at the yearling steers…he will call one of the owners and they will call me about when we will ship…

Well, we survived! Cowboy Culture, that is. Paul and Ken and I did three in a row. Hill City, Lead and Devils Tower… had wonderful folks show up and had a great time… out next gig is at Pierre on Saturday September 14 as part of their Heritage show. All of it kicks off on Friday. Last year was their first year and it was great. We sure are tickled to be a part of this years….there is all kinds of stuff going on with an open mic Jam on Friday evening, that ought to be fun…

Cindy and Hope are planning plum picking and tomato canning today. Cindy’s sister Cathy and her husband Gordy may come out for the evening. Tate and Kass are talking of coming out and Fr Tyler is already here, so it sounds like we may have some fun!

I have to head south Tuesday evening to help Marty and Jeremy brand some summer calves on Wednesday…We are working calves her on Saturday and sounds like we have a good sized crew coming to help…I suppose I need to get a few things fixed up and ready before that… need to go ride on yearlings, ain’t done that in a couple days…

Been in the upper 90’s since the Artist Ride started. Of course, when your on the river and having fun it isn’t so bad but when you come back to the real world and work, you notice those kinds of things.. or at least I do. Probably wouldn’t seem so bad but lots of humidity with all the rains and green grass we have, but I ain’t complaining about that! I’ll take it, this too shall pass…

I got all the boards tore off the old alley fence I replaced with logs and the planks and put them here and there, kind of stored the best stuff, pulled all the posts and I now have a wider sorting alley… we’ll see if that is an improvement. Now I need to replace a gate and it ought to be good for a few years, barring any major wrecks. 

Came in to cool off a bit…should go work on some leather projects I guess, seeing it is hot out..

Busy weekend coming up. Cowboy Culture has gigs at Chute Rooster on Friday night, at 7 o’clock, Lead Opera House on Saturday night at 7 o’clock and from 1 until 4 o’clock at the base of Devil’s Tower on Sunday… Hopefully we will have some nice crowds… after that we are at Pierre for their Heritage Festival on the weekend of the 15th and then Paul and I will be at Hot Springs the 27th and 28th.

We are working calves here on Saturday the 7th, so I sure have plenty to do…