Category Archive

The rain (a small amount) and the snow ( a larger amount, but not too bad) and the wind ( oh yes, that again!) came and went.. now we have mud.. beautiful day today and yesterday.. must have got up into the 40’s.. bring it. I need grass to grow as we are about out of hay…I have been cleaning much and manure out of the corrals and trying to get the water to drain fro the corrals… it’s fun.. it’s not like I get to play in the mud that often in this country.. I am sure some would be bothered by the smell, but it just smells like spring to me1

Seems some don’t know that Easter is more than just one day… we will be in the Easter season for some time, so I hope you all have a blessed Easter season.

We have been blessed with some moisture… it came mostly as snow… so it is making some peoples lives harder… but with out moisture we are in a drought and I am plumb feed up with drought….as are my cattle, who get scant rations instead of all they can eat… we all are looking forward to green grass in abundance… and it is coming, but we want it now! 😀

Cindy came out and helped me after lunch and we attached a gate to a portable panel I got awhile back… works slick, then I went and moved all the panels on the north side of the corral to hopefully make it easier to pen cattle in it… time will tell..

While feeding this morning I saw one cow who needed to come out of the main bunch and go into the hospital bunch (which gets all the feed they want, so to speak)  while resetting the corral panels, she got inquisitive and came into the corral, so all I had to do was switch a few gates and let her into the other bunch..  am sure she will like it better..

Now I am setting and waiting for a truck load of hay, hopefully the last one I will need to buy this spring..

We love it!.. Well, some don’t seem so crazy about it as it came as snow.. but what do you expect for SD in March, magical duck feathers falling from the sky? I’ve never understood people who live in western SD and complain of snow storms any time from end of October to first of May.. it is not unusual, it is to be expected… sure rain is nicer, but come on, really? Snow is much more apt to happen… I hope we get a bunch of warm rains to keep the moisture coming and yes, the snow is somewhat of a pain, especially for those calving at this time, but with out it we have drought and no feed.. mud is much nicer in this country than dust!

Other than that, not much to report… same old same old, feed cows, do odds and ends around here.. always seems like there is something to occupy your time if you just look a bit…

Sunny, got up in the 30’s.. supposed to be the same tomorrow… yesterday was windy and not as warm.. we sorted some calves off and hauled them to the salebarn for the sale tomorrow and the roads were not pleasant. I met Fr Ricardo at Plainview this morning about 8 and hauled him t Red Owl for Mass and then took him back.. he missed the turn off and plowed into the snow so Gabe rode back with me and we got the car out.. not a big deal… fed cows when we got home.. we will get cows fed in the morning them run up to watch the calves sell. Hoping for a high market.. I have to leave fairly early to get Cindy to the airport as she is flying south to see her sister.. Fr Ricardo and Fr Mike are supposed to be on the same flight, so it ought to arrive safely! 😀

And cold. Sue took me to task for not writing on here as often as I used to.. Facebook has taken up most of my writing time and I seldom if ever read anyone else blogs anymore, for the same reason, Facebook.. with it I keep up with so many people.. kind of a bad habit..snowy and cold here.. we hauled some extra horses to the sale today, that no one rides and feed is too expensive.. we need the moisture so it is hard to cuss the snow, but sure wish for warmer temps!

Cindy and I went dow to Rapid to watch the ranch bronc riding this morning.. good watching.. the guy who won it flat rode his bronc, one hand on the rein and another in the air, at the buzzer he doffed his hat to the crowd and then put it back on his head.. classy.

Yesterday afternoon, Tate and Cindy and I picked up Gabe for a wrestling duel.. he ended up wrestling a girl and tho she put up a good fight, he pinned her.. it was kind of disappointing, tho’ probably not as bad as if she had pinned him.. I guess I am old fashioned, I don’t like watching girls wrestle.. if they want to and there are other girls to wrestle than so be it, but these preteens, girls and boys wrestling each other, just doesn’t seem right.

Had a some warmer days and it is cooling off. we are supposed to butcher a steer and haul him to the plant tomorrow.. got a guy who wants to buy half… hopefully he will be tender and he is fat and shiney so he ought to be…

Warmed up.. sure is ice to be in the 30’s and 50’s after being 20 some below for awhile… of course it was a little warmer during the days.. got up a little below zero… I must be getting old, as I can remember when we had 2 weeks or a month of below zero weather years back.. I know you can get used to it… but I don’t care for it.. seems to me any extra hot days in the summer, you will get the same amount of extra cold days in the winter.. it all balances out.. I do know that now is a real good time for a drought and a heat wave!

Power went off yesterday for an hour or two.. lots of frost on the lines..and when that happens they throw a breaker I guess..anyway, when it came back on, one of the tanks for the cattle had been drank down and the water really must gush out, it blows the plug on the float and it is gone.. not sure where they go, but maybe down inside all the muck in the tank.. so Chance had no water last night and he discovered the water had ben running over.. he is at the end of the line… so Sam came up to take a shower before Mass this morning… I called the local hardware/feed shop owner where we got there float and he said he’d get me one this morning, even tho’ it was Sunday… its nice to have local people to deal with, who understand these kinds of things..and help out in emergencies… I think there is going to be a new trend in stores, back to smaller stores with people who will hep you.. I detest going into a store in town and no one to help you… I try to avoid places like that.. I don’t care if they are cheaper

Man, it went by kind off fast… how does that happen?

Driest year I have ever seen… no grass left to graze to speak of, so we are feeding all they need… got about 5 or 6 inches of fresh snow the other day and night.. been down to 26 below for lows the last couple nights and not above 0 for higher.. but that is supposed to change tonight and tomorrow.. wind coming in and supposed to be in the upper 20’s the next few days.. we spent a New Years Eve night alone in a warm house.. I didn’t make it past 10 o’clock… I used to wonder why my folks never got excited on New Years eve and were content to just stay at home.. now I get it.. got my 60th birthday coming up shortly.. I sure don’t feel like I am 60.. 35 maybe.. I still enjoy doing foolish stuff with my grandkids.. I still do foolish stuff with Cindy.. heck, I ain’t old, I am just used a bit.. getting my rough edges polished off.. life is sweeter now.. I enjoy things I once took for granted.. I sat here today and found the words and chords to a bunch of old songs and saved them.. got to where I quit playing them on the guitar as my fingers got sore.. I need to keep doing that I think… wrote my first poe of 2018..

Another year has come and went
Like cash I once had on hand
I wonder where it was spent

Days just seemed to drift on by
I had lots of plans of things to do
Now I kind of wonder why

So I give myself a darn stern talk
This year shall be different
Now all I have to do is walk the walk

RDennis 1/1/18

Weird rhyme patten.. heck next thing you know I will be writing blank verse!!! LOL

Hope you all had a great celebration of the new year.. and hope this year is better than the last for us all!

Coldish and gonna get worse.. High barely above zero today they say and in a couple days the high is supposed to be below zero and the low in the 20 plus below range.. takes a lot of feed to keep cows warm in this weather…

Was a pall bearer for Ardis Smiley.. the funeral was yesterday.. as we laid her coffin in the grave sand the preacher was praying the last rites a flock of geese flew over head and honked.. it was beautiful on a cold gray day// She would have liked that.. She was a woman who took delight in many things and enjoyed the wonder of this world.. she and her husband raised up some fine children and that is probably her best testimony… wish I had told her how special she was… might be a good reminder to tell people who are special to us, to tell them.. not wait until it’s too late..

Hope we all have a great New Year..

Tate and I took off about 3 am on Monday and headed for Sioux Falls.. got there in time for my flight to Orlando to where Chance had been working.. the work he was doing in hurricane recovery had dried up so he was headed home.. I got a fairly cheap flight so I could ride back with him, to help him drive and keep him awake.. we decided to take a different route than he had taken down when he first went, so we went west into the upper part of Florida and angled across, Georgia and Mississippi and into Arkansas and then north thru’ Missouri and Iowa and into South Dakota… We left on Monday right after my flight got there about 2:30 pm their time.. we made it to Hazen, Georgia the first night and got a room and were in bed and asleep about 9:30. The net day we headed towards Little Rock with plans to eat some good barbecue along the way.. we stopped off in Montgomery Alabama, birth place of Hank and Elvis, if I recall correct and had great BBQ. Stopped in a small town along the way so I could get a pocket knife as I couldn’t take one with me on the plane and I felt naked without one on me… a friend from the internet called me and said he wasn’t too far from Little Rock so said we’d call and try to hook up… never could get him to call me back and we passed up spending time in Memphis for some Delta Blues music and missed seeing another friend who would have met us for lunch. Dang it… sorry Brian, we will bet to your country eventually and hang around for awhile.. towards night our Google on the phones route moved us off the interstate and on to a smaller two road because of traffic, must have been an accident as they had traffic backed up for miles.. we finally got back on the interstate but it was bumper to bumper and the ;lights were killing us, so we stopped short of Little Rock… motel had a good Mexican restaurant next door we ate supper in.. again, in bed asleep by 9:30.. we could have gotten an earlier start but Chance had let his glasses on the table the night before so had to wait for them to open at 8 to get them back..it was nice traveling so we could see… we had rain the night before so the reflection had been terrible.. but in daylight the clouds started to life and we saw some pretty country… we pushed hard to get to KC before rush hour and made it tho’ it was kind of hard to tell.. pulling a 16 foot triple axle trailer with wobbly 8 feet side walls makes it a lot harder to whip thru’ traffic, but Chance said after the traffic in Miami it was no big deal.. of course I was doing a great job of navigating.. once we got north of KC I drove for a ways and gave Chance a little rest.. we switched back just north of Sioux City at a fuel stop… Chance drove until Chamberlin and I took it from there to a rat stop outside of Kadoka where we swapped back.. we found wind in SD of course and it made a dramatic difference in our mileage.. we had been getting close to 11 miles to the gallon and it dropped to 5 and 6 when we turned west and had a cross wind.. found snow when we got to Kadoka but not heavy.. stopped in Philip for one last fuel up and got home at 2:30 am.. we were both shot and still trying to catch up on our sleep.. it was a grand adventure and glad I went down and rode back.. seen country I had never seen before and had a great time..