Category: Ranching

I should never have stopped on our trip to Thermopolis. If he’d never gotten a good look at the country we were traveling through, we might have been able to stay away more than one night.

Sonny was a happy traveler until he got out and saw the Ten Sleep canyon bottom, with the road’s S-curves snaking down. He didn’t like looking into the canyon, across the canyon, at the tree tops, at the rocks…or at the winding road.

But after we arrived safely at Ten Sleep, I still thought he should see the Wind River Canyon. Even though we were near the bottom so heights weren’t a problem, it didn’t take more than a few miles of all those rock walls (that might fall on us) before he said, “I’ve seen all of this I need to. Let’s get the hell out of here!”

We left Thermopolis before the horse sale was over, and he might have been content to leave before it started! He does say he’s glad we went, but more emphatically he says he won’t be going back.

The next morning he couldn’t wait to get horseback on his own piece of Powder River County, and he really was happy then. Sometimes the greatest enjoyment in a trip is getting home, and there is sure nothing wrong in that.

Sonny occasionally talks about going south for the winter. Based on this trip, if we did go south for the winter, it would be the shortest winter on record – maybe 3 days…

It’s our favorite season of the year – well, no it isn’t. Well, it is, but after calving, branding, haying, sorting cattle, shipping. OK – it isn’t our favorite season, but it’s in the top 20. It’s the season for horse sales and we love ’em. We only go to one or two each year, but we pore over the catalogs and each pick favorites – that we never see, let alone bid on. But we dream, and that’s important, too.

The Head Honcho kept eyeing the 2nd cutting alfalfa he’d left for seed. The seed just wasn’t setting on, then we got a couple rains and the alfalfa perked right up…and so did he. The machinery came back out and we have another little batch of hay. It wasn’t great, it may not really make a difference to getting through the winter, but Sonny is all smiles – and that’s mighty important.

Yearlings are shaded up, trying to stay cool during the heat of the day. We’re trying to do the same thing…

Bugaboo’s calf at birth weighed about 40# and I could just scoop her up and pack her around like a big doll. She’s still a doll, but Peekaboo is almost as big as her mamma. Notice the fly boots on Bugs – flies drive us both nuts during milking but the fly boots help.

Bugs is still the sweetheart she was when I started milking her this spring. We’ve had a few disagreements on who is boss, but as long as I remember that SHE is, we get along great.

One day when I came in from milking Sonny asked, “Do you let that cow and those calves lick you?” Innocently, I opened my eyes real wide and shook my head no, but I think the slobbers slinging off my ears were a dead giveaway that I wasn’t being totally honest.

These bulls seem to be spending their time fighting flies rather than paying attention to their cows.

This rainbow was right over us but we knew we were lucky even before that! The grass is green in mid July, the hay crop is outstanding, the cattle are fat…and on and on. OK, so the flies are horrendous, the posts in the yard fence all rotted off this year, the barn cats had a bumper crop of kittens, both trees in the yard died – but so what! The grass is green in mid July… Our life really couldn’t get much better – or if it could, we don’t know how it could. After all, the grass is still green in mid July!