Category: Ranching

Lucky in Work

Lucky in Work

Sandy Snider Stahl

Cattle didn’t cooperate at first yesterday since cows were after salt sage. After crossing a pass from east to west, they went north and south along the top and around the edges of the hills. It was too slick on the gumbo slopes to safely ride horseback so it was foot work to get them down. But then the sorting and trail to fall pasture was picture perfect. Windy, but…20171002 Windsor Trailing str prs thru HH1*

Amidst the chaos in our country and the world, we are so lucky to get to work in this location in these conditions, even when things don’t go great. Our thoughts are with those grieving and suffering in Las Vegas, Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas…

Sonny on Rebel cutting pair out
Sonny & Rebel sorting heifer pair
Trailing cattle
Trailing steer pairs to fall pasture
Ranch work

Ranch work

Sandy Snider Stahl

Can’t get the video of working cattle to publish so until I can, thought I’d share a photo of Sonny and Gumbo. Only thing better than working cattle horseback is doing the work with Sonny! This other photo shows a tiny bit of Windsor, my filly, too. Those are her ears! She’s doing the work while Sonny’s just sitting there looking pretty-

20170920 Gathering Coalwood side2

 

 

Writing and Riding

Writing and Riding

Sandy Snider Stahl

Busy season on the ranch as we’ve been preconditioning calves around rain, harvesting alfalfa seed and hauling cattle cake. No complaints on delays due to rain!

Still writing, too. After first edit of Magpie Fall, I decided I needed a few more chapters and am almost done with that – with another full review to follow. Have made contact with two self publishing companies with discussions to follow.

Grist for the word mill

Sandy Snider Stahl

20170722Windsor@RootsTree4We’ve been to a lightning caused fire on a neighbor’s place that burned about 2 sections, but all the neighbors and volunteer fire departments did their usual remarkable jobs and got it corralled pretty quickly. The weather continues hot and dry, but instead of 106, today we had 96, so things are looking up!

I’ve worked less on web development the last few days. Instead I’ve concentrated on sewing on the baby quilt, then started making a wood pallet bench for the yard.  Sonny calls my style of carpentry botch-ass, but I call it rustic.

I took a photo of Windsor at one of my favorite trees on the ranch. I used to play here when I was a little girl – now I ride by once in a while and reminisce.

My filly Windsor and I moved a bull today and he fought us a little. Windsor turned perfectly with the bull the first few turns then in her youthful exuberance worked too fast and got out of position – that’s something Allie’s colt Snooker would do, too. In fact, a scene is percolating in my mind right now – I’d better go grab my pen…

Progress update

Sandy Snider Stahl

I’ve been working diligently on this web site following the steps outlined by WordPress’s 10 day course. It’s been pretty painless, occasionally frustrating and definitely satisfying as I near my short term goal of a functional web site. Also working on a baby quilt and learning dressage via books and practice with my 4 year old filly Windsor. The difference between dressage and ranch riding is a world apart, but I believe one will help the other.

On the writing front, I’m in the editing (actually, it’s re-editing) phase on the second Magpie book.  I really enjoy editing but find it takes more concentration than the original writing.

Although we’re in the midst of a heat wave in which we’ve meandered around 100 degrees for the last 10 days, I’m off to meet some of my family for an evening at the Fort Peck Theatre.

I’ll get content on all of my pages soon.