Hot Kitties

105 degrees = Hot kitties.

I Like It In The Dirt

I am pretty dang excited about something that's been in the works for about 6 weeks.

Texas has been working his hiney off to get it done.

What in the heck is it?

A bunch of dirt?!

Why yes, it's a huge landmine of dirt.

Nice, soft, deeper than 1 inch dirt.

This is my new ARENA!!!!

I have always wished that I had a bigger and safer space to exercise my horses. Nevermind that I never imagined I'd ever be able to practice a full size barrel pattern in my own backyard. The arena that my Grandpa built for me about 10 years ago when we built some new cow corrals was plenty big enough to condition my high school rodeo horse that never needed to practice barrels. It worked perfect back in high school, but the ground has been getting worse over time. It's essentially like riding a horse on concrete now.

Besides the old arena being like concrete, I have my baby girl, Jade, who I need to train on the barrels, and I am dying in the tiny space by my mom's. It's honestly just not big enough for my long legged 15.3 hand 4 year old who is likely going to get bigger. It takes her about two seconds to lope from one side to the other. Not enough space!

The idea of putting a new arena by house came from my Mom. I had never though about putting it in the pasture by our house, but as soon as I heard the suggestion, I could actually see the arena.

This is what it looked like at the end of Day 1 after Texas mowed the area:

It looks a lot different now.

Texas has ripped the ground.

He has gotten rid of the grass clumps.

We've (mostly he's) picked rocks out of the arena.

He's dug down deep to work the dirt.

He's dragged it to make it level.

Tonight, I hope to make the first ride in it.

My dream has come true!

No Bull

This guy usually doesn't put up with any bull - I'll let you finish that statement.

Today, however, he was taking a lot of crap. Literally and figuratively.

Figuratively, from me. I had him in a very vulnerable position - he had his head locked in the pen. So, I decided to give him a new tattoo - it's apparently the cool thing to do right now.

I think he looks cute. Luckily for him, his tattoo will wash off in a few days.

Vet Tech For A Day

Whenever we have the vet(s) come to work with our cows, I turn into a Veterinary Technician for the morning, afternoon, or day depending on how many cows we have to go through.

These pictures were taken over a month ago when we had a potentially large sale going out of country. We had multiple vets preg checking and cutting off warts, the latter of the two pictured below.

The country these cows were headed prohibits warts being anywhere on the body, so we had to remove them from several cows.

While I may not have had to do the "dirty" work, I was nonetheless, an important asset to the team.

Ramblin' Cowgirl Kate, the cow head wrestler.

Growing Pains

In the last 5 days, I have been to the Vet's twice for three different horses. Two being routine appointments such as yearly shots, but one was not so routine, sadly. My old grey man, Romeo, has had melanoma since I bought him 6 years ago, and it has finally spread to his left eye. Long story short, he will eventually need his eye removed. It could be next month, it could be in several years. It's a waiting game.

The routine appointments included a visit with the equine dentist.

Horses get their teeth checked out?!

Yes! When you think about how a horse responds to its rider through several cues including the bit in its mouth, doesn't it make sense to have their teeth looked at regularly?

Especially when a sharp tooth in their mouth could be the reason why they've been shaking their head? Or have been losing weight? Does it make sense now?

Good.

Here is my new baby, Jade, getting her teeth done at the dentist. This could have been her first time getting her teeth checked out since she is only four years old.

Just like people, horses have certain teeth they need pulled out, too. Wisdom teeth in people is to Wolf teeth in horses. Guess who got her Wolf teeth pulled out yesterday?

My baby. Little bit of blood, and three shots of dopey medicine later, she had two less teeth in her mouth.

Reminds me - I need to go to the dentist!

Little

So, this is a terrible picture, but I had to share...

Little Pep's kitten will be 4 weeks old on Friday, and he is sooooo cute!

And really big.

I still haven't 100% settled on a name, but "Kitty" and "Uno" are what I call him right now. I'm trying not to get too attached until after I get back from family vacation in a couple weeks. After I come back and he's hopefully still alive and kickin', then the obsession can begin.

In other news, I had a very "fun" day working. Let's just say I will be blogging soon about buying cows and blowing out trailer tires.

The 4th

 4th of July has been quite the eventful holiday in the years past.

My last three 4th of July's were spent in the beautiful Rocky Mountains. Instead of sweating my buns off in the Central California Valley in 100+ degree heat (like I am today), I was breathing in the crisp and brisk mountain air in Creede.

Here's a snapshot of a few of the female staff last year getting ready to watch fireworks in town and then head off to the bar. Or at least try.

My old roomie, Elake, as I lovingly call her, got this great photo of me. I don't think many words are necessary to describe my outfit, it's just me.

Thankfully, for my sake and my roomies who were not only embarrassed but scared, I chose to leave the feather boas, space glasses, and water gun at home.

Creede is so incredible during the 4th. A town that is so deserted in the winter with 500-1,000 people comes alive in the summer, especially the 4th. It's within a day's driving distance of many Texans, New Mexicans, and Kansites - therefore, many people flood Creede for the day in search of cooler temps and gorgeous views.

For the out-of-staters who spend all day in Creede before heading home or for those who are lucky enough to live in close proximity, the fireworks show is the grand finale. I'm not gonna lie though - the first time I saw the show three years ago, I thought the finale was the preview. The show lasted about ten minutes, but my oh my, what a wonderful ten minutes. There are not many other places in the world where you can watch fireworks shoot off breathtaking cliffs and light up over a small mountain town.

While I am enjoying spending the 4th at home for the first time in a long time, my heart strings are definitely being yanked on knowing so many of my friends are back in Creede and other areas in Colorado.

Hope everyone has a safe and fun 4th of July! God bless America!!

Wrangler Butt - Revisited

Texas has been working on a little project the last few days. He's been welding a gate to put up down by our house.

You see, we've (he's) been working on a new arena for us (me) down by our house. It's bigger and the ground is better. We (I) am sooo excited for it to be done!!

Since we figured it'd be easier to have the horses closer to the new arena, we had to cut one of the pastures in half to make a smaller pasture down by our house.

Only problem? There's no gate to prevent the horses from running out into the road whenever we would begin to take them from the pasture to the new arena.

Not to mention, we really wanted a more permanent fixture to prevent people mentioned here from coming up to our house whenever they pleased. Since we live out in the country, we don't have girl scouts, trick or treaters, or salesmen coming to the door...

...And quite frankly, I'd be really concerned if we did have these characters at our door. In order to get to our door from the side yard (where we do not have a gate... yet), one would have to navigate through a tall grassy area and pass by our big guard dog, Hote. Only insane people could muster up the courage to overcome these obstacles, especially in the dark. Read: why I was so freaked out in previous Wrangler Butt post.

Although, I do love me a good box of thin mints, and I might give my right arm for some girl scouts to come-a-knocking... but, I guess it wouldn't hurt me to get up off the couch, drive my lazy butt the 10 minutes into town to the local grocery store, and buy my girl scout cookies there.

Bah humbug.

Back to my story.

Anyways, Texas finished the gate today (woo!) after about a week of trials and tribulations. It's amazing how much work it took, and more amazing than that, is how hard I worked.

I worked realllllllllly hard.

Can't you tell?

To give myself some credit, I did put out a handful of small welding spark induced fires. If I had not been there to keep a close eye on the grass and put out the flames immediately, Texas might have had a bigger problem on his hands than an honery gate.

Pink

Yesterday, we brought in the 250 cows from pasture to check on their due dates and their eyes.

Why their eyes?

Pink eye.

It's one of the most common infections in dairy cattle along with foot rot, which shall be a story for another time.

How do cows get Pink eye?

It can happen from flies bothering and infecting their eyes.

It can happen by getting a plant, such as a foxtail, in their eye.

What are the symptoms of pink eye?

Runny, watery eyes that appear as if the cow is crying.

Droopy eyelids.

They behave as if they are blind in the eye that's infected, as in they will not see a gate and run into it.

Pink inflammation, and in the worst cases, it will turn blue such as this:

How do you cure Pink Eye?

You have the Ramblin' Cowgirl and the Portugese Cowboy come to the rescue!

I get to wrestle with the cows in the chute or in the locked pens. I twitch their noses with my hand, and I try to hold their heads still, so our herdsman can inject medicine in their eye with a needle.  Then, he puts some powder in their eye to top it off, and the end result looks like this:

The worst cases get an additional injection of medicine, LA-200, to help them get over the infection quicker.

The end result for me? Unfortunately, no pictures. But if you can imagine - I'm covered in cow slobber, cow paint (the orange on their head in the pictures - thats how we mark them going through a large group), powder, a penicillin mixture (which I'm allergic to, so my arm is sometimes covered in a small rash until I can wash it off), and of course, cow manure.

Just another day at the office!

Where Babies Come From

Let me start this post off with some background information. We are a heifer raising ranch. We buy cows at a young age, breed them, and sell them before they have their babies because we don't have milking facilities for mama cows and their babies.

Just like people, cows have an average gestation.

Just like people, cows don't always give birth according to their average gestation.

Fortunately for me because I love the babies...

 but unfortunately for the ranch because a "fresh" cow (just gave birth)...

 doesn't bring as much money as a "springer" (a pregnant cow)...

we sometimes have some girls that pop a little bit too soon and we end up with this...

"Why do fresh cows bring less money than springers?" One might ask.

Dairy farmers will pay more for the pregger cows because...

1) They can get the most milk out of that cow as they can start milking as soon as the baby pops. Whereas, a fresh cow that's been milking it's baby for a few days, doesn't have as much milk as she's been feeding her babay for awhile.

Get it? Ok, number 2 -

2) Dairy farmers desire female calves, not male calves. Why? Female calves eventually turn into springers which bring in - what? - more milk. Male calves eventually turn into veal as they can not be milked - duh. A few lucky male calves get to grow up into bulls, and well, I don't think I need to do any explaining there. Therefore, because a female calf is more valuable to a dairy farmer than a male calf, one would pay more for it at auction. Price comparison as a newborn calf? Typically $200 for a female calf and $10-$50 for a male calf.

How does this pay a part in our end of the deal?

Well, if we send a pregnant cow to auction, the sex of her baby is unknown. (Unless she was inseminated with sexed semen, but that's a story for another post - or you could read my college senior project blehhhh). So, since the sex of the baby is unknown (with the high possibility it could be a female calf) and the mama has not popped nor lost any milk, the buyer will pay more for a springer than a fresh cow.

Get it? Or did I just really confuse yall, and now you're craving a big glass of milk? Or veal?

Isn't the baby above so cute though?? And guess what - we got a girl. :)

  Just another day on the ranch.