National Doctors Day Surprise

The staff at the clinic where I work surprised the doctors with a scavenger hunt that led to a lunch.

They had also put together a fun slide show and gave us personalized gifts.
 

Plus, we all got flowers.  What a privilege to work with such caring staff.

A Game Of Inches

Before Christmas I bought this fly through bird feeder.  I had gotten one to take to a gift exchange and liked it so much I bought one for myself.  The cashier liked it so much she asked if she could come to the gift exchange.

 Since it is glass,  I was a little afraid to hang it up in the winter when it might could freeze.  I finally decided the weather was nice enough to go ahead and put it out.

I did a little rearranging of the other feeders and ended up hanging it on the grapevine/hay feeder ring.

I even had a visitor.  That night the wind blew at about 40 mph.  I was in bed dreading finding the feeder smashed to pieces.  Miraculously, everything was fine the next morning.  Then the wind blew all day (when Sadie was here flying a kite).  That evening Joe and I went to feed the dogs.  When we got back this is what we found…

I couldn’t believe that I was only going to have enjoyed the feeder for 24 hours.  Then on closer inspection,

Somehow it was in perfect condition hanging just above a rock.  Joe said, “life is just a game of inches.” So true.

Spring Calving

Our Spring calving season started Saturday.  Technically, is wasn’t supposed to start until April 1st. 

But this first calf heifer got an earlier start.
 

Then today we had a set of twins along with 5 others.

Joe tagged the twins with T1 and T2 so he can keep up with them better.   He also moved them to a smaller lot for the next few days so the cow can keep up with them better.  

Then before we even got back out of the field one got out.  It was easier to just carry her back than to try to drive her.  Joe will have his work cut out for the next few weeks.  

First Trail Ride Of The Season

The weather turned off nice today after 40 mph winds yesterday.   Today we had sunshine and temperatures in the 60s perfect for a trail ride.

Joe decided to saddle up Hugo at the house and haul him with the saddle on.  I am not a fan of that so Draper got saddled once we got there.  We also went in the cattle trailer since it was already hooked up.  No problems loading or unloading.
 

With the leaves off the trees we were able to enjoy some of the views.

Hugo was out front about half the time.  Draper out walked him the second half of the ride.

There had been a lot of down trees that someone had done a lot of work cutting up and getting out of the way.

After a little excitement as two horses went up the road while we were ready to get on, things settled down and both horses did great.  A nice ride to start off the season.

Sadie and Allie Saturday

Virginia and Mike stopped by today with Allie and Sadie.

 I did manage a picture of Allie.  But if I wasn’t playing with Sadie I was holding Allie so there were not to many photo ops there. 

Sadie wanted to go look at the horses so I had her help me deworm them.

Ok, so her helping was holding the tubes for me while I put the halter on. 

It was a very windy day.  We tried to fly kites.

It never stayed up very long but I think Sadie liked trying. 

And she really liked baking cookies in the Easy Bake Oven again.

Just another afternoon at Mimi’s. 

At It Again

Since finishing my rock stairs in the yard I have been thinking about incorporating them into a rock garden. 

Today I started the process of dragging the rocks down the hill. 
 

Most of the good large rocks are up there near the top. 

It can be sort of difficult dragging them down. 

There are usually lots of ants underneath them.  They can be a little annoying.  But I also found something more dangerous…

 I found this black widow under one.

It’s a slow process.  This is today’s haul.  I thought I would try to get a good collection before starting to figure out where and how to place them.  Anyone want to come help move rocks around?   I might have to add it to my farmercising list.

Two Horse Day

I managed to get rides in on two horses yesterday.

Draper was acting a bit frisky after two weeks off so we just stayed in the barn working on calm and stopping.   Her stopping still needs a lot of work. 

Then it was Hugo's turn.   After trotting around in the barn for a bit, we took a spin outside. 

This was his first trip up through the pine trees on top of the hill. 

It is a steep climb but he never balked or really even slowed down.

Steep up means steep down.  On the way back down he just plowed through all the down limbs and branches.  I did stop once to pull a branch out of his tail that he had been dragging. 

Then it was back in the open and back to the barn.  (those are the pine trees upper left)

Morning Sighting

Joe hollered, “come quick, without delay!” to me this morning.  He was seeing one of the dogs out across the creek.  But she wasn’t alone.  There were also two coyotes.The coyotes would run a little ways for Molly to chase them, then one would circle back behind her and she would run back at it.  She acted like she was wanting to come back but then they would chase her.  She started coming through the fence then laying down.  I thought she looked like she was getting tired, so Joe got his gun and we drove over there.  Unfortunately, it takes about ten minutes to actually get there from here and by that time the coyotes were gone and Molly was back with the other dogs.

I did manage a few pictures from the kitchen before we headed out. 

According to google maps, it is a half a mile away.

So I thought I did pretty good with the zoom lens. 

This is from where I was in the kitchen looking out through the window.  Can you even tell where to look?

Zooming in some, we were looking at that bluff in the shade.

Then you can see the fence Molly was at in the first pictures.  It pays to have a good set of binoculars sitting by the door.  And it really pays to have good guard dogs.

Switcheroo

This morning Joe and I worked on switching the bread heifers from the back 40 with the replacement heifers behind the house.  The bred heifers are due to start calving the first of April and it seems some are always early.  We need them behind the house where we can keep a closer eye on them and where it is handier to get them to the barn if there is any trouble.

We started out putting up a temporary fence to guide them into the barn lot.

Then we headed out to the back 40 to round up the bred heifers.  

Joe has them pretty tame.  He played the Pied Piper and just towed them in with a bat of hay.

But there is always that one.  She wouldn’t go through the gate.

It took a little work and some extra hay until she finally decided to join the others.

Then we got the heifers up from behind the house.

Everyone here was pretty cooperative.

Then it was just a matter of cutting out the Herefords to put back in the back forty.  They aren’t due to calve until August.  Then we switched the groups.

The replacements and Herefords to the back 40.

And the first calf bred heifers, behind the house.   

Switcheroo complete.