Morning Ride

We have had a few rainy days but this morning was nice.  I thought I might get a ride in before it rained again, which it didn't.  I also thought that maybe the ticks wouldn't be so bad with the grass wet.  But then I decided to just ride up the road anyway. 

I love how the Dame's rocket is blooming with its variations from purple to white.  I had to look up the name.  I had always called it wild phlox but apparently I have always been wrong.  It seems to be an invasive species from Europe.  But I still love it.  I have some in my flower border but it never spreads enough to suit me.  My grandmother also cultivated it in her yard.  Anyway, my ride continued up the gravel road.  When I was on my way back I spotted this...

Can you see it?  

 I had to back up to get a better picture.  Google says it is a common water snake.  That makes sense because it was sunning on a culvert above a small creek.  Otoelene wasn't bothered by it other than the fact that I was delaying her return home.  It was a nice 3 1/2 mile ride. 
 

Sadie And Allie Sunday

Virginia messaged me and said Sadie wanted to come over to play.  I said I wasn’t doing anything more important than that.  So Virginia and Mike came right over with the girls. 

I had my first peony blooming.  You know what that means, 

It immediately got cut.  I love the casual way Sadie reached out to pet Kit Kat.

Joe fed them peanuts and pushed them on the porch swing.

Sadie examined everything in my jewelry cabinet.   

 And these were the two flower arrangements she came up with.  When we came in from cutting flowers, Virginia said Sadie had a carefully curated bouquet while Allie was just holding one big Iris like a club.  Sadie also told me she picked out Allie’s dress for church but she couldn’t get it on her by herself because Allie was too wild.

Another Form of ID

Since we used a Hereford bull on our black heifers, we got black baldy calves.  The splotchy faces make for easier identification. 

I think the white eyebrow one is my favorite but they are all cute.
 

New ID

Joe has been wanting to get a group of cows and calves over to our rented farm across the road.

It worked out that we could do it today.

Everything started out well.  I got behind them to drive them down the hill and Joe was in front calling them.

They got to the gate and stopped.  They would not go through the gate even though they had been grazing up there for a couple of weeks. It is the field with the ticks.

Anyway, they made a break for it and ran into the woods.  A neighbor that we let hunt happened by and offered some help.  We ended up taking then through a different gate and eventually to the barn.

Joe had asked me to order an ear notcher a while back.  Instead of a tag he decided to notch an ear.  Then if we keep a heifer as a replacement, she will get a tag.

The notching went well.

There was very little protest and next to no blood.  The calves also got a 7 way vaccine and the cows a breed back shot and both cows and calves got some ivermectin which should help with the ticks for a couple of weeks.

Because we are turning them out onto some very ticky pasture. 

I took a video of how small, fast and aggressive the Asian Longhorn ticks are. Enjoy…

 

Not So Cute

Our yard is being overrun by rabbits.

Ordinarily, I would think they were cute.

But recently, I have been finding a lot of my flowers chewed off.  This was a dahlia I had just bought and planted last week.

 So tonight I made an improvised rabbit barrier out of a plastic bottle.  If it works I may have a lot of bottles around the yard until some of the more tender plants toughen up.

Out With The Old

We planted several fruit trees when we first moves here. Some did well, a lot did not. 

The peach tree grew well, 

and has always had a lot of peaches. 

But it has been a disappointment year after year.  The peaches always rot before they ripen.  Joe figures he has had a half a dozen that he has been able to take a bite out of.  I am sure it is a fungal infection that requires spraying which is something I don’t want to deal with.

So time to make the tough decision and take it out.

Our decision was spurred on because we were gifted another tree and we had no place to plant it.

 It is an Arkansas Black apple tree.  You may remember we got some Arkansas Black apples a couple of years ago. Click  HERE for that post.  Hopefully, this will be a more productive addition to the yard. 

More Cattle Work

It was the fall calves turn today.

Just running through the chute to deworm everyone and vaccinate a few.

Mike came over to help.  I always love help because that makes less for me to do.

Joe pushed them all through the chute.

There were two to dehorn.  We used a horned Hereford bull last year.   We haven’t had any with horns for a few years.  It is not something I look forward to.  But I do everything I can to make it less painful.  I do a lidocaine nerve block and a pain medication injection.  At least it was just two.

 We were done in quick order and everyone got turned back out to graze.

Working Ride

Joe said if I wanted to ride he could use some help moving some cows and calves. 

He wanted to mix two groups of cow/calf pairs and needed my help to heard one group though the gate while he kept the other group back. 

Everything worked perfectly and I got to enjoy the view and nice weather.  Since it didn’t take long, I continued riding for pleasure.

At one point I spotted this red tailed hawk. 

It didn’t seem at all bothered about how close we were 

and Otoelene wasn’t bothered about it flying from tree to tree.

We did have a run in with a bit of mud.  And since she was so sweaty she got her first bath of the season. 
 

Sadie Saturday

Mike came over yesterday morning to pick up the swing set that has been in my garage since before Christmas.  He had Sadie with him and she asked if he was dropping her off.  He said she could stay if she wanted to and she said yes!

She immediately wanted to pick flowers.  We walked all around the yard picking at least one of everything. 

Then I gave her two vases, a big one and a little one.   She went to arranging them, big flowers in the big vase little flowers in the little vase.  She narrated as she arranged them.  I think she is practicing for a YouTube channel. 

She was very happy with the results. 

After lunch we made a trip to the barn for baby goat feeding. 

She said the bucket was heavy this time.  But there were a few more bottles, so she wasn’t wrong. 

It is alway fun to watch them eat. 

And it is fun to watch Sadie play.

She has no fear what so ever of the goats and still is trying to pet them all.

She also helped stack some wood, a new chore for her here. 

 I had to reward all of that hard work with cooking chocolate chip cookies in the Easy Bake Oven. 

We ended the day with a trip to Dollar General where I bought her something without a coupon (gasp!!!). On the way there she said she wanted a unicorn.  We found a candy unicorn rainbow fan which fit the bill.  And Sadie quickly learned to not get it too close to your hair when it is running.  I had to get the scissors to cut it out.  There wasn’t even any crying.  She said that was a good shopping trip.