Beautiful Sunny Morning Break

It’s a beautiful morning 
I’m sunning on the front porch a few minutes getting my vitamin D!
    I look out and see freshly mowed pasture and hay field all done. Cow’s enjoying the shade already at 10am. 
    Wild birds scarfing up the exposed bugs from me brush hogging 
    Best of all I have quite time without a hubby needing something!
    I might actually get the kitchen where you can see a square inch of clean counter !

I know some women complain about a dirty kitchen because the sink as maybe 2 dishes in it. No I'm not like that I swear to all that when I say 1" of clean counter would be nice I am serious! 

    4 out of 7 days I am picking up and delivering help. I don't get much done in the little time they are here. Then it's do what I can either do myself or help with outside in this crazy heat and humidity. Age does not help that at all. 

    By the time I get back in the house there is down time to recuperate and then try to feed hubby make what business calls or whatever needs to be done or maybe even do a little basic cleaning to keep things sanitary around here. It's pitiful some days!

     We are having a few rainy days this week and the hay man is coming to move 100 bales that are too far away from the house to transport on our little bitty hay trailer. So today I hope it has been a recovery day for me. Surely Friday will be better. Sometimes allergies, too busy or even me picking up on other peoples emotional or physical whatever's just knocks me for a loop!  I'm ready for a break from it all. After everything I have been doing housework is almost a vacation!

 Love ❤️

Ranchmama

Hogging With Wiley Coyote

    It's hay season again. We are having the hay baled for us but we have to move the hay. Down below the house we have about a 40 acre ? hay field. It only got about 90 round bales this year. That is 1/2 of what we got last year. They say it's because we had a cold April. I don't know but since we didn't get enough for the year we had them bale another place and got 94?? Bales. Still not enough hay so we are going to have them bale up some on another place we have. We hope to get at least 250 bales to get through winter and feed any we need to when weening or whatever.

   I was brush hogging the hay pen where we store some it at the house. The weeds and grass was 6 foot plus. We had about 25 bales left over from last year so couldn't just turn cows loose and let them graze it down. So here I was just brush hogging like crazy and when I got over close to the left over hay I must have made a coyote nervous. Kind of made me jump. All of a sudden from between the bales I had a coyote jump flat footed straight up over a bale and went running out to the now cut and baled field. It was really really funny..... I must have plumb scared the pee out of him because as soon as he quit running he hiked up is leg and just peed forever! I had the biggest giggle out of that. He kept walking across the field going from shade tree to shade tree since it was at least 100*F continuously looking back at me giving me the dirtiest go to !@@#$ look! You could just hear him cussing me from all the way down there as he walked and kept looking back at me. !@##$%^&!

       So the next day I was actually moving the hay bales and  had to move the ones that were left over out of the way so I could clean it up good. I noticed it was a little bumpy. 
       When I started to actually move the ones off the field and place them in the hay pen I kept falling into some really big holes! You know how a dog digs a hole in a damp spot trying to stay cool, well he had at least 4 big holes dug like that. I turn the tractor wheels a little to sharp in one and try to go somewhere it would rock the whole tractor like it could tip if I didn't stop. 
      When I told daughter about find him and scaring the pee diddle out of him she said I should shoot him. I said naaaa..... he's thinning out the mice and cleaning up any stray feed on the ground. 
     I tell you what..... after having to wrestle with those !@#$%^^@ holes I just about told hubby to take aim! I'm past the ruff stuff now. So I guess he is safe enough. I will just be happy with the idea that I messed up his house for a while LOL!
  Monday --- Finally got to finish up putting in the other 45 bales of hay this afternoon after picking up the help and delivering him back. I changed clothes and told hubby be ready to bring something in to eat. 
    I was on the last 3 bales in the field and going back to get another load. What do I see???... I see that same young male coyote wondering into the field. I kept coming with the tractor. He looked at me and walked then looked at me and thought about it. "Man she's still coming! She's getting closer! Forget it !!@#$% that woman just keeps on messing up my day! He took off back across the creek. LOL  
    I finished up all the hay in that field and hubby called the cows in to clean it up. You would think we hollard POOL PARTY ! They all came running and bucking and loving it all!

Love
Ranchmama
( Still sore and with at least another 120 or so bales to move somewhere at 2 at a time)

Dead Cows, July 4th, Craziness in General

    Yesterday we had to go out of town and we left the gate so the fuel man could still get in a fill the gas tank. On the way out the man called and said he got stuck in out yard down at the barn. Don't know how he managed, even he said he backed into it wrong. We called the local helper and got lucky he was still close to our house. He got the John Deere tractor and pulled him out. He got really close to the fence with is front bumper and that means he was way the heck off course!
It is already a busy day this Thursday. Checked the cows. Saw a coyote party feasting on a cow that died a couple days ago. Not often you see them in the day light 2-3 at a time. Pretty cool. Normally something like that we like to keep thinned out of the area since there are so many but I told hubby to leave them alone and let them be the clean up crew. I had one of those moments about then and wondered if coyotes like to roll around in dead stuff the way dogs do. I bet they like their what I call "doggie perfume" as much as the dogs do.  Just never have seen that yet.
      Don't know exactly what happened to the cow. One day everyone was fine then we skipped a day of feeding and then she was dead on the next feed day.  There was a tree not too far off and we have had some thunderstorms and lightning. We wonder if the lightning got her. By the next feed morning when we found her she was already so bloated if was nasty. Hubby usually looks for bullet holes. It is too stinky to be there much, we didn't think to look for burn marks. Then again she was a very big 1200 - 1500 lb. cow. Very pregnant and with all this heat and humidity it is entirely possible she could have just keeled over from the weather.
    So the rest of the day was spent soothing a panic attack trying to find someone to bale and wrap about 150 large round bales of hay for us. Our regular guy said the last 3 yrs he is going to quit. We told him please let us know so we can make plans. Well ....... the turkey didn't tell us and you talking about hubby having a panic attack ! I called folks I knew, the John Deere place and all kinds of folks. Left messages told them we would pay them cash. Only had 1 man actually call us back. The few I got a hold of were of course already booked up and didn't have time for anyone else. This man actually came out and on time and did what he said he would do. Better than most of the others I called. Funny it is the Mexican and the Mennonite that are polite enough to call back and do what they say they would do. What is wrong with all the other white folks around here? Common every day politeness just doesn't exist any more???
   Took Heidi Ho to the Vet before he closed for the 4th to get her arthritis shot. Hubby picked up shipping boxes and I tried to get into the groove of making some kind of July 4th picnic food. The food part didn't happen. After dealing with a upset hubby all day and all the other crazy things going on I had a hard time changing channels to clean up mode in the kitchen. My housekeeper had to deal with a sick hubby and wasn't able to do that this week. It is the only thing that gets my house cleaned up and shining. With all the ranch helping I do it is just hard to get the other things done I am supposed to do. I finally blew it today when hubby was talking about doing something for him ...... I asked him with the !!@#$ is something going to get done for me?!! He had no clue what the heck I was talking about. So it looks like we will have another ignored holiday with what little whoop T do we do have is what I do or insist on doing like watching the fireworks in town or something.
   When you don't have kids and grand kids living close enough to drop in you can't even eat cool picnic food because hubby doesn't like most of it and have you ever tried making picnic food like tater salad and deserts for 2 people? Like I said when family isn't close by it changes everything.
    Maybe Friday I can get with it at least a little bit. I have no clue if the grocery store will be open if needed but I guess I will just have to wing it !

Ranchmama
(Pretty good at last minute celebrating food. Just have to get everyone out of the way )