Sunday August 7,2011
Blessings are being had today! This morning was so much cooler and cloudier that when we went to check cows on Sires and found them out moving around and acting like they were really enjoying the cooler weather. We didn't even bother taking them up to the pond so they could park themselves in the shade nearby. We had clouds come close and talk about it with the thunder but we didn't get any wet stuff.
I think today's high was around 100* with below 30% humidity. With the clouds blocking some sun you could actually go out without feeling like your the piggy on the roasting stick of the campfire. No burning yourself when you touched the truck handle or anything else metal. No so exhausted you can barely move and function and you worry if you or the animals are going to make it. No having to put the wet towel on the dog when he starts panting fast and shallow. Who woulda thunk 100*F temps for a high and clouds would be such a break!
I told hubby today that it is going to take just as long for the people and animals to recuperate from the stress of the extreme heat as the ground, trees and grass.
It was nice that he could come in for a few hours and actually sleep and rest. He needed it. This kind of strain is so hard on folks not just physically but mentally. He was talking today about if the weather was changing to this kind of extreme like we have had with the -20 below and over 115* temps he just don't think he could handle it like this. If we had younger family members as was planned maybe it could be done but on our own like this and getting older and no family members interested in the life it would almost be impossible to deal with or worth the effort.
Tonight I think I am going to have some kind of steak, mashed potatoes and some nice cold watermelon with tea and bread and butter. Sounds simple enough but I tell you what there have been times here lately I could barely swing a sandwich and a drink for us to eat!
Nice to see the weather breaking up but boy oh boy we need a lot more a lot quicker.
Ranchmama
(blessed and know it)
Monday, September 5, 2011
Friday August 5,2011
Friday August 5,2011
This was a fairly easy day for me. Hubby had to do some running around to go get feed but it was nice not to have to go hassle the heat right after breakfast.
After he got back with the feed and unloaded he had to step in and tell me we had a problem. Your alarm button inside instantly goes off.... He said we had a dead cow on Grandmas by the pond next to the road. We just fed everything the day before and checked everything good. Everyone was there and eating well. So I got in Ol' Blue and we went down to the shop to get a log chain. Can't just leave the cow there. Not only is it embarrassing it is also drawing natures clean up crew to the watering hole where the cows need to hang out. Besides that the neighbors dog was there helping with the clean up and I promise you if we left it there they would be putting on the doggie perfume in a few days and that is not a good thing. WHEW! That can stink! We got over to Grandmas and was thanking goodness Heidi didn't go. Not only was it too hot since it was about 1p. she thinks smelly dead things are the next best thing to indoor plumbing. LOL Hubby got out and grabbed the chain almost dropping it instantly it was so hot. We took the cow off to a far pasture that is out of the way from everything and if the cleanup crew show up it shouldn't bother anything. That chain was amazingly hot every time he had to handle it. We got to looking at our sale list for this fall and sure enough she was on it. I have been wanting to get her moved from there for a long while now because I noticed she was loosing weight and being bumped out of the feeding line. It was just too hot to handle the cows. To hot and hard on us and to hot and stressful for the cows. You just can't win. It doesn't do any good trying to help something if you or them keel over from the heat. There is no good time when it is cooler. Early morning is almost 90 * late night last night was 99*F at 9:30. Hubby said sometime during the day it registered 115*F in the shade on our East porch. Like I said ........... any little weakness in this heat is like a major handicap no matter if you have 2 or 4 legs out there.
I feel terrible when something like this happens. Losing a animal that is your responsibility to make sure they have everything they need to be healthy,comfortable happy campers is our job. Period. Some things I can see having something die because stuff happens no matter what. Like the younger cow we lost on Wednesday. We did everything we could this spring and pulled her through anaplaz. We thought we did real good. Saved a cow. Then here comes this heat. She has a calf. Still weak evidently from the spring illness and because I didn't listen to the mama in me and we were all tired I didn't make sure we moved her to the house where we could watch her better. Still the only thing that "might" have saved her is a IV and A/C and usually if you have to go to that extreme they don't live anyway. We did more than a lot of people around here do and still she just wasn't meant to live. Kind of like some people we know , sometimes it just isn't gonna happen right.
Well it is 11:30 a and we are in for a rest and some lunch. Hubby was in some kind of really weak and bad stomach shape this morning so since everything is done we are going to be lazy bums in the A/C for a while.
The last few days we have been using Homeopathic China to get us through the heat stress. I don't know what we would have done without it that is for sure. Good grief! When it is this bad and you have pulled all the tricks out of the hat we just had to try this. It isn't like we could get up and run races but at least we could actually recuoperate with using this Homeopathic remedy.
Ranchmama
( Still trying to get caught up......... I'm getting there. )
This was a fairly easy day for me. Hubby had to do some running around to go get feed but it was nice not to have to go hassle the heat right after breakfast.
After he got back with the feed and unloaded he had to step in and tell me we had a problem. Your alarm button inside instantly goes off.... He said we had a dead cow on Grandmas by the pond next to the road. We just fed everything the day before and checked everything good. Everyone was there and eating well. So I got in Ol' Blue and we went down to the shop to get a log chain. Can't just leave the cow there. Not only is it embarrassing it is also drawing natures clean up crew to the watering hole where the cows need to hang out. Besides that the neighbors dog was there helping with the clean up and I promise you if we left it there they would be putting on the doggie perfume in a few days and that is not a good thing. WHEW! That can stink! We got over to Grandmas and was thanking goodness Heidi didn't go. Not only was it too hot since it was about 1p. she thinks smelly dead things are the next best thing to indoor plumbing. LOL Hubby got out and grabbed the chain almost dropping it instantly it was so hot. We took the cow off to a far pasture that is out of the way from everything and if the cleanup crew show up it shouldn't bother anything. That chain was amazingly hot every time he had to handle it. We got to looking at our sale list for this fall and sure enough she was on it. I have been wanting to get her moved from there for a long while now because I noticed she was loosing weight and being bumped out of the feeding line. It was just too hot to handle the cows. To hot and hard on us and to hot and stressful for the cows. You just can't win. It doesn't do any good trying to help something if you or them keel over from the heat. There is no good time when it is cooler. Early morning is almost 90 * late night last night was 99*F at 9:30. Hubby said sometime during the day it registered 115*F in the shade on our East porch. Like I said ........... any little weakness in this heat is like a major handicap no matter if you have 2 or 4 legs out there.
I feel terrible when something like this happens. Losing a animal that is your responsibility to make sure they have everything they need to be healthy,comfortable happy campers is our job. Period. Some things I can see having something die because stuff happens no matter what. Like the younger cow we lost on Wednesday. We did everything we could this spring and pulled her through anaplaz. We thought we did real good. Saved a cow. Then here comes this heat. She has a calf. Still weak evidently from the spring illness and because I didn't listen to the mama in me and we were all tired I didn't make sure we moved her to the house where we could watch her better. Still the only thing that "might" have saved her is a IV and A/C and usually if you have to go to that extreme they don't live anyway. We did more than a lot of people around here do and still she just wasn't meant to live. Kind of like some people we know , sometimes it just isn't gonna happen right.
Well it is 11:30 a and we are in for a rest and some lunch. Hubby was in some kind of really weak and bad stomach shape this morning so since everything is done we are going to be lazy bums in the A/C for a while.
The last few days we have been using Homeopathic China to get us through the heat stress. I don't know what we would have done without it that is for sure. Good grief! When it is this bad and you have pulled all the tricks out of the hat we just had to try this. It isn't like we could get up and run races but at least we could actually recuoperate with using this Homeopathic remedy.
Ranchmama
( Still trying to get caught up......... I'm getting there. )
Thursday August 4, 2011
Thursday August 4, 2011
Ok we did the up at midnight gone by 3a and at the airport by 4a. We were back home by 7a. We were both really tired. He just laid across the bed and said to wake him up at 8. I tried but he slept a little bit longer until 8:30. Soon as he got up he loaded feed in the trucks checked the birds and we went to feed cows. Seems like everything went well. The baby calf that is now a orphan on Sires we watched hanging around with the herd. So ok we called the cows up to take them up to the hay meadow pond to get a drink. Slowly but surely they actually crossed the dry creek and the baby calf followed them wanting to stay with the herd. That is a good thing. It even crossed the creek with a calf buddy so it was doing good until we got the the hay meadow gate and he decided he couldn't go in there and had to stay in the old shade tree place. That is ok. him and his buddy just enjoyed the shade trees. We figure he will be ok now. We still might have to show them the pond every morning but that is better than having to hand water and feed a cow 3 times a day!
We got home and he did some more work while I cooled off in the house. Later hubby wanted me to help him with getting the rope back up on his flag pole. No problem. All I had to do is sit in the A/C tractor and lift him up slowly but surely on the front end loader until he could reach it. Short legs climbing into those big cab tractors is a challenge but I made it.! LOL He drove the tractor back and I took old blue and picked him up.
We finally got in for some lunch and we both just sat down and went WHEW! Sometimes you just can't even WHEW! enough to feel good no matter how many times you do it! LOL Someone called and I had to run into town and take care of some stuff and before I got back Hubby had check the birds and then leave and go see his dad in the Nursing home. Supper was left over meat some good mashed potatoes and all the goodies that go with it.
Ranchmama
(Yes I know it is late posting but hey......... I'm made that way sometimes! LOL)
Ok we did the up at midnight gone by 3a and at the airport by 4a. We were back home by 7a. We were both really tired. He just laid across the bed and said to wake him up at 8. I tried but he slept a little bit longer until 8:30. Soon as he got up he loaded feed in the trucks checked the birds and we went to feed cows. Seems like everything went well. The baby calf that is now a orphan on Sires we watched hanging around with the herd. So ok we called the cows up to take them up to the hay meadow pond to get a drink. Slowly but surely they actually crossed the dry creek and the baby calf followed them wanting to stay with the herd. That is a good thing. It even crossed the creek with a calf buddy so it was doing good until we got the the hay meadow gate and he decided he couldn't go in there and had to stay in the old shade tree place. That is ok. him and his buddy just enjoyed the shade trees. We figure he will be ok now. We still might have to show them the pond every morning but that is better than having to hand water and feed a cow 3 times a day!
We got home and he did some more work while I cooled off in the house. Later hubby wanted me to help him with getting the rope back up on his flag pole. No problem. All I had to do is sit in the A/C tractor and lift him up slowly but surely on the front end loader until he could reach it. Short legs climbing into those big cab tractors is a challenge but I made it.! LOL He drove the tractor back and I took old blue and picked him up.
We finally got in for some lunch and we both just sat down and went WHEW! Sometimes you just can't even WHEW! enough to feel good no matter how many times you do it! LOL Someone called and I had to run into town and take care of some stuff and before I got back Hubby had check the birds and then leave and go see his dad in the Nursing home. Supper was left over meat some good mashed potatoes and all the goodies that go with it.
Ranchmama
(Yes I know it is late posting but hey......... I'm made that way sometimes! LOL)
Wednesday Aug. 3, 2011
Wednesday Aug. 3, 2011
fairly easy day in some ways.
still hot as all get out.
Hubby had to get out and going to catch birds to deliver to a man in OKC. One hour away but it tears up at least 3 there and back with everything that has to be done. If you have to stop anywhere even more time. I held down the homestead since it was so hot and not only dangerous if the car broke down but someone has to be here for those just in case something happens times.
Our Sam the Dozer man came and finished up the Olympic size pond on the Sire's place. Looks great! Really deep!! I will try to get pics of it all soon. Don't know why I didn't get one so you could see the difference with the before pics. Now we need a gully washer to come in and fill it up. He also fixed one of the holes we have been battling all spring and winter when it rained. Now it is not only filled in but fixed to be drained properly. I told hubby we still need a load of gravel on it because all that is now is a pretty soon to be really deep mud hole! GRUMBLE GRUMBLE is all I got out of that. He brought the big Cat dozer over to the house and worked on the little pond at the barn. Once again no before pics. Sorry. He made it about 2 or 3 times bigger and way the heck deeper. The only problem is that the gate going between pasture and barn pen is now way to close to the edge of the pond. I told hubby when we take that fence out we are going to have to do something way different because it isn't safe when it gets wet or icy somebody is going to just slide right off whether it be truck or tractor we can't afford that kind of mess.
I felt bad because we couldn't check the sick cow and the now moved calf until about 3 p. instead of the 3x's of day we were doing. As we expected the cow was dead and the darn calf was still beside it's dead mama. Sure is exasperating all the way around. We worked hard not only to save the cow but the get the calf excepted by another mama in the herd when we took it up to the cows on the hill by the other pond. So this time we left the calf there with mama and went around the road to the other side and opened the hay field gate and once again called them down to the now huge dry pond and the corral to see if they would take the baby back with them.
Here it is close to 120* (on the car temp.) and we are trying to get cows to follow us. We got lucky and some clouds moved over enough they didn't mind getting out of the shade. They followed us to the creek bed and Hubby got out and walked them across to the woods where the dead cow and now orphaned calf was. Soon as they got close enough he came out of the woods and mixed with them. I noticed one cow booted him away but there were others there watching over him. We will keep track of him the next few days to see if he is sucking another cow. If not well...... we just have to figure something else out. I am now on the look out for a huge dog crate for something like a great dane to put a baby calf in if we ever need to move one like this again. This one we had to let hubby get by the hind leg then carry it and hold in the back of the truck while I drove them around to the other cows. If we had a crate like that it would have been easier on him and even if one of us had to do it by ourselves it would have made it possible. There are just some things it ain't good to try and use a big ol' gooseneck trailer for.
Now the cows know where the new to them pond is with good water. They have only found it once on their own after taking them up to it about 4 mornings in a row. I just hope they will continue to stay up there in the heat of the day. We noticed the cows and bull have been acting better with the better water supply.
Dozer man pulled out today with the Olympic pond and the kiddy pool pond down at the barn done now. He worked 39.5 hrs $95 a hour that was a $3750.00 total bill. It all started out as we have $1500 we can turn loose of and we should be able to get it done for that. W-R-O-N-G !!! W-R-O-N-G !!! W-R-O-N-G !!! We had no clue I guess! LOL Oh it is all done rite now. It is deep like it should be and the big pond is a life saver when it gets full. It also really increased the value of the property. We just moaned and groaned expecting a $5000 dollar bill the way it was taking so long and it was so big. We'll get over it and enjoy the improvement. I told hubby we really need to try to do that to each place once a year if we can. All the ponds need cleaning out and enlarging not only for the cows but you never know if you need it for the house or something sometime.
We wrapped up the day with some pork steaks and shells mac and cheese with grapes for dessert I was lucky to even whip that out. After going out in the heat and doing anything, even just riding around in a unairconditioned truck I am just worthless. No matter how much water you drink or come in and cool off it just doesn't undo the heat damage. Your still weak, tired, can't think, don't give a flip for a lot of stuff and just get it all done good enough to just get it done.
Well got to go.
We have a weird night. Have some people in Florida that want some hand feeding size cockatiels shipped to them. Hubby is going to "try" to nap and then go out about 11p and get them ready for shipping. We will leave about 2:30 to be at the airport by 4 am. I am used to weird sleeping hours but will see how it goes. Still going to be in the 80* range though.
fairly easy day in some ways.
still hot as all get out.
Hubby had to get out and going to catch birds to deliver to a man in OKC. One hour away but it tears up at least 3 there and back with everything that has to be done. If you have to stop anywhere even more time. I held down the homestead since it was so hot and not only dangerous if the car broke down but someone has to be here for those just in case something happens times.
Our Sam the Dozer man came and finished up the Olympic size pond on the Sire's place. Looks great! Really deep!! I will try to get pics of it all soon. Don't know why I didn't get one so you could see the difference with the before pics. Now we need a gully washer to come in and fill it up. He also fixed one of the holes we have been battling all spring and winter when it rained. Now it is not only filled in but fixed to be drained properly. I told hubby we still need a load of gravel on it because all that is now is a pretty soon to be really deep mud hole! GRUMBLE GRUMBLE is all I got out of that. He brought the big Cat dozer over to the house and worked on the little pond at the barn. Once again no before pics. Sorry. He made it about 2 or 3 times bigger and way the heck deeper. The only problem is that the gate going between pasture and barn pen is now way to close to the edge of the pond. I told hubby when we take that fence out we are going to have to do something way different because it isn't safe when it gets wet or icy somebody is going to just slide right off whether it be truck or tractor we can't afford that kind of mess.
I felt bad because we couldn't check the sick cow and the now moved calf until about 3 p. instead of the 3x's of day we were doing. As we expected the cow was dead and the darn calf was still beside it's dead mama. Sure is exasperating all the way around. We worked hard not only to save the cow but the get the calf excepted by another mama in the herd when we took it up to the cows on the hill by the other pond. So this time we left the calf there with mama and went around the road to the other side and opened the hay field gate and once again called them down to the now huge dry pond and the corral to see if they would take the baby back with them.
Here it is close to 120* (on the car temp.) and we are trying to get cows to follow us. We got lucky and some clouds moved over enough they didn't mind getting out of the shade. They followed us to the creek bed and Hubby got out and walked them across to the woods where the dead cow and now orphaned calf was. Soon as they got close enough he came out of the woods and mixed with them. I noticed one cow booted him away but there were others there watching over him. We will keep track of him the next few days to see if he is sucking another cow. If not well...... we just have to figure something else out. I am now on the look out for a huge dog crate for something like a great dane to put a baby calf in if we ever need to move one like this again. This one we had to let hubby get by the hind leg then carry it and hold in the back of the truck while I drove them around to the other cows. If we had a crate like that it would have been easier on him and even if one of us had to do it by ourselves it would have made it possible. There are just some things it ain't good to try and use a big ol' gooseneck trailer for.
Now the cows know where the new to them pond is with good water. They have only found it once on their own after taking them up to it about 4 mornings in a row. I just hope they will continue to stay up there in the heat of the day. We noticed the cows and bull have been acting better with the better water supply.
Dozer man pulled out today with the Olympic pond and the kiddy pool pond down at the barn done now. He worked 39.5 hrs $95 a hour that was a $3750.00 total bill. It all started out as we have $1500 we can turn loose of and we should be able to get it done for that. W-R-O-N-G !!! W-R-O-N-G !!! W-R-O-N-G !!! We had no clue I guess! LOL Oh it is all done rite now. It is deep like it should be and the big pond is a life saver when it gets full. It also really increased the value of the property. We just moaned and groaned expecting a $5000 dollar bill the way it was taking so long and it was so big. We'll get over it and enjoy the improvement. I told hubby we really need to try to do that to each place once a year if we can. All the ponds need cleaning out and enlarging not only for the cows but you never know if you need it for the house or something sometime.
We wrapped up the day with some pork steaks and shells mac and cheese with grapes for dessert I was lucky to even whip that out. After going out in the heat and doing anything, even just riding around in a unairconditioned truck I am just worthless. No matter how much water you drink or come in and cool off it just doesn't undo the heat damage. Your still weak, tired, can't think, don't give a flip for a lot of stuff and just get it all done good enough to just get it done.
Well got to go.
We have a weird night. Have some people in Florida that want some hand feeding size cockatiels shipped to them. Hubby is going to "try" to nap and then go out about 11p and get them ready for shipping. We will leave about 2:30 to be at the airport by 4 am. I am used to weird sleeping hours but will see how it goes. Still going to be in the 80* range though.
Ranchmama
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Stick a Fork in Us
Saturday
I think you would find that WE R DONE!!! I mean I don't care if your talking about our behinds or the ground or the ponds or even our cars and trucks! WE meaning a collective everything in the ~ HOT ~ oven is cooked to some degree of done for sure. Like the news what the heck else is there to talk about? LOL Any little weakness and the heat will show you who is boss. If you are older whether you are 2 or 4 legged it is going to limit you and try to kill you. Period. That is just the way it is. Even if you are in the shade with a hot convection oven breeze the shade temps are a easy 108*F some days. If you are young it isn't much better from the sounds of things. Doc was telling me that he had a little girl, in his home I think, the other night with heat exhaustion. I am not kidding ANY so called weakness due to age, size, or any infirmity you will be tested in all that you attempt to do. If you have high BP you better stay in the cool. Even if you have a clue about how to balance you body to prevent the rise you step out and it has got you. I just don't think that pill your popping can "fix" this heat enough to keep it in a normal range. I was hit by heat exhaustion the other day... Thursday I believe. Went to town to get my back cracked and make a tour through Wally world. I got a fairly good parking place considering it was packed. Still it was about 2:30 pm which is prime time hot plate time. You could see people all sizes going in and many were stressed you could see. Naturally big people looked about to keel over. I made my way in pretty good. Got to walking around though an it got tough on me. Just wore me out! Ok I admit I don't get out enough and get exercise. I haven't been able to breathe lately for heck no mater what I do or food I avoid. Doc said most of it is this hot air being so heavy there isn't enough oxygen in it for people along with plenty of dust and dirt to get in us to clog us up. I finally had to change up my Asthma medicine to Bryonia 30C and that helped some. Then when I got my back cracked I am like a new person and can breathe so much better. I made a few more stops on the way home to the hardware store and nursing home to see father in law. I was wiped out by the time I got home and was useless. I tanked up on fluids and the whole bit but man it was tough!
I did hear some good news about father in law... he has put on about 10 pounds since the last time I checked with the nurses which is great and wonderful ! All in about a weeks time! They said they changed his food to more of what he liked and gave him the megace and even changed the consistency for him so it was easier to eat. I am glad to see this but he still hasn't gained any strength or help his thinking so that doesn't look great but we all can do only what we can do.
It is nice to have the 2 older cows gone. Don't even have to think about them now. The money is going to go into cleaning out a couple of ponds that haven't been cleaned out probably in 50 years. One is a tiny one at the barn that is good for when you have something penned up. It is totally dry and it has always done that. The other one is on the Sires place and those poor cows were pretty much drinking out of a mud puddle! Hubby had the hay bailed on the hay meadow there and the hay all moved so Saturday we decided to put a hot wire around it and let the cows up there so they can clean up what the baler didn't get and we showed them the pond up there. They were like kids in a candy store! Some cows hit the pond first like they hadn't seen water in a while and others got the long tall green grass left under some of the trees. We found out that the solar hot wire set up we had didn't work so he had to go to town and pick up one for about $170. Hated to spend the money but it was the quickest and simplest to do to save the hay. SOOOooooooo we thought! LOL Got the new one out and looked at it under the shade tree at the house so we wouldn't have to do much in the sun. Got it set up and looked at the directions and we were ready to load up Heidi Ho and go. We hooked it up crossed our fingers and left. We noticed that one of the red calves was being a dummy and was "lost?" from the herd a little. We went to look at it and it ran OUT of the field and down to where the cows were staying then across the creek. DARN! There isn't any chasing in this case. Just hope it gets smart and mama finds it later. We collected Heidi Ho easy enough. Even she says it is too hot to run and do by the truck much. She will just get out do a little looking and then just wait for us to come an get her. If she hasn't been in the pond we put her up front because the metal in the back is just too hot for her. Even then she just pants so hard we worry about her. We get her plastic cup we have in old blue and give her a big drink of sometimes warm water. Ol'Blue doesn't have any air conditioning other than the air you get when your moving down the road so it is HOT sometimes. I don't get out much and when we park it is always in the shade believe me. I helped a little bit on the electric fencing and I was VERY careful about 9am in the morning when the temps were still mild at about 90* I am guessing. Still had a moment where just standing still in the shade of the truck my hearing was going and things were going black a tiny bit. I told hubby I just had to stop. We went home and Heidi did her usual diving in the doggie pool. It sounded so good! We had more water than lately in it and what a splash she made on the way in. We stood in the shade while she enjoyed and her panting wasn't so hard. We let her cool off then went in ourselves. I was totally useless. I didn't have the big pounding headache or a sick stomach there just wasn't anything left to me. No inner strenght at all to think, do or just sit there. Everything was a effort. I drank a big glass of OJ for the potassium, drank some powerade then some water and snacked on some cashews ( They have lots of minerals) cooled off with a shower and took some homeopathic China 30C for the heat. The china did help some after a few minutes with I felt like I could move my extremities easier but I still had that deep down limp noodle thing going on.
After lunch and lounging in the house a few hours Hubby decided to go check the hot wire and take some fence down around this barn pond that is going to get cleaned out. I tried to talk him out of that but he said he had to get something done. We had decide to take a break and eat out and go see his dad when he got his stuff done. He called a while later and said that the cows had torn out all the hot wire stuff! Seems like we didn't have it on the right setting or it hadn't had enough time to charge. Well he fixed it back all by himself in the heat of the day. Poor man. He went and took the clips off the wire around the pond and will get some help Sunday morning early to take out the posts and roll up wire. He came back and headed for the shower. Before he even stepped into the shower he just had to lay across the bed and rest. I turned the ceiling fan on and he made me turn out he light because it just seems like it put more heat into the room. Even with the A/C on in this heat things just feel weird. He rested a bit and he told me about everything he encountered and finally felt like he could take a cool shower.
Everything is about the HEAT like I said. Even though we are having the lower 85* temps before 9 and 10am when we are out doing things it is still HARD to do. I don't know if it is just all in the head or what. Your driving along and it isn't really bad temps especially considering what it has been but still there is something about it all that isn't right. I don't know if it just all in our heads or just the total stress that the land,people and animals are encountering is so pronounced that even that itself is taking a toll on anything that walks. I guess maybe that is it. Kind of like walking in the the room with a family fight going on, just walking in it you can feel the tension and just want to walk out. Well believe me you walk outside for anything the environment is full of stress and tension. You go inside to the a/c in your house or job there is still stress and tension. Even out of the heat you are stressed in some way.
Here is a good one. You hear about people investing their money in gold all the time. Well we have something better than that...... it is golden colored but it is called hay! I am hearing talks of anywhere from $50 - $100 for medium round bales of hay. Talking about a gold mine if you have any to sell! We got a little less than half the hay we did last year. Normally we get about 187 medium wrapped round bales of hay off of 2 meadows. This year we got 86. We had 44 bales left over from last year and I think I figured we are about 13 bales shy of last years crop with what we have left over. I told hubby we are going to need more than that when the pasture is all burned up like this. Unless we get rain this fall and something grows there won't be any grazing this winter. He is planning on feeding more cow feed not only this winter but some this summer with the grass so dead. You know feed prices are going to go up with so many other people in the same boat and such a widespread drought all over the country like this.
We were over on Grandmas place and I noticed one of the cows was what we call skinny. Not like you see going through the ring skinny just not as filled out as what we like and compared to the other cows. Looked at her tag and she is a good 14 yo cow, She has a pretty calf and all. I told hubby she needs to be moved over to the house and feed a little better then send her to town when the calf gets bigger. If she is in this shape now then it will only get worse this winter. I have a little sale sheet in our notebook in the truck with a list of cows to sell and why. Right now though we don't really want to move anything around not only to protect us but the cows. No telling what we would get hurt or have die if we tried to work cows even a little bit now. I am hearing about people loosing whole herds just falling over all at once with the heat. Some of these places don't surprise me because places like Kansas doesn't have any trees or anything for shade. Thank goodness we have shade and water! I just hope we get some rain this fall to fill up the ponds we are having fixed.I am really worried that if we get some it won't be enough to help the ponds much.
Well it is 1:38 am and I have complained enough..............
I got news for hubby, next year old blue is going to have a/c if it is still alive and kicking!We have to do something to protect ourselves to make the job not only easier but to be able to get more done.
Ranchmama
(Perking pretty good now as long as I don't let myself stay hot to long)
I think you would find that WE R DONE!!! I mean I don't care if your talking about our behinds or the ground or the ponds or even our cars and trucks! WE meaning a collective everything in the ~ HOT ~ oven is cooked to some degree of done for sure. Like the news what the heck else is there to talk about? LOL Any little weakness and the heat will show you who is boss. If you are older whether you are 2 or 4 legged it is going to limit you and try to kill you. Period. That is just the way it is. Even if you are in the shade with a hot convection oven breeze the shade temps are a easy 108*F some days. If you are young it isn't much better from the sounds of things. Doc was telling me that he had a little girl, in his home I think, the other night with heat exhaustion. I am not kidding ANY so called weakness due to age, size, or any infirmity you will be tested in all that you attempt to do. If you have high BP you better stay in the cool. Even if you have a clue about how to balance you body to prevent the rise you step out and it has got you. I just don't think that pill your popping can "fix" this heat enough to keep it in a normal range. I was hit by heat exhaustion the other day... Thursday I believe. Went to town to get my back cracked and make a tour through Wally world. I got a fairly good parking place considering it was packed. Still it was about 2:30 pm which is prime time hot plate time. You could see people all sizes going in and many were stressed you could see. Naturally big people looked about to keel over. I made my way in pretty good. Got to walking around though an it got tough on me. Just wore me out! Ok I admit I don't get out enough and get exercise. I haven't been able to breathe lately for heck no mater what I do or food I avoid. Doc said most of it is this hot air being so heavy there isn't enough oxygen in it for people along with plenty of dust and dirt to get in us to clog us up. I finally had to change up my Asthma medicine to Bryonia 30C and that helped some. Then when I got my back cracked I am like a new person and can breathe so much better. I made a few more stops on the way home to the hardware store and nursing home to see father in law. I was wiped out by the time I got home and was useless. I tanked up on fluids and the whole bit but man it was tough!
I did hear some good news about father in law... he has put on about 10 pounds since the last time I checked with the nurses which is great and wonderful ! All in about a weeks time! They said they changed his food to more of what he liked and gave him the megace and even changed the consistency for him so it was easier to eat. I am glad to see this but he still hasn't gained any strength or help his thinking so that doesn't look great but we all can do only what we can do.
It is nice to have the 2 older cows gone. Don't even have to think about them now. The money is going to go into cleaning out a couple of ponds that haven't been cleaned out probably in 50 years. One is a tiny one at the barn that is good for when you have something penned up. It is totally dry and it has always done that. The other one is on the Sires place and those poor cows were pretty much drinking out of a mud puddle! Hubby had the hay bailed on the hay meadow there and the hay all moved so Saturday we decided to put a hot wire around it and let the cows up there so they can clean up what the baler didn't get and we showed them the pond up there. They were like kids in a candy store! Some cows hit the pond first like they hadn't seen water in a while and others got the long tall green grass left under some of the trees. We found out that the solar hot wire set up we had didn't work so he had to go to town and pick up one for about $170. Hated to spend the money but it was the quickest and simplest to do to save the hay. SOOOooooooo we thought! LOL Got the new one out and looked at it under the shade tree at the house so we wouldn't have to do much in the sun. Got it set up and looked at the directions and we were ready to load up Heidi Ho and go. We hooked it up crossed our fingers and left. We noticed that one of the red calves was being a dummy and was "lost?" from the herd a little. We went to look at it and it ran OUT of the field and down to where the cows were staying then across the creek. DARN! There isn't any chasing in this case. Just hope it gets smart and mama finds it later. We collected Heidi Ho easy enough. Even she says it is too hot to run and do by the truck much. She will just get out do a little looking and then just wait for us to come an get her. If she hasn't been in the pond we put her up front because the metal in the back is just too hot for her. Even then she just pants so hard we worry about her. We get her plastic cup we have in old blue and give her a big drink of sometimes warm water. Ol'Blue doesn't have any air conditioning other than the air you get when your moving down the road so it is HOT sometimes. I don't get out much and when we park it is always in the shade believe me. I helped a little bit on the electric fencing and I was VERY careful about 9am in the morning when the temps were still mild at about 90* I am guessing. Still had a moment where just standing still in the shade of the truck my hearing was going and things were going black a tiny bit. I told hubby I just had to stop. We went home and Heidi did her usual diving in the doggie pool. It sounded so good! We had more water than lately in it and what a splash she made on the way in. We stood in the shade while she enjoyed and her panting wasn't so hard. We let her cool off then went in ourselves. I was totally useless. I didn't have the big pounding headache or a sick stomach there just wasn't anything left to me. No inner strenght at all to think, do or just sit there. Everything was a effort. I drank a big glass of OJ for the potassium, drank some powerade then some water and snacked on some cashews ( They have lots of minerals) cooled off with a shower and took some homeopathic China 30C for the heat. The china did help some after a few minutes with I felt like I could move my extremities easier but I still had that deep down limp noodle thing going on.
After lunch and lounging in the house a few hours Hubby decided to go check the hot wire and take some fence down around this barn pond that is going to get cleaned out. I tried to talk him out of that but he said he had to get something done. We had decide to take a break and eat out and go see his dad when he got his stuff done. He called a while later and said that the cows had torn out all the hot wire stuff! Seems like we didn't have it on the right setting or it hadn't had enough time to charge. Well he fixed it back all by himself in the heat of the day. Poor man. He went and took the clips off the wire around the pond and will get some help Sunday morning early to take out the posts and roll up wire. He came back and headed for the shower. Before he even stepped into the shower he just had to lay across the bed and rest. I turned the ceiling fan on and he made me turn out he light because it just seems like it put more heat into the room. Even with the A/C on in this heat things just feel weird. He rested a bit and he told me about everything he encountered and finally felt like he could take a cool shower.
Everything is about the HEAT like I said. Even though we are having the lower 85* temps before 9 and 10am when we are out doing things it is still HARD to do. I don't know if it is just all in the head or what. Your driving along and it isn't really bad temps especially considering what it has been but still there is something about it all that isn't right. I don't know if it just all in our heads or just the total stress that the land,people and animals are encountering is so pronounced that even that itself is taking a toll on anything that walks. I guess maybe that is it. Kind of like walking in the the room with a family fight going on, just walking in it you can feel the tension and just want to walk out. Well believe me you walk outside for anything the environment is full of stress and tension. You go inside to the a/c in your house or job there is still stress and tension. Even out of the heat you are stressed in some way.
Here is a good one. You hear about people investing their money in gold all the time. Well we have something better than that...... it is golden colored but it is called hay! I am hearing talks of anywhere from $50 - $100 for medium round bales of hay. Talking about a gold mine if you have any to sell! We got a little less than half the hay we did last year. Normally we get about 187 medium wrapped round bales of hay off of 2 meadows. This year we got 86. We had 44 bales left over from last year and I think I figured we are about 13 bales shy of last years crop with what we have left over. I told hubby we are going to need more than that when the pasture is all burned up like this. Unless we get rain this fall and something grows there won't be any grazing this winter. He is planning on feeding more cow feed not only this winter but some this summer with the grass so dead. You know feed prices are going to go up with so many other people in the same boat and such a widespread drought all over the country like this.
We were over on Grandmas place and I noticed one of the cows was what we call skinny. Not like you see going through the ring skinny just not as filled out as what we like and compared to the other cows. Looked at her tag and she is a good 14 yo cow, She has a pretty calf and all. I told hubby she needs to be moved over to the house and feed a little better then send her to town when the calf gets bigger. If she is in this shape now then it will only get worse this winter. I have a little sale sheet in our notebook in the truck with a list of cows to sell and why. Right now though we don't really want to move anything around not only to protect us but the cows. No telling what we would get hurt or have die if we tried to work cows even a little bit now. I am hearing about people loosing whole herds just falling over all at once with the heat. Some of these places don't surprise me because places like Kansas doesn't have any trees or anything for shade. Thank goodness we have shade and water! I just hope we get some rain this fall to fill up the ponds we are having fixed.I am really worried that if we get some it won't be enough to help the ponds much.
Well it is 1:38 am and I have complained enough..............
I got news for hubby, next year old blue is going to have a/c if it is still alive and kicking!We have to do something to protect ourselves to make the job not only easier but to be able to get more done.
Ranchmama
(Perking pretty good now as long as I don't let myself stay hot to long)
Sunday, July 10, 2011
More HOT WEATHER and LIFE in a OVEN
Long and boring about HOT WEATHER and life in a oven.
Seems like sometimes you get into a weather pattern in your area and it just takes over your life. Everything is about the weather extreme of the time. This weather extreme once again and still is about the heat.
Oklahoma is setting records. The other day OKC set a record of 108* and I would like to know where the heck they have been because we blew that one out of the water where I am at. It was 113* F in the shade Saturday here on my front porch! That was about 5 or 6 p.m. at the time. I have one of those laser thermometers you just point at something and it tells you how hot it is. I went out into the bright sunlight and pointed it at the ground ........WELL!...... How's 147* F toast your cookies?!..... No wonder when I went out to oil hubby's truck hinge my feet felt blistered for a long while after coming back in . They said in the month of June every day was over 90*F and so far we have had I think 20 days over 100*F.
Here in Oklahoma now I guess if someone tells you to go to "L" then you just tell them to step out of the a/c and join you. It is a constant worry in everything you do. We have older well kept vehicles so your going to naturally be more careful. Even in a newer one you are going to have to watch out for heat related break downs on the road. July 1st they buried my Aunt in Arkansas. I couldn't go because it was a 3 hour drive at 103* in the shade temps in a 11 yo Yulon with 275,000 mile on it. If we had a problem along the road this big girl would have been dead in this heat. I felt bad for not going but brains had to rule over heart this time. Yesterday was kind of scary here in the house, the a/c is set for 77* and it could only get it down to 79* with it running constantly. The garage where we do piddly work and let the dogs stay in was 102* with direct sunlight kept out by the doors but left open enough for good air flow. We even had a large industrial floor fan going but it was just too much like a convection oven. Poor old Petey was miserable. I keep fresh water out and put ice in it. He snugs up the the kitchen door to get some cool feeling. I feel bad about not letting him in but he is just not a good house dog at all even in his old age so we just can't do that. Last night about 1:30 I checked on him and he was just panting with mouth wide open and struggling. I brought Ice cubes out for him to chew on and to lay in. I went back to bed and got back up with a bright idea. I realized the dogs like to dig because the ground is damp (not around here) and get cooled off. I went in to the bathroom and got a old towel and soaked it with cool water then rang out till good and damp. I went out to the garage and laid it on top of him. He just wagged his tail and after a few minutes he had the strength to go lay on his pillow. I put the wet towel back on him and pointed the fan that direction. After a few more minutes he quit panting and could lay there with his mouth closed. We are going to not only do the towel but hose him down a few times today like we do Heidi Ho. He may not like it like she does but he's going to get it anyway.
I think we now have a good 35 babies on the ground now. They are so cute and the heat doesn't seem to bother their jumping and prancing around at all. Looks like we had another cow lose a calf. This cow though is one we called skinny butt. She got skinny on us in Grandma's herd and so we brought her over here to the house to watch. Sure enough it was like she was intimidated by the bigger cows and she got fat and bred. Well she lost this calf and she is going to go to town the next load. Her and another older cow that has been a pain in the tail. The other cow lost her calf in the big snow storm we had last winter. Ok stuff happens in extremes we know but she would never get back with the herd and we had to go looking for her all the time. We decided to bring her back to the house also and if she didn't shape up she was going to town to. Hubby started walking her back and she was so sluggish. She just didn't act right like a cow normally does. He put feed in front of her when we got home and she just wasn't that hungry . I don't think it is the heat doing it. There is just something wrong with her that isn't right so she is going to town also. We now have a decent rotation of younger heifers coming up that can replace her so I don't feel bad about sending her to town. The way this heat and pasture is going with don't need the extra cows that are not earning their keep on the place.
The hay man just called and said he is going to be here Monday morning to start cutting hay and may even bale the same day. I told him I don't think he will have a problem with that considering the hay is already dry just standing there. LOL We figure we will be doing good to get about a 4th of what we normally do this year. We added another field for him to bale but I still don't know if we will have enough hay.
Ya know if wishes were feathers we would all be tickled pink but I want to somehow stash some money aside to do some dozier work. It isn't like we can afford it but then again we need to do some more clearing to improve the grazing areas. We like our woods for the wildlife but we can do some thinning and just leave the pecan trees and some cedar windbreaks and still have a lot of wildlife areas. Not like we could afford to do a whole bunch anyway. It is $100 a hour with a 3 hour min. which isn't bad. We would just have to have the money at the same time the ground is good for that kind of work. With it this dry it would be the devil to get any amount done. Pretty much a waste of money.
Whew! I feel freshly ironed. Even my clothes kind of smell ironed. LOL Just stepped outside to get hubby some tea and water to take with him while he goes to spray the weeds somewhere. He is trying to get out earlier before it gets to hot on the tractor. Even with A/C going you have all those windows and it is hard to stay cool as a cucumber. The tractor was overheating last year and this year is much hotter. Changed and washed and blew everything out and it still gets hot some. While I was out Heidi Ho jumped in her pool and I added more water since it is evaporating so fast and it made it cooler. I filled up the water buckets and watered the yard in front of the house. I know it doesn't do a lot of good but I can try.
It's funny but sometimes we hunker down in the cool of the house after things are done and while we gripe and complain about the heat and worry about the birds production going down or the cows stroking out or the old dog kicking over we talk about what if we sold all of this land and moved someplace like Taos, New Mexico. He has even gone online and looked at houses and land. Seems like you can get some foreclosures that are nice. Even if we really decided to do it I have no clue if we could find someone that would buy this much land.
As we hide in the house we wonder if the way we feel has anything to do with the weather or just a older age thing. With me being 53 and big and Hubby being 57 tall and skinny we just can't figure what is making us into wimps! You go out and you just do something minor without a lot of strain even and your wiped out! It is pitiful. We drink lots of water, heck we even soaked in a really nice Dead Sea and Pink Himalayan salt bath last Saturday. We came out of that with our muscles so relaxed and we hurt a lot less all over. Still though, I don't know if it helped anything with the heat. If I could afford to get away and had someone to take care of animals it would be interesting to see what it would feel like out of this oven we are living in.
I did make myself do something extra in the house and made the copy cat version of KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce. Nothing fancy just very simple. We loved it because we can enjoy the sauce without all the other things we don't like such as MSG and HFCS. We actually got up this morning and didn't feel like the BBQ Sauce messed with us! SOOoooooo ... guess I am going to be canning me some BBQ Sauce soon! I don't have a pressure cooker so a water bath canner is going to have to do the job.
Next project is going to be a copy cat of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing and thousand Island. We don't use much but at least it won't have the junk in it that bothers us.
Oh Yes! I forgot about Fathers Day....... For my Hubbys father's day I ordered some 550 thread count Egyptian sheets! I have never had really good sheets and wanted to try it. Boy Oh Boy! They do feel REALLY nice. It's funny but we found out we even slept better on them. Craziest thing I have ever seen! Hubby said he feels spoiled like Charlie Sheen on 2.5 men ! I am glad he is enjoying them. We are going to use those other tissue thin sheets that were on it for emergency camping stuff sheets.
My 91 yo FIL is still in the nursing home. Someone goes to see him everyday. Hubby had to skip a day but FIL didn't even notice. He thought he came that day! LOL Heck at least he isn't moping around about someone not coming to see him! He has lost 12 pounds in the few weeks he has been in there. They gave him Megace to help his appetite an he really does eat like a horse now but he still looses weight. They tested him and we are waiting on the results. They think it is a underlying cause. Could be cancer who knows and if it is there isn't much anyone can do about it in his frail condition. As long as he is comfortable and happy that is all that counts. We just go see him to check on him and talk to him about the ranch. He doesn't remember it 15 min later but at least he was happy for 15 minutes.
Well I guess I better stop. I got to get this lazy house bound behind up and do SOMETHING constructive around here! Something that it's sure hard to do when you stay inside to much. LOL (Well that is my excuse for today)
Ranchmama
(Okie with the toasties )
Monday, June 20, 2011
Okie Heat Taking a Toll
Sunday June 19
At 8pm we took a tour of all the places and checked cows from the road mostly. It was 95* F.
We are trying to catch a look at the red calf born a few days ago we had to chase all over everywhere. Hubby saw it live a few minutes after birth and nothing since. We were hoping it was out nursing in the evening but no luck. We even drove in with the Yukon trying to make her nervous. She looked in a direction but we didn't see anything over that way. Couldn't smell anything thing dead and believe me would have in this heat!
We did notice we had a couple more new calves on the ground which is always good news.
Speaking of dead...........
We were a cow short on grandmas place today and we started driving around looking for her about 9am. It took a little bit but Hubby spotted her through a small ravine full of trees belly up and all fours straight out. We finally got to the opening where she was and it looked like she was trying to have a calf. It looked like the after birth was out. I told hubby we need to look for a extra calf just in case. He said the coyotes could have drug it off if it was dead. She wasn't smelling bad bad yet. Even the vulture perched on top of her hadn't cleaned up much of the mess yet. (Natures clean up crew, coyotes an vultures) We just counted all of them the day before and from the looks of things it happened during the night. You could tell because she was in a secluded but open area. If it had been during the day she would have been in the bushes more in the shade. We didn't spot any new extra calves. Then again I guess it could have been hiding but I doubt it.
This kind of thing makes it look like we don't take care of our cows. We do better than most. The Vet said that on the average you can expect to have to replace or lose 5 - 10% ? a year. This is the oldest herd we have with a average age of 14 yo. These cows all run about 1500 pounds normally. When they are pregnant I am guessing another 200 pounds extra. Don't know that one for sure but that is what we are guessing. The calves on limousine cows weigh in at about 70 - 80 pounds when they hit the ground at birth. That is not too heavy for this breed. The BIG problem here is the HEAT ! With this kind of heat and that kind of strain on a older cow I guess it can really take a toll on the animals.
Bulls could be a problem but all these bulls are heifer bulls meaning they usually throw calves small enough even a first time heifer can have a baby without problems. This cow had probably had over 10 babies through the years without any trouble at all.
Man it is frustrating sometimes! Sometimes we count 3 or 4 times before we get the number right or we have to go play hide and seek trying to find the cow or calf. We really do try to keep a eye on everything and spray them for ticks and all kinds of things to keep them in good shape.
I guess we just can't fix and protect everything perfectly and this weather just isn't about to help us at all.
Ranchmama
(thankful the convection oven we have isn't humid also outside)
At 8pm we took a tour of all the places and checked cows from the road mostly. It was 95* F.
We are trying to catch a look at the red calf born a few days ago we had to chase all over everywhere. Hubby saw it live a few minutes after birth and nothing since. We were hoping it was out nursing in the evening but no luck. We even drove in with the Yukon trying to make her nervous. She looked in a direction but we didn't see anything over that way. Couldn't smell anything thing dead and believe me would have in this heat!
We did notice we had a couple more new calves on the ground which is always good news.
Speaking of dead...........
We were a cow short on grandmas place today and we started driving around looking for her about 9am. It took a little bit but Hubby spotted her through a small ravine full of trees belly up and all fours straight out. We finally got to the opening where she was and it looked like she was trying to have a calf. It looked like the after birth was out. I told hubby we need to look for a extra calf just in case. He said the coyotes could have drug it off if it was dead. She wasn't smelling bad bad yet. Even the vulture perched on top of her hadn't cleaned up much of the mess yet. (Natures clean up crew, coyotes an vultures) We just counted all of them the day before and from the looks of things it happened during the night. You could tell because she was in a secluded but open area. If it had been during the day she would have been in the bushes more in the shade. We didn't spot any new extra calves. Then again I guess it could have been hiding but I doubt it.
This kind of thing makes it look like we don't take care of our cows. We do better than most. The Vet said that on the average you can expect to have to replace or lose 5 - 10% ? a year. This is the oldest herd we have with a average age of 14 yo. These cows all run about 1500 pounds normally. When they are pregnant I am guessing another 200 pounds extra. Don't know that one for sure but that is what we are guessing. The calves on limousine cows weigh in at about 70 - 80 pounds when they hit the ground at birth. That is not too heavy for this breed. The BIG problem here is the HEAT ! With this kind of heat and that kind of strain on a older cow I guess it can really take a toll on the animals.
Bulls could be a problem but all these bulls are heifer bulls meaning they usually throw calves small enough even a first time heifer can have a baby without problems. This cow had probably had over 10 babies through the years without any trouble at all.
Man it is frustrating sometimes! Sometimes we count 3 or 4 times before we get the number right or we have to go play hide and seek trying to find the cow or calf. We really do try to keep a eye on everything and spray them for ticks and all kinds of things to keep them in good shape.
I guess we just can't fix and protect everything perfectly and this weather just isn't about to help us at all.
Ranchmama
(thankful the convection oven we have isn't humid also outside)
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Roasted and Toasted Okies
Sunday, June 19, 2011
The weather is as always the main thing in Oklahoma. Way too hot for sure. Here it is almost 1 am and it is 79* outside with 58% humidity.Our a/c is set on 77* and it runs almost full tilt all day and into the night. I don't even want to think about the bill.
Heidi Ho just can not take this heat. She loves to go and do and run along side the truck and make dives at the cows but she starts panting so bad (like a really over weight person) we put her in the truck and give her a drink of water. Old Blue doesn't have a/c but we keep rolling and parking in the shade when we can. Her poor paws I know just get to hot in the bed of the truck. Sometimes she will wade into a pond and cool off like that. When we get home we tell her to go get in the doggie pool and she lays in it going in on a kind of slide maneuver and licking up water the whole way.
Saturday we took 13 head of calves to auction and we were finally happy with the price. We used the Mid America stock yards in Bristo and we liked the way everything looked on the check. The last few years we have been taking them to a auction and when we get the check the numbers were just off! The weight just didn't look like we thought it should and the price wasn't even close to what the computer said it should have been when you go online and look at the going rates.Anyone that has been around a cattleman knows they know what stuff weighs. Ladies if you put on 3 pounds they know it! Such a frustrating thing sometimes being married to a cattle man. If you happen to be a big girl you better get over being self conscious about it with them because THEY KNOW!!! GGgrrrrr.......... Oh well. We felt so much better this time. When we sorted them out to sell we looked at them and said they weigh about 400 pounds or so. Sure enough that is the same thing the auction said. It wouldn't have been that way at the other one. We knew we weren't that much off! So looks like we will be using this auction from now on as long as they don't start doing something crazy an getting to us on the weight and the price.
Things around here have been crazy since Memorial Day when Hubby put his dad in the hospital. He had fallen down 3 times the day before and couldn't make a 3 word sentence. At 90 y.o. he has been living on his own and doing for himself with hubby always handy and checking on him a couple times a day. I would send over fresh hot food for supper since he was able to do for himself the rest of the day. When we went and took a closer look at everything he was just not doing good at all! Just 3 weeks ago he could get in and out of the truck on his own and now he had to have help and was skin and bones. He stayed in for a week and now is in a nursing home. We keep telling him he is in there to get stronger so he can go home but we know that probably won't happen we just try to give him hope. He had no urge to eat, drink or move around an his bathroom habits have changed to the point we could not help him at home anymore. The nursing home is $140 a day and regulated and easy for friends and family to stop in a chat. We couldn't get that kind of good private care I know. June 12th he celebrated his 91st Birthday in the nursing home. His granddaughter Terry came in from Ark and I brought chocolate cupcakes with candles and decorated the room. Terry could get more out of him that I have seen in ages and I told her I am glad to see that he was even capable of responding like that.
A couple of days ago one of Nikki's cows decided to have a calf at 10 am we noticed as we went to feed cows on Sire's. We didn't notice it until we had already fed them outside the coral where we could catch her if needed. Heidi is the one that told us. Hubby was dropping feed and she crossed the creek where the cows were. I was watching her and she was running with her nose up and I knew then something was going on. She started checking out a cow and hubby could see then she had feet out. Well we knew we had a problem then! First thing it is usual for a cow to be doing this at 10am standing with the rest of the herd. Then we we looked closer she just had 1 foot out instead of 2. Hubby tried for over a hour to walk her into the corral to help her out. He walked and ran all over the northern half of the 160 and she would duck into some light woods, cross the creek and finally she would just stick her nose up in the air and run like a race horse with half the herd right behind her. I was in the truck blocking gates when she headed the wrong way and trying to guide her into the right direction to save him some running or he would tell me to take a bucket of feed and try to sucker her into the right place. It was almost 100* at the time. Not good for cow or hubby either one. I tried to get him to just rest and let her calm down but he didn't want to lose a cow. She has had about 4 calves but this one wasn't good. We had no clue if she had been like this for 15 minutes or all night. She went running through one time and I saw about 16 inches of 1 leg sticking out. Still not good. Finally hubby gave up. He said she is going to have to wear herself out trying to have the calf so he can walk up to her and pull it since she won't go into a coral. He figured then if nothing else we would have a dead calf. I called Nikki to let her know what was going on and there just wasn't much she could do so she prayed. We went home for lunch about noon. A hour later he went back without me and said she wasn't where we left her. Welll.... DUH!... He found her and she had a pretty little red calf. Have no clue if it is a heifer or a steer but it was alive! We figured all that running around must have knocked something back where it belongs and probably kept oxygen pumping enough to save the calf. We still haven't seen the calf again yet. It has been several days and she has kept it hidden really good.
Don't know what is going on this year but seems like all the cows are hiding out their babies for a week or more before they bring them out to show them off. We haven't had them doing this in years. We did change our bulls around a lot this year with selling one and adding one or two more. They are all similar blood lines so the genetics are similar. We were wondering if maybe the calves we a little bit weaker and maybe mama's felt like they needed to do that more.
After all this chasing around the cow I some how threw out my right hip. It does that sometimes and I look like a hunch back going anywhere. All I can do is rest and stay off of it a while. This time though I got really tired of the pain. Hubby said " You think you need to go to the chiropractor ?" I almost laughed. I felt like my hip was up under my armpit and my right shoulder was 3-4 inches lower than the left shoulder when you looked at it. I had a hobble that was almost comical. I looked at him with the most unbelievable duh look on my face and said ... " Ya think so?" I went to get my back cracked and I walked in and said Dr. Jay get your sledge hammer and Jeep winch out you got a job to do this time. I was so tight from stem to stern he could barely move anything back.I got to thinking about everything going on with my Father in Law and no wonder I was tighter than a drum!! He helped it alot and the next day the pain was better with putting ice on for swelling and using some arnica and the CopperHead Achy, Breaky and Bruised cream. At least I can walk mostly normal with a twinge of pain that will make you do a funny 2 step or two. If I go back in a couple of weeks he can probably put me back together better.
I told hubby we need a vacation. I need to see and do something different. I'm bored. I feel like the little kid in the summer always whining to mama about nothing to do. I have lots to do .... I am just bored.
Ranchmama
(roasted and toasted in Okie land)
The weather is as always the main thing in Oklahoma. Way too hot for sure. Here it is almost 1 am and it is 79* outside with 58% humidity.Our a/c is set on 77* and it runs almost full tilt all day and into the night. I don't even want to think about the bill.
Heidi Ho just can not take this heat. She loves to go and do and run along side the truck and make dives at the cows but she starts panting so bad (like a really over weight person) we put her in the truck and give her a drink of water. Old Blue doesn't have a/c but we keep rolling and parking in the shade when we can. Her poor paws I know just get to hot in the bed of the truck. Sometimes she will wade into a pond and cool off like that. When we get home we tell her to go get in the doggie pool and she lays in it going in on a kind of slide maneuver and licking up water the whole way.
Saturday we took 13 head of calves to auction and we were finally happy with the price. We used the Mid America stock yards in Bristo and we liked the way everything looked on the check. The last few years we have been taking them to a auction and when we get the check the numbers were just off! The weight just didn't look like we thought it should and the price wasn't even close to what the computer said it should have been when you go online and look at the going rates.Anyone that has been around a cattleman knows they know what stuff weighs. Ladies if you put on 3 pounds they know it! Such a frustrating thing sometimes being married to a cattle man. If you happen to be a big girl you better get over being self conscious about it with them because THEY KNOW!!! GGgrrrrr.......... Oh well. We felt so much better this time. When we sorted them out to sell we looked at them and said they weigh about 400 pounds or so. Sure enough that is the same thing the auction said. It wouldn't have been that way at the other one. We knew we weren't that much off! So looks like we will be using this auction from now on as long as they don't start doing something crazy an getting to us on the weight and the price.
Things around here have been crazy since Memorial Day when Hubby put his dad in the hospital. He had fallen down 3 times the day before and couldn't make a 3 word sentence. At 90 y.o. he has been living on his own and doing for himself with hubby always handy and checking on him a couple times a day. I would send over fresh hot food for supper since he was able to do for himself the rest of the day. When we went and took a closer look at everything he was just not doing good at all! Just 3 weeks ago he could get in and out of the truck on his own and now he had to have help and was skin and bones. He stayed in for a week and now is in a nursing home. We keep telling him he is in there to get stronger so he can go home but we know that probably won't happen we just try to give him hope. He had no urge to eat, drink or move around an his bathroom habits have changed to the point we could not help him at home anymore. The nursing home is $140 a day and regulated and easy for friends and family to stop in a chat. We couldn't get that kind of good private care I know. June 12th he celebrated his 91st Birthday in the nursing home. His granddaughter Terry came in from Ark and I brought chocolate cupcakes with candles and decorated the room. Terry could get more out of him that I have seen in ages and I told her I am glad to see that he was even capable of responding like that.
A couple of days ago one of Nikki's cows decided to have a calf at 10 am we noticed as we went to feed cows on Sire's. We didn't notice it until we had already fed them outside the coral where we could catch her if needed. Heidi is the one that told us. Hubby was dropping feed and she crossed the creek where the cows were. I was watching her and she was running with her nose up and I knew then something was going on. She started checking out a cow and hubby could see then she had feet out. Well we knew we had a problem then! First thing it is usual for a cow to be doing this at 10am standing with the rest of the herd. Then we we looked closer she just had 1 foot out instead of 2. Hubby tried for over a hour to walk her into the corral to help her out. He walked and ran all over the northern half of the 160 and she would duck into some light woods, cross the creek and finally she would just stick her nose up in the air and run like a race horse with half the herd right behind her. I was in the truck blocking gates when she headed the wrong way and trying to guide her into the right direction to save him some running or he would tell me to take a bucket of feed and try to sucker her into the right place. It was almost 100* at the time. Not good for cow or hubby either one. I tried to get him to just rest and let her calm down but he didn't want to lose a cow. She has had about 4 calves but this one wasn't good. We had no clue if she had been like this for 15 minutes or all night. She went running through one time and I saw about 16 inches of 1 leg sticking out. Still not good. Finally hubby gave up. He said she is going to have to wear herself out trying to have the calf so he can walk up to her and pull it since she won't go into a coral. He figured then if nothing else we would have a dead calf. I called Nikki to let her know what was going on and there just wasn't much she could do so she prayed. We went home for lunch about noon. A hour later he went back without me and said she wasn't where we left her. Welll.... DUH!... He found her and she had a pretty little red calf. Have no clue if it is a heifer or a steer but it was alive! We figured all that running around must have knocked something back where it belongs and probably kept oxygen pumping enough to save the calf. We still haven't seen the calf again yet. It has been several days and she has kept it hidden really good.
Don't know what is going on this year but seems like all the cows are hiding out their babies for a week or more before they bring them out to show them off. We haven't had them doing this in years. We did change our bulls around a lot this year with selling one and adding one or two more. They are all similar blood lines so the genetics are similar. We were wondering if maybe the calves we a little bit weaker and maybe mama's felt like they needed to do that more.
After all this chasing around the cow I some how threw out my right hip. It does that sometimes and I look like a hunch back going anywhere. All I can do is rest and stay off of it a while. This time though I got really tired of the pain. Hubby said " You think you need to go to the chiropractor ?" I almost laughed. I felt like my hip was up under my armpit and my right shoulder was 3-4 inches lower than the left shoulder when you looked at it. I had a hobble that was almost comical. I looked at him with the most unbelievable duh look on my face and said ... " Ya think so?" I went to get my back cracked and I walked in and said Dr. Jay get your sledge hammer and Jeep winch out you got a job to do this time. I was so tight from stem to stern he could barely move anything back.I got to thinking about everything going on with my Father in Law and no wonder I was tighter than a drum!! He helped it alot and the next day the pain was better with putting ice on for swelling and using some arnica and the CopperHead Achy, Breaky and Bruised cream. At least I can walk mostly normal with a twinge of pain that will make you do a funny 2 step or two. If I go back in a couple of weeks he can probably put me back together better.
I told hubby we need a vacation. I need to see and do something different. I'm bored. I feel like the little kid in the summer always whining to mama about nothing to do. I have lots to do .... I am just bored.
Ranchmama
(roasted and toasted in Okie land)
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Grumbling about treats !
Well I tell you we are so disappointed! We thought we would give ourselves a treat at home with some ice cream and orange juice.
We bought the big bucket of bunny ice cream and some Simply Orange Juice.
Brought it home stuck in freezer to get good and cold and orange juice in fridge. A good 4 hours later we thought that just sounded pretty good. The problem is the ice cream was'nt anywhere near as good as it used to be! I mean it was barely hard enough to call it ice cream. I went out to the freezer to see if it was working right and the meat was all hard as a rock so that was ok. Man we poured the juice over the ice cream expecting it to get all nice and hard and icy with some really great flavor. All we wound up with is some kind of squishy mush. Totally ruined our treat.
A few days later hubby went to town and picked up some Hershey's Chocolate Syrup and we got it out after supper and thought we could surely enjoy this! Nope, didn't improve it at all. Not even a smidgen. Hubby said he has no clue what in the world to do with that lousy ice cream. I told him I will salvage it with turning into a chocolate frosty like Wendy's and see how that goes.
Won't be using that one again.
I guess it is a sign of the economy with cheapening the ingredients to keep it at a price people will still buy the product. It's that or maybe the company thinks their target market is aging and they can't dip out the really nice hard ice cream
I got news I AIN'T THAT OLD FOLKS!!! I CAN STILL HANDLE SOME REALLY GOOD ICE CREAM THE WAY IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE!
Oh yes, I read the ingredients on the high price Hershey's syrup and all I saw was a bunch of stuff I can really do without! I can do better than this I know if I make my own.
http://www.thehersheycompany.com/brands/syrup/hersheys-chocolate.aspx?cat=icon#/1926
HERSHEY'S Chocolate Syrup
Ingredients
HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP; CORN SYRUP; WATER; COCOA; SUGAR; CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: POTASSIUM SORBATE (PRESERVATIVE); SALT; MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES; XANTHAN GUM; POLYSORBATE 60; VANILLIN, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR
It is getting hard to find a quality product out in the stores any more. I can make a REAL chocolate syrup and I guess I am going to have to do just that if I want something that I like.
I know someone may be saying what is the big deal about all this ice cream? The big deal is that we haven't been spending money on some things like this and he probably spent $15 or more on these items. If I am going to spend some money on something I want it the way it used to be just in the last year or so. Don't sell me a inferiour product that I KNOW used to taste really good. I expect to have the same quality that it did only within the last season or so.
What a shame the quality isn't as available as it used to be. That's ok, I guess if I can make it at home I can at least have good stuff without all the additives and high fructose corn syrup !
Ranchmama
(Grumbling about poor quality and now having to add something else to the to do list.)
We bought the big bucket of bunny ice cream and some Simply Orange Juice.
Brought it home stuck in freezer to get good and cold and orange juice in fridge. A good 4 hours later we thought that just sounded pretty good. The problem is the ice cream was'nt anywhere near as good as it used to be! I mean it was barely hard enough to call it ice cream. I went out to the freezer to see if it was working right and the meat was all hard as a rock so that was ok. Man we poured the juice over the ice cream expecting it to get all nice and hard and icy with some really great flavor. All we wound up with is some kind of squishy mush. Totally ruined our treat.
A few days later hubby went to town and picked up some Hershey's Chocolate Syrup and we got it out after supper and thought we could surely enjoy this! Nope, didn't improve it at all. Not even a smidgen. Hubby said he has no clue what in the world to do with that lousy ice cream. I told him I will salvage it with turning into a chocolate frosty like Wendy's and see how that goes.
Won't be using that one again.
I guess it is a sign of the economy with cheapening the ingredients to keep it at a price people will still buy the product. It's that or maybe the company thinks their target market is aging and they can't dip out the really nice hard ice cream
I got news I AIN'T THAT OLD FOLKS!!! I CAN STILL HANDLE SOME REALLY GOOD ICE CREAM THE WAY IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE!
Oh yes, I read the ingredients on the high price Hershey's syrup and all I saw was a bunch of stuff I can really do without! I can do better than this I know if I make my own.
http://www.thehersheycompany.com/brands/syrup/hersheys-chocolate.aspx?cat=icon#/1926
HERSHEY'S Chocolate Syrup
Ingredients
HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP; CORN SYRUP; WATER; COCOA; SUGAR; CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: POTASSIUM SORBATE (PRESERVATIVE); SALT; MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES; XANTHAN GUM; POLYSORBATE 60; VANILLIN, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR
It is getting hard to find a quality product out in the stores any more. I can make a REAL chocolate syrup and I guess I am going to have to do just that if I want something that I like.
I know someone may be saying what is the big deal about all this ice cream? The big deal is that we haven't been spending money on some things like this and he probably spent $15 or more on these items. If I am going to spend some money on something I want it the way it used to be just in the last year or so. Don't sell me a inferiour product that I KNOW used to taste really good. I expect to have the same quality that it did only within the last season or so.
What a shame the quality isn't as available as it used to be. That's ok, I guess if I can make it at home I can at least have good stuff without all the additives and high fructose corn syrup !
Ranchmama
(Grumbling about poor quality and now having to add something else to the to do list.)
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Genetics and Stealth Mode
Thursday my daughter sent me a pic of my youngest of 3 grandsons graduating kindergarten. That is the cool thing about cell phones. I might not be able to be almost 300 miles away but she can send me a pic and I can get it anywhere my cell phone is.
We were driving to town and decided to pick up some salt blocks we had forgoten and left in a pasture that we had recently moved a bunch of young heifers out of. It is little over 4 miles away. It is just a little 10 acre pasture behind Nikki's house that is just the right size to put really young heifers that we think we want to keep for breeders. We can feed them seperately the way they need to be fed without a bunch of pigs hogging all the feed from them. As they grow and develop we can watch and see if we still like them to keep for mama cows.
I got the cute pics and leaned over to show hubby on the IPhone. I said, see this is you grandson graduating kindergarten!
"My Grandson?"
"That's not my Grandson!"
"He's YOUR grandson!"
Yes he is he has your genetics in there to.
"Well if there in there they must be in stealth mode!"
I have so much fun with his off the wall comments sometimes. He is such a serious, class A type workaholic personality. Always thinking and planning and figuring on how to keep things going and working properly on the ranch. I tell him a joke that everyone else gets and it just seems to fly right over his head and he hasn't a clue even when I explain it to him. So you can see how when something like this comes spilling out I get a really good chuckle.
Today was a busy day for him. During all the other things going on one of Allexcia's heifers we have in the West pasture behind the house we use for a nursery / sell lot decided she was going to have her calf today. He put her in the corral and watched her for about 30 minutes. She only had 2 front feet out. He fed her and left her alone waiting to see how she would do. After about 45 minutes she had only laid down once and he decided not to take a chance and just put her in the head catcher and give her some help. He called me down from the house and I helped him hold the strap to the butt jack on her back and held the tail out of the way while he attached the chains to the feet to get ready to pull. She was having contractions but nothing was really happening and everything was lined up right but that was about it. After he started putting some pressure on with the jack the calf started to come out more. The little black nose was out and boy was she doing some major pushing! I don't think I have ever seen one of the cows hunker down an push that hard and I have seen a few. It wasn't a overly large calf or anything, pretty average for limousine cattle anyway. Got the baby out and he pulled it around to the front of the cow for her to smell and all. I got the heck out because I didn't want to be anywhere near when she come out of that headcatcher! He put stuff up then carefully let her out so she wouldn't get him. After he got all the stuff cleaned up he opened the gate so she and the other calves from that pasture could go out. While she wasn't looking he snuck over and tagged the baby before he even got off the ground. We had to really watch her or she would for sure get him! It was fun watching this brand new baby calf. He was just all wobbly sitting up looking around and all. I never noticed it before but he was trying to do a baby calf moo. Looked like he needed to clear his throat because it barely came out sounding like a sheep with a tiny little baaaa... he tried 3 or 4 times to sound like a real cow. LOL A few hours later she had that baby all cleaned up sporting it around the pasture and he was sucking really good. She is going to be a good mama.
So now Allexica has 2 official baby calves on the ground from the heifers we had set back for her. Allexcia (blue tags) and Nikki (pink tags) both have heifers that have either been set back or they have grown for them to have some extra money some time during the year. Maybe someday they will each have a small herd to bring extra income in.
Well it is late, about midnight and there is no telling what tomarrow brings so I better get some sleep.
Ranchmama
We were driving to town and decided to pick up some salt blocks we had forgoten and left in a pasture that we had recently moved a bunch of young heifers out of. It is little over 4 miles away. It is just a little 10 acre pasture behind Nikki's house that is just the right size to put really young heifers that we think we want to keep for breeders. We can feed them seperately the way they need to be fed without a bunch of pigs hogging all the feed from them. As they grow and develop we can watch and see if we still like them to keep for mama cows.
I got the cute pics and leaned over to show hubby on the IPhone. I said, see this is you grandson graduating kindergarten!
"My Grandson?"
"That's not my Grandson!"
"He's YOUR grandson!"
Yes he is he has your genetics in there to.
"Well if there in there they must be in stealth mode!"
I have so much fun with his off the wall comments sometimes. He is such a serious, class A type workaholic personality. Always thinking and planning and figuring on how to keep things going and working properly on the ranch. I tell him a joke that everyone else gets and it just seems to fly right over his head and he hasn't a clue even when I explain it to him. So you can see how when something like this comes spilling out I get a really good chuckle.
Today was a busy day for him. During all the other things going on one of Allexcia's heifers we have in the West pasture behind the house we use for a nursery / sell lot decided she was going to have her calf today. He put her in the corral and watched her for about 30 minutes. She only had 2 front feet out. He fed her and left her alone waiting to see how she would do. After about 45 minutes she had only laid down once and he decided not to take a chance and just put her in the head catcher and give her some help. He called me down from the house and I helped him hold the strap to the butt jack on her back and held the tail out of the way while he attached the chains to the feet to get ready to pull. She was having contractions but nothing was really happening and everything was lined up right but that was about it. After he started putting some pressure on with the jack the calf started to come out more. The little black nose was out and boy was she doing some major pushing! I don't think I have ever seen one of the cows hunker down an push that hard and I have seen a few. It wasn't a overly large calf or anything, pretty average for limousine cattle anyway. Got the baby out and he pulled it around to the front of the cow for her to smell and all. I got the heck out because I didn't want to be anywhere near when she come out of that headcatcher! He put stuff up then carefully let her out so she wouldn't get him. After he got all the stuff cleaned up he opened the gate so she and the other calves from that pasture could go out. While she wasn't looking he snuck over and tagged the baby before he even got off the ground. We had to really watch her or she would for sure get him! It was fun watching this brand new baby calf. He was just all wobbly sitting up looking around and all. I never noticed it before but he was trying to do a baby calf moo. Looked like he needed to clear his throat because it barely came out sounding like a sheep with a tiny little baaaa... he tried 3 or 4 times to sound like a real cow. LOL A few hours later she had that baby all cleaned up sporting it around the pasture and he was sucking really good. She is going to be a good mama.
So now Allexica has 2 official baby calves on the ground from the heifers we had set back for her. Allexcia (blue tags) and Nikki (pink tags) both have heifers that have either been set back or they have grown for them to have some extra money some time during the year. Maybe someday they will each have a small herd to bring extra income in.
Well it is late, about midnight and there is no telling what tomarrow brings so I better get some sleep.
Ranchmama
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Mother in Laws and Coleslaw
This is my Mother in Laws recipe she would fix all the time. I learned a long time ago some of the best recipes are from old style cooks. She was the oldest of 8 kids and helped raise them all including feeding, cooking meals,changing the diapers and teaching them in class when she became a school teacher in a 1 room school house. I am not educated well in the world of slaw and thought ok so it is coleslaw. Well since that time I have made this recipe for someone around here at a function and they just raved about it and called it the Czech Coleslaw recipe. My mother in law Beulah never called it anything like that. From what I can tell what is supposed to be special about it is that it is kind of pickled and will store in the frig. for a week or more.
Daughter just requested the recipe since she has cabbage in her garden the size of basketballs.
So here it is...........
Put in a bowl.... chopped to the texture you like (she used a blender)
1 head cabbage
1 onion
1 bell pepper
============
Sprinkle on top of ingredients in bowl
1 cup sugar
============
Boil these items and stir into the cabbage mixture. Place in fridge overnight for best flavor.
1 T. mustard seed
1 T. celery
1 T. salt
1 c vinegar
3/4 c. oil
Ranchmama
(who had the best mother in law in the world)
Daughter just requested the recipe since she has cabbage in her garden the size of basketballs.
So here it is...........
Put in a bowl.... chopped to the texture you like (she used a blender)
1 head cabbage
1 onion
1 bell pepper
============
Sprinkle on top of ingredients in bowl
1 cup sugar
============
Boil these items and stir into the cabbage mixture. Place in fridge overnight for best flavor.
1 T. mustard seed
1 T. celery
1 T. salt
1 c vinegar
3/4 c. oil
Ranchmama
(who had the best mother in law in the world)
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
First Post *** Storms***
Been trying to figure out what in the world to post the first go around. I am so behind on my Ranchmama letters it just ain't funny!
Today Tuesday, May 24th has been a humdinger of a adventure in a worrisome kind of way. All the day before they had been talking about super bad weather. Well here in central Oklahoma we can sure get that and sometimes you just think the weather people want to scare you to death! I mean you would think we didn't have brains enough to go jump in a hole somewhere like a scared rabbit when your supposed to! Speaking of scared rabbits. Have you ever had a really wild bunny you tried to make a pet out of? We did when we lived in Arkansas a whole lifetime ago. Hubby brought it in from a nest or something one time when he was out on a tractor. We learned you just can't take the wild out of a bunny. A wild bunny is a wild bunny forever. Poor thing even with food and water in a nice safe cage he was not happy at all. He tried to hide everywhere! We brought it into the house and at the least little bit of freight he would go jump behind something and hide. We finally let the bunny go when we realized he just wasn't going to ever be happy. I got to watching bunnies on the road and from my deck out in the pasture and I noticed wild animal always know where the nearest hidy hole is. No kidding it is like radar or like when they venture out into the open they look around and say...." Hmmm.... ok there is a hole right over there and just 20 feet further is another hole if I can't get to that one." They have holes imprinted with a map to each one in there head. Ok well anyway.... we just went about our business of feeding cows this morning, him doing bird house work and me hunting for some replacement tires on old blue for the front. Seems like last week we just put them through more than they could handle checking fence lines and cutting down cedar trees with the limb loppers. Little bit after noon and a little lunch we start hearing about the tornadoes forming west of the city and probably heading this direction. Hubby is trying to ignore it and make believe those people on TV are just flapping their jaws to try and equal the amount of wind the storms are producing. I ignored him and he ignored me while I checked and packed up the medical, some clothes, food and other BOB goodies. With the clouds getting darker and the wind getting quiet I tell him we need to get one of the trucks in the barn away from hail damage. Usually we wait and take things to the cellar when we have to go but this time I have it all ready and tell him lets do it BEFORE it starts raining. You should have heard him .... " WHAT!!! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOUR TALKING ABOUT!!! YOU DON'T WANT TO GO DOWN IN THAT CELLAR!!!" Ok , why not ? Is there water in the bottom of it? Is it nastier than usual? " YOU JUST DON'T WANT TO AND I CAN SEE YOU HAVEN'T BEEN DOWN THERE IN A LONG TIME~!! All tense and nervous doesn't even touch him right now.LOL "I'M NOT GOING DOWN THERE!!! I THINK WE WOULD BE BETTER OFF JUST TO PUT THE STUFF IN THE CAR AND OUT RUN IT!!! I don't think that will work this time considering how big and long this line of storms are. Let's just put the stuff in the cellar so it will be done we can take it out later. In the mean time I have phone calls and text messages and facebook messages of people telling me to duck and run. (If they only knew how much fun hubby was being ...LOL) Got eveything down in front of the cellar sitting in the car. I tell him lets just get it in there. He opens the door and shines the light in to check it out. Yup, there is a almost 2 foot long snake skin on the wall by the steps going down. I tell him just put it on the south wall on the shelf. "I'M NOT GOING IN THAT FAR!!! NO WAY! I'M JUST GOING TO PUT IT AT THE END OF THE STEPS!!" No, the wind will suck it out and it is muddy there. He finally said he has a blue plastic barrel we can put stuff in and put it down there. I told him ok that will work.
With all that done we sat in front of the cellar in the Yukon watching the weather around us and listening to the radio and tracking it on Kfor.com to see what direction everything was going. They told everyone in Lincoln county to hit the hole it is coming your way!!! We looked at the map on the IPhone and decided that it looked like it was going to miss us. I guess this was about 6pm or so. We were so hungry and supper was just a total mess with this kind of thing going on. He said with a big grin on his face..... You want to make a trip to town and eat at Sonic? We had Heidi Ho in the car with us and I just said I am starved why not! LOL I told hubby I am not to sure this is a good idea even when I can see the radar because we could be going right into something worse considering Prague,OK has actually had 2 tornadoes in one day. One in the morning and again one in the afternoon. We did it anyway. I called the neighbors next door and told them the cellar isn't all that great and has mud and maybe water in the bottom but if they got scared we would leave the gate open so they could go to the cellar. I told them we were going to Sonic! Should have seen us. He said are you happy now? Is this doing something D-I-F-F-E-R-E-N-T enough for you? I told him I LOVE it! I figure if storm chasers could do it we could to. We did great until we pulled into Sonic. He didn't want to sit where he could see the weather. When we were ordering it started getting really dark windy and nasty with some wind gusts and boy did he have that wild rabbit look on him! LOLOLOLOLOLOL We ordered and he decided that he didn't want to sit there and eat. I told him fine but I was going to chow down on the way back home. I was really hoping we would get back in time to see American Idol. It cleared up nicely on the way back and I told hubby to be sure and look behind us to make sure a tornado wasn't giving us a boost.
When we got back to the gate I called the neighbors and asked if it was safe to lock the gate yet. They said it was and thank you. For what? They said they went to the cellar! She said she had a green colored flashlight and it made it really spooky. I laughed really hard. She said it was a really nice one specially since they don't have one. Sure enough when hubby goes down later after American Idol to get our stuff out of the barrel he said there were 3 chairs down there. Did they dust the chairs off for us? Yup, they sure did! Now what gets me is he is beaming ear to ear like he is proud of that cellar and how good it is when not just a hour before he was almost refusing to go down in it!! (I think he went to sonic to get out of going down in the cellar where it is dark and nasty.) My hubby is 6'3" and weighs 190 pounds and packs a 9mm glock on his hip almost 24/7 so you tell me what is so bad about that hidy hole that he doesn't want to go down in it? LOL
There are some things I realized today. We are taking care of his 91 yo father by taking a evening meal and checking on him a couple of times a day. Here we have all this bad weather and there isn't a lot you can do for him to protect him. He moves so slow and he is so frail it wouldn't take much for him to get badly hurt. If you pick him up and take him to our house that could also easily hurt him and then even once we got here we couldn't get him down into the cellar. He can't walk it and we couldn't carry him so he was better off staying at his house and going into the bathroom like he said he does. That is just a no win deal all the way around.
I also noticed that with all our healthy eating trying to stay away from high fructose corn syrup as much as possible and MSG we don't have any snacking type of foods to take to the cellar. So I just packed up some stuff you have to boil. So now I am going to improve on food things for the BOB. A good practice run is always a good thing to see where we are lacking and all so maybe next time will be better.
Got to go now. It has been a really long day and it is now 1:30 and I think I can finally sleep. Hope everyone made it through the storms in a good way.
Ranchmama
Today Tuesday, May 24th has been a humdinger of a adventure in a worrisome kind of way. All the day before they had been talking about super bad weather. Well here in central Oklahoma we can sure get that and sometimes you just think the weather people want to scare you to death! I mean you would think we didn't have brains enough to go jump in a hole somewhere like a scared rabbit when your supposed to! Speaking of scared rabbits. Have you ever had a really wild bunny you tried to make a pet out of? We did when we lived in Arkansas a whole lifetime ago. Hubby brought it in from a nest or something one time when he was out on a tractor. We learned you just can't take the wild out of a bunny. A wild bunny is a wild bunny forever. Poor thing even with food and water in a nice safe cage he was not happy at all. He tried to hide everywhere! We brought it into the house and at the least little bit of freight he would go jump behind something and hide. We finally let the bunny go when we realized he just wasn't going to ever be happy. I got to watching bunnies on the road and from my deck out in the pasture and I noticed wild animal always know where the nearest hidy hole is. No kidding it is like radar or like when they venture out into the open they look around and say...." Hmmm.... ok there is a hole right over there and just 20 feet further is another hole if I can't get to that one." They have holes imprinted with a map to each one in there head. Ok well anyway.... we just went about our business of feeding cows this morning, him doing bird house work and me hunting for some replacement tires on old blue for the front. Seems like last week we just put them through more than they could handle checking fence lines and cutting down cedar trees with the limb loppers. Little bit after noon and a little lunch we start hearing about the tornadoes forming west of the city and probably heading this direction. Hubby is trying to ignore it and make believe those people on TV are just flapping their jaws to try and equal the amount of wind the storms are producing. I ignored him and he ignored me while I checked and packed up the medical, some clothes, food and other BOB goodies. With the clouds getting darker and the wind getting quiet I tell him we need to get one of the trucks in the barn away from hail damage. Usually we wait and take things to the cellar when we have to go but this time I have it all ready and tell him lets do it BEFORE it starts raining. You should have heard him .... " WHAT!!! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOUR TALKING ABOUT!!! YOU DON'T WANT TO GO DOWN IN THAT CELLAR!!!" Ok , why not ? Is there water in the bottom of it? Is it nastier than usual? " YOU JUST DON'T WANT TO AND I CAN SEE YOU HAVEN'T BEEN DOWN THERE IN A LONG TIME~!! All tense and nervous doesn't even touch him right now.LOL "I'M NOT GOING DOWN THERE!!! I THINK WE WOULD BE BETTER OFF JUST TO PUT THE STUFF IN THE CAR AND OUT RUN IT!!! I don't think that will work this time considering how big and long this line of storms are. Let's just put the stuff in the cellar so it will be done we can take it out later. In the mean time I have phone calls and text messages and facebook messages of people telling me to duck and run. (If they only knew how much fun hubby was being ...LOL) Got eveything down in front of the cellar sitting in the car. I tell him lets just get it in there. He opens the door and shines the light in to check it out. Yup, there is a almost 2 foot long snake skin on the wall by the steps going down. I tell him just put it on the south wall on the shelf. "I'M NOT GOING IN THAT FAR!!! NO WAY! I'M JUST GOING TO PUT IT AT THE END OF THE STEPS!!" No, the wind will suck it out and it is muddy there. He finally said he has a blue plastic barrel we can put stuff in and put it down there. I told him ok that will work.
With all that done we sat in front of the cellar in the Yukon watching the weather around us and listening to the radio and tracking it on Kfor.com to see what direction everything was going. They told everyone in Lincoln county to hit the hole it is coming your way!!! We looked at the map on the IPhone and decided that it looked like it was going to miss us. I guess this was about 6pm or so. We were so hungry and supper was just a total mess with this kind of thing going on. He said with a big grin on his face..... You want to make a trip to town and eat at Sonic? We had Heidi Ho in the car with us and I just said I am starved why not! LOL I told hubby I am not to sure this is a good idea even when I can see the radar because we could be going right into something worse considering Prague,OK has actually had 2 tornadoes in one day. One in the morning and again one in the afternoon. We did it anyway. I called the neighbors next door and told them the cellar isn't all that great and has mud and maybe water in the bottom but if they got scared we would leave the gate open so they could go to the cellar. I told them we were going to Sonic! Should have seen us. He said are you happy now? Is this doing something D-I-F-F-E-R-E-N-T enough for you? I told him I LOVE it! I figure if storm chasers could do it we could to. We did great until we pulled into Sonic. He didn't want to sit where he could see the weather. When we were ordering it started getting really dark windy and nasty with some wind gusts and boy did he have that wild rabbit look on him! LOLOLOLOLOLOL We ordered and he decided that he didn't want to sit there and eat. I told him fine but I was going to chow down on the way back home. I was really hoping we would get back in time to see American Idol. It cleared up nicely on the way back and I told hubby to be sure and look behind us to make sure a tornado wasn't giving us a boost.
When we got back to the gate I called the neighbors and asked if it was safe to lock the gate yet. They said it was and thank you. For what? They said they went to the cellar! She said she had a green colored flashlight and it made it really spooky. I laughed really hard. She said it was a really nice one specially since they don't have one. Sure enough when hubby goes down later after American Idol to get our stuff out of the barrel he said there were 3 chairs down there. Did they dust the chairs off for us? Yup, they sure did! Now what gets me is he is beaming ear to ear like he is proud of that cellar and how good it is when not just a hour before he was almost refusing to go down in it!! (I think he went to sonic to get out of going down in the cellar where it is dark and nasty.) My hubby is 6'3" and weighs 190 pounds and packs a 9mm glock on his hip almost 24/7 so you tell me what is so bad about that hidy hole that he doesn't want to go down in it? LOL
There are some things I realized today. We are taking care of his 91 yo father by taking a evening meal and checking on him a couple of times a day. Here we have all this bad weather and there isn't a lot you can do for him to protect him. He moves so slow and he is so frail it wouldn't take much for him to get badly hurt. If you pick him up and take him to our house that could also easily hurt him and then even once we got here we couldn't get him down into the cellar. He can't walk it and we couldn't carry him so he was better off staying at his house and going into the bathroom like he said he does. That is just a no win deal all the way around.
I also noticed that with all our healthy eating trying to stay away from high fructose corn syrup as much as possible and MSG we don't have any snacking type of foods to take to the cellar. So I just packed up some stuff you have to boil. So now I am going to improve on food things for the BOB. A good practice run is always a good thing to see where we are lacking and all so maybe next time will be better.
Got to go now. It has been a really long day and it is now 1:30 and I think I can finally sleep. Hope everyone made it through the storms in a good way.
Ranchmama
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