Where's spring?

On Tues. and Wed. the weather got up to 60 degrees. We got to shed the coveralls and jackets and work in our shirtsleeves. The fence in the alley finally got finished because the ground had thawed and we were able to dig post holes without a lot of effort. We got some cattle sorted, banded some ram lambs and really enjoyed the nice weather.
Yesterday was another story. The temps dropped to 30 with a light wind. It was pretty cold. Chores were done morning and night but other than that, I spent the day at home.
My mom called me the other day and asked us to come up to Cody, WY for Easter on April 12th. I would have to take 3 days off because it takes between 9 - 10 hours to get there from here. I talked with Bob about it and he said it would cost too much so I couldn't go. I only see my mom and sister who lives in Riverton once or twice a year so I really want to go. My other sister from Laramie will be going also. I have a nephew in Sheridan that will come down also.
Bob is planning a fishing trip with his kids soon. I think they will go up around Thermopolis to fish.
Today at work we will fertility test the bulls that are going to the sale. It is supposed to be cold today, so we might have to set posts and panels in the shop area. That will take 2 - 3 hours to complete before we're ready for the vet to begin on the bulls.
Monday will be the ultrasound on the bulls and heifers.
Hope you all have a safe and happy weekend!

Shearing day

Marv shearing!

We had 2 1/2 days of sheep shearing over the weekend. 215 sheep were sheared, ewes, ewe lambs and rams. 2 shearers were working. Marv who is 72 years old and he said he started shearing Feb 20, 1958. That is quite a few years of work. He said he normally sheared 20,000 sheep a year but had a record year once of 50,000. Over 51 years that is a lot of sheep. He still is going strong and handles the sheep like he is 20 years old. The other shearer, Robin, is 38 years old and weighed about 100 pounds. She did really well handling the 300# sheep tho. Here's a couple pictures of the eventful weekend.

This is Marv and Henry stuffing the wool sack with wool. Robin shearing.

The before and after pictures.

Feb 18, 2009

Here's a pic of the flowers I got from Bob on Valentine's Day. They are called the Blue rose, but are a light lavender in color. My favorite color and I collect teddy bears, so it was a great gift.

It's been a while since my last post, only because my computer has been in the shop. I wasn't able to get onto Internet Explorer or go anywhere on the web. Dee Dee who works on computers here, has finally fixed the computer...Thanks, Dee Dee....

We have had some good weather the past few days. On Sun we trimmed bulls that will be sold on Mar. 11th. A few pics with my new telephoto lens. I don't know if I like the lens, it shows the inside of the sleeve of the lens and doesn't get a good photo. They trimmed the bulls and then used the torch to burn off the hair left over. The bulls looked good after they were done. 34 bulls were trimmed and it took about 5 hours to complete.

This is a shot of the bulls after they were trimmed.

A calf was brought down the other day because the mother died. We are now bottle feeding him 2 times a day.

We have cleaned out the shop, moving stuff to the pole shed and stuff from the pole shed to the shop to get ready for the sheep to be moved into the shop. The shearer that will be coming this weekend will need the sheep to be penned up for the night before. We have about 200 sheep to shear. The shearer will have someone helping him and will be able to shear about 140 per day.

We had to move horse carts around, pull tools from the shop to the pole shed, move pallets of feed around and make way for anything else coming in.

We put up an electric fence for the bulls since some bulls got into a pen they were'nt supposed to. We tried to tag 3 new calves but the tagger is broke and have to wait to tag them till we get a new one.

Here's a pic of one of the new calves. He is about a day old and 80 pounds.

2/7/09

We have had some beautiful weather for the past few days. It's been getting up to about 65 degrees. That is shirtsleeve weather and put the coats away! This will all change tomorrow (Sunday). A nice cold front is coming in with rain and snow.

Bob has been helping a friend who was contracted by the railroad to clean up coal from an 11 car derailment. Some interesting information is that each of these cars carry approximately 200,000 pounds of coal. That would be about 1 million pounds per 5 cars. In this case, 11 cars would be about 2 million 200,000 pounds of coal.

Most of the trains that come thru here are pulling about 100 - 150 cars hauling coal and they come thru about every 20 minutes, 24/7. Now that's a lot of coal!!!!

This coal is coming from the Gillette, WYO area and headed east.

If we can find the price of a pound of coal, it will be an interesting figure to report in a future log.

If you look above the Railroad Crossing sign there is a string of Canada geese that flew by to see what was up...Goose hunting season ended yesterday so they are safe for another season.

The other photo shows an excavator, yellow, used for loading coal into dump trucks for hauling it away.

Bob and I went to Lisco, NE last night, a small town 15 miles from Oshkosh. We went for my birthday dinner of prime rib. My birthday isn't until Monday but they only serve prime rib on Fri. so I was able to get an early present. It was wonderful and the place got really busy with the end of the goose hunters.

Feb 4, 2009

Not too much to post these days. We've been having some warmer weather, it was 64 degrees today.
We moved heifers that are calving, to a corral near the house. They will be easier to watch if problems arise. We have had a couple heifers have some hard times with the first calf.
I am now feeding 4 lambs. The mothers don't have enough milk and I have to supplement them. They are so cute and know when it is time to eat.
I am now going to work every morning for a while till lambing season ends. We have to get the barn ready and shop ready for 110 ewes to lamb. On Feb. 20th we will have the shearer out to get all the ewes sheared.
Bob is going to be going to work tomorrow at 5:15am. He was asked to be a flagger up by Bridgeport. There was a train derailment and the cleanup needs flaggers. So, gotta pack a lunch and lots of water for Bob tomorrow.
Have a good week!