Cute puppies, a rant, and a Meme

First the rant:

Some town people think it's perfectly acceptable to dump unwanted puppies on country folk. I guess because it looks like we have tons of room for them to run around and we have nothing better to do, right?

If you have a dog and don't WANT puppies and there is a chance that this dog could get knocked up or knock up some other dog, spay or neuter them. The country is not a place to dump your dogs. If we had a need for mass quantities of dogs, or any dog at all, we will go get one ourself, you don't need to choose for us. Take some responsibility for your pets, please.

Dogs that get dumped end up running in packs if not adopted by a loving family. Then they go wild. And wild dogs attack other dogs, or calves, or horses, or people. And can carry rabies.

My mother-in-law was the target of puppy dumping the other day. And while these chocolate lab mutts are cute as can be, we don't need more dogs. Tex is quite enough dog for our family. We don't need them to start running around chasing calves. Now it appears I'm responsible for finding homes for these darling puppies. She and I have both tried all week to find homes for these two, to no avail. I stopped by her house to take them to town for her to the pound.

And I apologize for those that I have called or visited the past two days trying to find a good home for these innocent pups. They didn't ask for this, neither did I. But please forgive me Julie and Buck and Rossi and anyone else I have pestered. LOL!

But on the way, the girls had to hold them and fell in love. And while I still have no intentions of keeping them, I just couldn't take them to the pound.

So, I brought them home. My good friend Lisa down at KSEL (the country station in town) said she will try to mention them on the air and we will try to find a good home for them.

I put them in this pen so that Tex wouldn't maul them to death. He's never been around another dog since he left his own litter mates. I wasn't sure how he would react. He barked and sniffed them abit while the fence stood between them. And so far I think he may be ok. I may try to put them in the yard in a bit where they will have more room and shade. Tex can also come and go as he pleases, since he can jump the yard fence (but the pen fence is too tall for him at 6 feet).

All I ask for is a good home for these puppies. They are cute as a button. They are free. Very friendly and loving.

And now the Meme. Buck posted his workspace, who was tagged by someone else, etc. So, here is mine.

It was stipulated that you couldn't clean it up first. Oh, dear. Well, there is the McDonald's Quarter pounder and coke I had for lunch. Under the box for the burger are phone books and farm journals that came in this weeks mail. There are McDs toys from the kids' happy meals today (Thursday is $1.69 happy meals!!), a Power Ranger 4-wheeler, cup-o-pens and pencils, some other various things I have printed, stapler, a set of allen wrenches from fixing the treadmill the other day, some Bath and Body Works Wild Honeysuckle lotion, the 2006 tax returns (?!), school catalog from ENMU and my degree plan, creative memories picture/paper cropper (what do you mean you can't see all that? It's just buried a little bit). On top of the printer are some CD-ROMS and my mother's day present from Ch'ree. Under the printer are some stackable organizers that look like chaos but I know what's them all. And mail. Yes it's a mess. Maybe today I'll clean it up some (uh, I'll shove everything I can in a drawer).

Hey, 5 people use this desk and computer. I'm not the only one who messes it up!!

May activities, 2008

We had Shelby's Birthday Party. She requested Cheesecake for her cake and Stuffed Shells for dinner. We had nearly 20 of our friends and family over, and between myself, my SIL Amanda and a friend Karen, we killed many a margarita that night. We later broke out the musical instruments, Amanda and I on our guitars, while Jeff played bass and Don on the fiddle. We are becoming quite the musical family.

Last Monday was Chance's Preschool Tea. The 2nd year preschoolers always wind the Maypole. Chance is so ready for Kindergarden!

Shelby and Ch'ree both had awards assemblies. I missed Shelby's because I was on Chance's field trip to the Clovis Zoo. But she received 7 awards, including A/B honor roll for each of her subjects and perfect attendance.

Ch'ree cleaned up as well. She was almost the only one in her class on A honor roll, but one of her grades slipped down to a B. I give her an A for effort, though. She received 6 awards (missed Perfect Attendance by one day when she was sick). With her is her best friend, Mercedes. (Buck, this is Consuelo's daughter. C. was sitting in front of me at the assembly and asked me where these nerdy kids came from).

And mom, these pictures were taken with my NEW lens! Not bad, eh?

And we have had wind the past few days. Here are the poor cows trudging along in a sand storm.

I went out to feed with Jeff one day. I think this is the cutest calf out of the bunch this year.

Hey, somebody help me get this cactus off my chin, please!

This baby caught my eye, too! He's so new, his umbilical stump hasn't fallen off yet!

Tex was on the prowl for rabbits. I though this was a cool picture because we were bouncing around in the feed truck when I took it, and it wasn't a smooth trip. I think it shows what a decent camera can do. I have a Nikon D50 and I absolutely LOVE it! The rains have finally helped our grass and it's starting to green up, as well as the mesquite.

Ridin' the horses

I've always been passionate about horses. Always loved to go riding, or just brush and look at them. My first ride I was probably 3 or 4. It was in someone's house. Not sure why. Hope that little pony didn't make a mess. When my daddy took me to San Diego to visit some family, someone took me riding then. I remember when I was about 6 years old and my grandmother took my cousin to a riding stable that rented out rides. And I wanted to go SO BAD. But, I was forced to wait in the car (because I was having a huge temper tantrum). I was dusty and dirty and remembered wiping my dirty tears on the white bed sheet that Grandma used to protect the upholestry in the car. I didn't get a ride that time, but later that summer after I had calmed down, I did. I collected Bryer model horses, watched dang near every horse movie and read many a horse book (Black Stallions, Misty, Black Beauty, etc). I love horses.

When my father and stepmother first started getting their horses, it was one of the highlights of weekend and summer visits, just to brush them. I taught myself how to french braid on their tails, and enjoyed just clipping them with the electric clippers and brushing their manes and tails. I didn't even mind cleaning their stalls that much (really, Dad, I didn't. Some of my fondest memories are cleaning stalls and listening to the radio).

My father gave me my horse that I still have now. He was one of the first horses whose parents he owned and bred. His name is Dude, and I've had him since I was about 13. Everyone calls him a circus animal, and rightly so. He has a "spirited" streak in him. But he is my baby. I remember when he would be asleep in his stall and I would quietly walk in and lay down with him. He had a way of letting us know if he was out of water in his stall. First he would tear the 5-gallon bucket off the wall and stick it on his head. Then he would run it up and down the slats of his stall making a huge racket. When he would hear us enter the barn, he would then toss his head so that the bucket would fly over the walls of the stall and into the hallway so we could see that it was him out of water.

His spirited side wasn't always so cute. There was an incident with my father and the manure pile that Dude dragged him through. And the time when he tossed me into a fence. I think one time my dad threatened to shoot him with his .38 Special. LOL! He also used to have symptoms of colic about every 6 weeks or so and we would spend hours day and night walking him around praying he would be ok. Oddly enough, once I dragged his butt to New Mexico back in 1995, only one such attack occured.

Today for the first time in about 10 years, the kids and I talked Jeff into letting us ride the horses. It's always been a fear to let the kids ride. After all, why would they need to? We gather our cows with 4-wheelers and a feed truck. Jeff has no intention of letting them rodeo or show them. Then there was the local little 3 year old boy whose horse got spooked by a rope and drug him to death a few years ago.

Mundy is my father-in-law's horse. He's old. He's so old, he's been fitted for armor. He's so old, he's been shot with arrows before. He's so old, Coronado rode him into battle. He's so old...well, you get the picture. Really, he's about 28 years old. He had an accident shortly before Jeff and I were married (13 years ago) and messed up his hind feet. He's enjoyed a retired life out to pasture since.

Being that old and half crippled, Jeff finally decided that he would be gentle enough for his precious children. So we caught him, brushed him and saddled him up. Then Jeff led them around (just in case. Not taking any chances here).

Chance and Ch'ree had a turn

Then just Ch'ree. Mundy kinda has a mind of his own. He runs in two speeds: slow and stop. Here he had decided to stop. Dude was also nickering back in the pens. They weren't too sure of what was going on.

Then Shelby got a turn.

Shelby and Drew together

Drew and Chance. Drew has discovered that he LOVES horses!

After Mundy had his turn, I decided to try out Dude. We had a bit of trouble catching him. When you haven't had a halter on in years, guess you really don't want to get caught. But we finally did. First I brushed him, then lunged him a bit on a line. Then I wondered if I remembered how to saddle a horse. I had a little trouble with straps. Dude and I were raised riding English (he's a Tennessee Walking Horse, not a Quarter Horse like everything else around here), and the hardware and buckles are a bit different than our Western gear, but Jeff set me straight. Dude didn't object too bad with the bit, and I lunged him some more. Finally, I decided to just get on him and see what happened.

Had this been Dude 10 years ago, I'm sure he would have bucked or spun (in fact, I think that's what he did do last time he was ridden, 10 years ago). But I guess age must have mellowed him, and we just walked around for a bit. I even got him to trot a little, but that's it. It was nice just to be on a horse again. It's sad that he is about 22 years old, think of all the years of riding I've missed (doing silly things like birthing and caring for children).

And for a reward, they got a nice big bale of alfalfa. This is Mundy. And he has ALWAYS been this skinny. No matter if he has been wormed and on grain and unlimited supply of good hay (all of the above we have done). He's just a skinny horse. Dude has the exact same treatment and he's kinda fat. Go figure.

"Alfalfa? Alfalfa!! Why do THEY get alfalfa and all we get are cubes and unlimited pasture and haygrazer. We want ALFALFA!!!!" Look at the dust they are stirring up! No, they didn't get any alfalfa. Guess they are mad at us now.

"Where is my alfalfa?"

Branding Cattle

The one drawback about closing down the old site was that all the old content (7 or 8 years of accumulated stuff) went away with it. So periodically, I'm going to put a post up that was actually a page from the other site. Just a bit of info about us (our work, projects, vacations, kids, whatever I feel like subjecting you to). There should be a record of it in the sidebar somewhere (look under vacation, or farm, or something like that. Sorta like a table of contents).

Today, we are branding cattle (well, no. Not TODAY. That's just what I'm going to show you today).

This here is what we heat the branding irons in. It's connected to a propane bottle (not in the picture). Branding is an important part of ranching. It identifies your cattle from someone else's, for one. Say a fence is down (or some idiot guy doesn't fix his fences and his cows are ALWAYS getting out and breaking into OUR pastures and mingling with OUR cows). You gotta have someway to tell them apart. You also must have cows branded in order to sell them, at least in New Mexico you do. You also can't sell cows that have a fresh brand. They must be 2-3 weeks old or so (the scab from the brand will have peeled off). This also deters rustlers from stealing cattle. Because they don't want to have to feed them and house them for 3 weeks waiting for that brand to peel off.

There are a couple of different ways to brand cattle. There is the old fashioned way (which is more work, but I think more fun). Everyone gets up at 4am. And when I say everyone, I mean your neighbors, uncles, cousins and other folks get up at 4am, saddle and load their horses in trailers, then drive them out to your place. By 5am they arrive with the horses, go way out into the pastures, find all the cattle, and herd them up to a big pen or two (usually they try to seperate the calves from the mamas). Then a one or two guys will remain on their horses and ROPE a calf, drag it away from the other cows. A couple of strong cowboys will then catch the roped calf, throw him to the ground, and the calf is swarmed by a bunch of people, each with a different job. One is castrating, one branding, one dehorning, one vaccinating, one ear tagging (varies from ranch to ranch). The next week we go help the neighbor out with his cattle. But anymore, everyone around here does it another way.

This is a branding chute. And we don't even use the horses anymore. Our cows are "trained" so that when they hear the feed truck, the come a'runnin'!! Gotta be the feed truck. You can go out there in a regular pickup and they won't even look at you. But the FEED truck (in our case, a 1986 F-250), they KNOW that sound!! We can also use a 4-wheeler to find any that wandered off (but that doesn't happen with our cows. They want that FEED!).

We also have a pretty big setup of pens by the house. A few big ones, some smaller ones, gates, chutes, runs. We can put them all in one big pen, then seperate them out (calves from mamas). All the calves are then in one pen with a narrow run that they line up single file.

Here is Jeff's dad, Don. That stick in his hand is a cattle prod. It gives the cows a little shock to get them moving thru the run and into the chute. Sometimes they get a little stubborn (think they know what's coming?)

Here is a good view of the chute. As soon as the cows head gets thru a hole in the front, we trap him/her in there and squeeze the chute shut. The cow can't go forward or backward, or lie down or anything. You can fit a pretty good sized cow in this chute. For really small calves, we have a smaller chute. It's down a different run. On this day, we didn't have any small ones.

The bars will fold down two at a time for easy access to whatever part of the body you apply your brand to. Brands are registered with the state, so you have to do it the same each time.

There is also a part near the bottom that folds down for easy access to a bull calf's "manly" areas. Because he won't be a bull no more. Nope, time for him to become a steer. We used to just use a pocket knife and cut them off. Some people save them (the testicles), take them home and fry 'em up. AKA Rocky Mountain Oysters. And to tell you the truth, I think they are pretty tasty. But, the Essary family doesn't do that. Now we use a bander. There are different kinds of banders. Some are nothing more than a small, really thick rubber band that's put around the base of them. We have a SmartBander, which is a little different than that. It's not supposed to be as traumatic on the calf and something to do with hormones. In a week or two, they just fall off.

And while the calf is in the chute, we can do other things, like dehorn, vaccinate, ear tag, put some wormer on them. We do not use horomones, though.

Oh, great. I'm caught. Hey, wait a sec! What are you doing with that hot thing!!??

OUCH!!!!

Actually, it only hurts for a second (well, I'm assuming. They don't seem to be bothered by it once you done. Having never been branded myself, I guess I really can't speak for them). This is our brand.

Then they are all turned back out to their mamas, and it's like nothing ever happend. We have such a small operation (50 head), we can easily do all our calves in a day with just two people. But sometimes it's fun to invite some friends over anyway to help. Drink some beer, tell some dirty jokes, do a little work. And be rest assured that the wife has some big meal cooked up at the house. Like a big BBQ briscut, some mashed taters or tater salad, buns, broccoli casserole, and homemade ice cream to go with some peach cobbler. Except that this wife likes to be down where the action is and doesn't quite go that far. But Jeff's mother does! The past few years with little kids underfoot I've been at the house more, but soon, they will be old enough to be down there and not be in the way.

Here's some pictures of our cows I took the other day while we were driving around the ranch.

Ha! I'm a horse. You aren't going to get near ME with those hot things!!! (actually, many ranches do brand their horses. We just choose not to)