State Fair

    We went to the Wyoming State Fair yesterday. Started out with the parade. Then we went over to Casper so I could get a pair of work/farming boots. We had lunch at a Thai food place. Really good food. It is so nice to be able to relax and enjoy a nice meal. Then we went over to the mall and I bought a new camera so now I can see what I'm taking pictures of. We then went back to the fair to look at all the exhibits and catch the PRCA rodeo. We wandered through the animal barns after the rodeo. Sharon had a good time with the sheep and goats but wasn't such a big fan of the pigs. Here's some pictures of the parade and rodeo. Converse county volunteer firefighters. I just thought these were neat trucks.

I love seeing teams of horses. This is Mike Cushmans team.

 I think this is the Douglas marching band.

This sheep wagon was perfectly restored. Looked awesome!

This next picture is classic!! A pretty nifty old tractor towing a manure spreader. If you look close you can see he put a cardboard cut-out of Obama in the manure spreader.

Here's the finish of an 8 second ride. I love watching the bucking horses.

Until next time take care. If you click on the picture they get bigger.

Wednesday's Work

   Today was a really good day. We prowled around checking cows, grass and water. My boss and I found  a couple calves that needed doctoring. So we roped them and gave shots.  I am learning so much from my boss on how to be a hand. He pointed out a couple areas I need to work on with my roping. We had a good talk about the bovine thought process. Trained on our horse's a bit also. Great day to be alive!
   After lunch we tore into the pick-up with the Hydra-bed. We are putting a new clutch in it. So the rest of the day was spent spinning wrenches. Man-o-man is there a lot that goes into putting in a clutch. We had to take the exhaust system off and both drive lines. Drop the transmission and transfer case. The life of a ranch hand is never dull.
  On a side note when we were riding past an old homestead house there was a Great Horned owl ten feet from us just watching us ride by. Pretty cool to see stuff like that. Until next time take care

Great weekend

    I got Saturday off so we took off Friday night and made the 5hr drive to Dubois the see family and friends. My nephew is staying with my Dad for a week so we stayed with him and had a really good visit. There was a lot of things going on there. There was chariot racing, quilt show and the Dubois fire department buffalo BBQ. Boy was it really nice to see a bunch of our friends. I got some pictures of the races, so enjoy! My friend Jed is driving this team. He won this race.

Here's my buddy Rusty. He's riding as an outrider for the chariots. He's there in case the team tries to run away. Boy, is it fun outriding! When the teams come to the end off the track, the outrider is racing along side the team to stop them if the driver needs help.

Here's crossing the Wind River going into my uncle's place.

Until next time take care

Good News

    My Dad and my nephew are visiting for a couple days! My nephew lives in California and my Pops picked him up at the Denver airport. So they are gonna stay here a couple nights before going to Dubois where my Pops lives. It has been almost 2 years since I've seen him. Man oh man has he grown, but I guess that happens. He's 10 now but it seems like just yesterday he was falling asleep in my arms watching cartoons. It is nice to get to spend time with him. We played the X-box tonight. I haven't played that thing in years. He smoked me on every game we played. Dang kid is really handy with computers.
      Yesterday on the work front. We were horseback! Woohoo!! We had a heifer get into the neighbors so we went to bring her home. We opened the gates to shove her home and she wasn't having any of that. We tried to push her nice and easy, but she took off the other way. She had no respect for us or our horses. So my boss dropped his rope down roped her. He got a hind leg. Thats about the time she really got on the fight. She was trying to take our horses. My boss was gonna teach her to lead. He told me to get my rope on her head and around one front leg. I just got the head. We ended up throwing her down and tied her. We left her to think about the errors of her way. We went and moved the heifers to another pasture and came back with the pick-up and trailer. My boss showed me how to load a cow into the trailer if I'm by myself. I'm learning tons! It's really cool all the tricks I'm learning! It was a really good day.
  Until next time take care

Our county

   The county we live in is the least populated in the great state of Wyoming. In the 2010 census we have 2,484 people living in Niobrara county. Here's the link to the info on our county. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niobrara_County,_Wyoming.  I really think it pretty cool that Rhode Island is half the size of us but their population is 500 times more than us. They have 500 people to our every 1. Thats just crazy! We have just 3 populated towns. Betcha Rhode Island can't say that! So happy I live in a place that has some room to stretch out and not bump someone. Until next time take care

Sunday stills -Sunrise or sunsets

Hope you enjoyed looking at my sunsets. Until next time take care

Last week

   Had alot going on here. We are in the middle of haying here. We just got the first cutting done so now we are waiting for the hay to be cut again. Its busy busy around here.
  We had Sharon's parents come up for visit. So that was really nice. Sharon taught her mom how to quilt. They had a good time sewing together. Jan my father-in -law ran the lawn mower and weed eater and just puttered around here. He got alot of stuff done. We went to Scottsbluff and got 2 screen doors for the house and got them hung on Sunday. WOW it is so nice to get air flow and no bugs! It was a great visit. I'm really lucky to have such great in-laws. We are enjoying eating outside. Here's Jan and Anita in the back yard. We are having burgers.

   We went to our county fair Saturday night for the Ranch Rodeo. The events were wild cow milking, sorting pairs, some roping. Jeepers I can't remember all the events. It was a good time though. It showed some of the stuff we do here on the ranch. So it gave the In-laws good idea of what we do here.

  Sharon and I went to the fair last night for the pig wrestling. If you have never seen pig wrestling it is something to see at least once! They have different classes there are little kids and they get small cute pigs, then the pigs just get bigger and bigger.

Well thats about it for now. I got to get back to the BBQ. We got steaks, diced potatoes with onion in aluminum foil and zuccichi grilling.  Until next time take care
  Here's a picture looking west from our home. If you click the picture they get bigger.

The Trophy wall

   We have a trophy wall. My trophy wife shot the deer on the right. It is her first deer. I am so proud of her! She shot it when we lived in Dubois. It's really nice mule deer. It was a big help filling the freezer.
  My first deer is the one the left. I shot it on a late season hunt in the Ventana wilderness in California. He's a black tail. I shot him over looking the ocean. It was a great day! I was hunting with a great friend and mentor, Eldon. Haha When it comes to spinning stories and tales........There is just no stopping him. I was guiding with him hunting pigs. When I shot the Bobcat. Eldon taught me pretty much everything I know about hunting. I used a bunch of things he taught me to shoot the turkey. I called the turkey across a creek, a county road and three fences. Shot him with a 20 gauge. Our hat rack and flag holder is a 3x3 my Grandfather shot in Ruby Lake NV in '82

Well until next time take care

Week of first's

   This week I learned how to swath or cut hay, and how to run the bailer. It's kinda cool making hay. Knowing that every bail that is made will be fed out this winter.  Watching the hay fall under the cutting blades of the swather into windrow's is pretty in its own sort of way.
   I get a tooth pulled tomorrow, it has really started to hurt. I can't believe I'm saying this but I'm looking forward to get it pulled. I was gonna get it pulled last week but the dentist took X-rays and said she can't pull it. I have to go to a specialist, the root is really close to my sinus cavity.  She was afraid if she pulled it that she would open a hole between my sinus's and mouth. Not good.
 Thats about it here, until next time take care

Our Home

  Here's a picture of our "yard."  I went out to check water for the heifers and took this shot looking at our home.

Here's the heifers trailing off water. Just playing follow the leader.

This is a sunset.

If you click on my photo's they will get bigger. Well that it for tonight. Until next time take care.