Saturday, June 7, 2008

Plans?? What are those??

I try to plan my days, I really do. The night before I check my weather and try to get a game plan together of what needs to be done and where it needs to be done at. But life is unpredictable, especially when you own animals, so for the most part, I have to go with the flow.
The plan today was to go mow mom's yard and then head to the ranch to sort horses. It is time to turn the stud with his mares, in spite of the fact that we really wanted to see Woofer's baby first. Since she is not cooperating, we went ahead and selected the mares we want to breed to him this year and today I was going to turn him out with his girls.
The first part of the plan was on track. We headed to mom's with all of our grass whacking tools.
The creek on the way to her house is full, full, full...

The countryside is emerald green...

And a couple of days of sunshine has the prairie flowers blooming...

Megan and Ute stop for a minute to peruse her hard work...

Then it was on to the ranch to get busy with those horses.
The creek on the way flooded the road this morning...

They had just opened it back up a couple of hours before we came through. The creek bottom was still raging...

That wasn't the only thing that was raging. This is the Big White River. It's banks line the north side of our property. It is a good 20 feet higher than it normally is. Actually, it is normally a drizzle of muddy water trickling through a huge riverbed...

I worry when I see it like this because you can bet it has washed out fence somewhere along the line. I know I will be walking the banks when it goes down to clean up any dangerous debris and fix fence so the horses and cattle cannot get to the riverbed.
But as luck would have it...it has already taken out some of our fence and the horses in this pasture are...of course...not where they belong. Megan and I shake some cake and they all come. But my buckskin is limping...

Yep...here is where the plans change. Frosty has cut himself deeply on some downed wire and I need to get him to town ASAP. He is no longer bleeding, but the cut looks deep. So Megan jumps on her paint horse and drives this herd into the yard, while I race back in the pickup to shut gates and lock the stud up. Once we have this bunch in the yard, we have to quickly catch the buckskin, put him in a corral and let the rest of the horses out with the other herd.
It always makes you hold your breath when you turn one herd in with another...

But these horses were all raised together, so there is usually only momentary silliness and then they are off...

Leaving Megan and I to race to town, hook up the horse trailer and haul butt back to the ranch to get the injured horse-who I want to get to town before it gets dark-so I can take a closer look at his wound and doctor it.
Mission accomplished. It got too dark to take pictures of Frosty's cut tonight. It is deep and will definitely require being taken care of to heal without much scarring, but it is not career threatening. Thank god for that. You know-I wanted to get this horse to town, just not this way.
However, I do have a very happy little cowgirl though. I figured I might as well through her Rez pony in and bring him to town too. After all, she has a 4-H show to get ready for. Wouldn't you know, as soon as Megan put him in the corral, he just had to roll in the mud. What a dork...


Now I am off to bed because tomorrow the plan is...

14 comments:

BarnGoddess said...

my motto of late "rain rain go away..."

hows Frosty??? I hope hes okay.

where's mikey???

Andrea said...

I hope the leg is going to heal quickly!! Something always happens with horses!! You never know what they will get into! :) And there is something about a mud puddle that they just can't resist!!

Anonymous said...

here in montana where i'm about ready to build an ark :) If you want to watch G-d laugh... have a plan

another brown eyed girl in montana :)
gp

20 meter circle of life said...

It has been raining here since October so I am sick of it!!!
I make a plan every day and some how life just messes it up. Oh well, just go with the flow

Flying Lily said...

Rough day but - beautiful pictures, esp the one of Meghan and Ute. Hope the cut heals nicely.

Callie said...

We're getting slammed day after day with storms and rain. That gnats are annoying at best! I drove through flash flooding on my way to work yesterday!My girls are not in the best of moods!

Pony Girl said...

Wow, what a day! That river looks ominous, oh my. That is too bad your horse got cut up on the wire. I hope the wound heals well. Two silly questions: what is "cake" (I always hear that on the ranch sites, I assume it is feed?) and also, when you mean "in town", do you mean at your place, not at your mom's land? Just wonderin'! :)
Can't wait to hear what tomorrow's plans are....
And no foal from Woofer yet? Goodness!

Rising Rainbow said...

I know what you mean about making plans and owing horses. They never work out. When they do, it's really a shock.

I don't even want to talk about rain. But I'm glad we're not flooding like you. I hope it goes away for you. Some parts of the country are in dire straights from all the flooding.

I'm glad that the horse's injuries weren't more serious.

Unknown said...

I hope the cut heals nicely.
Here also is a rainy period. In one day we have sun, rain, sun... There are storms. Winter and spring have been dry, and may be now it's raining what it should have rained before.
The pictures of the herd are beautiful, the large lands of America ... I'll come back.

Mrs. Mom said...

SEND RAIN HERE!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!!


Sorry about the cut- hope he heals well and fast for you.

AWESOME pics BECG-- just awesome. You guys live on a beautiful slice of Heaven there!

Rub the REd Dog and Ute from us too... ;)

Kristin said...

Great pictures. Hope your buckskin heals quickly.

Where's Mikey?

Unknown said...

Wow ~ Sounds like an exciting day. Hope he heals quickly for you!! Great pictures!!

PaintedPromise said...

you can send some rain here too please BUT i want it at night while i am sleeping, or on a thursday while i am at work so it will be dry enough to tractor saturday - no weekend rain as it messes up my plans {wink}

we had several horsey incidents this weekend, luckily nothing serious i don't think, although my 3-year-old has a HUGE lump on her chest... besides ice and heat alternated, any clues on what to do for a great big hematoma? it sure is exciting to introduce herds to each other {sigh} they were fine for over a week now, till she came into heat and started flirting with the new boys and the new girl took offense at that!

Mikey is ok but has shut down her blog due to nastiness from the fugly folks. major bummer, sure wish it was the other way around. she is going to concentrate on Buddy's mustang blog for a while and maybe (sshhh you didn't hear it from me) WRITE A BOOK! the horses in question did end up with the original potential adopter despite the nastiness so they are ok too, but i am sure sorry that Mikey got caught up in the crap...

Paige said...

Your plans sound like my plans--there mostly for the amusement of others. The tighter the schedule, the more likely some fool horse has hurt herself so I must trash the plans and triage.

Story of my life

Painted promise--DMSO on the lump and turn the horse out--it will go away pretty quickly