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...

Enough Freakin Rain Already...

In South Dakota, you learn at an early age NOT to bitch about moisture. But enough is enough!! I need some sunshine. I need a dry day-several would be nice.
This is my driveway...


It is so damn green around here, it hurts your eyes.

Actually, I sort of dread it when it does stop raining and the sun starts shining. It is going to be nonstop mowing. Crap!! Right now the grass really isn't growing, but the damn weeds haven't stopped. I will be back to weed wacking in the pasture again too. Double Crap!!

Yesterday, I took the camera to mom's to take before and after pictures of the horse's feet. Ummm....some of them got just a little long. I forgot to put the rechargable batteries in the camera. So you will have to visualize the beauty of taking a size 2 back to a normal size 0. All of this moisture sure makes trimming easy. I seriously need to build some sort of tie rack that I can run water in and let the horses stand in mud for a couple of days before I trim for those dry, dry months. Trying to trim feet in August/September around here is like trying to chip cement off the sidewalk-ugghh.

My dear brother has been driving back and forth between the ranch and town this week. I don't envy him. There is no gravel on the last five miles of road and the old saying about our ranch is "when we get moisture, you are either in or out". My 3/4 ton would never make it-even in 4-wheel. It is simply too heavy. His 1/2 ton beater, rez-truck makes the trip as long as you never back off the gas. If you hit the brakes-you are finished-LOL. I have rode with him a couple of times in these situations and I cannot say that I considered it even remotely "fun". I am pretty sure my fingernails are still embedded in the dash.
Today he gave up and his wife had to walk in the last mile. She will stay there until we can come rescue her. Someone needs to be there to take care of horses in the corral.
I am thinking that a couple of dry days and it will be perfect to finish pounding fence posts. Oh fun. There are a lot of other things that I would rather do than build fence.

Red Dog is scared of the thunder and always squeezes between me and the wall when I am on the computer...


Sadly, the little chick did not make it. One minute he was fine, the next he was gone. Poor little guy.

Life's Little Surprises

Some days my life closely resembles Mikey's. If anything strange and unusual is going to happen...it usually does.
I was in the barn trimming horse number 6 for the day when Megan and I heard a baby bird. I ignored it the first time I heard it. Listened a little more carefully the second time I heard it. And put the foot down to look the third time I heard it.

When I stood up, Megan said "I hear a baby bird". I said "I do to". No sooner had I uttered those words when we both spied a little fluff ball hopping over the cement ledge into the barn. The dogs spied it at the same time. Red Dog lunged and earned himself a kick in the ribs, Ute ran the other way and I tackled the fluff ball...
It's a baby Sharp Tailed Grouse!! WTH!!! Where did this come from???

Both of us were so surprised that the only thing we could think to do was take it to the house to show mom. She didn't even want to look. Mom is not as enamored of baby birds as Megan and I.
The next step was to walk around in the rain soaked grass to see if we could find a nest or the momma bird with the rest of her brood.
Nothing.

So the little fluff ball is safely nestled into his new home-in a box...in the bathroom.
The bathroom heater is on and Megan captured a jar full of flies to feed him.

Ummm...he has different ideas of where he feels safe...
Now the only thing we can figure is that the dogs rousted a momma grouse and one of them captured a baby. The fluff ball is not injured, nor was he wet when we found him. There is no way he wandered there by himself. He is not exactly a new hatch-he already is developing tiny little wing feathers and has pin feathers developing on his neck.

Usually grouse cannot be raised in captivity-no one really knows why-although Megan believes she has discovered the secret...They are bug-eaters from the time they hatch and will not eat chick scratch. Looks like Megan is going to be busy keeping flies captured. I have my fingers crossed that she can raise the little shit. It is so damn cute!!!