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January is gone and I am sure glad of it. It was a lousy month as far as weather goes. Just after the first of the year we got into a pattern of snow like our summer thunderstorms. It would be sunny till noon then start to cloud up. Just as we headed out to do chores it would start snowing, not just a bit it would hammer down three inches in an hour and end just after we got in. This went on day after day. A few days the wind really blew drifting snow up five to six feet. I have had to plow the road just about every day. But the wind and the morning sun clears the open country where the cattle are. Here at the house we have two feet on the flat and out there is only 40% snow cover but with some real deep spots. I have had to plow the road into the feeders in 7HL pasture a couple times, which is about 9 miles. All our time is spent feeding, watering, and plowing, there is very little time left for anything else.
We took the horses over to Az. For the sale the 3rd week of January. Nate had them looking and riding really well. They had all been in blankets and manes pulled they looked great. Well we got there and it was like taking a bunch of country bumpkins on a field trip to the big city. They acted stupid from the start and never stopped. Spooking at fire hydrants, flags, and loud speakers. Needless to say they didn’t sell well. I brought most of them back and let the others go for nothing. I had to pay 400.00 per head to get them in the sale and I lost money on the whole deal. Also of course I bought a horse, surprise, surprise.
He is a nice, too tall, 3 y.o. grulla colt. Of Driftwood breeding which I have always liked. I had a Driftwood horse twenty years ago who was just a great even minded good cow horse. This young colt placed 37th out of a hundred in the ranch horse competition against a lot of finished older horses. He is just a bit U necked which is why he went cheap. I think he will grow into a lot of it. Gambler was the same way at that age, all legs and neck. He didn’t fill out till the end of his five-year-old year. His name is DGB ACE DRIFTWOOD HANCOCK we call him Ace.
It was good to get home after being in the city, I act like my country bumpkin horses there.
Maggie stayed here while I was in Az. And had wolves in the yard every night. There were tracks at the gate to our house yard.
She kept the dogs in who of course howled at the wolves that were howling outside. Makes for an unpleasant night when you are all alone 30 miles from any neighbor with a pack of wolves at the door.
After we got back from the sale the weather got better but worse. It warmed up and everything started melting during the day, all streams flowing and mud everywhere. At night it was still down to 0 so it would freeze hard. For about a week I couldn’t get into the pasture where the cattle are at all. It was just too deep in snow and then mud.
I was then able to get out on the four-wheeler and get around to most areas. I found a calf dead and chased a wolf off it, brought it home and had it looked at by the EXPERTS. Of course it was a Possible/Probable so that means I don’t get paid and no strikes go against the wolves. Same old same old.
Just last week was I able to go horseback out there and still it’s a rough trip for them. The usual winter riding mess of being ankle deep in mud one-step then in knee-deep snow the next. It really wears them out.
I took Ace out for the first time the other day. He had kinda charmed me over the last week or so while feeding, him being very friendly and personable. He was a bit skittery while saddling and side stepped when I mounted up. He was reluctant to leave the other horses and when we got to the shipping pens they were all running the fence along side us. He got a bit humpy but I lined him out and down the road we went. Once we were out of sight of them he was perfect. We rode across the north trap and on out into 7HL. When we got to the feeders we found an old cow I had seen the other day. She was getting pretty thin and I had decided to sell her. We started moving her back west towards the H.Q. and Ace was awesome. He was all business, ears perked and he never took his eye off that cow. A couple hours later we were home and I knew I had bought a good one.
When I came back from the sale I quarantined the returning horses in the shipping pens for a week but got feeling sorry for them there and let them out. Now a week later to the day all my horses are sick. Runny noses, coughs, fever. I should have not gotten soft and left them there for another couple days. |
