More New Life!!!

Change takes time, but in the last 3 weeks or so, we've had an increase in our little herd!!!  Both of our cows have had beautiful little heifers!!  First #6 had her calf out in the field the same evening I heard coyotes yip-yipping.  Mike went out to see IF we had a new calf and sure enough he found Mama and new baby.  BUT he couldn't get them in from the field, so he went out the next morning, but then he couldn't find the calf. So the next morning he tried again.  With our little herd, we prayed the coyotes hadn't taken it!!  But that morning he had success and this was our new addition!!!  I have to say, "like mother, like baby"  --- Little #12 looks JUST LIKE her mom!!!

She's one spunky energetic healthy little girl!!!

Then 2 weeks later, White Face (#3) surprised us with her own little heifer!  We didn't expect her for another couple of weeks!!  Below is White Face with her first little calf - a little bull:

WOW!!  Our Mr. Bull (#1) is a Brangus and he's all BLACK!!  We surely didn't expect a camel colored calf.  So we were waiting with anticipation to see what her calf looked like this time!!!  Well, here she is:

We're deciding whether to call her "Bandit" or "Spot"!  She's #13!  Luckily she was born in the immediate area because Mike got tired of cutting Mr Bull out of the distant fence where he kept attempting to visit the large herd next door.  So now the little additions are all socialized with the other farm animals.  It's starting to look like a ranch again!!!  Even Sam gets in the act... after all, he IS a working cow dog!!!!

Life Returns

After so much devastation, life returns to the ranch!  We've had rain, and the grass is growing back so that we have 'spring grass' in the fall and winter!!  I thought it was particularly interesting to see the first small snow fall on the new grass.  In many areas the grass didn't make it, but the weeds are nice and green.  So we have work to do to get our pastures back in good shape (or I should say:  Rancher Mike has his work cut out for him!!!)

Refer back to the last entry to see the almost dried-up state of our 'stock tank'!  They don't call them 'ponds' in this here state!!!  We typically refer to it as The Tank.  One heavy rain and the tank was just about full. 

Worthy of note:  You probably see Sam (who accompanies me everywhere around the property), and the horse grazing in the background, but note also... there are ducks on the tank.  Maybe next spring we can restock it with bass and catfish! 

What's really cool is that I can now see the tank from the kitchen window.  What a great view of our property:

The horses are particularly aware of where the greenest grass is .... on the other side of the fence, of course!!!  And on cool mornings after their breakfast of sweet feed (grain with molasses) and a couple of flakes of hay (which we had to buy since we didn't have any to bale thanks to the drought!), it's time to lay in the sun and rest. 

And to complete our recovery from the drought, we're enlarging the back porch for our added enjoyment, where we'll be able to  enjoy the tank and the happenings in the chicken yard and the garden while we enjoy a meal or just a tall glass of iced tea!!You might notice the time of day is well displayed in the reflections in the windows.

  Another beautiful sunset! 

 Going to bed so we can start anew with a beautiful sunrise tomorrow!