rtarpan

Good to hear from you Scheidgirl.  We have been very busy here with a blizzard.  I am in the house because the only way to get out to the cows & calves is in the 4-wheel drive tractor.  My husband, Randy, and our daughter, Miranda, are out in it now.  So far as I know, we have lost one calf in the creek, he drowned while trying to cross.  The snow is about 1 1/2 foot deep with 3'-5' drifts.  Cows will blow out of their protection and go with the wind, often times leaving their calves.  It can be very difficult to round them up and united back with their calves.

I am house cleaning because the worrying is really bothering me!  

I will keep you posted.  Thanks for replying.  Terry

I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder!  Montana is very beautiful to me, even the eastern plains where I am.  They call Montana, Big Sky Country, for a good reason.  Where ever you look, you can see a lot of sky and open country.  Yes, we do have a lot of wind here and an occational blizzard, but we don't have; earthquakes, rarely a tornado, mansoon's, hurricanes, traffic, pollution, very little crime, and no large crowds of people!  Here on the ranch, it is very quiet with land and wildlife all around us.

We are still have no power(5 days)and are running on a generator.  There is hundreds of electrical poles down from the storm, so it could be awhile before our power is retored.  I won't have t he computer on much until we do.

Good to hear from you,

Terry

SIL?  I don't know what a BB is.  I am new to this.

We are still out of power (1 week) and it looks like we won't have any for a long time.  Just in our county, there is over 1,500 electrical poles down.  Even if they could fix them, they can't get to them because of the mud.  We just got another inch of rain last night.  The river and all of the creeks are flooding and the roads (most are dirt roads here) are impassable.  We have true gumbo ground here.  When it is wet, gumbo sticks and builds up onto everything.  The wheels of a pick-up can build up to the point where they won't move!  

We live in the very SE corner of Montana.  It is open prarie land with cactus and sagebrush.  We don't get much rain here, so we are very happy to get rain in any amount.  The cattle will do good this year and if everything goes well, we should put up a lot of hay this year.  We like it when it floods!  All of the cows & calves are on higher ground right now and are fine.

We have 2 ranchs about 25 miles apart.  The home ranch is called Thompson Creek Ranch and Cottonwood Ranch is the one we use for our summer range.  We had hoped to trail the cows with the older calves out to Cottonwood the week-end of the 18th, but may have to put that off.  We haven't been able to get the calves branded, due to the biizzard and all of the rain.  We hope to brand this week-end.

If anyone has questions, please ask.

SCGranny: I have been to SC one for a hurricane with the Red Cross.  I don't do national disaster work anymore though.  It is very pretty in places, but way too many people for me!  I am not sure what breed, Corientes, are.  I will have to ask Randy, my husband. So the cattle are raised just as rodeo stock?

I wish I could grow a garden, but just don't have time.  I work outside on the ranch and we work 7 days a week here.  My mother-in-law has a garden, but we don't get much from it!

I love hearing from everyone!

Terry

Happy Mother's Day!  We got almost another inch of rain on Friday, so it is very muddy here again.  Our son, Brandon did make it home for part of the week-end.  We had to plow out to the highway and get him, but it was good to see him.  Brandon has left now, headed back to the base.

Nothing different here today.  I have to do laundry today.  It is suppose to be a sunny day and I have to hang everything on the clothes line, due to we still have not power.

Got to get busy!

Terry

Haven't heard from anyone in awhile, how are you doing.  We are still out of power, 18 days so far.  They say maybe some time next week.  

It is just beautiful out here right now.  I love springtime on the ranch.  Everything is turning green and everything is having babies!  The wild turkeys have been out up and down the creek, mating.  It is fun to watch the males when they have all of their feathers out and they are trying to attract the females.  There is a lot more males than females.  We have a lot of bald eagles here and they are hard on the females and baby turkeys.

This morning we were bringing in some cows & calves for banding and there was a young bald eagle that followed us for a long time.  They are fun to watch because they are not wise enough to be careful!

We are almost done calving, only about 15 left to go.  We have about all the calves branded, fly tagged, and casterated.  We will be trailing them out to the other ranch soon.

Our daughter, Miranda, left today for her National Guard boot camp.  This will be her 3rd time at boot camp training.  She was in the Navy for 5 years, then volunteered to retain Army and go to Iraq for a year.  Now she is going to be in the National Guard.  While in the Guard, she will be going to college in Bozeman, Mt studying Ag business and animal science.  Miranda will be gone for about 6 weeks, I will really miss her.

Got to run,

Terry

Thank you for the abbrev.'s, they make sense now!  How do I go to kitchen chat?  Where is your blog?

We finally got our power back yesterday.  It had been out for 19 days this time.

We hauled several loads of cows & calves out to the other ranch yesterday and today.  We plan to do it again tomarrow and hopefully be done.  We need to start our farming, but rain is coming.

We hope to trail the main bunch of cows out to the other ranch soon.

Terry

Hello, Florida!  I haven't been able to post anything because we just found out my mom has terminal cancer all  thru her.  3 days after we found this out my dad had emergency 4X by-pass on his heart!  My siblings, etc are flying in tonight for a reunion with Mom.  She has a strong faith in God and is really doing well with everything.

Not much going on here on the ranch right now.  We got all the cattle trailed or hauled to the summer ranch, except for a few late calvers.  It has been raining almost everyday here and we just flooded here Thurs & Friday.  It seems to have slowed down now.  We had to move the horses, they were surrounded by water!

We did not get out spring crops planted this year due to all of the rain.  We don't get much rain here, normally.  All of the alfalfa is really taking off and the Fall grain crops are coming up pretty good.  We will have more hay to put up than we have hay corrals to put it in again this year.  After years of severe drought, we are very happy here.  I don't remember when it has ever been more green here.

We are hoping to brand the last of the calves tomarrow when my sister and her two kids are here.  They are very city kids, so it should be interesting!

Terry

I love antique shopping!  You can find some great deals out here compare to other places.  Enjoy!

We have to haul our horses to the other ranch today.  The misquitoes are terrible, the worst I have ever seen.  They are big and come is black clouds!

Terry