Back In The Saddle

Here goes nothing...

I'm back. The election cycle is over and I am working on destressing. (Which would be a lot easier if I knew where my next paycheck was coming from...but I'm trying really hard not to break into tears about that whole situation.)

This weekend we went to the ranch for round up and shipping. It was a blast!

Diddy and I left on Thursday afternoon after enjoying lunch with O'Dub. The ride up was just like old times. He drove. I controlled the radio. It's how we remain friends.

Diddy has this fancy Sirius radio with a remote and I can go through the channels to see what else is playing without changing from the song I'm listening to. On a good day this means that we never have to go a moment without ROCKING music. On a normal day, this means that we rarely get to listen to a full song...

I will admit, I have a little bit of music ADD. I'm so afraid of missing a good song, that I'm constantly going through the stations to see what is playing. And nothing angers me more than finding a great song and clicking on that station only to hear the last line. Talk about road rage.

Either way, Sirius wasn't letting me down on Thursday. Vanilla Ice, Warren G, Tag Team, Bell Biv Devoe (I did feel a little old when I was singing, That girl is poison... and Diddy looked at me like a fruitcake and then told me he didn't know who Bell Biv Devoe was), the list goes on and on - suffice it to say that there was a dance party to end all dance parties.

Friday morning, we wake up and head to the ranch with Dirty and PapaBear. Dirty and PapaBear and some others had rode on Thursday and gathered the majority of the cattle herd, but there were a few missing and Diddy, Dirty, and I headed out on horseback to find a cow and her calf. 

It was all fun and games - we were laughing and having a good ol' time - and then we found the pair and they took off from behind the tree they were in. So Dirty and I went one way and Diddy went the other way and we were going to turn the cattle around and head for home, when the horse I was on came up with her own plan. She took off running at full speed.

Let me break for a moment to tell you that this horse comes from race horse stock. When we had a horse race at our family reunion (yes, we did that), this horse KILLED the others. It wasn't even a contest.

So, there we are running full speed after a cow and her calf and I thought I was going to die. Seriously, I have no idea how I held on. Or made her stop.

I always wanted to own a race horse, but I never wanted to be a jockey.

Either way, we all ended up back at the HQ without the cow and her calf and I wasn't getting on another horse.

We had lunch and then took off for the corrals to sort the cattle.

I learned a long time ago that sometimes I can be most helpful by staying out of the way. So gates were assigned and I didn't have one so I grabbed the camera to record the activities. 

Do you see that horse in front? With the red arrow? I hate that horse!

Papa is working his gate, always with a cigar.

 Looking north from the corrals, this is the view.

Now I'm no photographer, but that is a great picture, if I do say so myself.

It was a successful trip to the ranch. We shipped the steers to the feedlot, the heifers to H&M's house, and moved the mama cows to the east side of the ranch for the winter.

We all laughed a lot and we're looking forward to the next trip.