Wind, Fire, and Hay...

I really cannot believe how fast this summer is flying by. I only have three weeks left here in Wyoming until I move back to Stillwater. But who wants to dwell on the low points when there are so many awesome things around us?

I really didn’t do just a whole lot of exciting things this week. We are in the middle of hay season so I have been doing lots of baling. We use a big square baler so there is not much to it; much less than there is to round baling. But the rain seems to be hitting at all the wrong times and we are farther behind with the hay crop than we thought. I have started swathing and baling one of the pivots with oats, barley, and triticale. It is 150 acres and it is taking forever to get done. When swathing and baling pivots; the tracks must follow the pivot circle not just straight lines across the field. So I have been driving circles around for the last 2 days. Yesterday I got 201 bales and didn’t even make it into the first tower, just to outside rounds.

It is finally getting warm here, but not hot by any means. I love that I can leave all of the windows and screen doors open at the house all day, every day and not have to worry about it being too hot and humid. Also, the fact that we have no air conditioner helps justify leaving them open.

We moved all of the cattle from our location to the main ranch to be taken into the mountains this weekend. It took 5 bull haulers to get them all. I have loaded trucks all my life for our stocker operation and sale barn and last summer for the feed yards, so I am accustomed to sorting out the cattle in the different sized groups quickly to be loaded on the trailers. Well no one else here seems to have done it much, so it got a little messy at first. Then we finally got it worked out. I worked with Molly to sort out the groups of calves then cows, and we had all the groups ready to load before they needed them. I like it when things work out like that.

I got to be a Wyoming Bureau of Land Management Firefighter this week. We had some brush on some BLM land catch fire from a lightning strike on Tuesday. Katy Jane, Will, Molly, and I got the fire put out before any of the BLM guys got there. There was some smoldering brush left for them to play with though. It’s kinda funny cause the fire trucks always take forever to get to our ranch back home too and we always get the fire put out before they get there. The fire only burned about 5-7 acres, but it could have been really bad because the wind was blowing a good 15-20 that day. Thank goodness for watchful neighbors.

Well I think that is about all there is going on this last week. I am headed to Worland and Thermopolis today. There are supposed to be some interesting things to see in Thermop, as the locals like to call it. Have a great week!

Oh! Can’t forget to mention; Katy Jane got me a ranch cook book with lots of ranch recipes and the stories that go along with them. I am going to try a few things this week and see how they turn out. Y'all in Stillwater will also be guinea pigs for some of these recipes when I get back, so Watch Out!