Shipping

Early November is an exciting time around here.  Its when we ship our calves and officially end that ranch year.  Its the culmination of hours and hours and hours of work, physical work, emotional decisions and stresses, long days, short nights, lots of hay, lots of manure, cold windy days, and warm sunny beautiful days.  This year while I was watching the guys working in the corrals sorting and dealing with these calves I was thinking about February, March, and April when these same calves were being born and all the time and energy that went into getting them off to a good start.  Not that long ago, they were getting their ear tag and figuring out how to stand! No they're nice big healthy calves supporting our families and making this whole ranch world go 'round.  Its a rewarding feeling and a time to reflect and be thankful for another year of good work and blessings from God.  

This year Quinn woke up early and went with Kory to get the cows/calves sorted off and ready to roll in the corrals.  When I showed up things were very much under control and he was working hard.  

He was proud to have his own sorting stick! I was proud for him to spend the day working with his Dad, Uncles, and Grandpa.  Thats a pretty good day! 

Here's a nice random selfie to break up all this sweet ranch life stuff.  This child is a maniac and she takes 200 pictures per second if you give her your phone.  Hopefully she learns to take more flattering angles.  

Back to work.....Tye and Kory talking things over. 

Lunch break in the shop with the cousins! Please don't miss Jona's ponytail on top of her head! CUTENESS!!!  

Sydni took some great pictures that day! Yay! 

Quinn

Kory and Jaylie June having some Father Daughter time at the scales.  

Kory and the kids crunching some numbers.  

Yay for a day on the ranch with cousins! 

Kory's grandpa Bob came out of course.  I am always so happy to see him out there. I can't get over how much he's seen in his life and how much he's seen this ranch grow and change. He was literally born on this place and I just love that he's getting to watch the next couple of generations try their hand at it.  

Mom and Dad here for Halloween!

As I mentioned in my last post, Mom and Dad got here just before Clint and Nolan left.  They were just in time for our 3rd annual small group pumpkin carving party! 

This is their 3rd year in a row to be here for Halloween and its fun to enjoy the festivities together! 

Quinn decided several weeks early that he wanted to be a bat.  NOT Batman, just a bat. Here we are sealing the deal with the bat face paint. 

Long before Halloween, maybe even months, Juney girl decided she wanted to be a baby pig.  

She wanted to make sure she had hooves, so I rolled some cardboard cereal box around her wrist and she thought she was SO AWESOME.  

Kanyon cares ZERO about Halloween.  He doesn't like candy and walking around is hard, so it just isn't really the holiday of him. But he decided to wear Quinn's ninja costume from last year, so here we have a "Baby Pig", a Bat, and a Ninja.  

First stop at our next door neighbor's house.  

His most authentic bat pose.  

What's a pig without a curly tail?! This was taken at the end of the night and her hooves were still on. She was so in character that she didn't care that she couldn't knock on a door, reach in and pick up candy, or anything else that requires fingers. She was completely committed to her baby pig-ness and she did it very well until she could hardly take another step! 

Our new house is near some little ponds in town that they keep stocked with trout. We hadn't fished at them yet, so Paw Paw was the perfect one to go with us to give it a try for the first time. 

Not sure if J is having a chat with the fish or what???

We got the fish we caught home and dad cleaned them so we could cook them later for supper.

Mommy and her baby at the park. 

The Gals.  One gal was having a hard time cooperating.  

Big happy smiles with Paw Paw and Gay Gay! 

Love.  

Fun Week

My brother Clint planned a trip to come here to hunt and it just seemed right to bring Nolan along for some good ol' guy time.  Poor Nolan is surrounded by only his girl cousins, so we figured he needed to escape girl land for while.  We were counting down the days until they showed up!!!!  

We went to Billings to pick them up and headed straight to Scheel's.  We spent over 4 hours in the store and never bought anything. 

At some point during the week we began referring to it as "Fun Week".  I would say "FUN" is an understatement.  It was full of all things fun, sugary, exciting, and special! 

Its always nice to have unlimited shots at the shooting range.  Thanks again, Scheels, it was a blast!

Since Clint came to actually hunt, we headed to Lewistown to get the hunting started!
I got to go with him the first evening he went out. We had a great time but didn't see anything.

Pictures on The Butte never get old

Kory and Clint got up early Sunday morning to go hunt and were going to meet us at church. I was walking in to church with the kids when I got a text that looked something like this......

They had gotten an elk on Day 2! 

After church we met up with them when they'd gotten the elk all ready to go to the processor.  The kids were so excited to see it and I was excited to hear the whole story! So exciting!!! 

With the elk tag filled, we had the rest of the week to do nothing but play! We were expecting to use up the week with Clint hunting but it was nice to have a whole week to hang out with the elk pressure off!

Just one example of "Fun Week"...a kid drinking a Powerade as big as he is.....at McDonald's. 

We had to go out to the sale to pick something up, so Quinn showed Nolan around a little bit.  

Just because the elk was done didn't mean the hunting was over.  These 3 were on a mission to call up some coyotes.  They headed out in the late afternoons til dark to see what they could find.  

We use the term "hunting" loosely.  They'd just gotten new sling shots, so they did some target practice in the pond....

There was sitting and waiting....calling....snacking....whittling with their new leathermans.....snacking......you get the idea.  

4 kids after a very successful "Fun Week". 

 If we didn't find a house with a porch, i was prepared to ask the owners of our old house if we could still take pictures on their porch.  Thankfully, this house has a great porch for the pictures so the tradition lives on.  

Mom and Dad arrived for their visit a day before Clint and Nolan left, so Mom went with me to take them back to the airport.  Goodbyes are a bummer.