Praying for Rain & Cooler Weather

It's mid July and the heat and drought is on and today will make 16 days in a row above 100 and over 30 days above 100 for this year. If only the high pressure would break over Texas! I pray for rain right now. Dreaming of fall right now makes the hot horrid temperatures seems to allow each day to drag on and on. I thought this writing this post might make me at least feel cooler. Winter....I love the cooler temperatures, I just don't like February in Central Texas. We get our worst weather during this month. I love the clear blue skies so representative of a blue norther coming through. The air crisp and clean! At night living a rural life allows one to see the Milky Way in no other way one can see it in an urban life. I love these photos, they represent what we need to do during the summer as cattle producers to take our cattle through the winter. The other picture looks up the hill from my neighbors ranch to ours. The tree line in the distance is a lease pasture we have which borders our ranch. I wouldn't trade living right where I am for anything in the world. I repeat that sentence over and over and over. I will not ever stop either!

Spring Planting

This morning I found Larry doing what he loves more then anything else in the world, tinkering with some piece of new equipment. Well not new, he purchased a host of equipment to use with his 1949 Ford 8N Tractor. It's not a Parade Ready 60 year old tractor. It is though nice looking, has had the transmission rebuilt, the motor cleaned, and now runs like a top. Even I love driving it with the rack on the back for me to haul protein tubs, grain and hay. I can't wait to be turned loose to mow with it. The equipment Larry bought was to garden with. He fenced in a one acre plot near one of the stock tanks to use as for a food plot to attract deer or for a garden. The first garden is going in. It is black land near the tank and will take a good five or six years to amend the soil to get it where we want it to be. We've spent most of our marriage gardening in raised beds. He sent me off to the feed store for seed. They had just one variety of sweet corn and I just had to have Silver Queen so off I went to Walmart. I was disappointed not to find any Roma Tomatoes for me to make Tomato Sauce (rather a Vegetable Sauce) that I love to freeze and use throughout the year. My family is so spoiled they grump when we run out.

The soil so needs amending. I've been begging him to get the blade from our Angleton home up here, pull the manure and hay out of the pens. From there I load it into the mule and carry it up to the garden to compost beside it. I love building a compost pile. During the winter Larry plants a mix of browse for the deer. Then turn it under in the early early spring to be used as a green manure crop. Then I'll come in a month later with rabbit manure from the rabbit barn and the compost and he'll turn it under. I think in another four or five years our one acre garden will be a joy to work in the soil.

It's all part of the wonderful cycle of living on a ranch. The seasons, spring is always a time to find renewal.

May each of you find your true blessings this Easter!

Kim

Barn Raising

I'm a product of a urban (suburbia) up bringing. I remember how crowded it seemed when we lived up north in Niagara Falls and Wilmington. Houses seemed crammed together. In the Clear Lake area from the age of 9 through high school there were wide open areas. Lots of room for kids to investigate. If you went to the other side of Clear Lake into Galveston County the space was even larger. Somehow, I didn't always feel like I was living in a suburb of Houston. As a teenager my friends and I rode our horses where there is now houses, chemical plants, and shopping centers. We loved to ride to Galveston Bay, tie the horses and go swimming. By the time I was in Clear Creek High FFA I loved being down at the school farm. My closest friends were in school at Clear Creek, they always told me I wasn't stuck up like most of the Clear Lake High students. My friends were right. I went to Clear Lake, but if you want to take an Ag course you were at both high schools in our district. There were still gravel roads in the League City area.

I go home now and it is like being in a real city. I am always thankful I don't have to stay. I love the open spaces of where Lynn and James grew up in Angleton. The feel was like League City 30 years ago. Once again, though, I'm watching the urban sprawl move south towards Angleton, just as I watched it grow south towards the Clear Lake area and then engulf it. I'm so happy our business has allowed Larry and I to "return to the farm."

As a child I loved the drive from Wilmington, Delaware, to Geneva,Ohio to see my grandparents. It meant we drove through Amish Country in Pennsylvania. I loved the big barns. I wanted so badly to climb to the top floor. I've always loved the smell of a barn. Especially, if horses resided there. I've often thought about the age of those barns. The barn raising being a social affair for the community.

Fast forward to the 21st century. Our own barn raising and still a year later it is not quite complete. Our barn is 40'x80'. That's big to me. Now we are using the barn, it's small. There have been a host of considerations for a cattle barn vs. one to house horses. I think one of the most interesting things we had to consider was taking into account our hoof trimmer and his chute to trim one of the cows who has never been halter broke. Terry was amazed as I asked if what we were planning would work to get cattle in his chute. He had never been asked a question like that. I want everything set up right so we can care for the cattle in a fashion that is in their best interest of their health and welfare.

I'm excited about the wings which will go on the long side of the barn. It will provide more protection from the north wind in the winter for an animal who may be in the barn because they need attention to a health issue. The wings will allow me to have the show cattle out of the sun during the day so their coats will be healthier. It does mean fans will have to be mounted to during the summer. Consideration must be made for a tractor to be able to get into the pens to scrap the floor to remove manure. We also need the wings because we plan on having a yearly field day at the ranch. A chance to give back to the local agriculture community involved in beef cattle production especially the youth.

I hope you have learned a little more about my story and my love of my cattle, horses, and the rural life. I get to wake every morning to watch the heifers in the front pasture, in the distance the show cattle and horses sharing a pasture eating side by side on a round bale of hay when it's needed. And beyond them the bulls. Eating in the early morning sun. In the afternoon the bulls are lounging in the shade. I love the spring.

The scrapbook layout of the pictures I took of the barn was entered into 52 Sketches...52 Weeks for Week #14 Sketch. I guess making my own nuts(hex nuts) as an embellishment worked because I've found a lot of comments on the LO. To those who visit my blog because of the community at 52 Sketches...52 Weeks, I am very thankful to you for your wonderful support and love. To Julie, thank you for the wonderful work you do to make your site a wonderful community of supportive women.

Kim