Mirror KB Ranch Tales of the Twin Wranglers   July 2008

July 27, 2008

Yesterday was a special day for it was the National Day of the Cowboy.  We didn't really celebrate it an' it's not likely very many folks did, as it's a rather obscure holiday.  We'd just like to say that our hats are off to those that lived, or still live, the life of a real cowboy. They're a tough breed of folks who work hard in all kinds of weather. They don't do it for the money, they do it because they love the cowboy way of life. Think that there's an' old sayin' that goes somethin' like, Cowboyin' doesn't build character, it reveals it.  We kind of like that.

Anyway, this past week we've spent a good deal of time fixin' fence one place or another. Tuesday a couple wayward cows worked their way out of their northeast pasture an' ended up in the horse's south pasture. The horses ran 'em through the post an' rail fence into the trainin' arena then pushed the cows back out through another section of fence which left us with two gapin' holes in the fence. Luckily all we had to do was replace broken rails. Then we caught up two horses an' herded the lost cows back to their pasture.

Another fence in the pump house pasture required two new posts to replace a couple that had rotted. We also replaced two gate posts in the south train' arena that weren't gone quite yet but close enough that we figured we'd better put new posts in before our gate fell down. Just as we finished that job the post driver broke. This time it was a spring clip at the bottom of one of the springs that run up the backside of the post drive shaft. We've ordered the part, but if necessary, we can still use the post driver without it.

On Friday we put the blade on the Deutz tractor to repair a turn out along our road that had been rendered useless by the county grader who had pushed up such a berm of dirt that the turn out was inaccessible. Our mile long drive to our ranch buildin's is a dirt-gravel road wide enough for one car. We like to have a couple of wide spots along the road in the off chance we meet another vehicle goin' the opposite way particularly if we're pullin' a trailer.

We'd taken both tractors, Kari on the Deutz an' Kim on the Kubota, since after we finished rebuildin' the turn out we wanted to cut up deadfall - a good sized fir tree that was about 20 feet up the ridge. Once we'd got the log cut up into manageable lengths an' down off the ridge we loaded it onto the Kubota bucket an' brought it to the barnyard. We'd found a few smaller downed trees that we could snake out with the chain an' pulled 'em to the barnyard as well. Then we cut the larger fir into 18" logs an' piled it on the stack of firewood. 

While we didn't actually celebrate the Nat'l Day of the Cowboy yesterday, we sort of did by slackin' off an' playin'. We started the day out workin',  by whackin' down more weeds 'round the barnyard, but after lunch we pretty much took a holiday. First off we saddled up Solo an' Lakota an' rode out to fetch the mail. When we got back home we turned the horses back out to pasture then loaded our two "sit on top" kayaks into the bed of the dump truck an' headed for the Fisher River...out through the cow pasture to our northeast corner of the ranch.

We kept tryin' to direct him closer to shore so that he could make contact with the river rocks below, but the next thing we knew he'd be back out in the deeper water paddlin' furiously after us. Think he just felt that he needed to be closer to us.  It's a good thing that he's a great swimmer!

When we decided to turn 'round an' head back down river we'd let Otter an' Sage each board a kayak. One trip down the river, Otter was ridin' Kari's kayak an' Sage was s'pose to ride with Kim, but Sage in her "I have to be first attitude," leaped off of Kim's Kayak which was behind, an' swam to catch up to Kari an' Otter.  Course Kari then had to tow our water logged pup aboard. 

It was a tad bit crowded, but the kayak handled the weight well an' unlike a canoe, remained well balanced in the water.  After a ways Sage must have decided it was much too crowded for her so jumped back into the river. Unfortunately she chose a deep hole to jump off at.  With a splash it looked like Sage was gone, sunk to the bottom like a stone.  We were on the verge of abandonin' ship ourselves if she didn't resurface,  but after a few worrisome seconds Sage bobbed to the surface an' doggie paddled her way to shore. 
 

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July 21, 2008

The past week we've been busy in a different sort of way.  On Thursday evenin' we had to drive into town to organize photos that were entered in the Jr. Fair.  The Jr. Fair is a competition for kids 17 an' under.  They have arts an' crafts, prepared foods, photography, pets, an' livestock.  In other words it's much like a regular county fair, but strictly for kids.

For many years we've judged the photography division of the fair so after settin' thing up on Thursday evenin' we headed back into town Friday mornin' to judge the aforementioned photos.  Over the last couple of years the fair has begun to dwindle with fewer an' fewer entries in many of the divisions, that is all except photography where if anything, submissions are holdin' steady or slightly increasin'.  We're so amazed at the quality of photos kids today are takin'. When we were kids all of the photos we took turned out lookin' pretty darn horrible....generally blurry, an' poor backgrounds.  At any rate we're impressed with the great job these kids are doin'. 

After we'd finished up with the fair, we took the smaller of our two chainsaws in to have 'em replace the chain that they'd put on the saw a couple weeks ago that obviously wasn't right since it keeps jammin' up. Well, of course the guy that knows anything at all 'bout saws wasn't there, so we left the saw with 'em on the promise that they'd have their expert take a look at it the next mornin', but it was pretty unanimous amongst those that were there that the pitch of the chain was wrong.

Early Saturday mornin' we had to drive back into town to judge the horse division of the fair. Unfortunately as with the other categories of the fair, the kids showin' their horses is way down.  In fact, we only had a handful of 5 kids to judge in showmanship, walk-trot, western horsemanship, English horsemanship, an' trail class. With so few kids an' the fact that each kid is judged on their own merits (not against one another) we were able to combine age groups, so got done by noon. Before headin' home we stopped in an' picked up the chainsaw with a new chain. We haven't had a chance to try it out yet but figure it ain't likely to work any worse than it did before.

Durin' this past week the fair didn't take up all of our time, for we managed to do a reasonable amount of weedin', worked on our article for Horse Illustrated, painted a porch swing, created a couple cards for friends with up comin' birthdays, an' generally horsed around by either ridin' out to get the mail or workin' with several of the green broke horses in the round pen.

Yesterday mornin' when we went out to take care of chores we found an orange helium balloon that had drifted in to crash land in our barnyard. Otter wasn't too impressed with our find but Sage thought it a great toy. While Kim held the balloon, Sage would jump into the air to bat it with her front paws or poke it with her nose. After a bit she figured out that all she had to do was leap just high enough to grab the string to get it down on the ground where she could tackle it better. Eventually she managed to wrest the string right out of Kim's hand, then takin' a mouthful of balloon, POP - game over!

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July 15, 2008

Last Saturday, since we were busier 'n a horse's tail in fly season fixin' fence an' then puttin' the post driver back together, we didn't get out to the mailbox to get the mail...so  early Sunday mornin' we saddled up two horses an' rode out to fetch Saturday's mail an' picked up the Sunday paper too. Then us an' the dogs set to work repairin' a passel of broken wires in the north field cow pasture, an' replaced a couple rotten posts as well.

On Monday we worked more on fence repair...this time we replaced rotten posts an' rails in the west pasture.  A fair amount of the day was spent at our computers workin' on an' article for Horse Illustrated, but come evenin' we spent a little time cleanin' a corral water tank an' pullin' more weeds 'round our assorted supply of useful and/or defunct ranch or tractor implements - this includes a variety of flatbed trailers, the broke down sickle bar mower, the hay rake plus a Bushhog mower.

While we worked we noticed a young Whitetail buck grazin' across the pond in the pump house pasture, so we snuck back to the house to get our cameras.  A few days before we'd seen four bucks in that very pasture, but this time this fella was all alone.

Again since we hadn't ridden out to get our mail yesterday, early this mornin'  -Tuesday - we saddled up two horses an' rode 'em out to fetch yesterdays mail an' two days worth of newspapers. Then since we need to get back to gettin' more firewood we spent a little while out in the shop tryin' to figure out what the problem is with the smaller of our two chainsaws. When we were cuttin' firewood last week we had a terrible time with the chain jamming up.

Inspectin' it closely we didn't find anything wrong with the main gears of the saw so turned our attention to the chain itself. We'd recently had the shop in town put new chains on both saws for us, an' when we went to use the smaller saw we found that the young fella at the store had put the chain on backwards. We'd not thought to look the chain over for any problems since it was brand new, but right off the bat the saw was givin' us problems.

It would cut a little while then jam up so that we'd have to take the bar an' chain off, then put it back on an' it would work again for a short while before jammin' up again. After a time of this we gave up an' just used the larger saw....but we definitely want to get the smaller one back into workin' order. Oh yeah, back to our scrutiny of the chain.

We were able to locate the point at which the young fella had joined the chain.  Since we're not all that sharp when it comes to this stuff, we're not 100% sure of the real problem, but we did find that there is a tiny break in one side of the spliced link, which might be causin' the chain to catch on the gears as it moves 'round the bar. The other discrepancy that we can see is that on each end of the splice the cuttin' tooth is on the same side of the chain rather than on opposite sides. At any rate, the next time we go into town we'll take the chain back to the shop for a replacement.

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July 12, 2008

Let's see, what the heck have we been up to the past four days?  We've managed to fork a horse a couple times.  As we recall, Tuesday evenin' Kari saddled Alibi, one of our green broke mares. After spendin' a little time workin' the mare in the round pen Kari mounted her an'  rode 'round the barnyard with Kim ridin' Alibi's pasture buddy, Lakota. Then on Thursday we rode two horses out to fetch the mail after we'd worked a while at cleanin' the house.

On Wednesday we took the Kubota tractor an' two chainsaws out across the east pasture to the edge of the woods along the Fisher river. Over the past few years, two considerably large trees had blown down an' were now aged long enough to use for firewood.  We chose to tackle the smaller one first since it had fallen so that it was restin' part way out of the woods so's to make it easier to remove it's limbs an' drag it on out of the woods. The larger of the two trees sets a little deeper into the woods an' lays somewhat horizontal to the edge of the woods.

After cuttin' off all of the limbs we found that the tree was heavier 'n a freight train. so we had to cut the tree into four sections just so's the tractor could pull it all the way back 'cross the east pasture to the barnyard where we planned on cuttin' it down to 18' logs.  After we'd managed to snag the entire tree out of the woods, 'cept for the up rooted base of about 5 feet, we figured the tree had to have been at least 115 feet tall - probably a little more.

After lunch three rotten fence posts in the south pasture needed to be replaced. Just as we finished beatin' the last post into the ground with the post driver, the bottom plate of the driver fell completely apart. Dadgum, if it ain't one thing broken it's another!

Often the bottom plate, which is called the road bracket, falls off but it's fairly easy to put back on. However this time not only did the road bracket fall off, the lower spring bracket slipped out of place, an' it turned out to be a bit of a challenge to figure just out how to raise the hydraulic cylinder to get the spring bracket back into place under the foot of the hydraulic cylinder..... but we finally managed to get the job done.

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July 8, 2008

We had meant to clean our .45 pistols right after we'd done some target shootin' last Thursday, but as we often do, we figured that we'd get to cleanin' 'em the next day.  Of course the next day rolled 'round an' we ended up shootin' the guns instead, but this time we loaded our .45's with cowboy action blanks an' shot up a whole passel of balloons.  It wasn't 'till Sunday that we finally got 'round to cleanin' 'em.

For the past four days, when we weren't shootin', we were either pullin' more weeds in the corral an' yard, or were playin' ball with the dogs, or were forked on a horse.  Since we hadn't retrieved our mail on Saturday, early Sunday mornin' Kim saddled up Banner an' Kari saddled Hoot  for a ride out to fetch the mail as well as the Sunday paper. 

Though Hoot is greener 'n spring grass, he's been doin' quite well on our mail runs.  The dogs always do their very best to rattle the horses, snakin' through trees or brush on the ridge, or dartin' up out of the crick to shake water at the horses feet.  So far Hoot has proven to be pretty steady, at least  when it comes to the general shenanigans of the dogs. 

But...when the neighbors car silently stole up behind us with a canoe strapped to their hood it was a bit more 'n Hoot could handle. We're not absolutely sure that it was actually the car by its-self that spooked him or if it was due to Sage leapin' up at the car door to greet the neighbors.  What ever it was, Hoot suddenly bolted out from under Kari's hat like he was a .45 bullet searchin' for a target on down the road.  Luckily his flight was short lived when Kari was able to bring him to a stop an' then pulled him 'round so's to head back to where she'd left Kim an' Banner, and of course to retrieve her hat. 

We really should work with Hoot more in the round pen to get him respondin' more quickly to our cues, but at the same time we feel the experience of ridin' out to get the mail is equally important.  So, on Monday Kim forked Hoot an' Kari saddled Flicka for another ride out to get the mail. This ride was pretty uneventful, with no sneak attacks from the rear.

This time a pick-up truck came by but it approached from the front.  Our road is a narrow road of one car in width. There is no place to ride the horses off of the road it's self so our horses have to get used to any traffic (which is rare) passin' by them quite close.  When we spotted this truck headin' our way, we reined the horses single file - Hoot behind Flicka as far to one side of the road as we could get then pulled 'em to a stop.  As the truck passed, Hoot cocked his head at it showin' us that he was a bit worried about it, but he held still.

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July 4, 2008....Happy Independence Day!

We sort of celebrated America's Independence with a bang, a few hours early.  After dinner Thursday evenin' we marched out across the north pasture to our target range...which is simply a place in the pasture that drops down near the crick so that we can safely shoot our guns at cardboard targets.  Any errant bullet smashes harmlessly into a dirt bank that climbs back up to the main grazing area of the field. We made sure the dogs were safe by tying 'em in the shade to a couple fence posts far enough away so's not to affect their hearing by the crack of gunfire.

It's been two years since we'd last shot our Cimarron colt .45's so they felt a little foreign to us, but it was fun shootin' 'em again, even though our shots scattered 'cross our targets like we were blazin' a way with shotguns.  After we'd both shot a couple rounds of cowboy loads, we looked up to find the cows were all standin' up on top of the bank gazin' down at us. Cows are odd, they may stampede at the sound of gunfire, but our cows stampede toward it instead of the opposite direction.

This mornin' we received an email from a friend of ours tellin' us that she'd placed a bag of lettuce in our mailbox for us as she drove by on her way to an art show in Whitefish. Knowin' it was out there an' not wantin' it to get too warm an' wilted, we saddled up Solo an' Lakota an' rode out to get the lettuce. After we picked up the bag of greens from the mailbox, we decided to rein our horses up the west ridge rather than headin' back home the short easy route.

Though we won't be attendin' any fancy display of fireworks this evenin', we were treated to a pleasantly colorful Forth of July exhibit in the form of wildflowers.  There was a showin' of white (Yarrow, Thimble Berry, Pearly Everlasting, & Bunchberry), pink (Spreading Dogbane), purple (Larkspur & Lupine), yellow (Bur Buttercups as well as a few plants we couldn't identify), orange (Orange Hawkweed), and red (Indian Paintbrush).

Though the temperature hadn't yet climbed above 72 degrees the horses were hot an' sweaty as we reined 'em back down the ridge toward home. We'd decided to take a short cut home by way of one of our ridin' trails, rather than followin' the forest service trail farther north. The trail started out in fairly good shape, but we soon came to a couple downed trees. The horses navigated over 'em quite well so we continued our trek down the ridge, but soon ran into an impassable mess of downed timber so were forced to turn around an' head back up the ridge.

Part way up we reined off onto another trail with the hopes it wouldn't be in too rough a shape from the winter snow load. Again we ran into rough goin'.  Trees were bent so that they were hangin' over the trail, but we were able to dismount an' just barely were able slip under a couple of 'em, before we were stopped once again with a major mass of trail blockage.  Dadgum, guess it looks like we're goin' to have to get up on the west ridge with our chainsaws to clear out our ridin' trails or we won't be usin' 'em this summer.

Discouraged, we turned the horses around an' fought our way back up the trail slipin' under the low hangin' trees once again.  At this point we noticed that a light rain was fallin', but thank goodness there was no hint of thunder an' lightnin'.  Once we'd navigated back under all the saggin' deadfall then forked our mounts an' headed 'em back up to the FS trail that we'd previously been ridin' along. There we reined the horses north.

In due time we aimed the horses east down a short trail that connects to the forest road that meanders through our ranch. Hittin' that FS road we reined south toward home. 'Bout a quarter of a mile from the home gate a loud rumble tumbled out of the sky unnervin' our mounts.  As tired as they were the menacin' thunder put 'em both into a trot. We let 'em trot a short distance then pulled 'em down to a walk, even though more grumbles from the sky had us feelin' a little skittish too.

By the time we made it home, had unsaddled, rinsed the sweat off a the horses as well as their wool saddle blankets, the thunder storm had faded away, though the sky remained cloudy for the rest of the afternoon.

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July 3, 2008

Yesterday our temperature was slightly cooler than the previous couple of days, but it was as muggy as a sweat lodge.  Part of the day we worked on a photo submission, then headed out to fetch the mail. While we were busy saddlin' up two older mares, Hoot, the young snow capped gelding jumped the fence an' came over to get his share of attention. Hoot is such a character.

Since he'd bothered to jump the fence, we decided to throw a saddle on him too, then ponied him out to get the mail. Guess we'll have to get a few more rides on him in the round pen so that he'll be ready to be ridden out to fetch the mail with one of the older horses. He thinks he's ready but we want him to have a little more experience with the hackamore.

On our ride we saw a couple wild turkey hens with their brood of chicks. Though that isn't all that excitin' since we have a large number of wild turkey in this area, but what we found interestin' was that one chick is white. We'd have taken a photo of it had we had our better cameras along with us.

Not too far from the mailbox on the highway a loud rumble made us look to the sky. A hazy dark cloud snuggled up against the mountains to the south of us an' though it didn't look too ominous we picked up the pace. By the time we'd fetched the mail the cloud had drifted northeastward so no longer was a threat. After we'd returned home, it wasn't too long before more dark clouds rolled into the valley. Come evenin' while the sky grumbled, rain fell in torrents producin' not puddles, but lakes in the barnyard.

Today in the cool of the mornin' hours we pulled weeds in the yard an' 'round the south training corral. After lunch we saddled up Bo-k an' Hoot an' rode out to fetch the mail. We put a bosal hackamore on Hoot an' Kim rode him.  Since Hoot is so green,  he really doesn't understand what each of the rein cue means, so Kari ponied him off of Bo-k.  He did great, an' so far he handles the dogs jumpin' out of the crick or crashin' through the brush on the ridge above the road very well. We'd even put some saddle bags on Hoot's saddle to see what he would do.  They didn't seem to bother him at all.  Not even on the few occasions that we trotted.

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July 1, 2008

Summer has certainly arrived - with temperatures in the low 90's here at the ranch but in Libby (23 miles north of us) it has even hit the triple digits with a reading of 107 degrees! It would be great weather to play down in the river, but we've not had a chance to head in that direction.  Most of Friday was spent cleanin' the house as we expected a visitor on Saturday.  It took some doin' but we vacuumed an' moped 'till we finally located the floor that was hidden beneath all the dirt that we - an' the dogs - drag into the house.

Saturday mornin' we headed into town to meet up with a friend an' her three year old daughter.  They're movin' from Texas to northern Idaho, but swung over to Libby to throw us a howdy an' to go see what Libby's Logger Days had to offer for fun. We met up to watch the Logger Days parade, then padded our bellies with burgers at the Antlers Restaurant.

After lunch the two of us headed back to the ranch while she an' her daughter went up to the Kootenai Dam to try her new camera out on a resident bald eagle. At the ranch we took care of various odd jobs 'round the place - noticed that we'd not cleaned the windows yesterday so cleaned them then went out an hammered fence rails back into place that had been knocked down by horses or cows an' replaced two broken fence rails that some cow had busted threw.

Come evenin' our friend rejoined us at the ranch for a cook out on the outdoor campfire grill - the one that we'd just recently fetched home a large flat piece of shale for it to sit on top of.  We didn't have a fancy meal, just some hot dogs, chips, baked beans, an' a Key Lime pie. After we'd satisfied our hunger we played ball with the dogs an' sort of played catch with Maggie, our friend's three year old daughter.

Don't rightly recall all that we did on Sunday, 'cept that we put a saddle on Hoot an' worked him in the round pen a little while. Then Kim mounted him an' practiced flexion responses to pressure on his nose from the lead line an' halter. He'd worked up a bit of a sweat during his workout so we hosed him off before turnin' him loose to graze. After we'd had a chance to cool off ourselves, we headed back out to file his front hooves to remove a small amount of flare, then turned him back out to pasture.

On Monday we had to make another trip to town since we hadn't been able to pay off license fee for the white Ford pickup when we were in town on Saturday an' it was pert near past due so we couldn't try to slip by, even  for a few more days. Since we had to go back into town we met up with a grand lady who is a in home care giver.  Before our paternal grandma passed on several years ago, this lady would often come out to the ranch to administer her special care. She's an amazin' lady, who is in her upper 70's still cares for the elderly that are in need of her attention.

Later on Monday after we'd returned to the ranch we'd noticed that Sage kept pokin' her nose at somethin' in the lawn. When we went to investigate we found that it was a baby swallow that had somehow fallen out of its mud nest under the house eves. It amazed us how gentle an' caring Sage was about this tiny little bird when we held it cupped in our hands an' allowed her to look at it. She even gave it a few tender licks with her tongue!

We couldn't leave it out on the lawn, knowin' that it wouldn't have a chance to survive if one of the cats found it, but since we couldn't determine which nest it had fallen from, we decided to fasten a new nest out of a little cardboard box stapled to the house under the eves just above the kitchen window. Sure hope mama bird finds it an' takes care of it.

Once the day's temperature began to drop that evenin', we spent a little time with the weed sprayer in an attempt to control some of the Ox Eye Daisies that are trying to take over the west pasture. We may have waited too long to use the herbicide on 'em as most of the Daisies have bloomed...but we'll wait an' see. If the spray does any good on the daisies we've sprayed, we'll see if we can cut down on their numbers in the south an' north pastures too.

Oh yeah, while we were out sprayin' daisies in the west pasture we saw a moose head across the south pasture toward the west ridge. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ride the  June  2008 Tales of the Twin Wranglers

Ride the  May  2008 Tales of the Twin Wranglers

Ride the  April  2008 Tales of the Twin Wranglers

Ride the  March 2008 Tales of the Twin Wranglers

Ride the February 2008 Tales of the Twin Wranglers