Corpus

Knock, knock, knock....y'all still here?  I had intentions on posting yesterday but after I got home from work, I was exhausted. Finally got to it today.

So yes, the husband and I went to Corpus on Friday.  I had work meetings all weekend and he enjoyed relaxing.  I was glad he went.  I like to have him there in the evenings to go to dinner and watch football.  Yea, that's what we did while we were at the beach.  Walked to dinner, then made our way back to the room to watch football.  We are such party animals.  My co-worker stayed out till 3am on Friday and 2am on Saturday! We were in bed by 9 every night!  Usually when I'm out of town, I go eat by myself (cause I can't wait till 7p to eat with the group, I'm partial to the early bird special time!) and then hang in my room.  I catch some flack for it but I don't care.

Anyhoo, nothing too spectacular about the trip.  I tried catching the sun coming up over the water Sunday morning.  Just my luck, it was cloudy!!  I so wanted pretty sunrise pictures.  I don't get to the coast much but mother nature didn't want to work with me.

Here are a few shots from that morning.  I had to be back in meetings at 8 so it was a quick outing.









It was nice to have a different landscape.  I get bored with taking pictures around the house.  Seems like they all look alike.  Wish I had more time to take more while I was there. Bummer....

Been Away

We've been gone for a few days!  Had to travel to the Corpus Christi for work over the weekend.  Took the husband with me.  While I worked, he relaxed.

So it's back to work this morning.  I will get y'all caught up on our going ons this evening when I return.  I'm sure you'll be waiting on pins and needles!

My Baby is a Teenager!!

My lil boy turned THIRTEEN!!

Happy Birthday Harley Man!

Crazy M Car Wash

Around here, you have to work for your keep.  Can't just lay around chewing your cud all day.  No siree!

See here, Miss Molly was on "clean truck" duty.

There was a lot to clean too.  My truck is DIRTY!

She managed to clean a small area before her tongue dried out from all the dirt!

Then she called for back up.

Why I'm Sittin' on the Barn Floor

Cause these kittens are just TOOOO cute!



I realized something yesterday, the husband and I have never had a kitten.  In the 15 years we've been together, never one kitten.  Sure, stray cats have come along but no little cuties!  I'm sure it's because we never meant to have cats.  The husband is allergic so if one showed up, he would humor me and let it stay outside. Can't imagine me taking in a stray, huh!

So when the husband got home yesterday, I showed him my trade.  He said, "man, they are little.  You sure they are weaned."  Of course.  But he thought we should give them milk.  I took care of it yesterday.  Then this morning, he called and said he cleaned their bowl and made them another milk dish, which he filled.  Yea, he doesn't like cats!  Sure!



Harley doesn't know what to think of them either.  It's the first time something smaller than him is around.  He is intrigued.  But they don't think the same of him.



I just love sittin' and watchin' them play.  They are runnin' amuck in the barn.



I just want to put them in my pocket.



I'm glad I took both of them.  They entertain each other.



Lil girl won this fight.  She made sure to eye Harley has she held down her opponent.  I think she was trying to intimidate him.  "You're next buddy!"



Miss Kitty is still peeved at me.



She'll come around.  You can't resist their cute kitty faces.  Now, fingers crossed, they don't disappear.

Gus Gets a Job

Gus has healed up nicely.  We decided to let him out in the pasture with the bulls, few cows and couple of calves.  He ran the bulls.  Not good.  So we brought Pearl home to put with him.  Our thinking was he would do better with another donkey with him.  Turned them out again.  He still ran the cattle.  So Gus was put back in his stall.  What to do with a donkey that chases cattle?

Just so happens my co-worker asked what we wanted to do with him.  She recently bought goats and wanted to put a donkey with them for protection.  I advised her we had issues with him running the cattle but he was fine with the calves.  Plus I don't believe he is cut.  I may be wrong but it sure looked like boy bits back there!  Thus I think the issue with the bulls.  (He was at the lease with cows and calves and didn't have any issues.  No bulls there.) She said she would love to have him.  She'd have the vet come out and check him, cut him if indeed he was still intact.  Hopefully that would help with his issues.

Today she came to get him.  He was such a good boy.  She haltered him right up, led him straight to the trailer and after a little coaxing with treats, in the trailer he went.

Brenda gettin' him settled into her trailer.

Bye Guster!

In exchange for Gus, I got two barn kittens.

Aren't they too cute.  Miss Kitty is NOT happy with me.  She'll get over it.

Not All Work

Our vacation wasn't all work, well about 5% wasn't work.  The Husband took off his task master hat a few times.

We checked the babies.  They are growing and are so cute.  (That's Itty Bitty's sister on the far left.)



Diesel demanded that we play with him and his rope.



Since mom was unable to run, dad took over with play time with Diesel.  He will run you to death!



On another afternoon, we took the kids to the tank to play.  Harley found his cool spot.



Diesel swam and swam and swam...you get the point.  He LOVES water.  I think he may be part lab.



Again, Harley found a cool spot or at least the only shade!



Lucky was happy as always.  He is such a blessing to our family.



Swamp Thing came out of the depths of the tank!  RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!



Pepper took it literally.  She ran and ran and ran...



The guys worked on their synchronized swimming routine.



I just love spending time with my family.  I'm truly blessed.

And The Winner is....

Congrats Dee!  You are the winner of the $80 gift certificate to CSN  online stores.  I know you'll love it, you don't have to leave the house to go shoppin'!!

Thanks to everyone for participating.  Y'all gave us some really great captions.  It was a hard decision but I twisted the husband's arm until he helped me pick one.

A Few Other Minor Jobs

In between all the fence building and pen redesign, we managed to finish a few other tasks around the place.

The husband did a little home repair...

Yes, that's duct tape on our back door.  It fixes everything, right?

We took a uber heavy gate off our entrance.  We've complained about it every since we moved here (going on 4 years!) and finally cut it off and replaced it.  Hubby had to blow holes in the pipe for the hinges.

I love this gate so much!  It's the one that I closed the night Stubby got out.

Then we noticed this pool of water.  Not good since it hadn't rained!

That resulted in the Husband digging up the water line to find the leak.  He was not a happy camper.  We live with black dirt.  When it's wet, it is a sticky, gummy mess.  When it's dry, it's hard as a rock.  He says we will NEVER live where there is black dirt again.

And last but not least, we put another fly rub up here at the house.

Why does it seem like the Husband was doing all the work in these pictures?  I promise I assisted!

I will be posting the winner of the caption giveaway soon.  I wanted to wait for the Husband to get home (he's been out of town) so he can help me choose.    Stay tuned!!

Task II-Bull Pens

We have pens behind our barn.  They are made out of heavy duty (6 ft high, 10 ft long) bull panels.  We use them for all kinds of things like sorting, keeping bulls, etc.  Recently we were housing Stubby in them.  We plan to buck him in September so we penned him up to feed 'em and get him ready.  The Husband bought new feed (some our stock contractor friends use) and was trying it out.  I think it has given Stubby super powers!

Not one week after penning him, the Husband found him in Mojo's pasture!  He jumped a smaller gate and went thru the fence to get in with Mojo.  That got Husband to thinking and we all know that leads to work.  He decided to switch the pens around.

First he took out the shorter gate and closed it off with the high panels.  Stubby contemplated that situation for about 3 days then did this...

He found another escape route!  And left his belly print on the gate.  The Husband again closed off everything we thought would be tempting for him to jump.  Then a few nights later, the dogs barked ALL night.  Husband went outside but couldn't see anything.  We don't have a security light so it was pitch black.

Next morning, Husband went out to feed and saw Stubby was gone from the pen again and the barn was ransacked!  This time he used Gus' pen to escape.  I had moved Gus to the other side of the barn so I guess he saw an open opportunity!

You see his belly print here on the right.  He basically went thru another gate at the back of the barn to get to this one.

After he made it out, he went in the barn, got a midnight snack and hooked everything.  He also made is way down the drive.  Luckily, I had asked the Husband to close the front gate that evening.  We NEVER close the gate but we replaced it that afternoon.

So after his little stroll, he decided to go thru the fence into the pasture.

After that, the Husband said he was doing a complete overhaul of the pens.  So Saturday and Sunday we moved panels, pounded t-posts, tied wire and SWEATED!  Now we have three holding pens and a load pen.  All the outer border is tall panels.  We just knew this was going to do it.

So we get Stubby into the pen late Sunday evening.  Husband heads out of town on Monday.  Tuesday I go out to feed before I leave for work and guess what.....NO STUBBY!

But I found this gate.....

And this one in the alley...

And then this one in the load alley next to the trailer!

I swear every panel on our place is gonna have the Stubby imprint before all is said and done.  I found him in the trap next to the barn with the calves and Itty Bitty.  He came up to the gate wanting his feed.  I told him he was bad and I was punishing him with no breakfast.

When I got home yesterday afternoon, he was in the pasture with the other cattle happy as a clam.

We have NEVER had an issue with him jumping out of the pen.  I swear it's the feed.  Their slogan should be "Red Chain Feed gives you wings!"

Task I: Fence Building

We have been tossing around what to do with Mojo.  For those that don't remember, he's the bull that broke his leg.  We've had him in a pen by himself since Rent-A-Husband brought him home.  We will be needing that pen when we wean the calves here pretty soon.  We initially decided to get him collected and then put him down.  Husband called all over, talking to many different places regarding that.  We were told that we needed to wait till it cooled down for better collection.  Then we thought about just taking him to the packer.  But we were hestitant cause he still gets around, still eats/drinks and the only issue is his leg.  So we did what we normally do when we can't make a decision, we flipped a coin.  Heads we keep him, tails we cut his head off.  Landed on heads, so husband said we'd do the best out of three.  Well, the next flip landed on heads too so we're keeping him longer.  But you know what that meant?  We had to build fence.  He needed a pasture just to himself so we could use his pen.  We decided to put in a cross fence with the wire and posts from a previous fence we put up that is no longer needed.  So I unclipped the wire and the Husband pulled the posts.  We're very "green"!

So the Husband started stretching the wire.



Once the bottom wire was stretched, the T-posts were next.



This was his way to measure the post, chin height was perfect.



Hubby was lookin' pretty tired so I took my turn.



Can I just say that T-post driver is HEAVY!  Makes hittin' the post easier but a booger at pickin' it up.



Then I found this picture in the mix.  You just can't trust the husband with the camera.



I went a little crazy on this post.  Just don't know my own strength!  It was a tad bit short.



Finally got the posts drove and hubby headed back to the truck.  He made sure to tell me, "Take my picture as I walk away."  But he also said, "Tell the gals I'm sorry these pants are so loose."  Geez....



Next step was clippin' the fence out.  We counted out the clips and were going to lay them next to each post. Hubby said we didn't have a way to carry them.  Leave it to me to figure it out.  I stuck those clips all over, four pockets, waistband, inside my gloves, etc.  Just call me the Clip Queen.



Got the fence finished and let Mojo out.  Well we opened his gate and he refused to venture out all day.  Finally, during the night, he left his pen.  Now he lays along the fence line enjoying the shade.

Next task: Bull pens...