Bison in the Mist

The weather was beautiful today!  The fog at the ranch was amazing!  It felt like a creepy movie.  It was especially cool to see the bison in the fog.  I love when the world looks a little different ... like snow, or fog.  It makes for a fun change of pace.  

 

More Cookies!

Sandra also got hired at Crumbl Cookie.  She had several places she was trying to get hired on, but nothing panned out. She decided having a job is better than waiting around for a job, and she put forth her effort and got hired.  She gets to be a mixer, since she's 18.  She is also a delivery driver.  Sometimes she's even asked to run errands so they can get ingredients restocked.  Hopefully she has fun, makes some new friends, and builds back up her savings!  

Hopefully working with Mhari will end up being a good thing.  It's fun having our Crumbl girls!

 

So Much Rain!

Over the last couple of days, we got over 7 inches of rain!  We never get that much at one time!  The piglets survived the cold weather, but unfortunately, not the huge amount of rain.  The moms either laid on them, or the piglets got stuck in the mud and drowned.  It was very sad.  It's hard to think that they are all gone.  Their whole pig pen was a muddy mess!  We will need to set there pen up differently in the future to avoid this type of incident.  

 

Piglet Surprise

Harriet had her piglets yesterday, Jan 18!  Hogrid had gotten into the girls' pen about 4 months ago, so this isn't a complete surprise. She had 8, I think.  We showed up in time to see the last few born!  It was so fun!  She had been nesting with sticks.  So funny!  She is being such a good mom taking care of her new piglets.  Unfortunately, when we came today, she had lost a few.  Ariana also had her piglets.  We tried to give her a separate area to have her piglets, but the two moms ended up together again.  That means I have no idea how many piglets Ariana had and whose are whose. I feel like we counted 8 piglets today.  It's hard to tell.  

The weather is turning cold, so we got some hay to add to their pen. Hopefully the moms keep the piglets warm!  This is not the way we wanted to do piglets... last time we had piglets, it was summer and so hot.  Now, it's winter and going to be so cold!  I don't know what we are going to do with these pigs!

 

Working Girl!

Mhari got her first job!  She is working at Crumbl Cookie as a baker.  She was pretty nervous, but she did great!  So happy for her to have this experience and start building her savings!  She's such a cute Crumbl girl!  

 

Learning Fun!

For our science unit study the kids got to make a solar oven!  It was kind of hard to use in January, but the kids still enjoyed it!  It is actually amazing how much solar power there is, even in January!  They enjoyed their mini pizza snacks!  After school it was time to play.  That turned into making the family room their new bedroom.  They sure enjoy each other!  One day soon they will be too big to play on the floor like this.  They sure grow up quickly!

 

Hard Worker

With the winter weather, Jeff has been driving us to the ranch to check on the animals.  I am so grateful I haven't had to drive on the roads in this weather!  It is so cute when he gets tired and falls asleep!  He's such a great worker and an amazing husband and father!  We love you!

 

Winter Weather

The winter weather came as forecasted!  The bison didn't seem to mind at all.  When snow sits on top of an animal it means they are well insulated.  Looks like those fur coats are working perfectly!  It's always such fun to see the ranch covered in a layer of snow (and ice).  We had to make sure to keep the bison water trough ice broken up so they could get to it.  The ice layer got pretty thick after the several days of freezing temps.  Sure glad bison are hearty animals!

 

Available

As we continue to build the house, we need to move more animals off the ranch.  This will give less pressure to our pastures and give us more money to build the house.  It's a win-win :). Here are a few photos of some of the bison cows we are trying to sell.  They have been good ladies, but this year everyone seems to be a little lighter than we expected.  These ladies aren't the ones we want to keep for our main herd, but hopefully they can go to a good home and bring in some cash flow!

Also, the weather has been nice enough that some grass started growing in the feed lot.  Figured we might as well let the animals eat it before it dies.  There is a cold weather front on its way soon!  They sure love fresh grass!

 

Puttin on the Brakes

 

Our F-150, Pepe, needed new brake pads and rotors.  Well, that's what we were told any way.  Instead of paying the mechanic shop we decided to do it ourselves and teach the kids too!  We saved a ton of money, and bonus, the rotors didn't even need to be done!  

It was slow going, but Jeff was so great with the kids!  They each got to take off a tire and work on the brakes.  I think there was only one mishap with putting the wrong pads on the wrong tires (front on back), but that was corrected, and the job was done!  It was kind of a terrible day to be doing ranch work with cold weather and rain, but it turned into a great truck day!  I'm so grateful for Jeff and his willingness to do projects and teach the kids!

Rehomed

 

Time to kick off 2024 with rehoming Bartok and our last 3 bull calves!  The bull calves cooperated for the most part so that was nice.  It took a bit to get Bartok loaded though.  He was not interested!  We tried using the tractor down the alley to get him to move toward the trailer, but he wasn't having it.  We got him to move down the alley and added a tarp to the gate, so he was able to focus on the trailer.  Then it was more waiting, but he finally decided to move into the trailer!  That harder than expected.  It was so good to have them all loaded by the end!  

Next came the long drive down to the Houston area.  Jeff and some kids headed out to drop them off.  Hopefully they have a nice full life or become some delicious food.  Either way, they will get used!  Good-bye Bartok!  We will miss you!