Tag Archives: Winter

Spring Storms

 

 

The guys went out exploring to see how everything fared through the April 15 Blizzard dropping nearly 18 inches of beautiful snow.  I wish we could bottle it up and send it farther East to those who are in serious fire danger right now!

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Water tanks made it through the winter and the storm.0416151737a

This little boy needed a rest with all the work.

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Found the best piece of snow to try!

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Dad, You want some!?

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Here is a log that fell (on the fence and trail that we had already cleared once this spring!  Joys of Mountain Ranching!).

With this beautiful weather, all the snow will be gone by the end of the weekend I’m sure!  Wishing you all some moisture this spring!

 

The Stragglers

As with any mountain cattle operation, it seems we are always looking for the last few who like to hide out in the brush.  After a lot of coaxing with hay, grain and salt, we finally got this last bunch down to the corrals!   Back in South Dakota this was never a real problem as we could see pretty much all of the cattle as we road through the pastures, but here that is a different story.

Out of all the yearlings we hosted over the spring and summer we had one little heifer who was a sneaker!  We have been working to get her and these other cattle (owned by a couple different neighbors) into the corrals since the beginning of November!  This bunch of cattle is the bunch that continued to be so elusive that even our top horse and rider combinations couldn’t keep up with them through the trees and brush.  Today was the day!  12 inches of fresh snow (for a total on the ground of around 18-20 inches!) and a good cold blast this morning brought them the rest of the way down the mountain.

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Thank goodness for the snowmobile to help us get these critters into the corrals!  The side-by-sides are not much help in this deep of snow.

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The Rancher headed out to clear out the road and grab a bale for these gals to help keep them into the corrals until we can get them to their rightful owners!

Happy New Year – from The Stragglers!