September Musings
September was a difficult month didn't have anything to do with weather really. Mostly it was due to equipment failure. You expect that to happen on a ranch but not this much. It became rather frustrating to try and complete the task of haying. Already behind the "eight ball" so to speak, then we deal with faulty equipment. Oh, well part of the job!
Finally after 3wks of fighting it, the swather broke for good. We ended our haying on the 16th! The rest of our hay is being hauled in from the other lease ground we have, so hopefully we will have enough for all the cows we will winter here this year!
On another note, we traded in our black toyota pickup on a FJ Cruiser. Ol' Toyo had over 260,000 miles and hubby owned it since it had 32,000 miles so it was a bitter sweet goodbye. But the FJ is a nice rig! It has a bit on the higher mileage 95,000 but if it works like the other it is just broke in!
When we left the dealer it was clean, but we have 38 miles of dirt roads to drive soooooooo she got dirty!
There is an amazing amount of room in this unit. And of course, hubby had to test her out so we went on a drive to the back of the property the next day and enjoyed every minute of it. Sometimes you have to leave to get a break even for your mind!
We had a bunch of adventures this month but the most memorable has to be "rescuing" our hay truck and trailer from the WY Port of Entry. Our driver is fairly new to driving all together, and when you are a new driver "panic" becomes your middle name in a hurry! Now this trucking deal is new to the boss as well and he did his research for a "Not for Hire" deal. He checked with a couple DOT buddies and they explained to him what he needed and he should be good to go. Well they forgot to mention a few little details! So when our driver went across the scales , the girls there at Sundance,WY gave him a hard time! Now I have dealt with these girls before and they can be a bit "bitchy" for a lack of a better word! So when they pulled in our driver for a spot inspection, let's just say our driver was about to come out of his skin. Poor guy! So they did their inspections of the truck and of course he passed with flying colors. But then they looked through all his permits and he was missing something so $50 later he is on his way. He was pulled in twice that day so his nerves were frazzled! Couple days pass and again they pulled him in, this time he was overweight! Then they also decided to look thru his paperwork again. He again was supposedly missing something! At this point he is making phone calls and can't seem to get anything solved. He turned around and walked out of the office and hid in his truck! Our partner here at the ranch was down that way and saw him in the POE and called him on the phone to see what was up! Then they called here, we of course were outside busy with other things so they didn't get an answer. He tried to calm the driver and talk with the girls who at this point were tired of dealing with this whole issue. So he decided to take the driver home, truck had to stay at POE until issues were resolved! He came and asked if I wouldn't help them out, maybe a woman could shine a different light on the issue. The next day we ventured down to the POE. He was prepared to unload 2 round bales of hay, and I said just wait until I find out what is the real issue. After much conversation with the ladies, and conversation with the boss, we unloaded one bale and hubby drove the truck back to Gillette with all the round bales. And Monday morning the issues were addressed and the driver is back in the seat again hauling hay! Sometimes having experience in a field can be helpful to a roomful of panicking guys!
Went to our first Annual Grazing Meeting last night, which was not what I thought it was going to be but bureaucracy gets in the way even here! Anyways, I did get to meet some neighbors and look forward to getting to know them as well as others. Kind of fun to meet our neighbors, it is kind of like our own little club out here only we(ranchers, hands etc) know what it is to run a ranch and what the life is like! And most of us love it!
Finally after 3wks of fighting it, the swather broke for good. We ended our haying on the 16th! The rest of our hay is being hauled in from the other lease ground we have, so hopefully we will have enough for all the cows we will winter here this year!
On another note, we traded in our black toyota pickup on a FJ Cruiser. Ol' Toyo had over 260,000 miles and hubby owned it since it had 32,000 miles so it was a bitter sweet goodbye. But the FJ is a nice rig! It has a bit on the higher mileage 95,000 but if it works like the other it is just broke in!
There is an amazing amount of room in this unit. And of course, hubby had to test her out so we went on a drive to the back of the property the next day and enjoyed every minute of it. Sometimes you have to leave to get a break even for your mind!
We had a bunch of adventures this month but the most memorable has to be "rescuing" our hay truck and trailer from the WY Port of Entry. Our driver is fairly new to driving all together, and when you are a new driver "panic" becomes your middle name in a hurry! Now this trucking deal is new to the boss as well and he did his research for a "Not for Hire" deal. He checked with a couple DOT buddies and they explained to him what he needed and he should be good to go. Well they forgot to mention a few little details! So when our driver went across the scales , the girls there at Sundance,WY gave him a hard time! Now I have dealt with these girls before and they can be a bit "bitchy" for a lack of a better word! So when they pulled in our driver for a spot inspection, let's just say our driver was about to come out of his skin. Poor guy! So they did their inspections of the truck and of course he passed with flying colors. But then they looked through all his permits and he was missing something so $50 later he is on his way. He was pulled in twice that day so his nerves were frazzled! Couple days pass and again they pulled him in, this time he was overweight! Then they also decided to look thru his paperwork again. He again was supposedly missing something! At this point he is making phone calls and can't seem to get anything solved. He turned around and walked out of the office and hid in his truck! Our partner here at the ranch was down that way and saw him in the POE and called him on the phone to see what was up! Then they called here, we of course were outside busy with other things so they didn't get an answer. He tried to calm the driver and talk with the girls who at this point were tired of dealing with this whole issue. So he decided to take the driver home, truck had to stay at POE until issues were resolved! He came and asked if I wouldn't help them out, maybe a woman could shine a different light on the issue. The next day we ventured down to the POE. He was prepared to unload 2 round bales of hay, and I said just wait until I find out what is the real issue. After much conversation with the ladies, and conversation with the boss, we unloaded one bale and hubby drove the truck back to Gillette with all the round bales. And Monday morning the issues were addressed and the driver is back in the seat again hauling hay! Sometimes having experience in a field can be helpful to a roomful of panicking guys!
Went to our first Annual Grazing Meeting last night, which was not what I thought it was going to be but bureaucracy gets in the way even here! Anyways, I did get to meet some neighbors and look forward to getting to know them as well as others. Kind of fun to meet our neighbors, it is kind of like our own little club out here only we(ranchers, hands etc) know what it is to run a ranch and what the life is like! And most of us love it!
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