Why I'm Not Sewing

Last Tuesday we made our annual trek to the Manzano Angus Bull Sale, 3 hours from here. DH's back is slowly getting better, but he still can't sit much or bend and pick things up. It's just going to take time and prayer and he's still got his sense of humor so we're muddling through. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers and for asking about him.

We had to pick up some bulls on the 16th so he did saddle up:

I hauled the boys to the east side of El Tank and took a different route home where I stumbled upon a lone baby calf bawling for it's mama:

He had crawled through a couple of fences in search of adventure and his mama was bawling for him to return so I just circled around him and walked him down the fence a piece after I opened some gates and soon they were reunited:

Then calf #2 was spotted. He had penned himself off from his mama too:

A few more gates were opened and another reunion took place:

And for those of you wondering about DH being horseback, riding a horse isn't like sitting. You use your thigh muscles to ride and your legs are almost fully extended. Still, he's taking it slow, although he did ride again on Thursday. We had to move some cattle off of Shinnery which is a shrub that becomes toxic to livestock when it begins to bloom. Thankfully, we don't have much of it and the boys only had to move off of one pasture.

So, back to the bull sale - it has been notoriously cold and incredibly windy every time we've been to the sale in the past 10 years, but this year they had the prettiest weather you could imagine. We spend a couple of hours meandering through the pens, coordinating what we see,

with the statistics in the catalog, and matching them to what we need:

And then hope that someone else with deeper pockets isn't set on taking him home. :) This year we picked up 12 handsome bulls, pulling in after 8 p.m., unloading in the dark. Then, as the sun rose the next morning,

We ran them through the chute and branded them:

And let them settle in for a few days with all the hay they could eat:

And now Skeet and I are back to making our daily feed runs.

He's just like a little kid and finds incredible joy in the everyday tasks:

This is how we entertain ourselves while we wait for the rest of the crew to arrive at the feed wagon:

It's a pretty good way to spend the afternoons and Thursday was especially nice because with the aid of a couple of lumbar supports, DH made the feed run with us:

I didn't think he should, but we had to move some steers into another pasture by the house. They brought them up to the pens to weigh 3 bunches to get an average weight on them. They need to be sold and their weight will determine how much they will bring.

So this explains why I haven't been doing any sewing this week, but I'm not complaining. As much as I like making quilts, I love being out and spending time with DH more. And as he continues to heal, he's just going to have to get used to me being his shadow.After 30 years, he should be used to it by now. :)