Cattle - Cooking - Cookies

 We sold more cows and weaned some calves this week. That means I had mouths to feed. DH is taking pity on me and we're foregoing breakfast for the crew, but my feet still hit the floor at 4 a.m. on Thursday. By 6, the Sour Cream Apple Squares were out of the oven and the Crock-pot Pizza was ready to do it's thing in the Crockpot:. 

All I had left to do was make bread, a big salad. and green beans. I was being drafted to play the role of the Pied Piper by 7:30. We had to cross cattle over the highway and I drove the feed truck in front of them to facilitate the crossing. No traffic to contend with and it only took a few minutes to get them crossed. Alas, no pictures because my job was to drive and not take pictures, but occasionally we DO have to cross the highway. Here's a photo from many moons ago when I just had to park across the highway to stop traffic:

This was from 2008...back in the good old days...when we had grass...

It took me a while to get back to the house and start my bread dough because of this: 

This is the only kind of traffic jam I don't mind getting stuck in:

 Once the cattle crossed to the south side of the ranch, the boys drove the cattle 2 1/2 miles to the pens here at the house:

Yesterday morning it was 15°, but on Thursday it was 52° - much nicer when you've got to be horseback before the sun comes up - although once the wind began to howl, it dropped the temp to 35°:

We ran the cows through the chute to be preg checked:

My BIL is a cattle broker and he found the buyer for these cows so he drove from Texas and stayed the night. Good to catch up with family over breakfast and a cup of coffee:

  Making a plan

We loaded trucks on Friday morning

All of this came into play on Wednesday so there was a lot of scrambling to organize help, the brand inspector, the vet, trucks, and payment. And that meant, yep, you guessed it - cookies. 😋 I had 8 for dinner on  Thursday. Had planned on dinner Friday, but they loaded the truck at 8 and finished sorting calves by 9 so they just pulled out with cookies:

The fella that takes care of the neighboring ranch is young and single so I loaded him up with leftovers. He really is our neighbor even though there are 28 miles between our homes. 

Now someone needs to do something about this mess:

No grumbling though because a messy kitchen means the Lord has blessed us with food to cook and serve and with a crew to feed. He also blessed me with a nap.