Shipping Week

 Someone please show us how to slow things down a little! I flew back in from the wedding trip on Friday. We grabbed a bite to eat at Texas Roadhouse and made a mad dash through the grocery store before heading home. We made a mineral run and checked water that afternoon and rolled more of that into Saturday. We've been running so hard that I didn't even know about the eclipse until everyone was talking about it on the plane. Apparently a lot of people on my flight were flying in from all over the country to witness it. On Friday, DH saw a vehicle parked at the North Camp mailbox and he stopped.

 The fella had driven from Pennsylvania to photograph the eclipse and according to his sources, the perfect spot to do so fell right across the North Camp cattle guard. Between the World Record Alpha Five balloon jump and the eclipse, this is becoming a popular place! We counted 15 vehicles parked on the side of the road within 1/2 a mile as we headed out to gather a bull. So much for living out in the middle of nowhere. People are finding us. Time to move! Grin. So on Saturday, as we were making another circle to pump water and check cattle, we stopped at the mailbox. Another rig was there from East Texas

They had quite the set up, and the gentleman from Pennsylvania let us view the sun through his camera lens

But we had to leave before the eclipse began because we had to pick up the bull. 

                               

However, DH rigged up a way for us to view the eclipse:

One redneck eclipse viewer (aka: welding helmet) coming up. 😂

The fella was incredibly nice and he told us to email him and he'd share photos with us. He takes beautiful shots and you can find him here:

                                               J. Michael Schirra Photography

Then that evening we hauled ourselves to town. A friend of ours was playing in a band and they invited us to join them for the evening. WOW! We were kind of blown away. They were SO good and they played our FAVORITE kind of dancing music...classic, traditional country from the 60's and 70's. Alas, DH had a colt fall with him a few weeks ago and although we wanted to dance to every single song they played, we had to sit them out. We didn't stay late because we we're shipping calves the next week and our Ranch Dance Card was overbooked.

Then Sunday I cooked all day. We gathered and shipped cattle on Monday and Tuesday. So I set the alarm for 3:00. I had 13 men to feed, plus I still needed to go in to work on Monday after I fed them dinner at noon. Some things have changed since the ranch changed hands and cooking is one of them. They don't want to take time for breakfast so I just made up some monster breakfast burritos and sent them with DH. 

Same thing for dinner so another round of beefy-bean-green chile-cheese burritos that I made and dropped off at North Camp Pens along with a batch of Loaded Butterscotch-Toffee-Pecan Cookies.( I'll share this recipe soon).Then I drove in to work. 

We finished up at 7:30 p.m. and it was 10 by the time I got home, showered, and fell into bed. 

Tuesday: More breakfast burritos. This time I used chorizo-egg-and potato. And since they were finishing up here at headquarters, they did come in for dinner. I made Taco Lasagna, taquitos, corn, and salad with Cajun Cake for dessert. 

I didn't take any photos because they were working at North Camp and since the ranch sold, we are working with a whole new crew and I wasn't sure how they'd feel about me hanging around with my camera. It's a strange feeling after being so comfortable with our old crew for 19 years and the crew before that in Texas for 12 years. 

We usually wean calves here, but they shipped them out, straight off the cows. So it doesn't feel the same - no freshly weaned bawling babies to lull us to sleep this year. Kinda makes me sad.

On another note, we had 92 1st calf heifers that they gathered from the South Bull Pasture Tuesday morning 

to be preg-tested (another new change - we've never done that before - DH is incredibly tuned in to the cattle under his care and he can mostly tell when they're bred or if they're open).  Out of 92 head, only 3 were open!! Plus, we've had almost no rain to speak of on the south side of the ranch so it's doubly impressive on a super dry year. Yes, I'm singing DH's praises because if you know him at all, you know he won't!

Whew! I don't know if I have the energy to get through the rest of October. I'll be 60 in a few months and all I can say is the old gray mare just ain't what she used to be! Oye!