Ranch Blog

There are two new faces to the ranch, mini ADORABLE faces! I have dreamed for years of bringing some minis home, and it was nothing short of divine intervention getting a message for these two within minutes of posting an ISO ad. Cherry and Willow are mother and daughter, and are the sweetest, gentlest little gals that would melt even the coldest heart. While their main job is just to look cute, I would love to turn them into a matching driving pair, or even therapy horses in the future as a way to serve the local community. 

It's been a week since weaning the foals, and with Jojo being a fall foal she will remain on her dam for a few more months yet. But with winter in full swing (yet in decision paralysis as it can't decide whether to rain or snow, or to be warm or sub zero) both her and her dam have been put in charge of babysitting the weanlings so they have access to the best forage and the deep strawed barn. It was fresh straw day today and who knew how exciting of an event that could be. I'm not sure how many brain cells are actually up there, but she's living her best life!

There's always one who takes his job at accruing vet bills seriously. Scooter got into a little scuffle with a porcupine, and learned the hard way that's one battle he'll never win! Thankfully a pair of pliers did the job, and while his ego may be hurt his nose is no worse for wear. 

August 30th official marked the end of our foaling season with the arrival is this bay beauty! She is the most feminine, dainty filly, yet still has little tree trunks for legs. She is a full sister to both Rosie and Scout, and is the last of the a Dollar offspring as he was gelded this spring. She will be retained for a potential broodmare prospect in the future. 

There is nothing more entertaining than looking out at the foal pasture and seeing them tear across the grass as fast as their little legs will carry them. There's always one who is the instigator, and it's the same culprit, *ahem* colt, every time. Knox isn't happy unless he is a bay bullet, running circles around the others. He has a natural propensity to lope, and has a beautiful uphill gait when he isn't kicking up his heels. He definitely has something different than his two full siblings, and I'm hoping that something different will lead to him being a stud prospect. Only time will tell! We still have one more foal due this year, and the days are counting down!

One of the reasons I love running mixed herds is being able to sit and study herd dynamics for hours. From birth the foals have not only been with their mothers and other broodmares, but other young fillies/mares, and young geldings as well. There is a strict hierarchy that's kept in place by the oldest, biggest boss mare, Mortana Kendall, who can dictate things with just her presence and a twitch of her ears. And unfortunately, or fortunately, that means the yearling fillies have been put in charge of babysitting the two bundles of energy throughout the day. When the time is right both mares will seek them out, leave their foals with them, and wander off to graze. Arrow A Kelsey, one of the 2024 fillies out of Mortana Kendall, seems to be the favorite, and spends a lot of time alone with the two kids, one being her full baby sister. She is very tolerant of their shenanigans and always keeps a watchful eye on them, being the little mother hen that she is. 

Even though I was only gone a week, it seems as if the foals doubled in size upon my return. Knox, who will be registered as NorthSky Tomahawk, went from a pudgy newborn to a beefy, muscley butterball! And he is not even a month old yet. I have a special feeling about him, even more so than his brothers. 

There's a phrase, whether it is well known or not, of "hurry up and slow down", and how true is it when it comes to cattle work. With cattle, slow and steady truly does win the race. Calm horses, calm riders, calm people, all make for calm cattle. Tip-toeing in and out of the herds pulling pairs while the rest chew their cud is delicate and precise work. One wrong step, a nervous horse, or a hurried rider can ruin that calmness in the blink of an eye and your job suddenly becomes 100x harder. But it is also a great opportunity, for both horse and rider, to practice the art of reading cattle, and to get the feel of where to be and when to keep them moving in the right direction. Slow and calculating, the goal to keep the herd quiet while you work. A skill that is always being polished and improved on. If cattle aren't moving or working as smoothly as they should be, your best bet is to look at yourself and ask what am I doing to make them that way? 

One of the most anticipated seasons is drawing nearer, Juneberry season. Juneberries grow wild and ripen around the end of June, hence their name, and are the most delectable addicting berry on the face of this planet. In appearance and texture they are very reminiscent of blueberries, but have the refreshing taste of an apple. Having just one handful is impossible, a bellyful is more realistic. 10 out of 10 would recommend. 

Baby #2 is officially on the ground! Thank you Cinnamon for not waiting until I went on vacation. The big behemoth had her own big behemoth: a huge and handsome bay colt. It is amazing how quick everything can happen. I did my daily morning drive by on my way to check cows, seeing she was standing, relaxed and dozing, with the other broodmares and thinking I would check on her more closely on my way back I continued to the cows. By the time I returned 20 minutes later she was still standing, but this time standing over a wet, flopping bundle of joy. While she didn't listen to my wish for a filly, I cannot complain as her colts are truly the best. At just a day old he is already spry and annoyingly friendly. His barn name and government name are still TBD, but he is a full brother to both NorthSky Silver Scooter and NorthSky Gunsmoke.

This has been a very interesting calving season to say the least. It's the type of long story you can't really make short, but the only satisfaction I have is that my theory was indeed correct. Bad bulls. My cows are now at the end of their second cycle and FINALLY are starting to dump their calves left and right, half of them having calved since Saturday. The timing of it all perfectly lining up with the date I threw in a new bull as a Hail Mary. While the resulting calves are not the cross I was expecting or hoping for, I can't deny they are cute and stylish!

With the first foal of the year stealing the spotlight, next on deck is this big behemoth. Cinnamon has always been a large mare, however when in foal she turns into a land hippo. While she is not due until the 4th of July, if she sticks to the same timetable as her last two foals she is within the week to two week window. Which would be perfect as I am going on vacation end of June, but with my luck she'll wait until I am gone. After this foal she will be worked back into shape, as three years of foal raising has made her a little puffy 😆 All else fails, since this will be her last foal for a while, a later weaning may be in order. 

And with the addition of this buckskin beauty, foaling season has officially started! She made a speedy entrance into the world last evening and was born, standing, and nursing all within the first hour. What an overachiever! She is a big STOUT filly, so big I would've bet $100 that she was a he. She is already friendly, independent, and has no trouble using her knobby long legs at not even a day old.  She carries a high percentage of Mortana blood, her dam being a full sister to Bill Jackson's last stallion Mortana Ceali, and her sire going back to Mortana morgans multiple times. She will carry the Arrow A prefix when the time comes to register, but in the meantime here is a link to her full sister's pedigree. Two more mares are left to foal, one most likely within the next couple weeks, and the last the first week of September. Stay tuned for more foal updates!

It seems like when things go wrong they go wrong all at once. This week has been ROUGH to say the least. But, even amidst the rough times there is always blessings we can be thankful for. One, Scooter (pictured) is looking like a man, and is always there offering a shoulder to cry on. Literally. Two, we are now onto daily checks with our first mare getting ready to foal, the second most likely within the next couple weeks. And last but not least, a missing yearling we were convinced was laying dead somewhere miraculously appeared two days later. She had disappeared the morning after a bad lightning storm and after spending hours scouring the pastures, seeing no sign of her and all the fences in tact, concluded that she was most likely struck by lightning and lying somewhere out of sight. Lo and behold she may have a future as a jumper, as she ended up jumping and clearing the fence into the next pasture and hid out in a buffalo bush patch in the bottom of a coulee for 2 days. The moment she heard human voices she came flying out of the bushes as if her life depended on it, gaunt and as wild as a deer, but without a mark on her.  To say we were relived, and astounded, is an understatement. It was truly an answered prayer she was found safe and sound.

With the onset of summer comes spending the days running around pastures fixing fences, but with views like this how can it be work! There's nothing better than taking a minute to sit with a snack overlooking the leafing coulees, smelling the sweet smell of flowering sage, taking in the endless and cloudless blue sky. When people think of North Dakota they think of flat and boring country, but when one takes the time to truly look a vast, new world reveals itself. Here elevation doesn't go up, it goes down, like inverted mountains hidden by the horizon, away from prying eyes. Even the rolling hills of the prairie, appearing as wasteland to the untrained eye, are teeming with life, hundreds of different plant species and animal species working together to create a small and unfortunately shrinking ecosystem that will one day disappear if we are not careful in preserving it. From the prairie, to the coulees, to the badlands, each have their own purpose, and their own beauty. The open space, the ability to see uninterrupted for miles, brings me peace and comfort. For a gal who was born and raised amongst the trees of MN it seems ironic to now say those same trees make me feel claustrophobic when I return to visit family and friends, and I find myself quickly itching to get back to the big sky country again.

As the last few days of May tick away it's time to start thinking about flipping the calendar and penciling the next month - scheduling events, writing the month's work load down: waiting for calving season to come to a close, thinking about branding season, haying season, breeding season, waiting for foaling season to start, then throw in the normal day to day work on top of it all. If there's a time where I grow the most gray hairs chances are it's during the month of June. All I feel I do is wait for things to come, and of course, waiting for something is like watching paint dry, the harder you look the longer it seems to take. Especially if the anticipation is high. And if we are not careful, the anticipation leads to anxiousness, the anxiousness to frustration, the frustration to a shorter temper, and the shorter temper to negativity and despair. In that state of mind it seems as if wrenches are being thrown everywhere and things never to go as planned, it can feel like trudging and fighting through knee-deep mud that wants to swallow you whole. It's enough to test anyone's patience. I remember teasingly being told when I was younger to be careful when praying for patience, that The Good Lord doesn't just suddenly bestow patience upon us but give us opportunities to LEARN patience. Patience is a virtue, as the saying goes. It reveals one's self-control, one's endurance, and one's ability to remain composed and positive even when current situations tempt us otherwise. "Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays foolishness." Proverbs 14:29.

  A brief moment of warm, afternoon sunshine was the perfect opportunity to venture out and check on the mares and young horses, who have been out in one of the big pastures since the beginning of spring. The rain worked wonders in shedding and shinning up their coats. We are now officially within a month of our first mare foaling, and the excitement is building. Cinnamon isn't due until the first week of July, but last year she foaled a couple weeks early and if she follows suit this year she is almost in that month window as well. She is already looking large and in charge. My gut says that she will be having another colt, but I am hoping that I am wrong and she has a filly. I already have names picked out, not only colt and filly names but different names depending on what color the foal is as well. Yes, I am that kind of person 😆 But it helps pass the time, and makes the wait somewhat more tolerable. 

The last time I had to pull out any sort of rain gear was 3 years ago to the date. This one snuck up on us, and with a last minute detour set it's stormy center over western and central ND. I had almost forgotten what mud looked and felt like after years of constant dust and blowing dirt. 3 days of slow and steady rain has been the biggest answer to our biggest prayer, and the relief is palpable after a fire-fueled spring. Some areas got up to 6 inches of moisture, even over. The creeks are alive and flowing again, the grass I swear has grown inches in a matter of just days, and we may actually have pastures to graze after all! The timing couldn't have been more perfect, but God's timing is always perfect. For once, it was exhilarating to be covered in mud versus covered in dirt as I trudged and sludged behind calving heifers moving them to better shelter. Though it did make me realize that I should probably work on getting in better shape, the huffing and puffing started almost instantly 😆 But in my defense, the mud did nearly take my boots with every step. 

If I didn't know any better, I'd swear it was the dead of summer instead of mid-spring. The past three days have been breaking records for high temps, knocking on the door of 100 degrees. It has been a sticky and sweaty mess, and though winter just ended it makes me wish for cold temperatures. This is unusually early for a heat wave, though not surprising as we are in store to another hot and droughty summer. Par for the course. At this point any rain has become a freak weather event, and drought being the new normal. Hauling water has become a habitual chore, but it's one of those chores that I enjoy as I get to spend time with the yearling heifers. Who always have to come say hello and use the water wagon as their own personal body scratcher. They peek around the tanks watching your every move, and when you're not looking try their hand at swimming as the hose creates a whirlpool filling up their water. Teenagers are the same, no matter bovine or human. If there's trouble to be caused, they'll find it!

 This was one the the first years in many where we actually seemed to have a spring. While we are still seriously lacking in moisture and greenery the other tell-tale signs are there: blooming crocuses, robins and other spring birds singing in the budding trees, new calves being born in the warm morning sun. The season of new life has officially begun. This buckskin beauty was the first to calf this year, her dam one of my best cows as a 5 year old. She thoroughly proved herself by having a whopper 90lb calf as a first calf heifer completely unassisted (she timed it perfectly, calving when I was bringing cows to the sales ring) and is the best little mother, always making sure he is by her side. Exactly what one wants to see out of a heifer. While we still have a month and a half before foal watch begins, at least my time is pre-occupied with these little guys. Makes the waiting that much easier! With this year's foal crop being the last before I officially hit the pause button on raising Morgans, I am both praying and crossing all my fingers and toes for fillies that I will hopefully be able to keep and eventually breed in the far future. Especially out of my Funquest mare, Cinnamon, who has only had colts so far. A boy mom through and through. I'm hoping 3rd time's the charm! If not, maybe I'll have to hit the play button sooner than I think.