It's Finished!!

After a lot of sore muscles, aches, pains and scratches from barbwire....1800 ft of fencing is complete! Yippeee John did most of it by himself. He is a real rancher. Ranch foreman-ranch manager and ranch hand, all in one. Friday evening we opened the gate and coaxed the cows over with range cubes. That stuff is like candy for them and they would go anywhere for it. They walked slowly then even jumped about 4ft off the ground. I guess they thought the fence was still there. But they cautiously came into the new area. We saw them later checking out the new fence line. They were on new ground with lots of new smells and lots of new GRASS!!! Thank goodness we will not have to buy any more hay this year.

What a beautiful day Saturday was. With no fence to work on, I worked a little in the garden. Getting it ready for planting. John was chopping and splitting wood. I transported 2 tubs full of bark mulch from the wood area to my garden walk ways. Everything has a use on the farm. Which brings me to the next project...the compost pile. Like I said every thing on the farm has a use...this one thanks to the cows.

Daily Visitors

It is such a blessing to witness God's beauty. We see raw nature every day. Some good-Some not so good but it is still nature's plan. Everything plays a part and has a season. Every year at this time the turkey begin to move in. Where do they come from? Where have they been? There are so many of them! Every morning and every evening they visit. It is an annual tradition that we really enjoy and I wanted to share.

Predators

As I was about to leave for school, John yelled "hurry get my gun"! That always makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. To make getting the gun quicker, we hung a rifle over the front door. Yes, just like on Little House on the Prairie, Gunsmoke and all our favorite westerns. I now understand the necessity of doing that. As John took aim, I grabbed the camera to also take aim. If you look closely across the pond, you will see a coyote. Actually, there were 3 roaming around. We had already seen the cows and they were far to the left-next to the corral. A few shots were fired and off ran the coyote. We don't think they were hit since this particular rifle may not shoot that far. But a good scare was put in the predators that hopefully they will remember. Any closer to the house and they would have been hanging on the fence. Let me elaborate on that a bit. Apparently it is a custom to hang the coyote carcass on the front fence of your land. Legend has it, other coyotes will not cross. Also it sends a warning to other farmers that there is a coyote problem in the area. I agree that seems a little primitive but now that we are ranchers, we plan to follow tradition. We will continue to the hunt and keep you posted.

FYI, there was no evidence of the coyotes other than seeing them. All livestock on Murphy Ranch is fine.

Cupid's Weekend

What a weekend. Saturday was spent working on the fence. This step was all about...barbwire..! John would roll out the barbwire using an implement attached to the tractor. Mr. Franklin (our helper on Saturday) and I would adjust it, then it would be tightened with a special tool. Each strand , and there are six, had to be secured to each green tpost. Why they are called tpost is a mystery to me. They are not-in any way-the shape of a T. Just straight green metal posts with white tops and little knobs all the way down one side. Anyway, a small hand held fence tool is used to apply a special piece of wire to each tpost at each strand of barbwire. I am too afraid to do the math, but that is alot of work. Of coarse leather gloves have to be used and there is ALOT of squatting involved for the bottom 2 strands. All along the way, Sadie was there sniffing the wind and anything else that she could find. I want to invent a harness where she could at least carry tools and water! We have now completed about 1200ft of fence with about 600ft to go. Sunday we worked early, while the sun was out, and finished up the north side. When the clouds took over and the north wind began to howl, we called it quits. The rest of our Valentine's day was spend relaxing, watching the Olympics and enjoying each other. John cooked an awesome dinner. I am so blessed that he loves to cook

Record snow fall in Texas

Yesterday afternoon snow began to fall and didn't stop. We enjoyed a warm fire and stayed in all evening. Murphy Ranch didn't get as much snow as most, but it was just as beautiful. The temperatures were not cold enough for it to stay very long. School was delayed til 10AM. My drive in was met with alot of slick mud and some slick spots. It was cloudy but by 12:30P the sun peeked through though. The rest of the afternoon was blue skies and the temp got up to 50 degrees. When I got home from school, I found John on the back hill working on the fence. There were a few places where he could not get the t-post post in because of the rock. He rented a small jack hammer and was putting in the remaining posts. Sadie and I rode the 4 wheeler around to all of the game cameras and retrieved the chips. When we returned, I fed the chickens and gathered the eggs. We broiled one of our "home grow" steaks and enjoyed a quiet dinner in front of the fireplace. Off to bed early, tomorrow will be a full day of working on the fence.

Life on the ranch can have hard decisions....

Monday was tough...for us all. It was rainy and cold but John had a chore to do. He had to trailer Maggie and Spudz's calf. Then they left, never to return to Murphy Ranch. As for Maggie, it was a really tough decision. She is 14 years old and had a lot of trouble calving last year. Then we begin to notice other problems. The hardest things was she lost her title as "boss cow". Spudz now holds that title. When these things happen a decision had to be made in order to avoid further problems. So....it was taken care of. She was our very first longhorn on Murphy Ranch and she was a very good cow. We had 3 calves with her and all were healthy and served their purpose well. As a matter of fact, we are keeping her last bull calf(show in the picture) to be the sire(when he reaches maturity) of our future herds. His name is "Bulls-Eye" because of his markings, but as John said, I need to quit naming them. It just makes it tougher later. So is the life of a grass fed beef ranch. I hate to say that the others were looking for the ones who left, but it is true and it really tugged at my heart. Ok, enough of that. I am living a tough country life and need to get tougher. But there are still God's beauty to behold and I have compassion in my heart. I guess life on the ranch take a little of both. So now we move on and look forward to bringing "Loverboy" the bull

from the Franklin Ranch to "service" (what a crude term) our cows. Then it will not be long till sweet, cute calves arrive and the whole process starts all over again.

Last Weekend of January 2010

Wow how time flys by. Saturday I was completely surprised by a visit from my YaYas. Debbie, Shonda, Michele and Chrissy (honorary YaYa) came for the day to celebrate my birthday. John was in on it and they all made it so fun, complete with cake and candles! The city girls enjoyed seeing the chickens as they were laying and feeding the cows. It was bitterly cold so not much time was spent outside. We played games, talked by the fire and the time went by too fast. By 5PM, John and I were waiving goodbye from across the pond as the girls drove away. What a great day.
Sunday John and I had to do a little ranch work. We had put hay in the corral during the snow and freezing time during the holidays. This had to scraped out with the tractor and box blade. So all sections of the fencing around the corral was moved and the old hay and cow manure was moved to a compost pile. After working the compost for a couple of months, it will be perfect for my vegetable garden. When the corral was all cleared out, we replaced the fence panels, salt and mineral blocks and made it ready for the cows to go in. We need to get them used to going in there again because the corral is used to load cows into the stock trailer. We also put out the last round bale of hay. The bale ring was placed around it to keep the cows from spreading the hay too much and waisting it. The weather is still very cold and wet so the hay is a welcome treat. When we were finished there, as I do every evening, I gathered the eggs and put feed out for the chickens for the next morning. 5 hens and 1 rooster, with an average of 5 eggs a day. Not too shabby. We may try and let some chicks hatch this spring. I would like to keep about 10 chickens total. All done and in the house for a hot bath and warm up!