Whew!!! Nothing died & THEY're HOME

Whew, well, you might have guessed, but my family has been gone ALL week. Yup All of them. Honey had planned on taking A.Cowgirl & J. to his hometown County Fair in Illinois to show Freedom & the Steer. I needed to stay home to do chores & take care of the calves that we're going to show @ State Fair & trying to sell for show calves. Late in the day on Sunday, Honey's brother called & said that they wanted to have Squeak come too. They would watch him during the day & Grandma would have him at nite. Because 3 kids & fitting 2 calves would be WAYYYY to much for Daddy to handle by himself. o.k.? Can I do this??

Can I really stay home.....by.....myself????

Well......I did it!! I got lots done outside & wasn't in the house more than 10 min at a time while the sun was up.

And....NOTHING DIED. You see, most every time that Honey is gone, something died. 8 years ago, he was showing in Denver & I lost 5 (yup 5 out of 8) calves & his dog was hit on the road.
So, nothing dying was a HUGE accomplishment.

And, If you read my tweets you know that A.Cowgirl did really well & the steer won Reserve Grand over all on Wednesday. This was a huge show. There were 297 calves shown each day.

So, I met them in DesMoines @ my parent's house to trade trucks (honey took theirs, cause I had to haul pigs). That little steer I tweeted (he bloated really bad) about was doing ok, just a little bit of bloat (don't worry, I took some pictures, so I'll blog about bloating later).

So, we get home about dark, and all of us are doing chores (WOW!! its great to have my ranchhands er...kids... back). And we hear a goat crying. At one point it screams, & I ask "who's killing my goat??" Meaning that the dogs were chasing it or had one of the cows stepped on a goat? Nobody sees the goats. We had seen LadyBell & Checkers on the other side of the road with 7-up when we got home.

We get the air let off of the bloated calf (again) and I went to the south end of the barn to carry buckets the J had so graciously filed, and still hear a goat crying. I looked under the wagons (remember its getting dark). HMMM, I carry 2 buckets to the cows (the OLD babies in the barn). Lacey (my pet cow who is blind) starts walking out and trips on the poured water pad, & steps in the hole. A goat SCREEEEEAAAAMMMMS. YIKES!!! I holler for honey & go running to the hole. I stick my hand in the hole (really dark & can't see) & I feel ......HORNS. I grab his little horn & PULLLLLLL. Billy Goat is stuck in the hole. HONEYYYY! He's so fat I have to re-grab and use my legs to pull him out. Billy is usually VERY anti-social & after I pulled him out, I checked legs & stomach & he seemed fine. But he just stood there looking around & trying to figure out if he was ok. He let me pet him again & seemed ok.

WOW!! He got lucky! How did he fall in feet first?? Did a cow kick him? They usually drink out of the calf tank, WHY did he have to go in the cow pen? Wow, he was lucky that he didn't go head first or he'd be drowned. I guess we're lucky he has horns, so he didn't get hurt too bad when Lacey stepped on him. She just squished him farther down in the hole. Its a 6 ft tube that sits below an automatic waterer.


So, they made it home & we're all laying in bed snuggling & talking 90 miles a minute.

AND...........Nobody died while Honey was gone. THANK GOD!!!