Mirror KB Ranch Tales of the Twin Wranglers   May 2008

May 12, 2008

Had a hard rain the other night, an' yesterday was dadgum chillier 'n a banker's smile with a mighty breeze barrelin' down the valley an' intermittent showers of rain.  We worked in the office for awhile toilin' over a photo submission an' also decided to finally start writin' a novel....but both, us an' the dogs soon became bored.

Lookin' out the window we saw that though the wind was still blowin' mightily, there was a lull in the rain, so we slipped into our bright pink MSU Rodeo jackets an' headed out to fill the ruts that the tractor gouged into the soft earth at the south pasture gate this spring.  Kim an' the dogs loaded into ol' Red, the dump truck, while Kari drove the tractor out to the dirt bank where we filled the truck with a gravely mix of dirt, sand an' rocks.

On the way back Kim drove the tractor an' Kari took rein of ol' Red, then we both worked at shovelin' dirt into the ruts while the dogs goofed off.  They ran, rolled, an' tumbled, chasin' each other in circles 'round our job.

Sage thought it a wonderful game to jump into the dump truck an' climb the slope of the half raised bed to the top of the dirt...her version of "Dog of the Mountain."  Otter leaped into the truck once but found it too slippery for his taste of fun.

Otter is much faster than Sage so she spends a good deal of time chasin' his tail, but if she manages to take the lead she ends up gettin' bowled over.

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May 10, 2008

Lately Sage must be goin' through the equivalent of the "terrible twos" in us humans.  The other day when Kari dialed-up to get on the Internet, the line was dead. Tryin' several times with no better success we finally started pokin' 'round under the computer desk to see if we could figure out what the problem was. Eureka, we found the problem!  While Sage had been under the desk, pretendin' to nap, she had evidently chewed through the phone line.

Luckily dad keeps a stash of such kind of electrical stuff in the house, so we dug through the office drawers an' found a replacement phone line that would work. The next day Sage was really bad for we found that she had chewed up the power adapter on dad's Maxtor external hard-drive. We can't find a spare cord to replace this one. Checked at Radio Shack in town an' they didn't have one either so we searched on-line for one.  It would seem that this particular hard-drive is made in China so when our search brings up a web site for the Maxtor storage unit, it's got lots an' lots of information on it, but it's all in Chinese.

Sage also continues to pester Quiver, our debilitated 15 year old Border Collie so we've been checkin' 'round at the local pet adoption agency, Kootenai Pets for Life. On Wednesday we drove to the Libby town park to meet with a couple gals that foster pound rescued dogs. They brought three dogs with 'em for us to see.  Of the three we decided to give four year old Ozzie, a chocolate Wirehaired Pointing Griffon, a try.

Sage of course wasn't too keen on the whole adoptin' another dog idea. She was somewhat afraid of the dogs so barked ferociously at them but would skitter away from them if they came near her.  Still we thought that Ozzie - who we've now renamed Otter, might turn out to be a good playmate for her if only she would give him a chance, so we brought him home with us. Otter sat on the bench seat while Sage glowered at him from the floor of the van.

Once at home, we were kept busy with the pet vac.  Right off the bat Otter had laid claim to his new territory by liftin' his leg on various pieces of furniture. Since we didn't trust him, the first night we put Otter in a crate down in the kitchen area, but he whined an' barked 'till we relented an' let him sleep up stairs with us.  It's a nightly ritual for Sage to wake us up to be let outside, but Otter didn't wait. He'd left us a range of mountains an' a large yellow lake to clean up off the bathroom floor.

The next day Sage continued her grouchy way with Otter, snappin' at him for every little thing. She even tugged on his ear a time or two. This wasn't goin' well an' we were beginin' to consider that gettin' Sage a playmate just wasn't goin' to work out.

Yesterday we loaded the two dogs up in the crew cab pickup an' drove to Kalispell, through a spring snow flurry, to fetch home the Kubota tractor - which had been in the repair shop the past three weeks. While in the big city we also stopped at the ranch an' farm supply store to purchase a bunch of fence posts as our stockpile at home had dwindled down to only three spare posts.

Otter settled down in the back seat, while Sage slept between us up front.  Once or twice Sage would climb into the back with Otter to scold him just for bein' there, but as the long day trip wore on she became less snooty toward him. We stopped at McDonalds to have a hamburger, an' the dogs shared a McChicken sandwich.

Once we were home, we got the tractor off the hauler, then unloaded the fence posts while the dogs went for a dip in the pump house pond....crazy dogs, it's not even warm out! Then back inside the house we sat down at our computers to catch up on emails an' such while the dogs stretched out on the floor to nap. Pretty soon Sage was tired of resting an' wanted to play so as usual she went over to pester ol' Quiver. Quiver's answer was, "no leave me alone!"  Of course Sage rarely abides by any thing Quiver has to say, but this time she turned away an' walked over to where Otter lay nappin'.

She poked  an' prodded at him with her nose, then dropped to the floor in a playful yet submissive gesture. It worked slicker 'n calf slobber. Sage an' Otter were soon bouncin' 'round the office havin' a grand time. It looks like this scheme to get Sage a playmate might just work out after all.

Oh, nearly forgot to brag on Sage. She's sort of redeemed herself for chewin' up the power cord. Yesterday evenin' one of the yearlin' heifers was out in the east horse pasture so we opened the gate an' Sage helped herd the heifer into the barnyard. She kept after the heifer, but called off fairly well when we told her "That'll do."  But still we had to get the heifer into the cow pasture an' we didn't have the gate open yet. 

Kari told Sage to sit an' wait while she opened the gate, then called Sage to come help move the heifer back toward the gate. Kim blocked the path where the heifer might try to turn back toward the horse pasture. Sage was aggressive enough to get the heifer movin' but didn't continue roustin' her when she was headed toward the gate, though she stayed on the heifer's heels.

We're thrilled that Sage did so well, but ain't fools neither.  We know that Sage doesn't grasp the idea of direction of travel quite yet. More 'n likely she'll head the cows in the wrong direction a time or two before she figures out where we want 'em. Still, we're proud of our little pup!

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May 4, 2008

Looks like we've gone an' crossed the border into another month already, but at least this time we can rightfully say that spring has arrived in the northwest corner of Montana.  A few days ago we did have a snow flurry, but it lasted all of maybe 5 minutes.  All of the snow has melted off the valley floor, but plenty of it still clings to the ridges around us.  The forecast is for possible rain in the next day or so, but from what we gather it looks unlikely that we'd get enough to wet the whistle of a mountain chickadee.

Course now, if spring rain does set in, there is fair likelihood that the Fisher Rider will flood. This is due to the fact that its been so cool this spring that the mountain snow pack hasn't begun to melt, neither has the snow on the ridges over lookin' our valley. With our daily temperatures warmin' up to a toasty 58 degrees the ridges are beginnin' to thaw out an' if we get rain on top of the regular melt, the rivers will be runnin' deep enough to wash the tip of a moose's ear.

Though the pastures have begun to turn green with fresh forage for the stock, what grass we have is still shorter 'n an ant's back, so the other day we put the last of the round bales of grass hay out for the cows, then folded up the gigantic tarp that we'd used to protect the hay while it sat in the barnyard.  Sage did her best to help, though at times she'd pull the tarp in the wrong direction which would effectively undo any headway we'd just made.  Then we tackled the job of cleanin' up the pile of hay twine that we'd tossed under the cattle chute ramp durin' the winter. 

The blue twine that held the 4x3x8 foot bales of alfalfa hay together is heavy duty twine so we wanted to keep a supply of it on hand just in case we ever need to tie somethin,' or perhaps someone up.  While we sorted an' untangled the twine, we'd meticulously hang each strand over the corral fence with the idea of keepin' 'em from gettin' all tangled up again.  Of course Sage had to get involved.  Ever so often she'd snatch the end of one of the twines, pull it off the fence, then prance 'round us shakin' it like a whipped snake.

On Friday we worked at replacin' all the old an' broken fence rails in the barnyard/east pasture fence line as well as the horse breakin' corral.  The job went relatively easy since Sage found more interest in rompin' 'round in the pond an' crick than workin' with us, though ever so often she'd mosey over to check on our progress. That must make her the ramrod of this outfit.  While we do the work she goes fishin'. 

Then again, yesterday the three of us worked together to take apart, then store the round bale horse feeders in one of the unused horse stalls for the summer months.   We ended up with way more help than we needed.  In each pasture we went to, the horses would approach, curious to see what we were up to an' were probably encouraged with the idea that they just might get a horse cube for their inquisitiveness.

Since we didn't want so much help we offered no treats to the horses.  All they got for their curiosity was a snap at their noses from Sage who had decided that we needed to be protected from the nosy beasts.  Kneelin' on the ground while we coaxed the stubborn nuts off a the darn bolts that held the feeders together, Sage would use our backs as spring boards to launch herself at the meddlesome monsters.  It amazes us that with so much help, we actually managed to get the job done at all.

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Ride the  April  2008 Tales of the Twin Wranglers

Ride the  March 2008 Tales of the Twin Wranglers

Ride the February 2008 Tales of the Twin Wranglers