Welcome to our ranch near Canada's west coast in Beautiful British Columbia's West Chilcotin mountain region. Where calling the vet means hollering back at the house to bring your kit, new friendships are formed from the back of a horse and true fun for a five year old is getting a machete for Christmas. Where 'cutting the dinks off' has a totally different meaning than what first comes to mind, Muck Boots are a household name, a hand shake still means something and the coffee is always on.

Thursday 7 May 2015

May 7th Already?

Ah my friends, keeping this writing saga going is harder than I thought!  :)  I'm just amazed how quickly time is flying and committing to write here every few days is one more way of proving that!  


Yep, it's spring in Anahim Lake.  Green grass, blue skies, sunshine and snowflakes!  

So mum got some great news today.  Apparently the doctor told her she was 'healing up like a kid", which is pretty awesome!  They are not even going to cast it and already want her to start doing exercises with it.  I am sure to my core that we are not going to keep her off a horse much longer, but thinking that we may kick Jackson off of her old horse Rea so she will still be as safe as possible.  Jackson is plenty good enough of a rider to take on a different horse, and with mum on Rea, she will still be able to do as much as ever, as far as cutting and sorting.  
I have finally had a bit of time to work with the colt that actually broke her wrist, and although his name is still "Crow Bait", he has come a long way!


Our run of 'not so good' luck has continued as we lost another calf yesterday.  We are working on grafting a replacement (from one of the Play Pen Gang with Black Velvet and Evie....they now only have 4 babies between them), but I'm not sure if it is going to work out or not.  Some good news is that on the night check at Six Mile, Olivia came across a cow that had gotten on her back as she tried to get comfortable calving.  Cows live for a very short time if they can't get righted, and once they are over that tipping point, they don't seem to try very hard.  Luckily, the night check was at exactly the right time, she got the help she needed, had her calf and all is well!    

Milk Mustache!   

With a whole bunch of riding on the near horizon, I've been trying to peck away at getting some of our ranch horses shod.  Unfortunately, my new guy Kenny is extremely lame and I'm near positive that it is due to an abscess working it's way out.  Hopefully he won't be out for long as I was really looking forward to putting some miles on him!  Not like there are not a whole herd of others that need it too......  :)  

Such a great photo I came across of my shoeing partner from years back!  

Have a great weekend everyone!
Punky  


 

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm glad to hear Auntie Wanda is healing up so quickly! I'd expect it would be hard to keep her still too long. Send her my love. Sorry I missed branding.

Cordy said...

I know that donkey!! Haha the four legged one that is! Love this post. Really shows the reality of ranching. We lost a calf the other day to a bear. Always sucks.

Terra Hatch said...

You are welcome at any time! And yes, mum is totally itching to climb aboard but I do think I've got her convinced to ride her old saddle horse that Jackson had taken over. I should do a story on that horse.....she packed me to my wedding, packed me hugely pregnant, packed me and both of my babies and is now packing my oldest son! And she's not even my horse....

Terra Hatch said...

I'm glad you recognized that photo Cordy!
Sorry to hear you lost a calf, especially to a bear. :(
Knock on wood, we haven't had any predator trouble so far.....