Moving Cows

 On the way back from Cedar City, I saw something up ahead. As we got closer, I could see horses, trucks, 4-wheelers, cows, and dust. They were moving some cows.

 It looked like the cows weren't the only thing on the move--a flock of birds flew alongside some of them.

 The cows were strung out for miles, cows and calves plodding along towards their summer pasture.

 Most of the time they were single file, with fabulous mountain scenery in the background.

 Isn't that great geology? Or are you looking at the cows?

 A Red Angus is daring to mix in with the Black Angus.

We rounded the corner and the cows were a little bunched up. But then they figured it out and continued as far as the eye could see. When I see cows like that, I feel like I'm in an old Western movie.

Weekend Adventure--Part Two

After our fun eating and dancing at the Border Inn and photographing the full moon, it was time to start our camping adventure. We pulled to our camping spot under the full moon and found a level place. We transformed the seats into beds, brushed our teeth, and quickly laid down. We were tired, and it was late. But the wind blew, rattling the trailer. My husband got out of bed.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

"I better turn off the pivots," he said.

It was cool enough and with the wind he was afraid they might freeze. Some folks down the valley had a pivot fall over due to ice. It costs about $10,000 to put a pivot back up, and my husband did not want to have that kind of trouble.

We hadn't separated the trailer from the vehicle, so he did that and took off. That left me thinking about what I would do if the wind blew so strongly and the trailer started rolling towards the lake. Especially because the door is really hard to open. Finally I told myself to stop worrying and go to sleep. And I did.

But my husband said he kept thinking the same thing all night long, so we decided next time we won't leave the trailer pointed towards the water. We had the wheels chocked and knew the tongue would drag in the mud if it fell off the blocks, but one's imagination can go a little wild once in awhile.

Fortunately the trailer didn't move during the night, except when the wind blew or someone rolled over. It was a little wobbly. Okay. It was a lot wobbly. My husband has already bought another jack to try to make it more stable.

We woke up early as the sun streamed through the windows. I mentally added curtains to the long to-do list for the trailer. We transformed the beds back to seats and put up the table. The kids thought it was fun.

We haven't had a chance to hook anything up in the trailer, so my husband cooked over the little camp stove.

Henry had his breakfast, too.

Then it was time to walk around the reservoir.

We all had coats on, but Henry was eager to go for a swim and continually chased sticks that we threw out for him to fetch.

The water level is really low right now. We've had a dry winter, plus water is being used for irrigating the first crop of alfalfa. There's a lot of concern that there won't be water later in the summer, so there's effort to try to get the early crops as good as possible.

It's kind of neat to see all the shorelines. It makes me think of Lake Bonneville, that ancient lake that once covered so much of Utah.

The reservoir looks a little puny. I'm sure some folks wish that it was warm enough to do our annual triathlon with this low water level!

The west side of the reservoir has willows and the inlet, which meant good adventures.


With the low water, it wasn't too hard to swing the kids across the creek.


From the channel, it's clear that the inlet sees some more turbulent times. It was a little muddy in areas, but fortunately we didn't sink too deep.


Desert Boy found some "dinosaur" tracks.


We also saw some tracks that looked like skunk tracks to us.

With the low water levels we noticed a lot of trash. We had two big trash bags with us and filled them both up. Beer cans and beer bottles were the most common trash. Hopefully the reservoir will stay a little cleaner this summer.

The dried mud was fascinating to Desert Girl.

"Look what I found!"

When we got back to the trailer my husband wanted to eat lunch. As it was only 10 a.m. I vetoed the idea, but conceded that we could eat early in an hour. We played cards, read books, and relaxed. It was cold enough that if we had been in a tent we probably would have just gone home, so we appreciated the trailer.

By 11 a.m. the wind was strong enough we didn't want to build a fire, so we roasted our hot dogs over the camp stove. It still gave them a good taste. Then it was time to pack up and head home.

Mission accomplished. The camp trailer is lots of fun, but still needs a lot of work!

Our Weekend Adventure

Our weekend began with a spur of the moment decision to go camping. We recently found an old camp trailer that was useable (meaning no sign of mice, looked decent, and didn't seem to need too much cleaning). We thought it would be fun to take it out on a test run to camp about 20 minutes from our house.

My husband hooked up the trailer at lunchtime, and the plan was for me to take it and the kids to our camping spot, and then my husband would meet me after work (being a rancher, that work stuff takes way too much time!).

While I was cleaning the trailer, I found some structural integrity issues that took awhile to resolve (it doesn't help that I'm not super handy with tools), so at 6 p.m. we were still sitting in the driveway. I was tired, and I was wondering if we should even go.

We decided why not. But no cooking. Off to the Border Inn for the Cinco de Mayo buffet. The music had already started and Desert Boy really wanted to dance. I was still eating, so I told him to take Desert Girl out on the dance floor. He did, and then I had to follow to see what they were doing.

Desert Boy was swing dancing. It was awesome.

Silver Sage Music was playing, and the kids were really getting into the music.

We're talking spinning, moving, and lots of laughing.

I'm so glad I went and peeked at what they were doing!

We didn't stay too long as we wanted to start the camping adventure. When we exited the Border Inn, we saw the moon rising. Even though I had read that the moon was only 8 percent larger than normal, it looked a lot bigger at first, as it rose over the mountains. I was glad the media had given it a lot of attention--I knew lots of people were out looking at the moon the same time we were, and that's kind of a neat thought.

We went and chased a good spot for a fancy moon photo and were attracted to a windmill off in the distance.

I never could get the photo quite how I wanted, but it was fun looking around the windmill. To my amazement, my husband had never been out to it, so he enjoyed exploring.

The old Aermotor made in Chicago was still spinning.

I wonder how many cowboys have watched its blades spin.

It was getting dark quickly, which meant we had to get moving.

To be continued...

It's That Time of Year

 I saw lots of cows out in the meadow near the road, and then I noticed that these cows were sporting an accessory. Do you see it?

 I'm not talking about the mismatched earrings. Although I kind of like that fashion, and I could really make it work. What I'm talking about is the piece of orange tape across the top of their tails.

 They seem rather nonchalant about the tape.

The heifers (female cows that have never given birth) are fed a feed additive to help synchronize their heat (reproductive cycle). Then they are taken off the feed additive, given a drug and a gray tape is put on the tail head (top of the tail). The cows mount each other when they are going into heat, which scratches off the gray and shows the orange. In this way, the cowboys can easily detect which cows are in heat. Within a day, they are artifically inseminated (AI'd).

In the old days (like when my husband was 15 years younger), he helped detect the cows that were in heat by watching them all day and as long into the night as possible. If he saw a cow mounting another one, he would shoot the one being mounted with a paintball gun. After awhile, the cowboys would come out and separate the marked ones.

It wasn't always easy using the paintball gun from a distance and from a horse. In addition, my husband remembers the old method was rather boring. It would also seem to rain a lot, making it an even more unpleasant chore, so this new method is much appreciated.

After the heifers were AI'd, they went out to the meadow. If the AI'ing doesn't work (about 20% of the time it doesn't), they will get to be visited by a cleanup bull in the near future.

If you want to learn more about the whole process (in more detail than you might want--but where else are you going to read this stuff?), than check out this previous blog post.

What Do You Do When You're Five?

 A few months ago when we were at the library, Desert Boy wanted to get a library card. The librarian said he had to be five. This brought on a lot of tears, but I promised him that he would go to the library and get his card as soon as we could.

 So the day after his birthday, we went to town and went to the library. We filled out the form to get the library card.

 He has a special pouch for the library card.

 He chose some books (about trains) and I found a Hank the Cowdog audiobook (thanks for the recommendation, John, they have been a hit!)

The library card worked, so Desert Boy is in business. Hopefully he does better than his mama with getting his books back on time!

Wind Farm Update

I posted about the Spring Valley wind farm in March and had some request for updates. Here we go...

This is what it looked like heading down from Sacramento Pass into Spring Valley on April 8. The towers had expanded greatly.

The whole first row (of five rows) was completed. One wind mill is not quite in line. I'm sure there's a story behind that, and maybe some day I can find out. Ely High School took some field trips out to the wind farm in April, so I'm hoping that there will be a public field trip available to learn more about it.

More construction scenes, taken from the highway.

We still are seeing police escorts and oversize loads frequently. Apparently the wind has made the wind project about 25 days behind schedule. That means they will still be transporting parts for another three weeks. (I am hearing all this information second or third hand, so if someone knows better, please leave a comment!)

Getting behind these oversize loads over the mountain passes means that it will take an extra half hour over each pass.


Here is what Spring Valley looks like as of April 29. Over half of the wind mills are constructed, with many more partially up.

These are the second and third rows of the wind turbines.

Spring Valley sure looks a lot different.

I think I'll leave it at that.