A Day of Memories

So this past Monday was our 2nd anniversary, wow how time flies.

The day started out with Caleb wishing me a "Happy Anniversary" before I said it to him....

...I know it's how amazing is that. You'd think that would mean we were gonna have a wonderful...

...then I remembered we have cattle.

the end

that's all.

Ok, so here's what happened...

...After we got up, Caleb reminded me that we had a sick calf that we needed to catch a give a shot too. We saw the little guy on Sunday when we went for our weekly "Sunday Drive." We are planning on getting the whole group in to vaccinate them in a little over a week, but this little guy was hurtin' petty bad so we thought we had better give him a shot ASAP. So Caleb grabs the meds and the rope and we head to the pasture.

We get there and get the shot ready, cause once we catch the little guy we might not have much time, so we want to be able to give the shot as quickly as possible.

We drive out into the pasture where the cattle are and start lookin' for the sick little guy. He wasn't too hard to find cause most of the calves looked like this little guy...

....head up, ears perked....

....and full of all sorts of energy and ready to run...

...but this little guy's head was hangin' down his ears were droopy, he was breathin' a little hard, and he was coughing some too. All signs you have a sick calf and point to pneumonia.

Once we spot the little guy, Caleb then grabs his rope and "saddles up"....which means he gets on the back of the truck and gets his rope ready and I get to drive.

I try to pull up next to the little guy so Caleb can throw a rope over him, and that's when the rodeo starts. This wasn't a good rodeo either.

When we went on our vacation to visit my cousin in Minnesota earlier this summer Caleb got some ropin' lessons from Brent.

We thought they had payed off when we had to catch a calf a while back and it only took three tosses of the rope to catch the calf, but this time it was a different story. Lets just say I stopped counting after ten.

For being a sick little calf that looked like it was about to fall over that little guy could run like the wind.  We chased that guy all over the pasture, then we finally got him up next to the fence in some brush, so Caleb thought it would work better on foot. We both get out of the truck and try to surround him and when he should have used the rope he tried to catch the calf by hand and when he should have tried to take him down by hand he tried using the rope. Well once again the little guy got away from us and headed to the other side of the pasture.

I might add at this point that the rest of the cows weren't helping the situation either. Ya see it was a cool morning and the cows were feelin' "froggy" or in other words the were a little spunky actin' that morning and they were followin' the truck around every where and gettin' in the way. 

Well we finally catch back up to the little guy next to a cross fence and we kinda wedge the truck in next to him and try to corner him. Well the first time we do this Caleb tries to handle him by himself. He grabs the calf and and then about gets knocked out by the kicking calf. So he lets go of it and we try for a second round of cornering it. This time he was gonna try his luck with sticking the rope over the calf's head and I was getting out to help too. Everything that happened after this was all sort of a blur, I just know at one point me, Caleb and the calf are all on the ground  in some sort of human/calf pretzel. 

I would bet money that calf was faking being sick so he didn't have to go to school, cause he still had a lot of energy left in him. 

Well finally we get somewhat untangled and Caleb wanted to try and get the rope around the 'crazy little guys' neck but I told him not to bother with it cause I knew if we did he would probably get away so my solution instead was to lay on him. 

Now don't you go worrin' that I was hurtin' him cause he probably weighed 150 and I'm only 125 so the beast wasn't gonna get hurt. Finally Caleb is able to give the little guy his shot and then we were done and it wasn't even 10 am.

Happy Anniversary to us.

Well at least the rest of the day was uneventful. I clean some in the house and Caleb worked on puttin' the combine back together. Then he came home early and I fixed Steak, baked potatoes, creamed corn, and some cheesy garlic bread for supper and we had some homemade no-bake cheesecake (the next time I fix it I will share it with you cause it was delicious), and that was it. Nothin' special but it works for us....well it mighta been a little nicer if we hadn't had the morning rodeo, but that's one of those things that makes for some fun memories.

Lots of Love,

JP