Tis the Season to be Baling!

Jared took some much needed time off work...little did he think he would be spending it baling!  Actually it hasn't all been spent baling...The first Saturday, Sunday and Monday of his vacation time were spent with us in Kalispell...Tuesday was spent cutting and then he had a Young Men's and Young Women's activity that afternoon so I took over...Wednesday was spent raking and baling what we had cut from the week before...Thursday it rained, but thankfully because Jared had to get all his camping gear ready for his Young Men's back pack trip!  Friday and Saturday he spent 14 hours hiking from Pickle Jar to Junction Falls in the Kananaskis with his Young Men...Sunday was church, a day of rest...NOT!  Our big bull, Casanova, got into the neighbours field with all his heifers!  It wasn't a big deal, since their bull is also a Red Angus Bull, but we did have to get him back in so our cows could get pregnant!  We got him in by pulling the staples off one of the posts between the two fields and made him step over it!  He did it effortlessly...little did we know that our neighbour had done exactly this the day before with Casanova!  Jared and I then walked the half a mile repairing that fence.  The next day all looked good, Casanova left that fence alone and stayed put!  So we spent the rest of the day raking and baling!  Expect for the minor delay when I ran into a bale with the rake and snapped an instrumental part that keeps the rake in place!  So home we went to get the welder...this little mishap only set us back an hour, and more baling was done!  I finally rescued Myrna from our children at 7:00pm...it was a long day...I am sure for all of us!!  Jared finished baling what I raked and then he too came home!  Yesterday, Tuesday was also spent raking and baling!  Only when we got down to the field we noticed that the little bull, Junior, was now in the neighbours field!  Not a good start to the day!  We tried for about 45 minutes to move him toward our fence but he was totally not interested!  He so badly wanted to stay with the young heifers!

Instead of spending the beautiful day at the lake we spent it bouncing along in a tractor!  Although it was fun...I really enjoyed helping Jared, and it gave me a chance to become more familiar with where the cows spend the summer!  The kids seemed to have a good day too, they got to spend the day in town with friends from our ward!  Thankfully their summer doesn't get put on hold just because we have farm work to do!  We were able to get everything baled that had been cut last week!  I finished cutting the little piece that Dave started last week and then Dave came and finished the other little piece!   Thankfully we are all done cutting and by Saturday if the weather stays hot and dry we can finish baling too!  We didn't have a lot to do but with Jared and Dave both working full time, it seems to take a lot longer!

After Jared finished baling I met him in the neighbours field to help him try and get Junior back into our field!  It took us three hours!  He was totally smitten with a little black heifer, number 66, and she was the flightiest little cow!  She would not move in the direction that we wanted her too, instead she would take off at a full sprint, kicking her legs up as she went.  Junior desperately wanted to follow her and once she took off there was no stopping him.  We tried several times pushing him toward our fence, and I was even able to hold a group of them near our fence while Jared took the quad around and back into our field to move our cows closer to the fence hoping to entice Junior...No luck.  We finally pushed the herd toward the water at the other end of the field and from there we tried pushing Junior and a couple other heifers over to the hub in the corner to trap them in.  This plan would have worked if the group would have calmly walked along the fence line, but they had another idea.  Finally we got Junior separated from the rest of the heifers and since we had worn him out with all the running he realized we weren't going to give up, he headed back to the side of the field that bordered our cows!  It only took him three hours to become totally exhausted!

The famed other heifers!

Cows are so curious!  This one had her head right inside the truck!  And all the others had me surrounded!

She even pushed the mirror in trying to scratch herself on it!

The red one in the middle is Junior! 

Well, our fun didn't end there!  Junior finally decided to walk nice and calmly along our fence line looking for a place to go through.  As he walked the fence line he would stop and bellow, thankfully our cows bellowed back to him, almost like they were calling him home!  This helped immensely with keeping him against the fence!  There isn't a gate along that half mile so Jared had to do what he did the other day and drop some wires.  Jared would ride the quad a little ways ahead of Junior and I, and drop the wire.  He did this twice and by the time he was able to tack the four wires in the bottom staple on the post Junior would pass him!  Jared finally took a longer lead and went to the corner of the field to drop the wires.  When Junior and I caught up all was set, and then as soon as Junior got to the point of crossing, the wires let loose and sprung back up!  I held him in the corner while Jared tacked them down again...only this time Jared lost his tool box off the quad when he was coming back to help me steer Junior the right way...but somehow he got it to work and across Junior went!

I was happy we stuck with it and remained patient, as aggravating as it was not having the bull cooperate, I thought Jared and I handled the situation well and came even closer together.  Ranching has been a lot of work for Jared, and I know there are times when he wishes he didn't even get into it, especially when he has 7 days off during the most beautiful time of the year and the lake is like glass, or his Saturdays in the winter are spent feeding cows instead of carving it up on the ski hill, or his free time when he gets home from work isn't spent taking his bicycle out for a ride, but are spent checking cows, fixing waterers, putting bulls back in, haying...or just keeping care of all the mowing around the farm yard!  Work on the farm never seems to end...although I am happy we have this lifestyle, I really wouldn't trade it for anything and I am happy I can help Jared when he really can't do it alone!  Thankfully I have a mother in law who is super understanding and takes the kids when she is home!  One day it will slow down...well, maybe not...my sister and brother in law have 10 times the amount of cattle we have and they too have things happen like bulls getting out!  Maybe it doesn't slow down but maybe we get better at it!  Even though the kids and I only got to spend four full days with Jared during his 7 days off, we enjoyed having him home!  It was a great week, and a lot was accomplished!

Well, on Jared's last day off work we wanted to do something fun!  So before we decided what to do he took Emry and Calum down to the sand to check cows, and much to their dismay Junior was back in with the other heifers!  So he came back to the yard and we loaded the kids up in the fencing truck and started the adventure once again of getting him back in our field!  Thankfully he cooperated and it only took us just over an hour to get him back in!  But we wanted to make sure he doesn't do it again so we went and got the fencer to put electricity through one of the barbed wires.  This usually isn't the ideal way to electrify a fence...usually you use a smooth, high tensile wire attached to posts with plastic insulators.  But that would have taken at least 2 hours, so we tried this hoping it would work!  We were able to get a 2000volt current going through the wire so hopefully this will deter Junior when he tries again!  This took about an hour and a half, so we do have some time to do something all together, if only we could decide what to do!!

Kalispell...finally!!

Every year Emry starts asking us in January when we are going to go to Kalispell!  We had gone for a few years in a row up until last year!  Last year was a totally different story!  Jared had just started a new job and took a week off to go to Helaman's Encampment with the Young Men, so any more holiday time was not going to happen!  So this year we decided we needed to go, we made it work and we had a blast!  We originally planned on camping and I looked into a KOA campground near Whitefish but for a tent site the cost was $54/night, not terrible but if it happened to rain it would be a little miserable, so I looked into renting a little cabin at the same camp site, but it was going to cost $94/night!  I was able to find a hotel room for this same price and went with that instead!  Much more reliable if the weather decided not to cooperate!  Well, it did cooperate, we actually couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day to spend at the water slides!  On our way over Logan's Pass we stopped at the top to look at the Mountain Goats, which Emry loved, they were pretty cute, especially the little baby ones, and we were able to see them quite close too!

Dave and Char and their kids drove down for the day to also go to the water slides, and I am so happy they did, the cousins had a blast together...we actually hardly even saw Emry she was up and down the slides the entire day either with Blake or Leah or both!  Emry also went on the scariest water slide there...three times in fact!  Geronimo...there is no way I could have done it, first of all it is quite the hike up all the stairs, and then once you are on the slide it is straight down, and I mean STRAIGHT DOWN!  To go on it you have to lay down the whole time with your legs crossed and your arms crossed across your chest!  It probably only takes half a millisecond to get down but for some reason it is worth it!  She always came down with a huge smile on her face!

The blur in the middle of the slide is Emry!

Jared stuck pretty close to Calum for the day and he too had a blast, the last time we went he was only a year and a half so it wasn't as exciting for him.  Later in the day we let the girls take Calum up to the slides, they loved having the little bit of responsibility!  It gave us a little bit of down time too, Armin had a sleep and I was able to finish "Mokingjay", sort of a bitter sweet thing for me...I hate finishing really good books because that is the end and I have to put those characters away, I always feel like I become apart of the book when I read it, and when it's finished, I don't get to experience what they are experiencing, so closely!!  Anyway, Calum went on every slide except for Geronimo, much to his dismay...he really wanted to try it and probably would have if we would have let him!  The last few slides he did were on the 9 and under slides, he would walk up to them all by himself, slide down and walk up again, only the last time he went he ended up scraping up his toes on the bottom of the pool...thankfully we were wrapping up to go home, he was pretty upset!

Fast asleep! 

Spectating or Refereeing?!

This was dinner after the water slides...the calmest meal I have ever encountered with our kidlets! 

Armin did not like the slides and would whimper the entire way down!  But we are thinking he might be a little claustrophobic!  He hated the elevator in my dad's building, in fact the second time we went to get on it he turned and ran the other way!  He also hated the parkade at my dad's, and going through the tunnel's on Logan's Pass was actually quite priceless to see!  His eyes would get so big and he had this very concerned little look on his face!

Going through the tunnels on Logan's Pass

After spending an entire day at the water slides the kids were worn out!  When we got our tickets to go in that morning a man gave us his extra discount coupon...so nice...and when Myrna bought her ticket the man asked her if she was just spectating, she said no she was riding...he sounded a little surprised, it was funny!  It was so much fun having Myrna with us for the entire trip!  The kids love her to pieces and so do we!

The rest of the trip was pretty laid back...we took the kids to see Brave...which was soooo good!  We shopped a little and ate a ton!  It was so nice to get away for a few days and focus most of our attention on the kids for once!  It was also nice to spend three full days with Jared's undivided attention!  We hope to make it a yearly trip to the water slides!  Now we get to focus on finishing haying, which I am almost equally excited about since I actually get to help!  I have enjoyed the little bit of cutting that I have done and this afternoon I get to rake in front of Jared while he bale's!  Never a dull moment here at the Puzey farm!

Waiting for Brave to start!.

Forgotten Camera Returned!

I had forgotten my camera at Rachel's after celebrating little Jonas' first birthday!  I now have it back as well as all the pictures from that day!

It was a lot of fun celebrating Jonas' big day with family!  He really is a sweet little guy and always so happy!  I love how Calum and Liam are close in age and the same with Armin and Jonas!  I hope they will always be close and want to spend time with each other as they grow up.  Rachel is a little afraid that when our boys come spend time with her boys in the city that it could get expensive, but when she sends her boys out here it will be so cheap to just let them out of the house to explore all the farm has to offer!  Hopefully we can find a happy medium somewhere along the way!!  It might not be too expensive since all the kids had a blast running through the sprinkler and splashing in the little pool they had set up in the backyard!  Even Armin got in on the splashing and didn't even seem to mind getting splashed right back!  It was a gorgeous day, the food was yummy and the company even better!

On our way home we did stop and get an ice cream cone and once again Calum fell asleep eating it.  We were much crueler this time though, every time he dozed off we would say, "Calum, eat your ice cream cone!" And his little hand would jolt up towards his mouth and he would eat some more.  He ate over half of his cone this way, and even managed to take the wrapper off all while half asleep!  At one point he also started licking his hand thinking it was his ice cream.  I video taped him for over seven minutes and when I finally asked him if he was all done he took one more lick and then passed it to me, and not even a second later he was out cold!  This is the second time he has done this, and it was just as funny the second time!