just friends

"Tom" the ranch's border collie isn't so good at  herding cattle, he was suppose to be moving the calves out of the corral.  He would rather just be friends with them.  Tom can stay in the corral and watch the calves for hours and never get bored.

dusty corral

The ranch had two very windy days this week (winds up to 70 miles per hour).  Add that to 16 months of very little precipitation causing extreme drought and even pastures with very limited grass growth allows the soil to blow around.  We bring the calves into the corral for a quick meal then get them back out into less dusty areas of the pasture as quickly as possible.  Over all health of the herd remains good.

Ranch history comes alive

History buffs from Rapid City (Jon Nelson and John Amato) met with Blake and Arden for the day to discuss history of the Running Water Station.  Jon and John spent many hours going over the site with metal detectors, they found a pocket watch (with initials D.E.O.), a spoon handle with engraved letters and many pieces of metal and glass.  Jon presented us with the book Crossing the Plains with Custer that he co-authored with Paul Horsted.  This was quite and interesting and enjoyable break for us from the intense work of calf weaning.

Searching for energy

The exploration for uranium is underway once again, The drillers have dug 12 of the planned 25 test holes at this time.  The test holes are all concentrated near one canyon in the SW corner of the ranch.  The geologists are looking for seams of a formation they call Chadron Sand that has a high probability of containing uranium ore, They hope to find 15 feet or more thickness of this formation.  The drillers pull out a sample of the earth at every 5 foot level.  They tell me that so far the holes have shown 0 to 7 foot thickness of this formation and they don't have the analysis done to tell if there is uranium ore in it.  This driller is pointing to the small sample that indicates 7' of Chadron formation from this well.

growing up

We have 375 calves weaned and started on an independent life without their mama.  A few have developed respiratory infections created by the extreme dry and dusty conditions due to the most severe drought in over 50 years.  Fortunately they have  responded very well to the treatment that we have implemented at an early stage of the disease. The calves have learned to eat a new ration that is 16% protein for 1/2 of their diet while still spending most of the day in the pasture eating grass that they have been familiar with the first 5 months of their life.