auto painting hobby

Blake occasionally does auto-body work as a hobby at his garage remodeled into a paint booth at the ranch.  Here he is demonstrating to our friend Nathan the painting technique on a pickup that Nathan was sprucing up.  After instruction Nathan did most of the sanding and prep work.  The finished product in tractor red looked pretty good.

Western Tiger Salamander

This summer we have been watching 6-8 inch Western Tiger Salamanders in the livestock tank in pasture S4, there are several adults and numerous juveniles.  These salamanders supposedly are widespread in Nebraska and live on land in rodent burrows such as prairie dog towns only moving to mudholes and ponds to lay eggs and have their young develop.  How they manage to get in the tank is a mystery to me as in my many years on the ranch I had never seen these amphibians before.

Driveway gate

It has been a year since a new driveway was built for over a mile from River Road to the ranch buildings so we decided to place a gate at the entry that would be easy to open and could be locked.  Fortunately Travis, Joe and Isaac were visiting and the extra help to attach and line up the double gates was much appreciated by Blake and Arden.