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. 

calf doctors

This past week the new calves were processed, it took a crew of 7 to be efficient, branding, 2 vaccinations (gave protection from 12 diseases), castration, ear tag, and this year a small blood sample was drawn for DNA testing.  Of course we needed people to help the calf on to the table and somebody to keep records and label the samples.  Certainly there was some pain for the calf, much like when people go to their physician, but by being efficient the calf was on the table for about 1 minute and within a few minutes they were running around the corral as if nothing had happened looking for their mother.

Beautiful invader

Early last century or before settlers along the Niobrara planted beautiful but nonnative Yellow Flag Iris next to the river.  Lovely to look at these flowers have since gradually taken over meadows 25 miles west of our ranch and other areas further east in Nebraska.  the flower has migrated for a dozen miles down the valley forming a mat that restricts the growth of our native grasses.  Efforts are ongoing to eradicate or limit its spread.  We will need to be vigilant and prepared to fight this invader.

War has been declared

We have been invaded (100-150 years ago) by a number of foreign plants, many from eastern Europe.  In their homeland they had natural enemies, such as insects or plant diseases that kept them under control, but when our early settlers accidently brought them to America the natural enemies did not come with them.  The Scotch thistle that  Blake is spraying here has formed several stands on the ranch that not only crowds out forage, but are so dense cattle  cannot walk through the infested areas.

viewing the herd

Finally we came to a herd of cows so Arden could show Sackett and Brennen some baby calves, they weren't real impressed, but the herd wasn't impressed with us either.  Calving is nearly finished so vaccinating, branding and DNA testing will be the next job to be done on the ranch.