The empty porch
In the past few weeks my porch has felt the tremors of walking and running feet. After our branding, it was felt the weight of bodies who laid on it to rest. Piles of boots have lined up on it, outside the front door, when guests came in for mealtime. Late in the evenings my front porch heard the sighs of guests from England, Denmark and Germany who had never seen lightning bugs before, watched the sun set with us and listened to the buzz of the locusts. As night drew closer, it became a vantage point to see the first evening ”star” in the east which was actually Venus and later on the millions of stars that appeared. Today the porch is void of people since all the new friends we have met went home. There are no longer rows of boots to walk around. Today the porch is void of activity, but so full of memories!
Bottle Babies
There is no lack of bottle babies on the ranch this year. Bene, a guest from Denmark has her hands full.
Bene's sister Rebekah is feeding a new orphan calf. He is anyone's friend and can't wait for his next bottle.
Watergaps – Work or Play
The Rattlesnake Creek finally went down enough this week to fix the watergaps. We all donned our mud boots and trudged down to the bank of the creek. As I peered over the edge and saw the breakaway fence was caught in a huge tree and the water was still deep and swift, I was leary to get in. However, Laramie had already jumped in the water before I got a chance to say that we would wait and let the water receed a bit more. We managed to get the tree out of the wire, untangled the hangers, unwired them and pulled the breakaway fence back into place. The current was still very strong, so it was a good thing there were four of us struggling in the water to put it back in place. I stretched it up, put posts and clips in and worked on the fence while Canyon, Elizabeth and Laramie swam in the chest-deep water. They are under the impression fixing water gaps is recreation. From experience, it is engrained in me that water gaps are work. Notice no one had time to take a photo of me working!
Rain
It is 7:00 a.m. I am deciding if I should go do the chores and get drenched from the soaking rain or wait a while. Judging from the path which leads from the house to the shop, there is a huge mud puddle collecting. Maybe I will wait.
The waiting idea did not work. It is still raining. The chicken house was flooded, so we ran out to save all the fryer chicks and put them in a huge box in the shop. This is the creek which runs right by the house and cabins. It is usually a small, calm stream. Today it is swollen out of its banks and running rapidly. We have had 5 1/2 inches of rain so far. Tomorrow we will be putting in water gaps, which are the part of the fence which runs through the creeks. It is a miserable job, but a small price to pay for the grass which will soon grow
