ROUNDUP - WEANING AND SHIPPING

This post is about when the cattle are taken to the old 7L ranch corrals close to the Monte Kent cowcamp where the calves are separated from the cows.  Then the calves are separated with heifers going in one pen and the steers going in another.  The heifers are trucked to the ranch and the steers to a feedlot. 

Kristin moving some cows. 

Allen going after some cows and below is his cowdog Poky who is never far away.

Horses don't get a lot of use when we work in the corrals.

Sorting calves in the alley.

Ryan working out some calves.

Connie worked a gate when they were separating the calves from the cows below.

Carlen and Kiley are pros at separating cows from calves.

Zeph was not impressed with having to be tied up while all this was going on.

Heath working calves in the alley.

Kristin and Yvonne.

Carlen, Allen, Kiley, and Ryan putting some through a gate.

Kiley and Allen looking for a calf that got by in a lot of cows.

Brett in a sea of cows.

A coffee break.

Kristin, Ryan, and Rowen Bailey.  They are expecting another child in a few months.

These are videos showing the weaning process.

ROUNDUP - THE GATHER

We went over to the Martinell Ranch near Dell and helped gather their cattle from the summer range last week.  We have been doing this for over 20 years and always have a great time.  This ranch has been in the same family since 1893 and what a great family it is.  We worked on this ranch for a number of years and have watched the children grow up and now have children of their own.  The summer range is located in the Centennial Valley between Monida, MT and Island Park, ID.  It takes two days to gather the cattle and drive them down to the "middle" cow camp called the Monte Kent.  The next day they are taken to corrals near by where the calves are weaned and shipped either to a feedlot or down to the ranch headquarters at Dell.

This is our new truck and our mobile cow camp on top of it.

This is the Monte Kent camp where we base out of for the gather, weaning, shipping, and moving the cows down to the "lower" cow camp 20 some miles west of this camp.

A pretty sunset the first night we were there.

Craig is one of the ranch cowboys enjoying the pretty sunset.

One of the horses taking a roll in the grass.

This is the view down into the Madison valley.

This is a veiw of the Centennial Valley with the Red Rock National Wildlife Refuge's lower lake in the top left.

The snow capped peaks in the background are near Big Sky, MT.

Cowboys and cowgirls giving their horses a drink during the gather.

Getting the cows bunched up.

Trailing the cows down to the Monte Kent so they can be worked the following day.

Doctoring a sick calf.

Having some coffee before a late lunch at the camp.

Counting through the gate at the Monte Kent.

ACTION ON THE THE GUN RANGE

Our family has a gun range just off the sledding hill and it got quite a bit of use the other day when family and friends used it.  Hunting season is just around the corner and some guns needed to be sighted in.  And a few people just wanted to keep their skills with pistols current.

Watching the action.

Doug setting up targets.

The pistol table.

Joel sighting in his gun with Rustin and Doug watching.

I knew there were other uses for old coffee cans!

A lady loading her clips.

Ranger Rustin with a sniper rifle.

Brenda and Connie discussing Connie's new hairdo.  

Ben sighting in his rifle.

Brenda shoots a lot and below is her target.

The nine mm in action.

Click to enlarge and you can see a shell casing from Riley's gun drifting in front of Ike.

This is Brenda's target.  Don't mess with this lady when she has her gun.

A nice little purse gun.

Rustin shooting one of his mom's pistols.

This might be the Slaughter family Christmas card!

Rita, her boys, and Connie.