Saturday, June 30, 2012

Hotter Than a Furnace Fan

UPDATE: I was in the middle of writing this post when our power went out on June 26.  There was a terrible storm about 20 miles east of us that produced a possible tornado and it ripped several giant power poles and several smaller power poles down.  We were without power for three and a half days!! Luckily no one was injured, but there were grain bins ripped out of the ground and several trees wrecked as well! I'm so very thankful for our workers at our local Rural Electric Association that worked tirelessly to restore power to the countryside!!  I'm also very thankful for my hubby, who took care of the farm, our generators, and our ol' tractors that ran the generators so we could have running water for our home and for our livestock! I've been counting my blessings and saying lots of prayers for our friends and family that have been battling the terrible fires in Montana and across the country.  Please add them and the brave firefighters to your prayers!  We could all use a good rain too, so get out there and wash your car, wash your windows on your house, and do a rain dance!  In my next post I will share pictures that I took of some of the damage in our area as well as what happens on our farm when we are without power! But now back to your regular scheduled programming that was taking place on Tuesday, June 26th...
Hello loyal blog readers...it's me, your unloyal blogger!  Remember me...?? Ha.

Well to quote one of my favorite Robert Earl Keen songs...it's hotter than a furnace fan out in Arizona!

It's currently over a 100 degrees here! Yuck!  The image below was taken from our local county Conservation District website.  They along with our local MSU Extension Office have set up several weather reporting stations around our county.  This weather station is located just up the road from us and this is what it said: HOT!! HOTT!!! HOTTTTT!!!


We reached a high of just under 105 degrees!!  But my hometown of Miles City has been setting all-time high records...it reached 111 degrees at 2:30 pm today!!  And it could still have gotten hotter!!  Read all about it here!

Anyways, apologies for not keeping you up-to-date on the happenings in my life! 

Spring and summer are busy times here on the farm and ranch!  We have been busy seeding and spraying our crops, vaccinating and branding calves and helping neighbors do the same, vaccinating cows, fixing and building fences, hauling water to our cows, sorting our cows into breeding groups and hauling them to summer range, celebrating 3 birthdays in June (my mother-in-law's, my hubby's, and my own!), getting our bulls tested to make sure they can give our cows proper lovin' (hehe), and then turning the bulls out to let them do this! (Warning...image below might be offensive to some...but it's where BEEF comes from! Oh and never mind the two in the turquoise in the foreground...)


And now that the bulls are turned out, it's time to get our haying equipment ready!  Our hay situation is none-to-promising in our area.  We have been awfully short of rain and have had a warmer than usual year. We're not lucky enough to have irrigation to help our hay and crops along when we're short of precipitation, but we still do alright! We still have to get what hay we can so we don't have to purchase hay this winter!  Luckily we have some left over from last year's hay crop and we are very thankful for that!  How does the hay look where you are? 

I'm also trying to do a good deep clean on my house while there is a little lull in time between major projects, but I find myself dragging my feet a bit!  I have been finding a few good tips on Pinterest to help get my go'er going!

Find it on my Pinterest board!
http://pinterest.com/pin/7599893091785780/
But we all know this is a more accurate description of what my cleaning schedule is like...

How about all of you?? What's going on in your world?  Any big trips planned for the summer?  My husband and I are going to be heading to Medora, North Dakota this next month to celebrate our first year of marriage!  We actually won tickets to the Medora Musical from our local Rural Electric Association! Ha! 

Well I had better get to gettin'! I will try to keep you better posted on the happenings on the dirt roads...but no promises! Ha! But seriously, thanks for sticking with me! 

Cheers,
Whitney