Ruby Slippers and Georgia Peaches

We had a great time celebrating Clara’s fifth birthday! It was a “fancy” affair. All guests dressed in their fancy duds. Fancy “posh” hot dogs were served (that means hot dogs in a bun and toppings). The kids played through some fancy centers of making crowns, creations, costumes and bracelets. An astounding game of pin the jewel on the crown was also had. Mostly we all were grateful to the friends that came out to celebrate our fancy FIVE year old!

The turkeys are still around. I call them our “yard turkeys”. They are still wild, but they do get used to us. These turkeys grow feathers up over their head for the winter months and negative temperatures that we have.

They are still fun to watch. Sometimes we are surrounded on all sides of the house.

It’s amazing to watch them go through the snow, how they scavenge for food, how they adapt to the negative tempartures, etc.

It’s been great fun watch these “yard turkeys”.

In December most of the cows are walked out 18 miles to 11,000 acres for their winter pastures. From the 11,000 acres they are then pushed to corn and barley stalks. This year 300 of the herd was kept nearer to the ranch until mid-January. Then those 300 met up with the rest of the herd on the barley and corn stalks. About 1200 cows graze on the barley and corn stalks until mid-February. They are then pushed down the road about two miles to our Kinder pastures. At the beginning of March, all the cows will be walked back 15 miles to the main ranch for calving.

Many of these cows have made this same trek and it’s no real problem getting them down the road.

On this particular move day, the cows were strung out for about three to four miles.

These cows are walking down the middle of the road. It’s a thing here. You plan for it. Ranches put out signs that will say “Cows on the Road” or “Livestock on the road, next ten miles.” It’s just something that is done and something you learn to work around, go around. You also accept you will always have cow poop on your vehicle.

Almost there.

Finally. This trek takes the cows almost all day. The will make their way back to the main ranch during the first full week of March to start calving. They will be heavy with calves and the movement will be even slower. Our winter pastures will be done and lots of feeding will happen before the grass starts growing.

Ruby recently got a new to her go kart. We’ve done a lot of riding on the ranch. We’ve also made it down the lane, on the black top and over to a neighbor’s house.

They’ve had great fun going around in the snow. Not too much snow, for they’ll get stuck. But it’s fun, nevertheless.

They have a few ground rules before getting the go kart out. Ruby has to check the oil and fuel. She is also responsible for turning it on. She hasn’t gotten the courage to fully drive it yet, but is working her way up to it. A risk taker, she is not.

That kid in the middle. That’s her face almost the whole time. The kid on the outside…that’s her face the whole time.

**All of these pictures were taken before our big snowfalls during the month of February**

The state park near us installed a small ice skating rink for the winter. The park applied for a special winter sport/visitor grant. They beat out all the other state parks in the state and were rewarded with money to buy all the supplies for the rink and skates. Skating is free to the public and you can go at any time during the day. The grant money is from state park entrance/parking fees. They have ice skates in multiple sizes (the skates are also adjustable sizes). During the month of January, they had an ice skating schedule and night skates. Clara and Ruby have enjoyed going and trying their hand at skating.

Although the park has a creek that comes through the center of the park, the rink is not on the creek. The rink is like a big, shallow above ground swimming pool. The rink is made up of plastic sides, with a thin plastic membrane laid on the ground and up over the plastic sides. The rink is capped off with the yellow foam to hold everything together. The rink is then filled with water and then the rest is up to the air temperature. In most places in the rink the ice is at a 6 to 8 inch depth, with one corner having 14 inches.

The girls like going and trying to learn. There have been a few tumbles but they are quick to get up and try again.

We have loved having the “free” ice rink so close to us and try to go at least once a week.

(Ruby’s and Clara’s first time out on the ice with skates on their feet.)

Since we are in the “slow” season, I’ve been reflecting back on the irrigation season here in Wyoming. As of the time of this post publishing, we’ve only had about 23-25 inches of snow down low. This time last year, we had 40 inches of snow down low. Up high, where it really matters, they are over the average snowpack for the year.

This is my very, very humble attempt of explaining a little bit how irrigation is done on the ranch. This is certainly not all inclusive and I’m probably messing up most of the information.

This is the main water head gate called the Big Bear. This creek, the Paint Rock, flows through the ranch property. It is where the ranch gets most of its irrigation water. Locals call the creek or any creek, “crik”.

All the water from the creek comes from up high in the Big Horn Mountains. The water levels are determined by snow pack and snow melt. This particular point on the creek is at about 4,700 feet above sea level.

Board dams to help control water levels. Matt floats out the boards and secures them in place with the creek rocks. He wears chest waders as the water is ALWAYS cold.

Black heavy duty plastic that comes in rolls is wrapped around the boards to control the water levels even more.

The Ditch rider puts regulation tags on head gate to regulate water levels. State Engineers office helps control the water on creeks and streams so people down the creek have the opportunity to get water for irrigation. Each deeded land has certain “water rights” and “ditch rights”. Those rights determine how much and how long the deeded land or ditch can run water.

Water head gate. Different from the southern term for a cattle chute.

Water flume and water level gage at the head gate. You figure out the flow based on the size of the flume and the height on the gage. Most aren’t concerned during “high water” or when we have the spring run-off from the snow in the mountains. Our high water times are usually from May to end of June. Water levels are usually not regulated until mid-July to mid-August. Regulation times all depend on how much water is coming down from the mountain and creek levels.

Water riser with valves. You open the valve to get water to the irrigation line. The huge main water pipes are buried under the ground to the different risers in the pastures. All the pastures have different names. We have Rhinehart, Feedlot, Ball Field, Sheep, Orchard, Office, Numbers 1-10, The 140, Medicine Lodge, Caines Corner, Buck, Red Hills, Game and Fish, Campground, Lower Fox, Fox, The island, Library, School, Telephone, #5, #4, Meadowlark, Meadowlark West and so on and so on.

Water coming out the gated pipe.

Wheel lines. There is a motor in the middle of the line that is used to move the wheel lines into position for the day. It is very labor intensive and takes a good while to move them a few feet. It is by far the least favorite way of irrigating around here.

Pivots. The ranch has 6 main center pivots that are used during irrigation season. Coming from Kansas, Matt worked with 25 or more pivots. Six pivots are pretty easy to manage.

All the green areas that you see from a Google Earth image, those areas have been irrigated. We live in a “high desert”. If the land is not irrigated through flood irrigation, pivot irrigation and/or wheel line irrigation, then most plants and grasses die.

Matt does all the irrigation for the ranch. There are 1400 acres for irrigation. That includes all the grass pastures and alfalfa pastures. He has a pretty good organized system to rotate water irrigation through all the pastures and alfalfa. Depending on the field most of the irrigation is on a 12 to 24 hour schedule. He goes and checks and changes water in the morning. By late evening, he makes his rounds again and changes where the water is coming out of the pipes, if there are any pivot problems or moves flood dams.

At the end of the season, the pivots are flushed, lines are flushed and winterized, pipe is picked up and stacked on the sides of the pastures. The pivots are all shut down, checked over, gears oiled, and winterized.

The goal every year is to have the pipe and pivots shut down and winterized by early October. The winter is spent on projects and maintenance on equipment, planning, cow movements, selling calves and getting ready for spring. Irrigation season kicks up again in mid-March, weather depending and ranch activities (i.e. snow, rain, mud, cows on pasture, etc.)