K2 & K6 helped pull the front yard fence up and put in more t-posts. It is a temporary fix until I can replace the entire front fence line.

This is the "little" pond up on the hill. It has, over time, filled out very nicely, especially after last week's flood rains. It has lots of bullfrogs, but I haven't put any fish in the pond, because of fear of toxic waste left over from the old dump. Oh yea, and lots of lead bullets...

Two and a half year old K9 having fun with a bottle of baby powder and hand-wipes. Mom swept it up, but do you know how slick powder makes a wood floor?

K8 feeding animals after the rains. It is so much easier to haul 50 pound bags of grain and grass cubes around various paddocks with our Honda UTV - what a work horse! And it's a 4-wheel drive, so we can go anywhere through anything.

Spring rains bring record flooding in Ozarks of Missouri.

The farm, a month or so ago, before the historical flood rains arrived. Trees were not fully leafed out, and the stream is just a black line inside the tree line.

Last weekend, a few hours after the first storm dumped part of the 12" rain stopped. The stream is full of rushing waves and the pastures were flooded. 

This was the water's edge over a month ago (no, I do not let K9 drive!, but he loves riding and he insists he have his seat belt on before starting. The red eye glasses are for play, not vision.).

This was after a regular rain weeks ago, before the "big" storm hit.

Here is last week's 12" rain. I took this a few hours after the first wave of rain stopped, so the water level had gone down a little. Stream over flowed both sides.

Our bridge is somewhere under the water.

The intersection and bridge west of our house got flooded to a level as high as my truck's head lights - totally impassable until rain stopped and water started to recede. We came over to the bridge east of our house and the water had come up the dirt road past the gate you see in this pic. K2 was impressed.

The pond next to house over flowed a few times. The water you see running along fence below orchard was full of dead fish - 100% were small bluegill, which I'm okay with since their population is taking over the pond. I collected a bucketful of live ones to throw back in pond (don't know why other than I hate to see a living creature suffer). I did not see any bass or black crappie, but our 9 year old said he saw one of each. Not bad at all compared with the dozens of dead bluegill I saw.

A view from our back deck while it was still raining a little. The stream is normally on the left of the tree line, but...
We had State record levels of flooding all over the region. It was caused by the fact we had several rain storms over past month, so the ground was too saturated with water when this 12" down pour arrived.

I walked our pastures a few hours after the first wave of rain stopped. Another wave started up an hour after these pics, and the pond, stream and fields flooded again. We had quite a bit of debris washed up along the fence line, very similar to what we were trying to clean up before K7 left on his Mission. The fence itself survived better this time because the cattle panels we installed at certain key points worked as designed and fell down without stretching or damaging the rest of fence line. They were easy to clean off and stand back into place. With a few days of dry weather, we have already begun cutting up the bigger logs along fence and burning.

The good news is that our water gap fences survived the pounding. Yea! I am really happy about this, after all the time and money and effort of installing, fixing, and replacing the old ones.

We moved the main herd of cows into paddock #6, which had tall lush grass and clover. K6 (here) and K8 took turns going out into the rain (or breaks in the rain) every 12 hours to bottle feed our calf Annie, and take hay and grain to the two older calves we are weaning - Hollie and Tina. Look at the tiny island of green grass in paddock #4 (far left upper corner).

The pond over flowed several times. The water rushing down hill (upper left of pic) from our neighbor's long, steep driveway hammered our front yard fence so bad that the fence was almost pushed flat. The pond over flowed to the right, past the three potted trees.

But the rain finally stopped for a few days. The clouds moved on, the blue skies and sun reappeared, and life got back to normal. The pond is remaining full so far. Time to start mowing and weed eating again.

This little bull calf belongs to Flora (our first daughter out of Gwen). He is polled and red. There is not supposed to be any water flowing through this part of paddock #6.

Winter 2016, into Spring 2017

This is Jane, our friendliest St Croix ewe, after giving birth to the first of her two twin boys on Christmas weekend.

This is a little Jedi warrior using the "Force" to cast a spell on me...at a Vietnamese restaurant of all places.

A monthly requirement on the farm - burning another brush pile up on the hill. 

K9 covers his ears when the cows start mooing too close to him. They can be loud when they are hungry.

K9 playtime while getting ready for bed at night.

Three little bull calves in paddock #1, trying to figure out which one is the boss. My money is on the two-legged one!

Installing a new gate and holding pen system in our corral, so I can load and unload cattle in and out of a stock trailer by myself. Because of the sloping ground in our corral, I asked my friend Brian to scoop out some dirt, so the new gate will swing inward.

This is 2" to 3" of hail on the highway that fell in only 10 minutes a few weeks ago. The biggest was the size of a golf ball.

K9 loves tractors! It is one of his favorite words. He will sit on our tractor for half an hour pretending to make engine noises and driving around. He has at least 6 toy tractors, dozers, and backhoes (he calls all of them tractors).

K9 also loves "Fluffy", our only indoor dog. She is a Japanese Spitz, a $700 purebred dog that a friend gave us. All 5 of our dogs are expensive purebred dogs which were given to us by others.

My friend Jack dropping a few more trees for firewood and clearing out an area on the hill for future grazing land.

Some of our beautiful white St Croix sheep framed by red painted steel fence posts and gates down by the stream. In case you are wondering, I use International Red colored paint from Ace Hardware.

I took this pic from the Children's Ballet of the Ozark web page. It is from their production of "The Nutcracker" in December 2016. Four of our kids danced in it.

K6 and Daniel cleaning up the trees that Jack dropped earlier. All the firewood was donated: some to friends from Church, and some to strangers in need, like a 90 year old lady 10 miles north of town, and an unemployed lesbian couple who recently moved into town.

It is official - K9 can climb over any obstacle in his path. He is only 2 1/2 years old. Look out world, here he comes!

We now have three sets of twin lambs. Just the beginning. Should have a bunch more being born over next few months.

There is beauty to be found every day around us here in the Ozarks. This is looking out our front door at sunset.

This has been the mildest winter ever, and the grass is greening up months earlier than normal.

K6, the master pyro, at work, burning yet more brush piles. 

Two of Daniel's brother's, more neighbor "nephews", who are only 15 and 16, but so well trained in many job skills. Here they are welding gates in my new corral set-up. 

Here was a wonderful surprise found during my daily morning patrol around the farm yesterday, Saturday, the 11th of March. First time Mom, Flora, gave birth to this cute little bull calf on the stream bank after Friday night's freezing rain.

Autumn Ranch Chores

This Fall has been so beautiful and mild that we have been able to get a lot of work done on the Wanch. Just about every morning, after K9 has his bath and breakfast, he and I hop in the UTV and tour the farm...

...checking fences and animals, and making a list of more chores and projects. We have gotten all the fence line around the entire perimeter of farm repaired, and also cleared a lot of it of weeds.

Once we cross the stream, we head up this hill to check the other half of the farm.

I have been hiring my neighbor Daniel, whom I call nephew, about twice a week to do most of the work since K6 and K8 are in school during week days, and K7 is on his Mission in Ghana, plus Daniel is earning money for his Mission - he leaves mid-January 2017 for Chicago! I am clearing all the thorny brush from beneath big trees in the hill pasture, and cutting off the low hanging branches that whack me in the head or try to knock me off tractor when mowing. A friend of mine who owns a much bigger ranch and herd calls my efforts....

...."landscaping". He's right, and I love the results! Reminds me of well groomed English country side.

We cleared a couple dozen trees - Daniel is the one who climbs the ladder and cuts the big branches with the big chainsaw, after which I cut them up with the smaller chainsaw to fit them on burn piles. Daniel is such a great guy to work with - always cheerful, happy and hard working. We find plenty of things to keep us laughing while we work.

And of course, K9 helps pick up smaller sticks to throw on the burn piles. He's learning to work and take care of the farm.

Along with, and part of, the Wanch long range "landscaping" plan, we are constantly identifying and cutting down dead or dying trees. We are slowly opening up the woodlot to gain more pasture areas for the animals to graze. Jack cuts the trees down, then he or Daniel cut them into rings. This tree was a good sized red oak. We also cut down black walnut, hickory, and the less desirable sycamore.

After which K6 is the main splitting guy. Sometimes K8 will split on a weekend if he is not at an ROTC competition or rehearsals. K9 helps build the piles. The firewood is to be given to needy older people who can not do the work themselves or afford to purchase wood. 

We occasionally schedule a delivery date and arrange extra helpers to haul the firewood off, and then Jack drops more trees to continue the cycle, at least until the weather gets bad (too cold and/or wet).