Round-up

OK, this will be one of those posts that I let the pictures speak for themselves (for the most part).We have some good friends here in the Pearl who's parents own a ranch out in west Texas. They were wonderful enough to invite Bub and myself to help with their spring roundup. We had a great time.                                                                   

 The first cool part of the trip for Bub happened on the way to the ranch. He got to experience his first ever trip to Waffle House. The boy was on cloud nine. I have no idea why. 

 While there he performed numerous cowboy tasks. Most involved throwing calves around but he especially enjoyed branding.

 The actual working of the cattle was usually done by noon so we got to explore the ranch on Mules. Bub got to drive.

 This is Bub throwing one of the calves with the daughter of one of the cowboys that where there.

 That is our friend Jeff next to Bub who invited us along and Nathan, the son of another friend who was with us as well.

 Watched a really cool storm blow in the second night. Saw it coming for miles.

 The boy did a great job.

 One of the cowboys.

We had a blast. It was a great time to get away with friends.

Been gone a while...

Well, it's been a long while since I've blogged. I have a lot of pics I want to put up. Probably more than I have time to write about so I may do a blog post with just pictures shortly. Life sometimes has a tendency of getting in the way of what we want to do and unfortunately it has gotten in the way of "Life in the Pearl" for far too long. We will see if I can remedy that this year. I may modify my posts with less pics and more writing at times and then some posts may be all pics and little writing. Journaling my families adventures is something I really want to do so I will work harder in making this a priority.                                                                       

 When I last posted I mentioned the shop I was going to build so I wanted to pick back up with that. This was another chance for Papa and myself to work together and also a chance for Bub to get some building experience.

 The slab was already poured so we started with the walls.

 That's a great look ain't it? This was Memorial day weekend and it's hot in the Pearl.

 All walls and ceiling joists in place day one. Not bad.

 We were sure tired and chasing that shade.

 The next day we started on the rafters.

 Bub thought this great fun.

 Oops, kinda out of order.

 OK, so I'm a little rusty. You get the idea.

 This is end of day two, or maybe three, I forget.

 Then shingles and windows.

 Anyway, you get the gist of it. I'm still not completely done but I'm getting close. Like I said before, life gets in the way sometimes.

Needless to say, we were very pleased with ourselves. It's a great time to be with family and pass knowledge down from one generation to another.

Another barnyard project

Man, I sure love fresh eggs! The chickens may be the best animals we own. They eat very little and they provide us with a half a dozen eggs or better each day. That's with only 9 hens. That is why we needed MORE chickens!!!
We are adding 16 new pullets to the mix this year. Since our chickens free range during the day, we expect to lose 6 to 8 before they reach maturity.

They are little now but in a few months they will be egg laying machines.

This is Foghorn Leghorn the 2ND. He replaced Foghorn Leghorn the 1st after his untimely death at the hands of a hawk. He was big and bad, ruling over all the hens until...

He met "Little Bill". Little Bill comes from my cousin in Arkansas. Little Bill is a game rooster. The Mrs. and I wanted him because of his coloring and thought that him breeding with our domestic hens might produce some neat offspring. What we did not expect was that after about 6 months of peaceful cohabitation with Foghorn, Little Bill would decide he wanted all the women to himself. He whooped up on Foghorn so bad that now Foghorn won't leave the barn and hides anytime Little Bill comes close. Exiled in his own farm! Shameful! But it's OK with us, we kinda like having a barn chicken.

This is Mia, pronounced with a long I. She belongs to another cousin of mine (what's the deal with my family and animals?) but lives at our house now. We have added her in with Charlie and Jake.

That's Jake. I couldn't find a recent picture of Charlie. Now, with these horses being here, and the addition of our new barn, we decided we needed to fill the barn with stalls and a tack room. I have been working on the stalls as time would allow but decided recently that I was unable to complete the last stall until I built a tack room as I still had a lot of construction material from my barn demo project in the way that I intended to use. That being said, I got with Papa, whose always ready to help with building projects, and we began our tack room project!

Day one we head off to our friendly neighborhood big box do-it-yourself store (I'm a Lowe's man myself) and get materials and when we get back we start on the sub-floor.

We blew through that pretty quick having to add a few supports along the way.

Nail guns always make the job go faster. When we built our first barn (the one that blew away) we used hammer and nails.

Here's Papa doing some sawing. Point of pride here-Papa is the Mrs. dad and he and I have been building projects together for 18 years now. He has taught me a lot over the years but this was the first time I can remember that he has ever showed up to do a project without bringing his own tools. He said he was sure I had everything we would need. I have arrived!

Here we are laying down the floor. Treated plywood, 3/4 inch. Talk about expensive.

Mimi just loves construction! (well, watching it anyway)

End of day 1. A job well done.

We are probably WAY too proud of one days work.

Day 2 we start off with the side walls. The Mrs. joined us this day. She loves construction work even more that Mimi, except she likes to use the tools.

Here we are building the front wall. It's gonna have a door so it has to be a regular wall.

It's nice to be able to build on the ground and then set in place.

And up it goes. Just like clockwork.

The Mrs. gets in on the act.

Then the door goes in. Fits nicely!

Look! A couple of dorks hung a door!

After hanging signs and decorating, we have a finished product.

And we love it!

After the tack room was finished, we completed the 3rd stall and the horses moved in (that's Charlie on the left).

Me and the Mrs. admiring the new 3 stall horse barn with tack room.

Finished great. Next project...a new shop!