The Bull Sale Post

 

This post could be more aptly titled: A Peek into the Most Stressful Week of the Year.

But that's too long.

 

I may have mentioned at some point that Jarod works for his aunt, Rosie, on West Fork Ranch. It's been in the family for a long time. Swan Wilson came here from Sweden. His son was Henry Joel Wilson. Then came Henry Boyd Wilson, who begat Roger, who begat Jarod, who begat Henry Boyd III, who was cuter than a literal button.

 

Anyway, aside from farming and general raising of cattle, they sell bulls, and have a sale every year. I can't decide if there's a ton of work that goes into it that makes it stressful, or if its that there's a few really stressful jobs that go into it. Either way, its stressful.

 

Here's a few pictures I shot of the process. I'll just let you know what's happening as we go along.

 

The first order of business is testing and ultrasounding the bulls, but I didn't get any pictures of that. It's pretty boring anyway.

 

Then we clip the bulls, so around their tail and neck and face where they have big furry leftover winter hair, we give them a haircut so they look nice. My job is usually clipping their faces, but this year I also blew the sand out of their hair, and pushed them into the chute.

 

After that its time for me to run to the big town and pick up our fliers. She usually orders around four hundred of them, and they all need stapled together, folded, and mailed off. It's mind numbing work, unless you have a baby to help, and then its adorable, mildly panic stricken, mind numbing work. I had Jarod to help some this year, which was nice. I usually end up doing them all by my onesie.

 

 

We also have to arrange the pedigrees (family tree of the bulls) in a binder for charolais (white) or Red Angus (self explanatory there on the color, I think). That's usually my job too. The registration associations send a big envelope full of tons of pedigrees for various animals on Rosie's farm, so I have to sort through and find which ones are actually on the sale, then put them in numerical order.

 

Then we clean the barn. So we haul all the old dirty sand out, and put clean sand and woodchips back in. Put away all the junk that accumulates in a used barn, and then power wash the walls. Power washing is my job. It's a wet business, but it's alright, I suppose. Then once everything is clean we move the fridges in, and set up tables and chairs.

 Daddy gave us a ride in the bucket.

Before and after.

 

Once the barn is ready we get cooking. We always make roast beef, cheesy hashbrowns, baked beans as the main course. And then there's popcorn salad, apple snicker salad, pistachio pudding, taco salad, frito corn salad, sometimes coleslaw, cherry or strawberry salad (this year we did both), broccoli salad. Halley comes from Kansas with breakfast casserole and cinnamon rolls that we eat while getting ready sale day. We always have lemon bars, cookies/brownies, and cheesecakes.

This year a friend named Marty, from Oklahoma brought his kid, fiancé, mom and dad, and two friends, and they brought homemade cheesecakes, apple fritter, and pumpkin rolls, and I dove headfirst off my sugar free wagon.

 

The kitchen crew.

 

Once all of that is done, we usually look around in horror wondering what we've forgotten, then decide its all good. On sale day we staple all the numbers up on the wall so guys can bid, sort the bulls into smaller pens, set up panels, get the computer station all set up, get the kitchen set up.

And then we wait.

Every year it gets later and later when people show up. So we usually fret for an hour or so wondering why no one has come, and then the floodgates open and everyone shows up at once.

 

Typically I stay in the kitchen and serve food all day, but Henry wasn't gonna allow that, and we had enough help, so I just floated around and tried to be useful wherever.

 

All in all, it went pretty good. It was a little chilly, but not bad, and everything worked smoothly.

That being said, I'm not at all sad that its another full year away.

Confetti

You guys!!! I did it!!! Ahhhh!!!!!!

 

Ehem. Sorry. But I did do it, and by it, I mean finish my first round edits of The Guns.

 

I'm so stinking excited right now. It's the first time I've ever actually sat down and edited an entire first draft, and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

There's a few minor things I need to go back in again and fix- couple of typos and things like that, but overall its a pretty decent looking story right now.

 

Also, to my great dismay, Jarod and I never actually went inside the Irma Hotel in Cody. It was chuck full of people when we were there, and my husbands hates people more than I do, so we didn't go in. Which is a problem, because most of the story takes place in that building. Obviously, I've looked at pictures online, so I've got a decent idea of how to describe things, but I need to *gulp* call them. I need to know what kind of locks are on the hotel room doors. Because if they still use a key, I'm all good, but if they switched to the electric card swipe locks, then I'm in trouble, because the power is out in my story and I'll have to go back in and delete any time it says Cole locked the door.

 

I've known about this discrepancy for literally weeks now, and I still wont pick up my phone. Ah, social awkwardness, my old friend.

 

But anyway. The story more than doubled in size from the original, and the story line and characters have all changed so much. I think their development was much better the second time around, and Cole really started to embrace his inner awesome.

 

Calgary was already awesome, but she got awesomer. It's a word, spellcheck. It's a word.

I improved on my bad guy, Dermott. Not sure I'm completely happy with how he's turned out yet, but I'm getting there. He just...He's  bad. He's very bad. And I have an idea of why, I'm just not sure its strong enough yet. I want him to give me shivers.

 

I'll get there though. Right now the plan is to take a break from it for a couple weeks, and let it simmer, get the flavors all working together and so forth.

 

Then I'll go back in and fix those little mistakes with a clear brain, and then hopefully get a couple more readers to take a look at it. We'll see how much work it needs after that, and go from there, but at the moment I'm not too worried, because I made it through a second draft and I've never done that before.

 

And for all its flaws, I've definitely grown as a writer. There's a lot of fight scenes in the story, and I think for the most part I did a good job of making them intense.

 

I didn't completely butcher the romance thread.

 

And even though he's not shiver worthy yet, my villain is scarier than, say...

 

Going Home and Puppies

 

Hi guys! 

I love going to my mom and dad’s house. I love it. It’s not that I miss it per se, I mean I do, but not like I dislike living where I do now, with Jarod. 

But there’s just something so fun about going back home (I still call it my house, don’t ask me why. That’s my house, and this is our house). 

I think it’s because everything is so casual. I don’t feel like I have to dress up or wear makeup. They’ve all seen me in the morning. They know I look dead. 

And I guess I like being able to go to someone’s house and visit without putting pressure on them to get ready. I don’t need any fancy meals, and I’m more than willing to load the dishwasher with them while we chat. It’s no big deal. 

 

Yesterday there was no school in town so my mom had the day off, so I went over there in the afternoon. It was supposed to be to help them spring clean the yard. They burn wood through the winter so the porch and yard always get filled up with scraps of bark, sticks, and bits of wood. 

I tried to help, I really did, but it seems like whenever I go there I end up just watching Henry and talking. They say I provide much needed entertainment, so I guess it’s ok. 

 

Here’s the best part. They got a new puppy. His name is Gus. He’s going to be Maggie’s boyfriend when he grows up, but right now he’s just an annoying little creature that bites onto her collar and makes her drag him around the farm. It’s hilarious. 

I love red heeler puppies like I love no other breed of puppy. They’re such energetic yet fat butter balls. They run so hard and you can just see on their little faces that they’re giving it everything they got, and they get nowhere. It’s hilarious. 

Henry wasn’t sure what to think of him. He liked Gus if I was holding him and could keep the puppy at arms reach, but when they were both loose Gus was just all up in his face. 

 

 

 

But golly, do they make good pictures. 

After the yard was clean we went inside and did some laundry and such, and the girls started me watching a show called The Paradise. I thought it was fantastic. It’s a shame I don’t have Netflix. Someday....

My mom made some sugar free cookies (that were to die for) and o got to drive through the cows and see my horse. 

 

It was great. 

 

 

Update on the Life and Times

Hello all! 

I thought I’d play a little catch up with my life today, since I’ve been absent so long, and hopefully that’ll get me back into a regular posting schedule. 

First, let me announce that Henry and I are now fever free as of Monday. That made it a complete two weeks with a fever for me, which was ridiculous. That’s the first good thing to ever come from a Monday, let me tell ya. 

 

 

We’re both feeling good now, but I have inexplicably lost my voice. So if you have my number, don’t call me. You’ll think I’m rude and/or creepy and just breathing heavily on the phone, when in reality, that’s me trying to speak. My husband has been laughing at me about it for the last two days. 

 

While sick, I managed to miss a chiropractor, doctor, and tax appointment. I’ve since taken care of the taxes part, but I’m trying to get up the courage to call the other two back and reschedule. I hate phones, unless you’re like my bestie, then you’re never getting me to hang up. You’re stuck here. Forever. 

 

While sick I gave up on finishing Allegiant somehow, and started reading Louis L’Amour westerns. I’ve read four and a half so far, and by that I mean four of his normal  sized novels and half of The Lonesome Gods, which could probably fit six normal ones inside it. It’s one of my favorites, on account of I begged it from the library because me and my dad were the only ones to check it out in the last thirty years, and it was in about eight pieces. 

It really helps when writing a dystopian western. Which is going well by the way. I’m back to full editing mode, and trucking along nicely. Skye is a fantastic beta partner and her reactions are invaluable to make the story flow. The characters are cooperating much better now, so it’s just a matter of keeping them alive from here on. 

 

We had some lovely days last week before the wind decided to blow sixty miles an hour for two days, and me and Henry spent a lot of time outside. Have some baby spam. It’s good for you.

 

 

We’ve also been getting ready for the bull sale that Jarod’s aunt/boss puts on every year. Every body has kind of a love hate relationship with the sale. Some of the getting ready is kind of fun, and it’s fun to see all the neighbors there, but it also brings out the absolute worst in all of us and we all get mad and crazy. I’ll post more about that when it gets here. 

I found a wii for dirt cheap on a buy sell trade group while I was sick, and pounced all over it, so we’ve played that a few evenings. We’re not video game junkies. Don’t worry. Jarod was rather put off that I beat him at every single game, but in both of our defense, I owned the game when I was a kid and had much more practice at it. I’m really excited for my Dangerous Hunts game to get here. If I could only ever own one game, that would be the one. It just might turn me into a junkie. It gets a little addicting when you keep being eaten by lions and baboons and such and you can’t figure out how to beat them. 

 

My aunt started a Christian after school program with a group called The Good News Club....my auto correct changed that to Hood News Club, which might be fun, but that’s not what we’re going for. My sisters would approve though, I’m sure. They’re pretty gangsta since I moved out, which is depressing, because I was the first and original gangsta in that house and they laughed at me. I’ll admit, they’ve got better style than I ever did....mine was original though! 

Anyway, the program. It takes place once a week, and they’ve had two so far. I went to one yesterday to help out. I think it’s going to be a blast once we all figure out how to work together to make it all run smooth. 

My living room is a pile of laundry at the moment, so I should really probably get off the Internet and go do something about that. 

 

What about you? What’s going on in your life? Is your laundry piling up on top of you? Do share!