First Week of Fall on the Ranch
It's the first week of fall! I'm always so happy to see the neighbor's honor-system pumpkin wagon come out to mark my favorite season. It's cooler in the mornings and still beautiful and sunny by the afternoons - and you know we don't take those blue skies for granted!
I've gotten back to writing daily recap posts over on Instagram (my New Year's Resolution!) and I'm going to share them with you here on the blog as well. Here's a recap of how we spent our first couple weeks of 'official' fall on the ranch.
I'd love to hear in the comments how you spent your week and what the weather is like where you are :) Thanks for following along with us!
The Cowboy Channel!
We’ve had such a fun mix of events on the ranch the past week, and we kicked it off with hosting Janie Johnson and her crew to film for her new show on the Cowboy Channel! Janie (@calamityjanie) is a barrel racer, rodeo announcer, and host from Texas and we were so lucky to have her here and show her what we do at Five Marys. The girls and I loved getting to know her and are excited to see her at the NFR this year too!
I think we squeezed in everything we possibly could in a few days - tagging calves, packaging beef, shipping boxes, grilling dinner together by the arena, and even getting Janie on Redman to ride!
Look for the episode of @ranchhertv to air on the @cowboychannel this spring!
A Mellow Sunday
We had our first mellow Sunday on the ranch in a LONG time. It was so nice to just be hanging out at home! We’ve been pushing into darkness with chores the past few days since it’s getting darker so much earlier all of a sudden. But calving season is going well and the sweater weather changed is welcomed :)
The girls took their horses on a trail ride up into the hills yesterday on a cloudy afternoon, riding some and ponying a few extras. I love to see them all riding together.
They rescued some barn kittens that have now somehow become inside kittens living the life of luxury! We will need to get these guys back to the barn before they realize how good they have it…
Brian’s good friend, Kevin, brought one of his four sons up for an annual deer hunt on our mountain. He was successful the first morning and the girls spent Sunday afternoon helping him clean and harvest to take home for his family.
A Busy Morning at the Farm Store
Monday was a busy one in the shop with over 900 orders to get out this week!!! Our customers are the best and made the most of our ground beef stock up sale. Francie and JJ helped out in the shop since we needed as many hands as possible.
Beautiful Days on the Ranch
We had some moody skies and a few raindrops between sunshine as we checked cows, tagged a few new calves, and moved the sheep to new pasture. It’s my favorite time of night to drive around with Brian on these early fall days!
Brian and the girls have been hard at work on the new horse runs by the corrals. They were digging the final post holes and welding up the pipe between each run tonight - sand and rock for drainage are in and stall mats ready to go. Almost ready for the new tenants!
I tried to go live to cook my favorite beef and veggie curry recipe, but got derailed by a horse that needed doctoring and ranch life things. Afterwards, I stopped by the restaurant to check in on their busy Friday night with live music in a packed house! It’s such a fun place to see our community come together. After Brian and finished up a coupe more chores, I came back to the house and Maisie had made the dinner that I left half done :)
All the Projects!
To round out the week, we had to get a bunch of stuff done to set us up for a busy week ahead. The Horse Hotel building continued, the girls ran a barrel race in Medford, Oregon and I made a yummy butternut squash soup.
I also managed to sneak away and get some shopping done for a holiday shoot on the ranch this week and Maisie helped me organize a wardrobe rack so no one could complain about their options.
After all that, we found some time to put our feet up… rested and ready for what’s to come!
