frog catching and staffers.

We have all been busy putting up hay.  There have been a few showers of rain that we have gotten some rain out of.  The first round of haying was finally done and now we are trying to put up a few second crop alfalfa bales.  I baled around two hundred little square bales of alfalfa that we put in the lambing barn.

The one evening when the kids were over someone came up with the idea of going frog catching.  I think the county fair was to have frog jumping contest.  So I had a strainer that I duct taped to a pole and we went out back of the barn to a small dam to catch frogs.

They found some buckets to put the frogs in and our pole and we headed for water.  It wasn't long before a frog was spotted jumping in the grass.  Then the screams of exitement followed.  

We tried to hold back the frog spotters from getting ahead of the frog catcher and that worked for a while.  Except grandpa couldn't go fast enough.  There were more frogs jumping than we could spot and catch.

Brooke was ready to pounce upon a frog at the same time I was bringing the frog catching net down and I splashed her and she missed the frog and I missed the frog and she was not happy with grandpa for spoiling her chance.

We finally captured a frog in the net.  They are trying to see who can get him out from under the strainer first.

We actually did catch a frog or maybe two.  I don't think the frogs made it to the County fair.  Some how they all got away.

Then we were honored to have two staffers from Sen. Johnson's DC office take time out of their schedules to visit our ranch.  We had a couple of neighbors over and took four wheelers out did a pasture tour with the staffers and discussed some of our problems.  The predator problem and the funding mechanisms.  

Here we were discussing our deep well and the miles of pipeline and the problems of watering several thousand head of livestock in the dry years.

We also stopped by several cattle burial pits from the Atlas storm.  And discussed the situation after the storm and how the events happened.  I think they get a feel of the remoteness of our area.  Not a tree, road or high line wire in site.  The only protection from a storm is a low spot in the creek or behind a hill that fills with snow.

In the weeks to come we should start giving fall shots to the calves and lambs and do some sorting and pulling bulls out of the pastures.  Hopefully we will have some more pictures.  And moving haystacks into the stack yards.