Spent the week hauling hay stacks, fixing fence and watching water tanks.  The one day it got hotter than the weatherman predicted.  The water pumps were pumping out more water than the well pump was pumping in. So we had to dump the 1500 gallons that we have in reserve into the cisterns to help catch up.

The puppies are growing and have had their puppy shots. We have run out of powdered milk but they don't miss it much they just eat more puppy food.  We carry puppy chow in a three gallon bucket every day to their dog food feeder.  Won't be long till we have to use a five gallon bucket.

This their home.  This is the tanks of water for the sheep, and it has sheep panels around to keep the sheep out of the hoses.  The puppies live inside the pen and can get out and roam around.  They hear the four wheeler come and they know food is on the way.  The sheep crowd around the tanks to get their drinks and the puppies are there.  Some days they are down in the creek sleeping in the mud or exploring.

These puppies are patiently waiting for food to show up.  Several are long haired like their long haired father Attila who is Great Pyrenees.  Some are more smooth haired like their mother Opal who shows Anatolian Shepard.

We had to move the sheep at Ryan's across the road to another pasture.  This is the fourth pasture they have been in this summer.

This is the band of sheep that Attila has.  Note that he has found the open gate for the sheep and stands there waiting for them to follow.  For as hot as it has been the lambs and the ewes still look good.

These are late May and June lambs and look to be about as big as their mothers.  These lambs are three months old and have seen the inside of a corral once when they were docked.  And have never seen the inside of a barn.  They are raised on the range and in better range conditions could be finished on grass, but this year there is not much grass. We have weaned the lambs that were born in March and were going to take them to a feedlot to be finished, but the lamb market has plunged  in the last several weeks. The price of feed, mainly corn has risen so feed cost are higher and market prices are lower so we are caught in the squeeze.  We weighed the weaned lambs the other night and they weighed 88 lbs. I guess we will keep them and feed them as cheaply as we can.

Tammy has been working on a project with several different groups for most of the summer.  It finally came together this last Saturday.  The event took place in the new Main Street Square in Rapid City.  It was a Celebrity Chef challenge.  Several teams of chefs and celebrities had to cook a cut of beef and what ever was in the basket in an hours time.  Then later in the evening several chefs came in from area fine dining establishments and showed off their ways of preparing different cuts of beef.

One team working on their creative dish of beef.  Between events there was a band  that played for the crowd in the Square.  That is Tammy over on the far left against the pillar watching the cooking demonstration.