This September is finally coming to and end.  Un-seasonally hot and dry.  We had no moisture of any kind this month.  Every morning we both cough and sputter from all the dust we breathed the day before.  Then clean the dirt out of our eyes.  There have been a couple of mornings where the thermometer has shown 33 degrees.  We don't even get a dew, the air is so dry.

The few stock ponds that have water in them continue to lower.  The pipeline and the water from the well has been the lifeblood for this whole area around us this summer.  There probably has been close to 2000 head of cattle watered from this well this summer.  It has pumped just under 5 million gallons this year.  At times it was a job just keeping enough water in the storage to keep up with the four pumps that pump out of the cisterns.  We had to add a plastic tank that stored another 1500 gallons to keep up.

We weaned the calves that were over here on the "gumbo" and took them over to Ryan's.  Their corral is so dusty that they are starting to show some signs of dust pneumonia.  We treated about eight head the other day.  Then Ryan's pipeline sprung a leak and drained his well.  I called around for a backhoe to dig it up.  Everyone's backhoes were busy putting in pipelines and so the earliest I could get one is next Tuesday.  So we are hauling water to the calves in the corral.

We got the ewes in and sorted off the older ewes and sold them.  The price was not very good, but we sold half of our ewes.  We still have all of our lambs.  They are on the creek eating the last of the green.  They look good but aren't worth much on this market.  Two weeks ago the lamb market was up and it looked like we were seeing the bottom and it was turning around.  Then this week the market was quoted down $5 cwt.  Carcass weights are coming down but are still 20 pounds too heavy.

We had the veterinary come out and pregnancy test the yearling heifers.  There were 11 opens out of 88 head.  So we thought we did pretty good for the way the year was.  The opens sold in Philip and they sold good.  Ryan and our calves go to the sale barn next week.  The calf market looks to be pretty good, so at least one market is good.

We now have a new neighbor to the south.  The Chaffee place sold last Tuesday.  The Spring family has leased it for the last thirty years.  They chased it to over $400 an acre.  It sold for $402 to the lottery kid - Neil Wanless.  Not a good year to sell as there is no water to speak of on the place and it looks like a desert.  They probably got all it was worth.

I finally finished moving hay stacks.  Was only hauling about one day a week lately.  I would like to mow the weeds along our driveway.  It is too dry and I would probably start a fire.  So will have to wait to mow weeds.