Mud Ranch’s Real Dirt

Hubby’s been busy working, as you may know.  He’s been up way before the crack of dawn (2:00 a.m.) and home late.  Yep, he’s been hoing a pond, the guy won’t use a shovel because he thinks the banks won’t be as smooth.

He finally finished it the other day, and boy is he pooped.  Poor guy’ll sleep for three weeks straight, I’m sure.

Just kidding, only on the hoing a pond part.  He has been up at 2:00 a.m. most mornings and working seven days a week but not on the pond. 

Truth be told, he had some help from an excavator.

Okay and a bull dozer.  And actually these were taken back in June, before the mad rush at his shop.  And our pond is filled now, it’s water is clear, and the vegetation is starting to come back in in spots.

It’s a nice size though, big enough to swim in, and deep enough too as it’s probably 10′ deep at the deepest spot.  Hubby, Lonnie (the dozer guy) and Darrel (the dozer guy’s son, excavator boy), are standing down on a low spot, a place where the animals can get out if they so choose to fall in.  Where they’re standing has water, but only about 6″ deep.

Once all the equipment stopped, the cows started getting their curiosity perked.  They love the fresh dirt, and love the smell of the equipment.  It’s enough to turn these calm, placid creatures into raving lunatics.

They all went snarffing around the equipment and dirt, looking at every little item while we all talked and enjoyed the thought of how our pond would look in the future.

That’s when the calves started going for it, they couldn’t contain themselves much longer.  In the lead is Little Debbie, then Sir Loin, then Stew.  At this moment, I realized I’d be getting blurry pictures as it was going on 9:00 p.m. and the light was low.  I bumped up my ISO to it’s highest, 1600 and snapped away.  At this point a photographer has to reassure herself that the story is good enough to have blurry pictures.

I wonder what has stopped them cold in their tracks?

Jessica, their older yearling sister has come bounding off the dam.  I could hear three little voices cry, “Run away!  Run away!”

Smart little calves that they are, they dispersed in to the high grasses so as to be camoflauged.  Jessica would then have to single one of them out and would be delayed by deciding which one to go after.  A smart tacticle move on the calve’s part.

But Jessica found something quite alluring there on a hump of wet water grass.  Something smelt sooo good that even Layla had to join her on rubbing all over the stuff.  Crazy picture, I know, but they were all so smitten.

It must have been cat nip for heifers because there goes Jessica again…

…And back!  She was dashing all over the place…

…Until Layla gave her the scariest face she could muster and Jessica dashed off again.  I didn’t know that heifers could be so good at barrel racing, I think Jessica may have some hidden talent.  Anyone wanna give her a try?

The thing about the big cows is that they tend to slow down again quickly.  The calves then decide that since the big beasts have moved off the track, it is now safe for them to show their stuff.

This is Little Debbie, she is so stinkin’ cute I could squeeze her.  She is seriously ALL girl.

Meanwhile Mattilda has found that a dozer blade is quite nice for those hard to reach places.

These are the boys, Stew and Sir Loin.  They were hanging around in front of Lonnie’s truck so I snuck around to the off side and started shooting.  They saw my lens peeking out.

Sir Loin was the only brave one to come up though.  He has a very inquisitive personality and loves to bat his long white lashes at me.  I think he knows that he has an “in” with me being that his mama is Mattilda (my favorite, sweetest cow this side of heaven), and his sis is Jessica.

All three little hoodlums decided to wander off to see what else they could get in to.

Of course the boys, being boys, had to show off for Little Debbie and display their strong muscles in a good round of head-butt.  I don’t think she looks too impressed though.  Actually, most normal girls never really are.

It was then that they saw my poor old dog as a target (warning: it is going to get blurry but you will notice that the head’s are blurry showing action).

Sir Loin starts to charge while Oliver wheels.

Closing in on his target!…

Stew’s in the background, gearing up for back-up.

“Oh shoot, it’s that crazy lady again.”

“Be careful Sir Loin.  It looks like she could pounce at any moment!”

“Eeeek!  I think I can, I think I can… Eeeek!”

They make it past me and Sir Loin goes straight in to seeing how to un-hitch a trailer.  Typical guy.

Stew wrecks havoc with his mama Layla.

And Jessical is back to enjoying the tall green grass.