October in Review

Well, it's only been a month or so since my last post, but hey, it's a busy world. Kelly was working away, so the kids and I were on chore duty. Mostly, I was on chore duty. At our last company meeting, which is a quick consult over dinner, I made the motion that if he was working away, we were getting a new squeeze chute. Of course, a young bull is limping around the pen when he was gone, so I had to get it out and doctor it. This was no easy task itself. Thank goodness for the three legged wanna be cowdog. He does save my ass from time to time. We got the bulls out of the feedlot pen and up the alley to the squeeze. No sorting was to be done. I knew that I was not even going to attempt that, so every animal had to go up the alley and out the squeeze. So, an hour later when I finally get the patient in the squeeze and his head caught I take on the task of 100cc of penicillin. Now, you might think this is easy, but thinking it wasn't that cold outside, I had fixed the syringe before I started. Not good. Penicillin tends to take on the consistency of maple syrup in this less than tropical climate. It took a while to squeeze it through the 16 gauge needle. I had hand cramps. To get to the point though, as I was doing this the bull was jumping and twitching and I was dodging the drop bars which were dropping down at random intervals. Not cool. I could have been cut, concussed or even killed. Kelly said, "oh yeah, you gotta watch those things, they'll do that, the old girl is gettin' kinda wore out." Really! Our nephew got married on the 27th. We had a great time at the wedding. Jake was the ring bearer. He actually went through with it and was well behaved. His sister did sit down at the front with a bag of candy to entice him and the flower girls. In true Jake style, he wasn't leaving behind his John Deere tractor or his backhoe, so we put one in each girls purse. And wouldn't you know it, he had a death grip on their hands all the way down the aisle.

Moving on. Halloween was great fun. Jake was a fireman and Jessie was a gypsy. Kelly and Jessie weighed the candy. They had 8 lbs. That is after I took out nine pop cans. Crazy. Jessie found her friends in town and quickly abandoned us. We took Jake to a few houses and then stopped at some friends and waited on Jessie to show back up. f

Jessie has been busy with hockey. She practices two nights a week and has games on the weekends. I feel like we live at the rink. She scored her first two goals of the year on Saturday. She was pumped. They have a great little team. This is her first year to play in Stettler. She informed us after the first practice that she had four coaches because this wasn't a rinky dink operation anymore. She is sure she is playing NHL hockey. That is all I know for now. Not much changes here on a day to day basis. As Kelly likes to put it, we are just chasing the dream and living the nightmare.