A months worth of updates

Okay I knew that I had been away from my blog for awhile but had no idea that the last post was from May 3rd. It has been a crazy month for us here. The end of spring/start of summer always is, but for some reason this year more so than the ones before.
It started back at the end of April when our hired help decided he wanted the weekend off. Normally that would not be a problem as the hubby, me and the girls can handle anything that comes up. But that weekend happened to be the one that we were gathering the cows, moving pastures and pulling out the heifers and putting the bulls in with the herd. Left high and dry we were lucky enough that neighbors of ours was available to help on Sunday after they finished moving their cows.
To say that I was hot under the collar would be the understatement of the century! He did show back up in the wee hours of Monday morning and went about his work that morning like nothing had happened, even asked me how my weekend went! Needless to say I would have fired his butt at that moment but one of the outside jobs we have to help the ranch out requires two people and I have enough on my plate that there is no way I can take on anything else, besides there would be no one to watch the girls. So we are stuck with the idiot until we can find a new cowboy to hire. Unfortunately the picking for that line of work are slim to none in our area of the world, so if anyone knows someone who is looking for full time cowboy work please let me know!
May brought the start of the branding season in our area and the hubby and our oldest were off to Flagstaff, Arizona to help my father-in-law brand on the ranch that he manages. Bibble was so excited to go this year as it was the first year to help out over there. She did us proud, giving the shots, keeping track of the count and helping to get some cows back that decided they did not like the inside of the pen. She was even invited back for next year by the owner! She was just excited that she got paid for the weekend and is putting her money away to start saving for college.
Once the hubby got back the first thing he did was to go and check on the cows. He had been gone for only 4 days and during that time was told by the "hired" help everything was fine, all the cows were in the pasture and the fence was great. Well that was all wrong. The cows were out, the fence was down and had been down for a few days because the tracks were in the mud and it had not rained at all since he had been gone. So after spending 2 days tracking down our cows and calves and fixing the fence everyone was home again. The worst part about our cows getting out into the neighbors pastures is they do not call to let you know they are there, they are just hoping that you don't notice and all of a sudden your cow has a calf with their brand on it! Yes that has happened more than once around here.
So the last part of May found us going around and improving the fences around the ranch. Not an easy or cheap thing to do.
Mean while we are still looking for new help, but no luck so still stuck with the idiot.
Then yesterday occurred. Started out okay. Got an early start in the morning and the day was not hot, that was about the last thing that went right yesterday. Now let me start by saying I am not the most experienced ranch hand, but even I know that you do not pick up a momma cow that you know has a baby without finding the baby too. Also is a momma cow does get picked up without the baby and she keeps trying to go back to where you found her at, let her go she is going back for her baby and you can pick them both back up on the next sweep through. Now after working on a cattle ranch for almost 3 years you would think this would be understood and common sense. You guessed it, not by our "hired" help. To top it off he would keep cutting off the calves and sending them running off in all different directions. What should have taken just 5 hours to complete was still not done and finished by the time the sun set last night. The hubby and Bibble spent most of the afternoon and evening going back through the herd double checking numbers and matching up mommas and babies, while the help went to town. Again not a happy person on this end.
So today is being spent looking for the 32 head that are not in the pasture that there suppose to be in and looking for them in summer pastures at the south end of the ranch. I feel bad because I have not been able to help as I'm in two science classes for my schooling right now and I've been helping my dad get a house bought here in town. And getting all the food ready for the weekend. In fact right now I have bread in the bread machine, blueberry lemon bars cooling and getting the final grocery list ready and going to make a run to town.
Okay so there is the short story version of the last month here. I am just hoping that tomorrow goes better and we are able to get everything branded and turned back out with no issues. I will make sure and take pictures and post them next week along with the other pictures I have of our calves and our colts.