Cattle Drive

October 15th 2010

Lets start out with Jeremys famous line "I wonder whats going to happen THIS year...?" The only way to find out is to continue to read my post, but first lets go back to years past so you can fully understand the previous statement :) Way up the mtn: Julies mustang breaks the tree its tied to and bolts with the whole thing.... Last year: Sammi gets a log to the face, and a ride to insta care in cedar city for stitches. Year before: The semi truck FULL of cattle halfway tips over on the off ramp of the free way. Thanks to Dad and Jeremys PROFESSIONAL trailer backing we save all but one calf. Some year: Horse Lucky gets drug behind the horse trailer. One year before that: We loose horse Lucky for three days on the mtn. One time or Two: Sammi gets kicked in the shin/thigh goes home with some nasty looking bruises. Once or Twice: I am sure we all have been bucked off trampled or something of the sort.... Well I could continue on about stories of the past, but lets get to the one of the most recent......

We started our day out as normal up at five thirty to be ready by six, to be waiting on the sunlight. I drive dad and the crew over to the horses to get saddled as the sun is just thinking about coming up over the ridge. I drive back to the cabin with my instructions which are to get on the wheeler and hold the cows at the gate. Check. I can do that, or so I think... I get up to the gate and am "holding" the cows there and there is no one in sight for what seams like forever. Then chandler comes up on another wheeler and tells me the story, or what we know of the story by then...."Dad (Mr. Harr) got off his horse to tighten the cinch when he bolted, saddle slid under his belly and he was GONE they are all looking for the horse now. (dont forget we are on 700 acres of land here, and the horse has never been there before). So everything stops for about and hour or more while everyone is looking for this runaway horse and saddle besides me, who is still trying to "hold" fifty head of cows at the gate.... Jeremy find the horse with his amazing/crazy animal whisper ways but no saddle. We have an extra saddle so they saddle up the horse again and meanwhile Liesels horse acts up with her and goes up and over backwards! She the clever/smart girl she is bails but is up before her horse has a chance to get out from under her. So.... finally almost two hours later we are now all settled we have found the original saddle with a few minor broken straps and are ready to proceed with the cattle drive. Although, while this commotion was going on over there over where I was at, the cows were escaping my "hold." I was FREAKING out on our handy dandy walky-talkies, but NOONE seemed to hear. So they spend another 20 minutes gathering up the cows that I had lost or that had ran away from my grasps :) Moral of the story is everything worked out just fine! We lost a couple hours day light, but still managed to get the cows to the bottom and in the trailers before pitch dark. Now thats what I call cowboys!

Not much commotion when on during the day other than Duke being charged by the cows, hence why he rode the wheeler with me parts of the way. The kiddos couldnt get enough of ridding Jers horse which in return couldnt make him any happier. Colten got sick and slept most of the way off, I jumped a lot of fences (like a pro) to run down misbehavin cows. Also, the weather was PERFECT! We could not have asked for a better sunnier day. Years past I remember being a popsicle all day, wearing layer after layer. But this year, ultimate bliss....

We may have came home with some dirt on our faces, a little mud on our boots, or a tear in our jeans but the best part of it all was the memories we will smile about for years to come :)

Captain Sir!

I cant believe I never posted anything about my papa in the last month. September my daddio Sam took the Captain test here for St George Fire Captain. He has spent numerous hours studying and working towards this goal. He had Jeremy and Leslie help him write a resume and practice his interview questions. (Jeremy and Leslie just went through this whole interview process with Jer for the Life Flight that is coming to STG) I remember him coming home all annoyed after the test because he felt he did poorly. Apparently on the written exam there was a lot of grammar questions he didn't really prepare for and they had to write aletter response to a mock complaining citizen which he did not have enough time to finish completely. So, needless to say he was a little bugged that he spent all the time prepping to feel he fell short. A few weeks later however Jan and Sam went to go pick up his "declining" letter for captain as dad said. He left Jan in the truck while he was just running in to pick it up, he wanted to pout in private :) Little did papa know while he was in there Chief Stoker saw mom and hinted to her that Dad GOT CAPTAIN!!!! So Jan goes inside and makes him open it. I remember getting the call at IFA from Dad saying I got it, I am Captain! I could hear the smile in his voice! Even to top it all off that he made it he was the highest scorer on the written section! Way to go PAPA!!

I wanted to get something for him to say congrats, and of course the thing that came to mind was a pumpkin pie. Little did I know that they are hard to come by middle of september. I ran into wal-mart and they had NONE. So I drive back into town to albertsons, to find one that is like 5 inches big and disgusting looking. Soooo, I then drive to harmons and they have ONE left, but kicker is its like an 8 inch and it was priced liked a block of gold. But of course my daddy is worth it! Later I then learned that Costco is the place to go. For 6 bucks the have like a 10 inch pie and they always look perfect. So, you learned two things outta this post Costco is where you buy pies, and my awesome dad is CAPTAIN!!!!!

Shingles!!!

Overview

Shingles (herpes zoster) is a painful, blistering skin rash due to the varicella-zoster virus, the virus that causes chickenpox.

Symptoms

The first symptom is usually one-sided pain, tingling, or burning. The pain and burning may be severe and is usually present before any rash appears.

Red patches on the skin, followed by small blisters, form in most people.

• The blisters break, forming small ulcers that begin to dry and form crusts. The crusts fall off in 2 to 3 weeks. Scarring is rare.
• The rash usually involves a narrow area from the spine around to the front of the belly area or chest.

Causes

After you get chickenpox, the virus remains inactive (becomes dormant) in certain nerves in the body. Shingles occurs after the virus becomes active again in these nerves years later.

The reason the virus suddenly become active again is not clear. Often only one attack occurs.

Shingles may develop in any age group, but you are more likely to develop the condition if:

• You are older than 60
• You had chickenpox before age 1
• Your immune system is weakened by medications or disease

If an adult or child has direct contact with the shingles rash on someone and has not had chickenpox as a child or a chickenpox vaccine, they can develop chickenpox, rather than shingles.

Yikes!!!! Its not just an assumption now, its a fact that I am indeed an old lady. First we just thought sitting at home alone, watching sappy love movies was proof enough. Little did we know more proof was on its way. Last week I started having pains in my right chest/shoulder area. Thinking that I must have had pulled a muscle or something didnt think much of it until, it started aching in my back/shoulder area as well. A few days later I was mentioning it to my sister in law and she caught that it sounded a lot like what her sister recently had, shingles. Indeed, the next morning I broke out with the rash. I made a doctors appointment and when the nurse asked me why they were seeing me today, I said because I believe I have shingles. He looked at me like I was the dumbest person alive. He asked me why I believe that and I said because I have been having the pain and this morning I broke out with this, as I showed him my underarm. He looked at me again, saying yeah looks like you do. The doctor also agreed and gave me some super good pain meds and a antiviral. Every day it seams to get a bit worse, more rashes and bigger blisters. I hate waring my bra or a shirt that touches my underarm. I was told I would be lucky if this would all be over in a weeks time... so I am sayin my prayers it will be over super fast. The photos on google are so disgusting so I did not post one, mine is not THAT bad at least yet. Well next on my old lady check list is to get some cats!