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Wagonteamster

12-22-18, Valley Falls, OR

On November 6th, I finished up work at the Cooper Nuclear Station in Nebraska and arrived back at the house a couple of days later.  It was a really good seven week long outage at my favorite power plant.

Since then, the time back at the house has been relaxing with a little fun here and there.

In another week and a half, I’m off to the Davis Besse Nuclear plant in Northern Ohio. This will be a longer duration contract as an Electrical Maintenance Instructor.

After spending six months out on the range, I moved the lads back to the home paddock for the winter.  They came back looking great.

As always, the first few days after getting home were busy.  In addition to home repairs and chores around the place, I had a heifer to cut up and put it in the freezer. 

Snow in the mountains finally pushed the last of the cows hiding out in the hills down to lower ground and they had to be gathered up and pushed back to my friend Geren’s ranch.

Fat cows and calves coming down out of the hills.  My mare Brandy really enjoys these outings. There’s nothing better than breaking into a mad dash to head off some cattle trying to make a break for it.

The little 80 pound orphan (leppy) calf I was given last fall weighed out at about 900 pounds this year, providing us with about 400 pounds of high quality roasts, steaks and burger.  The pan in foreground was the trimmings off one of the forequarters that was then ground into hamburger.  Thankfully, my friend Geren has industrial quality butcher equipment (meat saw, grinder and cube steaker) so we were able to cut and wrap the whole beef in less than 8 hours.

Even in winter, it’s a beautiful land I live in.

As the snow gets deeper in the mountains, the game gets pushed down on to the valley floor.  It’s impossible to take even a short drive without running by several herds of antelope or deer.

Several times a week, whenever the weather allows it, we take the dogs out for a good run. Like humans, they get cabin fever and have to run around and let off a little steam.

As I mentioned previously, on January 2nd I’m off to Ohio. I don’t know what my schedule is yet, only that I’ll be busy.  The plant is shutting down for good in a year and a half, consequently, they lost a lot of their training instructors, so there will be plenty for me to do. However, I’m sure there will be a few long weekends where I can fly over to the east coast and visit the kids and grandchildren.  I also plan on meeting Jacquie in either Key West, FL and/or New Orleans for a long weekend to two.

Merry Christmas to everyone.