7th May

To be honest, I can't remember what we did on Monday and Tuesday, but it was definitely something cool.
On Wednesday during lunch, someone called and asked if Henry could help pull the Pick Up out of the mud because it got stuck. Aileen said I should come along because it's very entertaining..... and she was absolutely right :) better than any TV show. Henry has 2 big trucks and we loaded the tractor onto one of them and drove off. It was really cool.... I've always wanted to ride in an American truck. When we couldn't go any further with the truck, we unloaded the tractor and drove the tractor for almost an hour and then we found the Pick Up - a brand new giant Chevrolet!! And the best part was that the owner wasn't there yet, so since Henry had to drive the tractor, I was the only one left to drive the Pick Up :D It was like Christmas.... although I imagined my first truck ride differently - not from a mud hole where all 4 tires are completely stuck in the mud and it belongs to a complete stranger but oh well. It was super cool to drive it, but after 2km the owner came with his Quad and then he drove :( ..... and we didn't get back home until 7 p.m.
The plan for Thursday was to install 2 saddle racks in the stable. But then we thought, we could also build a proper saddle room. So we started cleaning, which hasn't been done in 30 or 40 years. I must have taken out more than 100 wheelbarrows of old dirt, dust and hay.... it ended up being a full truck load. We will continue building in there for the next few days.
And yesterday we spent the whole day doing cool cowboy stuff :) ... put on chaps at 11 and didn't take them off until 7 p.m. We have some cows from the neighboring ranch and they didn't have time to brand their calves last year, so we did it. And then there was a cow that had horns and we had to remove them. I've seen it once before when I was in Switzerland - a veterinarian did it there, who sedated the cow before and really tied it up so that it couldn't move at all. And here?! they just took a wire, sawed it off, and then the blood splattered around and I was supposed to quickly get the hot branding iron to close the wound again. And then there was a bull that was supposed to be a steer. Normally, bull calves get a rubber ring, but something went wrong with this one. So we put it in a kind of round pen and Henry caught its head with a lasso and tied it up, and then he caught its hind legs with a second lasso and tied them up on the other side, so the bull lay stretched out there. Unfortunately, I couldn't see everything clearly because I had to hold a lasso, but it looked like Henry just took out his pocket knife, cut something off, tied it up, cut off the testicles, and done.... it took 5 minutes and the longest part was catching it, because the lasso snapped on the first try and we had to do it all over again. I would have liked to take photos again yesterday, but I had to hold on to some wild cows all the time and you need both hands for that.

And then we brought in a cow that had just given birth with the horses, because she had way too much milk and the calf didn't drink from all the teats and they can get inflamed or something if you don't milk them. That cow was a beast...... normally the cows just go away when you come with a horse and a dog, but she kept attacking the dogs and sometimes she even wanted to attack the horses.... she was really creepy. She came galloping towards you and made a very loud aggressive moo - like a wild animal. It took a long time until we got her into the stable. And now we have to milk her all the time :( Later, I wanted to feed another calf with the bottle again and I kept my distance, but that stupid cow still came running towards me and wanted to attack me. I just managed to hide behind the haystack and the other cows.
And then a few cows escaped and we brought them back and we let some cows with calves onto the other pasture.
When I came inside, the visitors from the neighboring ranch were there... there are 2 helpers from Australia and there was beer and whisky. Aileen's parents came for dinner and it was very funny. I made ice cream again.... this time twice as much as before, because the ice cream maker can hold twice as much and we wanted to bring the rest to the barbecue party today. But there was no rest. We ate everything! I didn't think it was possible, but it is. And now we had to make ice cream again today ;)
Now that we are milking 2 cows, we don't have any more space in the fridge for more milk. So we just made pudding from all the milk from one cow, because pudding gets eaten faster than milk :D
I just remembered what we did on Tuesday..... a boat tour on the lake in front of our door.

And now we're going to the barbecue party. I'm looking forward to it. Because now I already know everyone here (they're all super nice) and every time we've visited someone or someone has visited us so far, it's been a long and fun evening. Only the next morning when you still get up at 6 and work for 13 hours, sometimes it's a bit exhausting. But if I slept longer, I would most likely miss something interesting ;) and that would be stupid.