A Day in the Life by Paty Jager

Jammer in central Oregon

Monday morning I fed George and Apollo and walked up to start the water for the horses. I started the water and  noticed Jammer standing with one leg up off the ground. I went through the gate and spotted a gash/ deep scratch on her left back knee.  The other two, Bud and Lily, were farther away from the gate. So I opened it and let her out even though I didn't have a halter or rope with me. She walked out and went straight to the hay stacked outside the pen to feed this winter.

I hoofed it down to the tack room and grabbed her halter and lead rope. Back at the hay, I put the

her leg

halter on her and led her to the corral. I tied her up and assessed the wound. It wasn't very deep but was oozy. I washed it with an iodine solution and put an ointment on it to help it heal and keep flies off.

She didn't like the sting of the iodine but all she did was pick up her foot and squeeze the crook of her leg, making it harder for me to clean it.

iodine and salve

After Jammer was doctored, I had to move panels to give her more space in the corral and keep her away from the pony and burro. She isn't mean, but she is a tall horse and all she had to do is lay her ears back and the other two don't go near the hay. So to make it more tolerable for all of them, I penned Jammer off from the little boys.

I added water to the empty tank in the main corral and partitioned it so Jammer could drink from the smaller trough under the lean-to.

After the animals were all situated, I came back to the house, worked on edits and formatting and made lunch for hubby, son-in-law and neighbor who were putting up the rafters on hubby's shop. They left, I cleaned up and did some more writing related stuff. Late afternoon, I made cupcakes and started preparations for dinner.  It was mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, chicken fried steak.  Having our son-in-law here is like having the grandkids this summer. He eats as much as two people!

We watched The Voice and went to bed. That was my exciting Monday! How was your Monday? 

A Day in the Life by Paty Jager

This past Saturday, hubby and I went to an auction 30 miles from our house. It was a farm auction. The older couple couldn't keep up with their land and had sold out to move to a smaller place closer to family. There was 40 years worth of junk and some good stuff.

Hubby went with the idea of finding "treasures" to him, junk to me, but spare parts for our farm machinery. I hadn't planned on buying anything. I had finished one book and had uploaded the next to be released and needed a day away from the computer and to let my mind wander to anything but writing.

We met our friends, another couple we do things with. She grabbed me and said, "They are also having a garage sale." So I wandered through the furniture, mostly refurbished from old crates and furniture and made into new things, like I watch on Flea Market Flip. In the garage were tables of Fall and Christmas decorations and lots of craft items. Only mostly crafts I don't dabble in. So I didn't find anything at the garage sale.

Hubby and I walked down to the equipment. We saw a couple of items that if they went for cheap, we'd try for. Then a neighbor called and asked hubby to bid on a van trailer for him.

They had started auctioning the items in the shop, so we wandered back. Hubby didn't see anything in there he wanted until he had his own shop to put it in. I had looked over the saddles and didn't care to bid on them. But when they got down to the saddle blankets there were two I wanted to make rugs out of.  When the first person won the bid at $20 and they picked the blankets they wanted and didn't take the two I liked, I was getting anxious. Then they bid again and someone took more blankets for $10. Still not the ones I wanted. Then the auctioneer said whoever wins the bid gets the round up. I didn't know what that meant but when I bid $5 and no one else bid, they said I won the round up. I started to pull out the two blankets I wanted and the auctioneer said, "It's all yours." So I packed off 3 full body blankets, that I'm cleaning and will have our friend sell. 2 pony bare back pads. Same thing.  The 2 blankets I wanted and 5 other pads. Which I will see what I want to keep and have our friend who sells used tack, sell the rest.

full body blanket

bareback pads

We put all the blankets in the pick up and drove down the road to the Narrows Cafe. Had lunch and went back to find them auctioning the farm equipment. They had told hubby they wouldn't get to it for a couple of hours. They'd changed their minds. We ended up with a three point hitch (brand new) for $5, a cultivator hubby plans to cut in half and make into two. One for me to use to dig up the packed dirt in the corral and one to sell, for $100. And we both fell in love with a small grain roller. We got that for $20. And he picked up the van the neighbor wanted for less than he'd expected to pay.

They went back up to the stuff on a flat bed trailer. It is getting to be later afternoon and people had been hanging around the trailer all day waiting for the boxes of stuff on it to sell. Hubby had his eye on a bunch of tips for the cultivator and I found two drawers from a wooden cabinet with slotted dividers that I could envision made into shelves for my pig collection.

They started the bidding to take your pick of the boxes on one section of the trailer. It didn't have anything we wanted. Then they moved to the section with the drawers I wanted. They started with Your pick for $20. No one took my drawers. The bid was at $10 to take what you wanted, but hubby held me back. Luckily no one went for the drawers and I got both for $5. And one had nuts in it hubby could use and the other had metal files. Then we moved to the section with the tips. A man stood with his foot up on the trailer right next to them, kind of hiding the bundle. We were behind him. Hubby heard the man tell his friend when they got to $12.50 he was going to take them. So hubby bid $15 and grabbed the bundle out from under the man's leg.

drawers I'll remake into shelves

We were home by six and unloaded the blankets and my boxes. The heavy stuff we unloaded the next day.

Now I have blankets to clean and boxes to transform. But those tales will be for another day.

A Day in the LIfe by Paty Jager

This week the post won't be very exciting and I have only a few photos.

The day is Wednesday, yesterday.

Hubby left when it was still dark to help a friend haul hay. I secretly like these days because the only creatures to interrupt me are the dogs, wanting in and out. But Wednesday it happened to rain off and on all day and so they remained curled up in their respective beds most of the day.

 
I arose, checked my phone for messages, ate breakfast while playing Candy Crush Saga. Yes, I play that game when I don't feel like reading or I'm waiting for hubby as we run errands.

After breakfast, I started the laundry and cleaned up my sewing mess because my younger brother and his wife will spend the night here on Friday night. I had stuff all over the dining room table and the guest bed.

I glanced out the window as three large coyotes were trotting through our alfalfa field. One not very far from the house. Mikey was outside. I stepped out and called to him. He didn't come, but the two coyotes farthest away took off at a lope. The other one kept hovering closer than I liked. I haven't shot my hubby's large caliber rifle so I grabbed my twenty-two. But the darn pivot was parked in front of the house and I wasn't positive I wouldn't wiggle and put a bullet through it, so I just shot in the air twice and the nearest coyote finally loped off.

I dressed, and the dogs and I walked down to the corral and fed George and Apollo. Of course, I had to throw the tennis ball there and back for Mikey.

Mikey waiting for me to kick the ball

I also took a photo of the flowering wild flower because it has two blooms now.

Back in the house, I started up the computer and listened to 4 chapters of Murderous Secrets my narrator had uploaded for my approval. After that I caught up on the social media things I'd put off the day before while traveling to a dental appointment. All the social media, promotion, and all that fun (not!) stuff took up the morning. And I vacuumed out all the wall heaters because I now need heat. Only a week ago we were still using fans to keep cool at night to sleep.

In the afternoon, I continued writing the next mystery.

After dinner, I fed Apollo and George, told the dogs to hop in the car, and headed to town for groceries and to pick up hubby who left his pickup to be worked on.

We arrived home to catch the last half of America's Got Talent. We're you surprised with who won?

And that was a day in the life.

A Day in the Life

This week has been a little slower but not much. I finished a book last week and am starting into a new one this week. I have it fleshed out, the pre-writing steps taken, and  started to put the story onto the document. Only struggling with the first 500 words, I realized I was telling the wrong story and now, my fingers are flying and I'm excited about the book. That is how the process works for me.

This installment of A Day in the Life happened last Thursday.

We awoke and were eating breakfast when I asked my usual question of my hubby. "What are your plans today?"

He said, "We're going to get some bluegrass hay."

George

That meant I wasn't going to get to my chores for a bit. We finished eating and while I cleaned up the dishes he made sure the back of his pickup was empty.  I walked down and fed the horses before we all (dogs included) climbed in the pickup. The hay was only about five miles from our house. we loaded the twenty bales onto the back of the pickup and brought it home. Then we had to re-stack a small hay stack that had started to tilt. After it was back in place, we unloaded and stacked the bluegrass. After all the problems with our daughter's pony, it was finally diagnosed as needing a low calorie, low carb diet which means we scrounge up bluegrass straw hay for him and it is doing George some good being on the same diet. ;)


When the hay was all stacked I asked, hubby if he needed me for anything else. He replied, no.  I spent the rest of the morning working on the book I finished until he arrived and said it was time to go to town.  I'd mentioned the day before I wanted to attend a meeting of the Historical Society. It was a luncheon. Hubby dropped me off. I attended the meeting. Some of it was interesting and some wasn't. I've found so far that these luncheons are never about what I thought they would be from the write up int he newspaper.

I also had an appointment with another writer and the head of the Harney County Library to set up an Indie Author Day at the Library in October. Between the luncheon and the meeting I had some time to kill and used it browsing through the local quilt shop that is closing and has their fabric for half off. I picked up some fun pieces and then headed to the library.  The meeting went well. We are sending out invitations to local writers to be on a panel to talk with the public. It should be a fun day!

We returned from town with a few groceries. I made dinner and hubby said, he needed my help after dinner. While in town he'd picked up new nozzles for one of the dairy irrigation pivots. He needed to change the nozzles and needed me to read the numbers and pick out the ones he asked for and hand them to him.  The dogs hopped in the work truck and we went out to the North Pivot.

Dogs hoping a rodent will be drowned out of its hole

Putting in the new nozzle

Hubby turned the water off and we walked through knee high wet alfalfa as we walked along the pivot changing out the nozzles. Mikey was racing around through the wet plants having fun cooling off.  Tink jumped back in the pickup. She is a diva and didn't like getting all wet.

Mikey all wet after his run through the alfalfa

When the nozzles were done, the sun was setting and the sky was turning a fire season orange.

The sprinkler ready to go.

We went home, took showers, and settled in for a couple hours of TV before going to bed. We live a laid back lifestyle and I like it!

A Day in the LIfe by Paty Jager

Last Saturday started like any other day. We awoke, had breakfast and I did some household chores before going out to feed Apollo and George.

I checked on the water trough for the three big horses up on the hill. It needed more water. While it filled I took photos of lizards and gave Bud a rub down.

He enjoyed being scratched on his head, neck, shoulders, chest, sides, belly and back. I was standing on the opposite side of the gate giving him his all over grooming. When I finished, he blinked at me and turned pressing his backside against the gate. Obviously, he felt I had missed an important spot! I scratched the base of his tail and his big brown cheeks and he walked away.

Bud

Back at the house I spent the morning working on book promotion and writing blog posts for the coming week. Hubby arrived for lunch, we ate and I sat down and wrote on the work in progress. The afternoon wasn't as hot and my brain was clicking right along on the story when my phone rang.

Hubby called and said the truck driver who picked up a load of hay asked if we were going to the Frenchglen Jamboree. I'd noticed the ad in the newspaper but hadn't mentioned it thinking hubby wouldn't want to go. It was a day of kid's events and cattle roping competitions followed by a barbecue and DJ music. I agreed it would be fun to check it out. He came in the house at three cleaned up and we headed toward Frenchglen.

On the way we crossed a cattle guard that was doing a good job of guarding the cattle. ;) And the sign was truthful. We had to slow down several times for cattle using the road as their own highway.

We drove by the Peter French Round barn and Diamond Craters. This is a small area where volcanic lava made tunnels and bubbles that burst or crumbled, leaving large indentions in the earth.

Diamond Craters

Next we drove through Diamond Valley. If you've read my book Davis: Letters of Fate Diamond Ranch and other places on this trip are mentioned in the book.  All that is left of the community is a Hotel/ bed and breakfast, a couple houses and down the road a grade school.  It is a ranching area where they grow meadow grass hay and raise cattle.

Diamond Valley

We arrived at Frenchglen, driving by the arena where they were still roping. We continued on to the  Hotel.

There were some booths set up with people featuring arts and crafts of the past. They were closing up so we were too late to check out what they had. Which was a bummer because, you know me, I love anything that pertains to U.S. history.

Looking toward the Steens Mts.

There was more smoke from fires here. We couldn't even see the Steens Mountains. We paid for our dinner and sat on the hay bales arranged for seating. 

It was mostly locals with a few of the people staying at the hotel also attending. We could tell when the roping finished. trucks pulling horse trailers arrived parkign along the road and men and women in cowboy hats, wearing boots, and spurs lined up for food. There were a lot of young families. The whole time we sat there country music was played through large speakers. It was a good meal.

Cowboys & Cowgirls lined up for grub

As we were leaving, I asked hubby if we could return via the scenic tour route. He looked at the time and said, sure. We left Frenchglen headed as if we were going up on the Steens, then turned left to P Ranch. Yes, the P Ranch of Peter French the cattle baron who lived in the area in the late 1800s and who is a secondary character in my book, Davis. There was a doe and fawn eating in the old orchard.

We continued on the scenic tour route. We saw a mother pheasant with young on the road, two bucks laying in the tall grass. All we could see were the tops of their antlers.

Young pheasant

Lots of different birds, and a doe and fawn who ran down the road toward us.

This road follows along one of the canals that Peter French had built to be able to use more of the ground for raising cattle and hay.

Canal

 The waterways are lined with willows the Paiute use to make baskets and cradleboards.

willows

 Looking out across the vast meadow land, I tried to imagine what it looked liked with thousands of head of cattle grazing or teams of men and horses haying the meadows.

Large meadow

Now most of the land is part of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge.

The scenic road ended on the road to Krumbo Reservoir. We returned via 205 to the Diamond loop road. Instead of turning back the way we came, we drove through Diamond and came around through the Virginia Valley and home.

Once Apollo and George were fed and we were showered, we sat outside and watched the sunset. The smoke in the air gave the sky a beautiful pink tint.

A Day in the Life by Paty Jager

me and my swather

Last Friday I woke knowing we would be cutting the alfalfa. I made breakfast while hubby checked the dairy pivots he manages.

After breakfast, while I fed Apollo and George, hubby changed out the sickle bar on my swather and filled it with gas.

As soon as that was finished, I climbed up and started cutting the blooming alfalfa. The scent of the field was sweet and in some spots almost sickeningly sweet. Hubby likes to let the alfalfa bloom once during this summer. He believes it keeps the plant healthier than always cutting before the plant can mature. The second cutting always goes to a feed store and cattle customers. The hay doesn't have to make "test" or have as much protein and nutrients as the first and third cutting that we sell to a dairy.

looking out my swather window

Each path I made of our semi-circle field took me on average 15 minutes. The first couple were closer to 25 minutes and as the path shortens so does the time. On the fourth pass, the header clogged. I had to get out and pull the cut plants out, climb back in and try to spin the header, climb back out and tug out some more plants, before it unclogged and I could continue.

plugged header from the top

This happened three times. The first time hubby came to see what was up and I'd pulled enough plants out of the reel that when he tried it, the header spun right away. I hate when that happens!

plugged header from the ground

As we both worked cutting the hay a band of bucks wandered out into the field. I took a few photos.

four bucks in the field

Later a harem of does, fawns, and a buck with a broken antler also arrived to eat the flowers on the alfalfa as we cut.

harem of does, fawns, and a small buck

We stopped for lunch, a 15 minute break, and then started back up. I only cut about three rows and my swather started back firing and losing power. Hubby came over with a screw driver and loosened two of the gas hoses. Hot gas spurted out. Then he opened the gas cap and hot air poofed out. He was questioning the gas as his swather had been doing the same thing. The gas was boiling and causing problems with the engine.  He messed with my swather twice and told me to let it cool down and try it again in 30 minutes.

my swather cooling off

He continued cutting the hay. Knowing I would need to go back out in 30 minutes, I didn't want to get on the computer, so I worked on the book bags I make to give to people who purchase my print books.

book bags

 I tried my swather after 30 minutes, it still wasn't running right. Hubby worked on it a bit, but we couldn't get it to not back fire and to have power. He told me to park it and he continue cutting.

When 6 rolled around, and he said he was going to cut until it was finished, I took him a sandwich, banana, and iced tea. He continued cutting as he ate. I went back in and continued sewing.

He texted needing more fuel. I jumped in Sami, saw hubby walking toward the house, and drove out to pick him up. We went to the shed, grabbed gas cans, and I took him back out to the swather, as he was filling the tank, he looked toward the east pivot. He couldn't tell if it was still running or if it had become stuck. After the swather was fueled,

evening bucks

I returned the gas cans and drove out to the east field to make sure it was running. It was.

While I was driving through the field to return the gas cans I spotted some different bucks coming out to eat.

I returned and fed Apollo and George and filled the water tank for the horses on the hill.

I continued sewing and waiting. 8:30 hubby came in the house. He still had three swaths to go but had run out of gas and it was dark. So we showered went to bed. Hubby was up with the sun the next morning, fueled the swather, and finished the last three rows. 

We'll see how the raking, baling, and picking it up goes.

A Day in The Life by Paty Jager

Last Saturday was an outdoor day. I woke and hubby informed me the aspen tree that was coming back the third time after something ate it down, even after we'd surrounded it with pallets had been eaten down again.

cage around tree

The first order of business was to put the chicken wire, he'd bought the week before, around the tree so hopefully, whatever was eating it was larger than the holes in the chicken wire. He hauled the metal fence posts to where the trees are planted and I fed the horses. Then we commenced making cages for the two spots we had planted trees given to us from a friend. Hubby said if this doesn't work, we're going to have to purchase larger trees.

The other item we had talked about was moving the three big horses back to the hill. I won't have time to ride the next few weeks because fair season is going and I will be traveling and we will start on the second cutting of alfalfa.

Before we could move the horses we had to check the back fence and make sure the gate between us and the neighbor was closed. He had his cows on the hill for a while this spring.

loaded up in Sami

up the steep part

I had suggested we ride horses to check the fence, but hubby isn't a cowboy. He only tolerates the horses because I like them. We hopped in Sami: hubby, Mikey, Tink, and I. The first part of the trek is up the hill. The snow this winter and rain this spring had made ruts in the road and rolled rocks, making it a bumpy, jarring ride. Tink was wishing she had stayed home. ;) At the halfway point we noted the rock jack at the corner of the property was leaning. We'll have to go back another time and fix that but it isn't so bad the horses will get out.

We wove our way up to the top, a huge jack rabbit burst out from under a bush and Mikey was ready to give chase.

view halfway up looking back the way we came

We bounced, climbed, slid, and finally made it down the other side, to check the fence line and the gate. All was well down there. Then it was another weaving, sage crushing, rock climbing trip to get back up to the area by the rock jack to make our descent back down to the corral and barn area.

view from the backside of the hill - Steens in the distance

The water for the tank was started and we grabbed halters and lead ropes. Bud and Jammer were the first to get caught and enjoyed the wide open spaces. Lily took some persuading to be caught and then practically ran to the hill.


I opened the panels that had kept Apollo separated from the big horses. He went around the corral, found a good dusty spot, rolled and then jumped and frolicked for a bit.  George was unhappy he was left behind in the corral to keep Apollo company. But the two of them need to be on a limited diet.

George and Apollo

We had brought home some glass items the day before. I washed those up and put them away in my curio cabinet. Then I worked on writing projects, getting the next mystery ready for the narrator and some business stuff.

And that was my Saturday. I should have an interesting day or two next week as we will be cutting the alfalfa hay.

A Day in My Life by Paty Jager

Last Friday was an interesting day. It started the night before when hubby went to check on the irrigation pivots before dark and him returning after I'd texted him to see if he was okay. It turned out one of the pivots had stopped and when he drove the pickup out to shine lights to see if it was stuck, the pickup became stuck. His words to me before he showered and went to bed were, "I'll need your help in the morning."

Friday morning I crawled out of bed when he woke, asking if he needed me now. He replied, not yet. I slid back into bed for another hour of sleep. ;)

After breakfast we doctored Apollo the pony and we all, Tink, Mikey, hubby and I, climbed into the backhoe, which hubby had loaded with small rocks while I was sleeping, added a pivot drive box, and headed to the alfalfa field.

Mikey and Tink in the backhoe

Twisted drive line

At the pickup, sunk up to it's back axles in a deep pivot track, I jumped in the pickup and hubby pushed with the backhoe bucket against the tailgate of the pickup and that vehicle was out of the track. We dumped and tossed the rocks into the pivot track to not have a repeat vehicle sinking since that was the route used quit often to un-stick the pivot. (forgot to take a photo of the stuck truck)

What he'd thought was a worn out drive box on the fourth tower from the end turned out to be a twisted and snapped drive line. A bolt had worked loose from one end, making the drive line bind up and eventually twist apart. We took off the broken drive line and headed back to the shop for a new drive line. Back at the field we installed the new drive line. While out there the farrier, the vet had called expressing that our pony needed his feet tended immediately, called. He wanted to know if we'd be home around noon. I said, yes.

new drive line installed

With the pivot back moving we returned the backhoe to the shop and brought the dogs and pickup to the house for an iced tea break. Did I mention it was hovering around 90 degrees at 9am on Friday?  During our tea break as we sat on the porch facing the alfalfa fields, two covey of quails came up over the slope and crossed the other end of the porch.

While waiting for the farrier to arrive, I cleaned the inside of the Dodge one ton. We were using it the next day to haul hay to Central Oregon and bring fertilizer and bluegrass straw back.

Noon rolled around and we were still waiting for the farrier. We had lunch and hubby hooked up the Dodge to the flatbed trailer.

George

The farrier arrived. He was new to us and we had several conversations while he worked on Apollo's hard as rock hooves. He suggested we water down Apollo's pen a couple days before he comes back so that his hooves will be softer. George also had his hooves trimmed and he was one happy burro! The farrier was also please with how polite George was and easy to trim.

The farrier was talking construction with hubby, who, invited him up to see the house. Finally by three, I had alone time but I was hot and not in the mood to write so I worked on the business side of things, with promotion and updating things. I forgot hubby had told me to come pick him up at the shop in 30 minutes. An hour later, he text asking if I remembered to pick him up. oops! I jumped in Sami and rattled down to the shop. Then we went out to the North pivot's control box and he sped up the pivot so it would get by the area in the field it tends to get stuck over night and he wouldn't' have to worry about that while we were in Central Oregon on Saturday.

I cooked all of dinner outside on the barbecue to keep the house cool. It was sirloin steak, roasted potatoes and roasted brussel sprouts. Turned out pretty darn good!

After dinner I packed the clothes we'd need for one night and the reunion dinner and went to bed early.