2019 is about out the gate...

Well, another year is about to close. I told you I would get around to blog posts when I found the time. Today is the day! Since the last time I checked in we have been doing our fall work of weaning, feeding, health checking, giving shots, and breaking ice. This year has been different in so many ways. This is the first year in probably 20 years that we are keeping all of our cows on our place in contrast to sending them to corn stalks for 3-4 months during the winter months. The corn stalks that we typically use each year were hailed out. More stalks were found only to have much of the corn blown to the ground in the terrible fall winds we had this year. So the best alternative for us was to leave our cows here at the home place. We have good forage in our pastures, adequate hay, and hey, there are the 3 of us who are itching to keep busy! That is a bit of irony, because I honestly don’t recall the last time we weren’t busy. We also have all of our calves on the place. Typically they are sold by December or year end. We still have the cute little guys and girls running around the place. Winter work consists of breaking ice, checking water, checking health, and feeding. The days are short of course, and we are practically giddy when the overnight temperatures stay at 27 degrees or above! Makes our day a little easier.

All is well on the family front. We had the entire clan (minus a few) plus representation from the countries of Ireland and Australia. It was a wonderful time consisting of a foot of snow, 4-wheeling, football, spoons, games, food, blessings, gratitude circle, and fireworks. Best day of the year in my book. The Christmas season has been a bit quieter yet just as special.

Our 2020 wish is for good health, family time, happy kids, good things for those we love, green pastures, higher cattle prices, abundant rainfall, a great Irish wedding celebration, and just normal days of doing what we love. God Bless you in the days and year ahead and check back in every once in awhile!

WHAT?! Summer is almost over??!!

Okay wow. As I look back on the past blog posts which as you now realize are a little dated by now, I can attest that yes, summer has once again flown by. But hey, what a great summer it has been! We have had great rainfall, good pastures, rained on hay, an abundance of grasshoppers, and things are somewhat in the cruise mode right now. Baylor has been invaluable help this summer and manages most day to day activities. As Rex likes to bemoan, he is getting bossed around by the graduate, It is a good balance however. The bulls are out, embryos are in, hay is put up, and the kid is married. The ranch wedding for Brady and Jordan Barnett was on July 6th. What a wonderful memorable weekend! We hosted the rehearsal dinner at our house for the wedding party, family, and out of town friends which was a special evening before the main event. The bridal party got ready at the Cattlemen’s Country Club prior to the lovely wedding ceremony at the Cottonwood Chapel on our ranch. The reception was at the Red Willow event center in Yuma. It was such a fun day! Onto late summer…one more cutting of hay, moving cattle as needed, and thinking about weaning. And so now we are officially live as a website! Hope you enjoy looking around. It will continue to evolve. We hope to have some products available for the Christmas season unless of course ranch work and life get in the way, and it’s February when I get around to it! Till next time!

mid June ramblings

Well over a month has passed, and we have accomplished a lot. The passage of time has a way of doing that right? The calving fog has lifted and the branding rush is over. The cattle are in their summer pastures, and the calves have healed up from branding. We can somewhat breathe a sigh of relief before rolling into embryo and AI work. The happy dance news is that thankfully we are receiving decent rainfall which is a prayer answered for all cattlemen and ranches. I should preface this by saying nothing brings on the rain like having hay down which is what we have of course. On the family front - Baylor is back from TCU and Texas and has been a significant employee upgrade from me. Brady and Jordan’s wedding is a few weeks away, and we hope to have a day or two after embryo transferring, AI, and bull fertility testing to mow up and spiffy up the place for the big shindig.

Jumping in!

At our year end meeting, one of our family goals for 2019 was to develop our own website. Well, holy crap, here it is May 2019, and I am just now getting around to creating the site! Forgive me if you find any glitches. I’m new to web design and am just faking it at this point. The purpose of having a website was to have one central source for all the various hats we Bucks wear. The biggest hat of all of course is ranching which pretty much consumes most of Rex’s and my life. Which leads to why it’s taken so long to begin this project. We have been calving, or as I like to refer to it— we have been in “the calving fog”. That translates to little sleep, long days, muddy boots, afterbirth drug into the yard by the dog, making tags, and hoping a heifer doesn’t decide to go into labor between the hours of 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. We are on the downhill slide now since our first calf dropped March 20th, and are now planning branding season which is another story. For today I will focus on getting started here. Rex and I are in the 15th month of not having any additional full time help. We are running more cattle than ever which is exciting and exhausting to be honest. Rex hasn’t had a day off the place since Darcey’s Harvard graduation May 25, 2018. He puts in 16-18 hour days without stopping for food, never complains unless I let a cow go by or mess up loading bales, and is optimistic when it comes to the quality of our cattle and the work ethic of our kids. I on the other hand do pause for my avocado toast lunch and gummy bears, love my Ranger, have listened to a wide range of podcasts as I feed, and have managed not to get fired. Guess that’s enough for now. Thanks for stopping by! and WELCOME TO WRAY RANCH! This is gonna be fun!….and hit and miss… because hey, life is going on.