Death Destroyed

Jesus is God.

             https://youtu.be/NABt0k_QZA8           

Mother Cabrini Shrine

A while back, Dcn. Jay received a request for us to go down and lead a one day retreat to the staff of his former parish in the Lakewood Colorado area. Having an open widow and not wanting to turn down a good time, we headed south. 

The staff retreat for St. Jude's parish was held at the Mother Cabrini Shrine in Golden, CO. I had been here years ago in seminary, so it was fun to go back. 

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini was an Italian missionary nun who established some 67 charitable institutions around the United States in the early 1900's, including an orphanage here in the Golden area and discovered a spring on this land in the foot hills. Inspirational character. 

I gave a handful of talks to the folks as well as celebrated Mass in this chapel. Pretty cool.

The big draw at this pilgrimage site is the trek up the mountain to the shrine of our Lord.

Some 350+ steps rise from bottom to top, which are lined with the stations of the cross. A workout with a cause.

On top is a 25' statute of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Which overlooks the Denver area.

Good stuff. It was fun to get out of town and see the country side. I have pretty happy memories of my fours years of seminary in Denver. Retreats like this are good and fairly easy to put together. They are always good experience for me of an area in ministry I don't feel real confident in. However, the only way to gain confidence is through experience. Hopefully the parish staff picked up a thing or two in the process. Back at the ranch now. Let us carry on. 

Maternity Pen

I've been seeing these nifty calving pens that can dub as a crowding gate to get a cow into the head catch and also a place to mother up. Intrigued by such a set up and wanting to get something like that at Jack's place, we went to the drawing board. 

New, a portable unit is around $5K. I found a homemade outfit on auction, but went out of my league. So I thought of getting just a head catch and building the rest, but even used those aren't cheap. Wanting to get something set before winter really shows up, we just kept kicking until the job was done. 

I got to thinking that the head catch on our squeeze chute back home probably was just bolted on. After calling Dad, he confirmed that to be the case.

Jack already had a nice little shedded horse pen next to some light duty corrals that I figured we could make work.

So we pulled the trigger and took the head catch off the chute back home.

Then found some old gates around the corrals to work with.

And sized it up. There was a lot of potential here. But, with time being scarce, we really wanted to plan our work before we started cutting and welding.

Once we were there, though, we got to work.

Once the gates were modified and the head catch ready, we hauled it all out to the ranch. 

After cleaning out the 14'x14' stall, we were ready for action. 

Thankfully Jack had a skid-steer sitting around with an auger available to dig our holes.

Once done, we dropped in the head catch mounting posts.

After being leveled up, we set it in stone.

Then let it set up for a couple days. This was the point we had been wanting to get to. Shortly after this, the north wind blew and winter started to set in. No more digging holes now. We still have some fine tuning to do, but construction is basically complete. 

Here’s the set up, which will hopefully work to doctor White Cow's lump jaw as well. Get the cows in the bigger corral network. All the fences are low, but this back alley/pen can be raised up with some panels sitting around. Run the cow you want back into here, past the closed gate of the new pen.

Then open the gate of the new pen, which will close off this alley completely after we put a panel across this opening. Once you turn the cow around to come back, she'll have no choice but to duck into the new pen.

Then grab the gate and start to crowd her, (we'll have to fill in the back 3' of this stall so it fits tight against the new set up).

What's cool about this whole deal, is that you can just keep crowding her until she has no choice but to try and get out through the head catch.

Bingo. Once she sticks her head in the self-latching head catch, we should be able to finish crowding the gate tight and chain it to the end post that we concreted in. At least that's how it's supposed to work!

Giddy up. 

When we used to calve-out in Montana and had a cow in trouble, life got a little western trying to convince her to stick her head in an open-sided head catch. I really look forward to trying this crowding set up. Work smarter, not harder! 

March calving is quite a ways down the road. But once the frost is set in the ground, who knows when it is going to leave. We wanted to get this done before the ground froze, then we weren't scrambling once spring rolls around. Also, we now have a set up if we need to doctor a cow in the meantime. Ranching is fun, unless you're unprepared. Not us. We ranch ready!

Rejoice

Let's do Advent well.

           https://youtu.be/U9qgGg5F8f8         

Checking Cows

With no rush to be had on a Thanksgiving morning, we headed out to check on the cows. Having a good heater in the truck and some coffee at hand, not much sounds funner to me on a day like today. 

The cows are enjoying Jack's place. Plenty of grass and places to lay around. They stay bunched together. Only one yearling from the neighbors has jumped in and hangs with our girls. All are welcome.

Anytime the horses hear White Horse bouncing around, they come running for some oats. Buck just wants some attention. Peter Asmuth is our new ranch hand. Growing up in Wisconsin and living in Buffalo for the past couple of years, he's been looking for some ranch experience. Welcome aboard, pal. 

The cows look real good overall, heavy with young. That being said, Grandma is developing a bit of a lump jaw. If caught in early stages, it can be doctored with some antibiotics. We better tend to this matter. 

Thankfully, the water is still running at full capacity. Staying open too, with some freezing weather around. 

Our main mission was to deliver a protein lick-tub for the winter. There is plenty of roughage around here, but it doesn't have much protein being all dried up. So ranchers usually supplement their critters in one way or another. Lick-tubs are the most common way to do so.  

Having horses in the pasture too, we got a blend that is suitable for all our critters. 

Good to go.

They'll take to this lick-tub like they will a salt block. Putting both at the other end of the pasture than the water will cause them to roam around more, giving them some exercise and utilizing the grass better. It's good to see that everyone is doing well. I'm thankful for having to check on these cows and horses every once in a while. I'm also thankful to have a new hand to hang out with. I think Peter will fit right in. Ranching forward. 

Testimony

 Don't be afraid to share your story.

           https://youtu.be/zg4Cq0NXnyY         

Modern Martyrs

Pray for us!

           https://youtu.be/wO6n3CBm1r8         

Already but Not Yet

We already participate in the Kingdom of God.

           https://youtu.be/WOyoQ7TwEyw         

2 7/8"

Back in 2021, I was singing the pipe blues to my friends George and Jeannie Etchemendy. I had been looking for a rack of pipe to buy for our corral project, with no luck. To my surprise, George said, "Well, we have some pipe you can have." Sold. 

I'm a pipe guy. If there is a project around the ranch or church that needs some construction, 2 7/8" oil field tubing is my building material of choice.

Taking advantage of the Etchemendy's generosity, we picked up around 60 joints of rusty 2 7/8" pipe from them in the Douglas area. That was right at four years ago. 

Just getting our corral project underway back home, we stock piled it for future use.

Back in the heyday, Grandpa had this barnyard in tiptop shape.  

But over the years, she had fallen into disrepair. 

So we torn down the old network. 

And started fresh. Cutting and pounding in 2 7/8" posts was the first step.

Followed up with three years of welding.

This week, we fitted our last section of pipe. It's nice not to have to wrestle any more joints around. And it's also a good chance to reflect on the gift this pipe has been. 

Of all those 60-some joints. This is all that is left.

Most of it went into posts, where we were able to weld on continuous fence. This north-forty made for a nice riding arena. 

Some areas that would see more pressure from cattle, we put on a 2 7/8" top rail.

This worked especially well in our working pen.

We even used that pipe to build some gates. 

The final leg was our horse pen around the barn. 

Giddy up.

Between Grandpa and I, we have exerted a considerable amount of energy down here. He used a shovel and paintbrush, we used a post pounder and welder. Hopefully this time around it is here to stay. That string of pipe that Etchemendy's gave us has been a termendous blessing. I had a rough idea of how many feet of pipe we needed and how much we had. Never once did I let a worry of not having enough slow us down of doing the kind of job that needed to be done. That being said, we hardly have enough left over to make a brace post!

God is good. Planning our work and working our plan these past four years has been a great joy. Even better is the end product. I know Grandpa would be proud and I believe the Father is too. One real way of giving glory to God is by letting our light shine. When we use the skills He gave us to better creation, God is glad. I'm super thankful to Mom and Dad for letting me play in the barnyard. I'm also thankful to George and Jeannie Etchemendy for giving us the pipe to be able to do so. Now, let's ranch for real! 

Transmission Swap

2012 HD trucks are tough, but their transmissions don't last very long. The factory tranny went for 200,000 miles and this one only lasted 150,000. Not bad. But doesn't really match the rest of the truck. Regardless, anything mechanical is bound to break down.

White Horse started slipping a few weeks ago. Thankfully, she didn't leave me stranded. So we got all our ducks in a row, and changed the transmission out in the rectory garage. Ranching. 

Special thanks to Jim and Brittnee Borgialli for letting me borrow Grandpa's rig for a couple weeks. Sweet ride. 

It was a snug fit in the garage, but actually made for some nice working space. We ran her up on chalks and had plenty of room underneath. 

I didn't change the first transmission, but I've done them before. This one couldn't be that much different. Only one way to find out. 

Crossmember first. The transmission could rest on the back of the transfer case while we dismounted everything else. 

The exhaust was interesting. Surprisingly, it came out pretty well. 

Piece by piece, take it apart. Make sure and put all your bolts together in order. 

Breaking the torque converter bolts free from the fly wheel was tough. We lost a little knuckle hide on this job. 

Once she was ready to drop, I grabbed Darin and we let her down with a floor jack. Then lifted in back of the pickup with a come-along and hotshotted it to Billings to exchange for a rebuilt one. 

Meanwhile, we flushed the oil cooler lines. First with diesel fuel, then brake cleaner, then ATF. This pump-up weed sprayer worked good, I thought.

Then back in we go. 

Amazingly it all bolted up nice. Chevy has really come a long way in their engineering over the years. Once bolted back up to the engine, we started reassembling things. 

Ending with the crossmember. 

These transmissions need to be flash coded by someone who has the right tools and knowhow. So we pulled her over to a shop who programed it for us. 

After that, she was back in business. So we cleaned her up before winter hits. 

Giddy up.

$4,000 for a new transmission is a lot better than $45,000 for a new used truck. Besides, miles give a truck character. I'm super thankful that this job went as smooth as it did. I'm not going to lie, when I first crawled under, I was a bit intimidated. But bit by bit, she came apart and went back together. Sometimes a guy just has to trust the Lord and start loosing bolts. I'm excited to get her back on the road. The town was starting to talk about White Horse not being in the driveway. No need to worry, anymore. We're back in action. Let's ride.