Old Shoes

I've always wondered if you could reuse old horse shoes on the same horse. Only one way to find out.

Back in early May, my buddy Devlin put these shoes on Chief. We wanted to try pads under the shoes because he can get a little tender footed. Devlin did a good job and the shoe/pad combo worked great. About eight weeks later, I pulled them off. That's about all the longer you want to run shoes without trimming the hooves, and I wanted to go barefoot for the 4th of July parade. Now that I'm needing to re-shoe Chief for some summer riding, I turned to these old shoes and wondered if we couldn't just put them back on. I see no reason why not.

The horses have been doing good, hanging out at the VO Ranch on the Clear Creek.

Before we did anything with their feet, I shot them with fly spray.

Mom's feet were a mess. Looked like a duck-billed platypus. 

Her hooves actually trimmed up pretty nice. I'm thankful for that.

Chief's were in great shape, for not being formally trimmed since May.

Before we got too far down the road, we cleaned the old shoes up. The pad was riveted onto the shoe, which was one reason I wanted to reuse them. Looks good to me.

Everything cleaned up pretty good for my standards. I like to take the sidewalls of the hoof down as far to the sole as I can, so there is a good mating surface between the hoof and the shoe. Everything sized up real nice. Chief has easy hooves, simple 00 size with no shaping needed.

Horse shoe nails are interesting. They are tapered on the side that has traction marks on the head. Those marks go to the inside of the hoof, which ensures that the nail veers to the outside of the hoof when nailed. 

Nailing on a shoe is never easy for me or Chief. But, we always seem to manage, thanks be to God. When running pads, you want to fill up that void between the pad and the sole with some special shoe glue. This keeps bacteria from forming in the confined environment and also keeps rocks and dirt out of there, which can make it worse than if there were no pads on at all. Looks good to me. The only drawback I can see is that the new nails stick up higher than the worn shoes. Shouldn't be a problem.

Chief seems happy.

Good stuff. With some riding coming up, we'll have prime opportunity to see how these old shoes hold up. I've gotten away with more than I should on this horse. He really is an easy keeper. So, my rudimentary shoeing skills seem to get by just fine. Let's ride.

Reality

God's will is reality.

           https://youtu.be/98SbDN2vaBo         

Historicity

Connects us to our deep roots.

           https://youtu.be/SJQSoIztFso         

Weedy World

Repentance!

           https://youtu.be/wPoWNPGdvUY         

Saddle Racks

If you're gonna have a saddle room, you better have some saddle racks. Problem solved. In the realm of projects around the ranch, this one is gravy. No hard work involved. Just fun on the farm.

The new saddle room has such character. Rough cut lumber and weathered plywood, it just smells of cowboy potential. 

With a game plan in mind, we set up shop. 

The idea was to use a few of the left over rough cut 2"x4"s.

And some planed 2"x10"s from the barn stalls. 

Dad's saddle was our pattern to follow. 

Step one was to mount a 2' 2"x4", 36" off the ground.

Then, accompany it with some wings. Getting the right angle was the trick.

Our first stab at 30° was not enough.

So we tried 40° and everybody was happy. 

So we built four of them, with 45° braces underneath. 

In similar fashion, we built a couple of saddle blanket racks. 

While we were at it, we decided to build a few bridle holders, too. 

Simple idea, we just took one of Grandpa's old 6" fence posts and cut 6, 4" blocks.

Recessing a hole, we fastened them onto the walls studs with a heavy torques screw.

Giddy up. 

Should work. I like to hang a bridle from something good and round, helps them keep their form.

Once constructed, I went around and sanded everything down. Cleaned up nice.

Seems to match the rest of the building’s character. 

Functional, too.

Let's ride.

So nice to keep sitting saddles in good riding posture. Along with looking cool, this set up is ready to ride. All you have to do is slide your saddle off the rack and swing it on your horse. I hope riding a horse will be as much fun as building these saddle racks. This has been in my think-tank for sometime. Great to get to this point in our ranch-restoration project. Let's see what else we can drum up. On to the next one! 

Hitching Posts

Now that we have the saddle room set in place, it's time to plant a couple of hitching posts. The job went about like I thought it would, which involved a lot of grunting in the summer sun. Good stuff. 

Each side of the saddle room is an ideal spot to build a hitching post for parking your horse or getting them ready to ride. 

Of course, our building material of choice was 2 7/8" tubing. 

This stuff came from south of Shoshoni and has a lot of paraffin still in it, which is a high gravity of oil that only liquifies in hot temperatures. Cutting the pipe into lengths was enough to get it moving and catch it on fire. 

Once everything cooled down, we took the four 7.5' posts and pounded them in the ground.

The ground was hard and you pretty much just have to let the posts go where they will, which in this case was crooked. 

Instead of trying to pull them straight, I just took the cutting torch and cut a half slice out of the pipe just below ground level. Then I could pull them straight and weld the gap back up. 

For a job like this, we got ole ranch truck outfitted. Worked good. 

Then we found our level and saddle the vertical pipes. 

After everything was ready to go, we set our 8' horizontals and got to welding. Once again, the paraffin fought me. 

Eventually, we got the saddles all welded up and the cross bar trimmed and capped. 

Works for me.

Classic. I'm thankful to have this job done. It trims out the building nice and allows for an efficient way to saddle a horse. Now we just need a reason to put them to work! That day will come. Until then, we ranch on. 

Bull Time

Every ranch scenario is unique. At the time when guys are pulling their bulls, we are just putting ours in. Because we want to calve on our irrigated pasture below the house, we decided to calve in May and June of next year, when the grass is ready. To do so, we have to turn the bulls out in mid/late July. The feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel seems like a good day to me!

Herman wintered well. Because Luke is done with his bulls, we took one of his too.

I'm impressed. Herman, the two year old, bulked up nice. He threw little calves, which were nice for first-calf-heifers. Not sure how they would turn out in the long run, I wasn't sure we wanted to use him again. However, after seeing him this spring, we decided to give him another go.

It never hurts to have a backup bull in with the herd. Even though we only have 10 girls to breed, two bulls will ensure that they all get covered on the first cycle. 

So I got the trailer all set, and jumped them in one at a time and hauled them to Neiber.

Herman lost his ear tag, so wanted to give him a new one before we turned out.

Had to widen the chute first. 

No problemo. Gentle giant. 

New tag in the same spot.

Dad poured him while we were at it. 

Beings these two have been together already, sharing breeding responsibilities shouldn't be a problem.

Let's find out.

Fun stuff. It'll be interesting to see how this new enterprise works for us. May/June calving is not real common around here. Guys definitely do it, and some swear by it, but March/April is more the norm. Not a huge risk, but will be fun to see how it works out. In the meantime, there are cows to be bred. Go get 'em boys!