Chauntel's on spring break...watch your backs.

Here is our first calf of the season, King Juan Carlos! (As you can tell, I named him.) His mama is Orange 4, who tends to have calves unusually early. She's also quite gentle - even with Reuben, our Aussie Cattledog, snapping at her heels and me practically crawling over King Juan Carlos, she was willing to flash her ginger locks and stately horns for the camera.

I'm home for my spring break, and the weather's really gone to my head so far. Dad and I went up on the hill and cut cedars for fence posts, which hopefully will materialize into my riding ring/holding pen for horses and cattle. Hold up - what I mean by "Dad and I" is "Dad cut the posts and loaded them into the truck while Jack and I wandered through the woods and took rather breathtaking photographs". And of course by "Jack and I" I mean "I" took pictures, which you can judge for yourself as to their breathtaking qualities.

Okay, okay. I'm nearly done with my blabbering. The horses and cows are pretty happy under the warm sun, and they've been busying themselves with catching up on some Z's. So far I've been working on cleaning up the horses after the long hard winter. I've worked on shedding out their coats, trimming their manes, applying hoof oil...only for them to turn around and roll in the mud.

We'v even got chicks! Except that Mom made a grave error in accidentally ordering straight-run chicks. That means it's 50-50 male-female, pulled straight from the hatchings and not sexed. So we have a hundred chicks, right? Probability means fifty roosters. You heard me. Fifty roosters. At least for now they're all just really cute.

So, in short, I've got a long and yet far too short week ahead. It's been a smidgen harder getting up than I expected, since now I'm expected to rise with the sun (fail) and my sleeping habits have become lax at school. (oh, look, it's 10 in the morning. I don't have class for another hour. Sleep? Win.) Tommorrow I'm giving baths, so the horses have yet another excuse to roll in the mud. And maybe, for the first time in a few months, I'll get to ride my own horses!

Chauntel