North Dakota Ranch 2013

The Ranch 

Hayley, Emilie and Macey

Here we are at Clint and Amanda's ranch in McClusky, North Dakota. We stayed on the ranch for 2 nights again this year and enjoyed catching up with the family. Their eldest daughter Taylor was away doing voluntary work in Minnesota, so we missed seeing her, but enjoyed catching up with Hayley, Emilie and Macey. In Taylor's absence, Hayley was the eldest 'ranch hand' and boy, can that girl work. She is only 13 but is keen as mustard and from what I could see, she gets in and helps with everything - outside on the property, and inside the home. For the round-up she was riding a new horse - the previous owner said it would do the job, but it seemed very ornery, and had no plans on doing any ranch work that day, and just kept backing up. Hayley simply dismounted, went into the house and got her blue spurs on, got back on the horse, and before long the horse was riding alongside the others!

Here is the horse backing up on Hayley

Hayley and Emilie delivering food to the barn for the show cattle

Meet Flash, the yard calf. His mother required a caesarean for his birth, and then no milk came in to feed her calf. They housed the calf in a trailer, and Macey would feed him with a bottle and teat. One day he got through the door and out into the yard where he frolicked and played with Macey and the dogs. He was so friendly they just left him to run loose. He hangs around the house and still feeds from the bottle. He was inquisitive enough to come and visit me in the RV - I sat on the RV steps and chatted to him. He thought my accent was really odd. Ha ha.

Clint roping the calf with foot rot

Once Clint had roped the calf and administered the antibiotic, he asked if I would like to ride the horse home, and he would drive back with Murray. We didn't bother shortening the stirrups, but it wasn't that far back to the house. I enjoyed it.

Here is the calf with his mother after he got his antibiotic shot

On the day before we arrived at the ranch, Clint noticed one of the calves was limping. He figured it must have foot rot which would need treating with an antibiotic injection. So the day we arrived he saddled up his horse and went out the rope the calf. He put the syringe with the antibiotic in his truck, and Murray drove that out to the paddock. I just went along for the ride. 

A nearby farmer has bee hives on his property. While we were on the ranch, a swarm of bees flew over and settled on this old building near the grain silos - not far from our RV really. They were still there when we drove away, so Clint was going to contact the guy and suggest he come and get his bees back!

Before we knew it, we were driving out of the gate and heading south to Bismarck once again. But not before one last, lingering look back at the ranch, and checking out this pretty foal that was born not so long ago.