Tammy and Rick

Friday night my cousin Tammy and her significant other Rick - both of whom had never been to the ranch - stopped at the ranch on their way home from a visit to the Sturgis motorcycle rally in South Dakota.  They arrived around 11 pm after a long day's drive.  After a short talk we let them crash in the RV.

Saturday morning we wandered around the ranch and I showed them the horses, the cattle, the river, a burned out tree stump hole, and the weeds.  We also checked my one pocket gopher trap in the south pasture but it was empty.  That pocket gopher is hard to catch.

First off we checked out the horses in the corral.  Or maybe I should say... they checked us out.

Then it was off to check the cattle out.  The cattle ignored me and were only interested in the two Tammys and Rick, who were feeling surrounded at one point.

My cousin commented on my stacks of wood.  It seems as if everybody does.

While the two Tammys made a pancake breakfast Rick helped me with the well for the corral.  Due to my chest injury I have only been able to dig three feet down along the pipe.  Rick and I removed the top fitting and check valve.  Using a tape measure we found water four feet down the pipe.  The pipe appears to be ten feet long.   Using an air compressor I borrowed from a neighbor we blew air into the pipe.  Yup. The pipe is plugged.

I don't have a come-a-long so I used a fence wire stretcher to try to pull the pipe from the ground.  However the pipe is solid in the ground.  It seems as if I will have to do more digging.


As is typical with my Washington State relatives they didn't stay long.   I think my uncle Rick still holds the record for the shortest visit as Tammy and Rick stayed a half hour longer than my uncle Rick.  Tammy and Rick left at 1:30 pm as they had to be home Saturday night.  But they promised to come again and stay longer.