It’s been awhile: Let me get you caught up on the Heil’s in New Mexico. We had a very busy summer, with Gary getting the hay up, cut, put away and sold ( still have some for sale any takers?), Megan was busy with her new business line, making jewelry and rust dying in silk scarves. Megan entered her sculpture in the County Fair and took best of show and a $200.00 prize. We went to the yearly Cowboy Symposium in Ruidoso, NM not on a chuck wagon cooking team but just to look around. Our friend rode two horses in the Extreme Cowboy competition. It was fun to watch. Mac and I left October 15th for Winner South Dakota for the opening of pheasant season on the 17th. We stopped in Fr. Morgan, Co. at Megan’s brother Cary’s farm and spent the night before driving on to Winner. It was a pretty uneventful drive as I had learned my lesson in Nebraska last year ($169.00 speeding ticket) hey what can I say it was a two lane highway with no one on it but a bunch of bird hunters heading to SD. I did not see the airplane in the sky so I got nabbed. Not this year. I arrived at the Meyer’s Harter Ranch on Friday afternoon. It is like my second home that I visit once a year. Wayne, Georgia (parents) John, Tammy (son in law and daughter) are the most hospitable people I know. Opening their home to a bunch of old hunters (me being the youngest of the old) is a true warm fuzzy feeling like know other. We enjoyed the joking, story telling like all good hunting camps, just a bunch of boasting and lying (lol). The hunting was outstanding as it is every year and this was my 11th year. Opening day. The bucket was used as our step into the truck. (old fat guys and bad knees) John Harter and the dogs we hunted with. One my best friends Chuck Sigafoos with Lexy. While here at the ranch we try to do a project that would help out the ranch. This year we were to put up two garage doors. With some modifying we got the bosses (Georgia) side up and working so her car would be out of the weather. Which had snowed and rained before we got there then got foggy, rainy, and misty while we were there. We only got the hole plugged on the second door and I hear Wayne has been trying to fix what was not done right. Does anyone want to hire some old farts for special projects? I am afraid we will have to just wash windows next time and we may not get that right. Plus know one is allowed on a ladder with more than two rungs. Well after we all said our goodbyes and see you next year, I left for Montana to meet up with Megan who had flown from Roswell to Billings a few days before my arrival. It was a quick trip in on Thursday the 22nd. I got to visit with my youth bowling league and my men’s league on Thursday afternoon and evening. We went to dinner with my mom, dad, our neighbors Tom & Darlene (who’s house we stayed overnight at; well I guess just me as Megan had been there before I was and used their vehicles to get around) Elvira from across the street & our son John to Olive Garden as we don’t have one in Roswell and we both like the food. The next morning Megan, John and I headed for Big Fork, Mt to see out other son Lewy; his wife Jessica and of course our grandson Eli. Eli had turned two while Papa was hunting so we did not get to celebrate with him on his day. But we made up for it once we got there. Plus Grandma had been shopping in Billings for new clothes for him. Eli driving his big green tractor. John talked Lewy into going hunting while there. I stayed home and played with Eli, he bring such joy to my heart. We all thank everyone and God for bringing him out of his battle with E coli. With out your prayers and God listening we may have not had him to celebrate his many more birthdays. Lewy and John did not get anything opening day nor did John get anything while we were there. So after 5 days we had to head towards Billings, we hooked up our cargo trailer to haul home to Roswell. John was heading south with us so we put all his stuff into the trailer when we got back. Friday night I went and saw the rest of my bowling friends as we were leaving Saturday for home. John had traded for a 1982 GMC and was going to drive it to Shrive Port La., where he is moving back to. Now we are getting into the exciting part of the story. John’s truck was not a very pretty truck; you know what you get for $500 bucks. But it seemed to run well, he and a friend had been working on it so it could make the trip. All went well until we got to Cheyenne Wyo. There the truck started to run a little rough so we pulled into the rest stop to see what was going on. John thought it was out of tune or something. So we started fiddling with it. After awhile I started calling my friends in Roswell who worked on vehicles a lot for some advice. We finally got in touch with Megan’s brother Cary in Ft. Morgan. He was giving us directions on how to adjust the distributor to make the truck run smoother. It seemed to work and it was dark and getting cold standing there in the wind so we took off heading for Denver or as far as we could get. We ended up in Ft Collins, Co. for the night as the truck seemed to get worse. Sunday morning I find a guy that does mechanical services on Sunday. He came buy re timed the truck and fixed a few other things to get us down the road. We leave and go 7 miles and the truck dies on a frontage road at a stop light. I push John through the intersection into a Van car pool parking lot. Call the mechanic and he comes to us. They work on it for an hour. Tell us that it really does not sound to good, the starter was on it’s last leg, the cam sounded worn out, you could go on & on about all the bad things. Anyway while there Megan calls her brother Cary and told him what was going on. I don’t know how the conversation went but he ended up offering John money for this truck as he was looking for parts to fix one up he has. Deal was done. We head towards Ft. Morgan, only 60 miles away. We get to Windsor, Co and the truck dies on the side of the road. I have to jump start it and we get going to a big parking lot which ended up being a Safeway grocery store. We call Cary and said we did not think the truck could get to Ft. Morgan driving it, so he said to leave it there and he would get it in a couple of days. I talked to the Manager and asked if we could do that, we were given permission to just leave the truck there. Broke down out side Windsor Co. Finally around 2pm we start down the road with John all his stuff out of the truck, his dog Gage, Megan, Mac and I. We drove and drove it seemed like we would never make it to Roswell. Finally around 11 pm., we made it. Yeah! John works for me a couple of days cleaning up my hay barn area of dead tree’s and junk. Then he got a job building fence for a friend of ours on his ranch south of Roswell. John worked for about 4 day’s fencing then finished up the hay barn. He left for Shreve Port LA., with our car. Hopefully we get it back soon That’s all for now from New Mexico. Have a Happy and Safe Holiday.

New Life on the Farm

The story goes like this; we had our second hay crop cut on the 6Th of August. In doing so, our field came to life. As my friend Chris was cutting the hay he ran over two raccoon’s and seven skunks which was okay by me, this left my hay with a fine fragrance in seven places. But two raccoon’s, one skunk and a baby deer escaped the cutter blades. Now mind you I nor Chris care about the coon’s or skunks as the vultures need something to eat also and I am sure they will do find job on cleaning up the mess. I was riding in the cutter with Chris when the little deer came running out, Chris had slowed way down as he new that it was in the tall hay somewhere. Well the little deer runs kind of after its mother who I am sure could not hear her cries to come with her, so it runs over by T bones pen and crawls through the panel on the end and is in the pen with T bone. Now I want you to know that T bone does not have any other cows to play with and Mac has been avoiding him sine he is near 700 lbs was excited. I don’t know if he was really happy to have a new play mate or was scared at what just crawled through the panels. He danced around and followed the little deer trying to smell it and when it stopped he got in a big lick of the tongue. Now growing up in Montana, you were always told never come between a mother and her new born as you would suffer the consequences’. So I got out of the cutter when we were down and walked out on the highway to avoid scaring the little deer and its mother who was trying desperately to get her baby back from T bone. After she left and moved away from the barn and corral, I went in with T bone and walked the perimeter looking under the trees and in some tall weeds. But I did not see the little deer. I hoped it had mothered back up, so I went into the house. I grabbed the camera and went back out hoping to catch a chance at a picture of the mother and her baby. I cut through the old barn and damn near fell on my face when I went through the back door out to T bone and the corral. That little deer was hiding next to the barn right in front of the door. So it runs back into the corral with T bone, who is excited because his new toy is back, and gets hung up in some fencing and is stuck. Not a good place to be with a 700 lbs calf wanting to play with you. I looked out into the field to see where Momma was and did not see her, so I helped the little deer out of the fence as soon as I got it out it lays down like it is hiding, which gave me time to take a couple of pictures.

We had a Birthday Party

Saturday July 18Th the love of my life had a birthday. We had a big party for Megan, inviting all of our new friends here in New Mexico. I cooked 6 slabs of pork ribs, we also had potato salad, cheese grits, baked beans, a tomato salad (because I can't remember the name of it.) and a big cake. Of course we did not have any fly's until the food hit the table, so out came the electric fly swatters and boy was there a lot of people having fun. We also got to ride in our neighbors new 1930 Ford coupe, which was exiting as we came to a stop sign and no brakes, lucky for us no cars were coming. It was a lot of fun. As the party was ending we were treated to a big wind;lighting and some rain so we had to scramble taking in food, putting the umbrellas down and rescuing flying paper ware. Here are some pictures from the party and ride sorry I did not get any of the storm as it was a terrific lighting show.

Another Stinky Job

It all started about eight o’clock on a warm morning. I was getting ready to set irrigation pipe on my new crop of hay. As I lifted a section of pipe in the air to put on my shoulder to carry to the other end of the set up, a bunch of junk came out of the end. Also with the junk a tail appeared, this alarmed me so I stood the pipe straight up in the air. With one hand balancing the pipe I called Megan’s cell phone, no answer so I called the house and her Mother answered, I asked her to wake Megan up as I needed her help in a big way. Megan got on the phone and I told her to bring me the 410 shotgun and a box of shells once she was dressed as I had a skunk trapped in the pipe. She came out as quickly as she could, I gave Megan the pipe and I loaded the gun. I told her to gently lay the pipe down and I would shoot the skunk when it came out. It all went as planned except more skunks kept coming out. I started shooting and reloading as the 410 is a single shot. There were 5 little skunks. I thought I was done so as I was laying the pipe down I noticed it was still heavy, so I peered in the end and there was another, I propped the pipe on the fence and against a post and a skunk jumped out. I hurriedly loaded another round in and shot the big mother. A total of six skunks were living in the pipe. Not much spraying went on if any at all but after ten minutes you could smell them. Now I am waiting to hear from the county animal control as what to do with them. Moral of the story, look inside the pipe before lifting to make sure it is clear.

Hay in the Barn

Well we beat the weather only one scary day. But we got all the hay in the barn. We did not reach our 3000 bale goal but came close with 2752 bales or 86 tons. Now we are selling it out of the barn with the help of my friend Chris who cut and baled it for me. We have already sold 5 tons, and there are people coming to pick up some more. This is my first attempt at farming and I enjoyed all the pain and suffering long nights and days irrigating, taking care of it just like a baby. Praying for rain when it was growing and praying for it not to rain when we were cutting and baling. They tell me that is farming. Here are some final pictures of the hay in the barn. Need any hay come on down and get some.

Farming begins. Cutting of the oats

Well today is the day we started to cut the oats. Boy what a stand we have. I road in the cutter with Chris Seinkwidch for a couple of passes. We also had a end welded on the hay barn so we could use the hay stacker to stack the hay instead of Megan her brother and I did the last time. We just are not as young as we use to be. Can't seem to throw them 60 lb bails over 5 high. The stacker will stack 160 bales at a time 14 ft. tall 8 ft. wide. We hope to have about 3000 bales when all done. There is a good market for oat hay here in New Mexico so I hope to sell most of it only keeping enough for myself to feed my beef. I have enlcosed some pictures of the start and will get some more and post them as we get farther into it. The weather is suppose to be great all week in the uper 80's to high 90's. Before we started to cut. Chris on the first pass From inside the Cutter Starting inside the borders The new end of the hay barn.

Catching Up

Well it’s been awhile since I gave any thoughts as to writing to this blog. It just seems we got tied up in so many things. Our most important one was of course Eli and his battle with E-coli. He was in the hospital in Spokane for about 3 weeks, seemed like a year. We were deep in prayer and had many of you who follow us through our face books and this blog or Lewy and Jessica’s praying for Eli also. Megan even had a good friend who was traveling in Italy light a candle for him at a Cathedral there. It is a miracle what prayer can do. I know it has brought us closer together in our lives. Megan’s mom was sick for about 2 weeks but she was more worried about her great grandson than herself. She is getting better every day also. Megan was busy doing a hundred different projects as we all know she does, so she was keeping her mind occupied that way and less stress over Eli. I farmed and continue to do so, now that I have kind of a routine everyday it does not take me long to get things done. I still don’t have a tractor that I can use for any real work. I did buy a chain harrow to pull behind the 4 wheeler to break up the manure in the pasture and spread the gravel around on the drive way. We have a new boarder her name is BB she is a race horse long legs and going to foal in January. She is black in color and pretty and very friendly. Of course we have T bone and the other three horses, Mac and the five cats. They all are doing well. The trees are budding out and our Pecan trees got frosted once but are blooming again so maybe we will have a crop this year. The oats are heading out and will be cut in the first part of May. So I’m irrigating them again to get them taller. Megan went to Phoenix for a pottery conference; she will meet up with her friends Marci and Sandi from Texas and Montana. Then she is off to Columbia Falls for a couple of weeks to help with Eli. I’m kind of jealous about her seeing Eli with out me. But Eli calls me and we talk he in his language and me in mine and we have a grand old time, plus we have web cams so we can talk and see everybody. Modern times are great some times. My bowling season ends in a couple of weeks and then I can start golfing around my farming. I have gone out once and had fun, I will never make the tour but if you want to laugh and have a good time I’m your golfing buddy. Megan and I will be going to Las Vegas for the National Bowling tournament and I will get to see my buddies from there that I bowled with so that will be great. I have to go for now and get some things done, Megan left me with a honey do list so I had better get after it. Later my friends and family.

Well the skunks are back, Megan’s mom got up around 1:30 am one morning and looked out her door and there was a skunk eating the left over cat food. Seems it likes the brand we buy. The neighbors still has our trap and caught and disposed of one more. That I believe makes 7 skunks gone since December. Now it is March 24th about 9:30 at night, Megan and I come home from our weekly get together with friends at the Pig Farm. We watch survivor and American Idol etc... show's on the big screens. This place the Pig Farm started years ago by our neighbor as a club house for the guys. It has been remodeled into a very nice I would say 20 X 25 foot club house with a kitchen net at the back end with a bathroom. Anyhow we do a lot of things there mainly watch the reality shows and play cards. This particular night I told Bill (who owns the Pig Farm) that I needed my trap back as we had spotted a skunk eating the cat food. I told him I would get it tomorrow as it was dark and I did not want to find it then. So Megan and I head home. Well at the farm we have an old garage that holds the gas lawnmowers and gardening tools. This has become Fred our 20 lb cat’s home since we moved down and every night we lock him in there so he won’t wander off or get hit on the road. As we pull in where we park the pickup I let Megan out first so she does not have to worry about tripping over the tractor which is parked next to the pickup. As she is getting a sack out of the back seat of the truck I see a skunk come running out of the garage where Fred sleeps. I hollered at Megan so she could see the skunk. I park the truck, run another sack from the back of the truck to the house grab the only two 410 shotgun shells I could find,the 410 shotgun and my spot light as I had an idea the skunk ran into my irrigation pipe. I cautiously looked in one end of the pipe and could see Pep Pee La Pew at the other. I had two pieces of pipe stuck together so I pulled them apart to make it easier to get at this guy. I picked the pipe up on my end so the skunk would have to slide out of the pipe on the other end. If you have ever tried to hold a pipe 25 ft long high enough in the air in one hand a shotgun in the other and hope you could see with the spot light laying on the ground, this is very cumbersome to say the least. I can hear the skunk clawing up to my end of the pipe so I hoist it almost vertical in the air from my end but did not see the skunk. So I set down the shot gun and pick up the spot light bring the pipe down so I can shine it in the end, yep the skunk is still in there, so I pick up the shot gun rest the pipe on my shoulder and shine the light at his end. I drop the pipe so it bounces on the ground hoping to bounce the skunk out. It did not work so then I see that I have put his end next to a valve and he can’t get out of it. I thought of just point the barrel down the pipe and shooting it, but this is old PVC pipe and it would probably not be good for irrigating anymore. I pick the pipe up as high as I can and drop it again in the dirt. I shine my light down the pipe and I can see the spray heading my direction so I quickly put it down. When the fog cleared, I was fortunate not to have the stench on me; I looked again and he was gone. I searched the field but could not see the little stinker again. At least not to night, tomorrow I will get the trap and we will see if it comes back and I can entice it into the trap to be disposed of someplace away from the house. Some day I am going to be a great trapper, like Jim Bridger, Liver Eating Johnson and the rest. I watched one of the survival shows and they caught a skunk in a snare, then they had the courage to eat it. I don’t think I will do that; I can eat a lot of strange things but skunks defiantly not going to be one. Stay tuned for more adventures of Life on the Farm.

Wild Animals on the farm

Did I tell you we are into skunk hunting down here on the farm? Well it is pretty exciting you know. I knew there were dangers in skunk hunting so I take ever precaution when perusing those stinking little varmints. We have captured and disposed of 5 skunks since I have been here, 4 at the neighbors where we have them on video tape coming out from under a house and going into the trap. It is kind of neat, but getting them out of the trap can be a problem. In comes the Calvary, the county has a lady that all she does is dispose of skunks in peoples traps. She does not haul them off anywhere she just disposes of them right where the trap is next to his house. Boy is that a delightful aroma for a few days. There is no special way to dispose of them no matter what technique you use something is going to stink. I prefer to catch mine out in the field way behind the house for disposing. The other night I was irrigating and went to check on the water, now I should have known to take the 410 shotgun with me but did not think about it. as I am traveling down a boarder checking on the progress of the water I noticed eye shinning in my head lights. I sped up to see what it was and low and behold three skunks were running away from me. The adrenalin started to pump the gas started to flow into the carburetor on my four wheeler and the chase was on for about 10 yards when I remember I did not have the 410 with me only a shovel and I could not swing it as I am right handed and the gas is on the right hand side so I was doomed to be sprayed if I were to actually catch the slowest of the three so I backed off and watched them fat little bodies run. I went back out later and took the 410 with me but of course I did not see any skunks again. Now I have to get my trap back from the neighbor as they are all on our farm now and trap here. Did you know that the skunks down here like Louisiana Hot Sauce covered Sardine’s? That seems to be the bait of choice. We tried everything else but the like the hot sauce. I will keep you all posted on my hunting adventures of the skunks as I get better at it. Stay tuned for more Skunk Hunting on the Farm.

Mac the Wonder Dog: Got cows? Got birds? Mac is the dog for the job.

Stand around my little buckaroo for my tail of a wonder dog. Mostly I wonder what he will do next. Any how the story goes like this. I had been feeding the horse both morn and night as my friend Bill is on vacation and he usually comes to check on the horses and feeds at night. Things had been going fairly smoothly and nothing exciting was happening. Then on Friday evening about 6:00 I went to feed the horses, they come a running to the hay pile except Drifter the Bay 3 yr old. He just stands out in the pasture. So I load hay into the wagon that pulls behind the 4 wheeler (oh did I forget to tell you that we bought two 4 wheelers from a rancher friend of ours who could afford new ones, these two are not in the best of shape but they run barely) and head out to the pasture to feed the horses away from the hay pile. I go to Drifter and he limps real bad, I could not see any damages to his leg nor could I feel any, but he was tender to the touch on his pastern that’s between his hoof and forelock. I just happened to have a piece of rope with me so I put it around his neck and led him back to the catch pen we have set up. I put him in there until I could get back in the morning to look at his leg better in the light. His hock looked swollen, so watched it for a while then I put some horse lineament on it. He stayed in there until Monday, when I let him out as he seemed to be walking better. But back to the wonder dog Mac. We got Mac 3 years ago in June, our son Lewy and his wife Jessica bought us this wonder dog after another great dog Gordo passed away. Mac is all puppy; going on 3 years old and weighing in at 110 pounds of love. You have all seen the pictures of Mac and T bone our steer with each other and the bond that has grown between them. Well every morning when I feed T bone gets special calf chow for his growing bones to keep him strong and happy. As we all know a happy beef gives us good meat. Anyway T bone is usually out by the horses in the morning in the hay pasture. After Mac and I feed the horses it is a race back to the house and barn to see who gets there first I guess. But especially for T bone as his calf chow is waiting. But he follows; chases; gets chased by Mac and it is a grand old time. Well Sunday night the 22 of February, I went to feed the horses and I did not see T bone in the pasture so I assumed he was back at the barn getting a drink of water. When I pull up to the hay pile I see the two free horses running and bucking and chasing T bone. Now how he got over there I had no clue and it was getting too dark to check fences, all I know was I had to get him back to his side and luckily into the barn yard. My first thoughts were I would need to go get my saddle and rope and play cowboy and rope and drag him home, but then I would have to try and stop my horse from running around ; bucking and jumping just so I could saddle him and catch or herd T bone where he needed to go. What happens is my wonder dog shows up and T bone sees Mac and comes a running to see if he wanted to play also I guess any ways here he come. So I thought Mac will come if I call him and if Mac comes then T bone is sure to follow. I opened the gate as I had fed the horses and they were to busy eating to worry about getting out or chasing T bone anymore. Jumped on my 4 wheeler gassed it through calling Mac to come with me and we zoomed through, low and behold here comes T bone, I get off to close the gate behind him when he gets through, but no he stops half way through and back up. So I talk gently to him (calf whisperer taught me this trick) and try to circle around behind. The wonder dog is no where to be seen, so I thought this is going to be an all night thing pretty soon, I called Mac and he pokes his head out from behind the water trailer. T bone see’s Mac and puts his head down and runs through the gate, finally trapped. But then I remembered he knew how to get out somewhere and I didn’t know his spot. I pondered and thought I will see if he will follow us back to the barn at night even though we do not feed him calf chow at night. I took off, Mac being hungry takes off for the barn, I call T bone and keep calling his name, I look back and he is following me, then all of a sudden there is a black blur goes by me. It was T bone he saw Mac making the corner around the fence heading to the barn and he was off. I had to gas the 4 wheeler to catch up and close the gate before he saw he had no treats in his bucket. So now Mac is not only a certified great bird dog, he is a good cow dog also. So I fed them both extra chow last night just to say thanks and looked to heaven as I know who really helped me get everyone home safe.

Spring time in the Winter of New Mexico

Well I have to tell you the weather here is pretty nice compared to Montana. It has been in the mid 70's for two days and near 76 tomorrow. Know wonder it does not snow here in the high desert it is to stinking warm. There have been some drag out the winter coats and gloves but not like home. Speaking of home we had an offer on our house and countered and they accepted it. Now we are just waiting for the next step. Today I was out back checking on T bone who is now 44 inches at the shoulders and of course Mac follows me into the pen. T Bone takes a shine to Mac and starts to chase him around the pen. Mac tires out and goes and gets a drink, TBone comes over and starts licking on Mac, Mac seems to enjoy it and stands there and let himself be washed by TBone. I have enclosed some pictures of it. I also got the fence done around the pens as far as I could go. It is the fence that John started Lewy continued and Dad finished. It looks good for a bunch of hack welders. Well take care our Friends we miss you all.

Christmas in New Mexico

Well we sure did not have the cold and snow like home but we did have a grand time. Lewy, Jessica, Eli, John and his girlfriend Tanja were all here for Christmas. It was a special one as last year we were in the hospital with Megan. But it was a great year and everything is good to go. We enjoyed them all especially Eli, he had a grand old time. He rode the Bobcat (skid steer), drove grandpa's truck, learned how to put the key in the ignition, rode his first horse and played and loved on everyone. Lewy put up an electric fence in our bottom 17 acres so we put the horses down there. John started to put up a pipe fence around the corrals, we did general clean up of trash. Hey they wanted something to do so I put them to work. Jessica set us up with quick books so she can keep me out of trouble with the tax man. I can tell you that after a week with them all being gone, I truly miss them very much. I especially miss having my breakfast with Eli at 5:00 am. Megan and I hope you New Year is bright, healthy and truly happy.