Bully bulls...

All of us jumped into our rangers and went out to the pastures to move one bunch of cows from Chuck's to the East Pasture this morning.  The bulls are still in the cows and sometimes when you gather them all up together, the bulls and even the cows will fight a little.  I think they fight when they are left to themselves too, but when they get bunched up close like this, it's likely someone picks a fight.  The one picture we didn't take would have come at the end of this series when the smaller bull butted the bigger one right in the keester and he had the last word!  It was really quite funny!  No animals were hurt during this performance.

As you can see, it's getting really dry out on the range.  There is still plenty of grass in our pastures, but it's not soft and green anymore.  It's hard and dry.  In all truth, the grass in our area of the plains is called "hard grass" and it's got decent protein and is very nutrient dense.  It's good for grazing cattle which explains why they look so good.  We'd love a little softening of the land and the grass though.  So far we've only had clouds with lightning and wind.  We do think our north pastures got a decent rain one night, but the rest of the place is pretty dry.  We just continue to pray for rain.

My garden is doing ok.  At least I've picked a few zucchini, and today I picked my first head of broccoli.  I can't wait to roast it on the grill and see what kind of flavor it has.  The cucumbers are blossoming and so are the beans, but nothing to pick yet.  I dug up three heads of garlic that were going very dry.  Two were small and one was larger -- about the size of a 50 cent piece. I'm leaving the rest to see if it grows a little more.  My dad, whom I shared some garlic with for planting, has this GINORMOUS garlic growing in his garden.  I tell you, he dug one up and from the bulb to the top of the leaves was 5 feet tall!  And the garlic bulb was almost baseball size.  Incredible!  He must have the right stuff for growing garlic.  My tomatoes are  S L O W  to set fruit.  We'll be lucky to get a ripe tomato by September at this rate.  Oh well.  That's how it goes with gardening.  You have different successes in different years due to the weather conditions and many other variables like soil, bugs, dogs, and kids.  Farms near the sheep sale barn got hailed out last week.  It was a total disaster.  They had baseball sized hail and 90 mph winds to go with it.  Devastating.  We don't have anything to complain about.

I hope your summer is going well.  My zinnias are just starting to bloom so I hope to have some colorful flower photos for you soon!  God bless you!