THE PEN IS MIGHTIER

 THAN THE SWORD..

Welcome to the Adventures of

Dear Abbie's Wife

 Hello & Welcome to our Diary page.  The purpose of this diary is to record our adventures, folks who stop by, travels and events at the Thorne Ranch.  It was primarily meant for family and friends in the beginning, but we have grown a large number of faithful readers in the past eight years.   Over 90,000 from all over the world have visited us.   We don't intend to offend anyone or to glorify our life here.  It's pretty boring most of the time as you will see!  We are pretty common folks trying to make a living doing what we love, breeding and raising cattle.  Our wish is that someday this Diary will be enjoyed and appreciated by our grandchildren and great grandchildren.  In the mean time we hope you get a few good laughs at our expense. Learn from the mistakes of others.  You can't live long enough to make them all yourself."  

Abbie and Joan

Last Updated Monday, 12 May 2008    You are viewer   

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January 2008  February 2008  March 2008  April 2008

• May 1-2  Another windy day from the south! Tornado warnings out for parts of the state tonight.  Looks like Osage County was getting it again tonight!  We hauled hay today.  All the traps around the house and barn need hay as the grass is not good enough to carry everyone yet.  I picked up the silver truck yesterday and filled it up with another 25 bags of mulch and 30 more bricks.  So last night I got it unloaded just in time for the big low boy trailer and hay hauling today! I was a little hesitant to haul hay today afraid I might get it scratched up again! ha After the last wreck I had hauling hay with the silver bullet I am going pretty slow and cautiously! ha  Can you believe it? ha  Grandma speed!  Shareen called and said Dalya locked her out of the truck in the cold the other day!  She wouldn't unlock the truck until Shareen bribed her.  She told her that she could call Grandma Jo Jo, and she said OK and unlocked the truck! ha  Wish that little girl was closer so I could really spoil her!  Diann says Grace is on the move now and already trying to pull herself up to the furniture! She is a live wire and will keep big brother Logan entertained for years to come! ha  I can hear him now!  NO NO NO GRACE!
•  I planted some of the scrubs I got tonight as the wind went down to a dull roar.  Wouldn't be surprised to see them blown out of the hole in the morning!  I have been doing new landscaping in the back yard and front yard too! The plum trees had a pretty rough winter with the ice storm so I trimmed two of them back to scrub height instead of dangling trees! ha  Not sure I like it but too late now! ha I took down the cover on the new microwave and drilled four new holes so that I could shut the top cupboards.  Amazingly all the screws fit in the right spot! I didn't even have to ask for help! ha
• Heard from our Indiana friends.  Dave has been chasing  a momma Raccoons and her babies in their attic!  He said he was almost ready to shoot into the ceiling to get them at 3:00 in the morning!! ha  They were only trying to find a nice home. ha  They have been wet and cold up there too!
• We had a nice lunch with Carol the other day and here are some pictures of the heifer sorting.  We picked out a couple of heifers for Robbie's boys to show. 
• Friday, We met Gracie, Robert and his Mother in Pryor for lunch!  They flew in from south Texas and we were half way for fuel on their way to Michigan!  Always great to see them!  Their airplane is really nice and I wouldn't mind making a three hour trip to south Texas instead of the 16 hours it took us to drive it in March! ha  We stopped and visited with a neighbor that was in the hospital in Pryor!
• Mike brought Turk home and we are happy to have him back! He will get front pasture ratings! ha  Kevin Green stopped out and looked at the calves and was impressed with the babies!   Brian called and invited us to go to Vinita for supper and go with him to deliver medicine to Bluejacket.  So we fed up fast and we had Mexican supper in Vinita!  I didn't have to cook today! Yippee!

•  We had lunch at Luther's Drive In and made several pasture runs to see the Spring calves.  Randy, Debbie and Brittney were pulling out when Jon and Jane came to have cidars put in his cows he is going to have Abbie A I Breed.  Good to see Jane as always!  It's dark and I just got to the house after feeding.  Abbie is still at the barn giving set up shots to the donors.  This is a busy time of year when you just get the most pressing things done it seems!  If we have company tomorrow they may have to help us do some real work like build fence!  Abbie figured it up and we have five miles of new fence to build this year!  The old rusty wire has seen better centuries around here.  If you try to splice it it just breaks in another spot!  At $48-50 a spool of wire it's going to be a costly project!  Oh well!  Good fences make for good neighbors! ha
• May 4-5-6  Sunday actually was some what of a day of rest.  I worked in the yard on landscaping and Abbie worked on cattle.  Monday I headed over to Carol's to take pictures for her new honor as president of OK Angus Association.  We spent the afternoon in the pastures taking pictures.  Tuesday was catch up day and had entries and reservations to make for Junior Nationals in Texas and Kansas City.  That will be here before you know it!  Picked up Dani Leigh from school at 3:00 and we went to town to shop for her early Birthday present.  We came home with more than we needed but we had a good time shopping! ha  Eight years old and already a seasoned shopper! ha  Rod came to pick her up in the evening and he told me he had gotten her a paint gelding for her birthday surprise!  I might actually get a grandchild to ride horses with me someday! ha
• It's raining today and water is going over the bridge and everything is soaked to the gill again.  Giving shots today to the recips and A I breeding cattle today!
• May 7-8-9   Wednesday morning  was steer nominations at Tulsa Stock yards.  So went in and basically visited with the other superintendents.  The steers that came through looked good.  There is going to be some competition this year!   I stopped at Sanders nursery and picked up several scrubs and plants.  So you know what that means!  Dig more holes! ha  We were suppose to get semen in that afternoon and found out that SEK hadn't gotten it sent, so having to breed in the next morning we made a fast trip to Galesburg Kansas.  We stopped in Parson Kansas for supper and ran into a down pour rain all the way home!  We were in a severe weather warning and a tornado set down in several places in the county.  We lucked out again!  Thursday morning was breed the donors and we started AI breeding cows about 7:00 that night.  We didn't do many out of that pasture and were done by 9:00.  Cody and his cousin Travis came out to check out the new calves!  Joyce stopped by and we enjoyed her visit!
• Today has been many projects!  Cleaning house as usual and planting the last trip to the nursery! ha   We had rain last night and more severe weather about 1:00!  I slept straight through it, but Abbie kept a watchful eye out for us thank heavens!
• We had a new bush hog delivered today and I am anxious to get it hooked up to do some pasture clipping this year.  We have folks coming in on Sunday so best get busy.  We are also anxiously awaiting an intern named Kyle Robinson that will spend a few months with us from Florida.   We went pasture riding this morning so took some pictures of some cows and their new babies.  Here is a picture of Dani and the mutts!  They got hair cuts today so it best warm up now! ha

•  May 10-11  We loaded up 10 heifers and 1 pretty little Angus Maine cross steer to meet Scott west of Little Rock Arkansas yesterday!  We made it just about noon and we got in the middle of a down pour when we unloaded.  Scott headed back east to Mississippi and we stopped off in Alma to visited with old friends and customers John and Ruth Kelly.  We met at the Cracker Barrel and had a great time catching up on each others lives!  They still have their Braunvieh cows and are now breeding them all to Angus bulls.  They love their half blood cows like we do!  We made it home about 4:00 and watched the weather advisories most of the night!  The storm was rolling by Adair when we got home and it headed east to Jay and Grove and then onto Arkansas!  Picher OK got blown away from the same storm and they are saying 20 some folks lost their lives in that storm!  What a way to spend mothers day! huh?  We send out prayers for all those folks!  We have been fortunate to miss the oncoming daily storms.   The wind tried blowing off my furniture on the front porch last night but that is minor compared to what happened in several places in OK, Missouri and Arkansas!  Today I actually baked and made a pretty nice lunch!  Crystal came out to help today so I always try to have something better than normal when we have company! ha  Abbie loves to see company come because he knows I will cook! ha  I baked up a poppy seed lemon cake!  One of my favorites that my Mom always made for my birthday way back when!  Happy Mother's Day Mom!  You are a very special Mom and we love and appreciate you!  Funny how when you become a MOM you realize it wasn't that easy to be called MOM!  With it comes lots of responsibility!
• The Paul family was going to drop by today but they were scared of the storm and didn't stop!  They went by about 3:00 a.m.  Abbie met Donnie in Tulsa to pick up Hardy this afternoon.  Guess I might as well went along, but I puttered around the yard and the horses all got out to munch the grass around the lane!  So they were happy!  We have a whole group tied in the barn today!  Time to get them ready for June Junior Nationals.  So far they are all doing pretty well.   Wish we had a manure spreader to spread the piles on the pastures now.  My list of equipment keeps getting bigger. ha  I spread enough BS here on the Diary to fertilize several acres! ha  You can't say I don't admit my faults now!  Here is a picture of John and Ruth Kelly and Abbie last Saturday.  Also the storm clouds that were over Adair.  Those poor folks in Picher OK were getting it about that time I took this picture.  Our friend Mr. Jack from Miami OK called and said that it got part of his son's house and took their barn about a half mile from his house!  He told about a man and wife that didn't have time to get out of their house so they got under the kitchen table.  That was the only thing left the table and them under it!  The Lord was watching over them for sure!