Summer is progressing rapidly, and we're over halfway our stay here 'up the hill'.
We've set the 1st of October as our target date for wrapping up all the work that needs to be done here and so far it looks like we're pretty much on schedule.

We had quite an exciting day yesterday when they wrangled up last year's steers, to weigh them and get them ready for their journey to Iowa, where they will be spending the last months of their lives being fattened up at a big feed lot.

They were already sold in the spring and spend the whole summer grazing on the mountain meadows, and they also had free roam of the forests and canyons.



They are (almost) all Angus cows ..



For the weighing a brand inspector and weigh master came up to supervise, just to make sure everybody plays fair!

 

The scale is situated right outside our gate, on the other side of the road.
Maryann and Wade did the wrangling by horse, with assistance of the dogs of course, and had them already all in the corrals when I arrived .. too bad, I didn't get to see that ..

The horse and dog's work was done, they're not needed for the sorting, but they kept a good eye on everything ..

 

I did witness the weighing though, they went on the scale in groups of twenty:

That's Maryann ..

And here's Bill, the weigh-master ..

According to Maryann they looked good, and each group weighed in around 20.000 pound. 

That's about 1000 per steer, which is about what they have to weigh, according to the sales contract.

A steer goes for about $600-700, and there were 140 of them, so .. cha-ching!  

There was a lot of sorting going on, separating the small ones from the bigger, and than making groups of a certain weight so they could all fit in the 2 big cattle-trucks that were lined up.

Calculating and judging ..

Finally it was time to load them up. 
The truck trailer has several compartments and they have to come up in certain groups to fit ..

I didn't hang around too long after they started the loading. 
The animals were much more nervous now and I started to feel sorry for the poor guys.
Their wonderful life here up the mountain was over .. but at least they'd had that life, which is more than most others have ..

Off to Iowa ..

James had miscalculated on his drywall sheets, only 13 but who's counting, so we went a little earlier than usual to Grangeville.
On the way down, we saw this doe with her fawn:

This picture is from a while ago when it was still a little green down the hill towards Cottonwood ..
 
 

This is how it looks now .. all browns and yellows.
The grasses are mostly cut ..

But the grain is still son the fields. A lot of it is winter-Barley, some are Oats ..

Of course we played a round of golf, one of our worst ever, followed by (much needed) coffee at Crema:

Franklin was a wise man!

I've seen some more Elk lately, but they are very skittish and I have a hard time getting another shot of them.
The deer are calmer, and we have quite a few that come by almost every evening in the meadow in front of the RV ..

I so hope they will survive this coming hunting season ..

During our trip down the hill we picked more blackberries and I have a huge stash in the freezer by now. 
Fortunately we can use the one in the house because there's no way it would fit all in the RVs.

We eat a lot 'fresh' in our cereal and yogurt or with ice-cream, but I use the frozen ones for baking, like in this cobbler:
 

It looks a little messy, but it's delicious!

James has finished the drywall by now, these pics are from when he was almost there ..

He's working on the mud at the moment, and the rooms are really starting to take some shape now.
The carpet is ordered, the tile has arrived and it's time to pick out the paint color. 
This part of the work is so much more rewarding!

Well, that was about all for now, I have to start making a zucchini/chicken casserole for dinner.
Miriam has gifted us a whole crate of cucumber, zucchini, squash and peaches from her garden down the hill. Yum! 

Better make the most of this summer-bounty, 

it's going to be Fall a month from now!