Double Heart Ranch

Finally, after weeks of showers all around us we got a good rain.  To quote Colonel Eddie Wood, “It’s been so dry around here even a jack rabbit would have to pack a lunch.”

He was 38 inches in May. Today he measures 46 5/8 inches with about a 10 inch base. Pretty amazing growth. This is one of our strongest herd sire prospects with great horn, great color and great confirmation.

Based on the Dalgood’s horn calculator this bull could top out at 74.5 inches. He has a great pedigree including Starliner, JP Grand Ritz and JBM Sunstar.

Note the special pens built for longhorns with the top rails slanted on top to allow for big horned cattle.

Yesterday Hardy, Gay and I participated in the Fredericksburg parade for the fourth year in a row. Riding with us were our neighbors, Paul and Barb King. As usual, May and Belle performed beautifully being perfectly comfortable with all the craziness that goes on in a parade. The only thing that phased them at all was a Shriner dressed up as a clown driving around in a little scooter - and I had the same reaction that they did!

This is one of my favorite events of the year. If you want to get in touch with middle America this parade is as good as it gets. Watching a community come together for an event like this is important to see, especially when we all hear as much negative press as we do about what is wrong with our country. A very uplifting day.

A few years after we bought the ranch the first pair of painted buntings arrived - the most colorful, amazing little birds. Each year they leave in the fall and return in the spring. This year we had two pair of mature birds and they each raised a family.

Last weekend they were here and this weekend they are gone. Our birds are part of the western population so they are likely on their way as I am writing this to northern Mexico and may go as far south to Panama.

Some readers of this blog will remember the story of Dan Tucker, a little bull calf whose mother was accidentally gored and died. Hardy and Kathy Vaughn raised him on a bottle and as you can see he is doing fine. He always expects Gay to bring him a treat!

So the one of the biggest challenges of raising Texas Longhorns is protecting our bulls’ horns. Bulls with the longest horns are most valuable but the bulls don’t know that. So they tend to fight and push each other around which often leads to breaking off the horn tips. That can mean tens of thousand dollar differences in what they will bring act auction.

So this week we finished construction of four new pens, each separated by a 12 foot alley so the bulls will never be right up against each other. Seven strands of barbed wire, about six feet tall should hold them in.

The pens are designed for great herd sire prospects, like Blazing Star - horns growing straight out.