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 over the past years. Over 100,000 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."
Welcome to the Diary &
"The Adventures of Dear Abbie's Wife"
THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD..
Remember to welcome strangers, because some who have done this have welcomed angels without knowing it! Hebrews 13:2
Copyright © 1998 - 2010 A. W. Thorne Land & Cattle, Inc. All rights reserved.
"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed." Proverbs 16:3
A.W. Thorne Land & Cattle, Inc.
435707 E370 Rd
Adair, Oklahoma 74330
Office 918.783.5477 Joan 918.284.0175 A.W. 918.527.2002 joan@thornecattle.com
This page was last updated: July 2, 2010
The Best Days
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'To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did.' When God takes something from your grasp, He's not punishing you, but merely opening your hands to receive something better. Concentrate on this sentence... 'The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.'
There comes a point in your life when you realize: Who matters, Who never did, Who won't anymore...And who always will. So, don't worry about people from your past, There's a reason why they didn't make it to your future.
May 2010
May 1 - Happy May Day! It's been raining off and on almost all day today! Jack came to look at calves this morning so I grilled up some rib steaks for lunch and pulled a fresh frozen pie out of the freezer. ha Not much sunshine today! I planned on planting the rest of my garden but that probably isn't going to happen today! I am finishing up on the Memory book and wow I am ready to put that one to bed. After 38 -12x12 pages of pictures and enough information to choke a horse I am calling it done! It's been a labor of love though and I hope the family will enjoy it for many years to come! I am sure I messed something up somewhere and knowing my daughters they will let me know after it's printed. ha But at this point it looks okay to me. ha There comes a time when you have to say enough is enough already! Get on with another project, ha You can go over it with a fine tooth comb and still finds something that you can sweak! ha
You all have a wonderful weekend with your families. We are sure missing Grace and Logan. Wish we could have more of the grandkids live closer. I am ready to sell everything and move. ha We were out checking the heavies just before this beautiful sunset. How can you say we had a bad day when you see this spectacular view?
May 2-10 It's been busy as usual. We are starting to wind down on calving though and now it's time to breed again! On Saturday we had company from Kentucky, Tyson Rogers and his family. They picked up Typhoon for their cow herd and a little Maintainer heifer. They left and in drove Bruce Garrett and his neighbor and friend Randy from Hope Arkansas. Great guys and they loaded up Hardy for his cow herd. We took them out to dinner at Goldies before they set off on their six hour drive! We certainly appreciate those fine folks! Amazing huh when people will drive that far to buy our cattle and our next door neighbor goes out and buys from far away too. They must be better somewhere else! ha We got in three pastures on Sunday and pulled cidars, today the guys got them all in again and gave them shots. David and I saddled up Tee and Wiley and that was interesting. Wiley decided that he had a cold back for some reason? So I dismounted and made him go through the paces in a round pen for a few minutes and after that he decided that it was better to not act like a bronc. ha Too many oats! ha That's what you get for trying to get them into superman shape! ha Anyway Mother's Day was enjoyable and we had a pretty nice day too! Today we are under tornado watch for the whole evening. They just closed I-40 and it looks like they are really in a terrible storm. We hope and pray those folks are safe and sound in that area. Abbie is breeding donors tonight and then we flush and transfer next week when the embryos will be seven days old! Just like clock work! ha The Memory book has not shown up yet and I am starting to get nervous. Last time it only took a few days and it was here. We had a call from our new customers in Kentucky and they want a couple of the black badly heifer babies for their grandkids to show. So we are off and running on the Spring calves. I think we have two left to calve, thank heavens! It's time to get them all on the ground and growing.
Tyson Rogers family from Kentucky!
Randy and Bruce Garrett from Hope AR.
TLC Meyers Meg and TLC Turks Sassy..Sassy is going to Kentucky..when weaned.
ACE S6253 a Purebred Charolais heifer and her Bolt baby heifer we have named TLC Knighs Peggy.
May 12 -21 We made it back from Nebraska and the 60th Wedding Anniversary celebration. We had a grand old time and there were over 200 folks that dropped by for dance, visiting and food! All my daughters made it and we only had Phillip and Clay missing for grandchildren. They were in the middle of their final week of school tests. We had folks emailing us to see if we got blown away by the tornadoes in the area. We were very fortunate and only had trees downed by high winds. Here is Carol's airplaine that brother Tom flies. We had the rare chance to get to fly over the ranch and see it from a birds view. Dalya got her first airpline ride and fell asleep.
The three granddaughters came back with daughter, Delynn and I. They have been having a great time and making lots of fun memories. Thank heavens for the DVD that Shareen hooked us up with for the trip home. How in the world did we ever do it before? Of course we didn't do that much traveling when my girls were little. I think they only made a couple of trips to East Texas to see Aunt Jolene. The weather has turned off nice here again! The water is still standing on top of the ground in several places though. You best have you muck boots on in the corral again! We helped tag calves and moved the last group to pastures yesterday. Grace and Dalya got icky stuff all over them.. ha So we washed up their krocs this morning. We turned the Ducks loose at the pond yesterday and almost before we got back to the house here they were at their pen wanting back in! So I took down their pen and proceeded to put it around my garden on the East side just to keep them from foraging in my garden! It's all up and growing fast! String Beans, Beets, Onions, Okra, Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Squash, Zuchinni, Blue Berry Bushes, Grape Vine and Peppers! Wow if all those plants produce we are going to have a feast! ha The only thing I didn't get planted was sweet corn! I ran out of room! ha
Dalya Rae, Grace Abigail and Olivia Grace sitting on the stairs.
We had a tragedy happen while I was in Nebraska. We lost our old Fullblood Donor Bruni B40. She was eighteen years old and we were thrilled that she was going to calve this May. She became ill and went into premature labor. Abbie said she was all impacted and plugged up so he tried to relieve her but ended up calling Chell to come over and do an emergency C section to try and save the heifer calf. They lost both of them. Abbie said they tried everything to keep the calf alive but to no avail. It's not going to be the same without Bruni around. She is Bud's grandmother and Star's great grandmother. It was nice to show folks several generations of cow famlies. She had a good life here and we broke her to lead when she was seven years old as a cow calf pair to start the first show in Louisville, KY. We hung our ornamental Swiss bell on her and believe it or not she didn't even try to run away. We have several daughters of hers that we have kept over the years, in fact a Meyer 734 daughter from her just calved the other day. We sold a $10,000 flush out of her once and have sold many son's and daughters in production sales. If we had the money or even had the desire to reproduce her we'd have her cloned but we aren't into the breed that much these days and we still have several embryos from her in the tank thank heavens, so she will live on through her progeney.
Bruni B40 was a good cow to TLC
Carol's airplaine that Tom files for her from California.
These pictures pretty much describe the 60th Wedding Celebration for Mom and Dad!
May 22-31 It's been busy the last of May with granchildren and daughters visiting. Also our friends the Jones from New Mexico came in and put their name on a Spring steer. So all the bedrooms were occupied one night again! ha Bed Breakfast and Bovine! ha
Delynn and Olivia flew back to North Carolina on Thursday the 26th! Don't you know all of the eight beds were all ready to be washed and that is when the washer broke down. Friday I went searching for a new washer! Abbie went with me on Saturday to Joplin and we finally settled on a LG Washer and Dryer. I can about tell you anything you want to know now about washers and dryers! My appliance man Todd suggested we buy a Fisher and Paykel Washer. But after I saw them I wasn't that impressed with the small tub size! Evidently Fisher and Paykel is the new kid on the appliance block! Everyone is going to Direct Drive instead of belt driven. Whirlpool is the same as GE, and LG is the same as Kennmore now! Maytag is now Whirlpool so nothing is the same brand name! They have all ben bought out or copied! ha
We had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend and had dinner with Ed and Carol on Sunday evening. We got to swim in the new pool and checked out all of Carol's flower gardens! Food and company was great. Monday the 31st we sprayed and clipped pastures all day!
