Please contribute to the ranch blog by sending emails to ranchw8@gmail.com













Ranch Calendar

Slide Show

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Tucker Returns

Saturday June 23 Tucker was able to return to the ranch after his 2 year hiatus while in Guatemala.  He seemed to enjoy it a lot and a lot has changed in the past 2 years.  We have 2 new gates, a new road, a new fence as a boundary (almost complete), a hay field planted and ready to harvest, and the cabin being torn down.  Tucker was able to work with Jared, Trent, Dustin, Karlee, Tricia, Valerie, and Kerri to put up the wire for the west fence.  We were able to string all 4 lines about 3/4s of the way down the fence.  It was a lot of work but very fullfilling.  We still need at least 2 more rolls of wire to finish the fence.  We will probably need more staples as well as a few T posts.  We still need to cut and staple dancers between all the posts but we are getting close to finishing the fence.  Valerie, Trent, and Jared also worked on mowing down the thistle that is growing around the road and field by the cottonwoods. 

We also had an amazing dutch oven lunch up there.  Cheesey potatos, beef stew, dutch oven rolls, salad, and fruit.  It was awesome.  It is extremely dry up there and as we have seen on the news there have been fires everywhere in the state.  We are asking everyone to be very careful with any fires they may have.  Have a bucket of water nearby and only have a fire in the fire pit.  Thank you for your cooperation!!!

Upcoming events:  July 5th Randy Carr will take his extended family up to the ranch to spend the day on the zip line and have a BBQ.  July 6-7 Dustin Moore will have a young men campout and then on Saturday Cub Scouts will be doing their day camp up there, it will be run by the boy scouts. 

Monday, June 18, 2012

Tucker

Not much was done last week at the ranch but this Saturday Tucker will make his grand return to the ranch. We will be meeting up there Saturday 6/23/12 to do some work and play. Come joing us for a great time. More pictures will be posted soon and hopefully I can learn how to create a picture portfolio for the blog. Kyle and Chad surfing on the trailer.

Monday, June 11, 2012

West North Fence, New Gate, Tractor, and Hammocks

Saturday June 9, 2012 several members of the Jared and Eric Weight families went to the ranch to do work. It all actually started on Friday night when we installed a new gate. The gate goes from the water spigot road up to the dam. Now we won't have to mess with the barb wire fence since we have been traveling up that trail a lot lately. We had to plant a railroad tie post and then another cedar post on the other end and then attach the new gate, then boom, a new gate is in. Saturday morning we had about 13 workers. We were able to string the barb wire on this fence and attach the dancers. This was a lot of work but with a lot of help we were able to get it all done by 10:30. Eric and his family had to leave to a family reunion at that time. Eric and some of his family then continued working south. We were able to plant 20 T Posts in the morning. We then took a much needed lunch break and some of us even took a nap in the hammock, played frisbee, or just relaxed with the family. Trent and Valerie were even able to weed some of the potatoe field. Trent, Dustin, and Jared went back to work in the afternoon and had a lot of work to do. We had to finish planting the cedar posts in a very rocky section of the south west portion of our boundary fence. We were able to plant 10 cedar posts in a few hours. We finished by dinner time and then right at the end had an amazing view of a lot of the surrounding properties with some of the cabins and fields. We could also see some of the hikes to take which we hope to enjoy later this summer. This next picture is what we have left to work on for this fence. We just have to plant about 5 more t posts and then on the wire goes with the dancers. Libby and Colbie loved playing on the old tractor together as many of us have over the past years.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

North West Boundary Fence

Saturday 6-1-12 the Hobble Creek Spring Camporee was held at The Ranch. Randy Carr was in charge of it and lead several groups who all camped right around the cottonwood trees and the swing. A couple weeks ago Eric, Clint, and Dan all cleaned out the old trees and brush that were cluttered in that area, thank you, it is a much cleaner and safer place to play now and made it possible for the scouts to spend time there. Jared, Valerie, Eric, and Christine all spent the evening in their trailers in order to start working early the next morning. They all started on the North West boundary fence with the help of the scout groups that were there. The scouts were able to dig holes and plant posts and planted about 10 posts including a very large corner post. It was a lot of help and they did it all by hand. The boys had to go and do some of their Camporee requirements and so they left Jared, Valerie, Eric, Christine, Dustin, Kerri, Libby, and Toby to finish the work. We were able to plant the rest of the cedar and metal T Posts on the North West boundary of the property by 12:30 and then we were able to take a lunch break. We were back at work by 1:30 and now we had to string the barbed wire to the posts. We were able to finish that entire portion of the fence from the previous North West corner to the new, actual, North West corner. It was about 100 yards of fence we were able to finish. Most of us probably don't know the whole process of building a fence. It is actually a lot of work and takes a lot of planning and preparation. Several years ago the family found out that the boundary we had was actually 100 yards short of the actual boundary (some places it was even more space than that). Jared went to the property with some county surveyors and found the actual corner of where the property should be. They used satellite coordinates to get the spot exactly where it should be. Eric then took a bobcat (small surveying equipment) and forged a trail around the property where the boundary should be. Supplies then needed to be gathered. Several of us went down to Mona several times to cut cedar posts a couple years ago. We were able to get over 150 posts by doing that. Those posts cost about $7 each if purchased at Cal Ranch. We were able to buy a $50 permit to cut all of ours. We were able to save a lot of money by doing that. We also needed barbed wire. We have collected some of the wire from old fences in the past which has been sitting at the ranch for awhile. We also went and collected the wire from the old west fence and also pulled up the remaining T Posts there. Jared bought a roll of wire a couple years ago and Kendal helped get a roll this year. Hopefully it will go to the end, we may have to get more later. Jared also had to get some staples (not your normal paper stables, these are much large and look like a double sided nail bent in the shape of a 'U'). Now everything is ready to start building the fence. Man power and proper tools are now our greatest ally. An auger, a large tool used to dig holes, is very helpful and can reduce the time spent digging holes by up to 90%. We were able to have some help with that along the west fence. A group of scouts and a leader that owns a fencing company were able to help plant most of those posts with the help of an auger. If an auger is not available or able to get to the location then shovels, bars, and post hole diggers, along with a lot of elbow grease, will be needed. After a hole is about 2-3 feet deep we need to plant the posts. To plant a post we put the post in the hole and then put a little dirt around it and use the back end of a shovel to 'tamp' (or push down and compress) the dirt around the post. We do this 4-5 times until the post is stable and does not move. Some places need a T Post and then we use a post pounder to get that done. After planting all the posts we need to string the wire. We are putting 4 lines on this fence, it helps keep the cattle out better then just using 3 lines. It is easiest to start from the top line and go to the bottom. You start and tie off the top line to the corner post and one person will walk it to the opposite post or direction. You then pull the line tight and then tie it off to another post. You do this for each line and then you staple each line to the posts. After all lines are stapled to the posts dancers are needed. A dancer is a shorter post that is not planted into the ground but it is just stapled or tied to the barbed wire and is just there to help keep the lines separated and keep the cattle from poking their heads through the line and stepping through the fence. We get the dancers from surrounding trees and they are about 4-5 feet tall and 2-5 inches thick. Once this is done the fence is all finished. We now just have a couple hundred more yards of fence to do along the west boundary. It should be faster and easier due to the fact that all we need to do now is string the wire and cut and attach dancers. We will hopefully be able to finish it this Saturday after the Springville Art City Day Parade. Anyone and everyone is invited to come help.