Provider: Rick Kuntz
Profession: Rancher
Hometown: Dillon, MT - Diamond Bar J Ranch

March, 2007 Diary Entry

As this update is being written we are heavy into our calving season.  We have 88 baby calves on the ground and things are going pretty smoothly.

We've only lost two calves and we've had one set of twins.  All in all, things are going well.  The weather has been pretty nice - in the 40's & 50's.  All of the new calves are thriving and doing well.  We hope this continues for the roughly 300 cows left to calve out.

Our days are filled with feeding the cow herd its daily ration of hay and then tending to calving chores.  I'm kept fairly busy just getting the calves tagged and recording weight, sex and color of the calves for my ranch records.  Calving will continue for another 6-7 weeks and then we'll get busy branding calves and turning our cow/calf pairs out onto spring grass.  Soon it will be time to start irrigating our hay meadows, too.

Daughter Morgan and son Jace stay busy with all of their activities.  Their 4-H calves must be fed and worked with every day.  Morgan stays busy riding her horses and Jace has been participating in Little Guy Wrestling matches every weekend.  He wrestled in Dillon last weekend and took 2nd place in his class!  He and Morgan fiddled the Star Spangled Banner to open the wrestling match, and he came home with the Sportsmanship Award - so he had quite a weekend!

The Dillon Junior Fiddlers, a group of fiddlers that Morgan and Jace belong to, have been invited back to Williamsburg, Virginia to perform for the 400th anniversary celebration of Jamestown, Virginia, our first colony.  The group is busy practicing their songs and dances, and raising money to get to Virginia.  What an honor for kids from Dillon, Montana!

Well, that's the update for this month.  I hope things are going well in your lives.  Always remember, if the going gets tough, just reach down deep and COWBOY UP!!

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