Adventures of a Stay at Home Mom, Raising Bummer Lambs, Sale Day

Well it's always an adventure around here! The other day I set off for Salina which is where the closest livestock auction is. Sometimes I sell my lambs here and sometimes I sell them back to my dad. The market price was higher at the auction this year so this is where we headed. Loading lambs by myself is always a challenge since I don't actually own a proper loading chute! But this year's crop loaded unusually easily, score I thought! The boy and I headed down the Interstate. As I was trucking along, I heard a siren and saw the dreaded lights behind me so I pulled it on over. The officer asked me if I knew how fast I was going? I actually didn't know. With a trailer full of lambs I didn't figure could have been going too fast right?! Well... he said 90,  I was busted. Dang my lead foot! To make matters worse I had neglected to renew my registration on the truck and trailer on time (still don't know how this slipped past me!) So he really should have impounded me! For the love Kacey, get it together girl! But this kind, patient officer let me by with a $40 ticket, bless his soul! And I was back on my way. Phew! That could have been a whole lot worse!! We stopped by Dad's ranch on the way to pick up a few old ewes he wanted to sell and we were on our way again. The auction was busy and the market was good. We ended up selling our 16 lambs for $137.50/lb. which is the best price I have received for them since I started. (Let's not bring up the year before last when the price was $2.00/lb. and this was the only year I didn't raise lambs, I was having the boy that year!) The lambs were just shy of the 100 lb. goal weight that I try to get them to, but the price per pound made it all ok. Now this couple thousand dollars I ended up with may not sound like much and it isn't. But it's something that this stay at home mom loves at the end of the year. My only expense is milk and so most of the $ is profit. I call it my sweat money! There are definitely easier ways to make money, but few of them allow you to do it with your kids by your side, get you out in the fresh air, make you work and sweat quite like this! Handy Hubby says every year "Ya know, I make enough money that you really don't have to do this you know?" I always say, "Yea, I know, but I love it!" So until next Spring we are lambless. After the sale the boy and I headed out to Antelope where dad does his lambing to help him haul some bucks to put in with the ewes. It was a fun day with my dad and my boy!

Here my babies are going through the ring. And a stop at the lambing sheds out to Antelope to haul some bucks for dad.



And sweat money is in hand!