My new catwalk! Cannot tell you how excited I am about this. When we are working cattle, one of the jobs is loading cattle into the alley and from the alley into the chute. Cattle move more smoothly when the alley has solid sides and curves toward the chute. This is all well and good, unless you are too short to see over the top of the solid sides of the alley. A catwalk allows easier access to the cattle and is a godsend to those of us who are much closer to five feet tall (me) than six feet tall (my husband).

Our cowboss, Joe, built this last weekend and it was a great surprise to come home to after yet another weekend on the road. We worked heifers yesterday and although it was a long, hot, dusty day, the catwalk made life easier for the shorter people (me and the kids) on the ranch.

And the neon pink rattle paddle? My daughter and I share it. Odd that the cowboys never seem to use it…