A Day in the Life

This past week was sort of a whirlwind and I can’t say this one will be any better. But I don’t mean it was whirlwind in a bad way. I mean, it rocked.

Thursday we were up before dawn to help the neighbor, Friday more of the same, and Saturday had us pre-conditioning calves at our own place. So, I figure, that’s got to be good for at least three blog posts, right?

Since the October 4 blizzard, known as Atlas, it’s been sunny just a few days. Mostly it’s been snowing/raining and/or cloudy since then. Which has everyone in the country behind on shipping their calves, and has us behind on actually getting ours ready to ship! We’ve had 9 inches of rain since Oct 4th, and as you can guess it’s made the country kind of soggy. Actually, soggy may be an understatement.

I am going to “share” my way through last week via photos, one day at a time.

Thursday 24 October 2013

Catching a horse at sunrise.

It’s been so muddy (like I said above) that instead of driving nearly 6 miles into the pasture we only made it maybe halfway if that. So we had to ride in quite a ways. Avie, needless to say, was breathing like he was fat after trotting on soft ground that had a bit of frost on top.  You’d have thought I never ride him!  It was 28 degrees when we headed out. We all look like it’s winter, I know.

The light was gorgeous. It was a perfect day to trail cattle to the corrals, sort and ship.

These two bulls were pretty sure that they did NOT need to leave the pasture.  Lucky for us, since the trailers were not at the back of the pasture, they were able to load them in the pasture, and drive them home so we didn’t have to fuss with them making the trip.

I love this view. JUST LOVE IT! I feel so fortunate that there’s still calves around to ship.  Atlas wasn’t very forgiving.

 

The whole ride was soft and muddy. Gumbo isn’t exactly like riding through sand. This creek crossing below was right at a washed out dam. Needless to say the calves and cows struggled to get through it. Avie sunk to past his knees to plow through it and because I forgot to remove my shoo-fly before this ride started, it’s now a mass of gumbo and cockleburs.

When we got them corralled, we stopped to have lunch.  Sharon always makes the best food. Roast beef sandwiches, Swedish potato salad, beans, pickles, banana bread, candy bars and the Armstrong County Staple, Bud Light. Hehe!

We sorted the replacement heifers from the steers and heifers that were going to town. But like any good cattleman will do, you’ve got to look everything over more than once. It’s a rule.

I counted replacement heifers from outside the corral so I wasn’t in their way. These mamas got really close to me because they’re wanting their babies.  Mamas, don’t you know your babies are grown up enough now to NOT need you anymore?

 

 

Even the corrals were a muddy mess.  This pretty heifer sure did want to check me out.

A few trucks and several odd and ends loads later, the calves were one their way, and we were done. It was a gloriously long day – the best kind of day! We would do the same thing tomorrow.

Stay tuned!

Happy Trails!