I'm a little behind on my blogging.....oops!
We finished our harvest a week ago. What a good feeling! The last stuff we cut was hail damaged so everyone kind of lost interest. J was wondering what happened to all his help as M decided he and R were going to swath and bale some of the hailed wheat that wasn't worth combining. We ran to Peerless for burgers and beer to celebrate the day we finished up. It had been a long haul. J spent most of this week helping a neighbor finish up. There is still some wheat standing in the area, but harvest is finally winding down.
A couple of weekend ago we pregnancy tested most of our herd. M scheduled with the vet thinking that if we didn't have rain we'd be done with harvest and if we did have rain the combines would be sitting anyway. We did have a rain delay so it all worked out, and we're that much ahead of the game now. We had originally planned to just do the 120 heifers. Then the vet called and asked if we didn't want to do the cows, too. As M was saying "I think we can make that work", I was vigorously shaking my head "no!" because that meant another 120 cows plus vaccinating 120 calves. I bet him that we'd be finishing up in the dark since the vet is always late and he likes to hear himself talk so gets a bit sidetracked at times.
We worked them at the neighbor's corral which is bigger and a more efficient setup than ours--and closer to our pasture. We had to round up the day before which went pretty smoothly. The cow puppy got some more work and now that he has found his calling is a bit overzealous. R let his puppy have a turn and he was a bit disappointing. Apparently he's more lab than border collie.
Our preg testing day went well. The vet was only a little bit late. We ran through the heifers first, had lunch and then did the cows. It was almost 5:00 by the time we were done with them so the vet had to leave so he could make the border by 6:00 (he's Canadian). Then we quickly ran the calves through to vaccinate them and sent them all back to their pastures.. So, I lost the bet because technically we were done before dark although it was pretty dark by the time we got everything loaded up and headed home. We were a little disappointed in our AI results, but the conditions weren't good when we tried to do it. On the bright side, the bulls did their job and we didn't have many opens.
Last weekend we went to Scobey for a high school football game to see Jared play, visited M's parents along with J and our granddaughter. Then we all went out for our annual post-harvest supper--I think there were 14 of us.
We moved a bunch of cows home from our pasture near Richland the other day. Once in awhile we haul them home, but usually we trail them home, about 5 miles, and that's what we did this time. The puppy got some more work in although there wasn't much work to do as the cows pretty much moved themselves home. They've done it before and knew where they were going. It was good for M and the puppy to learn more about each other, though. There was one cow that kept turning around and looking at the dog. Finally she stood there too long with some attitude and the dog let her have it. That was the last time she turned around. The cows were used to Pete so have some respect for dogs. It's just so amazing to see the natural instinct in cow dogs.
M has been busy with his fall plans, mostly fencing. He fixed the spot that got washed out by the big rain storm this summer. It was kind of important to get that done before we moved any cows home. Then he started on the calving pasture. When a corner post floated out of the ground this spring he decided it might be time to move it and redesign the fence to get it out of the bog. He also moved the gate. I helped him the past couple of days. I was feeling guilty that I'd kind of been on strike since we finished harvesting and trying to get some of my stuff done at home. One day I unclipped the wires and pulled out a few posts and the next day I clipped the wires back up on the new stretch. The first day was a beautiful day to be out. Yesterday, not so much. Pretty windy!
Next on the agenda is more fence work, moving the cows closer to home, pregnancy testing our last bunch, cleaning corrals in preparation for winter and winterizing things. I have a "honey-do" list of things around the house, too, but I have to wait for inclement weather before I dare ask him to start on those. Just hoping we continue to have decent weather because this is time time of year we try to catch up on all the things we didn't have time for during the summer.
