Moooving Day

Tis the season to be getting the cows to greener pastures.  We had a group of first-calf mamas and calves at my mom's and with my nephews wedding coming up and extra people around we thought it best to get them moved out to their summer pasture.  We hauled them out and that went pretty smoothly.  R would haul a load to the pasture while M and I sorted out another load.  There was another group near Richland that just had to move across the road.  The river runs through the pasture and washes out some fence every year so that required some fence repair first, but they are at home there now.

We had two groups at home, and I actually missed out on the initial moving of both of them.  The first group moved when we were ready to move them.  The second group decided on their own it was time to go and broke out a gate at the water corral.  The guys fought them for a couple of days, but then decided it wasn't worth the fight and sent them on their way east.  The bad thing was that they were then in adjacent pastures and we didn't want them to be in that situation for too long.  M was kind of dragging his feet because he wanted to get a generator backup for the solar well in the pasture they needed to go to, and our generator burned up in the fire.  R was really pushing to get them moved up there anyway so on a nice day we decided to do it.

Kade rode his little 4-wheeler up to the pasture to help us out.  What should have taken a half hour took all afternoon after we discovered some broken wires and calves on the opposite side of the fence as their mothers.  Since we weren't sure what was what and who was who we pushed a group into a holding pen between pastures and kicked them out into the new pasture by pairs, 100+ pairs so it took awhile.  Poor Kade at 11:00 was asking when was lunch.  I had to run home and get sorting paddles, etc. so I loaded up a cooler of drinks and grabbed some snacks (pretty slim pickings in that department at my house).  At least Kade wouldn't completely starve before we got him back home.

The sorting didn't go too bad except that the aging eyes made reading tags a bit of a challenge.  In the end, we had five cows without calves, not a bad percentage in my opinion.  We knew where the calf of one of those was, three found theirs on their own and we remembered that the last missing calf had died earlier.  Success!

Just as we were finishing up the wind came up, the clouds rolled in and it started to rain.  I thought Kade and I should head for home before it got nasty so we took off, he on his little 4-wheeler and me on mine.  We were just about to the gate when there was a big flash of lightning and a clap of thunder.  Scared the crap out of me and when I stopped to open the gate I saw that Kade was bawling as it scared him, too.  He said he didn't like thunder and I assured him that I didn't like it either.  I urged him on since it seemed a better idea to keep moving than to sit there in the rain.  M caught up with us when we were about halfway home and shortly after that the skies cleared and the rain stopped.  Kade and I went to the house for dry clothes and a sandwich, and he was feeling a lot better about life by the time R arrived at home.

Next on the agenda is our AI process and putting bulls out.  Then we can ignore them for a little while and hope they stay put.

Vacay in May? No Way!

Seeding progressed rapidly this year thanks to favorable weather, a second bigger drill and our hired man.  We had about a week left when M's sister messaged me about going to a race in Kansas.  She has a friend who has a camping space in the infield, and he was unable to go and wondered if she wanted to take it.  She was hesitant to even mention it, but M's mom and his brother both told her she should, that there was a chance we could go.  I'm thinking, it's May, there is no way.  We had about a week of seeding left, and I jokingly told her she had to clear it with J.  She did, M agreed, and then the scramble was on to get ready.  We really should have cleared it with R first, because he's the one that took on the extra duties.  Oops!  He agreed that his dad could use a break.

J was confident that they should finish by the weekend but said "Dad better get up in the mornings".  It meant a lot of early mornings and late nights for M trying to get as many acres covered as he could.

I had a busy week, too, with work on Monday.  We had bulls out that day.  R's girlfriend was home and got them back in and R came home to fix the fence.  Kade has tee-ball on Mondays so I wait for him and bring him home after work.  When I dropped him off his mom was telling me about the bulls being out and getting them back in.  I hadn't been home very long when R called and said the bulls were out again and could I go help get them in which I did.  At that time his girlfriend mentioned there was some smoldering old hay that had flared up again, and she had gotten it put out.

On Tuesday morning I went back to kindergarten for Grandparent's Day with Kade with M's mom.  He was so excited we were there. 

After that I ran around to do some errands and get Mother's Day gifts since I was going to miss Mother's Day at home.  R wanted me to go to his place and check on the spot that had flared up the night before so I did that.  He had spread it out some and put more water on it.

I just got back and was going to have some lunch when M called and said C went to spray and said our replacement heifers were out in the fields.  I ran up there with the Jeep and he and I tried to get them back in, but it wasn’t happening.  He needed a ride to Richland and had better things to do so I took him to town and grabbed a 4-wheeler on the way back and tried again.  M said if I put buckets with a little ground feed in the box of the Ranger they would follow me right in.  I thought that would be the case, too, but no!  They did come to see what I was doing and I eventually got them to a gate, but I opened it and not one would step through it.  They went in circles.  Even the dog couldn't believe that he couldn't get them to go.  I was so over it by then so I went home and arrived just before Kade got home from school.

I had a list of things to do and hadn't completed many.  Kade helped me do a little packing and was good with me not having time to play.  After he went home I ran to Richland to get our pickup that we had left at the station for service that morning.  I also needed to read meters and blow the dirt out of the back of the pickup.  I went to fuel it up and someone had left the nozzle on so when I turned on the pump it sprayed out all over the side of the pickup before I could get it shut off.  Lovely.  Really wanted to travel in a pickup smelling like diesel, and we had to load up the back with camping gear.

I went to see Sawyer and she was sick with a fever.  I rocked and cuddled her and wanted to stay but I had to get home to meet R and go get the heifers in.  Third time was the charm.  Helped to have two people and to have them out of the boggy coulee.

I decided to spray down the pickup before it got dark and see if I could get some of the diesel off.  That helped quite a bit.  We had to haul C’s motorcycle to SD because he’s selling it so we wouldn't be able to go thru a car wash on the way.  Then I looked at the forecast for Kansas City and it showed a 70% chance of rain and severe thunderstorms with hail and tornadoes all weekend.  Great.  I was getting the feeling that we shouldn’t be going.

M called just before dark and said he wasn't going to go too late so we could get all packed up.  Then as he was going to quit the tractor went into its burn-off and you're not supposed to shut it off when it's doing that so he worked a half hour longer.  Then his service truck ran out of propane just as he was getting to Richland.  He managed to get it started again and limped it to the tank to refuel.  He finally got home about 10 and had to have a haircut since his last one was before we went to Daytona in February!  So after that and packing and something to eat we got to bed about 12:30 and were up at 5 am to head out.  We had to go to the snowmobile trailer to find folding chairs and then stop and load C's motorcycle.

Finally we were on the road.  I didn't know that the plan was to pick his sister and husband up in Rapid City and head on the Sioux City that night until we got to their house.  It was raining while we unloaded the motorcycle and loaded up the camping supplies, and we ran into heavy rain in spots on the way to Sioux City.  We arrived there about 1:00 am.  We thought the motel bed was the best one we'd every slept on.  Not sure if it was that good or we were that tired.

Our brother-in-law had rented a motorhome for the weekend so once we arrived in Kansas City we had to go pick it up. He said the rental place was 16 miles from the track.  Well, by the time we got there, made numerous wrong turns and got to the track we'd put on about 80 miles!  We felt a bit out of place with our little rental motorhome, but it worked just fine for us.  We were all too tired to go find food elsewhere so we grilled some brauts and called it good.  There was cold beer so M and his sister were okay.  Her husband is a great cook, and we felt pretty special to have our own personal chef along.

Friday morning we were awakened by the sound of the Air Titans drying the racetrack for practice since there had been rain during the night...a first for us.  We watched the truck race that night from the top of the motorhome which was pretty cool.

Saturday morning M went out to the bathroom and came back and said there must have been a tornado in the campground, but it only struck around the party buses.  Someone had a really good time!  We were tired and in bed early and didn't hear a thing.  We tried out some Kansas City barbecue before the race which was pretty yummy.  M wasn't going to take a chance on not being able to see the race good so we had seats for the Saturday night Sprint Cup race.  Once again, I picked great seats, and the race was good except for the rain delay.  We got back to our camper about 1:00 am.

M getting into vacation mode

M and his sister on top of our camper ready for the truck race

Watching practice from the top of the camper

The chef, sister, and hubby

M's sister, me and M

We were still up fairly early on Sunday morning so we could pack up and get the camper back to the rental place by 11.  There had been so much rain during the weekend that we were happy to have the little motorhome that drove right out of our parking spot while the big, fancy coaches were waiting for a tow out of the mud.

It was a long drive home through rain and snow.  South Dakota had had a foot of snow and the interstate had been closed, but it was open again when we got there.  We did see a lot of vehicles in the ditch on the way and were fortunate to miss a tornado (or have it miss us).  We made it to Rapid City about 9 Sunday night.

The trip home was a bit slow as we were skidsteer shopping along the way.  We need to replace the one that burned up in our shop fire.

The boys finished up seeding on Saturday--in 29 days which is a record for us.  R worked hard to get his cow stuff done and then head to the field to seed.  He hauled some open cows and a couple of bulls to market and got our replacement heifers moved home so we can start them on the synchronization process.  On Sunday he had J and our hired man pour bulls.  We were surprised that J helped him.  His response was, "he kind of owed me".  It's nice to know they can work together and get things done without us.  Maybe there are more vacations in our future!

Despite our exhaustion, we had a great time.  M and his sister always have so much fun together.  Now we know what race camping is like and know what we need to do and bring next time.  Yes, hopefully, there will be a next time.  I have my doubts about getting to do it in May ever again.  This year was a bit exceptional.