It's been a busy weekend on the ranch--actually on the neighbor's (John and Holly) ranch. On Friday we rounded up their cows, all 300+ of them with four 4-wheelers, a motorcyle and two pickups. It's pretty rugged country with a bog through the middle, but the roundup went pretty smoothly. I thought I was a goner once. Holly and I were on one side of the pasture and easily got our bunch rounded up and headed in the right direction. I could see the bike in the distance trailing a couple of animals so I went to see if they needed help. It was John herding two bulls. It was slow going, but he was doing okay. As I headed back to the big bunch I noticed that a calf had turned back. It was in some brush, and I wasn't sure John would see it so I tried to catch up to it and turn it back in the right direction. Easier said that done. It could run a lot faster in that rough stuff than I could go on the 4-wheeler. I came over a rise and there was a trench at the bottom. I was pretty sure I was going ass over teakettle and thought "this is gonna hurt." Luckily, I didn't wreck but hit hard enough that the back of the box on the 4-wheeler flew open and the fencing box flipped completely over. I had to stop and pick up some tools. I considered myself lucky that the sledge hammer didn't clock me. I tried to catch up with the calf and found myself in the bog and about tipped the 4-wheeler on the side before getting out of there. I usually get "4-wheeler knees" after a ride, but this time I had "4-wheeler butt"! And, now the fencing box is cleaned out and neatly organized.
Lucky for me, John was able to intercept the calf and it saw the bulls and followed them. We then had to trail the herd a couple of miles south to the corral. We had to laugh at the herd of black moving across the hill with a white cow and calf smack dab in the middle. That would be Snowflake and her calf. Holly got stuck in the back with a slow calf that wasn't feeling well. I think she would have just thrown it on the 4-wheeler and given it a ride if she could have.
We had a sandwich at the Sugar Shack which is an old house on the property (Holly has cute names for things and animals) and got home in time to have a shower and get ready to go out for dinner.
M decided it would be a good time to have our annual post-harvest family dinner and we invited John and Holly and their helper to come along. We had good food and great company and a very enjoyable evening. Some of us were tired and knew we had another busy day in front of us so went home early. Some others stopped downtown for a few more drinks.
We were at it again by 8:00 am on Saturday. It took about three hours to sort cows from calves and then heifer calves from steer calves and then heifer calves to sell from heifer calves to keep. Then we had to run all the calves to sell through and give them their vaccinations and put buttons in their ears and just vaccinate the heifer calves that they were keeping. That took about another three hours but really went pretty smoothly. My job was to keep the button gun and the vaccinating gun loaded. We found our cow-calf pair and one of our yearlings which we knew were in with the neighbor's cows. We also found a calf that belonged to another neighbor.
Holly had chili in the crock pot at the Sugar Shack so we unwound with lunch, loaded up our critters and were home in time to relax on the couch to watch the NASCAR race. All that fresh air and activity left me ready for bed early. I think I get a few days to myself now to catch up at home which is good since the maid forgot to show up again!
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