It's been another wild day at the ranch! First thing this morning M called and wanted me to come move trucks for him and he said I might have to go get a load of fertilizer. As I was on my way past the farm I noticed that there were a lot more cows out in the fields than there were yesterday. Some had broken out of the calving pasture and some had come out of another pasture that R had moved them to a few days ago. M had checked the fence and left a gate open to move the cows through, but R had put them in the other gate and hadn't checked the one M had left open. Communication is such a hard thing sometimes.
I did have to go to Richland and get fertilizer in a truck I had never driven. It's an old tender truck that the local co-op is trying to sell and is letting us use. No problem except when I got to town there was a line of trucks in front of me and I didn't bring my book along. I did get to visit with my brother and play with one of the employee's dog. While there I got three phone calls--R telling me I might have to take a truck to Opheim to get a load of seed, my mom telling me she's not going to be home if I get over that way and plan to stop in, and my mother-in-law wondering where I'm at and what the plan is for delivering lunches.
I didn't have to wait long to get loaded and headed back to the field. I met M on the way because he had already run out of seed so was going to get some in Richland instead of going to Opheim for it to save time. I went to the field, left the fertilizer truck and walked back about a half mile to get M's service pickup, moved it to the new field and started walking back that half mile again. The neighbor's fencer, Bob, saw me walking and picked me up and gave me a ride to my pickup just as M was coming back with the seed truck. I went and got him and took him back to his tractor.
In the meantime, R was at the farm getting set up for two truckloads of the neighbor's cows to arrive. He had to get the chute in place so the trucks could unload and set up some panels. He was going to take lunch to J and C because he had to take more inoculant to J which was supposed to be delivered to Richland. He was having a quick sandwich when C called to say he was stuck with the sprayer and needed a chain. The inoculant hadn't been delivered so R had to go to Peerless to get it and then go work on getting C unstuck.
The plan was for the trucks to unload the neighbor's cows into a holding pen and leave them there for an hour or so, so that the cows and calves could pair up before moving them into a nearby pasture. Bob was going to handle that on M's instruction. M had told John that he didn't need to drive all the way up here to see his cows unloaded. I had a feeling that it was a bad idea to not have John, M or R there, and I was right again. I delivered lunch to M and then went home for a bit and was going to head back over when the trucks arrived. I waited too long and M called and said there was a mess, would I go over and make sure our cows were away from the action. He also told me to take a gun and shoot Bob because he causes more trouble by not doing what he's asked to do. He needs to concentrate on fencing.
Apparently, Bob and his helper, who is called "Dinger" for a reason, didn't keep the cows in the holding area to pair up and tried to move them immediately and they went everywhere. When I got there, L was trying to herd some calves which is never easy. We did finally get them into the pasture and noticed that one of our cows and one calf were mixed up with the neighbor's cows. We got them out and discovered that they weren't a pair. The cow headed up the hill so I went on the 4-wheeler to push her back out of the yard and she jumped a fence. I got the calf out of the yard where there were two cows hanging around. One didn't have a tag so I didn't know if the calf belonged to it or not.
I was on my way to push another group of our cows out of a coulee. They had gotten in there because we had to leave a gate open for the trucks. As I was heading out I saw those two cows and a calf go into our pasture through a gate that I didn't know was open (and shouldn't have been open). So, I had another circus trying to get them out of there and back where they belonged and Pete was not being helpful. We got that handled and I set off to get the cows out of the coulee so I could close the gate. They were no problem at all, thank goodness.
J and C have been scouting fields and finding wet spots. They are beginning to understand why they haven't been seeing any other drills in the fields around Opheim. M's phone has been burning up with all the action and trying to make alternative seeding plans. I thought last year was a farming year from hell and this one isn't looking to be much better so far. R was right when he said "it's going to be a long damn day."
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