I was just getting sheets out of the washer to hang on the line when M came to get me to work cows. He decided we needed to take advantage of the semi-nice day and get one group of cows sorted and moved. Our winter is coming back to haunt us by continuing to cause us extra work. Normally, we can sort as the cows calve but this year we had nowhere to go with them so ended up with just a big mess. That meant we had to get a bunch in, sort pairs and haul them to various pastures.
We had rain overnight so the road was still a muddy mess when M picked me up and hooked onto the stock trailer. We had two miles to go from our house to the barn, and it wasn't a lot of fun. It was about 11 when we started sorting. The corral is sloppy so we tried to not have to run everything in there. We tried to just run pairs into the corral out of the holding area. It wasn't the most efficient system and M got one 4-wheeler stuck in a ditch. It isn't an irrigation ditch but looks like one this year! We did manage to get a trailer load together that way and took them up to a pasture north of our house. R went first with the calves and M had the cows but got stuck trying to turn around in the yard so we had to get a tractor out to pull the pickup and trailer through.
M decided we had no choice but to run all the rest of the bunch into the corral and sort into the barn. After much yelling and cursing we had another load ready, this one to go to Opheim. It wasn't raining here when we left but the clouds looked ominous to the west. Just before we got to Opheim we ran into rain and by the time we got to the pasture to unload it was pouring! Our plan was to let the cows and calves pair up in the corral while we went for another load. R told M he had better get out of there while he could and he would come back later and push them out of the corral and into the pasture.
M was determined to get another load over because he didn't know what he was going to do with all the cows still in the corral. He didn't want to let them out and then have to try to get them in again tomorrow. I told him he was crazy, there was no way we'd make it back in there the way it was raining. I also didn't think my brother and his wife would appreciate us tearing up their road with a trailer load of cows through the mud.
It rained most of the way home but was still dry at the barn although we had a little rain after we were back to sorting. C had been finishing up some seeding so M talked him into helping us sort some more. We put together two more loads to go to Opheim tomorrow in separate pens and took two small loads to two other pastures. We sorted out a cow of our neighbors and put her by herself. While we were looking over some calves I heard a bang and then the sound of splintering wood. That cow put her head under the gate and pushed it up and out and tore out a section of wall and broke a post. The next time we ran her through it was with her calf and straight out the door toward the pasture she needs to be in. M said he didn't really care where she went. After a little repair work we were back in business. Now we just have to decide which of the cows that lost calves we are going to keep and which ones we'll sell.
Since we were only a mile or so from R's house when the sky fell in he just went home so he was off duty at 4:30, while M and I got home about 9:30. Then I had to retrieve my sheets from the line and dry them in the dryer since they had gotten rained on, heat up some leftovers for supper, put the sheets back on our bed and take a shower to wash all the ticks off (I found two crawling on me today--gross!) I need a maid!
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