Cow Days

The past few days have been dominated by cows.  On Friday we continued to work on making sure the barn and corrals were ready.  R and M's sister (Pam) arrived from Rapid City to help with the calf shipping.  M put everyone to work.  R and I worked on repairing the windbreak that was broken by snow, Pam helped with digging post holes, J and Jared finished cleaning manure out of the corral and set up the new chute.  P supervised all the work.  M finally put in the short alley way from a back pen to the barn--he'd been thinking about it for awhile, just hadn't had time to do it.  We put in a new post and hung a gate that had to swing two ways and it turned out just perfect.  He was pretty impressed with himself that it worked just like he had envisioned it.  When R saw what he was doing he wondered why he hadn't done it sooner as it would have made his life a lot easier during the winter.  We decided that it would a good time to get everyone together for our annual post-harvest family dinner so off we went to Dutch Henry's Club in Peerless.

Saturday was spent rounding up cows, one group from the west and one group from the east, into holding pens at the barn.  J brought out his new toy, a Can-Am Commander side-by-side.  We weren't sure he'd use it to chase cows but he did and took Pam along for the ride.  R and Jared were on 4-wheelers and M and I were in the pickup.  When we finished we went to the neighbor's to get their stock trailer.  They had gotten their cows rounded up, too, so we had a couple of drinks with them.  Holly brought wine for me but didn't have a corkscrew.  We ended up opening the bottle with a big screw and a vise-grip.  I wish I would have gotten a picture of that.

Sunday was show time to get the calves cut off from the cows, separated as to steers and heifers (boys and girls) and shipped out.  We had a lot of good help--C, his stepson, Neill, J, Jared, R, Pam, M and me--and it went pretty smoothly.  We sold our calves with the neighbor's and he purchased a portable scale this year so we trailered our calves to his place to be weighed and viewed by the buyer.  He didn't cut any back so must have liked the looks of them.  Our weights were down this year probably because of the slow start the calves had after the rough winter and wet spring.  The steers go to a feedlot in South Dakota and the heifers are staying in Montana to be bred.  Our neighbor's wife, Holly, is like a walking grocery store and had donuts, sandwiches, chips, cookies, pop, apples and candy available for everyone who helped.  There were over 20 people there at times.  The beer came out once all the trucks were loaded and all the work was done.  It occurred to me that it was like harvest in one day instead of six weeks.

Last year we shipped on Talladega race day.  All I asked for this year was that that not happen again.  It did, however.  C and Pam sat in the pickup and listened to it on the radio so the rest of us got periodic updates.

We went back to our place to brand R's heifers since we didn't get it done in the spring.  He had 13 and one was supposed to be mine because he didn't want the white one.  We kept her because she has a good mother so she's got potential.  We saved her for last.  I am in the process of getting my dad's brand transferred to me, but it's not done yet so we couldn't put my brand on her.  I told M he could put his brand on her, but he said we could wait and then proceeded to put R's brand on her--oops!  I told R that's what I always do, sacrifice for my children.

M branding R's heifer

Why is R smiling?  Because my heifer just got his brand on it!

Yesterday was another busy day with pregnancy testing.  We started at the neighbor's and worked about 300 head, had Holly's chili for lunch and then tested our 150 head.  R was hoping he could stay long enough to see his heifers checked, but he and Pam had to take off to head back to South Dakota before we got to his animals.  He was joking that he half hoped one of them was open so he could sell it and have some ready cash rather than waiting another year to have calves to sell.  When one of his heifers turned out to be open (not pregnant) the vet thought he'd be funny and paint a dollar sign on her back.  We got photos to send to R.

The "money heifer".  Yes, it was snowing this morning!

We had a friend come help us since we knew R had to leave right after lunch.  Everyone was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and there was a lot of joking and laughing going on.  The friend commented later that he didn't know working cows could be so much fun--we had a great group of helpers.

This morning I had orders to check on the cows and the heifer calves we're keeping to make sure they were all where they were supposed to be.  A lot of the cows weren't too concerned about their babies being gone but some were still hanging around the corral.  Since it was snowing (ugh) I put the 4-wheelers inside and did a few other chores. We were so lucky that the weather was good and the snow held off while we had so much going on.  This afternoon after M got back from hauling a load of calves I went to help him sort out the open cows that he will take to Glasgow to sell.

It's a good thing my husband loves me in Carhartts and Muck boots since that's all I've been in for the past week.  And yes, diamond earrings go with that.