Riding the Range

We've had a few days of rain so the farming duties are put on hold for the time being.  That means it's time to catch up on our ranching duties.  It was high time to get the few stragglers out of the calving pasture, especially since they weren't staying in very well.  Most of them belong to a friend so we got them all in and had him come and check them and decide what he wanted to do with them.  We had a few that were good at preg checking time but had apparently lost their calves somewhere along the line.  Some of those we decided to keep so hauled them to pasture.  Our friend had eleven left to calve and four of those were open.  M and R hauled the other seven over to Opheim where he has some of his other cows.  They will be calving on their own, whenever and however.  We've run out of time and interest.

It was interesting getting the trailer to the barn and back out again with the mud.  I was having flashbacks to the days when we were trying to haul out pairs this spring.  It would be nice to do it on a dry day!  We had to use the tractor to pull the pickup and trailer away from the barn, but after getting out of the yard it was smooth sailing.

This morning R was over early to get the good trailer to take a load of cows to Glasgow to the sale.  I went along to double check the numbers of the cows he was taking.  It took some maneuvering again to get the trailer to the barn, and the tractor was again required to get out of the yard.

I've been determined to get my mower out of storage and back to my house so I can cut my grass before it requires a swather so M said he'd get it loaded up today.  First we had to replace the battery and then he suggested that we ride out on the 4-wheelers and check the cows and take mineral out.  As we were heading to the first pasture I noticed some animals in our neighbor's adjoining pasture.  We weren't sure if they were the neighbor's or if some of ours had jumped the fence.  We delivered our mineral and found a neighbor's heifer in with our cows so from there we went to check out the other animals we could see.  There were nine more of the neighbor's heifers running the fence line between their pasture and ours.  Since there were only nine we were pretty sure they weren't supposed to be there.  M called the neighbor and sure enough they weren't supposed to be there.  But, all the gates were open between that pasture and their place because "I didn't think they'd go that far".  Really?!?  And, he'd maybe find time tomorrow to get them out.  We know how that goes because he had two pair in another of our pastures for at least three days; until we opened the gate and they walked out onto the road.  He was going to get them out when he had time, but he hasn't fixed his side of the fence in two years so we weren't holding our breath that he'd get to it.

We delivered more mineral and filled up the cattle oiler.  While M was doing that I was watching the calves.  I saw one of my cows, and her baby looked good and healthy.  There was one curious calf that was checking out the 4-wheeler and then came up to me and was licking and biting at my pants.  Not sure what that was about, but it was pretty funny.  From there we checked more fence, and I found two of our cows and their calves out.  I met up with M and we went back to get them in, and they were nowhere to be found.  M thinks I was hallucinating, but apparently we have a couple of fence crawlers.  Actually, he could see where they had been bedded down on the wrong side of the fence, and we found the loose wires in a coulee where they probably got out.

M was worried about the neighbor's heifers jumping in with our cows so I suggested that we give them a little chase so we did.  We chased them to the first gate on their way back home and closed it so hopefully, they won't be back too soon.  It just gets so frustrating when your range management depends on your neighbor's or your neighbor's lack of management.  I always tell M that he's too nice when dealing with the irresponsibility of others.  The old saying is "good fences make good neighbors". 

By the time we got back home R was already back from Glasgow.  I finally got my mower home and M mowed the backyard while I made lunch, and then I mowed the front this afternoon.  There is more rain in the forecast so I was really hoping I could get it done today.

I did enjoy riding the range with the sweet peas in bloom and the bluebells starting to show up.  I think I spent more time looking at the flowers than the cows.