just another day off

Another day off from my employment off the ranch, just like any other day off. Lately it seems like those days have been filled with weather-related annoyances. But this morning I may have slept in a bit but the routine chores still need to be done. Oh, wait a minute…. what was that? Something doesn’t look right? It’s just the cows, hiding from the wind along the fence line by the barn. I can see them there by the trees in the pasture next to the barn. What was that? The bull mama cows are over there by the coop? Who’s that then? Looks like the bulls? Hey, who are those little bulls chasing? Those mama cows are bred so it must just be those little bulls starting to feel their oats. Way too many questions to answer so it’s time to investigate…

No such thing as routine. The weather has been snowy, windy and cold. We had over 5 inches of snow yesterday, today is windy again. Thankfully no subzero temperatures but with the wind it feels pretty cold. Drifting snow makes mobility in equipment and vehicles … interesting. One day the crazy wind created a ‘blizzard’ effect blowing the fresh snow about for about 20 minutes which promptly filled all the cleared snow from around gates and door openings. Guess what task had to be performed again?

What started the morning exercise was that the older bulls broke a wire on the fence gap… aka wire gate… and the gap fell over (with a little help from the rest of the group because one of them had already wandered through it). You know the saying, the snow is whiter on the other side… We always keep two fencelines between bulls and cows or between our cattle and the neighbors. It somewhat keeps the peace.

The bulls were probably rough housing a bit and someone got shoved into the gap which broke the wire and it fell over. Another scenario may be that one of them was scratching on the barbed wire, it broke at one of the gazillion splices and, look at that! It is now open up enough for a naughty curious bull to walk through . No matter what happened all those boys were out in the lane next to the pasture of the bull calf mamas and their calves. And from the bent post, wires with hair, loose and broken wires entry was obtained in the general area of the gathering between the two herds.

That caught our attention. The coming 2 year old bull is a second offender of escaping and getting in with the cows and little bulls. He is now mentally penciled onto the ‘list’. The ‘list’ is where livestock that are repeat offenders of some sort will be able to book a one-way ticket off the ranch. Not exactly sure if he is a fence jumper since we didn’t catch him in the act of escape, but he is suspect due to being in the same pasture with the same group of cows a month or so ago. That time he did not have the bull herd with him.

Plan A played out to sort the cows/little bulls into the corral, lock the bull out in the Big Hay Field with bull calf #015 since he didn’t want to go in the corral with mama.

Next get the bull group hay loaded up in the backhoe bucket, sort Mr. Escapee away from his little groupie #015, lock #015 out in the field, move Mr. Escapee through the barnyard to the lane gate…

… open gate, push him through (keeping eyes on the big bulls in case they decide to come in the barnyard for a frolic), follow him out with backhoe, close lane gate, send one boy to pick up the Long Pasture gap since it was laying in the lane so the backhoe can go through without running over the barbed wire, count bulls…. 1, 2, 3…. hmmm, a little short – count again….. okay, all there… drive in & hungry bulls follow.

Success. 🙂

Oh, how awesome, fence to fix… in the cold wind… and drifting snowballs. The Big Hay Field had several areas of drifting snowballs. At first glance we thought they were areas the cattle walked through but it was from the wind-driven snowballs across the snow. Never have seen that before.

What is it with the bulls today? Up to mischief and no good. Must be the weather. The video was cut short because #015 decided to go through the barnyard fence gap to get back to his dam who was locked in the corral with the rest of the herd and the one cow who was left behind, too. A few shakes of the hoof and he was free of the gap wire to join the cow that was out. Didn’t know she was out. She was on the other side of the barn with the gathering of bulls when the rest were moved into the corral.

Time to get this herd fed and then the heifer mamas and their offspring over in the garden field. And once that is all done, snow was cleared before the next round predicted for Thursday. Cous-Cous thinks that would be a wonderful idea… or at least a path like the kitties get around the house to the greenhouse.

Until next time…. stay warm!
~Karen