Posts Tagged With: #ranchinginwinter

I told Uncle Joe Sunday night that I was going to go to work on Monday, it was too cold for me to go to the sale. He told me that was not allowed, it is a family Holiday. So running gates is where I was. Toni was buying bulls, bidding on one for us, and buying some for one of her clients. Who was online watching to make sure she did it right, but he did not want to bid online. Kaine, Kade and Addy were riding at the sale, they took Pow Pow, Poor Ole Big Kev and Benelli. Anna was running gates with Traci. Ben was sorting bulls with Jolene and Mar and Jaxsen was watching kids. Erina came and her and Marlo were on my gate team, with Amy and Luke. Terry also came but he was watching the dog. Sale was good. It was cold, but it has been colder. We did not get a bull because they sold really well. We are happy for BB Cattle Co on the success of their cattle sale (had heifers sell too so not a technical bull sale).  We got home to Bayley acting off, so she had to come in. Then we noticed Rosie was down rolling, so she got to come in too. We spent quite a bit of time getting the old mares back on the road to recovery. The super cold weather is just really hard on the mares over 20. We have them by the house, getting extra feed, lots of straw, but we can’t fix the weather just make it as comfortable as possible.

On Tuesday Kane was home sick. I guess he had too much fun at the sale. Toni checked cows in the cold, we lost one calf Tuesday morning. She was right by the house but of course it was a heifer and calved off of the straw. She was not calving when Ben and I left and was on the straw, but by the time Kendel left she saw it over by the fence and I sent Kaine out. Toni got there shortly after that. Luckily we are basically done calving, so hopefully the last few do not calve in this cold. Kade got stuck doing chores, Toni had to pull him out. Sarge decided the cold was a good reason to act like a fool when we were working on him. Kade went down to feed grain, Kaine’s chore, since he was sick. Bayley got turned back out and Rosie went into a pen with Shorty down at the corral. Rosie is super tame so a person forgets that she isn’t halter broke. When she wasn’t feeling well on Monday she was fine to halter and lead, by Tuesday she was back to her adverse self so Toni just got a rope around her neck and got her to the corral. Toni wasn’t a huge fan of Rosie on Tuesday which she normally loves her so Rosie was probably a real pill. Toni went and stayed with grandma Tuesday night.

It was even colder Wednesday morning. Mom went and stayed with grandma on Wednesday. Kaine was still home sick from school. Toni checked cows and gave Devo’s calf, Levon (or Lebron, or Devon depending on who you are), some pets. We are getting close to starting foaling, so checking on mares on top of everything else. Toni tried to find her overalls but ended up wearing a pair the boys had outgrown. Luckily she still fits in child size clothing sometimes. It was cold, but Sarge and Laroy still needed to get worked on. Laroy has been really spoiled his entire life so can be a bit pushy. Sarge still is a bit scared but getting better everyday.

More snow Thursday. I was supposed to stay with grandma Thursday night, but there were so many wrecks on 395 I did not want to drive to Connell after, so I switched with Leslie and stayed Saturday. Toni and I were supposed to get up early on Friday to sort cows and put CIDRs in, but Toni talked to Mark, our AI Tech, and we postponed a week. We were happy when the kids got home safely. We had lots of checking and bedding livestock down on Thursday.

Friday we checked, fed, broke ice, etc. Snow just makes everything take a lot longer. I told Anna to check the roads before she came home. She says she did. Toni and I got lots of pictures feeding the mares in the snow. We got more snow on Friday. Oh and Happy Valentine’s Day. We spent most of the day with our favorite gals out in the desert.

More snow on Saturday. By afternoon the world was like a snowglobe with this gentle pretty thick snow coming out of the sky. Ton’s pu got stuck in the alley. Jaxsen lets the freeze miser run all over and it has caused a big mess in the alley. We did get pulled out by Kaine. I used our dump trailer and hauled grass hay out, Jaxsen helped me. Anna, her friend Kaitlyn, the dogs and I checked cows. Kade went and helped at a food bank on Saturday then Keegan and Kade ran around the ranch doing boy stuff. Kaine still didn’t feel good enough to join them. The mares were still really pretty out in the snow and we didn’t get stuck in the desert. Even with the bad weather the mares out in the desert look really good. We have tubs out with them, grass straw, and we are feeding them. They are all pretty sassy too.

More snow/rain on Sunday. We sorted cows Sunday to turn out with bulls. The kids’ friend Keegan came out and helped, so we had Kade, Kaitlyn and Keegan running gates in the alley. Sorting would have gone better if we had used a kid that didn’t have a K name. It was freezing rain on us while we sorted so to say things were slick between the snow and the ice would be an accurate statement. We sorted off the Herefords that are too late to AI and put a Hereford bull in to make mom happy. Last year we just put them in with the Angus bull and mom is not happy about all the black ballie calves.  The bull is a polled bull we raised that we really like. We also picked out the bulls we are putting out with the heifers, lots of debate. We finally narrowed it down. Bulls got moved into a feedlot pen so we could turn the cows we are AIing out in the pasture. The other cows all got bulls turned out.

I know people say weekends  are  to recharge your batteries but I don’t think we ever use weekends for that purpose. For us weekends are to try and get done all the stuff we didn’t get done during the week. But we mostly have fun getting everything done as a family. Sorting cows always brings families together. Anyone that has sorted cows can get a good a laugh out of that statement.