Its now Friday May 16th and I am pretty gripped by a big feeling of thankfulness. We are on our third day with rain, it is a humongous blessing. Tomorrow our friends arrive from Halifax to spend two weeks with us, doing what we do, we enjoy them, ranching is more fun when we get to experience it through their eyes and the senses of humor they bring. Here are a few glimpses of the developments around since I last posted.
We lease a chunk of land from the government that has an invasive weed on it called “leafy spurge.” We have sprayed this weed with chemicals in the past but it just came back. It was then decided that our next best option would be to graze sheep on it, sheep will happily eat leafy spurge. Last week we picked up the sheep we contracted to buy, and we are now shepherds!!! This picture is in the moments after we unloaded them. They will stay at home until we have the chance to get the right fence going at the pasture. Our dog “Coffee” seems to be thrilled with this new addition to the ranch, her genetics clearly have her as a sheep dog. She stands in the middle of them and just wags her tail. It is so cute. Yesterday I caught her in a stalking pose and wondered what she was up to, I had never seen her do that before. I looked a little more widely and saw what she saw, the sheep were out. She was about to round them up.
Anytime a few errands need to be done in Estevan it means a get away for Grandma Shirley and I. We always include a stop at Tim Hortons.
A couple weeks ago I was visiting with an old friend at a funeral lunch. I asked her about her renewed health, she told me about her gym routine. I have been wanting this for myself. I believe that strength training is the best way to get bone density and keep me ranching for a long time. I reached out to her and said, ” I haven’t talked myself into this yet, but if I do, would you help me get started at the gym?” She generously said yes. I am a complete newbie at this but she is so fun to spend time with at 5:30 in the morning. I am feeling really good about it. I didn’t see this coming.
Morgan’s friend Tad joined us for an evening round up on Friday last week. I believe the original plan was for him to come over so that he and Morgan could podcast. However, there was this job to do first and he good naturedly joined in. Tad is the cowboy on the road.
A beautiful evening sky with the cows just about in the gate. During the chase we discovered one of our calves had gone blind and was malnourished. These are hard moments. We are really lucky to have found that our cousins Jenn and Marty have the patience and interest to nurture calves like this one. For many years now we have called them when we have a calf that needs extra time that we just don’t have on an ongoing basis. They have so many success stories. Marty came from their acreage near Estevan to pick this calf up the day after we found it.
In this picture Clare is in the foreground. We were getting these cow calf pairs home to the yard pasture so that we could tag, brand and vaccinate them the next day.
This was a “branding” organized on short notice. Russ was getting anxious about the amount of grass we have at home so put a rush on getting cow calf pairs to summer pastures. We pulled together enough friends for a small group of calves to get branded on what was a very hot and windy afternoon. In this picture Russell has castrated, Laurie is preparing to brand, Clare has applied the “deadman” a collar that acts to restrain the calf and Cassia is juggling needles and taggers. I was guarding the opening to the calf pen. Maybe because of the extreme wind I was not too busy, the calves mostly stayed put so i was able to sneak close to get this picture.
Life is always better when Laurie is near.
Sunday brought a bigger herd and a bigger crew. Before we got going Cassia had a few moments to herself and she chose to sit with the calves. I thougth this might have been one of the cutest pictures I have taken this year.
In this moment I was not concerned about fashion and it shows. Morgan told me I look like Red Green. I am not exactly sure who that is but I know its not a compliment. Here is a selfie of me at my post on Sunday. On this day, with almost double the calves in the pen and alot more movement I was kept on my toes. It was fun.
On Saturday Morgan was the lone roper, on Sunday we had four ropers, with three working at a time, this is Trevor Gordon. He has roped a calf by both back heels and is dragging it to the area where Clare or Morgan will apply the neck restraint. This looks harsh. I was pretty on edge the first time I saw this practice at a neighbors branding a few years ago. At the time we were doing all this kind of work at our ranch with a tipping table as part of our chute system. It was slower, less fun and more monotonous. I have become okay with the method pictured here and the drag that is part of it. At the gym Kim has got me doing situps on an incline bench. She has it set very steep, I can only do a max of 4 at a time right now, but it feels so good to let gravity stretch out my back. I find myself thinking about that as these calves get a stretch. When all the treatments are done and the rope is released they pop up and go to find their Moms, showing no sign of harm. After a short truck ride they will have an entire summer at their Mama’s side under the prairie sky. They thrive on Mama’s milk, green grass and sunshine, their vaccines protect them and they are much less likely to be stolen with that brand on them. I think about all that.
In this picture we have two stations going, Kenzie and Clare are applying the deadman restraints, Trevor and Tyce on horseback are keeping ropes tight as the calves get handled, Laurie is cleaning the iron and Cassia is enroute to the supply table to refill taggers. With three ropers the ground crew was kept very busy.
After the branding work was done and a snack was shared at our table the work of the ranch was waiting. Cassia stayed to help. Here she took a time of waiting around to check cows from a new viewpoint.
I got a message from my sister early on Sunday, saying she had her mind on the women in our lives as Mother’s Day dawned. She had her breakfast on this plate and remembered them. The plate is something I made for a Christmas gift. All four of us sisters have a copy now. As for us at the ranch, we had decided to delay celebrating Mothers Day as we were branding and just couldn’t do both well. However, Sunday night I took my plate to the grief support group I am co-leading, there was “homework”, bringing this to share was part of mine.
Wednesday morning brought with it rain. It was such a welcome sight. It meant for some wet conditions. I got called with a request to deliver dry gloves. This allowed a good close up picture of these two in the pasture.
We had decided to celebrate Mother’s Day by going out for lunch with Grandma Shirley on Wednesday. We figured we could really relax only after getting the newly branded calves and their Mamas to their pastures and that meant Wednesday was the day. When I was deciding what to wear I spotted some old t shirts in my closet. They were given to me for Christmas about 15 years ago. The black one says “Morgan’s Mama Bear” with a picture of a sherriff’s badge on it. The green one says “Jill’s Number 1 Mom” with a picture of a lion and Gina’s says “Gina’s Mom” with a picture of a dog. I decided to wear all three in layers and put a sweatshirt over top and then slowly remove layers as lunch progressed. But it didn’t quite go that way. Russ insisted on a photoshoot by the banner at the Flying M. It was fun.
It was heartwarming to have my Bronco full as Russ, Morgan, Clare, Shirley and I left the restaurant and headed to Jean’s ice cream stand. It was cold and rainy but we were celebrating. Afterwards we ate ice cream in the car, cruised around town and did an errand together. I loved it. We dropped Shirley off eventually and headed home. There was goofiness that resulted from the music we loved and this is when the following picture was taken. Russ was driving dramatically and Morgan was into it.
Later that day I entered my final distance to complete this Mother’s Day virtual challenge, something I signed up for in an attempt to honor my Mom by taking care of myself. It had some really nice perks to it and they will be sending me a medal in the mail.
The three days with rain and wind have meant there are puddles all over which is wonderful but also the cows gave been stirred up and not doing so well with their job of mothering. The crew found lots of troubles like cows and calves separated by fences. The calf pictured below was brand new and abandoned. Its ear was bleeding leading Russ to think that a coyote had been nibbling on it. When he and Clare found it he called me to prepare the dog room for the arrival of a cold wet hungry 600 lb calf. He carried it in and then had to sit down and rest. It is huge. Clare stayed in and took care of it. It needed the attention that Clare had for it.
The linoleum is hard for calves to stand on so when this calf, whom Clare named “Clifford the big red Calf,” started perking up Clare guided it out to the mat in the porch. This video shows it taking its first real steps.
A couple hours later the guys came to pick up Clifford and take her back to the pasture, not very optimistic that the Mama cow would seek and find it. It was quite a load for Morgan to take down the stairs, making me appreciate Russ even more for the trip up the stairs. This video shows Clare’s progress with Clifford and the trip out.
The following video documents the moments when it was discovered after lunch that Clifford was in fact not motherless. It was quite a good news story that “Costco” had come to claim Cliford.
It’s now Saturday evening as I write, this cattle move happened last night, a herd of cows and calves came home for branding tomorrow. It was a crazy move, cows were moving fast, things went wrong, things went right, it was all hands on deck and Clare was worth her weight in gold. I took this picture from my spot where I was perched to turn the cows west towards home.
I found this amusing….Judy Blume and Tanya Tucker were having a water break with Coffee dog.
A good picture of Clare hard at work.
This was taken this morning at the Regina Airport, the Fentons have arrived! A fresh chapter of our spring season begins. From Halifax to Regina by 10:05am local time. Quite a day for them.
Signing off from the Bar MWđ
As Far As The Eye Can See 