I spent the weekend teaching my first class
of 2020! Being the first weekend of the
month (and lots of people aren't even back
from vacation since school didn't start
until Tuesday...) I was happy to have
a small group of 6 people.
(Although I still only had 2 just before
8:00 and was getting super nervous!)
Anyhow.
Monday morning I slept in and
then got up, packed up my stuff
and got ready to head up to the ranch.
It's 4 hours from school to our house.
OR its 4 hours from school to the ranch.
As I was getting ready to head out,
Kyle called and said the women
had just let him know they were going
to be there around 4:00 and wanted to
work the cows then instead of Tuesday
morning - which was fine since I was
going to be up there by 2-ish anyway.
When I got up there the weather was PERFECT!
Kyle picked up a bag of feed to toss in the
back of the UTV I was going to drive and put
his finger through a spider web.
Dropped the back and sure enough.
There she was.
a Brown Widow.
(His shop is INFESTED with these things...)
The internet says they are more poisonous
than black widows, but they don't inject the
same amount of neurotoxin.
So they COULD kill you if they wanted to...
but they don't.
Whew!
EEEEEEWWWWWW.
Once I took some pictures, he dispatched it.
And we headed out to gather up the cows.
The cows we were working this time were
the 7 girls Kyle has brought up from the
town farm over the past few months.
These all needed to be vaccinated and have
seeders placed. Next Monday they get
another shot and the seeders pulled and
then the bull shows up that afternoon.
He will be on the ranch for 60 days.
So... that's what was on tap.
Since these girls are what Linda calls
"Wellfare cows" - in other words, she feeds
them every day (and they have come to expect it)
they are usually pretty anxious to run TO
the UTV and follow it in hopes of food.
So we had a bag to rattle if we needed it,
but we were pretty confident they would just
see us, come running, and follow us up to
the facility.
HA!
As if.....
We ended up rounding them up like we would
the other herd.
It wasn't hard.
Just unexpected.
But we had them all in the facility and
waiting quietly by the time Linda and Gina
showed up.
At which point Gina remembered that she
left the vaccination gun in the freezer
back at the town farm.
So Linda had to run into town and buy
some syringes.
But that was also ok because we had a few
minutes to kill until Mason showed up.
(He is the college student who worked
for Linda in town over the summer and
who helps out Kyle once in awhile when
he needs it. It was nice that he was there because
he did the ear tags and ran the chute so
Kyle didn't have to be everywhere.)
Gina, waiting for Mason to place the
new ear tag before inserting the seeder.
My tools, the hot shot and fly pour on.
And one of the cows waiting her turn...
Mason up front waiting while Gina does her thing.
Mason and Gina at work.
(Linda was on the other side taking pictures.)
The yellow box is the electronics for
the scales, a cow steps on, you enter her
tag number, wait for her to stand still
and then push the button my record her weight.
Usually my job, but Linda was doing it this time.
This cow wasn't too excited about her
new earring... Mason had to work for this one.
When we were all done we headed out back
to see the babies.
There are 16 on the ground now.
Cute little critters!
The sun was going down and it was cooling off,
but everybody had a good time checking
out the cows.
#2 was coming over to see what I was doing.
Looks like a cow on a mission, eh? (grin)
All in all, a successful afternoon/evening's work.
Linda, Gina, her husband and baby all left
and Kyle, Mason and I stood out in the pasture
for another hour or so and visited by
the light of a beautiful 3/4 moon.
Until we were FROZEN SOLID.
And then we came in, put everything away,
went in the house to heat up some dinner
and wrap up in blankets to thaw out.
Tuesday morning I helped him put
the rest of the stuff away and then
I said "bye" and headed back down south.
Today I'm busy doing all the chores I usually
spread out over the week.
I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow
morning (check up) and then a meeting
tomorrow night.
And then it's Friday again and time to head
south to teach school again.
Whew!!!
And now I have to run into town to drop off
some stuff Rod forgot and swing by the
VW dealership to see Jim and pay for some
parts Kyle ordered that finally came in.
And then WalMart to pick up my synthroid.
And probably get some FOOD for Rod to
eat over the weekend.
Talk again tomorrow!
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