Oktoberfest

Today was a good day. Mark and I moved the freshly weaned heifer calves to a new pasture. My dog Dot got stepped on two days ago and is carrying a back leg so I didn’t have her help. It’s good to have to herd cattle alone once in a while so you know how much you appreciate your dog. The calves looked bright and healthy. They handled smooth like a herd of sheep. They flowed as one through the last gate and across the canal bridge to their new pasture and buried their faces in the sward. Except for the gnats making Jane shake her head continually, it was perfect.

Mark is feeling good (me too) to have the calves weaned and vaccinated and the mother cows checked for pregnancy. We weaned three weeks early in response to dry conditions. Without their calves, the cows will require less feed and water, and will climb to the higher reaches of their mountain pasture.

We woke to rain in the night. Love the rain – hate that it will bring the bright autumn leaves off the trees. We were unsaddling the horses and I looked around at the trees and thought, “Wendy, come out here tomorrow and just sit. Don’t let this moment of beauty get by because you’ve only got a moment.” How right I was.

Sweet Leah asked me to get pumpkins with her and Emma. Oh, how Emma wanted to get down and run around! But she can't walk yet, so she just pumped her legs and squealed as we carried her around the orange orbs lounging around in a crumpled array. God did good when he made a pumpkin patch. You can drive by a patch without noticing it all summer and then all of a sudden it freezes and there they are!

Mark has been beating it back and forth to the mountains every day, as has the rest of the ranching and recreating community apparently, because the washboards on the gravel road are terrible.

The days are getting short. It’s surprising to find it getting dark at 7:30!? We finished up pregging the cows by 4:00 and then had to get the cows moved and back on water. It was black dark and a long bouncy ride home still to go.

The watermaster shut the canal down that flows in front of our house to save storage for spring. We were still irrigating to hold water in the soil over the winter, but this will have to do. The crystal clear water is flowing, but ever so slowly, and will soon sink and be gone. Now we hold our breath and wait.

Mark talked to a cattle buyer this morning who told him that across the state ranchers are sending cows to market because of a lack of feed and/or prohibitive wintering costs. We drove by the friday sale at the local auction yards and the line of stock trailers waiting their turn at the scales stretched back on itself.

We got a weight on every calf and every cow this fall. Drought decisions are imminent. Mark is evaluating each cow in the herd and deciding who stays and who goes.

There's a saying he repeats in times of stress, “never holler woah in a tight spot.” It means to stay steady, keep pressing on even though you'd like to freeze up. I always think of a horse that’s stepped in a bog. Don’t pull her up - oh no - lean in and encourage her on. Be smart, be calm, don't panic. 

They came to check out Emma

a happy grandma took this

an easy move

winding down