Adjusting

We had our first warm day, and the annual flip-flop in attention  - and clothing - has arrived. I took off my long johns and switched to unlined leather gloves. We’ve been so focused on calving, and now it’s turned warm and the calves born each day has fallen so we can look at everything else that needs done. 

The catkins on the quakie out our front window are drooping in the breeze. They started on the south side of the tree and gradually covered its circumference as time passed. The quaking aspens are the first to turn yellow in the fall and the first to come alive in the spring. I ran my fingers across the silken surface of the caterpillar-like catkins just for good measure.

The springtime birdsong is back and so familiar. Meadowlarks, robins, killdeers, all singing their welcome.

My sister Becky started trapping gophers again, a sure sign of spring. Her morning route yielded 9 varmints today so she was feeling gratified. She’s channeling our Mom, who in later years got a bit obsessed with lowering the gopher numbers on the ranch. Dad and Mom fought gophers all their lives (and quackgrass and burdock) but after all that work, the varmints always win out don’t they?

We’ve had the first bonfire of the season hosted by my brother Rich. He had parked his flatbed trailer some ways away from the fire to hold all the side dishes folks brought. He provided the hotdog fixings and a smaller fire to roast them because it’s impossible to get close enough to the bonfire with your weinie stick. It was the first warm evening of the season and it felt good to stay out after dark with our backs to the fire.

My Dad liked to host bonfires too. He spent a lot of time in his semi-retired years running a tractor piling downed timber from trees planted by my great grandfather to acquire land under the Timber Culture Act of 1873. That reminds me of what Mark’s grandpa used to say. He modified the proverb of “one generation plants the trees, and another gets the shade” to “one generation plants the trees and the next generation (or the one after that) cleans them up.”

I’m trying to be energized by spring, not overburdened, but it’s taking some doing. Along with the thrill of a new season comes the worry, about water shortages, high fuel prices, escalating feed costs and uncertain markets. We need to keep our wits about us and proceed with caution. But we have our health and that makes us very grateful. The calves will get branded, the ditches will run water for however long they last, the herd will make it to the mountains. And as Mark says when I ask him how we’ll get by in another dry year, “we’ll adjust.” 

our friend Dave helping move pairs

love me some catkins