Shirley Basin Sunset

I drove to Laramie and back yesterday to conduct two interviews for the Roundup. My trip home coincided perfectly with the beautiful Wyoming sunset.

Time Apart

Emmie and Pearl are spending some time with my family due to my busy schedule these past couple weeks. I haven't seen them since January 2nd, and am ready to have them back.


From what I hear, my parents are ready to send them back. Look at those two faces, there's no way they would ever cause any mischief...




Except when Pearl realizes that there is a BALL attached to Kyle's hat on Christmas morning.



Or when there is a bird to be chased, never mind that turkey outweighs Pearl by about 20 pounds.



This is Emmie during most of Pearl's wild romps. She is the kind one, who strives to stay out of trouble. Pearl, on the other hand, searches for trouble.



It troubles Emmie.




They have no doubt been kept busy feeding. Although without my camera bag I'm not sure what Pearl will find to stand on.



and doing all sorts of other things, similar to what can be seen in these pictures.



They will also have the company of Shorty and Mister, my parents dogs. Technically Shorty is my mom's, and Mister belongs to Holly, but they're really everyone's dogs.



















This was only done for the photo op. As can be seen by their faces, it was a huge success...

Feeding more hay

As mentioned before, feeding is a daily, or every other day chore in the winter months. Feed accounts for the largest single expense on most ranching operations.
Hay like this costs about $65 dollars a ton (a ton is 2,000 pounds). Then you have to pay to have it delivered, which costs about $5 a mile right now. We have our own trucking operation, so that is a little more than we pay, but the offset of paying less in mileage is that we have the time invested in getting it home.
Each of the bales you see in this picture weighs between 1,200 and 1,300 pounds. So, with a little math, you can figure out there is a lot of money sitting in this pen, known as a stack corral.
Stack corrals typically have much higher fences than the average fence to keep out animals like deer, who also love high quality hay.

I am not involved in the hauling of hay aspect very often. However, next time I am you better believe I will have my camera along, so I can share with you the entire process of getting hay from the field to the cow.



I am more involved in the feeding of the hay to the cows. I stop at the stack corral seen above and pick up one bale of last years hay.
If hay is put up (as in cut, and baled) correctly, and stored correctly, it can last for several years. If it isn't put up or stored properly, it can get moldy, and livestock won't eat it, and it becomes useless.
Then I drive about 5 miles to the pasture our cows are in. They know when feed day is, and on my way I turn on a siren briefly to alert them I'm on my way, with breakfast.
They start down the road to meet me, and this is what it looks like.



So I pull off road to a fairly flat location, and wait for all the cows to get to me.



Then I unload my bale, until its a few inches off the ground.




The net wrapping is cut...




and pulled off. You want the bale off the ground so you can pull the net wrapping off, and not drag it through a lot of cactus.





Then you drive along, using hydraulic controls to lower the bale as it unrolls on the ground.




But this bale was one that I picked up backwards, so in order to get it unrolled I had to back up instead of drive forward. The cows know the drill, and fall in front of the pickup, instead of behind, as their feed is unrolled.



Once you get out of the way, they all converge on the bale and fill up.




But these cows get two bales. Their second bale is waiting in another stack corral, in the same pasture as the cows. These bales are second cutting alfalfa, and basically taste like candy to cows. That's why they're set so far away from the fence - to keep the cows from leaning over the fence, and breaking it down, to get a taste.



I load one of the tasty bales on the feed pickup...



and head back to the feed grounds, just down the road. We feed in a different location most days so the cows don't tromp down the grass too much. Where we live the soil is highly erosive, and proper soil and plant management is critical in keeping land healthy and in production. If you overuse the land, it shows really fast where I'm from.
A lot of thought goes into even the most seemingly simple task on a ranch.



I unroll the second bale just like the first. If you ever want to know which of the two, or three, or four bales you just fed is the best, all you have to do is watch which one the cows eat first. You can see that no one is choosing to finish off the first bale I fed with the second one sitting right beside it. This is a pretty obvious example, as the second (green) bale is really really good stuff, and the first one is just kind of average. Sometimes you will have hay you think is very similar, but when you feed two bales, the cows all eat one first, just like what is seen here.





As I've mentioned before, we feed our livestock to keep them at a certain level of condition. We don't want them too skinny, but it's just as bad, or even worse, to have them too fat. A cow with the right amount of fat will stay healthy, and be strong enough to calve without issues (usually). She also needs to have enough energy stored for when she starts milking, because producing milk takes a lot of energy. Cows that are too fat are much like obese people, they have trouble getting around, and fat deposits in a cows bag can reduce her milking ability.
We want our cows to work for us, and instead of getting really fat, we want her to convert that energy to milk for her calf. While there are some parts of the country with so much feed that cows just stay fat, it isn't like that where I'm from. It takes a large area (30-50 acres) to feed one cow for one year where I'm from. People often say that those really big, really fat cows couldn't walk fast enough to get to enough grass to keep them from shriveling up, and it's true.
If a cow does get too skinny after calving, and has used up too much of her energy reserves producing milk, it significantly reduces her chances of re-breeding. Keeping cows near their ideal body condition is a year-round aspect of ranch management, and a critical component of any operation.
All of these cows are in good shape for us, and if the temperature hadn't dropped in the last week we probably would have reduced how much they were getting fed.



Here are all the cows enjoying their bales of hay. Once they finish off the really good bale, they'll go back and clean up the other bale too. They don't waste feed at our place.



Then there is always the second half of any feed day, checking the water to make sure it isn't iced over.
Another benefit of these re-cycled tire tanks is they're black, and absorb more heat due to their color.
One issue we've had with them in the past is that if we installed them prior to getting our sheep (like this one), they're too tall for a sheep to drink out of. When our sheep were in this pasture we would hook up a much smaller tank to the float on this one for the sheep to drink out of.

The Inaugural Weekend

This was my first weekend spent helping the boyfriend's family with cattle work. This is always a potentially tense situation..bringing a girl, or guy home to help out. It can make for a funny, maddening, frustrating, hilarious or great day, and has helped me realize, at times in a matter of minutes, whether the relationship will continue forward or not. Fortunately our families have known each other a long time and they had a pretty good idea that I knew what to do, and it all went very well and neither of us will be dumping the other for our cattle working skills....yet.
I also took my camera along, of course, to document the events.

So the bf (I should ask him if he minds if I use his name on here. I did ask about putting pictures up), his brother, dad and I gathered a couple bunches of cows, moved them, sorted them, and just did general preparation for weaning this coming Friday.
His family lives in the Black Hills, and recently moved their calving date back to May and June so it's warmer when the calves are born and they don't have to feed the cows as much. That's why they are weaning in late November, a month or two later than many producers.


Part of the first days job was trailing cows down the road about 2 miles. We had to go up this big hill first. The bf's house is just off to the left of this photo a little ways.


We stopped a few cars and trucks, mostly hunters, and several people took our picture...ironically enough : )
This is something I did a lot as a little kid, when we lived in this same general part of the state. Today our place is about 20 miles from the nearest highway, so trailing down or across the pavement isn't something I do anymore.
It can present a unique set of challenges. Yearlings, colts and calves tend to have serious issues with the yellow center line. We've had to role out straw before to get yearlings to cross the highway. It also gave little kids a job, and at 2, 3, and 4 years old my job was often to drive (yes drive) or ride ahead of the bunch of cows, waving a flag or flashing the car lights to alert motorists of the cattle clogging the highway just over the next hill.
These cows are used to it and trailed right along.

Then we went down the other side of the big hill,


and cut out across a pasture to the home place to sort, doctor and continue our day.
The bf's dad always has a marker cow in each of his bunches, and that's the gray cow seen here.


The last leg. I love the Black Hills, and enjoyed myself immensely. I also let out a big sigh of relief when all went well and I realized they work cattle in a similar fashion to my family.


Once in a smaller lot, we sorted everything a couple different ways, then doctored a few sick calves. This is a 3 or 4 year old colt the bf is on, who I've been told can really buck. He did great the two days I was there. He would rope a sick calf, and his brother would hold it down....



While their dad doctored it. Newt is the bf's dog and he was there to help too. My dogs sat in the back of the pickup, out of the way. My camera battery died early, which is why these are the only two pictures of anything occurring in the lot.
Maybe when it's not my first weekend helping I'll bring my nice camera along.

Snapshots and Ramblings

Here are a few photos from the last couple weeks for you to enjoy.

Welcome to my home, in the fall, after a rain. Look at all the grass is what I think every time I see this!


This weekend we are preg checking at my uncles. I am also attending a party Saturday night. The guest list includes my second boyfriend (as in, from middle school), my junior prom date, and a variety of other people I've known for years. Sounds awkward, but we're all buddies and I can't wait!

I edited this one multiple ways...and am still not sure I have it just right.



Tomorrow I am heading to the eastern side of the state to interview a guy with a pheasant farm for the Roundup's annual hunting edition. Then, if I have time, I am swinging by a friends to look at a bunch of yearling heifers he just purchased.



If he isn't there I will still probably swing by to check out his cattle : )



These are our yearling heifers for this year, and I just love looking through them, and taking pictures of them.


Did I mention I have nothing to wear to the above-mentioned party...



These guys are the sheep left on our place, and they will be leaving soon as well. It seems surreal to not have sheep anymore.




While home last weekend I took a few photos of one of my best friends and her husband. It was my wedding present to them. Also in their pictures were their two dogs. Pictured here is Bailey, a big, bad, tough Mini Aussie who entertained us with her antics.

Ice cold Pepsi

I had a Pepsi in place of my usual tea or coffee this morning. I was running late, and it was sitting there in my fridge because every time people come to my house they seem to leave pop behind. I rarely, if ever, drink the stuff unless it's in a mixed drink. I also don't drink beer, so most of the pop was donated by nice people who know I will not be having a cold beer with them, so they support my whiskey habit and bring coke, pepsi, 7-up or other caffeinated beverages for me. I have enough pop to keep me going for months, easily.
There is one exception to my, "rarely, if ever" pop drinking. That would be branding day. After a day of tasting disinfectant (I cut calves, and will explain this and other branding tasks in the near future) and standing in the sun there is nothing, absolutely nothing, better than a Pepsi or mt. dew pulled from the depths of an icy cooler. My aunt is the best and keeps them right at that stage where there's almost a little slush in them.
It's amazing, and just washes all the grime, dirt, blood (yes, there's blood) and smoke taste right out of your mouth. Ah.. It's even better if the disinfectant used was lysol. If you've ever cut calves and had this concoction on your hands or in your mouth all day you know what I mean!
As I was sipping on my cool Pepsi this morning it brought all those memories back. Next week is the first branding of the season for my family and I can't wait to ditch the office for a day of working outside with my family!
My disclaimer on this post is that I am only referring to hot, sunny branding days and not the cold, wet, miserable ones. On those days the only beverages consumed are the hot variety out of a thermos!