Sorting pairs

All photos courtesy of Mama H, who was riding the 4-wheeler and photographing this task for me to share on here : )

 

 

We sorted and shipped the last two loads of pairs to summer pasture yesterday. What always precedes shipping pairs is the task of sorting pairs, and we did that on Saturday. Since these were the last two loads, we gathered the entire pasture, which is 3 miles long and 1/5 miles wide, and sorted everything.

Sorting pairs means sorting out each cow with her baby, and putting them somewhere else. We usually put them through a gate into a new pasture. One pair is one cow and calf that are mother and child. The idea behind sorting pairs is that by doing it successfully you will have everyone matched up when you load them on the trucks headed to summer pasture. It's 200 miles to our summer pasture, and if the wrong cow or calf ends up 200 miles from home, it's a big task to get them matched back up, and you might not get it accomplished. You don't just gather a bunch of cows and calves that you haven't sorted out of a big pasture, load them up and ship them out.

We also sort out any calves that haven't been branded yet, and make sure they don't make the trip. The calves are usually too small still, and you don't want to ship a slick calf 200 miles away without any way for someone to know who it belongs to. He could get lost or stolen very easily.

While we make every effort to get this perfect, it doesn't always happen that way. Cows are like people in that some are super good mothers and you can tell right away which calf is hers. Others still aren't sure they even have a kid "at home", and really don't care what he does, who he hangs out with or what time he gets home. But, we do our best, and it's rare to have a mismatched pair. It's the second type that causes us to scratch our heads sometimes, but we have a trick up our sleeves for them that I'll cover later in the post.

 We started with the gather, which went relatively fast with a 4-wheeler, motorcycle, and three people horseback. The motorized people can do the big circle and check the far corners, and the people horseback can gather the rougher areas of the pasture and start trailing everything to the south end. We really like to use a combination of the two on our place for those reasons.

 Here are those of us horseback, which included my brother's girlfriend, my dad and myself. We had a nice, cool day with a roaring wind for the job. A lot of the time we sort pairs with just two people horseback, or three of us horseback and one person on a 4-wheeler. My brother's girlfriend was a nice added bonus on this day.

 When we reached the south end we stopped the cows on one of two big flats along the fence line near a gate. We hold them in a fairly loose bunch, not letting any get away but providing enough room they can (hopefully) keep their calf with them. This is my brother guarding the back side of the bunch.

Here are my dad and I on the front side, both guarding the gate and sorting pairs. My brother's girlfriend is just to the left of the photo, preventing the cows from heading back north across the pasture instead of through the open gate, into a new pasture without anything in it before we started sorting.

 

 

Above is my dad making a sweep, where he rides a little way into the herd, turns and sweeps the cows out and toward the gate. This will usually result in those that are paired trailing out.

 Here I am behind him. On this pass we only got one. You can see how she is trailing out and the others that aren't paired have stopped to look for their calf or mom.

Here's a bigger group, four pair at once this time. We also try to do this in a calm fashion. If you go super fast and get everything stirred up, pretty soon no one can find their calf, everyone is upset, and it doesn't go well at all. It's a lot easier on the livestock and us if do things at a slower pace, plus it's faster when you look at the time it took to complete the entire task.

 You never want to let anyone through the gate unless you're sure they belong together. But, sometimes things happen, like a calf misses the gate and goes back down the wrong side of the fence. In that case you have to go get the cow and bring her back to get her calf again. That's what happened here.

 She knew she didn't have her calf, and jogged right back through the gate to go gather him up. It doesn't always go like this. Sometimes the cow just decides to leave, and you have to convince her to come back. That's when you want to be on a good horse.

But this was a good cow. Dad had her calf stopped, and she mooed at him and off they went again, together.

 Everyone has to work well together for a sorting to go well - both horses and people. This is a more technical ranch job in my opinion. Between keeping the cows grouped, but not too tight, making sure only pairs go through the gate, keeping a count on how many pairs you've sorted, being calm but able to run down a cow who has suddenly decided she's had enough and is leaving, then slowing right back down and go back to sorting, and being able to move to wherever you're needed to accomplish all these things in tandem requires everyone work together.

 Both made it through the gate the second time.

 Then, when we get toward the end, and down to those cows who don't have a clue or care in the world, we unleash "The Crackin." Ok, just kidding, his name is Mister, and this is him and my sister sitting in a low spot. Her job while sorting is to hold him on a leash until he's needed. Sometimes she sits on the 4-wheeler with him, but this was her spot of choice on Saturday.
If you're a mom, and you're in the grocery store, and there's a creepy, dirty guy that keeps eyeing you and your kids, you probably have them all lined up, accounted for and in your sight. Mister is the creepy dirty guy to a bunch of mother cows. He instills bellering, slobbering, chasing after him, and typically a much increased awareness of where a cow's calf is. The cows that don't care are usually much less dramatic in their response to him compared to the cows that do care, much like there are usually still a few screaming kids reaching by the creepy guy to get their favorite sugared cereal while the mom aimlessly looks at pop tarts across the aisle. But he still has some impact, enough on this day.
He helped convince the last few, at least for a few minutes at least, that junior wasn't yet of an age where he could do as he pleased and we got them sorted and through the gate.

When the last few went through the gate, we convened for a brief meeting of how many additional pairs we needed from the next pasture to get the correct number to fill our loads, trailed the slick calves and their moms to where they belonged, and continued on with our day.
Sorting pairs with his family has always been one of my dad's favorite jobs. There are big blow ups (with cows) and mad chases that last a matter of seconds, smooth cuts to bring out a big group that's paired, satisfying cuts and dodges on a horse that finally got it figured out, and a good feeling of having accomplished the task together as a family.

A run through the run down

 It's that time of year around here, where gathering, branding, breeding, sorting, shipping, weather related delays (hopefully), and numerous other tasks converge into a few hectic weeks known as spring work, spring ranch work, the spring rush, that time of year etc...
What I was unaware of, until about two weeks ago, was that this seasonal workload conveniently hits at my fiances about three weeks before it hits here, and dwindles down just in time for ours to kick into high gear. After about 10 days of firsthand experience at his house, I'm back home with a much more thorough understanding of how the timeline goes around his place, and with dark bags under my eyes as we get into the heart of our spring work.
Here is how it has gone. I have lots of photos I was, and still am, hoping to share in multiple detailed posts. But, I also realize that time will pass, there is also a wedding being planned in the midst of all this, and if I don't share a little about these tasks going on right now, I may not get around to sharing anything.

May 6 - Helped clean the drill and also "helped" plant Barley for the first time since I was old enough to walk.

May 8 - A fellow Wyoming Farm Bureau Young Farmer and Rancher State Committee member and myself drove to Sheridan to read last year's Ag Books for Kids and lead a coordinating activity on seeds as a part of the 1st grade's plant and soil section. I was so thrilled when they called and asked about having me back! What a wonderful compliment to the Ag Books program, and all the work our committee has been putting into making it great in our state!

Throughout all of this my fiancee was AI'ing his heifers to Connealy Irish, which was largely selected because of me. He has been teasing me that I will have to deal with the result of my first management decision for as long as the resulting cows are around, so about 10 years.

May 9 - My future SIL tilled up half the front yard and the some other areas for our grass and tree planting projects, part of which is coming up below.
May 10 - We put CIDR's in my fiancee's cows, which are used to help synchronize them. Those are the CIDRs above.

 May 11 - AI'id early in the morning, then went to two rope and drag brandings.

 May 13 - Planted between 1,000 and 1,500 trees (I have yet to hear the official number). This was very cool, and one topic I am hoping to cover more in depth! These trees will hopefully grow up into a natural windbreak and help keep all the snow from blowing in the corrals and yard, provide more moisture in the field they border and help protect the livestock in blizzards.

I headed back to Wyoming on May 14, and on the 15th we hung this new gate at the end of our alley, cleaned up and prepared for branding, and got a few more odd jobs done before the rain started!

 May 16 - My dad, brother and I gathered our three-year-old pairs and kicked them into a pasture closer to the house. I managed to get this picture of my favorite calf of the bunch : )

 May 17 - Our first branding of the year. Photo courtesy of Double H's mom.

May 19 - We headed north for my uncle's first branding, and finished in a drizzle that turned to a nice rain that lasted all afternoon and evening up there. It hit here the next day, and between the rain and the wind I stayed in and worked on wedding stuff.

Yesterday my brother and I spent the day horseback, sorting and tagging our calves, getting the bulls gathered and put behind an electric fence to assure they avoid sexual temptation for three more weeks. All but one, who was put in with my cows to help them get on their future South Dakota schedule, which includes calving earlier than we do.

Today I took a trip to town to be a part of our local Ag expo, hosted by our county Cattlewomens. This is my second year doing a booth, and my topic this year was explaining the differences between beef and dairy cattle. We looked at different breeds, I brought items from the grocery store that came from each type that we looked at and talked about, and the students decorated a cow cookie as one of the breeds and then told me what breed and type of cow it was.
Tomorrow we're branding again and Saturday morning is my uncle's second branding, followed by a wedding Saturday night.
Wedding plans have also continued throughout all this, and headway has been made! Invitations are out, I finally found someone to do our cake, started on decorations, worked out more specifics on the reception and various other tasks.
Somewhere along the line an article or two has also miraculously appeared, and a few have been skipped. I really appreciate my self employed status this time of year, and the wonderful, understanding people I do work for that are also ranch folks and therefore understand why the schedule is so erratic for these few weeks.
While I love this time of year, I'm also always happy to see the last cows turned out to summer grass, and know that the rush is over and we can settle into the summer months before we hit the fall rush, and do it all again in reverse.

A good dog

Man did the spring rush hit in South Dakota while I was there. This resulted in an extended stay to help with three brandings, AIing heifers, getting the drill ready and planting barley, putting CIDR's in cows, hauling heifers to pasture, planting around 1,500 trees, planting half a yard, saving a pig from death, a wedding dress fitting, cake testing, and an eight-hour round trip to Sheridan for an Ag Books for Kids presentation. Whew!
While it was fun, exhausting and a good experience for my fiancee and I, a dampener was put on the trip when my parent's called to tell me my two little dogs, Miss Weenie and Emmie Lou, had been missing for three days. When you live way out in the country, dogs missing for two days might still be out and about, but three days is kind of the turning point. Now, five days later they still haven't returned home, and reality is setting in that they most likely won't. Coyotes, a tunnel falling in on them, a badger, a stranger on the road? Who knows, but they are gone, most likely for good.
While both will be missed terribly, there are dogs and then there are special dogs that you get in a lifetime. While Miss Weenie was a good dog, Emmie was one of those special few.
I got her in Cheyenne six years ago this month, and she was the cutest puppy you ever saw. She threw up in my pickup six times on the drive home, and that was just the beginning of what would be a lifetime of sensitive stomach issues. She also made frequent trips to the vet, and had to be put under anesthesia three times, never for spaying, and also threw up after coming out of anesthesia each time. Then there was the time she ate mouse poison, and I had to give her hydrogen peroxide in a syringe until she threw up...
Stomach issues aside, she was a sweetie, and made it through four moves with me, from college to across the county and back to Wyoming. From city to country to city and finally back to country again, she was there for all the major and minor life events in the past six years. We racked up over 100,000 miles of windshield time together, and she could handle a 14 hour drive like a pro.
She aimed to please, loved kids when she was younger, chased balls and sheep, and would sometimes sleep flat on her back, all fours in the air, snoring. She was an attention hog, food lover and incapable of sitting still 90 percent of the time.
Since returning here, her life centered around feeding with me every day in the winter, riding the 4-wheeler whenever allowed, eating gross things, holding down the pickup cab whenever we were doing cattle work, keeping the cats in line, getting ear mites regularly, somehow knowing and silently appearing at the dinner table every night when my dad was finished with his meal so she could follow him to the porch for her morsel, sneaking a chance to sleep on the couch, begging out belly rubs, and all sorts of other little dog activities.
Now, as I plan another major move in a couple months, the thought of her not continuing the role of cherished constant companion is a very sad one.

South Dakota branding

 Yesterday was my first time participating in my fiancee's branding, which is of the rope and drag variety. One major area of contention/discussion/disagreement/opinions is the branding method of choice a ranch uses. There are rope and draggers, those that head and heel, those that use nordforks (boo!), and table branders. My family is of the table branding variety (yay!). My fiancee, and most of the people in his area, rope and drag.
There are advantages and disadvantages to all methods I suppose. While I am still not completely sold on the rope and drag method, it was fun! I was given the job of cutter, my preferred branding job, and that particular task is easier when the calves are on the ground versus in a table.
I also had my camera, and between bull calves, while they were sorting out cows, and at the beginning of each bunch I was able to grab a few shots.
Here's a few highlights from the day.

My future brother-in-law, getting things started.

"Make it Pretty."

Bringing in bunch two. One great idea my fiancee had was setting up right at the gate between the two pastures his cows were in. So, when bunch one was done, we simply opened the panels in a different spot and brought in bunch two. Worked great!

Sorting out the cows.

Slowin' down the calves.

The three year olds were a little excited at moments.

My future sister-in-law roping.

A good chunk of our excellent crew, including Molly the dog.

And perhaps my favorite photo of the day - my fiancee and father, branding together : )  I am so blessed to have them both in my life!

Fun in the sun

 The calves felt great after our blizzard. These are just a few of the photos I got of them fighting, playing, running and jumping.

Let's play.

 Then there was this guy...

 So happy and excited!

 

 

 All together now.

 Bored.

 Yippee!

 Why are you no fun?

Irresponsible kids! I am not with them.

I'm linking this post up with The View From Right Here's Weekly Top Shot linky party. Check her and all the participants out!