Cattle & Snow

Hope everyone is ready to celebrate the birth of our Savior this weekend : )

A Yearling Sorting Story

This story has been floating around this week, and my whole family gets a kick out of it, hope you do to.

When I was around six or seven years old, we would go to the Rocky Point Grazing Association, which you can read about here. Every fall we had to sort our yearlings multiple ways prior to shipping out. You know, get the neighbors out, sort steers from heifers, sort of any gimps or dinks, etc...

By this time I was an exceptional gate runner (or certainly thought I was). Running a gate means you're responsible for opening and closing it in time with the animals that need to be sorted into your pen. Sounds simple, and sometimes is, but it can also be a very fast moving, complex job at times. There are moments it will test your grit too as a little kid, when an alley of 900-plus pound yearlings are bearing down on you, and you're responsible for running out in front of them, holding a gate a little stick for protection, just to sort one into your pen.

Anyway, I was assigned a gate to run. This guy named Frank, who is also a member of the grazing association, apparently thought a little three and a half foot tall, probably 50 lb, girl with wild, almost white, blond hair, might need help. Poor guy.

Frank had one of his hands wrapped, because he had injured it in some way. He also always has a great big cigar in his mouth that he chews on and rolls around while working cattle.

He props his wrapped hand on my gate, which immediately causes a smalle tingle of concern to go through me. My dad must have been another gate across the alley, because he watched all this, and didn't tell Frank I was capable, which also caused a tingle of irritation to go through my little body.

Down the alley come a bunch of yearlings, and my uncle starts calling out names as to where they needed to go. There's one for my pen, and Frank moves too slow and the yearling blows by our gate. Up goes my irritation level, especially as I get a less than patient remark about missing the steer.

A little additional information: My father and Uncle weren't patient when we were little kids, and I was the first born of my generation. We also ran a big operation at the time, and as they each had kids, we were expected to help at young ages. It was great for all of us, and their high expectations of all of us kids, and limited patience with us when we messed up, is why I could do things like run a gate like an adult at six or seven. It also meant that I too had very little patience with anyone who didn't get it right the first time around.

I don't remember this, but suspect my father was laughing at my prediciment right about here (we have quite the sense of humor in my family). My uncle, who couldn't see anything, but knew I was missing yearlings, wasn't laughing at all.

We get that worked out, and down the alley comes another draft, and again Frank is too slow in "helping" me get my gate open. This time I probably got yelled at, which will really set you into motion on our place as a little kid. It also caused my temper to spike, high up into the red.

Third time, here they come down the alley. My uncle yells my name, and I swing that gate out hard and fast, and smash Frank's hand between the gate and pipe it latches too.

My dad will be laughing so hard at this point he can hardly add that upon having his hand smashed by a little girl, Frank almost swallows, and chokes on, his big cigar.

The yearling goes where it's supposed to, and Frank gathers his composure and heads off to another part of the correl. I have no more issues with sorting that day, and don't get yelled at anymore.

Like I said, poor guy.

Where I've been

We've been busy shipping steers the last several days. Here's a brief glimpse into our activities. More to come when we get a little more caught up!

The Calendar

Hello! Things are really starting to happen around here. Spring and fall are particularly busy on our ranch, and the calendar is reflecting that. If you want something done, or a day to do something specific, you better write it on the calendar, in a bright color, where everyone can see it. Pencil at the bottom of a date won't get you anywhere this time of year. You'll have to step up to pen or marker to get noticed around here!
These are our next few weeks, and this is just the ranch work. In addition to the ranch related activities, we have three other businesses running out of our home (a trucking company, record and document destruciton business and my photography/writing). That calendar just reflects the ranch/livestock dates for the this month. Somewhere in there my mom will have to schedule her paper shredding days, my dad and brother have several thousand ton of hay to haul (over the course of the entire fall/winter), and I have multiple stories and a couple potential photography jobs to get done.
It looks pretty hectic, and it is. But, it's also a fun time of year when we see the results of our hard work over the last 12 months. We wean calves, preg-check our cows, sell and deliver our yearlings, ship cattle home from summer leases and a variety of other necessary jobs. We're also trying a couple new things this year I'll do my best to tell you all about!
By the way, if any of the jobs I just listed, or you saw on the calendar, are something you would be particularly interested in hearing about and seeing pictures of on here, just let me know (I have connections with the people in charge of this blog) : )
Another reason there's so much stuff on there is this is a family operation, which for us means that we help my uncle's family with all of his fall work (he ranches a couple hours from us) and he helps us with ours.
My cousins are both currently in college, and my dad just had surgery, so my brother, uncle and I will be swapping help even more than normal this year to ensure everything on both of our operations gets done. We've always done this, and the result is a close-knit family that can work exceptionally well together at just about any task we're presented with. The longer I live and more I see, the more I appreciate that about my family.
This also means we spend several evenings with our calendar out on the table, scheduling dates for two ranches, and writing it all down. Then, after cattle buyers schedule delivery dates, truckers are lined up for hauling pairs home from summer pastures, vet's are scheduled to preg-check and other necessary arrangments are made on each place, we sit back down and go over it all again, making any changes that may have occured.
Most of the days start early, take most of the day, and leave you exhausted in a way only physical labor at something you love does. It's a very wearing, but also very rewarding time of year. I'm starting to get excited about it, which is good because our first round of preg-checking is tomorrow.
I hope you're all enjoying the summer to fall transition too!
Also, just in case you thought fall work only lasted one month, here's a glimpse at what we've got scheduled for October as of now...

Cattle pictures

Here are some cattle photos from the last several weeks for you to start you week with. Happy Monday everyone : )
I am also linking this post up with Deborah Jean's Dandelion House Farmgirl Friday blog hop this week