It was a neck-jarring, teeth-rattling, iron-wheels-on-cobblestone type drive. The good thing about rain is … well, rain… the bad thing? Rain becomes mud and muddy roads walked on by cattle become the absolutely roughest roads you can drive on. Your muscles get tired from the constant tension from trying to hold yourself together mile after mile. Why subject yourself to that? Because it’s time to turn the bulls out!
It’s become one of my favorite days… usually. The rough roads were not enjoyable, but the abundance of wildflowers was staggering. Paintbrush, salsify, penstemon, candlesticks, flax, locoweed, daisies, primrose, bitterroot, some unknowns, and one beautiful bee balm.
My photos are poor attempts to capture all the beauty out in the badlands. It is difficult to convey in one picture. So I tried to soak it all in and just enjoy.
Can you tell how rough the road was, though?
Anyway, back to the boys…. Our neighbors who also share this allotment were also out releasing bulls. It takes quite a few to cover the cows and the country!
They’re pretty talkative and full of themselves…
The bulls, I mean.
They’ll lose a lot of weight in the next few weeks, but I don’t think they will care…
Oh what beautiful blue skies.
If both your bulls and your neighbors bulls are out, how do you know who calved who or does it matter? Do you also turn out the cows that have been AI’d or just the ones you know aren’t pregnant?
On those cows we don’t know who sired what unless we did a DNA test. However, the neighbors have been pulling their cows out, so ours are mainly the only ones out there now.
Loved “The bulls, I mean.” It answered the question that had just popped into my head!
The road looks unfit for human use. What does it do to the shocks on the truck? Or has it already done it?
Yah, the road surface sounds unfit for humans! We don’t have heavy duty “shock absorbers” (speaking as one who is now recovering from hip replacement surgery). Keep looking up at those beautiful clouds and far-away vistas.