Valentino is still here. He’s a tiny little fighter. He is far from being out of the woods, though, and he gives me a roller coaster ride… is he breathing? oh, look, he wants to stand… I don’t like the sound of his breathing. Look at how bright his eyes are! I never know what…
Valentino
2:30 am, a series of “mehs” woke me up. Vernon has checked the heifers and found #91’s calf had made an appearance. Although it was born inside, -22° is still cold and at only 40 pounds or so, the little thing was premature. Hence, the visit to my mud room. I rotated warm towels on…
Fun and Work Video
This week’s video for the blog, has us exploring Castle Gardens near Ten Sleep, a quick view of our new calving sheds and heaters, and laying a pipeline. The pipeline will eventually be buried, but for now, we run it on top of the ground. This covers January 23-30, 2021.
Watch Them
Snowing lightly. Temperatures below zero. Slight breeze. Humid. Foggy conditions. Even though we weren’t going to bring the heifers up to the calving shed until next week, the guys brought them up anyway. Storm fronts and lower barometric pressure often brings on labor. Vernon did his first 2 a.m. check last night. It was -13°….
#TBT: Ten O’clock Shift, v.2.0
This was first published February 18, 2010. Last night began my first heifer checking shift. For those of you new to this blog, or ranches, or cattle, you might investigate my Heifer Movies on the left sidebar of this blog. But basically, heifers are cows that are having their very first babies. We keep an…
Wordless Wednesday: “Cold. Dog.”
It was cold. He’s a dog. He was not a cold dog. (as opposed to a hotdog ;-)) He relishes the cold, he loves it, he prefers it. Please don’t tell me to keep him inside, he would NOT be a HAPPY dog. For a jigsaw puzzle of this photo, go HERE.
Enjoy It
We’re caught in the grasp of the icy cold vortex hovering over the United States. It’s been holding right around zero… maybe 3 above, maybe one below. Today granted us sunshine though and at one point I had moisture dripping off my roof! I took a short walk with Bravo, just to enjoy the day.
Pyrography Plaques
Finished…
Finished!
Well, I didn’t help, and it’s been a couple of days, but Brandon was sweet enough to get me some photos of the finished continuous fence corral. Big difference… it has now snowed 5” or 6”… and turned cold. Work continues on, though. This used to be a board fence forming the previous end of…
Next Step
Sheds are in place. The work on the surrounding corral comes next. By the time I had arrived, the end of our former wooden corral is gone, and the smoke from the fire of its remains wafted around the guys. Many of the boards had been splintered and repaired, and that was just the easier…
Sheds
I stopped by the calving shed to see the progress… the new sheds needed to be drug into place. Now… what did we have planned? It’s been so long since we drew the plans… After some discussion, Vernon used the Bobcat to push and pull them the few feet to where we wanted them. Some…
#TBT: Baby Calf Walk Video, v.2.0
For this Throwback Thursday, it’s Baby Calf Walk. As newborn calves are born in the calving shed, they are soon moved outside to make room for the next calving mother. That means we will walk them on their staggering hooves, through snow, when they have no idea how to simply walk, much less follow their…