Herding words – or cattle – in South Eastern Montana
Note the leghorns on the swing! Sonny’s granddaughter Lindsay and family gave me this chicken swing for Christmas last year. I thought it was cute as heck, but didn’t think the chickens would pay any attention to it. And the old hens didn’t. But I put it in with the chicks this year, and they did a little swinging as babies, but now they’re all night swingers!
Wow! Sonny and I both had exciting successes that have taken a while to come about.
Sonny introduced his colt Pharaoh to pushing a cow around yesterday and today I cut open the cheddar cheese I made 2 months ago and it’s great!
OK – so Pharaoh didn’t pay any attention to the cow, really, but he’s easy going and agreeable. Together Sonny and I got a steer pair out of the heifer pairs, a heifer pair out of the steer pairs, and corraled a pair. The colt may not have done most of the work, but he was there and learning.
And then there’s success with the cheese! The cheddar texture is not as smooth as store bought, but it’s better than edible (it’s actually good) and such an improvement over my first effort which only the chickens would – or could – eat. All my cheese is milk colored because I don’t add coloring to get the traditional golden yellow color. I just add the culture (friendly bacteria that ferments the milk and changes lactose to lactic acid) , rennet to make it coagulate while it’s sweet, and salt.
I read in the Monday Morning Moos (the cheese making supplier’s newsletter) that cheese made frozen milk shouldn’t be aged more than 2 months. Mine is just 3 days short of that so I opened the wax and nervously tasted. Last time, I hadn’t followed the recipes faithfully as we were in the middle of calving and when outside duty called, I went. That meant that all my cheeses, about 10 blocks, all went bad. Disappointing but a very good lesson, and the chickens were happy. This time I chose a cold, rainy day then followed the recipe precisely.
The problem I haven’t resolved is that when I have buckets of fresh milk, I don’t have time to make cheese. I’d thought that freezing the milk was the solution, but not for aged cheese the Moosletter says. Perhaps I can get the cows to calve for 6 days, then hold off a day so I can make cheese.
I’ll have as much luck with that as Sonny’s kids have had trying to convince him not to ride this colt!
Next time Sonny asks why I want to go to all that work making cheese instead of buying it, I’ll have an answer. I’ll ask why he’d rather ride a colt than just buy a trained one…perhaps because we’re both “old school”. Very, very old school!
Got 3 year old Pharaoh back from Ada Osteen, where he spent a month in training, and Sonny couldn’t wait to take him out into the hills where they got along fine. We are well aware of the dangers of mixing 84 years and 3 years as speed and reflexes are at opposite ends of the spectrum. I will trust in Sonny’s experience and judgement on this one and hope he continues being thrilled and excited to ride this colt.
We’ve weaned the calves off the two year old heifers, which included my milk cow Bugaboo’s calf and the bum I bottle fed with her milk. The milk cow and her calf Peekaboo didn’t mind much, but oh! how my Angus bum Sambo misses me. He bawled more than any other calf and still talks to me when I come near the corral. He sucks my coat, my fingers, my hoodie strings – anything he can get hold of. Peekaboo, though, she’s just curious and into everything…and she’s a beauty. The black tips on her hair set off her buckskin and rust color. She sure doesn’t look like she’s going to be a petite little Jersey though – she has some bone under her.
Took this just a few days ago – Sonny is always a happy man when he’s horseback. He’s spent most of his life riding, breaking (now called training) colts, and working cattle. There are days when he says he’d rather sit in his chair, but when anyone goes to saddle a horse, he’s right there.
And no one is any better at knowing what a horse needs and when they need it. He’s taught me so incredibly much, and he says there is still so incredibly much I have to learn! (Sounds just like him, doesn’t it?)
Even so, please join me in wishing him a happy birthday. I’ll see that he sees every single birthday wish sent his way.
Sandy Snider Stahl 