Month: June 2019

Is there anything more majestic than a Pheasant rooster strutting his stuff? It’s taken the whole of the Head Honcho’s life, but finally Pheasants and Grouse are plentiful. He monitors them nearly as closely as he does the cows, so don’t even ask – no hunting allowed!

One of the many joys of spring is noting when I see the first Meadowlark, Robin and Killdeer. And the Head Honcho and I report every sighting of Sage Hens since they are so rare any more. We had a Sage Hen visit the ground hay pile and checked for her every morning all winter, but she was too skittish and I didn’t get a single decent picture.

This spring we discovered she was a cock Hen when he started doing his mating dance for the Grouse. When I saw two Sage Hens a pasture away, I talked to our boy about the direction he needed to travel but I can only hope he was listening to my suggestion. Mother Nature has to take care of the rest.

This year a Red Headed Woodpecker comes to the yard every time it rains. That’s the only time we see the Robins, too. The young Curlew are testing their wings and two Bull Bats flew up in front of my horse the other day.

What brought all the birds to mind is that this morning I shared 50/50 with the birds on my first ripe strawberries – they got one and I got one! But ooh, so good, and since I found a ripe one I’ll be watching a little more closely so I beat the birds to them. All’s fair in strawberry wars and I intend to win the early bird battle.

Mother Nature gave us this intimidating view last night before dropping 0.6″ of rain – but no hail! Then this morning  a thick fog rolled over this hillside so it feels like we’re on a mountaintop in the middle of a cloud. We don’t get many fogs like this!

During the rain, the Head Honcho worried about having so much hay down getting wet. But like all Montana ranchers, he was thrilled with the moisture!

Next year’s calf crop is in the making as we got the heifers AIed and are putting bulls out with the older cows – breeding season feels as much like a new beginning as calving.

Since calving, we’ve been counting bulls once or twice a day to be sure they haven’t jumped the gun (and the fences). By tomorrow we’ll be worrying about whether or not they stayed where we put them.

We trailed some bulls out and hauled others – some were easy to handle, and some not so much. As the Head Honcho and I age, the hard runs and sharp turns our horses make turning cattle are tougher to handle – no less satisfying, just more challenging to stay in position (OK, I could replace “in position” with “in the saddle” but I didn’t want to be quite that honest!).