Herding words – or cattle – in South Eastern Montana
Got all the cows close to home for calving but all we can provide are plowed trails. We’re hoping the old girls will think they’re appropriate for calving and not take off to calve in the snow. Since it’s hard for them to even cross from one trail to the next for feed, maybe… One bright spot – it will be easy to track them if they go out of the plowed areas.
It’s amazing how deep the snow is on the level – mostly the cows just stay where it’s plowed but today some got adventurous and went cross country. Wasn’t long before they got back in the plowed trails!
Rode out today and brought the older horses in so we can feed them hay. The snow is just too deep to leave them out on their own. We are seeing the tips of some sagebrush now, but in the horse pasture, there was nothing but snow as far as I could see.
Our buckskin baby came into a bitter cold world this morning with deep snow and -15. She got a little chilled and is still needing help to suck. But she’s dried off, warmed up, has some good Jersey milk in her belly…and she’s getting lots of love from me and mom!
Just added a short story to my web site. It’s about record keeping for our first experience with DNA testing on replacement heifers. It was extremely stressful, and in retrospect, humorous. But that’s life, isn’t it? Anyway, here’s the link to the story – The Follies – Genomic Record Keeping.
Last week our first snow was about 6″ and the second about 5″, on top of a crusted 4″. We shoveled our way to the cattle to feed hay but followed a tractor plowing a path for feeding cake. Worked well though as cows got their cake just before another frigid night. It is beautiful – but another 5-10″ forecast this week – there’s only so much beauty we need! The true blessing – at least we’re not calving yet.
My Mom tells me that my story “Winter Ranch Olympics” was published in this week’s Western Livestock Reporter! We haven’t gotten our paper yet, but you can bet Sonny won’t be the first one to read this issue-
And I’m proud to be sharing print space with my brother-in-law whose story on his rope horse “Tommy” is in this issue as well. I didn’t know Lee in the days he had Tommy, but Lee’s story makes me wish I had known this horse.
Just added a humorous short story on our Winter Ranch Olympic events. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Follow this link to Winter Ranch Olympics then please let me know what you think via my Web site Comments page or on my FaceBook page.
Mamma Nature threw us some curves over the last 24 hours. We started yesterday with freezing rain which changed to wet snow so livestock were pretty wet when it started getting cold and for us, ended at -15 this morning. And through that we saw a couple unusual things. First the snow yesterday was wet and perfect for snowballs but by this morning that same snow was light and fluffy – I had thought it would be a block of ice! Then at -15 F, we saw steam rolling off a stack of hay.
Our start to the new year at -18 degrees…the cows were sure glad to see us with their cake and hay. I’m dressed in my holiday best with coveralls over insulated pants, 2 pair of socks, 3 layers on my head and 4 layers of shirts and coats…hmmm – sounds like the ranching version of Twelve Days of Christmas!
Sandy Snider Stahl 