burning barns

Another excess building was erased at the ranch this past week.  The barn in pasture D1 (the Johnson Place) hadn't been used in many years and was near falling down,  We removed the tin roof and pushed it over several months ago and needed to wait for a calm day with some snow cover to do the burn.  Now we need to get all the nails and the foundation picked up or buried.
We haven't seen the elk along the river again so we haven't been able to get a good picture for this blog, but will keep looking.

Attracting hawks

The platform to attract Ferruginous Hawks to nest on the ranch did not accomplish that task last year.  Therefore we attached tree branches to the perimeter of the deck to create a better substrate for nest building.  Hopefully our luck will be better this year as we have an adequate food source in the nearby prairie rat town.

herd additions

We now have 407 cows to calve this spring with 90 of them being first calf heifers.  41 more heifers were purchased at the Torrington, Wy auction last week to add to the herd.  This group of heifers match up very well with the home raised heifers by weight and calving date.  They came from the Meike Ranch near Kaycee, Wyo that I did herd work for when I practiced out of Buffalo nearly 40 years ago.