water thief

Downy brome commonly called cheatgrass is a weed that came from northern Europe in the 1880's as ship ballast and with grain seeds has taken over or at least infected millions of range acres in America.  I remember 60 years ago when cheatgrass was only in overgrazed areas on feed grounds, but it has invaded throughout our native pastures as well as retired farm ground.  University extension has placed a demonstration  plot for herbicide treatment near the ranch driveway.  Blake installed a fence around the plot to keep cattle from interfering with the demo.  Look close and view the flags marking the strips where chemical was applied.  Unfortunately it is so widespread that it will be impossible to eradicate and expensive to control.  The weed grows early and dries down early taking out much water so the native grasses can't successfully grow.

Kate's beauty tip

Kate loves jumping in the livestock tanks for a refreshing dip especially after running along side a 4-wheeler for a couple of miles.  If the tank has been drank down by the cows leaving only 6" of mud she still thinks it is refreshing and will dive her head completely under.  We have to admit that the mud gives her skin a healthy completion and her hair is left luxuriant. But she certainly does stink riding in the pickup back to town after a hard days work.

Bud Box loadout

Today was marketing time for our yearling steers, they were trucked to the market yesterday so they probably had about 50 lbs shrink on the market scale but still averaged 983 lbs.  They pastured 2 miles, 2 county roads and a neighbor's pasture away from the home corrals, so we built a new corral at that location with a "Bud Box" named after the guy that described the best dimensions for a facility to gently move cattle from a corral into an alleyway for load out or processing.  My judgment was the facility worked fair to good as I only got kicked once.  2 trucks were able to take the 104 head to market and we received a very good price even though the market has slide about $12 per hundredweight in the last 6 weeks.

Where mushrooms grow

We have had a very wet spring at the ranch, ideal for mushrooms.  Fortunately we also have an abundance of the substrate that they prosper on.  An expert will need to be consulted to determine if these are safe to harvest.  However I will pass on this delicacy.

Baby owls

I had to be careful for several weeks to avoid running over this owl nest (unidentified species, possibly a short eared owl).

Akaushi calves

The first calf heifers started calving last week, they are running 70% black hair coat and are smaller then what we have been use to (52# to 62#), but that means no calving problems and we have had ideal weather to calve.  Hopefully they will grow super fast.  These calves are 1/2 blood Akaushi.  The grass is starting to green up so the nutrition for the cows should be high for giving lots of milk for the calves.  We check the herd 3 times per day so we can be on top of any problems and to place a tag in the calf's ear while we can still easily catch them. If the weather turns nasty we are set up to get them into barns for protection.  The older cows will start calving in another week and winter weather will hopefully be done by then since we don't have that much barn space.

Cats to the rescue

The ranch buildings have been overran with mice the last few years as we have not had cats.  So we recently added a mouse extermination crew, 5 cats.  These 2 were obtained from Panhandle Humane Society and will be shut in the horse barn for a couple of weeks or until they realize it is their home.  They are very tame and happy to see us when we enter the barn.  The other 3 were captured at an abandoned farmstead and are quite wild.  They are shut in the machine shed where we have cattle feed stored with a lot of mice.  These cats may never be tamed so hopefully they will accept this as their home.  The cats were free to the ranch as I performed ovariohysterectomies on 3 and orchiectomies on 2.  Mitchell Valley Veterinary Clinic allowed me use of the surgery room to do this.

Jinxed ride

The pickup (Ford F150) that I drove for 7 years was in excellent condition, had good tires and I still called it my new ride.  But, it did have 179,000+ miles on it and when the Chevy salesman made me a sweetheart deal on a Silverado I succumbed to the temptation.  The pickup is great, I really like it, but it may be jinxed.  The 2nd day of ownership I met a snowplow that put a rock into the windshield ($300).  Yesterday at 2 months ownership I hit a pheasant that took out a headlight ($610).  Both accidents occurred 15 miles North of town on #71.  So either that mile marker or the pickup must be jinxed.   Any detour to the ranch is a long way around.

goodbye crutches

It has been 5 weeks since Blake slid around the end of a gate and slammed into the post behind him in the photo.  The 4 wheeler flipped and he received a concussioin and a broken leg.  Meanwhile he has missed out on working in some severely cold weather and deep snow.  Now the weather has warmed, the snow is disappearing and his injuries have healed.  He is ready to forego the crutches and return to a normal routine.

protein supplementation

Winter time means our grass is dormant and it has close to adequate energy but it is short on protein.  The grass will have about 4% protein and the hay we have has about 7% protein.  The microorganisms in the cows rumen  (1 of her 4 stomach compartments) need about 8% protein to enable them to convert the grass into adequate nutrition for the cow.  So we are feeding extra protein with vitamins in a molasses base in these tubs that we distribute in the pasture.  The tubs weigh 250 lbs. which means if grandpa isn't available to throw them onto the pickup Blake needs to get the tractor out to load them.  

weaning late

The cow-calf pairs were brought to the corral for separation today to start the weaning process.  This is a record for weaning calves late--January 8.  Traditionally we wean around the 1st of November, but with the lack of grass due to drought the past few years we have been weaning much earlier, last year September 4.  But due to reduced cattle numbers and adequate moisture and grass this year we justified weaning much later.  The calves have been eating feed from the creep feeders and eating hay with their mothers for several weeks so they had no problem starting on feed in the corral.  This may translate in to having very few sick calves this season.