Mining gravel

               

We contracted with Dawes county 4 months ago to open up a gravel pit on the ranch.  Gravel was soon piled and ready for transport, but none was hauled until this week.  Being close to the highway the pit is handy for the county.  Being 3 miles from our buildings it minimally affects the ranch operation, but still creates a small side income.  So I consider that a win - win business deal. 
 

Beef Quality Assurance at the Wohlers Ranch

The Wohlers Ranch has pride in raising cattle in a humane manner suppling livestock with proper nutrition, providing necessary shelter and handling them in an easy manner.  Most of our animals are quiet and adjust to our ranch life with no problems.  However there are occasional  members of the herd that are like some people that test our patience.  We recently attended a seminar to update our commitment to beef Quality Assurance.

Labor saver

 Ranching is similar to many industries having difficulty finding employees especially for occasional day help.  Finding qualified and experienced help for ranching is nearly impossible.  Therefore a calf table was purchased so 2 old guys and 1 young hard working young guy could process the medical needs of the new crop of calves.  Blake can push a calf into the table and then hydraulic levers allow the calf to be restrained laid over on it's side so the procedures can be performed with little stress to the calf or the cowmen.

Tidying up

 Old and nonused  often wore out machinery has been relocated to the junk row at the ranch for many years.  Some of the discards may be over 100 years old.  It has been handy to have a source of scrape iron when needing to make equipment repairs.  However the size of the junk pile has been getting ridiculous. A trailer was filled with scrap and hauled to the salvage company.  It was a 2 hour job to load 1 1/4 ton of iron that brought in $240 when delivered 60 miles away.  This is not a get rich job, but after another 6 to 8 loads the ranch will appear more well kept.  

Surprise!

 Wohlers Ranch calves during late April and May in an attempt to avoid harsh Spring weather.  This means placing the bulls with the cows in mid July.  However the neighbors put their bulls with the cows about May 1.  The neighbor's bulls are sometimes looking for something to do by mid July.  Our cows are red and black, Our bulls are red.  Most neighbors have black bulls so the sire of black calves needs to be determined by a DNA test.  A couple of neighbors have white bulls (Charolais).  The calves they sire can be determined without a DNA test.

Two Seasons

There are two seasons at the Wohlers Ranch each year: calm and windy.  Calm season occurs in July when the ambient temperature is in the 90's  and cattle need to drink lots of water.  Of course the wind doesn't blow, the windmills don't turn, water is not pumped and another source of water needs to be found.  Windy season occurs in March and if accompanied with snow we have a blizzard.  Then roads become impassible, cattle may die and tumble weeds collect on fences.  This year the windy season started in February and is still blowing most days yet in May.  There has been many days with wind blowing at 30 to 40 miles per hour.  several days have had winds of 80 mph and 2 days winds approached 100 mph.  roofs of buildings were damaged and large trees were toppled. This is Blake opening a gate with overnight tumble weeds hindering him.