livestock handling facility

The old cattle processing facility was falling apart, needing extensive repairs.  We therefore dismantled it for repairs and moved it north to the Dawes County pastures.  Then we purchased a new Powder River System for the home corrals.  It remains to be seen if we can stabilize it enough on dirt as we are hesitant to lay a concrete bed to bolt it down until we are satisfied with the location.  If all works well everything should go smoother during the pregnancy checking and vaccinating of the herd this year.

corn crop

Sharyn is also a shareholder in Rogowski Family Farms LLC.  This farm has traditionally been a total wheat farm.  A few years ago millet was added for a crop rotation.  This year for the first time in many years corn was planted in the rotation.  There was adequate moisture this year to produce what appears to be a successful yield for a dry land crop in our arid environment.  Fortunately there is a share cropper doing the farming so Sharyn will not have to pick the corn.

Eclipse brings visitors

Agate Fossil Beds National Park is 20 miles west of Wohlers Ranch along the Niobrara River.  It is a museum with many dinosaur fossils recovered from the hills near by and many native American Artifacts that were given to the original European owner of this land.  The park ordinarily has only 14,000 visitors per year because of it's remote location.  Being near the center of the path of the eclipse on 8/21/2017 the park had 11,000 visitors.  River Road had never accommodated that many cars before.  

Solar Eclipse

August 21, 2017 brought us the rare event of a solar eclipse tracking within a 70 mile wide pass of totality across the United States, the closer you were located to the center of the path the longer the sun was completely behind the moon as viewed from the earth.  Wohlers Ranch was about 12 miles from the center and therefore the sun was hidden for over 2 minutes.  Needing to check on the ranch, because of the many visitors to our area, but not wanting to view this spectacle alone Sharyn, Blake and Arden went up the River Road to Agate Fossil Beds to be with other people for the viewing.

auto painting hobby

Blake occasionally does auto-body work as a hobby at his garage remodeled into a paint booth at the ranch.  Here he is demonstrating to our friend Nathan the painting technique on a pickup that Nathan was sprucing up.  After instruction Nathan did most of the sanding and prep work.  The finished product in tractor red looked pretty good.

Western Tiger Salamander

This summer we have been watching 6-8 inch Western Tiger Salamanders in the livestock tank in pasture S4, there are several adults and numerous juveniles.  These salamanders supposedly are widespread in Nebraska and live on land in rodent burrows such as prairie dog towns only moving to mudholes and ponds to lay eggs and have their young develop.  How they manage to get in the tank is a mystery to me as in my many years on the ranch I had never seen these amphibians before.

Driveway gate

It has been a year since a new driveway was built for over a mile from River Road to the ranch buildings so we decided to place a gate at the entry that would be easy to open and could be locked.  Fortunately Travis, Joe and Isaac were visiting and the extra help to attach and line up the double gates was much appreciated by Blake and Arden. 

calf doctors

This past week the new calves were processed, it took a crew of 7 to be efficient, branding, 2 vaccinations (gave protection from 12 diseases), castration, ear tag, and this year a small blood sample was drawn for DNA testing.  Of course we needed people to help the calf on to the table and somebody to keep records and label the samples.  Certainly there was some pain for the calf, much like when people go to their physician, but by being efficient the calf was on the table for about 1 minute and within a few minutes they were running around the corral as if nothing had happened looking for their mother.

Beautiful invader

Early last century or before settlers along the Niobrara planted beautiful but nonnative Yellow Flag Iris next to the river.  Lovely to look at these flowers have since gradually taken over meadows 25 miles west of our ranch and other areas further east in Nebraska.  the flower has migrated for a dozen miles down the valley forming a mat that restricts the growth of our native grasses.  Efforts are ongoing to eradicate or limit its spread.  We will need to be vigilant and prepared to fight this invader.

War has been declared

We have been invaded (100-150 years ago) by a number of foreign plants, many from eastern Europe.  In their homeland they had natural enemies, such as insects or plant diseases that kept them under control, but when our early settlers accidently brought them to America the natural enemies did not come with them.  The Scotch thistle that  Blake is spraying here has formed several stands on the ranch that not only crowds out forage, but are so dense cattle  cannot walk through the infested areas.

viewing the herd

Finally we came to a herd of cows so Arden could show Sackett and Brennen some baby calves, they weren't real impressed, but the herd wasn't impressed with us either.  Calving is nearly finished so vaccinating, branding and DNA testing will be the next job to be done on the ranch.

family tree

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The Foster's desire was to see the big cottonwood tree in the west meadow so that was the next stop.  This tree holds the size record on the wohlers' ranch, but is way behind the state record.  Cottonwoods are notorious for rotting in the middle and falling over.  This tree is over 100 years old, how long will it stand?  

visiting the turtle

My grandkids Foster visited last week and we did a ranch tour.  The first stop was on the dike over the Niobrara where we found a turtle that had been laying her eggs in the gravel.  Blake controlled mama turtle so she would not snap anybody.  Too bad the kids can't extend their visit until the eggs hatch and the baby turtles emerge from the gravel.