Catching Up

On March 27, 2015March 27, 2015 By colleengbergIn Uncategorized2 Comments

I missed my Thursday Blogging activity last week and my husband actually is on my case to get at it tonight before another week passes by. My reaction? Hey, he really does care what I’m doing here every Thursday maybe?

So I have two story-lines to relate which will help in the catching-up theme I’ve adopted for today.

1. Very happy….no, make that ecstatic to report that my one and only cow, Puddin’ delivered a beautiful, healthy heifer calf just a couple days ago. She came during a spring snowstorm and so I’m quite willing to accept the name my husband immediately called her….Snowflake.I love her white under-belly and white legs….she’s going to be a showy gal.

2. I’m working on another story which I hope turns out as happy as the above cow-tale. Year after year in the spring we have the same pair of Canada geese that return to the ranch to nest and try, try, try to build themselves a family. Yet year after year they fail in some way either because of their own bad decisions on where they nest or circumstances beyond their control like coyotes and hawks finding their eggs or the young’ns before they get to water. Suffice it to say they just have no luck. So we thought we would attempt to steer them towards a more successful nesting environment and hubby Peter planted two bales in the very middle of a nice clean slough in our field to the south.

We figure these are perfectly enticing as a nice safe option for our gander and his mate. They’ve been flying around the property scoouting things out over the past few days. We’re just crossing our fingers that “the Mrs” will approve and settle in soon.

I’m thinking if I were a goose, this would look pretty idyllic! I get into researching the behavior of Canada geese each year about this time. Apparently, they do like elevated sites to nest in which would be around water. As I say…..idyllic!

My Cow

On March 13, 2015 By colleengbergIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Out of the over 200 cows we have collectively, there is one cow that is my cow and mine alone. When we acquired her a few years ago in a pen of heifers we bought from elsewhere [something we no longer do as all our females are home-grown] I took a liking to her right away. Her brown and white patchy blotchy look is called “brockle-face” and to me, that means she has character. I also thought of vanilla and chocolate pudding right away for some reason and she soon came to be known as Puddin’.

We’re watching her closely these days now as she will be the first to calve out of the cows.She’ll probably end up being a week ahead of the others because she got to be with the bulls first having lost her calf from illness quite early on during last year’s calving season. Every single year she has had a male calf, she has yet to bring me a female like herself that we can keep in our “home-grown” young herd.

This is why she gets a special place in the blog tonight. By next week I am truly hoping I can write about her and her new heifer calf. I want to keep the Puddin’ Family keepin’ on!

However…………….

I do have an appeasement if she happens to grace me with yet another male calf. He will eventually go to market and be converted to cash, which will then be converted to a new camera lens for Flicka Rancher.

I Hate Cancer

On March 6, 2015March 6, 2015 By colleengbergIn Uncategorized1 Comment

When my stepchildren were young, I remember cautioning them to think twice about using that “hate” word….that it was an awfully strong word. Well I can’t hold back on that word these days. I have to say I do hate cancer and now what it is doing to my beautiful young cousin Karin. She’s not even forty and she finds herself battling a very aggressive cancer that is in fact diagnosed as terminal.

I dedicate every day to her. Nothing that happens in my daily routine can be as scary or as painful or as stressful as what she has to awaken to every day. I can pray for her, for her family, for her doctors but I wanted to do something a bit tangible too. So my husband and I entered a cancer fundraiser on the weekend in honour of her. It’s called a Cutter Rally and many horse-drawn cutters and haywagons gathered to ride either a 3 or 7 mile route through the fields on a sunny yet windchilling day. The cowboys, like my husband, rode horseback but most of us were either passengers or teamsters of a horse-drawn sleigh of some sort. We raised a tidy sum of money towards cancer research and funding efforts and had great fellowship with like-minded, good-hearted folks.

Here’s the one and only cadillac-heated version of a horse-drawn cutter….the rest of us were open to the elements.