Market Optimism

On By colleengbergIn Agriculture, Domestic Animals, Photo ChallengesLeave a comment

In the waning days of Blogging 101 we are to select a wordpress event to participate in. Of course I would select The Weekly Photo Challenge. Because, that’s what I like to do…take photos!! We are to enter the next cycle of events. The challenge this week, commencing Friday January 22, is to depict an interpretation of “optimism”.

Our market calves….make me optimistic that the bills will be paid and that we will have female progeny to hold back in the herd to carry on production of calves…more calves ..always more marketable calves to produce delectable beef, to pay the bills….
Just a few days ago though, listening to their coughs and watching their lethargic behaviour, I was filled with worry and concern for their well-being and ultimately…ours! They were sick! The lot of them. They needed treatment fast!! Somehow a respiratory illness had started spreading through our herd and was affecting the young female calves the worst. Hubby and I rounded them up and for the next four hours sorted and vaccinated and bedded them down for the night and hoped and prayed we had caught the problem in time.

I took this picture the next day to support my happiness and ultimate optimism in the power of modern veterinary medicines we rely on to maintain the health and wellness of our animals. They look ready to take on the world!
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Waiting and Watching

On By colleengbergIn Domestic Animals6 Comments

Reason to Believe

There is one special character on this ranch who lives with unwavering faith and reason to believe that I will daily emerge from the house so she can follow me around the yard and fields as my loving companion. That would be my 14 year old border collie Dixie.

She’s pretty stiff with arthritis, she can’t hear a thing but she wakes up every day, makes her way to the end of lane and there she waits and watches. She watches the window with every reason to believe that I will wave to her from the window, or even better, emerge through the door all suited up in coveralls – ready to chore with her by my side.

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I feel somewhat honoured too that it’s me she waits for at the end of the lane. My husband will leave the house earlier than me and head to the barn and corrals with the younger dog but Dixie remains. She remains at the end of the lane and watches and waits with every reason to believe.

Winter Water Woes

On By colleengbergIn Agriculture1 Comment

Now, I thought I had troubles with “water gone wrong” when the temps drop below -25C and there are cows and horses and dogs and cats and bulls to keep hydrated throughout the bone-chilling days. I found another blogger with similar woes, aptly titled The Seven Emotional Stages of Hauling Water. I empathized almost immediately!

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I was pretty proud of my “system” of sledding two 5 gallon plastic water dispensers [otherwise used for the glorious warm days of summer camping] to the horses’ waterer that had recently failed us in our temperature plummet. This gal however, packed her two 5 gallon pails back and forth by hand and on-foot to fill a 100 gallon trough! I am humbled but at the same time comforted to be in the same company of other hard-working souls determined to care for their livestock no matter what the conditions.

Ideal Audience

On By colleengbergIn AgricultureLeave a comment

Day Four assignment invites us to write a post to our ideal audience. This’ll be easy as I already write to and design my posts for my ideal audience….my family and friends. I seek for them to understand how valuable our rural lifestyle is and that the daily hard work we endure is actually our passion and a source of enjoyment.
There’s nothing better for the heart and soul than a full day of chores…good old-fashioned hard work. No time to be idle nor chance of boredom.
Not when there’s views like this around home.

Love of Livelihood

On By colleengbergIn Agriculture1 Comment

I’m back in class again. Blogging 101 is underway. I have tried to get going with this course offered by WordPress more than once but this time I have no excuses. Assignment #1…Say Hello to The World. Well, since I’ve been writing this blog for a little over a year now…albeit, sporadically….I’ll just reintroduce my self and why I’m blogging.

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My husband and I operate a 300 head cow/calf operation in Alberta, Canada. Up until a year ago we both held off-farm jobs and still ran the ranch. After this past year, I still shake my head in wonderment as to how we did it. How did we care for all these critters as well as ourselves and children and the jobs that kept us constantly driving away from the ranch?

It is time now to enjoy our livelihood. We now can stay home together and care for these animals that mean so much to us. Thus the reason for this blog. I’ve always liked to journal life events and I am passionate about taking pictures to support those stories….sounds like the kind of stuff that makes a blog perhaps?

The simplicity and pure pleasure of rural life is what my blog Flicka Rancher is all about. The female perspective behind the life we live out here on the ranch.

 

My Project

On By colleengbergIn Agriculture1 Comment

Back in the archives of this blog is a story titled “Gentle Assist” (April 14,2015). It’s about our blind calf from cow #8U and how we gently assisted him to find his mom to suckle in his early days of existence. Well the “little” fella has thrived over the past eight months. Living close to home and to us to keep a watchful eye has provided him a fairly pampered life. Turns out he and his mom did quite well finding each other in the fields of our home. He would sniff her out quite well while they lived in a pen together and as he grew older we found he could roam around our pastures and she would always seek him out for his daily feed.
But the day came to wean him and now he’s ” my project”. Every single year, it seems, I get a “project” amongst our calves. A “project” means a cripple or disabled critter of some sort or another. So 8U’s calf (known as Ugo) now resides in his very own pen which used to be home for the kids’ 4-H calves, complete with shelter, straw bedding, hay and chop hand-delivered throughout the day and two visits from me with water from the pail. As soon as he feels my hand by his mouth he knows the pail of water is next. Weaning hasn’t been stressful for him at all. Being disabled for this little hombre has turned into a delightful life experience.
I figure this special treatment is the least I can do for him before he ends up in our freezer. Because, sadly, that’s where he’s bound. His condition will not favour us in the sales ring but he’ll certainly help us out in the grocery department.

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Quilting and Feeding Chop

On By colleengbergIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Whatever would there be in common between quilting and feeding chop? Lots, when one does chores the way I do chores when I have the whole day to do them by myself, that is.

It’s all about patterns. I got to feed all our pens on my own yesterday as the hubby had a task off the farm. Otherwise he’s here every day and I have to follow his routines and…well…there is just no “pattern” to the way he does things [even though he does get stuff done faster than me!]

So back to the patterns. My task was to feed 5 different pens of varying numbers of animals plus the big herd of cows. The total number of pails of chop that we feed every day totals 110….yup, hand-scooped and hand-delivered.

I like to scoop sets of 4 or sets of 6 or sets of 10 and deliver each set to the trough and then return to scooping the grain into another set. This way I break up the task and I stick to an organized formulation of tasks ever so much like quilting. When I put together a quilt I also work in sets of tasks very much like the pattern I set out in feeding chop.

It’s the only way to get through an extremely mundane and labor intensive repeatable chore and make it almost mathematical and organized and almost interesting?

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Lucky Sevens

On By colleengbergIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Forgive me….but I just can’t get enough of my goose family. Yesterday, I had to check on them to ensure that they made it through their first night off the bale-their birthplace.
Of course, they fooled me again and were not to be found….so I started for home only to be be pleasantly surprised to find them in a smaller slough just a little closer now to our house! I’m hoping they will finally rest those goslings and make their permanent home in the big slough in view of our front room window!
On my next visit, this time with camera, they tried to elude me yet again. Found’em in the grass….mom and dad crouching down but the little ones looking around every which way. And yes, still the Lucky SEVENS.

Goose Sequel

On By colleengbergIn Uncategorized1 Comment

It’s probably time to record a goose update. Between the gander and hubby and myself, we’ve been babysitting “our” nesting momma goose vigilantly throughout her 28+ days incubating her eggs.

Yesterday she hatched!!!! I couldn’t wait to get home from the office and check her out with her goslings. There was only one little fella that would give me the pleasure of popping his little head up …. The rest she kept closely concealed.

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The following day, after hatching, is when she should coax them from the bale and take them to the closest water source. This crazy goose has me so mesmerized that I set the alarm for 4:30 this morning to be the first to witness this amazing event. But there she sat, snuggled down with her goslings … not looking like she meant to go anywhere.

Chores got underway and a couple hours passed. I went to check again, camera and binoculars strung about my shoulders and my worst nightmare….nobody was on the bale! I was feeling pretty disappointed that I had missed this “little show from nature” and then as I started heading back to the yard I saw a sight that completely devastated me….a pair of adult Canada Geese in the slough and no babies. Not again you two….why can you never succeed at this family-making thing? Why does that coyote or that hawk always win…year after year? We tried so hard to make conditions perfect for you and here we go again!

I decided I better get a picture of the empty bale so I could illustrate this sadness, but this time I walked instead of taking the quad. I walked dejectedly along too, when all of sudden, right there in front of me was the sweetest sight to behold….our goose pair with their entire family of seven goslings being guided to the southern most slough in the other direction! They, happily, had me fooled.

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I continued to follow them right to the water and witnessed the first swim of the little ones. One tiny gaffer couldn’t quite keep up so it was comforting to watch the gander – his daddy – patiently wait for him, all the time ruffling his rear feathers as if to tell him…”hurry up!”

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Finally, after five years of trying, trying, trying….our faithful pair of Canada Geese has their first family. The Lucky Sevens I call them. They are now as safe as they can be in their water-sourced home in our south field. We can count on them to continue to return here annually. You can bet we will have the bale condos set up and ready for them smack in the middle of this pond so the dangerous waddle in the field can be eliminated altogether.
Oh, and that pair I saw earlier? We figure they are a newly-matched Mr and Mrs who we anticipate will occupy the second bale which we will also set up in this pond. The more the merrier!!!