Calving Capers Episode 3

On February 17, 2016March 21, 2016 By colleengbergIn Agriculture, Calving CapersLeave a comment

One of my favorite cows is Vanilla Dip, aptly named in reference to her white-tipped nose which looks like it was dipped in vanilla ice cream. She has provided us a nice mix of female and male calves over the past few years. It is actually Vanilla Dip and 3B, as mother and baby calf, that I chose to introduce my blog-posting feature series back on Jan 27. They are also the pair on my Calf Count image on the sidebar to my blog.

The girl she had two years ago is 3B the next in my cast of Calving Capers characters….an aspiring young bred heifer.

Unbelievably, she is almost two years old, about to deliver her first calf, and she still doesn’t have a name! Perhaps my blog readers have a suggestion or two…if so, please feel free to share in a friendly comment.
I look forward to seeing her progeny as her mother has such a nice temperament and so far, 3B is turning out to be the same. We love to keep the quiet ones around, so if she stays with the herd she most certainly needs an imaginative name.

Photo Challenge – Life Imitates Art

On February 17, 2016March 21, 2016 By colleengbergIn Agriculture, Domestic Animals, Photo Challenges2 Comments

This week’s challenge is to imitate a work of art in some way shape or form. I found that the process of taking on this challenge created a story itself.

Life Imitates Art

This past Christmas my husband received a small table sculpture from his twin boys of a praying cowboy by his horse.

I thought this would be a cool piece of art to recreate with him and his dedicated, faithful hard-working horse. When asked, I was thrilled that my husband willingly agreed. I thought I would have to beg and plead!

We chose today, after chores, to tackle the project. Because we have had our two older horses out in the field partnered up all on their own, it required hubby to quad out to them this afternoon to halter up his gelding, T-Bone. The second horse, Shadow, trotted right alongside. Horses need to be together and these two are the best of friends.

Subsequently, when separated, Shadow became very anxious and ran along the fenceline in despair for the duration of our project because her T-Bone buddy was taken out of her sight.

We needed to set up out of view so we could try to recreate a “peaceful”, prayerful pose of cowboy and quiet horse. We went with a couple of different renditions:

A few minutes later, it was all over, the humans had their photo challenge fun and the friends were reunited, free to graze and meander without human intervention for a few more weeks.

Calving Capers Episode 2

On February 11, 2016March 21, 2016 By colleengbergIn Agriculture, Calving Capers, Domestic AnimalsLeave a comment

We experienced a sad and disappointing occurrence this past week. One of our fine young bred heifers aborted her calf almost two months early. She may have been bumped or fell on the terrible icy surfaces we are beleaguered with this winter to trigger this loss.
It was a female calf which makes it worse as she would have been a gal we could have kept in the herd.
And to top it all off, making it doubly worse, this was Suzy Q’s first calf!

What makes me extra sad is that she always returns to the same spot on the straw bed where she dropped her calf. This is where I took her picture.

This was not the way I wished to introduce the next character in Calving Capers, our dear Suzy Q [40B], the one and only daughter of our dearly departed Trixie, featured last year in this blog.
Thankfully though, Suzy Q will “be allowed” to stay in the herd and get to try again. In the meantime she’s going to have a pretty easy year just grazing and keeping all the nutrients to herself. She’s a lovely heifer with a chance to be our superstar next year!

Photo Challenge -Time

On February 10, 2016March 21, 2016 By colleengbergIn Agriculture, Photo Challenges1 Comment

This week’s photo challenge is to interpret:

Time

….has taken it’s toll on our big old hip-roof barn. In particular I see it’s now time for me to probably get hoisted up on the front-end loader and do some shingle patch-me-ups. Just need to find me some more time!

Vibrant – Photo Challenge

On February 5, 2016March 21, 2016 By colleengbergIn Photo Challenges, Uncategorized2 Comments

Sneaking in my interpretation of last Friday’s photo challenge. I see there isn’t a new one posted yet for today so may be getting in under the wire!

Vibrant

During the winter months,the last thing I want to prepare is a cold salad even though I do enjoy them as a vibrant and healthy food source. What a treat then, yesterday, to be invited out to lunch and my hostess had prepared such a warm and inviting and yes, vibrant salad! She didn’t even mind me pulling out my phone right away to snag this pic! Somewhat of a rude gesture for a dinner guest, mayhaps??

Calving Capers Episode 1

On February 5, 2016March 21, 2016 By colleengbergIn Agriculture, Calving Capers, Domestic AnimalsLeave a comment

During these somewhat routine days before calving starts, a flurry of activity goes on behind the scenes for me. This week has been focussed on completing all the farm
books recording in order to send off to the accountant to compile our 2015 tax returns. It is in order too, I practically do all the work for them but in return they keep their charges down. I prefer that they do the last tweaking anyway.

Along with record-keeping is nailing down all our inventory numbers for year end purposes. So many outside parties need that particular set of information from us. Our government, our banker, our accountant and of course ourselves. It was quite exciting this year to see that my efforts paid off. I reconciled every calf right down to the last head. Small victories create much satisfied excitement for this rancher girl!

So as we approach the busy weeks ahead I’ll take the time to feature my cast of characters in the drama about to unfold. This week meet 12B, otherwise known as Goldilicks.

I named her so in her early days after weaning. She had lost her pretty pink calf tag so we no longer could recall who her mother was. But what made her unique was her willingness to come up to any of us and readily lick our gloves, no matter if we were in the corral or out in the pasture. She is a lighter red in colour, almost goldish under the noonday sun so what better name than Goldilicks?

After a summer of frolicking in our north pasture with her sisters and a couple of fellas (the bulls) she is now an almost-grown-up cow….rather, a bred heifer. She is carrying her very first calf and you can bet I will be keeping a watchful eye over her as she nears her calving date and commences her life as a productive mother cow.

She earned the coveted number 12 (one of Flicka Rancher’s favorite numbers) to go along with the B which represents her year of birth. Most of the letters of the alphabet are used in the cattle industry to identify the year of birth. For example, breeding stock (heifers and bulls) born in 2013 are A, 2014 (like Goldilicks) are B, the animals we had and kept from last year in 2015 will earn a C tag and so on.

Just think, next time you’re walking by a field or pasture with grazing cows, check out their tags … you’ll be able to amaze your friends by informing them almost exactly the age of those animals just by the letter in their ear tag.

Calving Capers continues next week!

Calving Capers

On January 27, 2016March 21, 2016 By colleengbergIn Agriculture, Calving Capers, Domestic Animals2 Comments

And finally, my final assignment in Blogging 101. I can hardly believe I stuck to it! I am prone to be a great starter of “things” and not always a “finisher” of same so feeling pretty confident now and full of focus.

The final assignment is to create a feature for my blog – something for my readers to return to and to expect on a consistent and repeatable basis. Well, what is more repeatable and consistent on a ranch than calving season! It also happens to be one of our most favorite as well as challenging times of the year…loaded with adventures and story after story begging to be told.

At the same time I’ll be able to keep my calf inventory count absolutely current and up to date on an almost daily basis….something unheard of in my normally “let’s catch-up now” world. [Keep an eye on my side bar over the next few months.]

Our official calving season commences mid-March this year. My feature – Calving Capers will appear every Thursday to satisfy my earlier promise to devote Thursdays to blogging. Look for the first episode of my feature on Thursday, February 4, 2016.

Market Optimism

On January 26, 2016March 21, 2016 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!
Optimistic

Waiting and Watching

On January 19, 2016 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.

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 January 18, 2016January 18, 2016 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!

sled

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.