The past few days, the cowdogs and I have been rounding up cows at several different locations. It’s time to sift through the calf data and pull out the cows that have fallen off in their production and send them to town. Saturday was a busy day going back to some of the different places to sort off the cows to ship. The grand plan was to get around super early while the ground was frozen so that hauling the cattle out of the steep, hilly pastures could be done before the ground began to thaw more. Well, the grand plan was out the window since it didn’t get cold enough to freeze the ground enough. It got to 50 yesterday and the snow melt was in full swing and the night just did not get cold enough. So, I loaded up two cowdogs in the tractor and made the rounds to feed. We rounded up our cows to sort through and left them in the traps and corrals. We went home and gathered some bulls and then hooked up the trailer to the tractor. By 10 the ground was pretty sloppy. The sun was trying to peek through some thin cloud cover. If the clouds would have disappearred, the last of our snow would have also disappearred. But the clouds got heavier as the day went along and the melting slowed way down. The south facing hills are nearly 100 percent open, but the E, N, and W are still covered with 2-3 inches of snow. Sunday night we are to begin a new storm event…freezing rain, ice, changing to snow and the early estimates are 8-12″ of heavy snow. I guess I won’t be alone though. Appears the NW cold air is going to bump into a wet air mass coming up out of the Gulf. Yippee…the two systems are to converge in central MO. Looks to me like they are going to ‘collide’. I wonder if the stockyards might cancel the Monday sale again.
I guess it is a ‘whatever situation’. Whatever it does, we will have to do whatever it takes to tend to the stock. So much for trying to stay ahead of things! Hope you enjoy the pictures. I know one thing for sure though…my feet are tired of Muck Boots with cleets.
All in all, I really enjoy having some smart cowdogs that can think, process and sort through some tough situations. We got a lot done this week and I am grateful that their Dad Bert passed along his ‘cow sense and brains’ to his kids. Hawk and the kids are helping me carry on without Mr. Bert. We love you Bert…
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