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Hi Everyone,

               Last week started off better than the week before—because we had help. Micah was well enough to return to work Monday morning and boy were we glad to see him. I had all kinds of plans for Monday—but none of it got done. I was a cowgirl all day long! My day started out milking cows, and then I became Papa’s right hand cowgirl as we rounded up cattle from one end of the property to the other end. We had been told that cattle was bringing in a pretty penny at the local livestock auction and since we needed to make some extra money to help finish our new barn build—and we had some cows that needed to be culled and a few cash cows. One of our Jersey milk cows got a bad case of mastitis when against our wishes we had to change brands of alfalfa pellets. Gail didn’t like the new food—and she stressed out over it and ended up with mastitis. So we had to cull her. We were told that white face, black cows were bringing a pretty penny at the auction—and we just so happened to have two of them thanks to our cross-breeding our Murray Grey cows to our South Poll bull. Since we are going into winter I did a drastic culling in the beef herd—if they were not fat and sassy they left. It will help greatly with the amount of hay we have to feed. So we had to round up cows from the milk herd, the heifer herd, the bull/steer herd, and the beef herd. We started round up around 10:30—and finished around 12:30. The auction started at 1:00. Some of the cows rounded up easier than others—with Gail, the milk cow being the easiest. The beef herd was the hardest to work with. We had to bring down the whole herd into the panel pen to figure out who stayed and who left. We had seven cows set aside when Papa went to get the trailer, and while he was gone I was looking over the cows we were keeping and noticed that one of the fat cows had a metal tag in her ear—which meant that she was over ten years old. I decided that it was a good time to sell her, instead of burying her later. When Papa got back I told him that I wanted to add one more cow to the load. He wasn’t too sure that we had time—and he wasn’t too sure that eight cows would fit on the trailer. I hadn’t even thought about fitting the cows on the trailer. I just told Papa that everything would be fine—but please help me to get the last cow. Once we had her added to the “for sale” side we then started the hardest process—getting them loaded on the trailer. The first four were the easiest—and they were the smallest. The last four were bigger. The second cow to go in the back portion was the big fat cow—and she didn’t exactly get out of the way of the opening when she climbed in which made it more difficult to put the last two cows on the trailer. Papa had to push and shove, pick up the cows feet, and push and shove. I felt really sorry for him—but those cows just wouldn’t load without great encouragement. We (he) finally accomplished it. Then Papa took off for the auction—while I wondered if the tires would hold the weight all the way to the auction. I then went inside to feed Grandpa and me some lunch. When lunch was over I talked Grandpa into loading up into the truck to come outside and watch while Micah and I put the cows back—we had left the beef herd in the panel pens. We didn’t get very far before Papa was back and joined us on our cattle driving adventure. There were two calves that were ready to be weaned—so we had to separate them before we let out the rest of the herd. Then we had to swap bulls. We had given Jabez (the South Poll bull) a few months off and put Eeyore (the Murray Grey bull) in with the girls—and now we wanted to put Jabez back with the herd. The swap went smoothly with Jabez, but when we went to put Eeyore back we also had a steer and the weaned bull calf to take with him—and things didn’t go too well. Eeyore and the steer walked straight to the bull field without any problems, but the bull calf decided to stray off in the other direction. Then to our dismay he jumped over the fence. Micah and I tried to turn him back—but he jumped another fence, and another, and then another. He got back up to the chestnuts—and thankfully couldn’t go any farther (one more field and he would have made it back to the beef herd—but his mama wasn’t there because I had sold her). Papa wanted to quit—but I needed that calf in the panel pens so he could get fed some alfalfa for a little while until we moved him and the heifer that we had weaned into their new herds. We were going to take the heifer to the heifer field, but after the bull jumped all the fences I wasn’t about to let her out just yet. I convinced Papa to hook up the trailer to the tractor and see if we couldn’t corner the bull calf in the chestnuts and put him in the trailer. We got the trailer in position—but instead of going to the corner like a good little bull, he took off to the other end of the chestnut field. We followed after him until he jumped the fence and escaped to the pond field. I decided to walk back down the field and up the lane to set up the panel pens so that if we got him back in the lane we could get him in the pen. Papa brought the tractor down and Micah met me at the panel pens with the golf-cart. I could have actually caught a ride with him because he got to the panel pens just second behind me—O well, it was good exercise (though my legs complained about it the next day). We did manage to get the bull calf to leave the pond field and head up the lane—but he jumped the fences shortly before he got to the panel pens. We chased him up one field and down another before he jumped more fences and made his way back to the chestnut field. It was 4:30 now and Papa called it quits—and I had to agree. The next day Papa opened the gate into the beef herd field and the bull soon joined his buddy’s again. We didn’t get another chance to separate him until Friday afternoon. I had spent the morning at a bulb growing class—and came home with some tulip bulbs for Mama to plant. Papa and Micah had tried to bring the whole beef herd down, but the cows were not dumb and refused to leave the field. When lunch was over I convinced the men to give it another try. We grabbed a bucket of alfalfa pellets and headed up to entice them out of the field. Micah drove the golf-cart and I sat on the back seat shaking the bucket of alfalfa pellets. Papa was on foot trying to encourage the cows to follow. At first no one came. Then Micah told me to go and let Jabez get a bit of the alfalfa pellets—but not to let him have the bucket. So I did—and then I quickly climbed back up on the golf-cart seat and told Micah to drive on. Jabez was very interested in the treats in the bucket and he was following nicely. Sometimes Micah would drive to slow and I was afraid that Jabez was going to end up in my lap. He is a big cow, but thankfully a gentle giant. His nose is as big as my head, and his head is as big as or bigger than my torso. With Jabez following us, Papa was finally able to convince some of the other cows to follow too—and one of those was the little bull calf. It was slow going, but in the end we managed to get Jabez, one mama cow, and the bull calf down the hill, up the lane and into the panel pens. We then fed them the alfalfa pellets as a reward and when the cows were done eating, we shooed Jabez and the cow back out, down the lane, up the hill and back to their winter pastures. I was grateful that the calf was safe and sound in the panel pens with his buddy where we could feed them for a little while until they calm down. Beef cows are so different from milk cows. Milk cows live to serve you—easier to become friends with them, but beef cows are very independent and wild. It was a long day—and I was exhausted (not to mention I ended up with a massive headache). I couldn’t wait for bed that night—and speaking of bed I think that it is time to go there now.

               I have ran out of time and energy to tell about the lettuce I transplanted, the new lettuce seeds I planted, how Micah helped us get caught back up on our egg packaging, that we finally got the snap dragons weeded and the flower netting strung over them, and how our Facebook page disappeared for a day, and how we have spent the last few days taking down our fall décor and putting up our winter décor—but all that happened last week too!

Serving you with Gladness,

Tiare