Thursday, April 18, 2013

Snow - Balls - how fitting!


So my sister has been patiently waiting for another blog entry and I am sure a few of you have too.  

Poop puddle
I am going to use this entry to vent but first a quick update on the goats - All of our ladies have kidded and babies (just shy of 20 total) are all doing good.  The babies are loving this snow but I am not!  I am sick of the snow.  SOOOO, SOOOOOO SICK OF IT that I am starting to think that we should sell the farm and get the hell out of dodge.  I just want green grass - that means no more throwing hay or walking knee deep mud when the white stuff melts.  Or hauling hay from another farm every week since we ran out of what we bought for the year.  (And that is another story in itself since there is a hay shortage and prices are through the roof!).  

Getting muddy
Today’s adventure.....it appears that my daughter’s little "steer" that she showed at the fair last year is not a steer after all.  When we bought him he was already banded and taken care of.  Well, the idiot who banded him missed a ball - how that F do you miss a ball!!???!!  (I am the bander when we do ours and let me tell you, missing one will never happen, even if I have to fondle and massage the damn things back down. - gross but it has to be done!)  I discovered Ralphie's issue a few months ago after he kept trying to mount me when I was doing chores.  Let me tell you when you are in the middle of filling water buckets or stuffing hay into the feeders and out of nowhere something huge is clambering on your back  - it freaks you out.  And then when you realize its your "steer" trying to get his way with you - OH BOY, out of the barn he went to live with the big boys and girls.  We were hoping "he didn't work".  Well, that hope was shot out the door today after seeing his wiener come out today while trying to get on one of the heifers (who is quite larger than him, not even sure he could reach)- he had to be moved ASAP and the hubby had to leave for work.  


Whoops!!
All fixed
Ofcourse - the corral needed to be blocked off, new wood put up where boards were missing, calf huts moved to the corral plus a bale of hay put in there cause I am NOT picking off a round bale and moving it by hand in there.  (I already pick off bales in the barn to feed in there and move about 2400lbs of hay by hand a week, I surely do not need to be moving hay by hand across the pasture too).  Started out with fixing the boards, not a problem, I can handle a hammer and nails.  Then I had to find something to block the corral off.  Dug out the buried in snow cattle panels and drug them up the road and through the yard, rigged them up the best I could to make a gate.  Back out in the pasture to move the calf huts.  Ok, maybe not....After snapping a shovel in half trying to dig out the calf huts, I was swearing like mad and I went in the house in tears.  I called my husband and he said to leave everything until he got home.  I didn’t think that was a good idea....cause the “deed” could have already taken place by then and that would NOT be good!  There is no way in hell that we need to have calves being born in the dead of winter.  

Rigged up gate
I hate asking for help with things but I sucked it up and called my neighbor.  I felt bad calling her since she works midnights and was sound a sleep but she came to the rescue to operate the skid-steer (thinking maybe I should learn how work that thing even though I REALLY don't want too cause then I will be expected to use it and if something breaks- it will be my fault!).  Once she freed the stuck calf huts and helped move them in the corral along with a bale, I thanked her profusely and told her I owed her lunch next week.  

She offered to stay to help get Ralphie in the the corral but I figured he would be easy to get over there since he is halter broke so I told her no - go home and get some sleep.  I should have just had her stay.....Ralphie was NOT going to cooperate getting the halter on.  Finally got a rope on him, then a nice drag through the mud I went.   Phew - he stopped and I cornered him between the gate and the barn and put the halter on - upside down and backwards!!  That wasn't working so as I was fixing it another steer came up behind him and mounted him, well that freaked out one of the heifers and she squeezed though the little section of gate I had open to move Ralphie through.  Not to worry, she was still in a fenced in area but now she was in with the goats.  AHHHHHHH!  That was real fun chasing her around to get her back over to the gate (which I had now shut otherwise all the goats would have been on the cattles side). Successfully got her back over, was able to fix the halter situation, now it was time to move.  NOPE - he was not moving!  I pulled and tugged and all he did was fight it and go backwards.  It was like 1 step forward, 2 steps backwards.  I decided I would try and push him (hoping he wouldn’t kick) and steer him with the halter rope in one hand and the rope around his neck in the other hand kinda like driving a cart.  I managed to get him though the gate without anyone else crossing to the wrong side, around the barn we went and back up the other side towards the corral.  I was getting exhausted as the snow is not plowed, I kept sinking and I was fighting him the whole time.  As I was pusing him with my chest right on his rear, he decides he is going to poop!  FABULOUS, who doesn’t like cow poop smeared across their chest!!!???!!!!!  That last 50 feet to the corral seemed like a mile and when I got him in there it felt like I crossed the finish line.  Too bad nobody was cheering for me!

Hmmmpppfff - would rather lay in
the hay instead of the hut that
he normally chooses to
squeeze his fat body into.
Glad I went through all the effort
to move it in there.
Now it was time to bring him a buddy.  #50 was going to join him.  I walked into the barn to get him and realized he would have to wait, I was out of energy - heck I will never have enough energy to move him myself.  #50 is about 9 months old and is very strong.  When we wormed the calves earlier this year, he wanted NOTHING to do with it.  In his craziness, he plowed through the pens in the barn, knocked my husband down & ran me over scraping my arm along a cattle panel (to which I now have a pretty 5 inch scar on my arm).  He is going to be a two man job to move if not three.  
One-baller Ralphie

So that was my exciting 4 hour barn chore morning.  Lots of swearing, LOTS!  Hope the next time I drop F bomb when I am out there that all the animals don’t come running to me.  From the way it was coming out of my mouth, they may think that’s all of their names!  Ooooopppps!




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