Sounds of the Night Shift

Back in the 'old days' - before Facebook & blogging - I used to send out emails to family and friends during my 3 AM cattle checks.  I would report on the previous few days or the weather or whatever was on my mind (& sometimes it didn't make any sense because I was too tired but HAD to stay up!).  Since Facebook, I have not done that very much.  So, I thought it was time to report again!  

The sounds on my shift tonight were so pleasant that I just have to share about them.

First, I wake up to the radio playing "I'll by Missing You".   So, that song is stuck in my head as I walk around checking the cattle.   (Lucky for all, I don't sing it out loud!)

First step out of the door of the house and I hear the jingling dog tags on Odie.  There is no wind which is perhaps one of my favorite sounds.   The sound of NO wind that is.  The temp is about 30 above so there is only a slight bit of ice on any water that had been running during the day.  The mud has just a little crunch to it from freezing on the top layer.  A train is heard off in the distance.  I walk down a little hill to check the heifers (those who have never had a calf before).  Clang, clink, clunk.  The sound of taking the chain off and on to get through the gate.  I hear, and see, a few 'girls' chewing on some hay.  Others chewing their cud.  Ahh, the sweet sound of a new momma resting with her baby as if to say, "Look at my baby, isn't it the best?".  She has the nicest, softest little "Moo" - almost like a whisper so not to wake the baby, but enough to get my attention.

The rustling of straw as I walk around the pen of heifers.  They sure have settled down since I started this shift the end of February!  Then they would get up and run, now I could snuggle right in with them!

A flock of geese must be flying over as I can hear the 'honking'.    I just hope they are headed north.

I crawl over the fence (there may or may not be a couple of human noises here) and climb up the hill to check on one lone cow.  Heavy panting sounds from the overweight human are heard.   Again, the quiet moo of a new momma cow.  Back down the hill, crunching ice as I cross the little stream of water.  Do you hear the babbling?   There is a little waterfall here too.

Up a little hill, over another fence and further up a hill.  Yes, the human is panting again!  Oops, a little calf is running around without the cow nearby.  It says hello, "Moo" in it's little voice then comes over to me.  "I am not your mom.  Go find your mom.", I tell the calf.  It is a cute little Hereford baby.

I climb through the feed manger and walk to the Jeep.  A bit of crunching of the thin ice and slightly frozen mud can be heard.  I can also hear two owls visiting with each other.  "Who-who-Who" followed by "Who".  (I never hear the 't' sound so I think they say 'who' not 'hoot'!)

Crunk, Bang.  The sound of the Jeep door opening (it has a few dings in it so the door hits the fender when you open it.).  Click.  rattle.  Click.  It won't start.  clunk.  (put it Neutral)  Vroom!  (okay, not really, but you know what I mean - the thing started!)  The crunching sounds of the ice bits again.  Roll down the window.   Now the crunching sounds of driving on a gravel road.   Banging around trying to get the spot light out the window - and plugged in to the lighter spot.  I drive along slowly using the spot light to check the cattle as I drive the half mile to the north.  I really don't hear much except the gravel and an occasional cow talking.  (Lucky for me, tonight I didn't even hear the coyotes.   Guess they were happy about no wind too.)

I turn around and come back home.  Tonight I leave the window down on the drive back too as it is so nice out.  I take time to enjoy the lights of Minot Air Force Base, the glow of the lights from the city of Minot and the dark sky so full of stars.  

Back in the yard, two dogs are excited to see me.  They growl and play with each other.  Their dog tags are jingling.  The third dog is waiting at the door.   They all want in the house.   "It is too nice outside.  You guys stay out."  *sounds of scooping dog food*  (I don't know how to describe that!)   clink, clink, clink as the dog food is put into three dishes outside.    Water is running to fill their water dish.  I need to tell them, "no", as I come into the house because Rufus still wants to come in.

There you have it.  The sounds from my cattle check.  It is so nice to have beautiful weather - with NO wind.

Fall's Work

We have completed our harvest.  The last crop in was the corn. We had all of our corn chopped for silage.  Christopher's corn was combined.  It was wet but will be rolled (cracked) to be fed to the cattle in the feedlot. 

We have weaned all of the calves.  We do this in a multiple step process.  I thought I had written about it before, but I guess not.  I will have to try to do it next year.  Anyway, weaning, as you probably can guess, is when the calves and cows are separated so the calf will no longer nurse the cow.  We now have the calves in the feedlot.

Our cattle have been enjoying fall grazing.  There are some grazing a barley field and others are in the corn, pea & canola fields.  After we harvest these crops there is still some waste.  There are ears of corn & pea pods laying in the fields that fell off the plant for some reason, the barley & canola seeds that did the same and have now started growing again making for lush, green grazing.  This is a great way to add value to the crop (that would have otherwise been wasted) and to extend the amount of time that we do not have to feed them hay.  We did get a couple of inches of snow Saturday/Saturday night but that was not enough to end this "aftermath grazing".    Some of the snow has settled away and I hope for a bit of sunshine to take care of the rest that is out in the open areas. 

The men have been busy working on fence repair. There are some new fences being built and others are mended.  Some of this fence was around a field of Sudan Grass that was planted as a cover crop (to help dry out soil that did not get planted in the spring).  We had to wait until after November 1 (government regulation) to utilize this crop.  We plan to let the cattle graze this field as another way to help preserve our winter hay supply.  Our hay supply is a little short this year due to all of the rain we've had.  Most years we can cut hay in sloughs (marshy ponds) and get quite a bit of hay, but this year they still had water in them. 

The forecast sounds like the ground will freeze up this week.  Once that happens we will get busy hauling the hay and straw home.  

No photos this time, but it was time for a farm update instead of Andy!!

Week 35/52: Yellow Field Pea Harvest

The grain harvest has finally begun at NoDak Herefords.  With spring planting being late, so too is the harvest.  Brett is a farmer through and through.  He did a majority of the planting, all of the spraying and now is running the combine.  (Hmmm, reminds me of the story of Chicken Little!)   Don't worry, others on the farm have kept quite busy too.  Christopher seems to be a full time rancher.  There are always cattle to check and fences to repair.  He is running here and there all of the time!  Mark has been swathing canola.  I am the "go-fer"  which means I try to help any of the guys when they ask.

I did get a few photos to share with you.

Andy thinks he can drive the big combine.  Brett is not so sure!

 

Here is a view of the combine.  It is in a field of Yellow Field Peas.  The plants look just like the peas you can grow in a garden.  We wait for them to dry down.  When the peas are hard and dry enough it is time to combine.  The front part of this combine has a special type of header.  It is called a flex head.  A flex head is designed to skim across the ground and be flexible enough to (hopefully) go over any rocks and just "scoop up" the pea plants & pods.  All of this goes through the combine.  The seeds end up in the hopper (holding tank) and the rest gets spat out the back.  If we are lucky, our cattle will get to come into these fields this fall.  They will love to eat the seeds that got away!  Also any green plants that will be there.  This is called "after grazing".

 

 

Brett had filled the hopper on the combine with peas so it was time to dump them into the semi.  Once the semi gets full it will be taken to a storage building (grain bin) on our farm.  The peas will stay in storage until we decide it is time to sell them.  Marketing is vital to running a profitable farm and is quite time consuming.  It is one thing that we always need to improve on.  We hope the peas are 'food quality' which means you could end up eating peas raised at NoDak Herefords!

Ranching is a nursery rhyme?

Today I felt like I was part of a nursery rhyme - specifically "There was an old lady who swallowed a Fly".  You know how it goes, right?

Well, here was today's version at NoDak Herefords  (minus the rhyme since I don't have that talent) ...

There was a herd of Herefords who were ready to move to the next pasture...

It was easy to move them.  Mark just had to open the gate and they eagerly moved to this pasture with grass up past their bellies and water almost everywhere!

The trouble was - the fence needed to be repaired to hold them in.  (We don't know why they would need out with all of this grass, but history tells us they will!)  We have had so much rain this spring that we are unable to drive around this pasture with our usual fencing pickup.  We also use our 4 wheeler for that job and have rigged it up to haul a roll of barbed wire along with a basket to hold supplies such as fencing staples and clips.  So, today Mark took off with the 4 wheeler to fence.  Brett used the loader tractor to haul fence posts and installed a few of them.  I was "on call" should they need extra help.

I don't know why he thought he could drive through this area ...  (guess he thought he could float)

Notice how the cows are in the background keeping an eye on him.

 

 So, he called Brett to bring the tractor to pull him out.  Brett in turned called me to bring out chain, rope and other "pulling out" supplies.  I met Brett along a prairie trail to get the supplies to him.  He took off across the field.  I noticed him spinning but he kept going, got on the trail and found a sodded area to travel on.  He got down to his Dad's location and got everything ready to pull when, oops...

guess it was a little wet there too!  Could it be because he was just on the edge of the same slough as his father?!

Sunk axle deep and spinning.  They had to call me again to bring a bigger tractor. 

I don't have a photo of the set up with the bigger tractor so I will explain.   The cattle are still watching this operation!  The 4 wheeler is tied to the loader tractor.  The loader tractor is tied to the big tractor.  Mark was stranded on the 4 wheeler (since he was surrounded by water).  I drove the loader tractor and Brett pulled all of us out with the big tractor.  What a sight!

 

SO, we drove the big tractor to pull the loader tractor to pull the 4 wheeler.  I don't know why the 4 wheeler thought it could get through the water.

 

 

Let's Take a Closer Look

I follow a blog named Sunday Stills.  This week's challenge was macro photography (close ups).  So, I'd like to share this entry:

It was not until I looked at the photos on the computer that I realized there were cob webs coming off of the the barbs.  I thought it was neat and am considering "mounting" it on canvas for display.

Linking to:  Sunday Stills

Our Labor Day

Labor Day for many means going to the lake and relaxing.  For many North Dakota farmer/ranchers that is not the case as we are harvesting.  However, Mark & I got the chance to go to the lake ... well, ummm, a few sloughs, but it was water - no relaxing however!!  Sunday evening a neighbor called to tell us our cows were out.  Mark & I got there and found it was cattle from two of our pastures.  I don't understand why they think they have to get out as they are belly deep in grass.  Anway, we each took one batch of the herd and returned them to their respective pastures.  We got back in the house about 10 PM  (yes, it was dark and there are no working headlights on the 4 wheeler providing a bit of a challenge for hubby).

Monday AM, after getting the combine serviced, the trucks emptied AND the auger moved to the next bin, Mark & I finally were able to go fix fence while Brett combined canola.   It was quite easy on one pasture - just close the gate!!  Hmmmm, wonder who left that open?  Anyway, the other needed fence built around the slough.  Luckily, the posts had already been installed so we just had to roll out the wire and get it stapled to the post.  We are using plastic posts (made from recycled items) so we could just staple the electric wire right to the post instead of using plastic offsets.    Before we got this project done, some of the cows got out again - this time into our corn.  The corn is about 10 foot tall so it is difficult to find them AND chase them, but Mark and Rufus got the cows out of the corn and back into the pasture.  We finished building the fence and hooked up the power for the fence (solar charger with battery).  Hopefully they will stay in now.  Lucky for us, most the crops around our pastures have been harvested, but it is still not good for them to be out.

Mark "at the beach".  Three years ago we were pumping water out of a dugout just to Mark's right.  Last year there was so much water here that we couldn't use our cross fences. 

This year the water is going down.

Mark hanging the electric wire.  You can see how high the water was last year by looking at the posts here.

This girl knew to find some shade to cool off.