Sunny Saturday

I went for a walk on Saturday to enjoy the beautiful spring-like weather we were having.  I snapped a couple of photos to share with you.

All three dogs walked with me.  These two belong to Christopher & Paige.  They are named Odie (white one) and Eli.  This stick was so big it took both dogs to carry it I guess!  Our dog, Rufus, was a bit camera shy. 

 

The cattle are enjoying the nice day.  We are lucky to have this coulee to feed them in as it provides a lot of protection from the 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 16/52: Summer Dreamin'

Here in north central North Dakota we have felt like we've had an unusually long winter.  We are used to having snow from October/November to April/May.  However, this year we have so much.   Hubby drove tractor across a field today and reported the snow to be about 2 foot deep.  The temps have been unusually cold as well.  Our average high for this time of year is about 58°F but we have had trouble hitting the mid 30's.  In fact, this past Saturday our area set a new record low temp.  The area had a temp of 13 breaking the former record low which was set in 1927.  It is difficult for the snow to melt with temps like this!

Everyone is sick and tired of this weather.  The forecast:  50% chance of snow on Wednesday!!  The good news is the weather folks are predicting near 60 for the weekend.  We will definitely see snow melting then.

Today Andy went to check out the park in town.  It was sad.  Here he is on a park bench dreaming of playing on the equipment.  He had to just dream about it because there was too much snow to get there.

Week 9/52: Andy & the blizzard

We have been warned about an incoming storm so had been doing things to prepare.  We tucked a young momma and her twin calves into the barn, put extra straw into the barns so there is a nice, comfy spot for the cattle to lay and tried to mentally prepare for trudging through deep, blowing snow.  (Okay, my guys did the first two things and I did the last!)

The storm didn't come quite as soon as expected but the weather folks were correct about the storm a-comin'.  By the time I went out to see if there were any new calves at 3 AM it was snowing and starting to blow.  When I went out again at 6, it was really blowing.  I had sent a text to Christopher and told him to stay home (he lives in our little nearby town).  He usually is out here at 5 or 6 AM to check cattle but today I asked that he stay put at least until daylight.  He & Paige came out later to tend to their horses and help with cattle chores.  The visibility actually kept getting worse.  Sometimes we can see quite a distance, but the ground drifting is terrible making the roads bad.  Plus, it is very hard to see the edges of the roads when everything is white and moving.  Brett had to help Christopher & Paige get "unstuck" a couple of times after they decided they had better get back home.  After Brett was back home, he said, "I watched for the fences to find the road."  He made sure he could see the fence in either ditch but even that was tricky sometimes.  Anyway, everybody got to their respective destinations safely.

Andy went to see the blizzard and didn't even get the screen door open when he found this.

Guess that is what happens then the wind is blowing straight at the door.  Lucky for us the inside door is tight!

I went to the other door and could hardly get the screen door open.  Here are a couple of photos from that door (I wasn't going out into this mess unless I had to). 



















 

The visibility in the yard isn't too bad right now.  Heck, we've had blizzards so bad that we couldn't see the barn. 

COLD

We are having quite a cold snap here in northern Dakota.  Last night the overnight low was something near minus 35 degrees.  Today's high was about minus 5 degrees.  Tonight it could be about minus 20.  Now these are air temps, any bit of wind makes the wind chill (feels like temp) worse.  Last night they said the wind chill was about minus 55-60 degrees Fahrenheit.

Since we are calving now we need to be walking through the cattle herd occasionally.  When it is this cold we are checking every two hours.  What are we checking for?  Well, we are looking for newborn calves or females showing signs of labor.  If there is a fresh calf we need to get the cow/calf pair into the barn and put the calf in a specially built box with a heater so we can warm the little "guy" up.  If they are too cold they could freeze off part or all of their ears or tail or even have damage to their hooves/feet  OR  they could die.  If a female is showing signs of labor then we try to get her into the barn so she has her calf inside (saving moving a calf and it is warmer).  If anything is calving (in labor), then we check on them more frequently until they have their calf.

During the average temps, we will check every 3-4 hours and I take the middle of the night check (about 3 AM).  With this weather, we are taking turns checking.  Tonight (rather tomorrow AM) I will be checking at 3 & 5.  I usually take the night shift because it is easier for me to get back to sleep AND because the men are busy with other chores during the day while I can (hopefully) catch a nap.

I have written about my night checks before in case you are interested in my experience/thoughts from a previous year.

The Fotos by Friends group that I am in has a photo topic of  'Cold' this week.  I thought I would share a couple of the photos that I took that fit the topic.

Here are a bunch of horses.  Some of them have moved here from southern USA so they are not yet accustomed to the cold.  Paige will put a coat on them to help keep them warm.  The ones without coats have lived in the north country forever so they are already toughened up!!

I like the turtle shell coat on this one!  It makes me smile every time I see it.  You can see we have been getting snow during this cold snap too as it has settled onto the backs of the horses.

Winter Wonderland

We have had numerous days of snow and/or fog.  As I look out the window I see many images resembling Christmas Cards.  My guys remind me it might look nice from this angle; however, it is cold outside! 

Here are some photos of what we can see...

looking south from our mailbox

  

This photo is a macro of some snow.  After I loaded the pictures onto my camera and noticed that the little bit of sunlight we had was lighting one individual snowflake.

After our vehicle sat outside through a couple of snowy, windy days I got into the driver's seat and found this view!  I liked the layers and imperfect lines.

Frost on our kitchen window

Winter scenes of the ranch

NoDak Herefords - headquarters

Looking toward the yard.  You can see the barn, our shop and some grain bins.  Also, one of the hay bale locations (to the left).  There are some of our cattle in the corrals too.  You can see two of my guys doing chores too - one opening gates and one driving the tractor.  Oops, it looks like a couple of cows are out in the hay too.  Dang!  I took this today while it was snowing and blowing.

This would be some of our cattle.  We roll out the large bale of hay (actually a few of them) and the cattle just "dig in"!  Here you see that we have more than just Hereford cattle (which are red & white).  We also have black and black/white face  (Angus cross).   These are the moms-to-be.  The black cattle are bred Charolais (white cattle).  Their calves will be whitish.  The Herefords are either bred Hereford or Angus.  If they are bred Angus it is likely they will have a black/white face calf.  This was also taken today.   The white blob you see is a snow flake!

If you click on either of these photos you will be able to see it in a larger size.

Photo challenge: A Little Bit of My World

First REAL snow of this Winter

We received about 8 inches of snow on Saturday night through Sunday.  It is VERY fluffy and will blow like crazy if we get a lot of wind.  It is no fun trying to walk through this stuff to check cows or move pairs up to the big barn.

This weather made a few more calves drop.  Sometimes pressure changes in the weather encourage labor (in cattle and people)!   Mark & I were up for three hours (3-6 AM) tending to new calves.  One little one only weighed 52 pounds (a nice average for a newborn calf is 75-80 lbs) so we put that one in the calf warmer for an hour.  Hopefully "we" don't loose any ears or tails with the cold weather.  We have about 36 calves running around now. 

This morning was the first trip to the vet.  A heifer was calving but one leg was down.  The guys tried to help put things in place but no luck.  She kept pushing til the head was coming.  So, there was a c-section with a dead calf.  Bummer.  But the heifer will be okay after she heals up.

Guys were busy moving snow today.  There should be lots of snow piles now.  I remember when the boys would look forward to that.  Now, they like to make them - not play in them!!

Another storm is brewing but it sounds like we should miss most of the snow.  We sure hope so!

We have a busy day tomorrow with appointments so the weather better hold out!!

Sponsored today by the letter 'S'

Here are a couple of sites from our roadtrip to Bismarck yesterday.  We have had basically no snow all winter.  Well it decided to snow and mess up the highways the night before we had to make this trip.  So, brave hubby came along - and drove for me!!  Anyway, the roads were not as bad as I expected but we enjoyed hubby's company!

St. A's Snowman

This is the snowman that staff members must have built outside of St. A's Emergency entrance in Bismarck. I got a chuckle out of him! He has on the hair "net", red votive candles for eyes, blue plastic gloves pulled over fly swatters, croc type shoes and the surgical mask. The nose is something orange (pen maybe?) that looks like a carrot. Oh, and a scarf.

Snowy Seaman

It is a large metal sculpture near Fort Mandan at Washburn, ND. Also there, in 12 foot tall metal sculpture form, are Lewis, Clark and an Indian. You can see the park bench in the background for something to try to judge his size. I think he is about 8 foot tall.

Winter 2011-2012

WOW!!  This is the best winter ever!  We have had very little snow.  I had to look up the average for North Dakota.  The National Weather Service states that our average is around 24 inches.   Currently, it is zero!   The only snow at this ranch is in the shade - and we aren't complaining! 

I don't think that I have ever been able to check cows (at 3 AM) without snowboots.  However, this year, I can go out in my tennies (sneakers, whatever you call them)!  No need for heavy coveralls, coats, boots, and all since our temps have been above average too.  Yes folks, this is the life - healthy calves being born and this wonderful winter!

Here is a bit of photo evidence of the winter:

2012 Winter Wonderland

This photo was taken the afternoon of 4 Feb 2012 in North Dakota, USA. We have NO snow!! It is very rare (never in my lifetime) to have no snow in Feb and the temp was 40 degrees. No winter parkas, just a sweatshirt. Beautiful.   Shortly after taking this snapshot, the little boy on the far swing was stomping in the water puddle below his swing!!

Home

This photo was taken 5 Feb 2012.  The only snow is along the  shrubs and what was packed in (ice) on the driveway.  Notice the water in the lower right corner.  (As of 20 Feb, the snow/ice is gone from the driveway and most of it along the shrubbery has melted as well!)