Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Mud 'N Manure

Well, while TWW's is down I might as well tap dance for y'all or something, or at least give you something to read.


(Click any of the pictures to make 'em big.)

We got the cows up to the barn yesterday to worm them, get 'em all ready for spring time grass and get 'em built back up from a real miserable winter. Even though we run about 120 head of brood cows (give or take) this is a pretty fast procedure usually taking about an hour and a half. 4 1/2 hours later... we were done. The mud was miserable, we were worn out, a couple of cows were pissed off and had slipped into "kill the farmer" mode during the whole fracas.

At one point I had walked back to the north end of the lot that the cattle were in to get a couple that had wandered back up there. My uncle Robert (who if you remember, has things "break" when he looks at 'em) was chasing with the Kawasaki Mule, a cow that had plans to go somewhere besides the barn... when I heard KABAAAM! It sounded like a bomb went off in the barn. You know that old saying "Can't hit the broad side of a barn"? Robert can. When I looked the Mule was planted pretty firmly in the side of the barn. Robert's waving "I'm okay!" and grinding it into reverse to carry on with his endeavor.

Holy crap... LOL



He came over to where I was and patted the Mule like "good dog" and said "Boy I coulda tore up the Mule... think I can turn the barn wreck into the insurance company?"

"No." :-)

So it came yet another deluge of rain this morning... poured. I got up to the farm , fed a bale of hay, got on the Mule and immediately planted it in the mud. Robert was gone this morning, so i hoofed it back to the house and got the TOD (tractor of doom) and a log chain and went back down to where I had parked the Mule.

I sure can gather a crowd... wonder what the heck was going through their little cow brains.






And then I just decided to haul the whole mess up to the barn to save me from anymore mud trompin'.... and the herd decided it was some kinda parade and fell in behind me as I pulled the Mule.





Then confusion set in for 'em as I went through a gate and left 'em in the lot where I'd unhooked from the Mule.





It looked a little like a riot situation was about to take place as they surrounded the Mule like a cop car was about to turned over and set on fire.... there's just the top of it back there.





Thankfully, cows are real lousy at striking matches and things like that... but they do know all about feed buckets and got that outta the back and licked that baby clean, slick as a whistle. Thank God I didn't have to use that teargas on 'em to break it up.





Of course with the rules of cows having calves being what they are... we had 3 new calves in the weather last night and this morning. All are doing good and spunky. AND one is the Halter Faced cow that is in my title banner at the top. A little bull. Handsome eh?





Alrighty folks... I'll update you on the status of The Wood Works as it happens. Keep checking back here.

Jace

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Moo. Or MOO.

Nancy said...

Is it just the "girls" that get to wear those fancy earrings...(and do they get to change the colors to fit their moods for the day?) ;-)
I do love the black, white and red together!

Cowguy said...

Nancy said: "Is it just the "girls" that get to wear those fancy earrings...(and do they get to change the colors to fit their moods for the day?) ;-)
I do love the black, white and red together!"


Nah... everybody gets an earring. Mood earrings would be an excellent plan, you could just look at the color of the tag to see if you needed to stay put, step aside, or climb a gate. :-)

J.

Cowguy said...

Pat said: "Moo. Or MOO."

Actually... Mooooooooo.

Susan said...

I think I can tell ya what they're thinkin', Jace. They're thinkin' "when is this dude gonna figure out if he uses horses he won't have to keep pullin' this dadblasted thing outta the mud." Of course, if that's what Robert does on the mule, no tellin' what he'll do on the back of a horse.

8^)Susan