The Vet was out for a Ranch Call yesterday to do yearly shots, a couple ear tags, etc.. We had a new cowboy recommended to us to help. We were done in about an hour and a half (it's usually taken 3-4 hours in the past). A record!!! This guy was calm, knowledgeable, and young enough to do all of the hard physical stuff that make these visits very difficult for us. We had momentum!!!!!
We said goodbye to Calfie as she made her final trip to "Waco." Calfie was such a wonderful cow; always happy and calm. Her downfall was her elf slipper hooves which caused her a lot of pain and required almost constant trimming. Brownie was scheduled to go too (prolapse), but she jumped the fence and took off into the pasture. She will make the journey another day.
We are looking at several of our older cows who have not had babies as they should. They will be "retiring" and we'll be replacing them with their prodigy in the coming months. I'm sad about this because these girls have been such good and reliable mamas!! This change will necessitate a bull change as we don't want to breed back heifers to their father. Lots of change....
One really neat thing, in the bird sighting department is, I've seen a pileated woodpecker couple flying through our little stand of trees. These woodpeckers are magnificent and the biggest in the U.S.A. since we've lost to extinction the Ivory billed woodpecker. They are not common here so a wonderful sighting!!
Ben is looking into showing another heifer next year. He's looking at the Beefmasters. I shutter at what it will cost him to buy one! We'll see how that all shakes out in the coming weeks.
