Winter Life

One thing predictable about life is that its totally unpredictable. Add raising cattle into the mixture and the unpredictable skyrockets. Don't matter if its Winter or Summer, you never know what's going to happen next. The countdown is on at the moment also for calving. Well, its pretty early but come April I hope there's a lot of good and healthy calves on the ground and the weather is beautiful. A fella can hope I guess.

I ain't getting any younger, not by a long shot, and I can feel it sometimes, like when ever I'm awake. But then again, what the heck would I have to do if it wasn't for them crazy cows? I'd be bored to death being a crop farmer. Been running beef cows for pert near 30 years. It was always a dream of mine and still is. I hope I can raise em till I drop, cause its what I do, its what I love. Then there are the side things such as good dogs. Come with the territory. Got Dixie the Mountain Cur in charge of things nowadays on the ranch and that dog is worth a lot to me. She will move the cowherd when I want them moved. Cows have a little of the devil in em, and when its down right muddy or something they somehow know it would be miserable for me to get in that mud and move em and they look at me with that secret cow laugh which used to get to me. Now, no matter what the condition I just tell Dixie, "get them cows" and away she goes and them cows are moved. Amazing the misery that dog saves me.

But back to now, winter is hanging on, ain't late enough for me to complain yet, only the middle of February, but I do get to the point of complaining when the sun stays up later and all there is to see is snow, deep snow with a bunch of cold mixed in. Deep winter, when there is plenty of snow, means not getting around much on the land. Mainly stay in the cow yards or around the ranch yard where the snow is plowed. Back when I was a kid, back in the 60s, there was a year, maybe 66, when it snowed like the devil in March. Back then there was really nothing for snow removal, unlike nowadays. But we had a John Deere B with a trip bucket front end loader, one of the only ones around and dad would clean the yard with that and the neighbors would have him come over and do their's too. That March I remember the snow drifts from rooftop to rooftop and one time the neighbor's had dad come over to dig out to their dairy barn. Well, they had a few boys my age and I rode with on the tractor and once there proceeded to play which in those conditions meant dig snow tunnels.

The biggest tunnels I ever was involved in were there at the neighbor's cause we had the labor to dig. The rooms were as big as rooms in the average house. Crawl through the small entry hole and my oh my, what a mansion! Us young folks had a lot of energy back then. No such thing as cell phones or anything electronic when you think about it, just life! Well, dad spent hours digging to the barn with the old B, and us kids had a blast. Then one of them was walking over the snowdrift, which was as high as the buildings in the yard and right in our midst, fell through the roof and crashed down by us. Didn't matter much cause we had a lot of different rooms. But by then the day was getting over with and I hopped on the back of the tractor and we went home, snow packed in everywhere under my clothes and a fella never gave it a second thought. Didn't get to play over there anymore cause Spring thaw came shortly after that, with record flooding in parts of the state. But the memories will always stick with me.

Deep Winter

Winter in the north country can drag on and on. Besides starting early, way into fall, leaving us without an Indian Summer, just cold, it can also go way into what would be considered Spring. But nothing a fella can do about it except ride it out, live day to day and try and stay out of trouble. This morning started really nice, about 5 above zero, no wind, clear as a bell outside, could hear coyotes yipping out back near the tamaracks. But as the morning went on as I fed cows it gradually clouded up a bit, then around noon we had us some snow and wind and a general ground blizzard.

Now one thing that gets me in a deep winter situation is the snow buildup on the old hogbarn. Nowadays there ain't hogs in there, in fact none since "98. Nowadays we use it as a workshop and various other things. Its got quite a rafter span and I always get nervous when the snow starts getting deep up there. I ain't as young as I used to be and have a way of try to avoid some of these jobs the last few years but this has been bothering me and I just don't want the roof to collapse, got enough problems the way it is, don't need more.

Now as I was saying, the wind was howling, the temps although slightly above zero still had a nip to them with the wind. I put on full battle gear, and found a ladder and climbed up there. First thing was to get on the tin roof with all them clothes on plus a foot of snow at the edge of the roof. And once up there I had to work smart, keep my face out of the wind as much as possible so I could get something accomplished before I froze down. And last but not least, make sure I didn't slip off the tin roof and get busted up, or early retirement.

All is well now, and I even managed to get on the ladder for the trip down, wasn't easy but there was no choice. Just another job that has to be done. This old cattle business ain't all glory, not by a long shot. And winters don't help, especially these old fashioned winters. I always think about the oldtimers, how they made er through the long, long winters. No electricity, no running water just a woodstove, no chainsaws, none of the stuff folks take for granted nowadays. But they survived and thrived. So I had better not complain. Just smile as I'm warming up in the house tonight.

My First Cattle Deal

Way back, maybe in my early twenties I always had a pull for raising some cattle. Back then hogs were the bread and butter around here, cause at least a person could get a somewhat steady income if you done it right back then. I was over visiting some friends one evening, and that really consisted of having a bull session in their dairy barn while they were doing their evening milking. Back at the time I didn't even have a job, (which never bothered me much, I was a country boy and we could always survive on little). And we were just visiting that evening and my one friend said he had four Holstein heifers for sale. They were open, that means not pregnant. Back in them days there wasn't much for beef breeds in the area, pert near everyone had a dairy herd and that's all you seen was black and white Holsteins everywhere. He told me he'd sell em for $250 a piece. Now I didn't hardly have a plug nickel to my name back then but also I didn't have any debt either. So I tossed it around in my mind and said I would pretty much take em but give me a couple days.

Like I said, I wasn't exactly rolling in money then, (ain't now either), but I knew a decent deal when I seen it. So I went to town and had a talk with the banker and he agreed to lend me a thousand dollars on a note, which means no payments, just a due date, and I got it for a year just to play it safe. Later that day I went back to say I'd take the four heifers and my friend told me he changed his mind and wasn't selling them anymore. OK, I told him but I had the money in the checkbook that I borrowed from the bank and now I'd have to pay the note back with a little extra and nothing to show for it. Well, he thought about it and changed his mind and said write out the check. And that I did and was the proud owner of four open Holstein heifers.

These heifers were between 600 and 700 pounds and I needed them moved the four miles home. Called the local livestock trucker, because back then pert near nobody had their own livestock trailers or a truck with enough snort to pull one. The trucker went over and they loaded them up and he brought them home to me. Then I got a surprise, I asked the trucker how much I owed him and he said forget it. He said he was glad to give me a little start. I thanked him and will never forget it.

Now they were home, and they needed a bull to get them pregnant and it didn't pay to buy a bull just for those four heifers and I went over and talked to a fella that I had heard had a few to rent out. Yep, he sure did have a few and I picked one out and we made a deal for $25 a heifer so I would end up owing him $100 when all was said and done. Back home in the river bottom pasture those heifers did great on the grass and a little mineral. That was all, nothing fancy. The bull did fine too, and after a couple months I was pretty sure he done what he was brought there to do. Now I just had to catch him and truck him back to his home and pay the fella for the service. But before I got to that point the bull had different ideas and he jumped the fence and got into a neighbor's Holstein herd. I though I had a problem then. So as I prepared to extract the bull for all them pretty cows, (in his opinion), I knew I'd have a job of it. Went over there expecting a mad neighbor but was pleasantly surprised by a happy one. He told me if I was done with the bull he would buy it and keep it. Said he already talked to the owner and I was one happy fella then, cause you see that bull wasn't exactly small and Holsteins have put more than one person in the hospital or grave for that matter. Good enough for me! I went over to the bull's owner to pay him the $100 and he told me to forget it. Said that was my commission for getting it sold to my neighbor.

Well, the months went by and later I could see all four were pregnant which was great! In that time milk prices really went up and so did demand for milk cows and pregnant heifers. I put the four heifers for sale on a little noon marketing show on a local radio station, (it was free to do that), and it got broadcast around the area. The calls were hot and when it was all said and done, I sold them all for a $1000 a piece. I went and paid the bank note off and still had almost $3000 to boot and in those days that was almost a half a year's wages. Since then I have done many deals and raised a lot of cattle but I will never forget that first cattle deal.

The Beginning Of The Stories

Over the last few years I have gotten away from blogging and have gotten mired down in the mud of social media, that is except for the times I go months without it. It can kinda wear a fella out, all that political arguing and everything. Not that I do much of that but its in your face constantly from folks that live rather meaningless lives by the look of it. Years ago I blogged and it actually took off bigtime and I pretty much dove for cover, not wanting to be in the limelight and also to avoid conflict there also. There's always those internet folks that get pretty brave when they are behind a computer screen and out of arms length. But its been on my mind to put together stories, stories of different things in my life. Folks have told me over and over to write them down. Now, there ain't any big adventures, or anything like that, although there have been many near death experiences, comes with the turf. Hopefully I can jot a few down, and keep jotting for a long time. We will see.