Unnecessary Roughness

It's time to broach the subject of non-verbal communication between ranchers and their wives.

(For those sensitive souls who prefer to believe that those who live in the country are patient and kind, read no further.  This post may get ugly.)

When a farmer or rancher starts dating a promising girl, they charm them by treating them very kindly in the pasture and corral, taking time to explain in great deal and with amazing clarity what the plan of the day is.  They patiently draw diagrams in the dirt and when it's clear that the girl isn't quite comprehending the plan, they say (with humor), "Just follow me, and I'll tell you where to be when you need to be there."

And they wink, and the girl follows along with dreamy visions of spending the rest of her days with this charming country boy. *sigh*

Fast forward ten years and erase all those methods of sweet communication. 
Replace them with glares, waving arms and air-borne sorting sticks. 

I can handle glares....I glare back. 

Waving arms always and forever stump me. 

There's some sort of translation manual, I'm sure, buried in the Library of Congress, that explains the many nuances of the rancher's gyrating arms but it hasn't been released to the general population.

Pity.  The divorce rate among those living in rural areas would be dramatically reduced if it was. 

I cannot distinguish the "Get your butt over here, FAST!" wave from the "Go north, Woman!" wave from the "Close that gate!" wave from the "Did you bring a bottle of water?" wave. 

The list goes on and on.  Usually, when I'm being waved at, it's a tense situation involving a cow moving rapidly and the entire work of the morning hinging on my translation and subsequent action. 

First, I freeze. I run through all the possiblities as quickly as possible in my brain.  I check the position of the gate/cow/4wheeler/angle of arm on the rancher.  I try to remember what was said in the shop before we left, about what the plan was.  I think about what the logical thing to do would be, then I think I should do the opposite because that's what a man would do. (Whatever I think is logical, the equal and opposite thought applies to the "why" chromosomal bearer.)

All this takes place in a matter of 10 seconds.

Meanwhile, the rancher, my husband is waving more frantically and on top of that his face is getting red.  He's also hollering at this point, but I will spare you the eloquence of his language.  From 1/2 a mile away, it sounds sort of like this: "a;lkdjf apoih apeoij rfade! ZVnzoxcivnavuayf! 83apoiudvgapsek?"

If I move in closer, I'll hear words I wish I hadn't.

Somehow, we've got to come up with a better way.  Maybe smoke signals from the steam coming out of his ears.

It occurred to me that perhaps football referree signals would work.  Blow the whistle, make the "False Start" gesture and I'd know that I should stay put, rather than start over there.  Blow the whistle, make the "5 Yard Penalty" sign, then the "Continue Game" sign and I'd know that I needed to take the cow 5 yards that way, quickly.  Blow the whistle, make the "Touchdown" gesture and I put her through the goal posts (gate).

I would, of course, have a whistle and when he got too crabby "TWEET! Unneccesary Roughness". 

And if we made it through the game without a fight, I could dump a cooler of Gatorade over his head.

Putting out pairs...

This is Eastern Montana in April!

(It's greening up day by day, thankfully.)

See those little black specks? Those are the cows we're about to go around, looking for calves to tag and put out. It's big country, but the wheelers sure help cover a lot of ground quickly.

No calves here! These old girls were mildly annoyed that I interrupted their grazing schedule...

I didn't realize I had changed the setting on my camera; it was tucked inside my coat, away from the dust and I must've bumped the dial....at first I was disappointed to miss all the color, but it has a journalistic quality now. 

Down to business....Wayland just grabbed this calf to tag him.

Through the pictures, notice the cow's head and Wayland's head.

She's not happy.

Wayland has checked the gender of the calf and is ready to put the tag in the right ear for bull calf, left ear for heifer calf. 

He's always got one eye on the cow.

Arranging the tag....

The cow knows what the story is; this isn't her first calf by any means, but she's still going to make sure Wayland doesn't mess around with her calf, beyond tagging it.

It only stings for a minute!

Mostly, the tagging happens so very quickly that the calf is bawling more from the surprise than the sting.

Back off, Farmer! That's all the leeway you get!

(See the tag in the right ear? Bull calf.  Now that number, the gender of the calf and the date of birth will be recorded in a little book that is carried in his pocket all spring and summer.)

Down the fence to the gate, to be put in the pasture on the left (east) with the rest of the pairs from that bunch.  The old cows know exactly where they're going and really take off at a trot sometimes to get there.  You wouldn't believe how fast those little calves can travel!

In the pasture, on her way to find a sunning spot for her calf.

A view from the open gate...

Vern would be horrified I put this picture up; it's not our best fence. But the cow paths on either side, going up the hill, make it so interesting.

(Don't tell him you saw this picture, or I'll be rebuilding fence this summer....)

And lastly, here's a picture of a set of twins we had.

Twins are not desirable, because they are born so small and the cow can't provide enough nourishment for both calves to thrive.  We usually end up pulling one of the twins off and grafting it onto another cow that has lost it's calf.  Or one of them becomes my bottle bum. 

Both of these calves were tiny, delicate little heifer calves....up close, they are so enchanting because they look like little tiny versions of the chubby black calves we usually have. 

Now I have to load Maggie up and we're going to go feed my bum calf, Cosmo, then help the guys put out pairs, just like you saw here....we go around them twice a day.

And now you know what my April looks like!

We had our last calf from the heifers yesterday...pulled it and sadly it was dead.  Maggie wanted to watch the pulling, the calf being born, and it was a very hard time for her AND PopPops. But fortunately we were able to go pet Cosmo and he charmed her out of the sadness.  One of the twins is being grafted to the heifer and we hope it will end happily.