January 26, 2022
Last week when the neighboring
cattle were out, the wrecked car sat in front of our house, the State Trooper
ticked me off, and all the rumors that have circulated about the absent ranch
owners ran through my head, I was more than a little irritated. However, that little voice inside my head said,
“Give this situation a chance.”
Sometimes little elements of truth can get stretched and
twisted until they don’t resemble the truth at all. Sometimes we superimpose what we think
we know when we have no concrete facts.
There are many things that can go wrong when we make assumptions.
Because of that, I decided if I could get an audience with
the owners of the runaway cattle, I would give them the benefit of the
doubt. I decided if I succeeded in finding someone
who would listen, I would approach the conversation with the belief that MOST
people want to do the right thing. It
wasn’t my initial reaction, but it was my final decision. Ultimately that’s what counts.
After several back-and-forth conversations with a member of
the family, I was turned over to one of their employees to handle the claim and
see that we received retribution for the damage done to our vehicle. He was very professional and personable, a great
fit for his position within their company.
After researching what needed to be done to repair the truck, Mike was
confident it was an easy (though costly) repair. The whole rear light fixture would have to be
replaced at a cost of at least $500 just for the part. Mike called and offered to switch out the
light himself and save them the cost of paying a repair shop. The claims director ordered the part through
the Ford Dealership, personally picked it up when it came off the truck the
next day and drove the 1.5-hour round trip to deliver it to us immediately. Everything
worked out in the end and I hope the neighboring ranch makes the effort to make
the fence repairs needed and make sure their help is taking good care of the
cattle so that they don’t continue to escape and cause problems for the
community at large.
January 27, 2022
Thank goodness the temperatures were a tad bit warmer
yesterday! We had our veterinarian out
for an 8 am call to dehorn a couple of bull calves that are under contract to
be sold to a new home. In addition, I
wanted to pregnancy check a few cows. It
was 28 degrees when I woke up before dawn but as typically happens, the
temperature dropped at sunrise, and it was only 23 degrees when we went out. Although things went well, I always hate
having calves dehorned. Last year all of
our calves were polled (born without horns) and we didn’t have to worry with
it. Most of our calves have been polled
over the years and I am glad. The dehorning
is such a traumatic process. I was
pleased with the pregnancy checks. It
was too early to even check Dottie for a pregnancy. She has only been back with the bull for a
few weeks. Ginger was confirmed bred and
due in August. It was too early to tell
with Bo but the vet said she had good tone and was most likely short bred since
she had missed a heat cycle. I was very
excited to find out that Misty is two months along in her pregnancy and bred
the first time she cycled with the bull.
Dolly was serviced only two weeks ago, so it’s too early to tell if she
is bred but she also checked out well, has good tone, and if we had to guess,
we would say she is bred as well. The
girls who carry beef calves for us (Cara and Bella), we don’t usually check. Stormy, one of our aged beef cows, has always
given us a big, healthy, beautiful calf year after year, breeding back
immediately when put with the bull.
However, this past year she did not produce a calf for us. Due to her age and the fact she has stopped
producing calves, she will be culled at some point. I wish we could just keep all of them, but
that is not feasible when trying to run a business. We already have enough “pasture ornaments”,
as Mike calls them, including the senior
goat and senior cows Princess and Patience.
In the next year, I will probably be doing some hard culling and
reducing our herd numbers even more significantly. It’s not something I look forward to doing,
but it’s a necessary part of farming.
January 30, 2022
We’ve had winter this year. For almost two weeks we have had
snow on the ground, at least in places. Thursday afternoon it began snowing
again and continued into the next morning.
An additional four inches covered our mountain hollow, making things
clean and bright. The winds came, ferocious
and bitter. Other than going outside to
take care of the absolute necessities with the animals, we stayed indoors. From the windows we watched the snow rise, carried
by the wind, and swirl in a circular pattern.
Turning, twisting, rising higher and higher the scene was mesmerizing. Along the creek banks, the snow drifted over
the edges, creating interesting patterns.
The road in front of our house, normally busy with rural traffic, was void
of vehicles except for the occasional plow or salt truck sent by the
state.
The wood stove burning hot, the propane heat turned up as
well, we could still feel the cold radiating from the windows and exterior
doors. I kept the curtains closed
against the windowpanes, hoping for an added layer of insulation, no matter how
slight. Wearing layered clothing even indoors, I sipped cups of hot tea, anything
to create a semblance of warmth as winter raged outdoors.
I can understand why so many people dislike winter. It’s confining, it’s difficult, it’s dark, it’s
gray, and it’s just plain cold and unpleasant.
But I like winter. I have always
liked winter. I’m not sure when my love affair with this season started. Perhaps it was that winter I wrote about previously
when my parents took me out and played with me in the snow. I was young and impressionable; they were
happy, laughing, and made it fun. Maybe that
set the stage for me to think that all winters have the potential to be magical.
Or maybe it was hearing my grandparents always talking
about Alaskan winters; eager and delighted, they instilled in me the same sense
of adventure they exhibited. Because I
wanted to experience the adventure in Alaska firsthand, I told my elementary
school friends that I would one day move to Alaska. When I was 18 I did. (I actually turned 19 on
my way up the Alaskan Canadian Highway.) I loved the snow, the mountains, and even the
extreme temperatures there, just as my grandparents did.
Later, I lived in places like Wyoming, Colorado, and
Montana adopting winter in those states for a brief time. And when I finally moved to Virginia, I
laughed at how many people hated what seemed to me like brief and insignificant
snowstorms. Twenty years ago, still young,
and brash, I was confident in my ability to navigate roads under the worst
conditions and was the employee always on the job when everyone else called out
because of weather. Now I can see it was irresponsible of me and pure luck (or
grace) that kept me safe on the roads back in those days.
When Mike and I married, I found different reasons
to love winter. After working hard all
summer into late fall, winter meant we had a chance to slow down and work a
normal day rather than what was the equivalent of someone pulling double
shifts. I rarely saw Mike during the
months of early spring through late fall.
Most of his farming was at one of the other two farms that he managed
and not at our house. I always felt like
he was so overworked already, that I tried not to ask him to help me do
anything that I could do myself. So, I
kept up the barns, shoveled manure, milked cows twice a day, kept up with a
large cow share program, helped Mike sell produce, and preserved more of the
bounty than we could get around to eating in one year’s time. Honestly, now I can say those were
backbreaking and lonely days. Josh had
passed away, I was trying to find my way after losing my child, my days were
full of a grief I mostly kept inside, and with a whole world right at the edges
of our property, I was isolated and working myself to death. When Mike came home during those busy months,
he often fell asleep at the supper table sitting in his chair, he was so exhausted.
Winter was different for us because we had time to be
together. Mike would be home by five or
six. We could eat supper and talk
without him falling asleep at the table.
We had time to enjoy activities together in the evenings. We even had time to go places during the day,
go out to eat, or visit family or friends who lived close. The winter months meant we could come together
and be more of a couple. I always looked
forward to it.
Now, of course, with Mike semi-retired and my keeping a
much more manageable dairy herd (and not continuing a herd share program), we
spend almost all of our time together. Our
workload is not what it used to be, even in the productive months. Sure, we still work hard in the fair-weather
months, growing and preserving all our own food, milking cows and making all
our own dairy products. However, we have
a much slower pace and time for each other now.
I am no longer desperately looking to winter as a time when we can let
things go for a while; I still love that feeling I get, however, when I know we
can hunker down during a storm and isolate from the world for a bit.
I don’t know that I
love any one season over another. I think I anticipate each one equally, as
well as feel a bit of sadness that another season has passed. Each season is full of blessings, and each
season has a few negatives as well. Realizing
that each one is a gift brings much contentment, each season a new adventure
full of discoveries while also being cyclical and familiar.