Good Monday morning to all you critter and land loving folks. It has been a blur of a two weeks, and I am not sure what to pick out to share, and what to let slip by. I have seen many inspirational posts lately regarding calving season and surviving it in the rotten weather that has hit so many. One thing that sticks out is something my own father-in-law says as well, that if the cattle business were an easy one, everyone would be in it. So I will give you my own attempt at a pep talk this morning for any of you who found ten minutes to read this before going back out to chore. Many of you are wrapping up calving, many of you just getting a start. Some of you have been doing this for years, others this is a new venture to call your own. Some of you this is your full-time work, others balance this with help so you can keep things running. Maybe you are the head of the operation, or maybe the hired hand. Maybe you are the son or daughter home from college to help, or the wife taking her turn night checking so your cowboy can get some rest. Maybe you are the elementary aged kid who feeds the bottle babies before and after school. Whatever your job title in the cattle business, you help keep it wrangled, and you are doing a great job, although no one may ever tell you that while you are working away. You’ve got this, and even though there will never be enough caffeine out there to know what day it is, you will make sure each critter is well fed and cared for. True grit is learned at all ages, well-done cow folks, remember if it were easy, we might all be out of the job we love.

It seems like every day lately I am challenged and figure out just how little I truly know about cows. I had been checking my jersey heifer (Mocha) here at the funny farm for several weeks. She finally calved a week ago, and the calf didn’t make it. After letting it warm up and tubing it some colostrum, it went down quick, leaving the vet to think it sounded like it had probably been stepped on. Total bummer, which led the rest of the day to feel something like chaos. My in-laws were gracious and had a bum twin we picked up to get grafted on. I wish I could take some credit, but that cow is something. We finally got her into a makeshift stanchion, and she stood like a pro for the calf to suck, and then was patient enough with me to hand milk her out twice a day. Then the calf we had grafted on started to go down on us. A trip to vet, the colostrum in Mocha’s milk was too much of a change for her gut. Some good bug medicine later, she has bounced back awesome and is harassing the goats daily. Several days after that we added another calf, and Mocha took right to him as well, making me look like I had a clue what I was doing (not so). I learned a few things in the whirlwind, one: a calf’s nose will peel after it has run a fever, and two: feeding a calf milk from a certain cow will over time make it smell more like her and help her to accept it as her own. My learning curve has been steep and fast, but I am attempting to hang on.

The rest of the herd was shuffled several times in the past week with a storm looming. We managed to be on the edge of the system and didn’t get the wind and big snows like some folks. It was a labor of love to get everything to the best protection and sorted back out when it passed. Clay, my in-laws, and several good friends put in some extremely long days, as did most of the state wondering what we were in for.

I have noticed along with the inspirational posts, comments that mention the fact people will tire of continuous positivity, and stop believing our get-it-done attitude. I will never be able to say it better than this cowboy did-please read! If we don’t pull one another through, next year is a hopeless place. Wrapping up, I say all that with mostly winter weather on my mind, but my prayers and thoughts are also for the ranchers watching their places, and stock burn up in the south right now. We remember you, I hope and pray you can rebuild soon. Seems impossible somedays for some of us to figure when and where the blessings will come, but I pray they do, so I still send blessings to you, yours, and your operation.

The mom-mobile hauls it all.

What a good momma, this is calf #2 we turned in, he ran to nurse, and she momma-mooed for him.