Well my little cowboy is 10 months old and I haven't hardly logged on to blog since he came along. He is getting a little more independent each day which frees me up to do things like laundry and cooking and maybe even a little blogging I keep saying I am going to get back into my blog but it seems to keep getting put off. For instance about a month or two ago I was thinking the same thing I was thinking this morning and I logged on here and out together the following post which was a draft I came up with over 7 months ago. I figured now I better post this if I am ever going to post this so here you go......
Hi there friends, I cannot believe that our little man is almost 9 months old! I thought I couldn't find the time to blog before he got here; well think again. We had kind of a rough night last night pushing the 2nd tooth thru and baby Heath is still sleeping. There are dishes and laundry to be done but I am trying to be quite so I was reading scriptures this morning and then I read a cattle trade magazine and then I thought.....I haven't blogged in a long time. I was reading an article about Animal Rights Groups and was inspired to add some of what I learned to my blog. I logged on an found this draft I wrote this winter that I never posted, in a round about way it has to do with just what I was going to say about Animal Rights Groups opinions of us Ranchers.
(The fanciest cow camp I've ever been too. Or should I say the most advanced cow camp around. We have wireless internet and satellite T.V. and cell service, we don't have any of those even at our house. I am considering moving to cow camp indefinately. Especially since this is the easiest winter I have ever experienced as a ranch wife. I am spending most of my time indoors with the little cowboy, while he eats and sleeps and poops. All the usual baby stuff. Although baby Heath's favorite thing to do is to ride in the ranch truck with his Dad to check heifers. He can't go with his Dad all the time, he can't go when he is horseback it's still too cold out for the little man and he can't always be in truck because Jim Bob never knows when he may run into some trouble while helping a cow calve. For instance yesterday Jim Bob was watching a heifer calve and she had a foot out but no water broke, he watched from a distance for awhile to give her a chance to do it herself but by the time he decided he better take a closer look she had a rear end out (breach/backwards) he had to act ASAP. He got on his belly and snuck up behind her got a hold of that back foot and tried to pull. Momma cow looked back and realized the scary cowboy was up in her business and she was not cool with that, she jumped up and took off with Jim Bob holding on for dear life. The baby did not have enough time to get the momma to the corral or for Jim Bob to go get his horse and rope momma. Jim Bob had this one shot to get that baby out of there. The foot he had a hold of was pretty slimmy but he hung on while he got drug, his pants and shirt ripped to shreds and he is now soaking wet and very dirty, doning dirt and rocks and sand, he is looking a little unusally messy when he comes in; I am of course curious as to what happened and he told me the story and then finished the story with the news that a man in Kansas had just been drug to death doing the same thing. I could have done without that info, for one because it is so very sad and two because now I have a new way to fret about my guy getting hurt or losing his life, and there are oh so many dangers a Cowboy faces every day. Jim Bob tried to reassure me that the man in Kansas was using the puller chains and just as he got the chain around one foot the cow took off and the rest of the chain wrapped around his arm. Jim Bob didn't have time to use his chains so he could have let go. This is so very sad for that ranching family that lost their Cowman and I'm sure he was more than that to a lot of people, a husband a father a friend, but most of all a true Cowboy who would give his life to safe the life of a baby calf.)
At the time I wrote this draft we were calving out our fall calving herd; this herd we sell for breeding stock so there is alot of paper work and numbers to keep track of. In a few months we were to start A.I. breeding them to top industry sires and then when we gott them turned out in April to their spring mountain pasture headed to our home place to calve out our spring calving herd.
We are now just about done calving out our spring calvers and we will start A.I. breeding them soon and they get turned out on the mountain late may early june, depending on the grass growth. It has stayed cooler longer this year so you don't want to turn cows out until the grass has had a chance to grow. It is warming up fast now so hopefully we will get a little spring moisture and our pastures will be right on track.
There is always so much going on in the ranching business, we have so many life and death day to day things to deal with that we don't generally have a lot of time to fight political battles. It is frustrating and disheartining at times to hear what animal rights groups and environmentalists accuse ranchers of. For one there is no other profession that brings you closer to the land than when you work to produce with it. Ranchers have a deep understaning and respect for nature an understanding that cannot hardly be explained to someone who doesn't see it first hand. My husband has in his short lifetime risked that lifetime many many times just to save an animal. I have seen my husband jump into the Colorado river during a bilzzard to carry a calf back to safety that was stranded on an island without his momma. I have seen my husband take on predetors to save a baby calf. My husband works 365 days a year almost always putting in more than 15hr/day. The effort he puts in to protect his livestock and the land they live off of is like nothing eles. Animal rights activist may not understand why we do the things we do, some may seem harsh or maybe they think they have a better more humane way to do things. Let me tell you if there was something better for the animals it would already be being done by the men and women who give their lives for these animals.
