The Rancher has been working long and hard, and the Bag Lady presents the evidence:
(she apologizes for the quality of the video....as always!)
Showing posts with label ranching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ranching. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Monday, November 19, 2007
Ranching Tutorial
(Come an' listen to a story 'bout a....)
The Bag Lady wants to share a small portion of her workday with you (hope you’re interested…if not, you are excused!)
She ordinarily does not take her camera with her when she feeds cows, but she did just this once so she could give you a better idea of what she is talking about. She tried not to make it too realistic…if there is poop in the photos, it was unintentional, really! (Unfortunately, it is difficult to avoid in the pasture!)
So, slip into your rubber boots and grab your coat; here we go!
This is what the inside of the loader looks like (do you feel like you are driving?)
Here we have to get out and cut off the strings.
Like this, see?
Okay, let’s dump this bale into the feeder.
Mission accomplished:
Most days, the Bag Lady spreads the hay out on the ground for the cows, but the loader has been a little balky lately, so she filled a couple feeders for insurance. Here is what it usually looks like. (the Bag Lady did this just before you got here so you wouldn't have to deal with the cows milling around! It can be scary if you aren't used to it.):
This calf has decided this looks like a good place to lie down.
Make sure the gate is shut when we’re done, would ya?
The Bag Lady wants to share a small portion of her workday with you (hope you’re interested…if not, you are excused!)
She ordinarily does not take her camera with her when she feeds cows, but she did just this once so she could give you a better idea of what she is talking about. She tried not to make it too realistic…if there is poop in the photos, it was unintentional, really! (Unfortunately, it is difficult to avoid in the pasture!)
So, slip into your rubber boots and grab your coat; here we go!
Here we have picked up the bale with the loader and are ready to transport it to the pasture.
This is what the inside of the loader looks like (do you feel like you are driving?)
Here we have to get out and cut off the strings.
Like this, see?
Okay, let’s dump this bale into the feeder.
Mission accomplished:
Most days, the Bag Lady spreads the hay out on the ground for the cows, but the loader has been a little balky lately, so she filled a couple feeders for insurance. Here is what it usually looks like. (the Bag Lady did this just before you got here so you wouldn't have to deal with the cows milling around! It can be scary if you aren't used to it.):
This calf has decided this looks like a good place to lie down.
Make sure the gate is shut when we’re done, would ya?
Hope you all enjoyed your foray into the ranching world!
(Ya'all come back now, ya hear?)
Monday, November 5, 2007
Ranching, Again
The Bag Lady hasn’t always been a rancher. (I know, I know, it’s a shock, but get back on your chair, you can’t read your screen from the floor!)
Once upon a time, the bag lady wasn’t even a bag lady (but that is another story for another day)! She was just your average, everyday city girl who worked in an office, lived in a city (a small city, but nevertheless; there was pavement and all the trappings of civilization), ate in restaurants, ran to the corner store if she needed a loaf of bread or a jug of milk – in other words, she led a normal city life. Oh, sure, she went camping occasionally, and had lots of relatives with farms, so she wasn’t totally unacquainted with country life, but she was pretty much citified. She even wore dresses and high heels and jewelry occasionally.
Then she met her cowboy and her life changed. Oh, not all at once. It was gradual, and actually quite painless, for the most part. First to go were the dresses and high heels. Jeans and sneakers were more practical – it’s next to impossible to chase a cow through the bush in a dress and heels! Then she had to learn how to fix a barbed wire fence. Barbed wire fences have to be tight because cows have a sixth sense about these things. If there’s one single small inch of a weak spot in a 10-mile long fence, they’ll find it, and the next thing you know, the neighbour is calling ‘cause he’s suddenly got a lot of live lawn ornaments dropping fertilizer everywhere!
One of the proudest days of her life was when her father-in-law was astonished that she knew how to tighten a barbed wire fence with a claw-hammer! He didn’t think a city girl would have a clue about that. And she hadn’t until a few days prior, when her cowboy “learned her how”.
She has learned to recognize when a cow is getting close to calving, how to tell if a granary full of oats is heating, how to drive a tractor and a wheel-loader, and how to open a wire gate. She has chased cows in all kinds of weather, has strung barbed wire for miles of fence, and driven a tractor pulling a haybine to cut hay. She has shoveled shit, carried pails full of water or oats, and doctored sick calves.
She has also learned what is important in life. Having the latest technological gadget or the newest style of running shoes is not even on the page. Without farmers to provide the rest of the world with food, having the latest Ipod won’t mean a thing. Your Ipod won’t feed you or keep you alive. It may help some people keep their sanity, but without the lowly farmer, the world will starve.
The Bag Lady suspects there are children in the big cities who think their food is produced in the grocery stores. In fact, the Bag Lady suspects there are some adults in some of the large cities who think that, too! In a way, she feels sorry for the city folk who never get a chance to experience the joy of watching a calf take his first wobbly steps, or watching the sunrise when you are totally alone except, of course, for the birds and wildlife.
Ranching is hard work, but it is fulfilling. We will never be rich – in fact, most farmers and ranchers have to work off the farm to make ends meet. But we will keep at it because we love it, and somebody has to do it.
So the next time you venture outside the city and see some poor hayseed driving his rusty old pick-up truck, give him a nod or a wave to show your appreciation for playing his part in feeding this nation!
Once upon a time, the bag lady wasn’t even a bag lady (but that is another story for another day)! She was just your average, everyday city girl who worked in an office, lived in a city (a small city, but nevertheless; there was pavement and all the trappings of civilization), ate in restaurants, ran to the corner store if she needed a loaf of bread or a jug of milk – in other words, she led a normal city life. Oh, sure, she went camping occasionally, and had lots of relatives with farms, so she wasn’t totally unacquainted with country life, but she was pretty much citified. She even wore dresses and high heels and jewelry occasionally.
Then she met her cowboy and her life changed. Oh, not all at once. It was gradual, and actually quite painless, for the most part. First to go were the dresses and high heels. Jeans and sneakers were more practical – it’s next to impossible to chase a cow through the bush in a dress and heels! Then she had to learn how to fix a barbed wire fence. Barbed wire fences have to be tight because cows have a sixth sense about these things. If there’s one single small inch of a weak spot in a 10-mile long fence, they’ll find it, and the next thing you know, the neighbour is calling ‘cause he’s suddenly got a lot of live lawn ornaments dropping fertilizer everywhere!
One of the proudest days of her life was when her father-in-law was astonished that she knew how to tighten a barbed wire fence with a claw-hammer! He didn’t think a city girl would have a clue about that. And she hadn’t until a few days prior, when her cowboy “learned her how”.
She has learned to recognize when a cow is getting close to calving, how to tell if a granary full of oats is heating, how to drive a tractor and a wheel-loader, and how to open a wire gate. She has chased cows in all kinds of weather, has strung barbed wire for miles of fence, and driven a tractor pulling a haybine to cut hay. She has shoveled shit, carried pails full of water or oats, and doctored sick calves.
She has also learned what is important in life. Having the latest technological gadget or the newest style of running shoes is not even on the page. Without farmers to provide the rest of the world with food, having the latest Ipod won’t mean a thing. Your Ipod won’t feed you or keep you alive. It may help some people keep their sanity, but without the lowly farmer, the world will starve.
The Bag Lady suspects there are children in the big cities who think their food is produced in the grocery stores. In fact, the Bag Lady suspects there are some adults in some of the large cities who think that, too! In a way, she feels sorry for the city folk who never get a chance to experience the joy of watching a calf take his first wobbly steps, or watching the sunrise when you are totally alone except, of course, for the birds and wildlife.
Ranching is hard work, but it is fulfilling. We will never be rich – in fact, most farmers and ranchers have to work off the farm to make ends meet. But we will keep at it because we love it, and somebody has to do it.
So the next time you venture outside the city and see some poor hayseed driving his rusty old pick-up truck, give him a nod or a wave to show your appreciation for playing his part in feeding this nation!
Friday, October 26, 2007
Mixed Bag (Lady) Day - Life on the Ranch
It's Friday, again, and this week the Bag Lady is sharing (by popular demand!) another ranching story.Life on the ranch is not always, as John Denver said, kinda laid back! Certainly there are times when it is, but there are also times when it can be rather hectic. And downright exhausting.
Spring is one of the hectic times. Calves are being born left and right, and ranchers are trying to make sure that all the calves survive. Now the Bag Lady is aware that there are huge ranches out there where, due to sheer volume of animals, the cows are left to calve pretty much on their own; but with a small cow/calf operation things are a little different. Losing one or two calves when you have hundreds is not quite the catastrophe that it is when you only have forty or fifty head. So the small rancher has to be Johnny (or Jill)-on-the-spot.
There are all manner of things that can go wrong, but the Bag Lady is nothing if not superstitious, so she won’t talk about the Really Bad Things. One of the things that can happen is that a big calf can get stuck, so to speak. It comes part-way out, then gets hip-locked, which means exactly that. The calf gets stuck at the hips.
Early one spring morning, the Bag Lady dragged her weary butt out of bed, pulled on some clothes and stumbled out to check cows. It was just before dawn, and it was snowing; big, fat, fluffy flakes of snow. There was also a cold wind driving those big, fat, fluffy flakes of snow sideways! The Bag Lady shivered her way out to the little patch of trees where the cows had bedded down for the night.
There was a cow she knew was close to calving, and this particular cow had, in previous years, had some troubles. Sure enough, the cow was lying on her side with her calf half-way out. The Bag Lady was pretty sure that the calf was hip-locked. Now generally, when this happens, if the cow gets up or moves around a little, the calf will turn a bit and slip right out. A lot of times, though, the cow is tired, and she won’t move. Other times, all it takes is for the rancher to give a little tug when the cow pushes, and the calf will come. This is always a Lot Easier if the cow is in a confined space, like a barn, or calving shed, rather than out in the pasture. Cattle are wary of intruders when they are calving, even when they know you.
The Bag Lady quietly snuck up behind the cow and took a firm hold on the calf’s front legs, right about the time the cow turned her head and noticed her.
The cow leaped to her feet and took off, running into the wind, with the Bag Lady determinedly hanging on to the slippery calf’s legs! Blinded by the snow, trying desperately to dig her heels in, the Bag Lady was dragged through the bush until, with a strange sucking sound, the calf turned ever so slightly and slipped out of the cow. The Bag Lady managed not to hurt either herself or the calf, and also managed to be well out of the way when the enraged cow turned back to claim her calf! This is not, by the way, the recommended method for assisting a hip-locked calf, but the Bag Lady was lucky that morning and it worked!
After making sure everything was alright with calf and mother, and wiping snow out of her eyes and shaking it out of her dripping hair, the Bag Lady made her weary way back to the house for a well-deserved cup of coffee.
Just another day on the ranch.
Spring is one of the hectic times. Calves are being born left and right, and ranchers are trying to make sure that all the calves survive. Now the Bag Lady is aware that there are huge ranches out there where, due to sheer volume of animals, the cows are left to calve pretty much on their own; but with a small cow/calf operation things are a little different. Losing one or two calves when you have hundreds is not quite the catastrophe that it is when you only have forty or fifty head. So the small rancher has to be Johnny (or Jill)-on-the-spot.
There are all manner of things that can go wrong, but the Bag Lady is nothing if not superstitious, so she won’t talk about the Really Bad Things. One of the things that can happen is that a big calf can get stuck, so to speak. It comes part-way out, then gets hip-locked, which means exactly that. The calf gets stuck at the hips.
Early one spring morning, the Bag Lady dragged her weary butt out of bed, pulled on some clothes and stumbled out to check cows. It was just before dawn, and it was snowing; big, fat, fluffy flakes of snow. There was also a cold wind driving those big, fat, fluffy flakes of snow sideways! The Bag Lady shivered her way out to the little patch of trees where the cows had bedded down for the night.
There was a cow she knew was close to calving, and this particular cow had, in previous years, had some troubles. Sure enough, the cow was lying on her side with her calf half-way out. The Bag Lady was pretty sure that the calf was hip-locked. Now generally, when this happens, if the cow gets up or moves around a little, the calf will turn a bit and slip right out. A lot of times, though, the cow is tired, and she won’t move. Other times, all it takes is for the rancher to give a little tug when the cow pushes, and the calf will come. This is always a Lot Easier if the cow is in a confined space, like a barn, or calving shed, rather than out in the pasture. Cattle are wary of intruders when they are calving, even when they know you.
The Bag Lady quietly snuck up behind the cow and took a firm hold on the calf’s front legs, right about the time the cow turned her head and noticed her.
The cow leaped to her feet and took off, running into the wind, with the Bag Lady determinedly hanging on to the slippery calf’s legs! Blinded by the snow, trying desperately to dig her heels in, the Bag Lady was dragged through the bush until, with a strange sucking sound, the calf turned ever so slightly and slipped out of the cow. The Bag Lady managed not to hurt either herself or the calf, and also managed to be well out of the way when the enraged cow turned back to claim her calf! This is not, by the way, the recommended method for assisting a hip-locked calf, but the Bag Lady was lucky that morning and it worked!
After making sure everything was alright with calf and mother, and wiping snow out of her eyes and shaking it out of her dripping hair, the Bag Lady made her weary way back to the house for a well-deserved cup of coffee.
Just another day on the ranch.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Fun For Friday
The Bag Lady wants to try to do something fun for Fridays, and has way too many ideas, so needs some input from her loyal readership (tee-hee – pretty presumptuous, eh?) She thought maybe she could share some of her famous secret recipes, but it seems as though most of her readers are fitness types, and most of her recipes are fattening!
Then she thought perhaps some kind of craft instruction, but it seems as though most of her readers are fitness types, and most of her crafts are of the sit-down variety. (Boring!) Then, she thought, well, gee, there isn’t much else in the Bag Lady’s limited repertoire, so maybe a funny photo? Diet tips? Beer drinking tips? (Oh, wait; pretty sure everyone can manage that one on their own) How-to tips? (Hmm, how to … what?). Gosh, this is harder than she thought. So she pulled out her trusty manual on how to come up with something to write for her blog. Even that didn’t help.
So she’s throwing it open to the masses (all 6 or 8 of you). What should Fridays be about in the Bag Lady’s world? Food? Fun crafty things? Diet tips? Photos from the country point of view? Secret tales of survival in the wilds of northern Alberta?
Then one of the neighbours showed up with a load of straw bales that the Bag Lady had to unload and stack and she got to thinking; how many of her loyal readers gets to run a wheel loader? Eh? Of course, twelve years ago, if you had asked the Bag Lady to run anything larger than a pick-up truck, she would have laughed you out of the room. It all started so innocently and look at her now! C’mon girls, how many of you have a secret desire to drive this:
What if the Bag Lady told you it’s just like driving a car? Except for the joy-stick that makes the bucket go up and down and tilt. Which is pretty cool unless you stick the bale fork in the ground by mistake! So perhaps the Bag Lady should use her Friday posts to share some of the ranching stuff she gets to do. Okay, you pick:
Recipes?
Crafts?
Diet tips?
Country photos?
Survival tales?
Ranching stuff?
Go into the comments section and make your choice.
In the meantime, have a super weekend. Who knows, the Bag Lady may post again through the weekend – it depends on what fabulous adventures await her on the ranch.
Then she thought perhaps some kind of craft instruction, but it seems as though most of her readers are fitness types, and most of her crafts are of the sit-down variety. (Boring!) Then, she thought, well, gee, there isn’t much else in the Bag Lady’s limited repertoire, so maybe a funny photo? Diet tips? Beer drinking tips? (Oh, wait; pretty sure everyone can manage that one on their own) How-to tips? (Hmm, how to … what?). Gosh, this is harder than she thought. So she pulled out her trusty manual on how to come up with something to write for her blog. Even that didn’t help.
So she’s throwing it open to the masses (all 6 or 8 of you). What should Fridays be about in the Bag Lady’s world? Food? Fun crafty things? Diet tips? Photos from the country point of view? Secret tales of survival in the wilds of northern Alberta?
Then one of the neighbours showed up with a load of straw bales that the Bag Lady had to unload and stack and she got to thinking; how many of her loyal readers gets to run a wheel loader? Eh? Of course, twelve years ago, if you had asked the Bag Lady to run anything larger than a pick-up truck, she would have laughed you out of the room. It all started so innocently and look at her now! C’mon girls, how many of you have a secret desire to drive this:
What if the Bag Lady told you it’s just like driving a car? Except for the joy-stick that makes the bucket go up and down and tilt. Which is pretty cool unless you stick the bale fork in the ground by mistake! So perhaps the Bag Lady should use her Friday posts to share some of the ranching stuff she gets to do. Okay, you pick:
Recipes?
Crafts?
Diet tips?
Country photos?
Survival tales?
Ranching stuff?
Go into the comments section and make your choice.
In the meantime, have a super weekend. Who knows, the Bag Lady may post again through the weekend – it depends on what fabulous adventures await her on the ranch.
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