WORKING CATTLE

THE GREAT FALL ROUNDUP - 2008
By Jocelyn Hainsworth

And so the time came, once again, to round up all the farmer’s expensive pets and give them the full benefits of our farm’s health care plan. It’s a great deal for them, really; after enjoying free food , water, and lodging all year, and having paid no premiums whatsoever, they get treated for whatever ails them too. The calves all get inoculations - free. The young males have some minor surgery - free. And, the whole works of them are sprinkled with some blue stuff that keeps them lice free all winter - again, completely free of charge.

One would think that they would be happy to participate in this clinic held especially for them, but to tell you the truth, they didn’t seem to be one bit more willing than the human crew who were prodded out of a nice warm house and into the hurricane that was last Saturday. Nobody was happy to be there.

It is comforting to see that every year we seem to improve this operation a little bit. When I think back to the first roundup, I can hardly believe that we’re still married. Back in the day we weren’t exactly set up with enough sorting pens, and not a one of us had learned to read the Farmer’s mind to know what we were going to be instructed to do next. These days we have six or seven pens to funnel animals around in and we’re much better at ... well, we’re much better at staying calm in the face of very loud instructions.

Once the squeeze chute was set up, it was time to bring the herd in from pasture. That’s the improvement that we added this year. It doesn’t take the whole family and four trucks to bring them in. The Farmer merely hopped on his new quad and steered them towards the yard. They learned over the summer that this bright red new toy always seems to lead them to more and better food so the main problem is keeping out of the way of a stampede. They were almost all in when one of them decided that she smelled a rat and took off for the high country. The farmer put an extra mile on his machine trying to head her off at the pass, but in the end she was left to run free. It will serve her right when she’s the only one with lice this winter. Or, she could still find herself in a cull pen for not doing what the Farmer wanted her to - that happens sometimes. Thank goodness he doesn’t have a cull pen for wives.

At first it seemed as if all those wind warnings had been greatly exaggerated, but no, along about noon we found ourselves in gale force winds. Upset animals. Dirt blowing in our eyes. Papers flapping in the wind. Barcode stickers for the radio frequency tags blowing away before we could stick them down. And, every seventh animal insisting on getting into the chute backwards. Which made for upset human beings. One, especially.

Dinner didn’t happen until we were done the calves at 3:00, and somehow, although I can’t imagine how, it was even windier when we went back out to run the adults through. On the one hand, it provided the push necessary to return to the barnyard, but standing still once we got there was a bit of a problem.

By this time we had been offered a reward - the Farmer would take us to town and cook us steaks at the local watering hole when we were done. When someone else is going to cook me supper I don’t ask questions - we got the job done!

If you happened to be in the bar on Saturday night, you might have noticed us - we were the exhausted, wind burnt crew fighting sleep even as the guy at the grill flipped the steaks. Then again, if you were watching the Riders blow Edmonton out of the water, you missed us. We were probably home and in bed before they were out of their game jerseys. You see, we still weren’t done yet - first thing Sunday morning we were back at it, tagging the feeders for their trip to market. Yep! That’s what we’re doing all this for - apparently, these pets turn into money when you ship them. It’s not just for the fun of it all!