DOG WITH A BONE

I can't believe it - it's been three weeks since I last sat down to write this blog. Where does the time go, anyway?

It has been a very mild fall. We have still to get any significant snowfall; there's just a couple of light dustings from time to time. On the one hand, this makes for less work for Glen as the cattle can still graze out on the oat stubble and he has less bales to haul out and feed. On the other hand, there is no snow to provide them with water and he has a daily job of going out and using an axe to chop through the ice on the dugouts so they can drink. I'll be glad when the snow is there - I worry about him slipping on the wet ice and chopping his own leg, or that the cattle will all go out on the ice together and break through and drown. It seems like you hear at least one of those stories every fall. We have electric waterers for the cattle in the corrals, but the main adult herd stays out on the land year round with Glen putting up wind break enclosures for the winter months.

I think we are finally done the sorting and weaning work of the fall. Our own herd was done a week or so ago, but we also board another guy's herd here over the winter and they have only just been brought back here this week and had to have all the other fall shots and treatments first. This morning we pulled on all our heavy winter clothes and went out to get the last of them sorted.

Glen had already marked the older cows which were going to be shipped so we had to get them off in one pen, the calves off in another one, and the cows we were keeping back into an adjoining pasture. He believes that the calves aren't so stressed if they can still see their mothers for the first week, so they are kept in full view of each other - but with a good solid fence in between. They'll bawl for each other for three or four days, but they both have lots to eat and drink so they get over it. There was one cow/calf pair in that herd where the calf was too young to wean, and we had a very late set of twins in our herd so they will get special treatment all winter, being in the feeder pens and getting grain. Winter can be pretty hard on a nursing mother.

For the first time in years Glen went out deer hunting this fall. Jenn talked him into it because she wanted to try it. They both tagged out and are looking forward to making jerky of the whole works - which really isn't much when you see how little meat there is on a white tailed deer. It would be something else if they had been drawn for a moose license - those things are monsterous and there are a lot of them around. I told Jenn if she got one of those, she was on her own for storage! My deepfreezes are already full!

The dogs are in doggie heaven at the moment with the deer leg bones to chew on. During the winter they get to sleep in the porch overnight but Sam wouldn't come in the first night he had a bone to guard. He knew that if he left it outside that the coyotes would have it long gone by morning, and he also knew I wasn't letting him bring it in the house - so he camped out on the deck that night - the prize between his paws!