A Change As Good As a Rest
It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
Better than fall, when the land sighs a deep, relaxing breath.
Better than summer, when horseback rides and rodeos dot the calendar.
Better than Christmas.
It’s the time of year when dirty dishes remain in the sink.
Friends from Oregon arrived just in time to get in on the action.
Julian, Donovan and Zora needed a break from school and young adult town life.
A change is as good as a rest.
Hopefully.
On the first day of their visit, we admired the newborn calves that had just landed on sprouting grass.
Then we loaded branches on my flatbed trailer.
We needed to haul them from their home in Conrad to the ranch so they are ready to become stand-ins for beaver dams.
As the 24-foot long pile grew higher, Julian balanced on top, directing optimal placement of the spiny branches.
We needed enough material for at least four beaver dam analogs.
We ended up with enough for 20.
The sheep shearers would arrive on the second day of vacation.
Before the shearing clippers could roar to life, we needed to adjust the alley for the sheep to walk into the shearing trailer and we had to mark the wethers.
Without some kind of sign, a shearer might accidentally cut off a male’s unseen penis.
Empathic young adults were motivated to catch and flip each wether so a correctly placed red mark would signal the shearer.
Either strength or strategy will set the wether on his hip.
By the time we were done marking, I was proud to watch more technique than muscle.
Our finishing touch before the shearers arrived would be drilling a couple of holes in solid panels for the feeder alley.
No electricity.
I called Northwestern Energy and said the shearers would be here in two hours.
A crew pulled in and fixed the transformer within 90 minutes.
About the same time, my go-to team of people I call when I really need help pulled up.
After answering my calls for 8 years, each person knows his or her job and where the wrecks are likely to occur.
My visitors didn’t yet know, but they learned fast.
I asked them to work the back, funneling the sheep into tighter and tighter pens, then directing each sheep into the alley.
Ewes are not particularly fond of being funneled into an alley.
Passive resistance is their favorite survival strategy.
Either strength or strategy can be utilized to overcome a ewe’s survival instincts, but when a ewe outweighs the handler by 75 to 100 pounds, strategy becomes more effective.
Julian, Donovan and Zora kept the alley filled for four hours.
Before we headed to the house for my mom’s supper, I checked the heifers.
Two front feet were poking out of one heifer’s hind end.
We gave the heifer time to let nature take its course while we scarfed stew and sourdough bread.
Back at the barn, those two feet had not made any progress.
My friend, Colleen, who had not taken advantage of the break in activity to go home to her own cows, helped me guide the heifer into the chute.
The heifer was stressed.
Noise or movement would only make it worse.
The audience of people who had never seen a calf born stood as silent statues.
Then I went to get my calf-puller and chains.
The chains were not in their place.
Colleen twisted some yellow twine into a half-hitch and we pulled together.
As we all walked back to the house, the new mama was licking and mewing to her baby.
My visitors slept well that night.
I went to find my calf-pulling chains.