Spring Routines

One of the best aspects of ranching is working with the seasons.

Just about the time I get sick of one season, another comes along.

Except for feeding-hay-with-a-tractor season.

I’m sick of that on the first day.

But I love spring jobs.

I watch new calves hit the ground while I fix the fence along the road where the snowplow blows drifts and tears the wire from the posts.

The road sits on the edge of a slope so my fence is below it.

It’s a dicey stretch of steep hillside when it’s icy so I’m happy that the snowplow driver keeps drivers a little safer, even if I need to fix fence every spring.

I get to tag and band calves every spring, too.

I have to catch them young or I can’t catch them at all.

I toss a rope around their head and flank them as if I’m a rodeo calf-roper.

The calves aren’t quite as big or strong, but sometimes I hear the rodeo crowd roaring in my head.

I don’t mention that noise to people in town. I don’t think they would understand.

Each spring, I have to pump the air locks out of my pipeline that fills two troughs and waters my cows.

The water flows with the pull of gravity, but the line has a few high spots that catch bubbles.

Cows can’t drink bubbles.

I haul my pacer pump, hoses and gas to the spring, start the pump and then manually open the check valves along the pipeline.

This spring, after doing this for 20 years, I accidentally let the pump turn sideways and burn up.

Five hundred dollars of tuition later, I knew I would remember that lesson.

Pumping the pipeline usually takes a few tries over a few days.

One day, I wear a t-shirt and the next day I wear my insulated coveralls.

The crows and meadowlarks laugh at me on warm sunny days.

I don’t have any idea where they are while the wind whistles through my coveralls, teasing me with the chance of rain.

Maybe tomorrow, it whispers. Maybe tomorrow.

I worry about grass in the spring, too.

By mid-March, the vulnerable young sprigs pop up.

The sheep, especially, start to ignore bales of hay that will satiate them, choosing instead to hunt out the delicious, delicate, green leaves.

But those tiny leaves need to convert sunlight into energy so their roots will grow.

Long roots find more nutrients and moisture.

The greedy sheep steal from the land’s promise, truncating their future bounty.

My best strategy is to sacrifice a different pasture each March through May. I hold the sheep and cattle on one pasture while hoping all of the other pastures grow tall and strong ahead of my grazers.

This spring is a bit different from other springs.

For one thing, I am waiting for a hole in my roof.

I need the hole so the plumber can vent my steam generator that will power my retort pressure cooker in my manufacturing kitchen.

I’ve been waiting for six weeks to look up through the ceiling of my kitchen and see blue sky.

The concrete driller should be done by the end of the week.

I’ve never been so happy to have a hole in my roof.

Another different aspect this spring is a future with seven young adults camping in my yard at the end of April.

They will install artificial beaver dams on my creek.

All of us hope the dams will slow the flow of water.

Some of us hope some water actually flows.

Maybe. Just maybe.

I suspect the crows and meadowlarks know, but they aren’t telling.