Spring-time Babies

Is it spring at your house yet?  We are nearly there out here on the ranch.  I couldn’t be more delighted!  There is such an energy with spring.  Its full of potential!  Everything is just so fresh and new.  New crops, new flowers, new leaves, new grass, new weeds (for a minute they can be pretty!)… And of course new babies! 

Ya know, I figured out why we have new babies in the spring.  I’m sure its Mother Nature’s way of giving us a little something cute while the pretty-ness isn’t in full swing.  We are right in the kind of ugly spot between winter and spring.  The snow has melted, but all we can really see is the gray-ish brown and brown-ish gray of the fields and hills.  The creeks have that muddy murky look to it still and even the sage-brush is looking a little more dull. 

The green is coming, you can see it struggling to pop through the bland vista.  But it still needs a good shot of warm sun and spring rain to really get going!

That’s why I thinking the cute babies come to distract us from the ugly in between season.  Because really, who can’t smile at a cute baby?!  Ok, I recognize that it isn’t the real reason babies come when they do, but its an added bonus for sure!

In ranching there are a lot of different calving seasons and its all dependent on what that rancher expects from his calves.  In Montana where I grew up, there were a lot of ranchers that switched over to summer calving because it was so much easier calving in the non-sub-zero temps.  I don’t blame them for not wanting to go check calves during those long and cold Montana nights.  There are seed stock ranches that push their calving as early as they possibly can, to give their bulls just a little more time to grow and mature before they head out to the pasture to breed. 

At our ranch, we take the late winter, early spring approach.  Early enough that they sell well in the fall and we don’t have to keep and feed them all winter long, but late enough we miss most of the cold and snow of winter.  Of course, crazy things happen and sometimes winter drags right on through winter, but for the most part, this plan has worked well for us!

I couldn’t let this calving season slip by without taking the camera out and capturing the cuteness and sharing it with you!  I almost caught one baby as it was just being born, but that momma was camera shy and kept running away (I don’t blame her!).  Even without those play-by-play shots of birthing, there was still so much see and love with those new calves.

I love the little kisses and licks from mommas.  I love the tired sleepy calves nestled in the straw soaking up the sun.  I love watching the calves running and jumping with their tails up high.  I just love all the babies!