Spring - The Idaho Rancher's Wife

High School Rodeo with Cowboy E

May 28, 2014 by Allison

Weekends in April and May are chuck full of high school rodeo. They rodeo Friday night and Saturday morning. Of course they coincide with so many branding and cattle drives which means we don’t get to watch Cowboy E as much as we would like. Last weekend we were able to finally make it to his District Rodeo, the last of the season before the state rodeo.

We definitely were not disappointed. The boy won the team roping that night! He is the header of his team, partly because his partner ropes left handed. Its so crazy to watch them! And super interesting to the things they do to adapt to a lefty.

Besides going to watch our boy, Cowboy E, I love to watch the rough stock. I don’t cheer for the bulls, but I love watching them when they are rank!

Changing Sprinklers with The Rancher’s Wife (because I LOVE it!)

May 20, 2014 by Allison

My high school summer work was working for a neighbor on his ranch (no surprises, right?). Every morning we would start the day moving the wheel lines and a few hand lines. I loved it. Every part.

I’m not really sure why- maybe it was knowing that the work we were doing was growing the hay we would harvest. Maybe it was doing a job that I could do well. I would say that it was playing in the water, put at that time in the morning the water was COLD. I actually wonder if I didn’t love it because it was one of the times that my OCD-ness really came in handy- straight wheel lines, unplugged nozzles, the birds standing upright…

It has its bad moments- like when you have to get the heavy mover through the ditch and you fall in. Ya… not so cool. Or you have a riser blow its top, continually. In fact, I have an Instagram buddy say Irrigation=Irritation. So true.

But still… I loved and still love moving sprinklers. And The Rancher loves that I love it. Its not too hard to hard to get me to come help and make the work go a little faster (isn’t that what every rancher wants in a wife?). Thankfully, he does it in the evenings when I can help out (and not egg cold!). He’ll go in one direction to work on a line while I turn off another. We jump between the different lines to get them drained, moved and the pressured up again. Of course along the way there are seals to fix, drains and nozzles to replace, or lines to wash out. It seems that something always needs a little fixing…

Doing this together for a few years we have learned a few things- bring the bag of tools, have a stash of oil and gas, and always wear water boots- even when you shouldn’t be in the water… because Murphy’s Law is a part of changing sprinklers!

** Funny side note- when I asked The Rancher’s Sidekick what I should title this post he said, “Um… Lemonade!” Yes, it is a sprinkler changing, lemonade sippin’ spring day at our house. Summer is on its way!

The Crazy Heifer That Didn’t Want a CIDR

May 17, 2014 by Allison

We keep saying that things are slowing down, but I think it is just wishful thinking. The branding is done, the cows are moved out, but now we are hauling for other ranches. We are working to get the wheel lines running. And now its time to start getting the bulls turned out and the heifers AIed. Really, we should never say its slowing down.

But I’m ok with that. My sister (that lives in NYC) told me that a busy life is a fun life, because a boring life is just, well… lame.

This week’s adventure- helping put CIDRs in the heifers. (If you’re wondering what CIDRs are and why we use them, check out last year’s post!) We actually didn’t do too much help. The Rancher didn’t tell me they were starting. I think he thinks he can do this with without me… Should I be worried?!
Running the heifers through the chute can be a little exciting. They are still young and inexperienced to this stuff. Plus I don’t blame them for not wanting the CIDR put in. Sure an oversized, IUD is great to make sure that they don’t get pregnant and will cycle at the right time, but what girl really WANTS that? So they go wild and crazy… all the time. I swear all of them try jumping out somewhere along the way- the holding tub, the alley, the chute… They jump on each other, over each other, back into each other. Its almost exhausting just to watch! But we are kinda used to it…

Actually we did have a few tense moments. There was one wild girl that tried jumping over the top. As she came back down, her hoof got caught on the alley stop (it keeps them from going backwards). How she managed it, I really don’t know but it was stuck and cutting her hoof. Plus it was pulling her back leg up into a really awkward position. She of course went more crazy, trying to get herself loose. The heifer behind her started to climb over her, getting out of the ruckus. Can you say pile up?

We had to push the heifers in the behind her back in the tub (which in itself was a chore because there seems to be only one direction with cows). The Rancher jump up on the alley panels and pulled the stuck heifer backwards (by her tail of course) while The Ranch Boss pried the bars apart so that Rancher Sr. could shove her hoof out. And they got it… phew!

Once again we adverted disaster! Its always an adventure on the ranch.

Come on Home, Little Doggie

May 14, 2014 by Allison

Ah, spring turn out time. One of the most wonderful and stressful times of the year. Wonderful because it means that the cows are out, the calves have been branded, and they only need a little maintenance for the summer. Ok, we move them like every week, check water, and doctor as needed… its still a lot of work but it doesn’t seem like its so hard.

We probably are happy for it to be over because that means the stress of the spring turn out it gone too. Right now we are separating our cows into 3 different groups- some to be run on the BLM ground, some to be on the Forest ground (it really shouldn’t be considered Forest though, there are NO forests out here!) and some to other Forest ground. The stressful part about all of this is that when you start separating the herd, you have to make sure that you get all of the babies with the right mommas. Or that none of the momma’s forget that they have a calf (oh ya, it happens…).

The worst thing that can happen is the pairs not pairing up once they get to the new pasture. A baby without a momma isn’t going to survive. Sure they can steal milk every once in a while (funny thing about cows, they will only nurse their babies… but I roll like that too), but they aren’t going to get enough nutrition to grow. So we do ALL that we can to make sure this doesn’t happen.

But every year it seems that we have a few doggie calves. Do you want to know the best way to pick them out? They have poop on their head. All of the time. The best way to steal a bit of milk is to come from behind. The hazards of that are getting pooped on… poor huggers….

But back to our doggie calves. We just bring them home. Leaving them to die is like throwing money away. And its just not very nice. So we do what we can to make it work. Like have a milk cow or two around to nurse them. These cows are kinda funny, because they love to mother these babies! They stand by the barn waiting for feeding time. They sit by the gate and talk to them during the day (well, I don’t know if they really talk to them… I just think that sounds like what a momma would do). And no matter how many calves, they mother them all.

Its rough being a doggie-ed calf, but come on home. We’ve got a momma that will love on ya!

Just Follow Your Momma

May 7, 2014 by Allison

I haven’t seen my husband too much of late. Don’t worry, we are still SO much in love, its just the time of year for early mornings and late nights. We have made it to our spring turn out dates so over the last few weeks we have been gathering the cattle, sorting into the different groups and then hauling them to their new pasture. Of course that includes branding (and read tagging, vaccinating, marking) any calves that we missed or were born after we branded (ya, that happens…). And we gotta make sure that the new pasture is ready- water flowing and fences up. The combination of no water and terrible fences means cows out… not what we need.

So needless to say, I haven’t seen The Rancher too much. But every once in a while I have a day that I don’t have anything else going on (well, except house work… but that’s never stopped me from going out!) and they are doing something that we can help with so we tag along.

We were helping gather up the cows out on our private land and I just had to chuckle at some of the things that we deal with working these darn cows. Lets just start by saying that cows don’t think (mostly), they react, and calves don’t react, they freak out.

Most of these cows get that when we start pushing them towards the gate that it means new grass and boy do they step out. They just get a-walking, thinking only of filling their bellies. But then all of the sudden, they remember that they have a calf… somewhere. So they turn around and start bawling for baby, making other mommas do the same. Hey now! We are trying to go out the gate and every time you stir up the herd to find your baby that you forgot about because all you think about is food you cause problems! Too bad saying that wouldn’t actually get anything done- rational talk doesn’t work with cows that don’t really think.

With such a big herd we use our cow dogs to move them along. But sometimes that causes a little bit of an extra stir. See, in the winter we can get coyotes or even wolves that bother the herds, putting momma cow on super high alert. Anything that looks like a coyote is in trouble, including The Rancher’s dog. This is the same dog that is around every year, all year and they know who he is but they put up a stink if he gets too close.

The roughest part about moving the herd in the springtime is pushing the calves. With momma gonna, they are doing their darndest to find her and keep up with the herd. But with such little legs and no clue of where they are going, they tend to just lag. And if, for some reason, they get behind they freak out, running in the exact opposite direction as the herd. There is no coercing the darn things to go in the right direction until they just do it themselves (hmm, sounds like my kids!). They will run through fences, the brush, anything that gets in their path! Sometimes we just get ’em good and tired and then grab them.

It sounds pretty bad when I explain it all out like this, and it is if all of this is happening at once. But usually its not every cow that turns back and the dog has learned to shove with love and we do pretty good at keeping the calves from getting behind. But it would all be so much better if those darn babies would just follow momma (or momma not leave them behind…)! Regardless, we are getting the work done and loving it (well, most of it). And we will love it even more when it is done!

Many Irons in the Fire

April 29, 2014 by Allison

Having 760 cows means that we have to find places for all of them, which means that we have groups spread out on the range. Some of them are on our own private ground but a good majority of them run with other ranches on the Association rangeland. And that means that when we go branding we have EVERYONE’s cattle to brand!

The upside to this is that we have plenty of help to brand our calves, but that comes with the price of going out every weekend to brand (but that’s a price we are so happy to pay). It takes a LOT of time to get so many calves branded!

The group that we run with has 7 different brands in the fire! With so many different operations running together, we want to make sure that we get it right on branding day. The ropers are limited to the ranch owners or other cowboy they designate. The ropers have to be good at finding a mothered up pairs and recognizing which brand it will need. Talk about pressure!

Not only do we need to make sure we get the right brand on the right calf, but each operation has its own vaccines and marks to do. Each ranch sets up their branding station and is responsible for doing their own ground work. If you want a job done right, I guess you do it yourself, right? Actually there are a lot of the men that have run together for YEARs and YEARS that would do a fine job of doing work on each others cattle. But for the sake of not confusing the help, we don’t do too much crossover.

Since we are trying to get as many done as possible we don’t use the Nord forks. The time a roper would be tied up is time that he could be roping, which is precious. So they drag in their calf, the ground crew pounces and mugs the calf. They slide the rope off to send the roper back to rope and then they get to work.

When you write it out and explain it, it sounds crazy and a lot of work. But after doing it for so long, its amazing how you just know what to do!

Days of Branding: Castrating Bulls to Steers

April 25, 2014 by Allison

Branding day really is a big day for some of these calves, especially the bulls. The poor fellas especially have a big change… I kinda feel bad for them- glad I’m not destined to be a steer.

You might not think it, but castrating is an important part of our operation of producing the best beef possible. How are a pair of cahonees related to a yummy hamburger? I’m glad you asked! I’ll tell you!

Testosterone is produced in the testes (duh, I know… have to start somewhere). And although testosterone helps calves grow fast, this is at the cost of a lot of energy. I don ‘t just mean a lot of energy to help them grow (we are totally for growing) but I mean a lot of energy to first develop testes and then produce the testosterone. In a castrated calf, more energy is put towards more marbling fat- the fat that gives meat its flavor and tenderness.

Besides castrating to make a better product, we also castrate for management sake. With testosterone comes aggression (again, duh… I know…) and aggressive cattle make for more work. On a ranch there is ALWAYS something to be done and anything we can do to ease our load is so worth it. Its also make sure that as the calves develop that they don’t get overly zealous in starting the next generation of calves- we don’t want babies pregnant with babies!

We castrate in two ways. Actually “we” only castrate in one way, then those boys do another… The first is using an elastrator. I mentioned this when we talked about tagging. There is a stretchy ring that we stretch around the testes that will eventually cut them off. This works best for young calves that haven’t developed as much. The other method is surgically cutting them- a little more intense (I’m not a wimp, I promise…).

Castrating is stressful for a calf, and stressful times can cause calves to get sick or lose weight. They will bounce back a lot better when they are younger and pick up on that weight gain faster. There have been studies that found that in the end, a calf that is castrated younger will be heavier when it is harvested versus a calf that was castrated at weaning time. Who knew!

Maybe this is more than what you wanted to know, but its a few fun facts about ranch life and what we do to make the best product we can!

PS- We had to document this first time of castrating- talk about getting in there with two hands! Way to go girl!

Days of Branding: Marking the calves

April 24, 2014 by Allison

Part of our branding routine includes, marking our calves. Running our cattle with so many others means we need easy ways to identify which is ours. We use tags, but sometimes tags fall out. And we use brands, but we can only see them when we are up close. So we have ‘nother other (in the words of The Rancher’s Sidekick) way to identify them.

The first is marking the ears. Calves naturally have a really full ear that can be easily seen. This makes for a great place to mark. Some notch out the ears, some do a split. We trim down the ear making for pointy, less full ears.

I have to tell you something… I’m not a fan of marking the ears. They look like a bat or something… But I do like how easy it is to pick up a pair of binoculars and spot those pointy little ears!

The second marking we make is a waddle. A neck waddle. I’m sure that we call it a waddle because is waddles to-and-fro… To make a waddle, we cut a flap of skin back off of the neck. When it heals what we have left is a wiggling bit of skin hanging from the neck. We only waddle the heifers since we will keep them as replacement heifers down the road while we sell the steers. No reason to waddle a calf that won’t need it!

Once again, NOT a fan of the extra wiggling, unattached waddle… but it makes it SUPER easy to identify our cattle!

Its important that these marks are done right. We don’t want too big of a slice taken from the ears or too big of a cut on the neck. We want as little stress on the calves as possible (because they have ALREADY had stress). So we let The Rancher and Rancher Sr. do it for the most part. Its a good job for them…

Days of Branding: How we do it

April 22, 2014 by Allison

You really should come spend a day branding with us. You could almost pick any weekend and we would be going out. Most days we brand the association cattle. We have 7 ranches worth of cattle together on the range, which means a lot calves! But more about branding with the association another day.

The day that you want to brand with us is when we do our cattle on the Peterson Place. We have about 350 cows to sort through and brand. We start in the morning gathering the cattle from the north. This year we did it in the rain, and what started out as a refreshing little shower turned into a soaker (be glad I didn’t tell you to come until AFTER the rainy year).

We sort the cows out (but we leave a few… the babies are happier with a momma around) and then start to work. Actually this year, we had to wait a while before we could start- blame the rain!

But eventually we got to work. The ropers rope (obviously) and drag the calves to the “fire” where the ground crew is set up. The calves are caught and held with Nord Forks. Don’t know what they are? (neither did I until I started branding with The Rancher). The are a handy tool that is staked into the ground and has a fork like head catch. It slips on the calf’s neck and catches at the base of the head.

The forks make for an easy way to hold the calves while we mark, castrate, vaccinate, tag, and brand the calves. Its a lot to do, so we need some one to run the shots, guys to do the castrating, others to brand and the top dogs mark and tag. Once we hit our groove we just roll on through them. Before we know it, the calves are branded and the dinner bells is a-ringin’!

And then we start over.

We gather in the bunch from the south. Then sort (and no waiting!), rope, drag… you know how it goes!

Days of Branding

April 21, 2014 by Allison

Branding. So much branding. But that’s normal. Every year at this time we pull out the iron sharpen the knives, start the fire and get to work. The ranch trucks have an eternal burnt hair smell. Its stinky and dirty but we love it.

The boys especially love it because that means LOTS of roping. The long days are totally worth it when the work is more like play!

There is a lot going on when we are out there. And you are going to hear all about it! This week I’m going to show you the how’s, why’s, and what’s of branding on the Eliason ranch.