The Idaho Rancher's Wife

The Ranch From the Wife's Perspective

Days of Branding: Castrating Bulls to Steers

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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

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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: Why we brand

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Branding can be a touchy subject when we talk with some people outside the ranching world.  It can seem like a harsh or cruel thing to do.  So why do we still brand?

The best answer is because it is required by law.  A brand is a rancher’s signature, saying which ranch these cattle belong to.  Its nice to know which ranch to call when the cows get out, but its more important to know when its time for those cattle to be harvested.

If a cow were to go in without a brand, there is no way to know who that cow belonged to, where it was, what other animals it was running with, and what region it was in.  Its important to know this because we want to be VERY sure that there is nothing wrong with the meat. We don’t want to spread disease or sell contaminated beef.  Ya, that’s a good reason to brand…

When cattle are sold, cross state lines, or head to be harvested they must be checked over by a brand inspector.  This makes a record or a paper trail of where and when the cattle come and go. 

But even if we didn’t HAVE to brand, we still would.  I don’t know that there is any method out there that is as effective and efficient at marking our cattle as our own.  Yes, it is stressful for the calves.  It is probably painful and I really feel bad about that.  But until someone finds a method of marking that can’t be altered, we gotta stick to branding.  Did you know that cattle rustling is still prevalent today?  (and in the state of Idaho it is still punishable by hanging!). Too many of the ways to mark cattle can be changed and someone else can claim them. 

So we brand our calves.  We do it so we can track our cattle so we can put out the best product possible!

Days of Branding: How we do it

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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

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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.

 

Steak Kabobs on the Grill

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Its grilling season!  OK, I don’t know that there is an official grilling season… but if there were I would declare it open!  We actually don’t wait for grilling season to get cooking outside.  I’m a big fan of cooking on the grill, partly because that means less dishes to do…

One of my favorites to cook on the grill are Steak Kabobs.  The delicious, bite size pieces of meat and veggies are the perfect dinner to change things up!  I will tell you that everyone loves these.  My baby couldn’t shovel them in fast enough.  So fast that I was fishing the too-big-bites out of her mouth to cut them down to non choking size.  And my boy was thrilled with the idea of eating off of a stick (no surprises there- he is ALL boy).  In fact I might cook more on a stick because then he actually eats!

 

So let’s get down to cooking these kabobs!  (PS, isn’t kabobs just a fun word?!)

 

Since they are steak kabobs, let’s start with the steak.  If cost wasn’t an issue, I would tell you to go get a Filet Mignon.  But a nice sirloin or skirt steak will do great.  Whatever you get, cut it up into 1” pieces.  Try to make them as uniform as possible so that they will all cook the same.

 

 

With the steak cut up, cut up some veggies.  Peppers and onion are a favorite at our house.  And zucchini- The Ranch Princess LOVES zucchini.  Some days I do potatoes too.  If you do potatoes, I recommend that you cook them up before.  They won’t cook on the grill long enough to make them tender.  I have even use baked potatoes to slice up!  If I was a fan of mushrooms I would put them on… but I’m not.  Really you can try anything! 

 

 

 

 

This time we had a treat- pineapple!  If you haven’t tasted grilled pineapple, you have to give it a try!  Some people think it is weird to have warm pineapple… I promise it is so delicious you won’t even think about it!

 

Once everything is chopped up, it’s time for some marinating.  Grab some oil, honey, soy sauce, and lemon juice.  Add in a few shakes of chili powder and garlic powder. 
Mix, mix, mix and then pour over the meat and veggies.  I threw the veggies in a big Ziploc bag with the marinade- it made easier to shake and keep them coated with the sauce.  But you can do whatever you want!

 

 

 

When you’re ready for the cooking (like after 2-3 hours… but the longer the better!) pull out your skewers and get to poking.  I put them on the stick and then straight to the grill, but I wish I hadn’t.  They cook so fast that some were ready before others were even on.  By the time we got to eating them they were cooled.  So skewer them all at once, grill them all at once, and then eat them all at once!

 

Turn your grill to high and stay close once you put them on.  Remember that since they are cut small they will cook fast.  And you want crunchy veggies, not mushy.  Cook them about 7-8 minutes, turn and cook another 5-7 minutes.

 

 

You know the next step- EAT and ENJOY! 

 

I have to tell you a funny about these… The Rancher had a Search and Rescue meeting, so he got to take his on the run (a meal on a stick is the ultimate fast food!).  Not long after he left I got a text from him- #Kabobs #Dabomb.  The fact that The Rancher thinks hashtags are ridiculous just makes it all so much funnier!

 

Steak Kabobs

2 lbs Steak, sirloin or flank
Bell peppers
Small Onion
Zucchini
Fresh Pineapple

Marinade

1/4 Vegetable Oil

1/3 Cup honey
1/3 Cup Soy Sauce
1 Tbsp. Lemon Juice
1/4 tsp Garlic Powder

1-2 Shakes Chili Powder

Cut the meat and vegetables into 1 inch pieces.  (I only listed the veggies that we used, but it isn’t inclusive- try whatever you want!) Mix together the marinade ingredients and pour over the meat and vegetables.  Cover and put into the refrigerator for 2-3 hours (the longer they sit, the more flavorful and tender they will be!).

Drain off the marinade and put the meat and vegetable chunks onto the skewers.

Preheat the grill to high heat and lightly oil.  Place the kabobs on the grill and cook for 7-8 minutes and then turn.  Cook for another 5-7 minutes.

Breaking in New Horses

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Every cowboy has a good string of horses and this spring we have been working on ours.  We have two new mares that we have been working with.  Both of them have been pretty labor intensive but with time we have seen some great progress.

The sorrel (red) horse with a white blaze is Loca.  She is a baby from The Rancher’s mare when he was growing up.  If you know Spanish, you know that Loca means crazy.  She’s named that for a reason! For a couple of years now, The Rancher has been trying to work with her.  She’s about to turn 6 (or maybe 7… I’m not quite sure) and for that many years she has been a wild thing.  Too wild to really do anything with.  We haven’t really even been able to get a halter on her, let alone try anything with a saddle.

One day The Rancher was working with her and he had a rope around her neck.  She went to being crazy (like she doe)s and got the rope caught on the fence.  She hit the slack and it tightened up around her neck.  Being crazy already, she started working against the rope and before long it was tight enough that she passed out.  When she tipped over, the rope broke free and loosened up around her neck.  Slowly she got up and walked to The Rancher.  It was like she was a completely new horse! And ever since that day, she has been a gem to work with.

The Rancher has been a little weary of her, knowing how she used to be a little crazy.  But every time he has worked with her its like she has done it hundreds of times.  Now all we need is to get a little experience on her and she is good to go!

Our other new horse is Sugar.  We bought her from a family that had a few horses and other animals, but they really didn’t have the time to work with her.  When we called to tell them we were on our way (it was a few hours to get there) they said, “Are you good with horses?  I don’t think that she has ever been loaded in a trailer…”. Oh boy that was a great start!

Don’t worry, she practically loaded herself!  The next day we saddled her up to see what kind of skills she had.  After only a few minutes The Rancher said, “Well… she has no manners, no steering, and no gas.” I guess that left only room for progress!   And boy have we made some progress-  we can actually get into a good lope and move left and right.  Its still rough, but with time she is going to be a great little pony!

 

The Idaho Rancher’s Wife- 1 Year Old!

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Do you know what today is?  It the 1st birthday of The Idaho Rancher’s Wife!  This really is kind of a big deal for me.  At first this idea of a blog was almost a joke.  As a rancher’s wife I get to do some crazy things it seems and I needed SOMEWHERE to tell these stories.  And then it just took off from there. 

There has been a lot of learning in this last year.  I have learned that I LOVE writing (at least blog writing).  I love, love, LOVE photography.  If you look back over the last year you can see how my picture taking skills are growing.  Hooray!  But mostly over the last year I have learned how much I love sharing our life on the ranch.  There are so many that don’t have a connection to the Ag world, and I can be that connection.  I love it!

So I have gathered together a dozen of my favorite posts over the last year.  Some are my favorites because of the cool pictures that turned out.  A few are favorites because of the time that was spent with my family on the ranch.  Some are my favorites because they are your favorites.  Then there are the ones that I learned a lot from- the ranching part and the story telling part.  And then there are just the down right funny or awesome ranch experiences everyone needs to hear!

I’ll admit there are days that I think that I can’t do this.  You would be surprised how much time this takes- not that I’m complaining, I love every bit of it.  But I want it all to be awesome for you!  To that end I have been doing a lot of learning on how to blog, photography, writing, graphic design… so much! 

I have to thank those that help along the way!  My dear friend Mandy, from Mandy’s Recipe Box has done so much, especially to encourage me through the tough stuff.  My cousin, Lindsay Hart with Hart to Hart Photography, has helped me so much with the graphic design, even when she was moving and 8 months pregnant.  And then there are a few blogs that are my go to for learning how to be awesome at blogging Something Swanky, Living Well, Spending Less, and Kevin & Amanda.

So here is to another year (or ten)!

A Herd of (cute) Baldy Calves

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Our herd consists of mostly black cows.  That’s not really as surprise since we run black angus cows.  But every once in a while I wish we could have a red one or a nice gray.  Just to change things up a little, ya know?  Its really not likely to happen unless we strait out buy one.  Its just not in our gene pool.

Something that we do have thought, are some darn cute baldy face calves!  So we can’t have a little extra color in the herd, but at least we get a little white face here and there.  Not to long ago we bred our heifers to some hereford bulls (they are red with a white face).  It seemed like we didn’t get a single baldy calf out of those batch of babies.  Maybe the genes just needed to flow down a few generations before they started to show because these days we have a nice little herd of baldy faced calves.

We weren’t cross breeding just for the looks, if you can believe that.  There is something awesome that happens when you cross breed. Heterosis.   Instead of getting what you would think is an average performance of both breeds, you end up getting increased performance.  The strengths of both breeds come out!

And in this case we get an extra bit of awesome in the cute calves.  I’m not sure why, but don’t you think they have an extra bit of cuteness to them?  (Should we count how many times I said “cute” in this post?!)

5 Lessons in Cowboy Jargon

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If there was one word to describe April it would be branding.  Every weekend (and a couple of days in between) we spend out on the range branding.  We have our cows out with other ranches, so naturally we have more than just our herd to brand.   I mean it’s not too neighborly to not help our rancher friends!  With so many cowboys around, it’s easy to get lost in the cowboy jargon.  Usually I would say to just smile and nod your head but out here you can’t always fake it!  So here are a 5 words and phrases from the Cowboy Jargon Dictionary (… there is no such thing… I totally just made that up…). 

1. A cowboy’s outfit: No this isn’t in reference to his clothing choice of the day.  A cowboy does have some… different clothing choices but that’s because they choose function over fashion.  But when one cowboy compliments another cowboy’s outfit, he’s talking about his truck and trailer.  Can you imagine cowboys sitting around talking about clothes?  Me either, but it doesn’t take ANY stretch of imagination to see them talking trucks.  Isn’t that written in their DNA?

2.  The green broke horse:  Let’s just start by saying there is nothing “broken” on a green broke horse.  It isn’t “broken” like it doesn’t work.  And it’s not really green, unless it was just rolling in the manure…  A green broke horse is a horse in training.  This means it is inexperienced, or more like unexperienced.  Usually these are young horses with high energy and are a little ignorant to what they are doing.  Just think of your favorite T-ball team- a lot of energy but most of it is spent playing in the dirt.  Eventually they come around to learn the game and pull their weight.  And if they don’t, we trade them off the roster.

3.  Heading… or heeling… you choose!: Most often you hear these words together in reference to falling in love.  You know- head over heels?  But I’m not talking about that, although a branding would be a great place to pick up a cowboy!  When you are talking heading and healing with cowboys they are talking about roping.  There’s two ends on a calf to rope- the head (hence “heading”) or the back feet or heels (yep you got it, “heeling”).   I guess you could rope the front feet, but you really don’t have much control even though they are caught. 

4.  Roping a dogie:  (doh-gee) Don’t get caught thinking we are talking about The Rancher’s dog.  We are referring to the bovine species, not canine.  Put simply, a dogie is a calf without a momma.  I’m not sure how dogie ever got to be part of the Cowboy Jargon Dictionary, other than some cowboy long, LONG ago just started calling his motherless calves dogie.  These calves can make branding a little tricky when you have several ranches worth of cattle together.  Without knowing who the momma cow belongs to, we can only guess who the calf goes with.  Nobody wants to be the guy that put the wrong brand on the wrong calf!

5. “Drag ‘em to the fire”: Those are your instructions once you’ve caught your calf.  The cowboys drag the calf to the fire, where we have the branding irons set up, hot and ready to leave their mark.  A real fire in the middle of a corral with calves, cowboys, and horses sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.  It is if you’re not careful!  But how else do we get branding irons hot?  There are electric irons put there, but there aren’t a lot of electrical outlets amongst the sage brush!   But don’t imagine a big bon fire or even an open fire on the ground.  Back in the day they would dig a hole in the ground and light up the fire.  These days we have a not-so-fancy branding box with a burner (like the burner on a gas stove) to keep the irons hot.  Still plenty hot (I recommend watching your step) but not as likely to reach out a burn a cowboy!

I’d say the last bit of cowboy jargon you need to know is the call to “rustle up some grub,” but I’m pretty sure that you know what that means!  Now that you have some awesome cowboy vocab, you will be ready to get to work and definitely earn your dinner!

About Me

Hello! I'm Allison, The Rancher's Wife! There's nothing I love more than being out on the ranch with my husband and kids. Join me for a look at what goes on here at the ranch and the life being a rancher's wife!

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