The morning did not start too early. We had breakfast together and talked about what needed to be accomplished for the day.
George and I at last made our way out to the fields to give out rations for the day. We started with the horses and bulls. There are six mature bulls, two yearling bulls (which happen to be ranch-grown bulls), and three horses in the group. We gave those animals their allotment for the day. George trusted me enough to drive his standard transmission truck around the horse/bull paddock while he gave out a bit of alfalfa hay on the back of a trailer that the truck was pulling. Then we drove towards the cows without the trailer. Here I learned more about George’s method of moving impermanent fences (polywire). His polywire lines are wrapped around two reels, one on each end. One end is insulated and the other is connected to a high tensile line making the entire line hot. Given enough slack in the line, step-ins can be moved without taking up the whole line, and slack is given to do this or the reel is moved further down the field. George does not mind crooked lines. The cows are in a 275 acre pasture (Yep, folks that is about what we have at WWC), currently, which is broken up in to quadrants. The current quadrant is being stripped grazed. Every day we will allot a certain amount of raked piles of hay to the herd and whatever regrowth surrounds those piles. Today, about 2 acres worth was given out to ~150 cows. When the piles are closer to each other, we might only allot half an acre.
When we were driving out to the cows, we noticed a small black dot far off in the distance from the herd. George immediately said we had a dead cow on our hands. I searched and at last found the small dot, which did turn out to be a dead cow. The old lady, had been trying to scratch her back or something and could not get up after rolling on her back. This is not uncommon with pregnant cows. This experience reminded me of when Amelia and I found 628 on her back on Dogwood. She was still alive though, and we were able to flip her right side up with some help. I will not expand on the details of moving the dead cow, but the lady apparently had been a good mom.
After, what proved to be an eventful first morning, the rest of the day was almost relaxing. Before lunch, I read and signed my apprenticeship contract and talked over some reading material with Julie. After lunch, I spent my time inside reading At Home with Holistic Management by Ann Adams. This text is very reader-friendly and the hope is that I will have a brief understanding of Holistic Management verbiage and philosophy, so that I can participate in ongoing holistic planning. Luckily, I have had an introduction to all of these terms before and have even practiced writing my own goals.
At around four, George noticed that the cows had gotten out. We walked ourselves over to the field and with the help of the working dogs were able to bring in the herd. George is training his newish 6-month pup. It was fun to watch the younger dog work with the older dog. We then fixed the gate that had broken and went back to the house. I placed a second coat on my soon-to-be bedpost before retiring to the house for the rest of the evening.
Tomorrow will be a bit like today, hopefully, no more dead animals, though.
Calving season will start in about three weeks!
(Can you see the white faced calf looking back at me? He has a very woolly face.)
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