BUSY DAYS

The spring work continued through May and into June.  Bringing in all of the herds, processing the calves, putting bulls into the herds, and of course all the in between fence fixing, water hauling and everything else.  Lets just say it is a very busy time for the cowboys.

It takes several weeks to completely get all of the cattle in.  When we would get one herd in, we would hold a "branding", in order to process, the calves.  Then the next week start all over bringing in another herd, processing them, so and and so on, until finally we had them all in and processed,  then moved onto their summer pastures.

One of the brandings.

Trailing the cows and their calves home is a slow and sometimes frustrating job.  

The cows don't always keep track of their calves, which causes confusion and chaos.  

Sometimes the little buggers will try to run back to the last place they were with their mom.  Then the cowboy has to chase them back into the herd.  And trust me, those little farts can really run fast.

We travel several miles a day.  Some times it's only a day to get all the way in to the meadows, other times it takes 3 days.

It's slow, cows, horses and people get thirsty.  We set up water stations when needed.

Sometimes my horse gets annoyed.  You can tell by his ears.  

Sometimes we cross some pretty bare land.  

Every trail home is a journey.

Then the cowboys, friends and family get together to process the calves.  This means we earmark them, castrate the males, give them a fly tag and their vaccinations.

When I use the term, "cowboys",  I am including our cowgirls as well.  We are a significant part of the crew.  Some of our top hands are cowgirls.  

Our Spring work is wrapped up.  But that doesn't mean the work ends.  Cows need to be moved to new pastures,  endless fences to be fixed, water hauling.  The list is endless,  The cowboys will also lend a hand to the farmers when they need to.  Because now the farmers are really busy haying.  I hope to do a blog about that soon.  
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​Photo Credit, Janille Baker