These past few days have been such a blur! I have lost all track of time and dates, so it makes things go by a lot faster. Yesterday I had to wake up at 5am to go out to Melstone to pick up 6 cows and bring them back to the ranch. It was a 2 hour drive, and then Marv and I had to actually find the cows so we could walk them up a really steep hill, then down the road about 3 miles to a farm so we could load them into the trailer to tow them back home. So Marv brought his 3 best herding dogs with him, because we use them to herd the cows in the direction we want them to go. Marv was going to stay in his truck and drive alongside the road, while I climbed down into the forest-like pasture to go get them and round them up. I had to climb down a really really steep hill that was completely muddy and I sank down really deep. The dog I had with me was Sage and she is the most respected and best herding dog on the entire ranch. I felt pretty confident having her with me because she takes direction really well and knows exactly what to do without anyone really telling her. So Sage and I found the cows next to the river in the middle of this forest. It was so beautiful down there, I wanted to stay there all day and go exploring. There was a river, with ice covering the ground on both sides, and trees everywhere. They were all bare due to the weather, but it was really calm and peaceful down there. So I got behind the cows and started instructing Sage to go around them and herd them up to the hill. But the cows took off running as soon as they saw me, and Sage and I had to chase them through the forest for about 1.5 miles. Then they stranded themselves on a piece of land, because they cannot cross the river. I started running straight ahead while looking at the cows to make sure they wouldn't move, and all of a sudden I fell straight down. I FELL INTO THE RIVER!!!
The freezing cold river, up to mid-thigh. I was soaking wet and my rubber boots filled up with water completely. They each weighed about 10 pounds. Then the cows started running away, so I had to chase them while I was soaking wet and weighed down. They ran back the opposite direction so I had to chase after them again. Finally Marv came down with 2 other herding dogs and together we were able to get the cows up the hill and onto the main road. After the cows were on the main road, I had to walk alongside them to keep them moving while Marv drove down the road on the other side of them so they wouldn't cross the road onto the other side of the pasture. The walk was about 3 miles and I had to run most of the way because the cows were running and I didn't want to get too far behind them, or else they could have turned off the road back into the pasture and I would be back where I started again. So finally we got them to the farm, where we had to put them in a corral and wait for the brand inspector to come and verify that they were actually Marv's cows. The brand inspector is a police officer that works only with cattle and livestock. He has a record of every farmer or rancher that owns livestock as well as their signature brand. When someone wants to buy, sell or move cattle, the brand inspector has to physically show up and identify the brand on the ear tag of the livestock, then match it against the name of the person claiming ownership, and then verify that all information is correct and the livestock isn't stolen. After the brand inspector showed up, I had to vaccinate and medicate all 6 cows. We had to inject them and pour medication on their backs. To do this, we had to walk them down this long chute and trap them by their head between metal bars one by one as they walked towards the end of the chute. So we vaccinated all the cattle, and had to load them into a trailer and haul them home. The drive home took longer because the cows weighed down the truck so much, but we finally got them home to the ranch and let them go into the pasture there. Marv plans on butchering one of them for beef and selling the others to be butchered. However, the pregnant ones will deliver calves soon so we are also watching out for that in case they need help. After we got home from the ranch, I changed clothes and put dry warm ones on, then headed back out to the ranch with Mike after he got home from work. We had to stay out there overnight, but no goats had kids that night. That was Friday night. During the nights that I stay out at the ranch, I have to wake up every 2 hours throughout the night to check on all the kids and puppies and everyone else. So Mike and I split the shifts so we could each sleep 4 hours instead of both waking up every 2. It worked out much better, until I heard the damn rooster crowing. He started crowing at 3am!!!!!! He wouldn't stop at all until about 9am, so any sleep that I even attempted to get was ruined because of him. I told him he was lucky to still be alive to crow another day, because I was ready to take care of him for good! Then on Saturday morning, I got up around 8am and worked all day changing water, food, straw bedding, milking goats, making sure all the kids were getting enough milk, and monitoring all the animals. Finally around 5pm I got to go back home for a little bit and get my things together so that I could go back and stay another night on the ranch.
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