Category Archives: Cattle
Trailing the cows off the Routt Forest
Bubba and Eamon conferring with Leo
Trailing down, audibly OR The Silence of the Calf
Crunching as the calf dives into dry willows
“Quakey” aspens rustle up autumn, leaves flutter to the ground
“Hup, hup!” I holler, trying to spook the calf out of the willows
A thump on the ground as I dismount, followed by
more crunching as I thrash through the willows
A sigh as I realize the calf has somehow escaped me
“Hey there, pretty baby” as I push the filly aside
“Stand still, I said” to my mare as I mount
We sit very still, listening
to low bird song and the chuckle of aspen
but not the bawl of a calf
“Hey, you guys OK?”—our cowgirl come back to see what’s taking so long
“Holy cow, look at that!”
A smoke plume silently rises, signaling the faraway
crack and crash as molten trees succumb
as animals dash madly from the deadly flames of the Mullen Fire
Another sigh—of relief—that the blaze is far away
“That calf caught up”
“Oh good”
The quick clop of hooves as we trot up to the herd
“Come by! That’ll do!” Reluctantly the Border collie drops back
Mooing—meaning “get over here and stay by me”
Whinnying as the filly realizes her mom and I have moved to the lead
Clip-clopping as she races past the cows to catch up
They watch, knowingly
The distant rumble of cars, trucks, RV’s
The flash of my gloved hand
“Just go slowly. The cows will move. Watch the calves”
“Thank you”
Finally, the clank of chain and squeak of gate
as the cows and calves slip through
to green grass
The dark settles, birds silent
through the gate and off the Forest
headed down from the mountains
Summer’s Almost Gone
horses crossing the road
It’s not quite time for winter to be coming on, but we’re starting to see yellow leaves and cool mornings. Here’s some photos from the last of our summer days.
bringing up the heifers
buck lambs
Eamon opening the gate
McCoy ready to ride
lambs and ewes near Little Red Park
Siobhan’s elk. She had a “depredation” tag for elk eating our alfalfa. That’s alfalfa all around!
Branding at the McCullem Place
bringing in the cows and calves
The McCullem Place is part of our Powder Wash ranch west of Baggs. It serves as spring pasture for some of the cows and calves. The homestead era headquarters is mostly gone, so we set up portable corrals, brought in the cows and calves, and processed the calves. These are some of the Akaushi-cross calves so we also had to take a snip of ear to check their bloodlines. We built an old-fashioned fire to heat the branding irons. We had another great crew of family, friends and employees.
Eamon and McCoy
cows and calves in corral
crew getting ready
Karen, Edgar and Eamon
Juan with branding fire
McCoy and Aspen
Sheep Mountain branding
Rhen mounting
It’s branding time! We have lots of baby calves who need brands, eartags and vaccine so that they can be ready to head to the National Forest next month with their mamas. We have a great crew this year, which includes a lot of home-grown child labor. Sheep Mountain is a pasture which we graze spring and fall. Sheep Mountain itself is an extinct volcano which has provided us with rich soil and great pasture.
hard-working crew
Eamon, Rhen, Mike and Karen
Meghan and Mike Buchanan
Rhen bringing in calf on Jake
German and Mccoy
Tiarnan on Sarah
Siobhan multi-tasking
Siobhan and Kathryn
Rhen, Megan and Eamon
Zebra baby calves
Stripes paint baby calves,
spring light sliding through wood slates
promising sunshine.
Spring Fever
spring snow on round bales
bovine shadows
It’s springtime and the livin’ is crazy. After hunkering down for the winter months, we are moving livestock from winter pasture to spring pasture. We are lambing, calving and trying to get all of our livestock charges to where they need to be for the change of seasons. We trucked the yearling ewes, and a few older ewes, from their wintering grounds at Powder Wash to the Badwater pasture. We are seeing the Akaushi cross calves on the ground, after last year’s decision to try these Wagu-type bulls on our Angus heifers. The calves sure are pretty and we’re excited to see what they look like as they grow up.
Akaushi babies at Powder Flat
Pepe, at dawn, ready to load the yearlings
ready for the trucks
guard dog, on the job
guard dog on the truck
Meghan, supervising
yearlings unloaded at Badwater
Alejandro, with his bellwether, Panchito
Cattle and sheep and dogs, oh my!
Ladder Ranch crew–Rhen, Eamon, Edgar, Leo, Pat
Rhen on the chute after guiding his Dad who was backing up the truck.
Sometimes we have multi-species days. Pat, Eamon, Rhen and Sharon headed to Powder Flat to load heifers on trucks so we could move them to spring country north of Dixon. We are full-on lambing at the Powder Flat headquarters, so there was plenty going on there already.
heifers heading for the truck
Eamon on Aspen, ready to trail up the road
meanwhile back at Powder Flat. . .
guardian dog puppy in training
burning old straw by the lambing shed
Leo and Rhen feeding a bum lamb
Ladder branding iron
Ladder Ranch
