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Ups and downs

Ranching sure has its ups and downs.

Yesterday I got the phone call no cattle man wants to get. 

“Your cows are out in [the neighbor’s] soybeans.”

Good golly.  I had just moved them into a new pasture earlier that day. What could possibly cause them to get out. A broken gate, that’s what.   I had driven through that gate three times the day before and it was fine then. The broken gate was the result of summer lovin’, bovine style.  Looks like they bunched in a corner fighting flies, while the bulls we’re trying to put the moves on hot cows. It’s less than romantic. And rather hard on wire gates, and subsequently soybean fields.  What’s worse, the only time our cows seem to get out is when they are next to this guy’s fields. I’d rather poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick than have to call him again to tell him my cows stomped on his crops.  The only positive thing I could glean from the incident was being thankful it was soybeans and not seven foot tall corn. 

But ranching also has its ups.  Like tonight. Tonight I ate a home-raised steak for supper. That’s all.   Just a steak.  And some toast I guess. It was that good.   I didn’t want to ruin it with any other food. I have had the good fortune to eat a $85 filet Mignon (and not have to pay for it).  This steak was not quite worth $85, but neither was the filet.  No food is worth 85 bucks. But this steak I grilled tonight,  it was amazing. I was going to take a picture of it’s perfect gradient of caramelized outer decadence turning to 155-degree juicy medium-doneness in the middle (it was 145 when I took it off the grill) flanked by two pieces of diagonally-sliced buttered toast and a big, cold glass of milk… but I ate it. All of it.  It was not just a meal, it was an experience.  And I got to share it with my wife and kids. I feel bad for them,  because some day we will be at the supper table and I’ll be telling them, “kids, this would be an $85 meal in town so you better enjoy it. And no you can NOT have ketchup on your steak!”

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Intern Introduction

Hi, my name is Kelly and I am the new intern on the ranch. I will be a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in the fall and I am studying soil and land management. I am from Colby which is in central Wisconsin. When describing how its spelled we like to tell people its “like the cheese”. I decided to intern on the ranch because I want to learn more about grazing systems and my school doesn’t offer any classes in that area. So I figured hands on experience would be the best way to gain more knowledge about grazing cattle.

I grew up on a 45 cow dairy farm which sparked my interest in natural resources. Initially I was a forestry major but decided that I would rather plant more trees than to tell people to cut theirs. That led me to becoming a soils major because it was the best major option at my school that would allow me to get a job in agriculture, which is what I realized I wanted to do after a year of being away from the farm while I was at college.

I have been a student trainee with the Iowa NRCS the past two summers, and I really enjoyed it. I especially liked surveying and going out with the soil scientist. I would love to be able to be a grazing specialist which is why I came to the ranch. I am hoping to gain experience that I couldn’t gain from a classroom.

My trip here was uneventful until I turned on the first gravel road. This particular road was a little light on the gravel and they had just gotten rain the night before. About four miles into it I got stuck and had to call for help. But I didn’t have any cell signal where I got stuck so I was going to try walking the remaining 4.5 miles to the ranch. Luckily for me once I climbed to the top of the hill I gained service and got a hold of Luke who told me that no one was home so I would have to wait a while before someone came to get me. While I was waiting I looked over the hill and saw a sign that said “Minimum Maintenance, Travel at Your Own Risk”. Why wasn’t that posted at the other end of the road? But I got pulled out and everything turned out just fine.

This week has been full of firsts for me. I cleaned and oiled my first saddle, built and took down my first movable fence (which was pretty crooked but Luke was nice enough not to mention it too much), gave vaccines to the calves when we worked cattle, helped sort cows (which is harder than it looks), learned to drive the lawn mower and skid steer, and fished with a bamboo pole and caught two small bluegills. Every day is a new learning experience, and I’m looking forward to the rest of the summer being the same way.

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I wear lots of hats.

I wear lots of hats.

One thing we are never short of is hats.  Every seed supplier, feed salesman, equipment dealership, and co-op seem to be very concerned that we might get a tan forehead.

I used to get attached to my “favorite” work hat.  That was a problem, because it would get dirty and smelly.  Washing it solved that, but brought up an equally troublesome problem – washing it always made it fit differently.  So it was no longer my favorite anymore.

I have since become less attached to my work hats.  I have become a cap casanova – love ’em and leave ’em. When they get dirty and/or smelly, I kick ’em to the curb.  And why not?  I have been going through them at a rate of one per month for two summers now (winter hats are a different story – I’m totally committed there) and have yet to see the bottom of the hat pile.  Right now, of the two I wear, one is from a bull sale I went to three years ago; the other I bought in high school (at least 13 years ago).   I think I might be close to having a balanced hat budget though.  Income is the same as outgo based on what I’m seeing.

 

I wear lots of hats.

Most small business owners probably are like me in this regard – jack of all trades, master of none.  As a rancher, no two days seems the same.  No two hours even seem the same sometime.  Today I worked as our human resource person, market analyst, webmaster, government agency liason, IT help desk, vehicle fleet maintenance manager, and herd foreman.  I think I deserve a raise.  I’ll have to talk to myself about that later.