Monthly Archives: October 2015

We are savoring the seasonal changes since the spectacular light show and rain on the 18th. The grass grows quickly in places with temperatures in the low 80s during the day and 50s at night. With softer ground and cooler weather, the cows have moved up the hill and to the ridges for fresh green grass, leaving their calves behind in the flats where we’ve been feeding hay since they were born.

Expecting dinner, there was quite a bit of confusion among the calves Sunday evening when the cows weren’t home on time, still high on the hill filling up before dark. Despite their instinctual training to stay where they last sucked, the calves went looking for their mothers in the only geography they knew. Robbin and I couldn’t contain our laughter as the chorus of plaintive bawls on either side of the house became overly urgent and dramatic—and just as humorous when the worried cows returned to finally find and chastise their offspring in strident tones.

Now a month or so old and growing, the calves have become more independent, running and bucking ahead of the plodding cows to the water trough at dawn, butting heads as they emulate their mothers, some of whom have begun to cycle. A sign of good health, it will be six weeks yet before we put the bulls out.

After four years of drought and a long hot summer, we welcome the changes, and as always this time of year, we wait for a little moisture to freshen-up the new grass on our bare west and south slopes as the clay dries out without the protection of old feed. I had to cut a load of dead Manzanita yesterday to celebrate all these welcome changes.