The Shy Goddess has come and gone after a 2+”, 6-day slow rain from the 2nd to the 7th https://drycrikjournal.com/journal-2022-23/, only to return Saturday with another inch, enough to push Dry Creek down canyon. Quite a welcome sight, water in the creek, sycamores afire and green; the way it ought to be!
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Dry Creek flow, green feed, photography, rain, Ranch Journal, shy goddess, sycamores
We’ve begun processing our Wagyu calves with a second round of vaccinations for Snake River Farms that we plan to ship in the first week of May. Each calf gets an Electronic Identification (EID) button and a tag to match at the same time. These calves are from our first-calf heifers that we poured the hay to from last July into December because of the short feed and to keep our first-calf heifers in shape to cycle and breed back. We don’t have to run the numbers to know that these calves won’t bring enough to pay for the hay we fed.
Every feed season is different, even in a drought. The Christmas rains saved our bacon, over 3 inches or nearly a third of our rainfall to date. And again, in the nick of time, two storm at the end of February and beginning of March that offered nearly 1 ½ inches. The three events made pretty decent feed in the corrals above and elsewhere as we approach the end our rainy season—nothing forecast for the next two weeks—proving once again that it’s not the quantity of rain, but the timing that’s most important in the cattle business.
With a shortage of water to irrigate alfalfa in California, hay will be expensive. Having cut our herd by a third last year (6 inches total), we hope there will be enough old feed to carry us through until November without feeding much hay in our upper country. However, we’ll have to help our younger cows in our lower country where the south and west slopes have already turned brown. How many will be the question.
We couldn’t keep any replacement heifers last year, and may not this year as the market gets stronger. We’ll be making lots of decisions in the coming thirty days as we begin to harvest this year’s crop and plan for the next.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged cattle, cattle business, Drought, economics, Hay, native feed, photographs, rain, rainfall, Ranch Journal, Wagyu calves, water, weather
Trying to keep track of the twin calves since my “Good News” post took a little extra time and effort because their mother didn’t come into hay with all the rest of the first-calf heifers. Several times I glassed the area where I found them on the 9th, but with little luck. On Monday the 12that the place where they were born, I found her with two other heifers with newborn calves. I spent some time with them while searching the down oak limbs for the missing twin only to report to Robbin and the crew that she’d probably lost one of the calves.
Two days later at my desk in the middle of the afternoon, I caught some movement on the hillside outside my window and went to the door to see a coyote chased by Buster, our German Shepherd/Great Pyrenees drop-off, disappear over the rise. After a couple of minutes of prolonged barking, I was worried for the dog and reached for my rifle by the door as three coyotes came running down the fence at me. So fat and big, I thought they were mottled wild pigs at first, then entertained a fleeting notion that they might be wolves, running by me so close I couldn’t find them in my scope before disappearing.
But the old, old Border Collie Jack and Boo, a Blue Healer drop-off, had headed them off and brought two back. In retrospect, the twenty-plus first-calf heifers may have helped turn them around. Long-haired and well-fed, these were not native coyotes, but refugees from the pines, either the SQF Complex or Creek Fires. They were lost, and more than likely, the cows north of the house had propelled all three in our direction. With no way of knowing, I wanted to blame them for the missing calf.
With cooler temperatures and older calves, the cows are edging higher up the hill for our remaining old feed between our twice-a-week feed days. Yesterday, after Bob and Allie laid some hay down for the first-calf heifers, Robbin and I took the Kubota up the hill to locate the rest of the heifers. As we came back down, we spotted three cows and four calves in an inaccessible spot as they were deciding which way to come off the ridge where I had photographed the twins on the 9th.
We gathered up some flakes of hay and met them at the bottom, two new pairs, the twins and their mother.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, cows, coyotes, Creek Fire, Ranch Journal, SQF Fire Complex, twins
Thanksgiving seems a long ways away, doubling-up the feeding before and after, as the new grass greens, trying to keep the cows in shape to breed back, most with calves at their sides. We’ve also been busy getting the bulls out in our upper country.
We have a good start on our grass with nearly ¾” on November 17th, followed by a week of 70 degree weather and then another 0.60”—an ideal beginning as high-temperatures now steady in the mid-60s. The older cows are headed to the tops of the ridges where the soaked-in rain gets the most exposure from the sun, some changing pastures where drought-stricken oaks continue to fall on fences. Our emphasis now is getting them all together and exposed to the bulls as we think about branding.
Amid the political chaos, we’re thankful we have a job to do in a separate place where we must concentrate our minds and energy on what we hope to be productive. This business, as I’ve said many times, is dependent on three variables: the weather, the market and the politics—none of which have we any control of. In many respects, we’ve gotten used to it. Despite what appears to be global uncertainty, we carry on with all we know to do.
On a personal note, I haven’t had any inclination to write poetry or take photographs with anything more than iPhone. What poetry I’ve posted seems more of an exercise than fresh inspiration, while feeling that my art, for lack of a better word, may be on the cusp of something new and different. At any rate, I’m not holding my breath, too busy leaning toward the work before us, essentially distancing myself from any old habits or poetic styles, but rather immersing myself in the activities from where my poetry has come.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged bulls, cows, grass, photography, Ranch Journal
Though warm temperatures persist, the days are noticeably shorter as the sun slides south down the ridge before it rises a little later each morning. We’re a couple of weeks to 30 days away from calving, depending on when we put the bulls out, trying last winter to keep our newborns out of September 1st heat by turning the bulls out two weeks later.
But to tweak our program slightly requires more than agreement between Robbin and I. The bulls have their own calendar, and we only wire fences to enforce our management decisions. Around Thanksgiving of last year, the bulls were ready to go to work. We were retrieving bulls and fixing fences daily, so we had to put a few out around the first of December to keep them away from the neighbor’s heifers that were to be bred to Wagyu bulls.
At 8:00 a.m., this Mark Beck bull cools down before retreating to oak tree shade.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged bulls, photography, Ranch Journal
Temperatures have eased off in the past few days, mornings in the low 60s, allowing our cattle a little more time to graze. The replacement heifers were undeterred by the Kubota or my presence this morning while the pump was filling their stockwater tank, intent on breakfast before heading to shade.
Though the highs have been just over 100 here, a good part of the day feels like fall, though we know summer is a long ways from being over, but a welcome relief from the highs of 113 at the end of July. Forecasts for the next ten days appear to be relatively mild, more of the same.
With temperatures breaking into the teens, most all of us have routines that begin early. The Canadian Geese above have been spending the night on the irrigation pond, more nervous than most honkers that visit us from northern golf courses. They take flight with an urgent, splashing and flapping commotion at their first sight of us, raining feathers across the pond.
We have moved the second bunch of our first-calf heifers to the pasture across the creek across from the house, due to calve in 45 days. It will be their home until next May when we wean and ship their Wagyu calves. They are just getting acquainted with their new pasture of dry feed and developing their grazing routines that also begin early, but in the sycamore shade by 9:00 a.m. until they graze out at dusk.
Our new replacement heifers, now weaned for 60-75 days, are utilizing part of the irrigated pasture, with a pasture in between them and our bulls that we trust will act as a buffer zone, as they await the Wagyu bulls coming in December. These heifers graze out into dry feed in the evening, spend the night and graze back to the irrigated green by 7:00 a.m. before leaving for shade around 8:30 in the morning.
Our routine includes feeding these replacement heifers, currently once a week at a rate of 18 lbs. of good alfalfa to supplement our ample dry grass. We spoil them, actually, with 21% protein licks available plus dry mineral and salt. We will gradually increase the amount of hay we feed hoping to get the girls in shape and cycling before the Wagyu bulls arrive.
Our morning routine is centered around irrigating and pumping stockwater for the replacement heifers who have chosen to drink well water this year rather than drink from the irrigation pond filled from Lake Kaweah, more water than our solar pump can provide alone. It takes about 45 minutes for the 2 hp submersible pump driven by a gas generator to replace the 2,500-3,000 gallons each day. In that 45 minutes we check the bulls and fences and go through the replacement heifers to be sure the neighbor’s Corriente bulls haven’t caught wind of the girls and upset our breeding program.
Robbin is out early in the garden, checking her irrigation lines that are timed to run at night, augmenting where need be, then tending and picking fruit and vegetables before nine—currently the Elberta peach tree, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, and squash. With a great tomato crop this year for a change, she’s made both green and red salsa as well as dill and bread and butter pickles from her striped Armenian cucumbers. Our garden is producing more than we need, giving us the opportunity to share and swap vegetables with our friends and neighbors.
By noon we’re normally done with outside activities, 102 at eleven this morning.
According to my records, we’ve only had two days since the Solstice under 100°, but the mornings have been fairly cool from first light until 9:00 a.m. This morning was no exception, simply a beautiful Sabbath.
We’ve kept our replacement heifers close to the corrals since they were weaned in May and June, waiting for their Bangs vaccination for Brucellosis and second round of shots, deworming and fly control that has entailed pumping water daily. We’ve had a lot of eye problems due to foxtails and some foot rot due to bacteria encouraged by the wet spring. Having them close by has helped us gather for doctoring.
We think this year’s heifers are exceptional, both in genetics and temperament. They have gotten to know the Kubota since they were calves, and then again when it brought hay everyday to the weaning pen. So we utilize the Kubota when we gather—they come to it naturally.
Saturday, after Friday’s processing, I led the bunch off the dry feed and irrigated pasture, fed some hay, ready to open them to 300 more acres of dry feed and another source of water, our irrigation pond. By this morning, they were exploring the shore of the pond when I arrived to see how they were doing. Naturally, they all gravitated to the Kubota to discover tall, untouched green feed in the spillway of the pond where excess water flows back into the Kaweah River.
Followers of this blog know it’s all about the girls, our prejudice for females—after all we are a cow/calf outfit. Though we were quite pleased with our steers, it’s not about bragging rights as to how big or nice they were in the sales ring—just an annual dividend, they pay our bills. It’s about the girls, two-thirds of which, with a little luck, will be with us for ten years. They become our future.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged cows, girls, heifers, photography, Ranch Journal
Doctoring eyes again this a.m. in our last big bunch of weaned calves, a problem exacerbated by tall feed. Temperatures have been running over 100 degrees, the creek’s quit running, summer’s here.
We’ve another small bunch of calves yet to gather and wean and then we’ll be done with weaning. Dark mornings and high heat have tempered my posting here. Not much in the mood for poetry or photography, but nothing stays the same ( I hope).
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2016, Ranch Journal
Tagged photography, Ranch Journal, tall feed, weaning
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