The Lonesome Steer

 

We got tails and testicles done on five lambs this morning. For those who don't know "tails and testicles" is when we do the needful processing on new lambs each year. It goes like this:

1. Lisa catches the lamb as I get the two syringes ready that she has pre-filled with the proper dose of medications. One is tetanus and the other is CD/T. She hands me the lamb to hold and she takes the syringes and gives the lamb the shots.
2. I hand the lamb back to Lisa and put a scrapies tag on its ear with a special tool.
3. If it's a ram lamb it gets a castration band on its scrotum.
4. Both ewe and ram lambs get a castration band on their tail to dock it.

Today's batch had three rams that had tiny testicles and it was cold so they were even harder to find and keep down in the scrotum. I eventually got them. The other two were ewes so they were easy, just shots, tags and tails.

These three were the ones we did yesterday so they got released into the pasture today.

We got the hay bale back up on its end. I hammered an old rake handle into the middle of the bale and used it to hook up a block and tackle to pull it over. I braced it with a couple of stretcher poles and a ratchet strap.

I got the rest of the branch wood from Bath county split and stacked today. I cleaned up the off cuts and dropped the chunks in the chunk wood bin. We have barely started the big trunk wood logs and already have enough for next winter and most of the following winter. It's a good feeling seeing all the wood stacked and knowing the house will be warm. 

Every day in the winter and early spring I walk down the hill with some cattle feed. They hear the dogs barking and see me walking down the driveway with the bucket. They like food so they start heading for the feed bunks and meet me down there. Except for Nike. Nike isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. That's him over in the other pasture looking at the other two as they eat. He eventually makes his way down to the gate and to the bunk but there isn't much left by then. 

Every day Nike is late for dinner. He's a special steer.

The girls walk with me. They love it. Except Cassie. She just stands on the porch and watches.

The shed in the sheep's spring pasture has a big mud hole at the gate. I had some bags of concrete that got wet so I put them in the path with some gravel and stones. The ewe's were leaping over the mud. This should be safer.