mjuehl3
02-19-2008, 07:28 AM
Jewel has a new blog posted on her myspace page
Monday, February 18, 2008
A day on the ranch
Category: Life
I often get asked what life is like day-to-day at the ranch, so I thought I'd give you a wee peek of my life off the road...
6 AM - Ty gets up. I am convinced there is an old man who is grissled and heroic that lives in Ty's mind - purely a fictional character, but he starts yelling drill sergeant style at Ty around 5:30 AM - rousing him from slumber. I imagine he says things like "Hey, puss, getcher ass outta the feathers!" In Ty's mind there is an image of what tough is, and what being a man is, and that image spurs him onward through each day - and it does not include sleeping in. Sometimes, if Ty can tell I'm really wiped out, he will let me sleep - but its rare! He always says it's best to get up early, so you go to bed early....no mercy for a road dog!
So we get up...he drinks 2 sips of coffee while I scramble into my jeans and boots and multiple layers of warm gear, and we head out he door to go feed. (Ty wear jeans, boots, a wool vest, coat, and a cowboy hat. I look considerably more like something you see in documentaries about villagers who live in the extreme arctic north. I have long handles on under jeans, wool socks in my boots, thermal sweaters and no less than 3 layers beneath a giant puffy down coat, a silk scarf around my neck, and a ridiculous patagonia hat that is complete with ear flaps so the stiff Texas wind can't penetrate to my wee ears.)
Ty has about 250 mother cows, and they are all having babies...very cute little calves that are furry and curious. We feed in the west lake pasture - a rugged and diverse piece of land that's a couple hundred acres - with plenty of water and dense river bottoms to find shelter from the harsh winter wind. Ty gets on the tractor by the shop, and I drive the ranch truck over to the west lake pasture - about 3 miles from the house. All the cows are waiting in a bunch- they act pure to death starved, which is funny, because we POUR the feed to them - alternating daily between cubes of protein enriched feed, and dry Klein Grass round bails. Today is a round bail day - my favorite, because unrolling 7 giant thousand pound bails means I get to skip the gym - it is a work out! Ty arrives on the tractor shortly after me, with a bail loaded in front and behind, and he heads to a gentle slope in the field - a slight advantage for me when wrestling the bails. Before I cut the bailing twine, I check to make sure the grain of the hay is headed the right way, so it rolls out proper, and then with my pocket knife I snap, snap, snap the black twine and then bundle it up and put it in the truck. Ty maneuvers the tractor around, and gets behind the bail and gives it a good push to get it started, and I run like a mad eskimo after the thing, my scrawny arms pushing with all their might to keep the momentum going - and the cows all chase down after me, excited and jockeying for the best position to feed from. While doing this I imagine what we must look like from above. I see me all puffy and over-dressed, a round dot pushing the hay, as it unrolls like a Ranch Red Carpet, well, a Golden Carpet - and the black cows that are so impossibly black that they look like cow-shaped holes in the ground, like black shadows that move and breathe and eat. Each bail we roll out more break away from the previous bail looking for fresher newer hay, with fewer neighbors. All the calves hang out together off to the side, mostly. Their mothers seem to absolutely lose their minds getting to the hay, and sometimes very young calves spend the afternoon bawling confusedly for mothers that have scattered hurriedly in the frenzy of feeding, which I hate. I worry the whole time we feed over the calves and remark to Ty constantly "You think it's ok?" "You think the baby will find its mom?" "You think its mom knows where it is?" To which he always replies, at first patiently, but eventually with a bit of impatience by the 15th time "Oh, mother nature will work it all out." But that doesn't keep me from fretting.
After we feed, we both get in the truck and make a thorough round of the whole pasture - looking for cows that may be calving, checking for orphans, and giving some "room-service" to cows that stayed brushed up with calves that are too new for the mothers to take and go eat. I like these moms - even though they are hungry, they stay with their newborns till they are strong enough to make the trip. These are the ones we bring a flake of hay to. Sometimes cows abandon their calves so they can go eat. I hate these cows. If the calf doesn't get that first day of cholostrom (the nutrient rich milk that is in the cows bag the first day or so after birth) then they are never the same and often die. We really try to keep our eyes out for lone calves - but it's a fine line between interfering and helping.
I remember about a month ago we saw a calf by itself - it looked healthy and bright eyed, and we just figured its mother stashed it in a good spot and would be back, so we left it alone. The next day we saw it off by itself, so we picked it up and took it closer to the herd, and we made bawling noises, but no cow came to claim it. Which posed a dilemma - do we step in and feed it, but risk it not learning to suck and hunt its mom, or do we leave it alone? We decided to feed it one bottle out in the field, and see if that got it through till it found its mom. Well, the mom never did come for it - so that night we brought the weak little creature to our ranch hand's house, and we bottle fed it, and put it in the shop with a heat lamp, so it would stay warm. The next morning we came to check on it, and it wasn't looking good. It was skinny, and sickly and already smelled half dead. It broke my heart. I wanted to go find its mom and kick her in the utter! This poor innocent calf was just suffering so. It even rattled Ty. He looked the calf over and said, "Doesn't look good boys" (He was addressing Heraclio the ranch hand, and I, but he often just calls any group of any sex "boys" - just another quirk) then he added "I wish I could go find that bitch...." (Meaning the calves mom). Ty is a very tough and macho guy- but he LOVES animals- probably loves animals more than humans. He doesn't hunt, and he hates to see any animal come to harm. I've seen a lot of ranchers that don't get too bothered by a calf dying, but it kinda touches Ty, and as we loaded up the calf to go kill it, he was quiet and annoyed.
We drove to the Pump Pasture, which is where we usually take anything that needs killing. It's a big open pasture that buzzards can come in easily to clean it up. Just a sad part of ranch life. I of course fought back tears the whole way, to which Ty reasoned "Well, it's just suffering at this point and it would just be cruel not to kill it and just let it die slowly over the next day," which I know is true. But it still stings.
We drive a ways and Ty stops the truck, and we get out and lay the calf down. It doesn't even move when we set it down. It just lays limp and struggles to breathe, and looks up with its dark large eyes and blinks slowly. Ty gets a .22 pistol out of the truck and places it pretty much on the top of its little skull. I stand near by, hardly able to see through the salty tears in my eyes. Ty looks up at me and says "Damnit Jewel, you don't gotta see this - go get in the truck," but the writer in me wants to see and feel and document everything, so I stay put. I can tell it kinda bothers Ty, strikes him as perverse, maybe even, but he looks back down and focuses on the task at hand. He breathes out and squeezes the trigger. The calf goes limp instantly, and a small stream of of deep red blood escapes the black vessel, and mixes with the dirt. I'm sniffling, Ty's kinda mad about the whole thing, and the calve's lifeless body is sorta jerking and twitching involuntarily- which kind of alarms and off-puts me. "Are you sure its dead?", I worry, through soft little sobs - he doesn't look back, just holsters the pistol as he heads for the truck and gruffly says " Deader than Hell."
But that's somewhat a rare happening on the old ranch, and most days are filled with cute fat calves and fat happy moms, and the cold hand of winter eventually loosens its grip on the countryside, and the gentle blush of spring begins to blossom and take hold.
But today is cold, and the wind is stiff, and it's just coming daylight outside, and I just got home from my Northwest Radio run, and my video shoot, and I'm tired - but Ty is already in the truck and waiting on me, so I grab my gloves and my silly warm hat and decide to finish getting dressed in the truck. As I shut the front door behind me, and prepare to face the first insult of icy air, I sigh to myself and say "Well, at least I can skip the gym..."
Monday, February 18, 2008
A day on the ranch
Category: Life
I often get asked what life is like day-to-day at the ranch, so I thought I'd give you a wee peek of my life off the road...
6 AM - Ty gets up. I am convinced there is an old man who is grissled and heroic that lives in Ty's mind - purely a fictional character, but he starts yelling drill sergeant style at Ty around 5:30 AM - rousing him from slumber. I imagine he says things like "Hey, puss, getcher ass outta the feathers!" In Ty's mind there is an image of what tough is, and what being a man is, and that image spurs him onward through each day - and it does not include sleeping in. Sometimes, if Ty can tell I'm really wiped out, he will let me sleep - but its rare! He always says it's best to get up early, so you go to bed early....no mercy for a road dog!
So we get up...he drinks 2 sips of coffee while I scramble into my jeans and boots and multiple layers of warm gear, and we head out he door to go feed. (Ty wear jeans, boots, a wool vest, coat, and a cowboy hat. I look considerably more like something you see in documentaries about villagers who live in the extreme arctic north. I have long handles on under jeans, wool socks in my boots, thermal sweaters and no less than 3 layers beneath a giant puffy down coat, a silk scarf around my neck, and a ridiculous patagonia hat that is complete with ear flaps so the stiff Texas wind can't penetrate to my wee ears.)
Ty has about 250 mother cows, and they are all having babies...very cute little calves that are furry and curious. We feed in the west lake pasture - a rugged and diverse piece of land that's a couple hundred acres - with plenty of water and dense river bottoms to find shelter from the harsh winter wind. Ty gets on the tractor by the shop, and I drive the ranch truck over to the west lake pasture - about 3 miles from the house. All the cows are waiting in a bunch- they act pure to death starved, which is funny, because we POUR the feed to them - alternating daily between cubes of protein enriched feed, and dry Klein Grass round bails. Today is a round bail day - my favorite, because unrolling 7 giant thousand pound bails means I get to skip the gym - it is a work out! Ty arrives on the tractor shortly after me, with a bail loaded in front and behind, and he heads to a gentle slope in the field - a slight advantage for me when wrestling the bails. Before I cut the bailing twine, I check to make sure the grain of the hay is headed the right way, so it rolls out proper, and then with my pocket knife I snap, snap, snap the black twine and then bundle it up and put it in the truck. Ty maneuvers the tractor around, and gets behind the bail and gives it a good push to get it started, and I run like a mad eskimo after the thing, my scrawny arms pushing with all their might to keep the momentum going - and the cows all chase down after me, excited and jockeying for the best position to feed from. While doing this I imagine what we must look like from above. I see me all puffy and over-dressed, a round dot pushing the hay, as it unrolls like a Ranch Red Carpet, well, a Golden Carpet - and the black cows that are so impossibly black that they look like cow-shaped holes in the ground, like black shadows that move and breathe and eat. Each bail we roll out more break away from the previous bail looking for fresher newer hay, with fewer neighbors. All the calves hang out together off to the side, mostly. Their mothers seem to absolutely lose their minds getting to the hay, and sometimes very young calves spend the afternoon bawling confusedly for mothers that have scattered hurriedly in the frenzy of feeding, which I hate. I worry the whole time we feed over the calves and remark to Ty constantly "You think it's ok?" "You think the baby will find its mom?" "You think its mom knows where it is?" To which he always replies, at first patiently, but eventually with a bit of impatience by the 15th time "Oh, mother nature will work it all out." But that doesn't keep me from fretting.
After we feed, we both get in the truck and make a thorough round of the whole pasture - looking for cows that may be calving, checking for orphans, and giving some "room-service" to cows that stayed brushed up with calves that are too new for the mothers to take and go eat. I like these moms - even though they are hungry, they stay with their newborns till they are strong enough to make the trip. These are the ones we bring a flake of hay to. Sometimes cows abandon their calves so they can go eat. I hate these cows. If the calf doesn't get that first day of cholostrom (the nutrient rich milk that is in the cows bag the first day or so after birth) then they are never the same and often die. We really try to keep our eyes out for lone calves - but it's a fine line between interfering and helping.
I remember about a month ago we saw a calf by itself - it looked healthy and bright eyed, and we just figured its mother stashed it in a good spot and would be back, so we left it alone. The next day we saw it off by itself, so we picked it up and took it closer to the herd, and we made bawling noises, but no cow came to claim it. Which posed a dilemma - do we step in and feed it, but risk it not learning to suck and hunt its mom, or do we leave it alone? We decided to feed it one bottle out in the field, and see if that got it through till it found its mom. Well, the mom never did come for it - so that night we brought the weak little creature to our ranch hand's house, and we bottle fed it, and put it in the shop with a heat lamp, so it would stay warm. The next morning we came to check on it, and it wasn't looking good. It was skinny, and sickly and already smelled half dead. It broke my heart. I wanted to go find its mom and kick her in the utter! This poor innocent calf was just suffering so. It even rattled Ty. He looked the calf over and said, "Doesn't look good boys" (He was addressing Heraclio the ranch hand, and I, but he often just calls any group of any sex "boys" - just another quirk) then he added "I wish I could go find that bitch...." (Meaning the calves mom). Ty is a very tough and macho guy- but he LOVES animals- probably loves animals more than humans. He doesn't hunt, and he hates to see any animal come to harm. I've seen a lot of ranchers that don't get too bothered by a calf dying, but it kinda touches Ty, and as we loaded up the calf to go kill it, he was quiet and annoyed.
We drove to the Pump Pasture, which is where we usually take anything that needs killing. It's a big open pasture that buzzards can come in easily to clean it up. Just a sad part of ranch life. I of course fought back tears the whole way, to which Ty reasoned "Well, it's just suffering at this point and it would just be cruel not to kill it and just let it die slowly over the next day," which I know is true. But it still stings.
We drive a ways and Ty stops the truck, and we get out and lay the calf down. It doesn't even move when we set it down. It just lays limp and struggles to breathe, and looks up with its dark large eyes and blinks slowly. Ty gets a .22 pistol out of the truck and places it pretty much on the top of its little skull. I stand near by, hardly able to see through the salty tears in my eyes. Ty looks up at me and says "Damnit Jewel, you don't gotta see this - go get in the truck," but the writer in me wants to see and feel and document everything, so I stay put. I can tell it kinda bothers Ty, strikes him as perverse, maybe even, but he looks back down and focuses on the task at hand. He breathes out and squeezes the trigger. The calf goes limp instantly, and a small stream of of deep red blood escapes the black vessel, and mixes with the dirt. I'm sniffling, Ty's kinda mad about the whole thing, and the calve's lifeless body is sorta jerking and twitching involuntarily- which kind of alarms and off-puts me. "Are you sure its dead?", I worry, through soft little sobs - he doesn't look back, just holsters the pistol as he heads for the truck and gruffly says " Deader than Hell."
But that's somewhat a rare happening on the old ranch, and most days are filled with cute fat calves and fat happy moms, and the cold hand of winter eventually loosens its grip on the countryside, and the gentle blush of spring begins to blossom and take hold.
But today is cold, and the wind is stiff, and it's just coming daylight outside, and I just got home from my Northwest Radio run, and my video shoot, and I'm tired - but Ty is already in the truck and waiting on me, so I grab my gloves and my silly warm hat and decide to finish getting dressed in the truck. As I shut the front door behind me, and prepare to face the first insult of icy air, I sigh to myself and say "Well, at least I can skip the gym..."