Girls of Summer

 When a couple of our high school summer employee prospects fell through last spring, I started to worry a little.  Summer was quickly approaching and the ranch was going to be short-handed.  Finding part-time ranch work isn't always easy.  The work is hard, the pay is average, and the hours can be unpredictable.  I had already recruited Dylan, our 15 year old daughter, and we had Gabriel, my brother's nephew, coming up for his second summer, but we needed one more.  One more came in the form of another 15 year old girl.  Sadi started a little before Dylan was done with her freshman year, and by the time hay season rolled in, the two were thick as thieves.

The first thing they did was commandeer one of the nicer ranch trucks and drove it around the ranch like they were Thelma and Louise.  The blue Ford was their rig, and no one was to mess with it.  Was is technically legal for 2 underage teens to be driving?  I can't, and won't, answer that.  There's got to be an underage ranch-kid provision somewhere in the DMV's bylaws.  At least there should be.  I can tell you that by the end of summer they were both pretty good, and safe, drivers.

The best part, and it was what I hoped for Dylan when we hired Sadi, was that I could turn them loose on a project and they'd figure it out.  From fabricating steel latches for our scale house doors, to building fence through a muddy slew, they got the job done.  If one was baling hay, the other was buzzing around on a 4-wheeler, weighing and measuring all the bales.  They learned to drive hay squeezes, bale wagons, and tractors.  They set brace posts for fences in 100 degree heat.  They health checked the cattle in our pastures and helped doctor any that were sick.  They spent the summer horseback or on 4-wheelers, in beat up trucks and on ancient tractors.  They got sunburned, sweaty, and dirty and never complained.  And, in emergencies, I even let them drive my "going to town" truck.  In short, I trusted them.

I like to think that together they made good decisions.  I remember being 15 and working on the ranch with a couple of my buddies.  We had a lot of fun.  Too much, really.  I'm certain that "good decision makers" wasn't always the phrase used to describe us.  So, here's to the girls of summer.  I've always called Dylan a Jr. Badass, but after this summer, she and her new coworker might be up for a promotion.  The pay might not be any better, but plain old "Badass" has a nice ring to it, right?

Grey Devil

 I used to think that a cow was a cow was a cow.  When I was younger our commercial herd had a lot of variety -- Hereford, Charolais, Shorthorn, Gelbvieh, Angus -- and I didn't think much about each breeds' unique qualities.  Sure, the Angus were fierce mothers and our Hereford bulls were big ol' puppy dogs, but nothing stood out as too unique.  That is, until I went to the sale yard with my parents.  A pen of purebred Brahma pairs, from God knows where, came through and all it took for my Dad to start (and end) the bidding was for my Mom to say, "Those are pretty."

I learned how different one breed could be the first time I went to pet a new Brahma baby and heard its mother emit a growl that would have scared off a wolf pack.  The Brahmas didn't mingle much with the rest of the herd.  They never seemed to go near our bulls but they, like the Longhorns we purchased later, seemed to conceive through osmosis.  The Longhorns are amazing for finding feed and we keep a dry one around just because she is the best lead cow we've ever had.  If there's a blade of grass to be found, she'll sniff it out and take the whole herd to it.  The Jersey nurse cow we got last year is like your Southern Grandma -- sweet and kind and will feed any straggler who needs to be fed.  And then there's the Belties.

I haven't quite figured them out, to be honest.  We were warned about how protective they are of their babies, but tagging calves in our purebred Angus herd has made me pretty fearless and so far I haven't been steamrolled by a Beltie mother (I can't say the same for the Angus mothers).  Moving them can be like herding sheep: they'll bunch up together and run until, on some secret signal, they'll all scatter in different directions.  We've yet to own one that's truly mean, but we've had a couple that would prefer to be as far away from people as possible.  One in particular has been especially shy, which is a nice way of saying she's a real ass.  She has a name, but I just call her the Grey Devil.

Honestly, I've never been a fan of her.  We've talked about getting rid of her, but when you're in the process of building your herd, letting go of even one is a tough decision.  Or it used to be a tough decision until last week.  Like I mentioned, we've yet to have a mean Beltie, but the Grey Devil is close.  She's single-minded.  If she wants to go in a particular direction, she will, despite what's in her way.  And when she decided she did not want to go into the stock trailer, her only other option was through a gate I was trying to quickly close and then straight over Regina, who was standing in her way.  If you haven't seen her Instagram post (@crown.h.cattleco) showing her cuts and bruises she received from being body slammed by 1400 pounds of bitchy-bovine, it's worth a look.

Just as every breed might have a few "quirky" qualities, within each breed there are always bad apples.  Some cows are just jerks.  I'm getting used to the uniqueness of Belties and the more I learn the more I like them.  Except for the Grey Devil.  She's for sale.

Hope

I knew I was getting old the first time the barber, electric clippers humming in his hand, saw the need to trim off the hair growing from my ears.  I watched my youth fall to the floor along with those ear hairs.  It was a domino effect after that.  Soon after I could no longer text and drive because the font on my phone became inexplicably blurry.  Weird moles emerged on my back overnight.  And my taste in movies shifted; artsy-fartsy now put me to sleep and anything I watched had to be A) funny, or B) have Hope.  Most people watched The Road and found it dark and soul-sucking, but I wouldn't shut up about it because, you got it, it ended with Hope.

The idea of Hope carries over to my ranching life as well.  As a cattleman, I realize more and more that Hope is essential.  Some call it Faith, but I prefer Hope.  Hope speaks to the future; Hope takes work; Hope might even require a little luck.  And it's why, I think, I like the Belted Galloway breed so much.

Belties are tough boogers.  They act differently than the Angus cattle we raise on our ranch and there's been a transition getting used to their "flock and run" behavior.  But one had a calf last week that reminded me why I like them and why they feel like Hope.

Our strawberry Beltie calved, a little sooner than we expected, but the heifer calf was spry, healthy, and cute as all get out.  Regina went down to check on it the day after it was born and called me to say we had another new calf.  Emma, one of our favorite mothers, had a tiny, dirt-crusted, bull calf curled up by her hooves and we could tell immediately it was a premie.  Regina checked her books and it looked like he was almost 5 weeks premature.  I was skeptical we could do anything to save it but we had to try.  Regina and the kids quickly got her and baby in the corrals and I got what little milk I could from Emma.  The baby was a fighter (not as common in bull calves), and even though getting him to stand was like holding a block of Jello, he nursed his mother's milk from a bottle. 

 

Hiding baby

So we kept trying.  By the next day my Hope rose and I proclaimed he had a 50/50 chance of making it.  He still couldn't stand on his own, so we kept milking Emma and feeding the baby.  We even brought in our strawberry Beltie with the new baby and milked her, just to supplement Emma's milk.  By the evening of the second day I upped his odds of making it to 60/40.  And then, like a lot of premies, he crashed.  The 3rd morning he wouldn't drink.  I tried again mid-morning, and again in the afternoon, and again in the evening.  I finally poured less than 1/4 of a bottle down his throat and left him for the night.  It sucked.  I knew he'd be in worse shape by morning.  I'd seen it a million times.

And here's why I love Belties, and why I can't forget to lose Hope.  When I came down the next morning, I was full of dread about what I'd find in that little pen at our corrals.  Instead, I saw little Jello legs standing on his own and Emma had been nursed.  It was all I could do to not give a loud Whoop!  I backed away quietly and let them settle in.  By that evening the baby was walking and by the next day he was running and bucking (awkwardly) and getting his fill of milk on his own.

And that's Hope.  Belties are tough.  They're excellent mothers.  And tiny little premie bull calves sometimes turn out ok.  

Stars of the Silver Screen

Remember the show Fear Factor?  I do.  And I was a pretty big fan of it, so when my dad took a handyman jack handle to the side of his head and needed surgery in LA, I visited.  Somewhere between the hospital and the hotel, I saw a flyer for Fear Factor auditions.  I went, and failed, and never got the chance to be on TV and have a pile of tarantulas crawl on my face.  But then Regina got a call from a local video production company.  They had seen her website for Crown H Cattle Company and, because it's awesome, liked the content and wanted to come over to film a commercial for a local hospital.

Of course, I mostly forgot about the hubbub until I came in from work last fall and found three guys with cameras hanging out in front of the house.  I changed into my cleanest dirty shirt, added a vest I got for ordering a lot of cattle dewormer, and started catching horses.  While Regina and Grady have, probably, the coolest horses, Dylan and I have the prettiest.  That led to a lot of filming Dylan and Dad synchronized horse mounting, Drill-Team style turns, and tandem giddy ups.  The four of us pushed our Beltie cattle into an alfalfa field and back out, and then did it again.  They'd often direct me to, "Look at Dylan like I'm proud of her."  I didn't know how to take that.  I've heard of actors often saying that they don't know what to do with their hands when they are acting.  I didn't have that problem because I was holding reins, I just didn't know what to do with my face.  Like I'm proud?  Do I cry?  Smile with teeth?  Stoic cowboy gaze?  I settled on tight-lipped grimace and thus made hours and hours of footage completely unusable.

I finally gave them some good footage when my horse decided, for no apparent reason, to buck.  I rode it out like I was Billy Etbauer at the NFR Finals.  "Did you get that?" I panted, once Kid stopped bucking.  "Nope, sorry," the camera guy said.

I'd forgotten about the commercial until five months later, at one of Dylan's basketball games, some friends told us they'd seen us on TV.  Shortly after, we started getting the phone calls.  "You're on TV!" friends would yell.  Actually, the conversations usually began with, "I saw your horse on TV!" or, "I didn't recognize you, but I recognized your horse!"  That's when you know you really live in the country, when people can pick out your horse from a 30 second commercial.  We only have internet TV, so we haven't really seen the ad except for on our phones.  We've never been surprised with our own faces on TV while we ate our dinner on the couch.  We could have been watching some schmuck get buried in pythons on Fear Factor and suddenly our ad would come on, my face in a weird proud smile, Dylan's horse stealing the show.

Meat Crisis

 Crown H Cattle Company was recently in the middle of a meat crisis.  We've read about the loaded cargo ships, circling around ports, unable to offload their containers full of Nutella and Nissans, but in reality, aside from a few gaskets I needed for my truck, the choked out supply chain hadn't affected us too much.  That is, until we butchered our first Beltie steers and realized we were in desperate need of more freezer space.

We'd intended to have Crown H Beltie beef for sale in October.  Our steers were grain-finished for 90 days and were looking fat and delicious.  Regina was grinding away at the Crown H website (crownhcattlecompany.com), and we were ready to start delivering delicious cuts of amazing beef (see: beltie.org for some cool facts about its nutritional value).  We called the butcher September to schedule a time for Frank, our local processor, to come over and were told we'd have to wait until December.  December?  Was the butcher stuck on one of those loaded cargo ships?  The Belties would be hippos by then.  Luckily, there were 2 cut and wrap places in Siskiyou county (and now, there are 3, thanks 5 Marys!) and we we called, and begged, and got our beef squeezed into the books for an October butcher date.  The next step was to pick up another freezer to hold all the beef we would be expecting.

We tried to buy a freezer locally, but the size we needed required an online purchase.  Suddenly, we were in a race to get a freezer delivered before 1000 lbs. of meat arrived at our door.  The freezer lost that race.  We'd also butchered one Hanna Bros. steer, had 5 butchered turkeys, I'd just cut and wrapped my mule deer from buck season, and had decided, on a whim, to buy a lamb; our freezer space was limited to say the least.  When I picked up the Beltie beef there were so many boxes that it took 2 trips with my truck.  We started to panic.  

Regina got on the horn and luckily our friends at Denny Bar had both a giant chest freezer used for their restaurant overflow and an extra upright that only held ice packets and some margarita mix.  We spent a late night shuffling frozen beef around the valley, stuffing it into any and all available freezers.

Luckily, Regina sold three 1/4 shares of beef (our first sales!) which gave us a little room, and
the new freezer finally arrived.  We are ready for the next round of delicious Beltie beef to come our way (check the website, it'll be soon!).  And if we aren't ready?  It's good to have friends with giant freezers.

Just Another Day

I'm going to tell you a story about what it's like being a rancher.  It's a true story and all the events I'm about to describe happened in a single day.

It started like most fall days: feeding cattle.  I started with the bulls but I immediately got the big bale feeder jammed up with hay.  Some rice straw had wrapped around one of the rows of blades and plugged it up worse than a Woodstock Porta Potty.  Normally I would take care of the problem, but I also had a vet coming to check on Dylan's fair heifer, so my brother got to work on the feed truck.  It's a tricky job, removing hay from the blades, and takes a lot of slow movements and caution.  My brother isn't known for either, but he executed the job perfectly, until he didn't.  For the second time in my life he came up to me and asked, "Will you tell me if this needs stitches?"  The first time was a run in with a chainsaw and the answer then was a resounding yes.  This time, same answer.  Luckily, the vet was still there and so he cleaned up the wound, pulled out his handy-dandy stapler and several clicks later, my brother was wrapped up in hot pink vet wrap and good to go.

You'd think that with that kind of start to the day, the rest should go a lot more smoothly.  And it did; until it didn't.  We moved a herd of cattle across the road and a few calves got away from their mothers.  Stray calves are notorious idiots, cute as they are, and will always run in the opposite direction of the cows.  One ran into the neighbors, where it got chased out by their dogs, and then ran, and ran, and ran.  The last time we saw it was in the other neighbor's barn lot.  Perfect.  We drove in on 4-wheelers to scoop it up and, poof, it was gone.  After hiking hills, scanning fence lines, and driving ditches, we gave up.  That evening, after dark, I decided to go back and look and ta-da, there it was.  Brother came down and we made a plan, which immediately blew up in our faces.  The calf ran, brother pursued, and I chased on foot.  Luckily, my brother got a rope on the calf and I wrestled

Sometimes we do stupid stuff, 
sometimes the cattle do.

it in the back of my truck.  On my way to return the runaway, brother called, which I knew couldn't be with good news.  "I rolled the 4-wheeler," he said.  By the time I got back to him he had righted the bike and was heading home but by the next morning he couldn't cough or laugh without crying.  There's really no point in seeing a doctor for broken ribs, and the vet had long since gone home, so he had to tough it out for a few days.  

1 day, 2 wrecks.  I'd say that isn't, thankfully, a typical day-in-the-life, but it wasn't surprising either.  It's not a job for everyone, but, man, it sure is fun.

Molly Moo

Sometimes, especially on a ranch, you do things a certain way because, well, you've always done them that way.  But then the neighbors try a new approach and well, you can't exactly change and copy them, because that's plagiarism, right?  But, man, it really seems like a better idea and then another neighbor starts doing it, and heck, if everyone's doing it there just might be something to it.  And that's why we bought a nurse cow.

And nurse cow is just a dairy cow that is used to raise bummer, or orphan, calves.  They're often pretty cheap, usually gentle, can raise 3-4 calves, and, best of all, those 2 or 3 a day bottle feedings I've been doing all winter long for the past 14 years?  No more.  All it took was a 3 hour drive with a trailer to meet Dale.

Dale didn't sell me a nurse cow.  Through no fault of his own, he somehow became a nurse cow middle man.  He doesn't do it for money, and he certainly doesn't do it for fame.  Dale is just a good guy.  He's a friend of a friend of a friend and is the kind of guy who always has a toothpick in his mouth and calls guys, "boss."  I drove to Dale's place and he hopped in my truck and guided me to the dairy.  In 15 minutes I had 2 cows in the trailer and was heading home.

Grafting calves onto new mothers can be a chore.  Mama cows often don't want calves that aren't their own so we do all sorts of tricks to convince them that the orphan is really theirs.  We've skinned out dead calves and had the orphan wear the hide so the nurse cow still catches a whiff of her original calf.  It's a lot like the scene in Silence of the Lambs when Anthony Hopkins wears the cop'
s face as a disguise.  Sometimes I'll pour molasses or maple syrup on the calf's back so the mother licks it and since she's licking this new calf and it tastes like candy, she might as well keep it.  Whatever we do, it's usually difficult.  Mothers will kick strange calves that are trying to nurse and it usually takes a lot of attempts in a squeeze chute to get them together.  But a dairy cow?  I put our new Jersey in a pen with 2 calves, said, "Congratulations! You just had twins!" and walked away.  In 10 minutes the 2 calves were nursing their new mommy and she was licking their backs like she'd just birthed them.  I only wish the neighbors had bought a nurse cow years ago; it would have saved me a lot of time.