Annual Cattle Drive

This past Saturday we moved our cows back to the home quarter.  This has definitely been the coldest year yet! We decided to do it with fewer people and it actually worked pretty good!  We used our neighbour girls who have horses and usually do most of the work! We borrowed Myrna's explorer because it has 4x4 though it didn't make a whole lot of difference since I still managed to get it stuck! Char was riding with me and our job was to pick up anyone who got cold or stuck...oops!! We caught a ride with Jared and Blake on the quad until he could go no further because of the snow! He ended up retracing back around to the road while Char, Cora and I walked! I seriously thought I was going to die, trudging through the snow all bundled up, one thing was for certain, I wasn't cold anymore! 

Once caught up with the herd and the horses we were able to stay up on the road, a much easier trek!  It only took us just over an hour, the sun eventually came out and even though it was still very crisp it was a beautiful winter day!  Unfortunately I had to spend the rest of it at work :( 

I love having the cows home, I love being able to look out the window and check up on them! Like yesterday for instance...since we moved the herd home a couple of calves would get out of the field they were supposed to be in and into the bales spread out for when we start bale grazing! Well, yesterday every time I looked out the window more and more were out! It wasn't just the calves now, but cows too! I finally called Jared at work when more than 30 were out. He thought they would be fine until he got home but as I watched them get closer to an open gate that was actually broken I decided I needed to take matters into my own hands!  I had Jared talk me through starting the tractor and I was off! After struggling a little with the first two bales I managed to feed six bales and get the stragglers back in with the main herd, all by myself!  It felt so good to be able to help Jared! I know how tired he is after putting in a full day at his full time job just to come home to another full time job, COWS!!! I knew he would be needing to feed the cows once he got home, so helping him really gave me a sense of satisfaction!  The state of our house was a whole different story!  Though I was proud of the boys for not physically destroying anything especially since I left them alone in the house while I was out feeding cows! Maybe I will be able to make this a weekly tradition, I'm sure the boys would also thoroughly enjoy it too, I could have them help me pull all the twine off each bale after I cut the strings!!  Now if only I could get someone to do my household work I would be totally set!!!!!!!!

This is the view from our dinning room window the cows gathered around the stacked bales steadily increased as the morning wore on!