Cowboys/girl for a day

On Saturday we had the great experience of helping out with the spring round-up on a cattle ranch.  A doctor that John has worked with has a beautiful place not too far from where we live and twice a year he holds a round-up to work the cattle.  The grown cows have to get a couple of shots for vaccinations and worming.  They also have to have fly tags in their ears to keep the insects from being too bothersome.  The spring born calves get shots, a fly tag, and the little bull calves get castrated.  The rancher is kind enough to invite out a bunch of city-slickers to help with the work.  

McDonalds was open at 6:00 so we started our day with a not so traditional cowboy breakfast, the delicious Bacon/Egg/Cheese biscuit.  We arrived at the ranch around 7:00 and I was dying to jump on a horse and take off.  I had to wait a bit but eventually everyone else arrived (we three Durands were miraculously one of the first cars to arrive) and we got on the horses.  Ah, I've been dying to ride a horse for quite a while now so it was great to be up on one again.  John has helped with this round-up before but I've always been pregnant or barely un-pregnant when it has happened.  We rode out and rounded up the cattle--about 250 head--and drove them into the pens.  Next, we had to separate the cows and bulls from the calves.  A couple of us, including me, were on horses for that. We drove a group of about 20 into a wide shoot and there was a guy in there on foot sending cows to one pen and calves to another. It was noisy because all the mamas were being separated from their babies, but they all did fine. That's me with the hat...

We had just begun the sorting when one of the ranch hands asked me if I had seen what happened to Jeff.  I hadn't but I did see him hanging onto the fence while John and a few others huddled around him. Apparently one of the cows took out her frustrations on my husband...she charged him and as she got to him, instead of trampling him, she tossed him about with her head. He may or may not have been tossed into the air (depends on who's telling the story) but he was definitely hurt a bit. She knocked the wind out of him and bruised his ribs up real good. He survived and was able to keep working. Here we are--I was making sure he was alright before I jumped back on my horse.

Once all the cows were sorted, we all took our positions and worked over each cow. There were two or three guys driving the cows into a shoot. As they came through, another would close the shoot with the cow's head captured so we could semi-safely work them over. There were 3 people administering shots (John and Jeff included), 2 of us doing ear tags (that was me), one taking record of each animal, and one refilling everyone's shots and tags as needed. It was a huge group effort.  Jeff is giving this one it's vaccination and I'm tagging her ear.  The guy in the background was the other ear tagger.  He got a headache when one frustrated cow swung her head up when he was tagging her.

See how outstretched my arms are? That's how I avoided the crazy cows' heads. I reached as far as I could and was always ready to jump back. I tagged around 200 cows/calves and only got my thumb smashed once. Hopefully I'll be as lucky next time...

When we finished up with the big cows, we took a break for a delicious lunch. No McDonalds this time...we had steaks, chicken, salad, homemade rolls, and homemade ice cream (3 flavors!). Yummy. It was hard to drag ourselves back out to finish working but we still had the calves to do. It was pretty similar to doing the cows except they were laid down while we worked them. In this picture, Jeff and John are intently watching the rancher castrate this little bull. John did a few himself later. We did not eat the "calf fries."

We were pooped out by the end of the day (and so were the cows, poop everywhere), but it was a good tired. I loved every minute of it and even scored an invite to come out and ride some of their horses sometime. I cannot wait!