These calves were sampling tasty currant shrubs halfway up a canyon wall this morning. It's not completely vertical but it's close and I'm relatively sure I couldn't scramble up there myself. They were about 20 feet above the canyon floor and 20 feet from the rim. Their moms didn't appear to be worried. Adult cattle are grass eaters and only rarely browse shrubs, usually only if there's nothing else to eat. Calves, on the other hand, seem to be interested in novel experiences. Kinda like kids. Nature and her works are always fascinating, but I don't always take the time to look, think, and appreciate.
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We're presently in between a couple of atmospheric pressure ridges, one to the east and one to the west. There's low pressure northwest of us and relatively higher pressure to the southeast. The resulting air flow, from higher pressure to lower pressure, is giving us southeasterly surface winds. Those winds, because of the higher pressure east and west, are flowing through a pressure trough which is rather deep, perhaps 7,000 to 10,000 feet above the surface. All of that flowing air is serving to slow the passage of the weather system which arrived Friday evening.
That and fifty bucks will buy you a cup of tepid "coffee" at a macdombles.
The day has been (unsurprisingly) breezy, slightly overcast, and relatively cool with the high temp only touching about 85 degrees. It's quite refreshing. The weather guessers predict a quarter-inch of rain later this evening and an overnight low of about 58. We'll see.
Following yesterday's rest break I was able to hit it hard today. I fixed some fence, checked some cows, mowed some thistle, watered some garden, and mowed my "lawn" in town. We didn't move cows today, schedules simply didn't line up. Perhaps tomorrow.
Now that evening is coming on and I've sat myself down to write, I find that I'm struggling to compose any kind of an interesting post. I guess I'm not surprised, having logged more than 36,000 steps today totaling around 18 miles. So it's been a good and productive day, except for the writing part. And I had such high hopes this morning!
I think I'll link to a grass post and a weaning post from some many years ago. My intent is to provide some fundamental ranching information, kind of as a setup for some more detailed explanations. Maybe it'll be interesting and informative. We'll see.
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Speaking (way up above) of kids and novel experiences, how do you teach a kid to fill water balloons? My method is 'splain, demonstrate, and let 'em at it. Encouragement seems to help.
They don't need much guidance on throwing the things.
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I've posted these before but today feels like Intruder Sunday. Desert.
Boat. Night. Almost a pinky.
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Be well and embrace the blessings of liberty.
Well, that was a surprise. I was expecting cowboy tales of the big cattle drive, but got different stuff. Good stuff, I especially enjoyed the grass and weaning reruns. Learned a lot, even though I will never own a prairie, or have to raise cows.
ReplyDeleteAs for the A-6 jocks, NO THANK YOU ! IIRC that low level stuff used to be quite the thing for all the attack and bomber types, much to the ire or the tree huggers who resent the sound of freedom. "Oil Burner routes?"
Keep up the good work!
Oh, Pioneer Day celebrates the day in 1847 when Brigham Young and the Mormon pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley and started settling there. Far from those oppressing their freedom of religion, and general governmental annoyances restricting their chosen way of life. It is pretty much like landing at Plymouth Rock, Thanksgiving, the Boston Tea Party and Independence Day rolled into one. Sort of "we're happy, thank you God, now everyone else leave us alone." Except for the big parade (every year since 1848!) everything else is pretty much a repeat of the 4th of July celebration- fireworks, picnics, flags, etc.
John Blackshoe.
Ya know, if you didn't tell us you were struggling to write stuff, we would probably be fooled into thinking it's pretty good.
Thanks John. I was expecting to report on moving cows too, but in the dynamic world of agriculture, at least in my experience, plans are often generalized ideas masquerading as scheduled certainties. As for grass and cattle, I used to be surprised at how off base most people's understanding and assumptions are. There's no doubt that we're all susceptible to being programmed by the popular narrative and that can only be overcome with brain work and looking at good information proved with proper scale, context, and perspective. So I try from time to time to share some of that. None of it is rocket surgery and no functional human mind is too dumb to get it, but the narrative is overwhelmingly powerful when we let it be.
DeleteI once knew in the front of my brain exactly how many hours I had in the Intruder, but I'd have to dig out log books to be precise these days. A few hundred, day and night, from the boat and from the beach. I have a warm spot in the core of my being for those experiences which were wonderful, if occasionally a bit tense. The younger me was all in, the me of today, not so much. Funny how that works.
Pioneer day sounds awesome! When I first looked it up and saw that it was a recognized three day weekend I feared that the government employees had gifted themselves yet another holiday with pay and benefits, but then I saw it was only in Utah. It'll probably be nation wide by next year, those gubmint workers take their benefits seriously. They just need to twist the meaning to celebrate the intersectional victimhood of the thing.
Sometimes the writer works, sometimes she digs in like a stubborn mule and won't do nuffin!
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