The master rancher*

* Also a purveyor of fine landmark properties at extremely reasonable rates.

It all started innocently enough. Cows 3046 and 2049 laid down about 75 feet apart to have their calves. They'd picked a nice spot in a little grass-choked swale surrounded by stony high ground. Each cow had produced a fine, healthy bull calf; 3046's a big, strapping red one and 2049 a solid, Simmentalish red baldy. The red one would be 513, hereafter Red, and the red baldy 514, hereafter Baldy.

The cows had dropped their calves an hour or so before I found them in mid-afternoon, and when I drove up each mama was standing proudly alongside her dried off, belly-filled-with-colostrum baby.

I coasted to a stop between the two pairs.  Red was closer so I tagged him first.

513. Weighed circa 140 lbs at birth! The yellow thing on his left ear is the back side of the ear tag.

In our operation when the calves are born they get an ear tag for identification and a vaccination to prevent disease. They also get examined and weighed, and the bull calves get castrated. Other outfits may do it differently. In fact, every cattle operation is unique, so no other outfit does it the same way we do. A lot of similarities exist, of course, but on balance there are more differences. But I digress.

A few tools of the trade:

Ear tagger with one-piece ear tag.

Ear tagger with one-piece ear tag loaded.

Close view.

The ear tag is a one-piece design and the tagger is simple and foolproof to load and use. One-piece, simple and foolproof are important concepts at the master rancher level. Trust me. When done correctly application is quick, nearly painless, and essentially bloodless.

Vaccine, syringe, needle. The vaccine guards against nine different pathogenic threats.

Three cc syringe with 16 ga/1.25" needle. Vaccine dose is 3.5 cc.

Hanging spring scale. I'd get a digital but can't afford it at the rate I lose these things.

Scale hanging on the weighup strut attached to the truck. If you compare the scale in this image to the image above, you might notice a difference. There's a reason for that.

Weighup rope. Two slip knots for the calf legs and a carabiner to attach to the scale hook. That 'biner lifted me out of the feces once upon a time.

Bander with two elastic bands. These are used for castrating newborn bull calves.

Close view of the bander and bands.

Bander loaded and ready for application.

As you might imagine, the bander is used to apply an elastic, constricting band around the base of the scrotum. This cuts off blood flow to everything below the band, including testes and the skin of the scrotum. Starved of blood supply, the tissue dies within an hour or so and sloughs off within about six weeks. Aside from the initial discomfort, which doesn't seem to bother the calves very much, the process is painless and nearly stress free for the animal.

Now where was I?

Oh yeah, I'd just tagged (ear tag, vaccination, exam, castrate, weigh) Red, and turned my attentions to Baldy. His mama had been watching closely and wasn't exactly down with the whole business. So while I was reloading vaccine, band and ear tag, she got baby up and headed on down the trail.

Wasn't my first rodeo though, and following a liberal application of cow psychology and deft handling technique, I soon had Baldy in hand and the tagging process underway.

The cow raised her tail and headed over the hill to the south.


The "run away!" response is a little unusual in my experience, but it happens. Potentially it's a problem. Sometimes cows get so agitated and confused that they seem to forget whether they have a calf, and which calf it might be. In other words, sometimes the cow-calf bond can be broken. That's usually a bad thing.

Pair bond. With parturition (birth) the cow gets a dump of hormones which drive many physiologic changes. Those hormones turn on the milk flow and start decoupling the placenta. They also, along with genetic programming, cause her to begin vigorously licking the newborn. This stimulates the calf and encourages it to breathe on its own for the first time. As the cow licks and sniffs and nuzzles the calf, pheromones in the amniotic fluid and those exuded by the calf cause another flood of hormones which drive pair bonding.

So a few minutes after birth the pair are bonded and hormones are driving the cow's behavior, including the imperative to protect her calf.

By the time I began tagging Baldy, 2049 was in a quandary. She'd seen "bad stuff" happening to another calf. She chose to take her calf and flee, so the flight mode was already activated. When I caught her calf she was overwhelmed by the situation,and had to do something. Already in flight mode, she continued to flee to the safety of the herd.

In general, it's a good idea in such a situation to get the pair back together fairly quickly. So I finished up with Baldy, threw my equipment in the back of the truck, and turned back to the calf. My plan was to pick him up and follow mama. When she stopped running I'd drop the calf where she could see it and all would be well.

So, I turned around and... no calf. Baldy had hoofed it off to the north, into a sea of tall grass. Then, following his own instincts, he'd plonked himself down and gone quiet.

My backup plan was to drive over to the cow and tease her back in the direction of her calf. Good plan, if the cow cooperates. Still in flight mode, she didn't cooperate.

The sun had just set and the light was fading fast. A rain storm was moving in. Without mama poor little Baldy could become hypothermic in the night, could perhaps even be predated. But the cow was still in bat guano crazy mode, and the calf was in hiding. What to do?

The only real choice was to let nature take its course. Most likely mama would find Baldy and take care of him. If not, well, we'd just have to deal with that in the morning,

It was about then that I realized I'd lost the scale In my pursuit of the cow. It was somewhere out there in the tall grass.

Sigh. Such is the life of the master rancher.

The next morning...

I found Baldy and he was fine. Dry and warm and still in hunker down mode. Mama had obviously found him, he'd nursed again, and all was generally well.

Baldy the next morning. "Just doin' what I'm told, sir!"

Mama was still agitated and more than a little displeased with my presence.

Mama dingbat. If you read cow body language, she's saying "I HATE YOU."

So we were all good, except for my being out the fifty bucks for a new scale. Back to work.

Within a few hours the rain set in and cows began popping out calves. Not the best calving weather, 35 degrees and raining, with a 20 mph north breeze. But calves can take such conditions so long as they get up and nurse fairly quickly. Colostrum is wonderful stuff, packed with sugar and fat for energy and all kinds of immune factors and stimulants. There were a lot of wet calves, but they were all vigorous at birth and up and nursing within minutes.

By mid afternoon I was soaked, chilled, shivery, and my thermos was empty. I repaired to the Ranch Mansion for a bit of lunch and a good bollicking for bringing my filthy self inside. Warmed and energized (though still slightly damp and well chastised) and with a full bag of coffee, I set forth again. Much of the afternoon was a repeat of the morning.

At about 5 p.m. I checked on Baldy, still parked in the tall grass. He was wet, chilled and shivery. I stuck my finger in his mouth and was displeased to find it cold in there. He was developing hypothermia. I got him up on his pins and watched him defecate (take a dump/make poo-poo). Still green, not the yellowish color of digested colostrum. He'd either not nursed after all (less likely) or hypothermia had slowed his gut to a near standstill (more likely). And mama dingbat was a full mile away, grazing lush new grass. Not good enough.

I snatched up the mostly cooperative Baldy and installed him in the passenger seat of the truck. He was quiet and took the ride in stride, a sign that he was drawing down on energy reserves.

Baldy, bein' a big boy (and not shittin' all over my seats).

Within a few minutes I neared mama dingbat, who unsurprisingly, moved smartly off to keep a 150 yard buffer between herself and the master rancher and his hated conveyance.

I deposited Baldy on a grassy hummock in sight of mama dingbat and backed away. Mama continued to graze, ignoring the new arrival. So I rolled down the window and gave forth with my patented "calf bawling in distress" imitation. That did the trick.

As I left the pair alone Baldy was nursing hungrily, tail gyrating like mad. That's calf talk for "yum-yum-yum-more-more-more!" It's also one of the high value, non-monetary forms of remuneration for the master rancher.

One morning later...

I found mama dingbat and Baldy enjoying the sunshine. As I approached mama gave me a baleful glare and Baldy took the opportunity to hit the tanker.

Hangin' on the boom. Yes, cattle tank Air Force style. Kinda.

"I stood by my oath"

H/T to Phib over at the porch:

My poor words would not add and would mostly detract, so...



More here, here, here. Much more out there. All worth the time and effort. Except for wickedpedia*

"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty: Corporal Tibor Rubin distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism during the period from July 23, 1950, to April 20, 1953, while serving as a rifleman with Company I, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division in the Republic of Korea. While his unit was retreating to the Pusan Perimeter, Corporal Rubin was assigned to stay behind to keep open the vital Taegu-Pusan Road link used by his withdrawing unit. During the ensuing battle, overwhelming numbers of North Korean troops assaulted a hill defended solely by Corporal Rubin. He inflicted a staggering number of casualties on the attacking force during his personal 24-hour battle, single-handedly slowing the enemy advance and allowing the 8th Cavalry Regiment to complete its withdrawal successfully.Following the breakout from the Pusan Perimeter, the 8th Cavalry Regiment proceeded northward and advanced into North Korea. During the advance, he helped capture several hundred North Korean soldiers. On October 30, 1950, Chinese forces attacked his unit at Unsan, North Korea, during a massive nighttime assault. That night and throughout the next day, he manned a .30 caliber machine gun at the south end of the unit's line after three previous gunners became casualties. He continued to man his machine gun until his ammunition was exhausted. His determined stand slowed the pace of the enemy advance in his sector, permitting the remnants of his unit to retreat southward. As the battle raged, Corporal Rubin was severely wounded and captured by the Chinese. Choosing to remain in the prison camp despite offers from the Chinese to return him to his native Hungary, Corporal Rubin disregarded his own personal safety and immediately began sneaking out of the camp at night in search of food for his comrades. Breaking into enemy food storehouses and gardens, he risked certain torture or death if caught. Corporal Rubin provided not only food to the starving Soldiers, but also desperately needed medical care and moral support for the sick and wounded of the POW camp. His brave, selfless efforts were directly attributed to saving the lives of as many as forty of his fellow prisoners. Corporal Rubin's gallant actions in close contact with the enemy and unyielding courage and bravery while a prisoner of war are in the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Army."


* Nothing wrong with reading the wickedpedia entry, just put your brain in gear first and ask yourself whether the man is more important or the trendy narrative of oppressed victimhood. Keep in mind that the yo-yo's who run wickedpedia have never been anywhere or done anything or ever had an original thought. They mean well, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. As was the road the gute deutsche Volk prepared for Tibor Rubin, his family, and all of the untermensch Jews.

Wanker Wednesday (Thursday Edition)

Who knew there were so many days?

Hunter T.7A

This is actually quite an interesting jet. Powered by the Rolls Royce Avon   RA.7 MK 121 with circa 7,300 lbs thrust, T.7A was fitted with IFIS and used by the RAF as a Buccaneer transition trainer. You (yes, YOU) can travel to the UK and fly this very jet. Check out the Hunter Flight Academy.

No cheesy music!





Cheers!

I don't get no respect

This:

Reminded me of this:


There's some evidence that the lack of respect might be well deserved...


Calving is a great time of the year.

Even the burrowing owls are having calves.

This big bull weighed 140+ pounds! Normal is 70-90. Cow had him unassisted.

May your spring abound with zest and wonder.

Quote du jour

Len Deighton, in his excellent Battle of Britain history "Fighter," on why peacetime pacifist legislators become spendthrift fiscal hawks in time of war:

"Bombing kills voters, precision bombing kills politicians."

That is all.

The great navy cattle drive of 1862

Two great things that go great together – the mighty United States Navy and…cattle?

As a veteran of the navy and a rancher, I find this a fun bit of history.

I've been fortunate to have been involved in a number of cattle drives in my life, though none of them ever approached the legendary status of old west trail drives. No camping out, no stampedes, no gunfights with bandits, no cow-towns. Not even a river to ford.

The drives I've been on are more properly described as leisurely country excursions, lasting no more than a few hours and covering at most a dozen miles of county road. In fact, since the cattle have usually known where they were going, it would be more accurate to describe them as “cattle follows” rather than cattle drives. Although in the past we’ve used horses to move cows, it’s been more than a decade since we’ve done so. Our modern horses are pickups and four-wheelers. Our cattle drives are long on comfort and short on romance.

The legendary old west trail drives, the stuff of countless Hollywood productions, mostly took place during a two-decade period between 1865 and 1885. But there were big cattle drives before 1865, and once upon a time, the US Navy had one. With perhaps a bit more excitement than even Hollywood could imagine.

In the early morning hours of April 24, 1862, navy gunboats sailed boldly past a pair of Confederate forts guarding the approaches to New Orleans and captured the Crescent City. It was a bold move, completely unexpected by rebel defenders and an absolute shock to Confederate leadership.

The Federal forces were in a tough position, though. They held New Orleans but were surrounded by teeming hordes of surprised but tough and experienced Confederate soldiers. Federal forces patrolled vigorously, both by foot ashore and with a squadron of steam-powered gunboats up and down the mighty river.

Sketch courtesy US Naval Historical Center, in the public domain. USS Katahdin, one of four Unadilla class gunboats present during the Great Navy Cattle Drive, depicted on the Mississippi near New Orleans in 1862.

During one riverine foray the Union sailors found evidence that cattle were being moved nearby and set an ambush, hoping to deprive rebel troops of their much needed hoof-borne rations.

As a hammering sun chased away the morning fog on Wed., Oct. 1, 1862, lookouts aboard the Yankee gunboats spotted a large herd of cattle approaching the eastern bank of the river. A single musket shot stopped the herd, and a shore party quickly arrested five drovers with Confederate passes to move the beeves through Rebel lines for slaughter at Camp Moore, a large Confederate training camp.

While standard procedure during the war was to destroy anything of benefit to the enemy (this was a common practice for both sides), the navy squadron Commodore hesitated to destroy such a valuable prize. A tally counted more than 1,500 head of genuine Texas Longhorns, estimated at 470 pounds each and worth $13 per hundredweight.

As an aside, my yearling cattle will sell today at the Platte Valley sale barn. They average about 585 pounds, and I'm expecting something closer to $250 per cwt.

In 1862 the value of the captured herd was more than $90,000 dollars. So let's do some pencilin'. According to this inflation calculator, $90,000 in 1862 would be worth $2,093,023 today. And according to current cattle markets, 1,500 head of 475 weight calves would bring $1,999,000 today.

Now isn't that interesting.

Back in 1862, the Commodore wasn't about to destroy those valuable animals, so he ordered the herd escorted to New Orleans. Thus began “The Great Navy Cattle Drive of ‘62.”

Taking the valuable herd away from a handful of Confederate forces was one thing. Moving the herd eighty miles through enemy territory was a far more difficult and risky proposition.

The half-dozen gunboats assigned the task put drover parties ashore and the drive got underway. As sailors chivied the Longhorns along the river path, the gunboats provided artillery support and supplies. The drive took a full week, and while Rebels repeatedly attacked the gunboats from ambush, the herd and drovers managed to slip past most of the Confederate forces without coming under direct attack. The gunboat squadron slipped up and down the river, sniffing out enemy forces and engaging in a half-dozen fierce artillery duels. While the sailors afloat suffered several killed and more than a score wounded, post-war records showed Rebel losses to be in the hundreds. Those extremely heavy losses, caused mostly by the skillful use of superior naval gunfire, may explain how the herd and drovers remained unscathed.

After a week of steady progress, which saw part of the herd loaded on barges for a river passage, the last of the cattle were delivered to a pasture a mile below Carrollton, in Jefferson Parish. The navy drovers turned over responsibility for the herd and returned to more nautical duties, and the great cattle drive was over.

In thinking about this astonishing bit of history, my first reaction is one of wonder and amazement. I can hardly imagine contemporary sailors embarking on such a task. But the sailors of 1862 weren't the sailors of the twenty-first century. Most of them, even the city boys, were raised around livestock. They'd have clearly seen a cattle drive a nothing out of the ordinary. Still, as routine an experience as it may have been at the time, The Great Navy Cattle Drive of ‘62 must have been a remarkable experience.

Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah!

Sometimes the mask slips and my true emotional age -- seven -- shows.

On Friday it'll be 23 years since I went on the TDRL, and 18 since it became permanent.

Therefore it was 24 years ago and change that I made my last flight as a naval aircrewman.

As you might imagine, that last flight was directly tied to my medical retirement. I'd write about it at length but can't remember anything between manning up and waking up. The recovery process deserves some words and I'll get there eventually. Probably.

Anyway, 24 years is almost a quarter-century. Seems both a long time and a short time. I was told by no small number of medical experts that I was going to have the opportunity to retire to a recliner. On the bright side, I was told, they were making great progress in the battery-powered scooter industry, so I could look forward to some nifty mobility.

Uncle Sugar's eval board, well, I don't want to bum myself out for the day, so I'll skip it for now.

Anyway, fairy tail ending. I power hiked 8 miles in 2:04 yesterday. Felt good to blow the cobs out. As it turned out, I never quite qualified for hopeless invalid status.

And so, a message from the seven year old to all the naysayers (who weren't/aren't bad people, just misguided).

Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah!

More April Showers!

Had a very nice rain last evening, something on the order of half an inch. A very welcome rain as we've been quite dry. No rain means no grass means a big frowny face!

As the rain was moving in yesterday afternoon my curious yearling calves clambered up out of a gravel pit to say hi.


And then the rain began!


Overnight, however, the rain turned to snow. It was quite raw and chilly this morning.


One of the morning tasks during calving time is to find the cows. All of the cows.


Here are some of them.


And here are some more.


And how do the cattle and calves survive such weather (warning, boring lecture!).



Regardless of the weather, calving is a magical time.

Here's hoping you all have a glorious day!

Wanker Wednesday!

This is quite an enjoyable video IMO. The Bucc was one hell of a naval strike aircraft. A contemporary of the Intruder, the two jets shared a good bit of overlap in their similar missions, and many Intruder and Buccaneer aircrew did exchange tours.





Here at Naval Air Cowman, we embrace the wanker lifestyle.

If you've visited the UK or the Commonwealth, you've heard the term wanker and likely have an idea of the definition. You probably also realized that there were nuances of British and Commonwealth life that you didn't quite get, including insults and pejoratives.

I frequently worked, operated and flew with assorted RAF and FAA types during my time in the Navy and remember most of those times with a great deal of fondness. One thing I noted was that UK aviators often referred to their fellow British Birdmen "on other types" as wankers. To the Sea King bubbas, Lynx aircrew were often wankers, etc.

The British have a different approach to all things aviation, and I like it. Always have. So I'll use this Wednesday space to share a bit of Brit aviation.

No offence (as the British spell it) is offered here, and therefore none is given.

If offense is taken, the offended is quite likely one of those tedious professional victims who has managed, through no little effort, to force itself into a state of severe skivvy bind. Such poor wretches should visit hospital and have their wanker's colic assessed and treated.

Easter with the yearlings

And with the Easter Bunny, too.

I tend to babble when I make these videos. Ah well, I yam what I yam.



Clocked the Easter Bunny at 28 mph this morning. He was just loafing along.



Hope you all had a very fine Easter.

Snakes and Snakes

I was trying to do the cool/snarky strikethrough thing in the title of this post but I couldn't pull it off. Not enough computer savvy. Sooo...

Spiders and Snakes and Snakes!!!

I used to be afraid of snakes. Ah, who am I kidding, I'm still scared of snakes, particularly if they startle me. I no longer have snake terror, though, and I put that down to learning about and trying to understand them. Snakes are, after all, just part of nature. So today, if I take a lot of slow, deep breaths and psyche myself up to a fever pitch of awesome courageousness, I can do this:

Bull snake, Pituophis catenifer sayi

This poor bullsnake came out on the county road to warm up the other evening and got run over sometime in the night. He was a good 12 hours dead by the time I took this picture. Still gave me the willies to touch him.

Roads are obviously dangerous places for snakes to hang out, particularly when many folks will intentionally run over them.

This whole fear of snakes thing is interesting. Severe snake phobia is called ophidiophobia. According to the highly qualified p-shrinks and scientologists at wikipedia, about a third of people suffer from ophidiophobia. The wikipediologists say that ophidiophobia is an abnormal fear of snakes. As opposed to a normal fear of snakes. Which causes me to surmise that perhaps everyone has some level of fear of snakes.

Now why do you suppose that is?

The King James version of the Dash 1 offers, perhaps, a clue:

14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Hmm.

On the other hand, neuroscientists have long suspected that fear of snakes is hardwired into primate brains. Modern brain imaging technology has provided a good deal of evidence that this is may be so.

As a youngster I grew up in a rattlesnake killing culture. Rattlesnakes were (and continue to be) seen as a deadly threat to livestock and people. Therefore, the only good rattlesnake is a dead rattlesnake. Gotta kill them before they kill us, as it were.

I killed my share, that's for sure. In high school my Resistol hat band ultimately sported more than 150 rattles.

Something changed while I was away at sea though. I developed a bad attitude. Became a skeptic, even. When it came to killing rattlesnakes, I realized that some of my assumptions had been, shall we say, flawed.

I've only ever met one fellow who was bitten by a rattlesnake. He had a rough go of it in the hospital and lost a couple of fingers. But he survived and learned a valuable lesson. Don't pick up the effing snake.

As for myself, I began to notice that rattlesnakes, at least the local Prairie Rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis viridis), hardly ever strike without being mightily provoked. Which might explain why our ranch has never, to the best of my knowledge, lost a single head of livestock to snakebite.

It happens, sure. People get bit. Livestock get bit. Dogs get bit. But it's pretty rare.

So I don't kill 'em no mo. That's just me though. 

Here are a few pictures to aid in identification. Bullsnake first.

Bull snake, Pituophis catenifer sayi, sunning on a county road. This one is about three feet long.

And now the Prairie Rattlesnake.

Prairie Rattlesnake, Crotalus viridis viridis, also sunning on a county road. This one is about 30 inches long.