It's That Time of Year

 I saw lots of cows out in the meadow near the road, and then I noticed that these cows were sporting an accessory. Do you see it?

 I'm not talking about the mismatched earrings. Although I kind of like that fashion, and I could really make it work. What I'm talking about is the piece of orange tape across the top of their tails.

 They seem rather nonchalant about the tape.

The heifers (female cows that have never given birth) are fed a feed additive to help synchronize their heat (reproductive cycle). Then they are taken off the feed additive, given a drug and a gray tape is put on the tail head (top of the tail). The cows mount each other when they are going into heat, which scratches off the gray and shows the orange. In this way, the cowboys can easily detect which cows are in heat. Within a day, they are artifically inseminated (AI'd).

In the old days (like when my husband was 15 years younger), he helped detect the cows that were in heat by watching them all day and as long into the night as possible. If he saw a cow mounting another one, he would shoot the one being mounted with a paintball gun. After awhile, the cowboys would come out and separate the marked ones.

It wasn't always easy using the paintball gun from a distance and from a horse. In addition, my husband remembers the old method was rather boring. It would also seem to rain a lot, making it an even more unpleasant chore, so this new method is much appreciated.

After the heifers were AI'd, they went out to the meadow. If the AI'ing doesn't work (about 20% of the time it doesn't), they will get to be visited by a cleanup bull in the near future.

If you want to learn more about the whole process (in more detail than you might want--but where else are you going to read this stuff?), than check out this previous blog post.

A Special Attraction at the Ranching Exhibit

 I was passing the ranching exhibit, an open-air building with panels about ranching heritage, when I noticed that the exhibit had a special visitor: a sheep! I screeched to a halt (okay, not really, but allow me some poetic license here!), backed up (which it's very handy that the highway isn't busy and I could do that), turned into the parking lot, pulled out my camera, jumped out of the van, and snapped a photo.

 The sheep didn't look like it was in a hurry, so I switched to my telephoto lens and zoomed in. The sheep looked at me once in awhile. Otherwise it didn't seem concerned by my presence.


As I moved around to get a different angle, the sheep decided maybe it was time to leave. That's when I noticed the fantastic iron art up in the building. I've seen it many times before, and every time I marvel at it. It's beautiful and so well done.


In particular I noticed the windmill, which has recently been repaired. It actually turns! Our windy spring has been giving it a good workout, I'm sure. Do you see the cat next to the barn? It's those little details that make this iron art outstanding.

The middle panel shows cowboys moving longhorn cattle, the traditional cattle first brought to the Great Basin, with a wagon pulled by mules following. Just take a look at the lasso, swinging tails, and different movements of the cattle.

The third and last panel has the sheepherder checking on his sheep, with a faithful dog just behind him and the sheep wagon (with spokes in the wheels!) awaiting his return. My photos don't really do the art justice--this is a place you just need to stop at and spend some time admiring. It's about half-way up the hill to Great Basin National Park.

The sheepherder did come later in the day and collect the errant sheep. April is the month when the sheep shearers come and give the sheep a haircut. A most noticeable haircut!

Newcomers

 Desert Girl isn't the only one celebrating a birthday in recent days. We've been welcoming lots of new calves on the ranch. These calves are born to heifers, first-time mama cows. And they are absolutely darling!

The ones in these photos are a few days old. They've been moved from the circle field, where they were born, to a different meadow, which I drive through twice a day. That means there's lots of time for oohing and aahing.

 It looks like this calf and heifer are sniffing each other to make sure they've found each other okay.

 This heifer and calf are giving me a dirty stare. I guess they wanted a little more privacy.

The calves love to play and go running all over. I can just imagine these heifers trying to figure out where their little one has run off to.

We've had a really mild winter so far, so that's making these new calves have an easy welcome into the world. We're hoping they continue to do well. If you want to see more about cows on the ranch, just click on the cows label below, and you'll see lots more posts.

Sunday Afternoon

It was Sunday afternoon, which meant a trip to do some irrigating. Due to our extremely low precipitation this year, there's extra attention to how winter water in the creeks is being spread over the land to try to get it as wet as possible before it gets warm and the evaporation rates skyrocket.

This is a fairly new field of tall wheat grass, and it's being irrigated by the old tried-and-true method of flood irrigation. Not too many fields are flood irrigated on the ranch anymore. Most have been converted to the more expensive but more efficient pivot irrigation.

Desert Boy was thrilled to have a chance to use Daddy's real shovel and set off to dig a hole. He's better than I am at using a shovel!

I was playing with camera lenses and enjoying the winter sunshine.

Meanwhile my husband was moving one of the irrigation dams to change where the water was spreading on the field.

I haven't spent much time with this fish-eye lens, so I wanted to try it out some more. I like how on this photo the sun flare extends beyond the circle.

Thick orange plastic is used for irrigation dams. the top is secured first, then the sides, and then the bottom. Generally rocks and/or dirt are used to secure the sides and bottom.

Meanwhile, Desert Girl enjoyed sitting on the bank and throwing rocks into the water. Little by little, she scooted closer to the water. (Can you guess what's coming?)

Here's another view of the dam. This one has some fence posts to help support it.

Desert Boy had moved to a different place to shovel, where the ground was a little softer.

The dam was almost in place.

And I was ready to do something different. So I went for a little walk and got Desert Boy to come with me.

What I like most about this series of fish-eye photos are the shadows. You can see how close Desert Boy is to me.

I was hoping he wouldn't walk right into me!

He stopped, fortunately. He thought the whole thing was pretty funny.

In fact, he laughed himself onto the ground.

He thought he was being so cute, sticking his feet up into the air. I don't think he ever realized that his irrigating boots were on the wrong feet!

I also found out that the fish-eye lens is good for making your legs look really long.

Next it was on to playing with some ice. With the dam moved, the water level in the ditch had fallen, leaving the ice hanging above the surface. Desert Boy couldn't resist grabbing some.

He was proud of his big piece of ice.

But then he couldn't resist chucking it back into the ditch.

A bit later my husband pulled up with a shoeless, wet, and muddy Desert Girl. She had managed to scoot close enough to the edge of the ditch that she had slid right in and was soaked.

She wasn't thrilled about it.

But when she saw her Daddy, she managed a little smile.

Sheepherders' Party

I'm hanging out with some sheepherders this weekend. You can too, by clicking here.
Try it. You'll like it.

An Unexpected Visitor

 I glanced out the window Saturday morning and noticed a sheep wandering in through the gate towards the cookhouse. I did a double take. A sheep? I wasn't hallucinating, was I? I didn't have any flowers blooming so I didn't need to race outside. I shook my head, wondering if that would make it go away. Then I got distracted by something (or someone) else for a little while. A few minutes later I opened our front door (which is really the side door, but as the front door opens directly onto one precious piece of unstained carpet, we rarely use it), and saw the sheep was on our front steps.

Hello? 
Are you selling something? 
Do you have pamphlets to distribute? 
Do I know you?

For some reason the sheep didn't answer me, but he (and it was obviously a he) didn't give me any pamphlets either. He also didn't run away, which surprised me. Perhaps he didn't run partly because our dear dog Henry was so busy sunbathing in the driveway that he didn't even notice the sheep approach. (Note to would-be robbers: he does bark every time someone drives into our driveway, so if you want to rob us of our wonderful collection of toy trains, kids' books, and broken crayons, come disguised as a sheep and you will be able to get right in.)

 I moved around to get some different photo angles. The sheep was content to stay put.

 In our few minutes of acquaintance, I was getting fond of the old guy. I mean, what's not to like with the grass hanging from the shaggy wool, the dirt-stained nostrils, and that nearly comatose demeanor?

I got bored before the sheep did, and since I didn't know what to do with a sheep on my front steps (would you know what to do?) I went back into the house and did something or other. But I couldn't resist going back outside to check on the sheep. It wasn't on the front steps anymore.

 Now it was in the flower garden. If the flowers had been blooming, I might have been a wee bit upset. Okay, it would have been a lot more than a wee bit. But at this time of year, I was hoping that the sheep might be helping to push some seeds from the native flax into the ground to enhance their chances of germination. So I didn't chase him out. Plus, he was just so darn cute.

 Henry had woken up from his stupor by now and gave a few half-hearted barks. The sheep didn't seem to care. Henry went back to the driveway and laid down to resume his sunbathing. Life is good when you're a relaxed black lab.

 This was about the extent of concern that the sheep showed. It kept standing there and again I got bored, so I went back in the house. As I was cleaning in the kitchen, I peeked out the window and found that the sheep had moved to another part of the yard.

 Yep, I guess that sheep was ready to play!

I still didn't know what to do with a sheep in the yard, so I just ignored it. When my husband came home for lunch, he said we should get it out. (Hmmm, who woulda thought?) Lucky for us, it wandered through the gate and headed for the neighbors. (In case you're wondering, towards the neighbors with the crazy bull. Those neighbors apparently just attract weird animal behavior!)

I did wonder where the sheep had come from, and this morning I saw that the sheepherders had moved their camp to just above town. I also noticed something else that might have caused a distraction to the sheepdogs that usually keep the sheep in line. Can you spot the distraction in the photo below?

 Here's a close-up to help you out:

 The cutest little sheepdog puppies! I counted seven of them, and they were all so adorable.

 The mama came bounding up to the truck and I recognized her as the same dog that had greeted us last week on our adventure walk where we collected the bones for Henryosaurus. I rolled down the window (which usually isn't recommended with sheepdogs), and she was happy to let me pet her and say sweet things and compliment her on her gorgeous pups. I was wondering what her calorie requirements were to nurse seven pups. Yikes!

 The pups ventured towards us a bit to check us out.

The mama sheepdog might be a little hampered protecting sheep right now, but before long she's going to have a big bunch of helpers!