First Events of Spring

Warm weather has brought some green grass!  And with green grass comes the events of spring.  Yesterday we moved the first bunch of cows from the calving grounds over to the spring pasture. Then today we helped the neighbors with their first branding. It has been a busy weekend to say the least, but the work needed to be done and we were lucky enough to have great weather to do it in. (A few of us even sunburned our winter skin a bit today.)

Moving cows to spring pasture is not as simple as just gathering up the number of cows we need and kicking them across the road. With new babies everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, is a process. We first have to gather the cows on the calving grounds, then we have to pair the mamas up with their respective babies, then cut them out of the bunch and send them down the fence to the gate where they are put out on the road. At the gate are usually one or two cowboys keeping count and writing down the numbers of the pairs we are sending. Keeping track of which cows go where helps when gathering them back up, so we know who should be in that particular pasture. 

Once we have the number of pairs we want, we gather them off the highway, usually having to pair them up again, and go down about a mile to the next gate and turn them into the spring pasture, where we possibly have to pair again. Calves always add to the process by making things more complicated than they once were, but they're cute so we let it slide.