Pasture Guests: Bluebirds

"If happy little bluebirds fly

Beyond the rainbow

Why, oh, why, can't I?"

Over the Rainbow, 1939

Usually, it's the baby calves who are the main attraction in the pasture south of our house. (We are up to 67 calves born this winter on the County Line. And they are mighty cute!)

 

But on a spring-like February day, it was the vibrant blue of birds gliding and zipping with wings to match the morning sky. As Henry David Thoreau observed:

The bluebird carries the sky on his back.

Thoreau's Journal, April 3, 1852

Randy saw them as he fed in the pasture and came to the house to retrieve me and my camera. Once in awhile, they'd perch on dried weeds and grasses, daring me to try and capture them with my little camera. Most of the shots were out of focus. A telephoto lens would have helped. But a few were good enough to share.
 
An article in Mother Earth News had this to say about bluebirds: 

Everybody loves a bluebird. No other bird is featured more often in our prose, poetry, and song. The bluebird is the cheery little guy on your shoulder as you sing zip-a-dee-doo-dah. Bluebirds fly somewhere over the rainbow. But there is substance, not just lyrical literature, behind our fondness for bluebirds. They have earned their place in our hearts.

Bluebirds occur only in North America. European settlers called them “blue robins,” because the birds’ size reminded them of English robins. Comparatively scarce in pre-Colonial days, the American bluebird thrived as pioneers cleared forests and plowed fields, creating the open, woodland-edged habitat they favor. Orchards and field crops served up concentrations of tasty insects. Bluebirds nest in tree cavities, and farmers furnished housing by surrounding their fields with cavity-prone wood fence posts. At the turn of the 20th century, bluebirds were common in much of rural America, and even nested in urban residential areas.

Mother Earth News, 2010

The nearly all-sky-blue colored Mountain Bluebird is a winter resident in Kansas. Mountain Bluebirds breed across western North America as far north as Alaska. They spend winters as far south as central Mexico. Migrating flocks may consist of 20 to 200 birds. We estimate there were at least 30 of the bluebirds in our pasture on February 13.

From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

The mountain bluebird shares much of the western bluebird’s summer range, but occupies open habitat — mountain meadows, high hills, and plains. (Cornell)

Advice from a Bluebird

Rise early.

Spread a little happiness.

Keep a song in your heart.

Think spring.

Be colorful.

Feather your nest with friendships.

The sky's the limit!

--Anonymous 

Just as quickly as they arrived, they had moved on. We went out to the pasture the very next day and didn't see one bluebird. It's a lesson in capturing moments when you can. Otherwise, they fly away ... sometimes, literally.

Today, any bluebirds in Kansas may face a snow storm. Here's hoping they find shelter from the storm.

Be like the bluebird who never is blue,
For he knows from his upbringing what singing can do
- Cole Porter, Be Like the Bluebird, 1934

Click here to hear their call.

Out of the Shadows?

For the first time, my name was mentioned as a seller at the sale barn last week.
It's only taken 38 years.
It's about the best Valentine's present I could get.

It may seem like a silly thing to celebrate. But, if I'm honest, my exclusion in years' past has really stuck in my craw.

"Thank you, Randy and Kim," the sale barn manager said as the sale wrapped up and our feeder calves surged through the doors to be loaded out. I almost fell off my chair.

For the past several years (at least), my name has been included on the sheet we present to the sale barn. I know because I've typed it! It's an information sheet that says when the calves were weaned, what vaccinations they've received and how they've been cared for.

And, yet, each of those years, Randy's name was the only one mentioned as the seller on the day of the sale. And I was sitting right there, too!

I fully admit that I'm not as involved in the day-to-day care of the cattle as Randy. But I am definitely a partner in this enterprise.

October 2011

Later, I joked to Randy that I only had to have my life flash before my eyes during a 4-wheeler accident while moving cattle for me to actually get mentioned at the sale barn.

I know one didn't have a thing to do with the other.
It was just a joke, I quipped to my husband.
Maybe it was a joke?
But not really.
I said I was going to write about it.
He said I should.

 

I know that Randy values my partnership on the farm. But it seemed the surrounding ag world didn't necessarily see that value. I'm not getting a paycheck.

Therefore, my contribution must be negligible, even though I perform every task to the best of my ability - and, often, with better skills and less drama than extra helpers who are getting paid.

My mother-in-law Marie, Jean Newell Fritzemeyer & Marjorie Giedinghagen on a cattle working day back in the 1950s.

So, every year at the sale barn, as only Randy's name got mentioned, I thought, "This is no different than 50 years ago when my mother-in-law was Mrs. Melvin Fritzemeier and my mother was Mrs. Bob Moore."

From the kids' memory/history book from my Mom & Dad. Note the caption - the first tractor Janis drove doing field work.

And, for the record, I learned a lot about cleaning house and making meals because my mom was on a tractor when I was an elementary-aged kid. (See the photo above.) She's been a major part of the farm partnership for all their married lives - 65 years and counting!

 

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad to be Mrs. Randy Fritzemeier. But I also have my own identity and name separate from my husband.

Other women's names were mentioned as sellers at the February 7 sale, too. I asked Randy later, "Do you think someone else complained?" For the record, we didn't. But I still wondered what precipitated the change.

Just like other women in today's world, farm women come in all shapes and sizes. They are young and old and in between. Some work in the field alongside their husbands. Some keep the books. Some have dinner on the table at 12 noon without fail. Some load up the meal in the car and deliver it places that no Pizza Hut delivery guy could ever hope to find, even with GPS.

Taken while filling up a diesel tank at the Kanza Co-op, Zenith branch

Some work at off-farm jobs to help supplement farm income. I drove to Hutchinson to work for more years than I wanted early in our marriage, and I've had part-time employment of some sort for most of our married lives. All of those things have been essential to the success of the farm.

 

My friend and classmate, Diana Hemphill, got these at an auction and then gave them to me. Thanks, Diana!
 
And that doesn't count the hands-on work - cattle gathering and sorting, truck driver, chauffeur, go-fer, fertilizer deliverer, fuel retrieval, secretary and landlord correspondence, meal planning and execution ...and that just scratches the surface.

I did a Google search for "value of a farm wife." Honestly, I didn't find a lot. (That probably is telling in itself.) But a 20-year-old article in The Producer gave an annual value of $19,000, based on a Canadian judge's ruling after a farm wife's fatality accident on the farm. Even 20 years ago, Manitoba Women’s Institute past-president Barbara Stienwandt said it was too low. In the article, Carolyn Van Dine, president of the Canadian Farm Women’s Network, said her group was trying to make people realize how crucial farm women are.

“If you were to take farm women out of the agriculture business in Canada the impact would be huge. We’d lose an awful lot of farms.”

Winter sunrise at my sunrise tree

I don't want to leave the impression that I'm complaining ... at least, not too much. I know that I am truly blessed. My payments come in the form of having a beautiful place to live and work on the County Line. They come in having a front-row seat for the changing of the seasons and the splendor of God's handiwork - spring, summer, winter and fall. They come from a husband who invites me to grab my camera and come to the pasture to look at bluebirds. (Photos from that next week!) A quick phone call from Randy telling me that the sunrise or the sunset is worth a trip down the road is better than a dozen roses to me.

But getting a mention is still nice. Isn't it interesting how the smallest things can make a big difference? That's true on Valentine's Day, too.

Check out this little calf. I think it looks like he has a white heart on his chest. So there's my Valentine. Randy's Valentine from me will come in the form of a homemade blueberry pie today. Happy Valentine's Day to all of you, too! May you find joy in the small things, too!

Sold! (On a Very Cold Day)

My husband is a glass-half-full kind of guy. It's a good quality in a farmer ... and a husband.

Last Thursday morning, with the temperature around 0-degrees F and a wind chill dipping even lower, we were on our way to the Pratt Livestock sale barn to sell feeder calves. We drove past trees and fences draped with the sleet that had fallen the night before amidst crashes of thunder and flashes of lightning that sounded more like spring than winter. The thin layer of ice on the county roads had us slipping and sliding a few times. I kept worrying about whether cattle buyers would even show up. It was the coldest sale day Randy can remember, and he's been doing this since high school.

And in the midst of my concerned musings, Randy said, "Well, at least they have buyers on the internet these days!" Yep, like I said, he's an eternal optimist. For the record, some buyers showed up in person, too. Maybe they preferred the warmth of the sale barn arena to being out scouting for cattle in a feedlot somewhere.

 

Compared to 2018, the price was down about 10 cents per pound. Our calves were a little lighter in weight than last year, too. With the colder and wetter weather, they didn't gain quite as well.

But the 70 feeder calves we sold averaged $1.45 a pound.

It takes only minutes for our cattle to go through the ring and have the auctioneer declare, "Sold!" But the journey with this crop of feeder calves didn't start and end on one day in February. The calves were born on the County Line more than a year ago, and we have been caring for them ever since.

First calf of the Class of 2018

Last March, we ran the babies through the working chute, making the bull calves into steers and getting them ready to go to pasture.

 

Calves born to heifers already had ear tags, but the ones born to older cows got their ear tags and their first round of vaccinations as they went through the chute.

 

In May, we moved the Class of 2018 and their mamas to summer pastures ...

Some went to the Rattlesnake pasture, where our family has had cattle for more than 100 years.

Others went to the Ninnescah pasture.

 

 They stayed at their appointed pastures all summer with their moms.

Then, in November, we brought them back closer to the farm. We were two weeks behind schedule because of muddy conditions.

After they arrived home from the pastures, they were weaned from their moms.

Like wellness checks for humans, the calves had a doctor's appointment, too. Dr. Figger gave them another round of vaccinations.

 

We fed them silage, grain and hay until we shipped them to the sale barn.

Back in November, Dr. Figger calfhood vaccinated the females that would potentially be kept for breeding. (More on calfhood vaccinations at the County Line can be found in this previous blog post.)

Then, last week, we sorted the steers from the heifers. Once we had the females in one place, Randy chose the 25 heifers he wanted to keep. Another 26 went to the sale barn, along with 44 steers.

He treated the heifers we retained with a lice control pour-on before sending them back out to the pasture to keep eating silage, hay and grain. They'll be there until it's time to go to summer pasture once again in May. They'll be first-time mothers in 2020.

The remaining females and the steers went through the sale barn on February 7. They were among some 2,500 head of cattle sold at Pratt Livestock that day.

The sale ends one chapter. (And we've since paid off an operating loan with the proceeds, so the bank is happy, too.)

First calf of 2019

The next chapter has already begun with a new crop of 2019 calves. 

And the journey continues. It may only take a few minutes for cattle to go through the sale ring. But it represents a lifetime of work.

 

Brrrr! It Was a Cold Day for a Cattle Round-Up

I needed a "defrost" mode for my glasses yesterday morning.
A defrost for my legs wouldn't have hurt either.

The cattle defrosted on their own during their semi ride to Pratt Livestock. Today, we'll sell 70 feeder calves, along with a baby calf whose mother has a cancer eye. 

All of us - humans and animals alike - were seeing our breath during the cold morning roundup before the semi arrived to transport the calves.

After several attempts, the cattle finally decided to go down the lane toward the corrals. Of course, on a cold morning with freezing drizzle sticking to my glasses, they couldn't do it the first time. It was a brisk 4-wheeler ride ... with no time to shoot photos.

In the photo above, you can see a straggling calf struggling through the mud. I looked up last year's post as we prepared to ship cattle. There's quite a contrast.

Last year, we'd had no moisture at all beginning in the fall and continuing until early spring. We were choking on the dust down the lane and in the cattle lots. This year, we are still waterlogged from the 14+ inches of rain that fell in October. There's no way a 4-wheeler could go down the lane.

And it was a whole lot chillier this year, as evidenced by the freezing drizzle that stuck to the cattle's hides.

I guarantee I was colder than they were.

Ours was the second load of the day for Darrel Harner Trucking out of Sylvia.

Once Darrel got the trailer backed up to the loading chute, it was time to send the feeders on their way. These were calves that were born in January and February of last year - 2018. After we weaned them in November, we've been feeding them silage and hay.

On Monday, we sorted off 25 heifers that will become first-time mothers in the County Line herd in 2020. The steers and the remaining heifers went to Pratt Livestock. Cattle buyers will purchase them for feedlots, where they will go until they are big enough to be harvested for meat. Let's hope the sub-zero wind chills and slick roads don't keep the cattle buyers away today!

Loading the truck is kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. The trucker tells us how many head of cattle he wants in each group, somewhere between 7 and 12, depending on where they'll go in the cattle trailer. And we send them up the chute and into the truck.

It was a foggy trip to the sale barn.

When it was time our turn to unload, Darrel backed up the semi to the sale barn's chute.

 

An employee there counted the calves as they came off the truck.

Since Darrel started his day in Fredonia and the roads were a little slick, we had a little time between the cattle round-up and the semi's arrival.

I may have needed a defroster on my glasses, but the scenery was undeniably pretty.

 Stark ... but beautiful.

 The CRP grasses caught the icy frost as aptly as the cattle's hide.

 So did a dried flower at Peace Creek Cemetery.

A chain on the working chute provided another canvas for the clinging ice.

Today is even colder, with wind chills below zero. I'm glad the round-up was yesterday and we can spend the day in the relative warmth of the sale barn arena. It's never toasty warm, but it's better than a 4-wheeler ride!