Perspective Changes

 

A sliver of pink seemed tucked between the seam allowance of ground and sky. As I walked by an eastern window in the house, the pink ribbon of light was enough to have me hurriedly slip on tennis shoes for a closer look.

It was the opening overture of the day, with birds providing the harmonies. After clicking a photo of the silo, I drove to my sunrise tree for a different perspective.

As I drove back into the farmyard, I thought about how different the view is, now that the barn and granary are gone.

 

At the beginning of this month, my March blog photo was one I'd taken in July 2007, also looking toward the east from our driveway. Several years ago, I added the Irish blessing to the photo, which, for me, conjured up visions of pots of gold and leprechauns at the end of the rainbow. 

This was the first St. Patrick's Day when the view was different. In the 2007 photo, you can see the silo in the background, if you know where to look. Ten years later, it's the main attraction, especially in the faint light of dawn.

The view isn't the only thing that changed as we tore down the barn. Working baby calves gave us our first opportunity to try out the new lanes we installed to sort and load out cattle.

April 2011

In the "olden days," we backed up the trailer to the barn. (OK, I didn't back the trailer. Randy did.)

In this shot, you can also see the old granary on the lefthand side of the photo.

Fast forward to our first load out from the corrals at our house in 2017. Now, instead of backing up to the barn, Randy backs into a lane.  In order to work the baby calves, we have to first sort off the mamas from the babies.

Before, the cattle were skirted around the barn to enter the pen from which we sorted mamas and babies.  

Now, they enter the same gate, but the view has changed.

If the smile is any indication, the farmer was fairly pleased with his design. 

One downside of the new method is that the babies can see their mamas. When the barn was still in place, we ran them through the barn and into the trailer. The mamas knew where they were and made a ruckus. But the babies couldn't see them. (It's not unlike human babies and their Mommy radar!)

When we were trying to get the babies inside the trailer, it may have helped to have another gate to help with the pushing. (After I took the photo below, I put the camera in my pocket and helped push.) Randy thinks the dark of the barn helped with loading, maybe because the calves had more "tunnel vision."

The mamas are more seasoned pros when it comes to getting loaded in a trailer, so they loaded fairly quickly and easily when it was their turn.

All in all, the new logistics were a success. And it's a subtle reminder that when things change, it's not always a bad thing.

For more on the barn, see All the King's Horses and All the King's Horses, Part II.