Fall Journey

As Thanksgiving approaches this week, some of us are thinking about a journey to gather with family or friends. You may be the one making the journey. You may be the one opening your door to welcome the travelers.

Before we get ready for a Thanksgiving trip, we fill the car with gas and check the tire pressure. We try to shake the fall cold or flu that has arrived at the doorstep along with colder temperatures so that we don't share it with our family across the miles.

Our cows have been making a journey, too, but their destination isn't hours away. They are all home from summer pastures. After their arrival closer to home, they are dining at a banquet with the silage, alfalfa and sudan we've harvested this year.

But before their short journey, they needed a visit to the doctor. Rather, the doctor came to them. We had two different days when veterinarians from Prairie Vista Vet Clinic in Hutchinson came calling to give our "ladies" the once over. They got "preg checks," making sure they were carrying the next little bundles of joy that will begin arriving come February.

I want to hide, too, when it's "that kind" of appointment.

If they weren't pregnant, they got a trip to the sale barn instead of to their winter "resorts" on the County Line. We had five who traveled to the sale barn instead of to our cattle lots.

And they got their shots up to date - to keep them and their babies healthy

 

For those who've lost the ear tags that tell us their birth date and who now have the generic version, they get an extra check. Randy feels their mouths to see if any of them are a little "long in the tooth," or, in this case, a little SHORT in the tooth. We keep track of those cows. After they raise their next calves, they will be culled from the herd.

Once the doctor's appointments were complete, we loaded the cows into trailers for the short ride to their winter abodes.

Some went to graze on the sudan that Randy left standing.

As Jake and I let them off there, we thought we might not see them for a few days. (Maybe it's kind of like we humans at the Thanksgiving table, you think?)

Others went to Peace Creek. That's also the location where our silage is stored in the trench silo, but it's fenced off so the cows don't have an all-you-can-eat buffet experience.

Others took the short ride to the "round top" location, where they, too, will dine on standing sudan for awhile.

It's a good feeling to have another fall task crossed off the list. There's plenty of thanksgiving in that!