Flexibility in a Farmer's Day

It is 10:38 am on a lazy Monday morning.  It is too damp out to rake or bale the hay that we cut last week.  It is too cold to want to do odd jobs outside.  Okay, it's 6 degrees outside, a temperature that I will consider downright balmy come spring.  But on this September day, just a few days after I spent hours sweating in a tractor, I am not exactly enthusiastic about going outside.  Autumn is my wimpy season.

Inside the house isn't much better at 14 degrees.  I am too stubborn to turn on the furnace yet, so I am huddled under a blanket in my living room, watching a science show and considering my tasks for the day.  

I need to do chores.  At this time of year, chores consist of feeding a bit of grain to the few yearlings that will soon be butchered for beef and feeding the barn cats.  Neither of those jobs is urgent.  The yearlings eat mainly hay - they were eating grass up until a few days ago when I ran out of enough pasture close to the yard - and I know they have plenty of hay to eat until I bring them their dessert.  I only feed the cats to keep them somewhat tame and encourage them to stick around.  They are my pest control officials.  My dad has just told me that he is going to cut the last few acres of hay, so he will be busy until lunchtime or so.

As I weigh my options concerning what I can do after chores, my phone rings.  It is my mom - who is on her way to the city, telling me that some calves, and maybe some cows, are in the neighbour's canola.  Frustrated, I get off the phone, shove my feet into my running shoes, and take off sprinting down the driveway to catch my dad, who is just leaving with the tractor and discbine.  By the time I get his attention, we are both at the end of the driveway and I am coughing in a futile attempt to get the sudden rush of cold air out of my lungs.  Between coughs, I relay the message to my dad and we both turn around and head back to the yard.  Chasing escaped cattle back into the pasture is not always a one-person job.

Dad parks the tractor, while I return to the house to replace my shoes with work boots and to put on a sufficient coat.  As I jog to the garage to find my gloves, I realize I am clad almost entirely in brown.  Brown boots, brown work pants, brown coat.  My dark blue hoodie sticks out the top of my coat, and a dirty orange cap tops my head.  This ensemble will have to change drastically in a few weeks when hunting season starts.  At that time, I will ensure my orange cap is clean and that I am wearing my coveralls with high visibility stripes any time I go out to the field or pasture.  I will not be mistaken for a deer!

Within a few minutes of the phone call, my dad and I are in the truck, driving to the rented pasture where a third of my herd has been living for the summer.  The cows have been escaping from this pasture all summer and we have been chasing cows back in, searching for holes in the fences, and fixing and strengthening the fence as much as possible.  By this time, we cannot fathom where they have possibly found a weak spot to escape.  

Dad teaching my friend to build a fence as we replaced part of the fence on my aunt's land in 2015.

Cresting the hill next to my aunt's property, we slow down and starting scanning the pasture for the herd.  This pasture is actually two separately-owned pastures right next to each other.  Whoever rents my aunt's pasture gets to rent the neighbour's pasture because the neighbour's land has no water.  The problem part of the pasture is on the neighbour's land, where a line of huge power lines run through the property, making it difficult to crop the land because farmers don't want to drive around poles and support cables all the time.  We easily spot the herd spread across this portion of the pasture, but no animals in the next-door canola field.  A few are right next to the fence, in an area that juts into the field, but on closer inspection. they are all still in the pasture.

Relieved, my dad and I drive into the pasture just to make sure nothing is wrong.  All is well.

Since we're there, we decide to count the herd to make sure all of the animals are there.  I will count the cows, and dad will count the calves.  Some time later, we are sure that there are 29 cows, 1 heifer, and 1 bull.  There are at least 29 calves.  There should be 30, but counting calves isn't easy in a slightly spooked, moving, bunched up herd.

Can you count the calves in this picture?
This herd is spread out and standing still. Imagine the difficulty if they were bunched up and moving!

Finally giving up and leaving the cattle to settle down, we return home and get back to what we were doing an hour earlier: Dad takes the tractor out to the field and I finally get around to doing my chores and trying to figure out what to do next.  Utilizing the flexibility that allows for such delays is a normal part of a farmer's day.

What did I end up doing?  I retreated to the (somewhat warmer) house and wrote a blog.