Managing the Ranch
#bfrdpwy #aginternship #RightRisk
Starting out the week there was another rancher who called David on Sunday telling him that there were five pairs on his land. David went back to get them and found that there was a corner of the fence that was flat. So, first thing Monday morning we loaded up the side by side and set out to fix the corner. We decided to put in a whole new corner brace. That was my first time doing it that way, I learned how to make a brace by hand. I am used to doing it where they cross the brace post in the middle diagonal, but on Monday we made it look like an H. On our way out to fix that part of the fence, a gate that we went through was also broke. After lunch we decided to go fix the gate post that we saw first thing that morning. Fixing all the fences took the majority of our day. Once we were done with all that, David and I then got in the side by side and went to the Middle Fork pasture to check on the cattle there. We made sure they had salt and that all of the water tanks were working correctly.
On Tuesday we went out to the gate post that we fixed the previous day to put a few more staples in the post, just to make sure. We then loaded up the skid loader to take up to the neighbor’s house to help them move some more heavy items. I have started driving the skid loader more and am starting to get used to the throttles. We loaded a lot of the items into the truck so that he could move. After lunch David and Terri left for the Wyoming Stock Growers Convention in Riverton. This meant that I would be watching over the ranch by myself for a few days. That afternoon I sprayed weeds around the house and around my house. I also pulled some weeds that couldn’t get sprayed. I am not so sure if the solution I was using was expired or not because I still have yet to see dead weeds. The neighbor that is moving gave me some clay pots to plant flowers in, so I decided to get flowers and plant them that night.
The following day, I started my day by doing the basic morning chores which consist of making sure all the dogs are fed and feeding the bottle baby. After that was done, I set out to fill up the sprayer on the four wheeler with Roundup and headed towards Sam’s Place. Along the way I would be spraying all the cattle guards on the ranch. When I was done with the north side of ranch, I started towards the storage tank. Once I got up there, I had to make sure it was still full with water and working correctly. After completing my spraying, I got to the house I went to the east part of the ranch. The furthest I had to go was the OTO Pasture, and once again along the way I was spraying all the cattle guards. I sprayed all the cattle guards so that the cattle don’t think that it is just another step and step into it and get caught.
Later in the week it rained; since everything was wet, mowing was out of the question first thing in the morning. I decided to clean both of the shops which consisted of sweeping and getting all the mud clumps out. By the time I was done with that I thought it would be dry enough to mow, but it was not. I found little stuff to do until I thought it was dry enough to mow, which ending up not being until after lunch time. Once I finished mowing, there wasn’t much left to do so I decided to go to town.
Once the ranch hand, David, was back, we went to the State Land to check the fence around 603 acres of land. When we were about ¼ of the way in, we ran out of staples. At that point we went around the rest of the land and checked the wire, doing what we could. That afternoon he worked on tasks in the shop and I went to the other shop where we moved the neighbor out of earlier in the week and started cleaning it out since my hosts own it now. I started going through everything that was left; I was definitely a dirt ball by the end of the day. I was very satisfied by what I got done. There is still a lot left to go but I got quite a bit done.
To round out the week, of course it rained again and on Saturday it didn’t stop raining until late afternoon. So that morning there wasn’t much to do because it was so wet and rainy. We continued doing little tasks in the shop. We were able to get our things ready to start the hay season. It was a short day but there is nothing wrong with ending the week on a short day.
Submitted by: Josie Sackett
Edits by: GrowinG Internship Team
