A Week on the Move
#bfrdpwy #aginternship #RightRisk
To start out the week, we wrangled the horses and went to gather some of the neighbor’s cattle that had escaped through the fence into the Big Pasture. We saw them there last week but didn’t get to them until Monday. When we found the cattle, they were not the ones that originally saw. The ones we first saw were dry cows, these ones had calves with them. Once we got them through the fence I headed back to the truck and trailer, driving it back to the house. While I did that, the rest of the crew went and looked for one of our heifers that had gotten in with the neighbor’s cows but they had no luck finding it.
After lunch we started getting things ready to bale hay; we got the baler out of the shed and did some repairs on it. Once we completed the repairs, I went back and picked up some nails from boards that had burned. I then joined David in the tractor to do some raking. We only did enough for the ranch hand to get about 20 bales done that afternoon/evening. When we finished raking, we went back to where an old methane hut had burned to grab some tractor weights. Unfortunately, from picking up nails that were at the hut, I got covered in fiber glass, leaving me to go back home and shower. When I came back, David, Terri, and I left for a Bighorn Cattlemen meeting over in Dayton. While at this meeting, they talked about their plans with other permitees who would be up on the mountain with their cattle as well. They also talked about the cabins that were on the mountain that everybody shared. They discussed how much they would have to make to be able to repair the roofs on the cabin and the barn.
On Tuesday, we packed up the side by side with plumbing supplies and headed out to the Parker Prong Solar Well. While we there, we plumbed some of the pipes together so the water would not only go to the tank that was there but also to another water tank that was up in the pasture where the yearlings were. With that task finished, we made sure the oiler that was there was working properly before heading to the Cook Pasture. At the Cook Pasture, David took some time off of the timer that was there because it was messing with the storage tank. Upon our return to the ranch, David and I were back in the tractor to continue with raking. When the tasks were finished for the night, I gathered my stuff from my house, met up with David at the main house, and we headed to Saratoga for the night.
The following day, David and I were in Saratoga, where we stayed the night. That morning we headed to Big Creek Ranch for the Environmental Stewardship Tour. In the morning they had a presentation with different people talking. Some of the presenters who spoke were people from the Carbon County NRCS, the Wyoming Stock Growers President and Executive Vice President, Carbon County Conservation District, some representatives for the state senators, and the Wyoming Department of Agriculture. After lunch we loaded up on buses; we toured different places on the ranch. One place talked about flood irrigating, while another place we toured showed a wildlife friendly fence. It was wildlife friendly because either wildlife could jump over it or they could go under it without hurting themselves. This kind of fence also helped the ranch out by reducing the amount of fence repairs they would potentially have due to wildlife breaking it. Then, down the hill we got out by the river. By the river they talked about a variety of topics; they talked about their water supply, land that they lease in California during the winter for their heifers, and they talked about the importance of the ranch to them and people around them. I could go on for days and talk about everything I learned from this tour.
Being back at the ranch, I started out the day by cleaning up debris from the hail. I raked the twigs out of the yard and hauled them off to the dump. Then about mid-morning, David and I went and moved the heifers that had gotten out due to the hailstorm- we moved them into the Watt Pasture where they will stay until they get preg (pregnant) checked. Once we were done with that, David showed me how to charge the oilers so after lunch I could move the two oilers that were in the Weigand Pasture to the Watt Pasture for the heifers. We move the oilers on a cart behind the side by side. Once I got both oilers moved then I charged them both. I only primed the one because the other one had a broken hose. After a days worth of work, it was time to get ready and head to the rodeo.
The next three days we moved cattle to the mountain for the summer. The first day, we had to be at the Zimmerman Place at 5am to start gathering the cattle. After trailering them for 5 miles, we stopped for lunch before continuing on a couple more miles to their location to stay for the evening. The second day we didn’t have to get around so early because it was a day where we wouldn’t be pushing them as hard. Three of us went in front of the herd to open a gate to where the cattle could get to the creek for water; those three were responsible for holding up the herd so they wouldn’t go any farther then the creek as rest of us slowly pushed the herd towards the creek. After lunch that day, we finished pushing them to the face of the mountain. The third and final day, we left the ranch at 3am to get to the mountain before daylight. Starting this early allowed us to have the cattle to the top of the mountain by the time it got hot.
Submitted by: Josie Sackett
Edits by: GrowinG Internship Team
