A Week to Persevere

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This week was a hard week mentally for me. Morganne and Michael left on Sunday morning to go to Reno, Nevada. The ranch sells its yearling steers and spayed heifers with the Western Video Market in Reno, Nevada. I was told I was not able to go because of my age, so I had to stay back and work. Monday was a very busy day with lots of things accomplished.

First thing in the morning I checked the cows, fixed some fence where the cows got out on Sunday morning, weatherproofed the other half of the barn, blew all of the cheat grass of the side by sides and the four wheeler, and finally to end the day I fixed some more fence and pushed number 107 the bull up. 107 has been acting like he is not himself; he was always off by himself and always in the same spot. Miranda and I decided it was time to push him up to be treated. It was a nice, cool night because some weather was starting to roll in. When we started to push him, we noticed he had gotten worse. He could barely stand by himself and stumbled every time he walked. It was like he was drunk. We pushed him out of the pasture as far as we could until he gave up and laid down. We decided to bring him some water and let him rest for the night.

Tuesday was another very long day of doing work all by myself. I started by checking all the cows and making sure 107 was still alive. Thankfully, he was, so I brought him some more water and continued that throughout the day. I had some more fence to check and fix today as well. After all was taken care of, I was asked to clean out the water tanks in the feedlot pens. I grabbed a bucket, broom, and shovel and got to work. While cleaning out the tanks, my host checked in multiple times. After finishing the tanks, I was asked to wash all of the side-by-sides and the four-wheeler. I got straight to work making sure every inch of the ATVs and UTVs was spotless.

Wednesday, Morganne and Michael returned. It was a cold, foggy, and misty day. My host and I headed over to the West Ranch to check up on the water tanks a guy put in. We gave minerals to both groups of steers and the spayed heifers. It was very hard to see in front of you because the fog was so thick. After the mineral, we checked the water tank to make sure the water works. The water shot out very high, and we let all of the air bubbles come out of the line. We headed back to the Main Ranch for lunch and to pick up cement and Morganne and Michael.

After lunch, we all headed back to the West Ranch to cement the middle of the tank. The cement had to settle under water for at least a day with about 2-3 inches of water on top of the cement. This was a new experience for me, so it was fun to learn how they put these tire tanks in. Thursday was another day spent at the West Ranch. Michael had some welding to do on an H-brace we put in about two weeks ago. He also had to finish the load-out chute that we put in at the same time as the H-brace. Welding wasn’t the only thing we accomplished that day; we also drained the tank of cement water and attached the float. Then we could fill up the tank to move the spays into that pasture. We also had another tank to cement. We went to turn the water on to make sure it worked. The water was not coming. We went to the well to see if the water got turned off. We tried multiple different things and even turned the generator on for the well, but we think there wasn’t enough water in the lines for it to flow to the tank since it was a gravity line.

Friday, we are headed back to the West Ranch to see what the issue is with the water lines. There was a brust in the water line so we were not able to fix it that day. The water guy will be coming sometime next week to look at it and possibly fix it. Friday afternoon Morganne and I got the day off because we headed down to Laramie for my educational event. Saturday was the day for my educational event, which was the Albany County CattleWomen’s Ranch.

Submitted by: Tamryn Klein
Edits by: GrowinG Internship Team