As the book of Ecclesiastes says: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” So many things happened here on the ranch after the last post back in May. There was “a time to be born and a time to die.” We discovered that two more of our original five heifers were bred and there were hopes that they would give Genesis (#1 calf) some siblings. Unfortunately, #60 (yes, that’s what we called her) had difficulty with her birth of a bull calf. He was simply too large for her to give birth to. We thought we could save her and we did our best doctoring her for a few days, but she decided the journey back to health was too long and hard. She was under a tree close to the house and we stayed with her for many hours. Even Shadow would go out and lay down with her. She simply closed her eyes and went to sleep. Then just a bit later, the third heifer went into labor and had issues. Charlie and Jason stayed with her until the early morning hours when she hid herself in one of the thickets. We found her the next morning and unfortunately she had lost her calf – another bull calf. She had an injured back leg but we were able to nurse her fully back to health. Melissa was here that weekend also to help out with #64. (Yes, that was her name.) It was a true team effort! We learned a lot about the bulls that you choose to breed your cows, breeding heifers, and breeding cows and have made plans to go a different direction when the next breeding cycle begins. We also learned the value of hiring an experienced and knowledgeable cowboy. Cowboy James taught us so many things about taking care of a sick cow with his know-how and his compassion.

Since the last post in May, the first five bred cows that Charlie bought have calved and the five calves that he bought have grown. They all have names because that makes it easy for me to keep track of them…and it’s fun! So much has happened since May, but I like to divide the posts by year so I can create a book from them. While this will be the ‘official’ last post for our second year on the ranch, there is much more to share. Stay tuned!

Here are some photos to enjoy so you’ll know the names of the calves too! (Click on each photo and it will pull up a larger image!)