Bill recently joked to some friends he can’t do anything around the farm without me snapping photos of him. I am…

You’ll notice the spelling of “paparazza”—I’m using the feminine form rather than “paparazzo,” the masculine form.

Prior to establishing a website and blog, my interest in photography was limited to taking snapshots on vacations—although not recently because, with a couple of exceptions, we’ve vacationed in the same spot for about 25 years—and holiday family pictures, also not recently. We have albums we never look through and a file drawer of pictures we haven’t sorted for many years.

As I researched farm wife blogs I found most women post pictures, which adds appeal to the blog.

Our camera is a small digital Canon PowerShot with no extra lens attachments. I’ve spent time with the instruction manual and probably still haven’t scratched the surface of the camera’s capabilities. My skill is strictly amateur and some of my best shots involve a lot of luck! Photographing pictures for my blog has become an unexpected and fun retirement hobby.

My favorite photo subjects are anything on the farm that moves: Bill, Cricket, Molybolt (cat), the cows and calves, pasture fires, baling hay, tree frogs, snakes and spiders. And things that don’t move: cow pies, birdhouses, June's Junque yard art, asparagus, morels, and flowers. You name it, it’s in the view-finder. 

Saturday morning as the snow began to fall, I stood at the kitchen sink, rinsed out my coffee mug and took inventory of my sore muscles earned during the past week while we worked cows and calves in preparation for their trip to the ranch where they will spend the winter. We don’t winter most of our herd because we’re not set up to feed silage and large quantities of hay.

I gazed out the window at the assortment of cattle we are keeping here for the winter:

• 11 replacement heifers who will be bred during December and January; 
•  Ms. Bobsey, and her twins, Freddie and Flossie; 
• One-Toe, our amputee cow with only one toe on her right hind hoof, and her calf, Two-Toes; 
• First-Calf Heifer #501, who was bred late and won’t calve until around December 10th; 
• Cow #972, who hasn’t yet had her calf and Bill is doubtful whether or not she’s even bred. 
  

I saw a cow lying down, head up, apparently resting after her hay breakfast. Behind her was what appeared to be a large cow pie or possibly a baby calf but I, too, was doubtful about the latter. I grabbed the binoculars but closer inspection didn't provide conclusive evidence, so I convinced myself the large, dark brown mound wasn't a calf. Then, I noticed several heifers amble over to the mound and sniff at it. Cows don’t usually gather around a cow pie to sniff it. Once again, I grabbed the binoculars, but this time ran outside for a closer look. As I watched, one end of the dark brown mound rose up and two spindly legs appeared. Then the other end rose and two more legs and a little head appeared. The mound morphed into a newborn calf with part of the umbilical cord still attached and sporting a new yellow ear tag, indicating Bill had already found it when he fed cattle. Cow #972 looked straight at me, pointed to her calf with her nose as if to say, “ See? I really was bred and here’s the evidence!”

This birth capped off a busy week of working cows and calves, a total of 130 animals. In my book, I explained the term “working” as follows:

“Working Cattle 101 – Working cattle is a catch-all term in Farmerese that includes one or more of the following hands-on procedures performed on cattle: vaccinating or administering other medications; castrating bulls, either surgically or by placing rubber bands around their testicles; dehorning; preg-checking; ear tagging; spraying with fly repellent; branding; and applying Pour-On, a de-worming and de-licing solution poured on the animal, hence its name.”

We did all of the above except dehorning, preg-checking and spraying with fly repellent as none of these procedures was necessary, and we used the rubber band procedure to castrate the bull calves. My duties as ranch hand included:

• Open and shut gates to pastures; 
  
• Hold the trailer back gate open when we loaded cattle; 
  
• Prod cows along the alleyway to queue up behind the working chute;
  
• Insert a piece of steel pipe across the alleyway behind the cow “on deck” to keep her from backing away from the chute; 
  
• Hand hypodermic needles, banders, and ear-taggers to Bill (Most of the cows and calves were already tagged, but some tags were missing.); 
  
• Keep the thick rubber castrating bands warm inside my gloves, then put them on the banders—not easy in cold weather because I had to remove my thick, insulated gloves to stretch the bands onto the banders; 
  
• “Gofer” to the barn or house for anything we needed but didn’t have; 
  
• Heat up a quick lunch for Bill to eat on the road as he hauled a trailer-load to the ranch.
  

A slight casualty of the human, not bovine, variety occurred during the bull banding process: Bill gashed his hand with his knife when attempting to remove a rubber band that had misfired off the bander when the calf squirmed. The band only caught half of what it was supposed to. The gash was about an inch long and bled profusely. He wrapped his handkerchief around it temporarily until the bull was properly banded, then we went to the house to further assess the damage, disinfect and bandage his hand. Stopping the whole operation at that point and making a trip to the doctor was out of the question, as far as Bill was concerned. He wasn’t convinced stitches were necessary.

Later that night Bill changed his mind when the gash still bled easily. Neither of us wanted to make a trip into Topeka to a major hospital emergency room for a four to five hour ordeal, mostly waiting. The urgent care centers were all closed for the day. He called a small community hospital about a 30-minute drive away and they invited him to come on over. It was a slow night in the ER and they appreciated the company, if only for an hour. When he arrived they set to work on him, no waiting. The needlework, consisting of three stitches, was completed by a nurse practitioner, a nurse administered a tetanus shot and he was on his way home.  

So, I didn’t have time to snap photos this year. But you can go to last year’s blog, “Bon Voyage Until Next Spring” at http://www.fromhighheelstogumboots.com/gumboot-tracks-blog/archives/11-2013, for pictures showing various stages of the process.

Ahhhh…now we can relax! Oh, but wait! We only have two pieces of wood left to fuel the wood furnace and Saturday was cold and snowy. (Luckily, our propane tank was topped off this week!) The cattle spending the winter here still have to be fed and watered. This includes bottle-feeding supplemental milk replacer to the twins twice a day. A mountain of dirty and manure-y clothes is piled on the laundry room floor. The large container of my homemade granola in the frig is almost empty and someone ate the last muffin—both are among the breakfast staples around here.

No rest for the farm-weary!

Between their mother’s milk and supplemental milk replacer, our Bobsey twins, Flossie and Freddie, are thriving! Their heights and weights are comparable to their peers born about the same time.

My youngest sister, Lila, who lives in Alaska, came for a visit in October. We put her to work feeding Flossie, although she said it wasn't really work! 

Just as human babies progress from milk to cereal, so do bovine babies. Since Gerber doesn’t make calf cereal, Bill bought a grain mixture of ground up corn, oats and molasses at the feed store. He gives them handfuls of this mixture with their milk replacer.

While Bill feeds Flossie, Freddie sees something nearby that interests him…the empty milk bottles that were supposedly “hidden” in a five-gallon bucket. He’ll just check these out in case there’s a drop of milk left!

The bottles were already sucked dry, but there was grain in the bottom of the bucket. We took the bottles out and Freddie dived right in!

Flossie has been less enthusiastic about grain, but she’s coming around. Early last week she, too, found the grain in the bucket.

Bill set up “creep feeders” in several of the pastures to provide continuous, free-choice grain to the calves. One is pictured below. Creep feeding supplements Mom’s milk and the grass some of the older calves have started nibbling. The name comes from the design of the apparatus—calves “creep” under the top rail which is low enough to prevent cows from entering the feeder. At least most of the time. In the past, one of our smaller cows wedged herself into the feeder, then couldn't get out. Of course, with all that grain to feast on, she wasn't interested in leaving. Bill had to convince her otherwise, turn her around—not easy in the confined space—and nudge her out through one of the narrow openings.

Freddie and Flossie chow down grain in the feeder while one of their friends looks on and wonders, “How do I get in there?”...

...while Ginger, First Calf Heifer #72, lurks behind the feeder wondering the same thing!

"Mmmm...we really like this calf granola!"