Are You My Mother?

I stole this title from a book I used to read to my daughter when she was little. Dr. Seuss, I think. Shipping cows and calves reminds me of the story. Everybody is looking for their mother. October is time to get the cattle off of the grass. It’s our Fall Roundup.  On shipping day we gather them horseback into these pens. Then we separate the cows from the calves.   The trucks are waiting to take them back to their home ranch.  This particular herd belongs to a farmer up north. He pays us to run them on our grass for the season. They come in in May and leave in October.

The mother cows are on the right and the calves are on the left in this picture.

They have to be separated for a couple of reasons;  it’s time for the calves to be weaned,  and the mama cows are so big they could hurt the calves loaded together on truck.

Here are some cattle that  I’m pushing up to the sorting alley. The guys up ahead are separating, cows, bulls, calves and strays and getting a good count. The farmer likes to get back the same number he sent us.

These are some of the older calves that will be weaned today. They look all big and healthy to me. All confident and ready to be separated from their mothers to fulfill their destiny; to become independent yearlings turned out on wheat  pasture this winter, all by their little selves. To grow and get big and fat.  It’s just today, it seems so abrupt.  (This video is only 13 seconds long) 

Whaaaaaaaa!!! You guys are killing me here. I want to cry too.

 

This is my vantage point above Paint for about 5 hours this day. The sights and sounds. Not so confident. As a mother and a cowgirl, it hurts my heart just little. I know the cows and calves and will get over it in a few days.  They will bawl and bawl. It’s really hard to listen to.  They will settle down and be ok. It is the natural way things have to be.  Kind of like sending your child to that first day of kindergarten. 

I don’t think cowboys get where I’m coming from here..

I know Cowgirls do.

Love,   Cowgirl Red     aka Terah