Ups and Downs
Everyday brings a new adventure, or so it seems. Life farming and ranching is filled with ups and downs, it feels like mostly ups, until you have a real down day. One of our favorite chores is feeding the cattle. This consists of loading 5 huge hay bales onto our flat bed trailer (Big Bubba) tying them down and navigating the busy Salt Lake freeways, eventually we end up on I-80 West bound. A truly magical moment is seeing the horizon dotted with little black specks, as one approaches, it is clear to see the black specks are Black Angus cows. Two days ago everything was going well, the hungry cows crowed around the feed wagon to take their first nibble of the sweet smelling hay. They are not scared of us, and we have a healthy respect for them (1500 pounds can ruin a toe or squish you against the trailer) we keep our eyes open and pay attention. So begins the tossing of the the hay, a flake on this side and a flake to that side and the cows slowly trail behind. We noticed that one of our cows did not get up and follow, this is never a good sign. When the feeding was finished we circled back to check on her. Something was wrong, she could not stand! We tried and tried to get her up. The debate begins, what is wrong? What can we do? What should we do? We bring her water and her own flake of hay. We made calls to the Vet, and checked on her several times hoping she would stand, the conclusion was most likely a broken hip, back or leg. These cattle are our responsibility, we have stewardship over them. It is our job to make sure they are well and healthy. We don't know how accidents like this happen, but they do and when they do, we feel at fault. This animal needed to be put down, it was the only humane choice. We all face challenges, things we would rather not face. We will feel down for a while, but in time we will be having another "up" day. So here's to the "down" days that makes us stop, think and grow, and here's to the "up" days, we aren't grateful enough for. Ranching is a lot of things, fun, exciting, scary, etc., but right now it is hard.
