Snow, the Best Cure for the 2 year Drought

Nancy Moore — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 18:36:22 +0000

This was the view from our front porch last week. We have waited a long time for moisture. Finally we had a snow which was full of moisture to cover all the pastures.

We weren’t able to get out of the ranch that day. All of the longhorn cattle and all the cattle Joe looks after in the winter-time were 30-40 miles away. The next day all three of us took a truck, loaded a skid-steer loader on a trailer and began digging our way out. When the first truck got stuck, we would pull it out and then Joe would dig out the road with the skid-steer.

Each of us had a truck to haul bales with. The county roads were completely blocked, but we made it to our cattle by going through pastures and fields and letting fences down. In the above photo I had made it as far as I could. I waited til Joe took my two bales and slowly delivered them to the heifers and bulls.

To reach two pastures of cattle and the bull pasture with four bales took 1 1/2 hours.

The entire day was time consuming. On this road, Shane got stuck and then Laramie got stuck.

We all made it to another hay stack, just to find it was drifted in too deep to get any hay for the cows.

Pat was there with his Steiger tractor and blade to push all the snow out of the way. This is how the whole day progressed. Pat pushed the snow out of the way and the rest of us followed behind to feed hay, break ice and check cattle. We made it to every pasture of cattle that day and made it home after the sun was down to do evening chores at the ranch.

Since then it has been nice and muddy and Joe has been stuck numerous times in the snow or mud. What a joy! Hopefully this is a great sign that the drought is on its

Nancy Moore — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 15:17:28 +0000

Last Sunday was a work day like any of the other six days of the week. Some of the cows on cornstalks had begun to slip calves (abort). We had to find a pasture to move them to and get them off of that pasture since it appeared to be a high nitrate problem in their forage. Thirty-mile-per-hour wind or not, Sunday or not, they had to be moved. There were no calves lost later in the week, so it appears the problem was solved.

We did have one slower day at the ranch. Laramie took time to ride Lakota and trim her hooves.

Tuesday was a different story. We had a truck lined up to come and ship 98 head of calves. Snow or no snow, they had to be gathered and sorted for shipping the next day. I rode out on Bull’s Eye today and got the last few head gathered to the portable corrals.

The snowflakes were big. You can tell by Comet’s pose for the camera, that she is not impressed. The morning went very smoothly. We sorted the calves by sex and size and hauled them to corrals where they could be accessed by semi-trucks the next day to haul them to Colorado. When the truck came the next day, it was Pay Day!!! The calves had been born about ten months before. After caring for the cows and calves, weaning and running them through the winter, our paycheck finally arrived.

Moore Longhorn Ranch

Snow, the Best Cure for the 2 year Drought