We shipped our steer calves a week ago tomorrow. After almost a week

of 60F weather, it started snowing late the night before the calves were

to be shipped. It was not too cold, but by the end of the day, it was muddy

and miserable.





The cows and calves came quickly knowing they were going

to get something good to eat.





Nice calves, huh?




Almost to the corral but there is alway at least one that

wants to make things difficult! The pair below headed for the hills
in hopes they wouldn't be missed.





Once at the corrals, we sorted the calves

off from the cows. The cows are turned back out

to pasture and the calves loaded on family and friends'

trailers for the trip to the stockyards and scale.




At the stockyards in Medora, ND which is about

23 miles from us, the calves went in groups of

ten to be moved into the scalehouse to be weighed.

This was the wildest shipping day we have known!

We were short twenty calves at one point which meant

Doug and our boys, spent an hour combing three big

pastures to find them. Thankfully, did but it put us an

hour behind time. While that was happening, one of the

guys who had brought a trailer full of calves in for us had

one escape as he opened the trailer door!! Just what we
didn't need, a calf on the loose in Medora! A couple of
the guys headed off on foot after him while the buyer's rep,
the brand inspector and myself took to our pickups to try
to get him headed back to the yard. After we roared out
after the calf, I realized that I had left my camera in the
scalehouse!! The photos I missed snapping of the whole
rodeo would have been priceless!! We had a deputy sheriff
without a clue of how to use a rope pull one out of the back of his
truck and stand there trying to figure out how to do it. A guy with his
John Deere tractor helped us box the calf in and keep him from trying to
cross the Little Missouri River or the railroad tracks.To make it even
more hilarious, some guy with a big old foxhound in the back of his truck
stopped to watch with the hound baying as loud as he could!! That is the
short version of the whole thing which was funny even as it was happening!
Still wish so much I had had my camera in my hands!!




I'm not sure which day our granddaughter, Haley, likes the

best. She loves branding time, the day we ship calves and the day

we preg test our cows. She has always be interested in what

is going on with the cattle and wanted to help. This year

she got a lesson on how our buyer's rep figured the average

weight of each bunch of calves crossing the scale.





It takes awhile to load the trucks if it is done the right way. The less stress

on the calves and us the better! It started to snow again as we were loading.









The last of 'em loaded, all that was left was to finish the paperwork
and collect our check!! After we were all done, our family and friends
who had hauled calves to the scales for us, came back to our place
to get warmed up. They also had chili, apple crisp and a good visit.



Ready to head down the road to Draper, SD.