Speaking of Weather

We managed to get about 100 acres cut on Wednesday and Thursday of this last week. This is good. Without stopping, I can cut 12 or 13 acres an hour but once you factor in breakdowns and filling Dynacure, it's significantly lower than that. For instance, I broke a bunch of sections on the first lap in the field and that took a good hour to completely fix--and that was with the help of my girlfriend. It's a little ironic that I just mentioned a few days ago that I'd never hit a snapping turtle with the swather because in that same field, I came as close to hitting one as I ever have. He was out wandering from one pool to another when we found him, but I couldn't resist the urge to go screw with him. There's a way to handle them safely: approach from the rear, grab near the end of the tail, and hold him out a foot or so from your body. (Sh/H)e'll still snap at you, but if you keep your arm out, you'll be fine:



On Friday we moved the swather to the next area we were cutting. We got there later in the day, around 7 pm. There were clouds gathering to the north and south, but we'd been hoping they'd move off to the east without bothering us. We cut a couple rows when my girlfriend said that she thought the clouds to the north were getting closer. We snapped a couple pictures of them but the storm was so big that it took two pictures:





I didn't believe her that the storm was coming our way--oops. They definitely were, and they were moving fast. I flagged down my father (who was driving the swather at the time) and we grabbed the two pickups and fled south, away from our house, but the only radio station we could get to work was warning about large hail from the storm, so we were booking it out of there. The whole way it was in and out of the front edge of the storm. Unfortunately, there were no pictures of this. We were just barely staying ahead at 50 to 60 miles per hour. The cross-winds were incredible; we saw huge clouds of dust billowing up away from the storm, sort of shaped like a negative-sloped asymptote. They were spooky, but they weren't rotating, so we continued on past them. The only cars we encountered going the other direction was a caravan of vehicles with antennae sticking out the roofs: storm-chasers, I think. Eventually we made it around the side of the storm and went back up north to our place.

Then another big storm hit Saturday evening. I was out to dinner with my girlfriend, and on the way back, we encountered hail twice. Neither time was large enough to cause damage, thankfully. But it was well under 1/4 mile visibility for several miles, so it was an adventurous trip home! We had gone to church Saturday evening so we could cut Sunday morning but it didn't matter; we were sufficiently rained out after the evening storm. We didn't cut at all on Sunday. We tried to go again today, but managed to get the swather stuck doing so. Too wet still. Hopefully tomorrow we have better luck. We're supposed to have several dry days in a row. It's about time.

Maybe I'll write about Dynacure in my next post.

Cattle Breeding: Episode 6 (Like Star Wars)

I've taken it easy since we found the body--at least as far as blogging goes. Ranch work has kept up the pace. The next morning, around 6:30, we took off for the third and final round of work to artificially inseminate some of our neighbors' cows. When some cows figure out what people want them to do, especially if it involves unpleasantness, will do precisely the opposite. Luckily, that was not the case with these. Though we do nothing but separate them from their babies, stick them in crowded places, and stick needles into them, they obliged us well in cooperating with herding them a final time into the corral. The calves weren't too crowded; some even laid down for awhile:





Don't worry, though, this is usually the sort of scenery they get to graze in:



The A.I. women arrived around 7:30. They drive a pickup with a big white thing behind it:



The darkness inside is supposed to calm them down, but I can only guess why they painted it white. I think I have a pretty good guess, though.

I did the same thing I've done the last two times: run the chute, placing iron bars in front of and behind cows to keep them moving down the alleyway. Not much to report there. He has one old cow that unfortunately had cancer eye a few years back, and they had to have it removed:



Kinda sad, but he said she was a good cow. At least she has one good eye.

At the end, we got to see how they do the actual A.I. They keep the semen cold in a large container of nitrogen until it's time to use it. It is kept in a longish straw-like piece of plastic which, when the time arrives, is put in a warm solution that brings it back to life. The veterinarian then inserts her right hand in the "number 2" hole (I'm not sure exactly what that did; maybe it moved the cervix in range of the "straw"). She then inserted the straw in the other hole and pushed the contents out, like a syringe. I though it was funny that the vet, as she put her hand in number 2, stored the syringe in the front of her overalls.

Chris, the guy whose cows they were, took us out to lunch afterward. That was appreciated.

We've been doing a lot of hay work, but I'll leave that for another post.

CSI: Farm Edition

Okay. So. Here's the deal. We were going to move the swather today, but that didn't happen because it rained down where we we're going to move it. When I found out that wasn't going to happen, I went to the airport and picked up my girlfriend! I had found a fuel leak before I left and my dad fixed that while I was gone. Chistine and I came back to the ranch and ate lunch. We had some other work to do on the swather, so we went back after lunch to do that. Dad had gone out to the cow pasture out north with a tool we needed, so we were stuck waiting for him. Around 2, we got a call from him saying that he had managed to get the truck stuck in the mud out there. We unhooked the new 7130 John Deere tractor from the baler and took some chains up north to pull him out.

On the way there, we saw a pickup parked in the approach where we'd just cut hay (and where I took those pictures of the adorable faun a couple days ago). It was blocking the entry to the field, so I was angry at them for interfering with our operation. We slowed down to make sure they weren't drunk or having sex or something. I didn't see anyone inside, but Christine said to back up and take another look. I did, and thought there might be someone behind the driver's seat after all. I pulled forward again and we got out.

The first thing we noticed was that there were no licence plates on the vehicle. Suspicious. The next thing I did was get the .22 out of the pickup. I was worried the guy might be dangerous. I realized that wasn't going to work though; I couldn't effectively aim a rifle and open the door at the same time. Plus, my girlfriend convinced me that it might not be a good idea to No Country for Old Men this one. Those possibilities exhausted, I called 911 and reported a dark blue Dodge Ram 2500 with no plates. They asked me to look at the VIN but it was covered with a sheet of paper and I was still reticent to open the door of the vehicle to move it. They said they'd call back in a little bit and that an officer was on the way.

I wanted to make sure the guy wasn't in any immediate health risk; if he was drunk or otherwise in bad shape, I didn't want to just leave him there and wait for the cops. I walked up the pickup and stood in front of the hood (so I could duck down if he decided to pop up with a pistol or something). I knocked on the hood hard, but he didn't move. I grabbed the grill guard and shook it pretty hard; my reaction to Christine was "Yeah, he's stiff." I walked around to the driver's side and took a closer look at him. Through the driver's side window, I could see a slumped figure, his right hand toward the passenger seat and his back to the window. More significantly, I could see a distinct red patch with a hole in the middle; it was on his left side around heart level. Christine had been on the phone with my dad (letting him know why we weren't going to be there right away to tow him out), so I called him right back up and said, "This guy's fucking dead." My father was on the line with the sheriff at the time, so he told him the news.

The dispatcher called me back and confirmed the report of a gunshot wound. A few minutes later, the first Meade County sheriff (or deputy?) arrived, who happens to be related to me. He checked it out and, once some backup arrived, they took our statements. It got crazy: two or three Meade County sheriff outfits and two highway patrol cars and at least the one ambulance. It was only during this shindig that I even thought about taking pictures. I had the opportunity to get a picture of the body, I think, but I decided that I didn't even want that. I've always been opposed to that sort of voyeurism and I didn't want to be a total hypocrite. Plus, I didn't think it would have been respectful to him. Here's a few I took during this time:







Here's the freakiest part: the approach where the car was parked was here (at Rosilee Lane), across the street from a development with several hundred people in it who all drive by that spot every day. One of those residents had their statement taken that the car had been parked there since yesterday. He had been there at least 24 hours and no one from that complex even batted an eye or thought to approach the vehicle. Granted, they probably thought it was us who had parked there to work hay, but if nothing else it says something about city people in general: they drive by and don't ask questions. Admittedly, we had a reason to this afternoon, as it was on our property. But I stop by parked cars in the countryside all the time, regardless of whose property it's on. I guess I just never realized the clash of worlds that could be involved in such a stop.

After they took our statements, they said we could go. We took the rest of the trip up north and pulled my dad out of the field, went back to the swather, finished working on it, collected some wood from a basement, and spent the rest of the evening retelling the afternoon's events. They deputy--my relative--called me back up later that evening and said that if we have any needs after coming up on the scene that we should not hesitate to give them a ring. He said they have resources for that, which must mean psychological aid for people who've gone through potentially traumatizing situations. We'll see. It's too soon to tell right now whether I'll be having recurring nightmares or not.

My mom and brother both said that that had always been one of their worst nightmares, finding someone dead on our property. This sort of thing isn't without precedent; at least two of out other neighbors have stumbled on similar things. One was way worse; some Indians had raped a woman and stabbed her to death with broken beer bottles in a driveway just a couple miles north of us. This was not nearly as gruesome as that, and I don't expect to be permanently scarred, but it is the first non-funeral corpse I've seen.

Just another day on the ranch.

How is babby formed? How cow get pragnent?: The Second of a Series

Yesterday, we moved on to the second stage of A.I.ing the neighbors' cows. Once we'd rounded up the herd, we took up stations--though we were significantly shorter-handed this time around. I worked the gates as last time, and Chris had made modifications to the chute so I wasn't in immediate risk of bodily dismemberment. That was nice. Despite being short on labor, things moved smoothly. We pulled the 'seeder' from their nether-regions and gave them a shot (maybe estrogen?) that's supposed to make them all ovulate. We'll actually A.I. on Wednesday at 6 am. Oh boy.

Then, today, we turned our bulls out (this means 'released into the cow herd'). We don't keep the bulls with the cows most of the year so we can control calving season. We turn out for 45 days, the heifers (virgin females) a month before the cows. The heifers we release in mid May for a calving season beginning at the start of March, and the cows are expected to start calving around the first of April. As for the release today, I only helped with the front end of this operation. It was raining today, and there are few tasks less pleasent than 4-wheeling in those conditions. The bulls are close to our house, so it wasn't a long ride. There were 4 bulls, three of which were being turned out today. I did my best to round them up, but when bulls are chased, they get to fighting. In this weather, I was surprised to see them so eager to spar, but they did. It's realyy quite impressive. They are amazingly fast and as they butted heads, they slid around the wet grass like angry, 2000 pound kids on a slip-and-slide. I couldn't break them up, but I could just point the 4-wheeler at the point where their heads met and they would avoid me all the while they fought each other.

I was having trouble keeping them together, so I tried something different: I got behind the leader and ignored the other 3. Somewhat to my surprise (and, as I later found out, my father's), the other three started to follow behind. They're either starving for attention or aware at some level that going where I want = sexy-times later for them. I chased the one all the way to the corral, and the others followed suit. My dad later asked, 'Why'd you just chase the leader?'I didn't really have an answer; I just said, 'Well, the others followed!' He said, 'I guess you know what you're doing.' That was fun to hear.There are instincts in this, and sometimes things work that you wouldn't expect to work. You just have to read the situation.

I had to do more of that reading a few minutes later when we were loading two of them on the trailer. We picked two from the group, but quickly realized they were the wrong two to put together; they fought vigorously and with abandon. I found myself in a very small pen with them when they really went after it. I climbed the gate as quick as I could and about a second later, there was about a ton of bull forced violently into that very location. Instincts are important, even life-saving. If I weren't as attentive or as quick as I was, things could have gotten pretty messy.

Tomorrow, we move the swather! And my girlfriend comes in from out of town! Yay! Hopefully I can keep her alive.

Red Hands and Climate Change

In past years, the time school lets out has usually been about the time cows are calving and fence needs fixing. This year, I completely missed the former and managed to avoid the latter (I don't like fixing fence). It's usually during one of those long fence fixing days that I first forget to put on sunscreen and end the day with a wicked sunburn that lasts a week or so: the proverbial "farmer's tan." After the burn, I usually just forget sunscreen after that; it never burns bad enough to hurt after the first time.

This year was different, and not only because I arrived late. It has been a cool and rainy spring, so much so that both branding and fencing were accomplished mostly in long-sleeved shirts and even coats. When I first arrived and moved cows, conditions were similar; the end of the day caught me red handed and in significant pain. The backs of my hands peeled and itched, but ended up way tanner than the rest of me until yesterday when we moved cows again while it was actually sunny and warm.

These sorts of conditions perpetuate certain features of local rhetoric surrounding climate change. Every day temperatures are below normal, people are either thinking or saying, "So much for global warming!" Many scientists and other people now substitute "global climate change" in lieu of "global warming," but part of the reason the old term doesn't die away is because global warming is easier to understand and easier to critique. Nuanced positions, once internalized, are harder to critique; simplistic summaries are quite different.

The other feature of rhetoric around climate change is its relationship to structures of faith and belief. Culturally, the discussion about climate change here has been framed as one of 'belief'; people who accept it do so as an act of faith, and people who do not often do so as what they believe to be an intrinsic aspect of their Christian faith (usually related to God's sovereignty or somesuch). Now, I have a lot more to say on the relationship between faith and science, but for now the following will suffice. In our scientific world where most fields have advanced beyond the ability of most laypeople to interpret and keep informed, there is a sense in which people must 'have faith' in those who know the data best. Linguistically, at least, that is a form of belief, taking someone at their word.

But framing the discussion as a matter of faith is not entirely acceptable. After all, the other side at least claims to be something much more than mere fancy. Is it ideological? Sure. But that doesn't make it any less objective. Cultural discussions of climate change must engage with those who are deepest in the field; without concrete reference to actual climate scientists, neither side can make legitimate claims. I'm not asking such scientists to present their data on primetime television, but neither do I expect a simple answer, necessarily.

At the broadest level, the debate is really about what is meant by a scientific
'consensus.' I just heard Rush Limbaugh say the other day that there is no significant scientific consensus that points to a worldwide, human-caused temperature increase. That's already a pretty nuanced denial, but the heart of it is the idea of consensus. How many scientists, or what percentage, constitute a consensus? Who counts as a scientist? What sorts of opinions constitute a "camp" that can be lumped together? I have never heard any of these questions addressed (at least by the (politically) 'conservative' side), though I admit my own exposure is pretty light.

Whatever happens, South Dakota is fine, I'm afraid. It will take many years before changing rain patterns would be able to cause long-term soil changes that could in turn affect the use of this sort of terrain. If the coasts flood, not all that many people will move to fly-over country. Agriculture, at least as practiced here, isn't really that significant a cause of the phenomenon (by anyone's accounting, I believe), so whether these people "believe" in it or not may not really matter.

Both sides have ideological commitments, but that should not prevent us from talking about real scientific data. We're grown ups; we can do our best, just give us a chance. I know that sounds like a contradiction of what I said at the outset. But I think we deserve the chance, at least. As the debate is framed right now, the data is to the scientists as the Bible was to the medieval clergy. Perhaps a reformation is needed to make the data accessible to a larger clientele...but we also know how successful the first Reformation was at clarifying debates about Scriptural data.

No conclusions tonight, I guess, except this: the debate about climate change is really one about broad cultural disagreements concerning scientific authority and the role of faith. Both have legitimate concerns that must be acknowledged for any cogent discussion of the matter. But that's not likely any time soon.

So Many S.O.B.s

"He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it."

--Melville

"We're going to St. Onge! Ellen wants to treat her bulls!" With such words did I awake this morning. I was up and out the door by 7:30, with the promise (ha!) that we'd be done working cows by noon. Nothing surrounding Ellen is on time. It's not necessarily her fault; her husband died a few years back, and she's got all kinds of people who want to give her advice on how to run the ranch. She usually steps back and lets them walk on her--her family members included. She has ideas and could probably do okay, but there are often way too many cooks in that kitchen. Such was the case today.

One of those cooks was an old fart, the first SOB of the day. I later found out that he was the same guy who called my dad up a few days ago and told him how to run his haying operation. Oh, that pissed me off. We have one of the best operations with the best equipment out there, and he was saying how "I've never used that DynaCure, you don't need that! You don't need to rake hay! Here's how you wipe your butt while I'm at it!" What a SOB. The kind who always knows what's best, but who's too old and stubborn for anyone to try to tell him otherwise. Since I'll never see him again, I was tempted to just let him have it. But it wasn't a fight worth fighting. Besides, the old SOB's wife has Alzheimer's, and she was along for the ride. Since one of my grandmothers had it, I decided to take pity rather than get angry. I don't envy what he has to deal with there. She stayed in the pickup all morning.

We weren't working cows at Ellen's house; we were hauling in panels and a head-catch into a part of her ranch called "Stinkin' Water," which is apparently the creek that runs through it. It is so far in the middle of nowhere, it's not even funny. At the center of the above link, this is the only sign of civilization you'll see--other than fence lines--for several miles in any direction:



Including roads, they don't believe in those.

We were to work two of her three bulls: one with pink-eye and the other with hoof-rot. I don't know much about either, except that the first makes cows blind and the second makes them limp. For animals whose primary job this time of year is to have sex, neither of those impediments is a good thing. We found the bulls, along with another cow with hoof-rot, and started pushing them toward the corrals we'd set up. We let the rest of the herd drop back and, in retrospect, that was our major mistake. One bull decided to jump the fence, and the chase was on--the second SOB of the day.

Ironically, it was the bull with a bad foot that took off, and we soon found that he could run on it quite well. I thought we could fatigue him into submission, but chasing a bull out there is not like chasing cattle anywhere else; the shrubbery provides all too ample cover for them to hide. They can be right in front of you and not see them. I was swerving and ducking and brushing my way through trees and brush trying to keep up with this bull on my 4-wheeler for over an hour. As the youngest person there, it was my honorary position to have the worst 4-wheeler and the point position on chasing the bull. It was probably for the best; I probably couldn't have gotten the bigger 4-wheelers into some of the places I took the little one. We got him out in the clear after about an hour of chasing, but then he made straight for the stock dam--an old goddam motherfraking trick cows learn:



Fuck you, bull.

I was going to chase it in the water, but my father, a somewhat more convincing Starbuck to my Ahab, said not to bother. We got the other cow and bull--and later another cow and calf--in the corral and treated them. The other bull must have repented of his wickedness in the cleansing dam-waters of cow-baptism, but I'll need to see him amend his ways before I am convinced of the sincerity of his repentance. I think he was just following the herd.

After we got out of there, Ellen took us to the third S.O.B.:



It's pretty dive-y, at least it would be at night. I remember stories about them having to work hard to keep business there when a second bar opened up in St. Onge a few years back. I don't know if the other one's still around.

We went home and immediately went back out to the field to finish baling some hay I'd cut a few days back. It was still a little more wet than it should have been (mid 20% moisture readings), but we figured it was better to have it mold a little than get rained on again tomorrow.

We got a call from a neighbor who had just bought a new baler and needed some help putting up about 50 acres that evening. We obliged him and were out till after 9 pm finishing up. I had to keep ahead of two balers with the rakes, which is a tall order, but one of the balers' twine--net wrap--was in backwards and it took them a good hour to figure out what the hell was wrong. I ended up raking most of it, and then jumping on the working baler and baling most of the rest of the field while they tried to fix the other one. What a mess.

At least there weren't any SOB's at the end of the day. In fact, the owners of the land we cut came out to the field and gave us all beers. I was amazed that I'd never realized that there can't be any laws about what you can and can't drink on a tractor in a field. I've seen it done before, but I think this was the first time I was drinking beer and haying at the same time. After this day, I needed it. Happiness is a beer, a smooth-riding tractor, hay, a sunset, and a .22 in the cab for some reason, keeping me company and American.

O Dear, O Deer, O Deere

I've been told I should include more pictures. And respond to comments that have been left. I'm going to do at least one of those tonight: put pictures of adorable animals on my blog! I hear that's pretty much pure internet gold for blogging success. I can't put too many on; my parents' internet connection is limited to 5 GB/month. I know, country life is so hard. Here's the faun I saved from utter annihilation:



He was so tiny! Just the newest of newborns. His heart was pounding so fast, but littler things have higher pulses, anyway, so I don't really know what standard faun rates are. His legs, sort of visible below, were so tiny that he couldn't even run through the alfalfa. I could basically walk alongside him and he'd be going at top cruising speed:



And, despite what must have seemed like his imminent bodily dismemberment at the hands of a ferocious predator, he seemed curious and probably surprised to know that the world was bigger than just the few feet of grass around him:



Such a cutie. Also, here's a picture of the moon on the horizon... OR IS IT???



Maybe the optical illusion isn't as good as I thought, but it's actually a salamander in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket. Not quite as cute as a wittow faun, sorry. More real posts this weekend, I think.