Windy Weekend

I know it seems like all I have talked about lately is the wind, but we literally only had one day this past week where the wind didn't blow like crazy. Dad had to miss church today (which is an extremely rare event) because he had to go chisel a field again. At least we can get a break from the wind by going inside, but the cattle just have to tough it out.

The calves tend to find any protection they can and then hunker down in it or stay out of the wind. The little black calf on the left wasn't too thrilled with it Saturday.

On our ranch, we have a system we use for our ear tags. Not everyone does that, but we find that it really helps us keep track of our cattle and their age. If it is a heifer (female) calf, we tag it in its left ear with a big tag. Its number is a combination of the last digit of the year (so this year it would be 2) and the last two digits are the order in which it was born. For instance, if it was the 17th heifer calf born in the year 2012, it's ear tag number would be 217. Underneath that, we write the ear tag number of the mother.

If it is a bull, the tag is smaller and goes in the right ear. The number is the same number as its mother. So, we can look at their tag and know which cow is its mother and how old she is. We don't have to worry about keeping them more than a year, so we won't ever have bulls (or steers later on) with the same number. Now, can you tell which calves are bulls and heifers in the picture below? The orange tags belong to us and the green tags belong to my uncle.

Now that we have all the education done, here are some more wind pictures. Good news: The tumbleweeds are out of our pasture fence. Bad news: They are now all in the fence around my house.

And I am the first person to admit that my housekeeping skills aren't always the greatest. However, contrary to what this picture shows, I have dusted in the last month. This is all of the dirt that has collected on my bookcase inside my front door because of the wind we have had the past two weeks. I moved the notebook that was sitting on it.

Sidenote: I dusted today...right after I took a picture of it ;-)

Here's to praying for a nice, wind-free week!