The greenup has begun! All the moisture from the series of snowstorms has worked its wonders on the landscape, putting water in dry dams, brightening up the trees, and giving the first wash of green to the pastures. It was a week that felt slow in comparison to the past few weeks, as calving is wrapping up and winter is winding down and the weather was wonderfully warm, at least relatively speaking. We had our first taste of spring cow work, with an afternoon of preg checking some fall calvers for a neighbor and vaccinating our own replacement heifers. I started some spring cleaning outdoors and indoors, and got my hands dirty in the garden, including getting some bare-root things in the ground. It is so fun to see the perennials starting to come up! The chickens enjoyed their free time more than usual, with green grass to pick at and the first of the bugs.
Spring is here! What a wonderful feeling.
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The pups recently had their four month birthday and are suddenly little dogs, not little puppies! That time went so fast. They’ve chunked up then stretched out, going from roly-poly babies to slender adolescents. They’ve bit by bit traded puppy energy for dog energy, uncontrolled impulses to attentive action. It’s somewhat bittersweet. Okay, very bittersweet.
The puppy stage is adorable, and it has been worth all the work and the messes, the endless sweeping, mopping, and shampooing the carpet, but honestly it has been neat to see their individual personalities emerge and develop as their puppy craziness has subsided a little. Bess has turned into a great pup for Brad, loving her job of riding with him to check cows and tag calves in the morning and has great cowy instincts.
Josie, meanwhile, has become the best little buddy, helping me with chicken chores and attempting to herd them around, riding on the fourwheeler and loving when she gets to chase cows, going on long walks and hikes, but is even content to run errands with me in town or hang out in the house when I have housework or writing to do. She has such a strong desire to learn and to be doing, so I started training with her on a little agility work when I have a few minutes here and there, and she absolutely loves it. She follows me around like a little shadow, coming to find me occasionally in the middle of the night or if she loses sight of me on our walks. Where I am, generally she is.
And when you’re talking about working dogs, that companionship is extremely important, where trust, mutual trust, is grown and cultivated. These dogs are so intelligent and intuitive, and they have such a strong desire to please. Friendship, or companionship, is an important facet of the dog-human relationship to nurture, feeding into their desire to work and their instinct to do so, and using that innate desire to please to curb their not-always-correct impulses, rather than fear.
How fast these little creatures become faithful little friends!
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What a world of difference a week makes! Barely more than a week ago, we were contending with perhaps the parting onslaught of winter, snow amounts we haven’t seen in a long time; we were cold and wet and muddy, feeding animals that were less than comfortable and covered in a glaze of ice and glistening icicles. We were bracing for the aftermath, hoping and praying the toll on the little calves wouldn’t be too high. The wind howled, snow fell from a heavy sky and swept skyward again in the gusts. Eyes were blinded by the unbroken sheen of windswept white. We staggered around, floundering through drifts to do chores and feed animals, then tumbling inside to warm up chilled hands and toes and face.
This week, it is a whole different world. A hopeful one. Almost overnight, the first frost of green touched the hills, the first green we have seen in months and months of staring at dismally dry pastures in a parched part of the country. Every day the green is deeper, richer, and more. Calves sprawl in the sunlight on warm ground, no longer fighting mud and snow, or race wildly around in a frenzy of fun. Their mamas graze contentedly on the fresh grass, no longer clamoring for hay to fill hungry bellies.
Dams that were dry now have water in them, and the sky is the blue that only comes in the springtime. The wind is gentle, the bite of winter a thing of the past. The bluebirds are back, and the clear, sweet voice of the meadowlark soars high above the rest of spring’s many songs. While we were checking cows, I heard a familiar and strange call, one of those sounds that goes straight to my heart, and searched the sky – Sandhill cranes were making their way north from the sandy dunes of Nebraska, in a shifting V of flight. And yesterday the killdeer were pantamiming along the driveway. Spring is here at last.
My garden is beginning to awaken, with the promise of color and delight and beauty. Lupine and catmint and lavender and chives, verbena and painted daisies and hollyhocks, yarrow and purple coneflowers, all are emerging eagerly from the warming earth and spreading joyful leaves. The green shoots are so good to see, and the thriving of things that survived the winter!
The line between inside and out is deliciously blurred, with windows thrown open, beckoning the spring into the house, sleeping with the wind stirring the curtain by my pillow. Evening jaunts down to lock up the chickens can be done without piling on coveralls and heavy coat, and the first sunburns of the year have marked the welcome change of the seasons. What a glorious free feeling, to have set aside heavy muckboots and heavy coats in favor of lighter, to be unencumbered, moving easily and unhindered!
What a difference from last week, or the week before. What a wonderful difference. It is a spring that is good for the soul.
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It was a week of extremes. Snow and blizzard conditions, every task a struggle against the weather, followed by the bluest of blue skies and temperatures in the 40s, then the 50s, and continuing to climb. Cribbage during the storm. The crunch of snow underfoot and the wonderfully welcome sound of running water as snow melted. Stumbling through huge drifts into the cozy warmth of the calving shed, filled to way more than capacity to keep cows from calving in a snowbank. Two days later everything is outside and sacked out in the sun. Calves are happy little sleep monsters, the cats are soaking up the sun on the deck, and the chickens find a bare spot to dust bathe. Puddles and clear skies on a 5 mile walk up to my in-laws’ house followed by a leisurely coffee. A successful grafting of a calf. Everything breathes a sigh of relief as the temps warm and the water runs and living is a little more comfortable.
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The meteorologists have downgraded the severity of the storm for today and tomorrow, which is a blessing! Plenty of moisture but without the winds, we’ll take it! Local power outages have been restored, and all in all things are going well. I don’t know what they’re expecting as far as additional snow totals, but the winds aren’t supposed to be as wicked as anticipated. Temps will be pretty miserable tonight and tomorrow morning, but it sounds like it should be better than initially thought.
The pups went with me to do chores this morning and they promptly regretted it. They abandoned their solo floundering and followed along in my footsteps, the snow more or less up to their ears. As heavy and deep as the snow is, I had to stop a few times on my way down to take a breather, and on the way back up my tracks were mostly drifted over again. The wind howled so I couldn’t hear anything else, but I’d occasionally check behind me and there were the pups, trotting along obediently right behind me, completely frosted over except little holes where their eyes were.
The chicken coop is snug and actually feels warm (which it should, with 29 birds in there), and the girls were busy about their egg-laying by the time I got down below. The chicks in the barn are likewise toasty and comfortable and our barn cats are well-situated.
Checks went well up north this morning, and when Brad got home I went out to help him feed hay to all the cows on our end. Gate-getting isn’t a job to be laughed at, that’s for sure. It actually saves a lot of time, as silly as it might sound. Down in the hayfield, we had locked a bunch of dry cows up with access to water and a windbreak, and they were making good use of the buddy heat method, but looked pretty annoyed at their situation. However, up in the timbered pastures it was delightful to look down into a draw or sheltered spot and see a group of excellent mama cows with their calves tucked away in the plum and chokecherry thickets. They couldn’t have been more snug if they were in a barn. The calves surged in waves in front of the tractor, like little black dolphins in a white sea. It made me laugh.
The stackyard was impressively drifted over, with drifts as tall as the bales of hay, and even with non-blizzard winds all tracks filled in just about as quickly as we could make them. The fourwheeler barely made it up to the house.
We’ll hang tight for a bit before venturing out to finish up everything, but my snowshoes are staged by the door for my run down to the barn. It’s a great day to take advantage of a warm house, hot tea, and a good book. And a few puppy cuddles.
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