32 pounds

Looking at the picture of myself I realize that I was getting a little chunky. Ok, I was getting fat. I went to the doctor yesterday, since the last time I visited the doctor earlier this year, in February I think, I have lost 32 pounds. I weighed in at 215 yesterday. I have not been at 215 since back before I had graves disease. I need to loose another 5 maybe 10 pounds, I assume that this last little bit will be the hard part. I am hoping that when I start refereeing soccer in a couple of weeks the running will help me shed the last of this. It feels great to not have the extra 32 pounds! I feel better and feel like I have more energy. For me it was a simple adjustment in my diet and quiting the Mt. Dew coupled with riding my bike in the mornings, usually about 3 miles is all. Who knew it would be so easy? I will have to post an updated photo of myself.

Cow Chips: Can't Drive a Cow to Water, But You Can Lead It There

When we first put the Panguitch Cows in the Ivins field they did not know where to get water. They were being a little skittish and would not leave the south east corner of the field, the corner farthest away from the roads on the east and north. The problem was that the water tank was against the west fence. This is where the hose bib used to fill the tank was at. After leaving the cows in the field for a day we tried unsuccessfully to drive the cows over to where the water tank was at.

There were three cows in particular that would not cooperate and would lead the herd away from where we wanted them to go back to the corner where they had been. I was trying to herd them on foot and dad would drive along in the pickup. The cows would go in the right direction until they reached about the half way mark, then the three ornery cows would lead the rest right back to where they had come from. This caused me a lot of running and yelling and caused dad to try and chase them down with the pickup honking and swearing. I am certain that anyone watching the whole thing was getting a good laugh. After multiple attempts we decided to leave them alone and let them get a little thirstier before we tried again.

The next morning we changed our strategy. We loaded a 500 gallon water tank into the back of dad’s truck full of water. When we pulled into the field the cows were thirsty and ready for a drink. We opened the valve on the tank and let the water start to run out. This got the cow’s attention and they came over and proceeded to fight over the water coming out of the tank. Dad simply drove the truck across the field with the water running out right up next to the overflowing water tank. Once the cows found the water tank we did not have to try to get them to go water, they would go on their own when they were thirsty.    

Cow Chips: Outsmarting the Cows

There are some cows that just do not want to do what you want them to. This is usually the case when we are trying to corral the cows to move them from one location to another. Normally this involves feeding hay in the corral where we want to catch the cows, a lot of irritation, and depending on who is around at the time a lot of swearing. This chapter was inspired by my experience trying to corral the Panguitch cows that were in the field in Ivins.

Out of the twenty-seven cows that were in Ivins there were three that, of course, were difficult. These three cows evaded us on the first day when we took twenty of them to Arizona. After hauling off the first two loads we tried to corral the remaining seven, these three cows were having nothing to do with the corral. Dad and I threw some hay out in the corral and then would walk away, the cows would go over by it, but as soon as we tried to move over to pen them they would take off out into the field leading all the rest of the cows out into the field with them. After several attempts at this we changed our plan; we decided to leave them to eat in the corral overnight and try to pen them the next day.

The next day I once again took some hay into the corral and spread it out. Four of the cows went right in while I was sweeping my truck out, the other three would not. I walked out into the field and the other three went into the corral; however, as soon as I started over to shut the gate they would take off out into the field. I tried this several times with the same result. Now I had to figure out how to outsmart the cows.

I had left my truck close to the gate, this turned out to be a good thing. I finally decided to let the three cows stand out in the field, (the other four did not care what I was doing, they were busy gobbling up as much hay as they could) and I walked over to my truck and got in. After a few minutes of sitting quietly in my truck the other three cows came into the corral and started to eat. I was able to step out of my truck and shut the gate before they realized what was going on. I had outwitted my four legged friends.

Many times in life we have to stop and out think the problem at hand. I find myself getting frustrated and throwing my hands into the air when in reality all I have to do is stop and think about what needs to be done. Too often I wait for someone else to solve the problem for me. In the case with the cows, there was no one to solve my dilemma for me and I knew that dad was counting on me to get the cows corralled so that we could take them over the hill. I had to stop, I had to think about a solution, and then I had to implement the solution. Doing this worked, I was able to corral the ornery cows that did not want to go into the corral. There have been many times throughout my life when this is all I had to do. Sometimes I have, sometimes I have not. The lesson is stop, think and apply. Sometimes the answer is too simple.  

Cow Chips: Follow the Leader

One of the observations I made of the cows was that they like to follow the leader. I do not think that they do this the way sheep do, however, I have noticed that if one cow goes in a certain direction, there will generally be more that follow. My earlier story about the strays leading off our herd at Panguitch is an example of this. This follow the leader tendency is most apparent when you are trying to move the cows from one place to the other.

Most of the time when we are moving the cows there are enough older cows that know what we are doing that they are able to lead the others in the right direction. I have always considered the cows to be incredibly stupid, however, I do have to give them credit, they do remember places and as we move them from one range to the other they seem to know where to go. This would work out really nice if we did not always have one or two that may know where we want them to go that refuse to go there. These rebellious cows can lead an entire herd of cows in the wrong direction. When the cows are agitated they will be more prone to follow the leader, unfortunately the leader will inevitably be one of the cows that does not want to told what to do.

Dealing with this dilemma takes some effort. The remedy is to play the tendency to follow the leader against them. The way to do this is to allow the rebellious uncooperative cows to hang back in the herd, and then force the more cooperative cows to lead. This does not always work, but for the most part it is an effective way to manipulate the cows into doing what you want.    

Cow Chips: The Tenacity of Bulls

The Bulls are one of the more entertaining things to watch when dealing with the cows. Bulls can also be potentially very dangerous. Bulls do not like each other; this is even truer when there are cows around. Like dogs the bulls have to decide who is boss: they do this by fighting. Bulls are tenacious and relentless. Once they get it in their mind to do something there is not much you can do about it. Whenever we have more than one bull at the feed yard there is always situations when you have to put them in the same corral. When you do, they will more than likely fight. Watching a good bull fight is entertaining, but usually results in torn up corrals, mangers, fences and causes a lot of swearing. Having to deal with bulls who want to fight is dangerous; however, sometimes you have to intervene to protect the corrals, cows and even themselves. We have had two bulls gang up on another bull and kill it in the past.

The entertainment value did not go down this year since we had to put a small young bull in the corral with our Panguitch bull. The Panguitch bull is a massive specimen and he out weight this younger bull by I would guess close to a thousand pounds. The smaller bull wanted to fight, the bigger one was game and would not back down. The interesting thing is that the big bull would push the smaller one all over the place; it was obvious which one was the bigger stronger bull. However, this did not stop the smaller bull from tenaciously trying to establish his dominance over the larger bull. Fortunately, they stayed in the corral, and although they tore up the ground in the corral they did not damage any of the corrals or themselves.

For a little while we put two smaller bulls in with the big one. After watching for a while I could see how the smaller bulls could possibly kill or injure the bigger one. One of the smaller bulls would engage the big one from the front, and then the other one would hit the larger bull in the hind quarters and cause him to fall. Sometimes when you put bulls together they will figure out quickly who is bigger and stronger and they will get along with each other. This was not the case this time, we had to separate them. They would stand in their respective corrals on opposite sides of the feed lot and bellow at each other and throw dirt up over their backs with their hooves. This time we were able to avoid having any broken up corrals or injured bulls.

Cow Chips: Standing in Water

While we had the cows from Panguitch in the Ivins field we would water them using a 350 gallon round tank. In an effort to keep water in the tank we would leave a trickle of water running into it, this would cause the tank to over flow from time to time and created a large puddle of water around the tank. This started to be a problem so we would shut the trickle of water off when the puddle got too big. This made it so that we would have to go twice a day and turn the water on to fill the tank. Imagine my surprise when I pulled up one morning to find most of the 20 cows standing by the water tank. They were ankle deep in water, the water tank was actually floating on the puddle and here they stood waiting for a drink! I was always amazed to find the cows standing in this puddle of water looking for a drink in an empty water tank that was floating in the puddle of water; it happened over and over again while the cows were there.

What was wrong with the water that they were standing in? I have seen cows drink from less desirable circumstance, in fact, when they were fighting over the water leak in the St. George field there was less water and it was all churned up and muddy to boot! This water was a puddle yes, but it was not all churned up and muddy. There they stood, ankle deep in water, waiting for water. I often wonder if they would die of thirst standing in that water. I look at myself and wonder how often I do the same thing. Do I recognize when this is what I am doing? Do I correct it? Or am I oblivious to the fact that my feet are wet while waiting for a drink? I truly hope that I never do this, wait for something to happen when what I need is right here right now.

Cow Chips: Cool, Clear Water

While the cows were in the St. George field they had access to the Santa Clara River to get water. Although in reality the Santa Clara River is nothing more than a creek in the summer time the water flowing there is plentiful and clear. One would think that this readily available water would be sufficient to keep the cows watered; however, I was somewhat surprised when the cows started fighting over a small leak in one of the wheel line risers.

One morning when I went to feed at the St. George field I noticed several cows congregated around one of the wheel line risers out in the hay field. As I got closer I could see that there was a large area around the riser that looked wet where the cows were trampling the hay out. I walked over to investigate and sure enough there was a small trickle of water coming from the riser. There were some cows that were so interested in the water and chasing each other away from the water that they paid no attention to me until I was within a few feet of them. Even then I had to shoo them away so that I could get a closer look at my leak. The cows that I shooed off did not go far, they were thirsty. The leak that I found would have probably taken two days to produce enough water for a single cow, yet here the cows were, fighting over the leak. There is a creek flowing with plentiful living water and the cows spend all day fighting over the water coming from a leak in a riser. As they fought over the trickle of water coming from the riser they were destroying a large patch of alfalfa. They were not concerned at all about the destruction that they were causing because they were so focused on the trickle of water, ignoring the plentiful water available to them in the creek.

How often do we get sidetracked by a trickle of water? There have been times in my life that I became so focused on what was going on right in the moment that I neglected what was going on around me. Once again the cows have brought to my attention a life altering lesson to be learned. We do that in our lives as well, however, for the most part the destruction is related to our relationships. As we fixate on what is right in front of us we fail to see the damage and destruction that we cause to those who are close to us. There have been times when work, school, hobbies, even the farm have caused me to fixate on something to a point where my family has suffered. Watching the cows I recognized this in a way that I had not seen it before.