New Beginnings

Well...it's been a while. I'm the worst at keeping up with anything that is not required during the school year. It just gets too busy and sleeping or spending time with friends and family comes before blogging I guess! haha. It was quite the school year, good, but full of riduculous assignments and long days of work. I have never been so happy to be done with a semester...but it was extremely bitter/sweet. Most (meaning pretty much all) of my friends graduate. After all, that's what you are supposed to do after four years of college...but not me. Since I would like to finish my minors in agronomy and animal science, I will be here at SDSU another full year. This isn't all bad, but it will be a big change as most of the people I know closely are gone. Three of my close friends went to vet school- which is awesome for them, and not all bad for me either since they will still be in school still when I finally do graduate! hehe. They are in Iowa, Kansas, and Georgia...go figure. My boyfriend, Mark (YES, I have a boyfriend and he is awesome!) graduated with an agronomy degree, and went home to Scotland, SD to manage the family farm with his father. Scotland is about two hours away from Brookings (just about 40 miles of so south of Mitchell. So...in a nutshell- Here I am all alone! But in a way it's been nice. This summer will basically consist of work work work, so I don't mind it so much.


Over the past year Virginia has moved into our house at Dad's place and is working at Well's Fargo and I have been working towards buying our grandmother's place and building site. We also started farming on share this year as well...but since all the share ground it bottom land- it's still afloat. I could go on and on with the details of the year- but as far as catching you up- that's the big stuff.


As the school year came to an end I found myself still looking for a summer job. Yes, I would love to be back at the ranch, but it has come time that I need to be at home. There is plenty to do and worry about at home, and farming on share is hard to do from several hundred miles away. So, despite my mother's wanting and many other people pushing, I did not go back west. Of course I miss it and I will certainly be back to visit, but for now, I'm in Brookings for the summer. I had to pay rent on an apartment here anyway, and there were good job opportunities and it's a decent driving distance from home- so I stayed here. Over this past year I visited the ranch a few times. Each time was fun- I brought Mark with once, and Rachel with once too. Jennifer and I tried to go once, but I got sick and that didn't work too well. This past month, Rachel and I went out for branding. It was lots of fun and I got to see many familiar faces. We branded 506 calves in three places in one day. It was lots of work but we had a good time. I always enjoy seeing Rylee and how big she has gotten. She's so cute and we play well togther. Heck, some of her toys intrigue me! I am sure I will be back soon to visit- it's hard to avoid people you love spending time with! And as you may have noticed...I haven't changed the name of my blog. I don't have the heart- maybe someday I'll get creative and add to it.


So, since I decided to stay here in Brookings I had to find a job or two. I was offered a job right away from the SDSU plan diagnostic clinic because I have working in the building for three years. I really didn't want the job because it would mean I would be inside from 8-5 on a state pay rate. That didn't sounds too great- but I knew I would like the people I would be working with and I didn't have any other jobs at the time, so I took a position part time: Wed-Fri 8-5. Then came the hard part...filling in the gaps. I had recieved an email for a local farm/feedlot looking for summer help in Volga. This was the same way I found the job at the ranch and I knew it was a pretty reliable source. So, I called the family and met with the owner, Chad Wosje a few days later. I now work at Wosje farms all day Monday and Tuesday (8am-10pmish) and from 5:45pm-10ishpm Wed-Friday. I am also trying to do one to two weekends a month. This farm job has been a great experience for me so far and I have definitly learned through trial and error.


The lab job is fun, but it's a lot of hours to be inside underneath a sterile hood. In fact, my hands are so caked with dirt (as in they don't come clean) that I have to wear gloves at the lab all the time! haha it's kinda funny. I work with a girl named Megan who I have just met and we seem to get along great. I also work with a girl named Marlee who I have know from previously working in the building- we get along awesome! The two people above us are Grace, the lab technician, and Connie, the lab manager. They are both a lot of fun and it's great to work with all of them. Right now, Connie is gone because she owns a greenhouse, but she will be back in the middle of June, which will liven up the lab.


So far at the lab I have been working on cleaning up a Ascochyta bacteria. Mark (yes he worked there) was actually working on it and now it has been passed off to me. So, last week was my first chance to get the hang of a new lab. Although I have worked in labs before, it still took some time to get used to the new atmosphere. I've pretty much got it down, but it still took some time and patience to learn a new project. In fact, in order to finish one step of the project I was in the lab from 8am until 5:30pm working on the same thing all day long! ahhh...I do appreciate the security of the job though. At least I don't have to be very nervous or scared that I'll really mess something up because I have quite a bit of experience. Another great thing about this job is that we actually produce results in a timely manner and work directly with extention educators and farmers.

This week was also the start of my work at Chad Wosje farms. Chad is a very nice guy who has been very willing to work with me and help me to learn new things. I work with Chad and Randy (the full time hired man). They are both easy going and great to work with. There are a few other seasonal employees that I see come in and out of the yard, but for the most part Chad and Randy are the backbone of the place. Chad and his wife Rhonda and their very cute three year old son Carson live near Sinai, just about 6 miles away from the farm site I spend my time on. Chad farms nearly 4200 acres of row crops with an additional 800 plus of grass/alfalfa hay and his place has the bin site and houses most of teh farming equipemnt. I work on a different farm site that Chad owns. The main focus is livestock. He has a large mixed herd of 300 pairs and 500-800 head of cattle on feed. I was hired as a general farm laborer with an emphsis on livestock herd mangement. Although it would be nice to do more farming- I know I can get that at home and through farming on share, so the livestock has been good. Of course, I have some experience in the area, but everybody manages their herd differently and I have seen that throughout my various jobs.

My job at the farm is a bit more routine that my ranch job, but I don't mind. After all, I really don't have it all down after only one week so everything seems new right now. I usually spend my morning checking cows and tagging and vaccinating new calves. One great benefit of this job is that we are calving right now. It's awesome to calve in nice weather, and I am excited to finally have the opportunity to be around full time for a calving season. I use this awesome calf catcher (I will have to put a picture up) to catch all the calves (or at least most of them) that I vaccinate and tag. I will go out in the morning first thing and make sure that everyone looks happy and healthy. There are two pastures but right now they are both halfway under water, so checking cows takes a while. After I make sure there aren't any emergencies, I go hook up to my calf catcher and nab some babies! (tehehe that sounds terrible but it's mildly true). This machine is like a cage that hooks up to a four wheeler. It's got spit gates that open on the front and all you do it pull a rope to get them to lock open. To close them you just step on a pedal. Neither require you to get off of the four wheeler. So basically I toodle around until I see an untagged calf. Then, ideally you drive up to it with the gate open, then shut them quick before the cow can get too excited and try to joint the calf in the little cage. But, it doesn't work like that every time. These cows know what's going on when they see the catcher and they all send out this baby call...but usually I can catch them in a few minutes. Sometimes I hop off the four wheeler and drag them to the catcher if the cow isn't too mean. It all depends. But, nonetheless the thing works awesome and it a great safe way to tag calves. Some cows really don't appreciate it but at least then you know who's calf it is. Filling syringes and filling out the tags takes a few minutes so tagging each calf takes time. I record them all in a book and then let them go. Once in a while I see a calf we need to bring in, so then I grab the calf trailer. It's pretty cool too. Basically, it's got two U shaped irons covered with rubber. You pick up the calf and hang it in the trailer by it's belly. It's a quick and easy way to bring a cow and calf in at once. Of course, I have had some troubles (how could anything just go smoothly with me) sometimes the dang tagger doesn't work the best and I get tags stuck half in ears which I fix of course, but I always feel bad for the calf. One time I got way out to the far end of the pasture and realized I had no gas in the four wheeler, then I had to decided wheather it was worth the embarrasment of driving back for gas, or risking it and running out. I drove back...it was running out as I pulled up to the shed- good choice. But, no major catastrophies on the tagging and herd health checks thus far.

I can't go into too many detail because I've been working there a week and I need to go to bed. But basically after I tag I will do some odds and ends jobs. Sometimes I move bales (of course I almost always break one) other times I check cows that are already out on grass with older calves, sometimes I fix fence- it all depends. In the later afternoon/evening I do feedlot chores. This takes the average person three hours...right now it takes me five or six hours. I will say though, that it's only beacause I am tryhing to be careful and have never had to use a loader that much in my life! I run an JD :( 7800. Yes, it's green but it's really quite nice for chores (That's really hard to say by the way). I mix rations for three lots of cattle and two more rations for the cows in the calving pastures. This usually results in 6 or 8 rations depending upon how the hay is ground and how much the feed wagon can handle. If you overfill it...you shear pins. I have already done that once because they ground hay and no one mentioned that it was finer and I couldn't put the usual 4,000lbs in. But aside from it taking forever I am starting to get the hang of chores and am hoping that things start going faster for me so I can get home earlier at night.

Today was a little rough though. First I checked cows and tagged calves. I ddin't come until noon but it was still a full day of work. When I was tagging I had some troubles with the dumb tagging needle again- it's that new kind of tag that is all one piece and has the point on itself. The dumb needle on the tagger moves sometimes and I think that's where the problem begins. So after I got done tagging I hooked up to an old wagon and started movign some hay. It's been taking us forever to bring hay to the cows so we thought hauling a few at a time to teh gate would help. Well I think I ended up defating the purpose. The hay wagon hasn't been used in a long time and it appears that it is designed for the old smaller bales. So, I could only fit three on it. After two loads I quite. In fact, within those two loads I managed to drop and break a bale of stalks...in the middle of the driveway. I eventually got it on the trailer but that's pretty hard to cover up...believe me. I tried to scoop up my mistake but instead just spread it all over the yard! ahh! Then, after I gave up on bales I started doing chores since it takes me so long. It was about 5pm. At about 5:45 I was actually feeding at the bunks and noticed a cow out. Once in a hwile this happens becaus they jump the four-wheeler ramps...but no there were multiple cows out. As it turns out, I left the gate open. We actually do that often because this gate is at an end of the pasture that is mostly mudd right now and it's heavily travelled. But instead of leaving it alone like always the cows just let themselves out. I bet by the time I jumped out of the tractor and got to the road on a four wheeler, there were 20-30 cows out on the road. As i'm trying to chase them in frantically to any gate I can see, half of them head to the highway and the other half the gate. Then a few others are eating the feedlot ration I just fed from the bunks. Bascially there were cows going in a gagillion directions. I finally got most of them in a contained area when Ellie, the dog (bless her heart) tried to take a cow to me...not away from me! She chased the cow to the highway. So now, I'm in the ditch of the highway tryhing to chase a cow back. The dog is in the middle of the road, I'm flyhing on a four wheeler that has minmal brakes (which I never noticed until I tried to go from 40mph to a stop) and this cow is still going the wrong way. After loosing my hat, and frantically chasing cows for 15 minutes i got them all back in. Then found the hat and hopped back into the tractor. It didn't take long, and the cows were back out again. I didn't even get the next load mixed before a bunch of them figured out you could jump the four wheeler ramp (which ruins it by the way). So, I get off the tractor again and chase cows back again. By this time Chad and his brother were around unloading corn and mowing so they probably got a pretty good show. I finally got back to chores and Chad blocked the four wheeler gate. It wasn't long before I found myself feeding the wrong ration to the wrong heifers. I think ti was just one of those days. So I call Chad to figure out what to do and he says don't worry about it now. Go get a four wheeler and help me bring this cow up. Well, as easy as that sounds, I actually had to air up two tires on this four wheeler. I'm not sure if it was the pile of steel posts Chad hit yesterday that did the tires in, or if it was my late night trip to shut a gate in the dark, but nontheless I had to clean the mudd off of the tires and air them up. Then get all the gates ready and by the that time he was getting close with the cow who had a breeched looking hoof handing out the back. Then comes the fun part, pulling. We managed to pull this breeched calf and got it out alive. It's funny how things work. Chad was trying to explain why we hung the calf upside down and blah blah blah. I just smiled and did what he said even though I knew most of what he was explaing. But then, I started sticking straw up the calf's nose to make it sneeze and get some more fluid out of it's lungs. I think he was a little surprized. It was rather funny. So we ended up with a monstrous red bull calf who is doing well. I told Chad that it' always boys that cause trouble- then he replied that women always start it...but he was standing right being this cow that we just pulled monstroul breeched bull calf out of at the time. Boy, he's luck she didn't know what he said! We then checked one more cow who had already had her calf before we got there...good deal. Then I got back to chores. I finally got everyhting done by about 10:45 and headed home.

Everyday is a new learning experience. Yay for trial and error. I've really been enjoying my jobs. At this point it's a bit high stress, but I like it anyway. I think I better get to bed so that i can be awake to tag babies in the mornig! Thanks for reading:)