So after a relatively hectic week gone by of branding and frantically trying to get things done…this week has been quite laid back. I have had plenty of time to do my chores around the house including feeding calves/sick cows/horses/whatever else might happen to be in the barn or yards. We have been trucking out cattle again so there are once again fewer cow's to worry about. All the cattle get taken to pasture (adgistment) and are looked after there by 'cowboys'. Most of the pastures are actually owned by the government, however there is some talk of them being sold off because they aren't making them enough money or something.

So I have spent most of the week pairing out branded calves and loading trucks. On Thursday Perry, Kristy and I went down to Bob's and paired out 101 cows and calves in about an hour and a half. This may not seem like a lot but that is not a bad effort at all and the fastest pairing I have done so far. We have also started to truck out pairs from the heifers and they are probably the worst to pair in. For some reason they don't flow very well into where we are pairing them and it requires a little more chasing than usual.

We are now down to about 100 cows and 50 heifers left to calve. Things are quite slow in that department and I am probably only tagging about 4 a day. It makes me wonder how I ever coped when I was tagging up to 40 a day!!! There are the 101 calves paired out at Bob's ready to be branded as well as about 150 in another field, so about 400 in total including the cows/heifers yet to calve. I am not sure when they will be done but am assuming in the next couple of weeks so that they can be sent to pasture as soon as possible. It would be nice if there were still a few left to brand when Candice is here but we will have to wait and see.

There was a bit of rain this week and that made for an interesting day of trucking. We had about 40 heifers already in and ready to go at about 3pm on Thursday when it started to pour with rain. Obviously we had to abandon ship and wait for it to stop so we left them over night and went back around 10 the next day. I was a little unsure about whether or not the truck would get out, but with some help from the tractor Perry made it onto the road. Chris and I then paired out another 50 heifers and trucked them that afternoon, which was quite lucky because it rained all night Friday and is quite wet today (Saturday). No chance of getting anything done so once again I have had an unscheduled day off.

Went for a ride with Alyssa before lunch, have baked some muffins and am just about to watch a movie so not much happening at all. I suppose one good thing about the rain we have been having is that the crops are well and truly starting to grow. The corn, which was planted 3 weeks ago is now about 10cm high and you can easily see the rows from the road. It will be quite interesting to watch the crops grow as I have never really had anything to do with them before!!