Blogs

Home to me is the early morning bang and echo of horseshoes on old trailer floorboards. It’s the half-eager, half-asleep complaint of the 8-year-old who can’t find his spurs as he clambers into the pickup.

For most of the years I spent seeing the Northwest through the windshield of a hay truck, that hay was loaded one bale at a time via a hay elevator. And usually unloaded the same way.

It’s almost time. Any day now you’ll start receiving Christmas letters from friends and family. You’ll inwardly groan when it’s more than half-a-typed-page long and will automatically start skimming the highlights.

We weaned our calves in October. It’s a transition period for the farm, a literal metamorphism as the juvenile animals prove themselves to be an independent entity. They were weaned, branded and weighed, and they entered the record as the baseline of our future herd. We are always hopeful that these animals will thrive, but like anything, there is no guarantee no matter how well we attempt to manage the variables.

There’s a lot I like about fall. You know, the typical stuff like gathering cows off the mountain, beautiful fall colors and mornings cool enough to slow the flies down and keep the gnats at bay for the first part of the day.

Late last summer, we had a pair of stray dogs show up. Big dogs. With paws almost as big as my hand. One had husky or malamute markings in mostly white and a head size and shape showing some Great Pyrenees characteristics; the other was a beautiful tan and brown-and-white fellow of the same size whose markings were similar to a German shepherd, with the head also showing some Great Pyrenees.