Putting out pairs...

This is Eastern Montana in April!

(It's greening up day by day, thankfully.)

See those little black specks? Those are the cows we're about to go around, looking for calves to tag and put out. It's big country, but the wheelers sure help cover a lot of ground quickly.

No calves here! These old girls were mildly annoyed that I interrupted their grazing schedule...

I didn't realize I had changed the setting on my camera; it was tucked inside my coat, away from the dust and I must've bumped the dial....at first I was disappointed to miss all the color, but it has a journalistic quality now. 

Down to business....Wayland just grabbed this calf to tag him.

Through the pictures, notice the cow's head and Wayland's head.

She's not happy.

Wayland has checked the gender of the calf and is ready to put the tag in the right ear for bull calf, left ear for heifer calf. 

He's always got one eye on the cow.

Arranging the tag....

The cow knows what the story is; this isn't her first calf by any means, but she's still going to make sure Wayland doesn't mess around with her calf, beyond tagging it.

It only stings for a minute!

Mostly, the tagging happens so very quickly that the calf is bawling more from the surprise than the sting.

Back off, Farmer! That's all the leeway you get!

(See the tag in the right ear? Bull calf.  Now that number, the gender of the calf and the date of birth will be recorded in a little book that is carried in his pocket all spring and summer.)

Down the fence to the gate, to be put in the pasture on the left (east) with the rest of the pairs from that bunch.  The old cows know exactly where they're going and really take off at a trot sometimes to get there.  You wouldn't believe how fast those little calves can travel!

In the pasture, on her way to find a sunning spot for her calf.

A view from the open gate...

Vern would be horrified I put this picture up; it's not our best fence. But the cow paths on either side, going up the hill, make it so interesting.

(Don't tell him you saw this picture, or I'll be rebuilding fence this summer....)

And lastly, here's a picture of a set of twins we had.

Twins are not desirable, because they are born so small and the cow can't provide enough nourishment for both calves to thrive.  We usually end up pulling one of the twins off and grafting it onto another cow that has lost it's calf.  Or one of them becomes my bottle bum. 

Both of these calves were tiny, delicate little heifer calves....up close, they are so enchanting because they look like little tiny versions of the chubby black calves we usually have. 

Now I have to load Maggie up and we're going to go feed my bum calf, Cosmo, then help the guys put out pairs, just like you saw here....we go around them twice a day.

And now you know what my April looks like!

We had our last calf from the heifers yesterday...pulled it and sadly it was dead.  Maggie wanted to watch the pulling, the calf being born, and it was a very hard time for her AND PopPops. But fortunately we were able to go pet Cosmo and he charmed her out of the sadness.  One of the twins is being grafted to the heifer and we hope it will end happily.