A New Crop

D. E. Larsen, DVM

Waiting for Wayne to come down from the house, I leaned on the top rail of the corral and wondered what it was with this heifer that Wayne wanted to be checked. Wayne was a young man and the new owner of this ranch. I had spoken with him on the phone, but this would be the first time I would meet him. 

Looking out over the pasture, I think Jim, the previous owner, would be disappointed. I am sure Wayne was up against a lot of financial pressure. Ranching in the Willamette Valley was never a high-volume operation. Unless you were a purebred breed, you just about had to have another job to make things work. From the looks of things, Wayne was probably just coming to grips with that reality.

“Wayne, it’s good to finally meet you,” I said as I extended my hand. “How are things going?”

“Doc, I am glad you could make it out here today,” Wayne said as he shook my hand. Wayne was dressed in worn Levi’s and a tee-shirt, and his dark farmer’s tan said he had been working a lot outside this summer.

“What’s up with the heifer?” I asked. “I just got the message you had a cow for me to look at, but nothing about what was going on.”

“I’ve bred the whole bunch of heifers with artificial insemination, but this gal has not cycled,” Wayne said. “The sale is tomorrow, and I just wanted you to check her out before I sent her down the road.”

“How did you do your heat detection?” I asked.

“I brought a teaser bull with me from our old ranch,” Wayne said. “He does a pretty good job, but he is getting a little old. This is probably the last year I use him. Do you do any vasectomies around here?”

“I have done a few. There is not a high demand here,” I said. “I did some in school. Several other procedures can be used on a teaser, but a vasectomy is probably fine on a closed herd situation.”

“Well, let’s look at this heifer,” Wayne said. The bull situation can wait till this winter.”

Wayne ran the heifer into the chute and lubed an OB sleeve for a rectal exam. I grabbed her tail with my right hand and inserted my left hand into her rectum. I wasn’t into my elbow when I bumped into the nose of a calf.

“Wayne, where did you learn to do AI?” I asked.

“I took a course from the community college at our old place,” Wayne said. “It was a pretty good course. I use good bulls on my heifers and get some good replacement stock and some good market steers. I breed them before I turn the bulls into the cows. That way, I get all the heifer calving out of the way before cows start calving.”

“That’s good, for several reasons,” I said. “Heifers will have most of your calving problems, so you can concentrate your efforts on them. And, you will have the advantage of giving them more time before breeding after they calve. Maybe someday you should stop by the office, and we can talk about doing some estrus synchronization on your herd.”

“I have been reading about that, but I am not sure I want to jump right into it now.”

“In that course, did they say anything about the reasons for a cow or heifer not cycling?” I asked.

“Well, they had quite a list of things,” Wayne said. “I guess I never paid much attention to that part of things.”

“What did they say was the most common reason for a heifer not to be cycling?” I asked.

“Are you trying to tell me that she is pregnant?” Wayne asked.

“Ah! You didn’t sleep through the class,” I said. “She is pregnant, probably about five months based on the head size of the fetus. I can get a lot closer on aging a pregnancy when we check before ninety days. At this point, it is sort of plus or minus fifteen days.”

“How is that possible?” Wayne asked. “They were not exposed to any bull. I pull those out of the herd after ninety days.”

“How do you castrate your steers?” I asked.

“I band them, usually pretty early,” Wayne said.

“You probably missed a nut,” I said. “That is a common error. Most of those testicles will be up against the body wall, and they will not be fertile. But in all things dealing with reproduction, there are no absolutes. I like to cut those calves, and it is easy when they are a few days old. I will show you sometime if you are interested.”

“So what do I do with this heifer?” Wayne asked.

“Easiest thing, and the safest thing, is to send her to the sale,” I said. “She is not going to fit your calving schedule, but that will be easily adjusted next year. She is a nice heifer with plenty of growth and may deliver this calf okay. But you will be unhappy with me if we are out here doing a C-section in the middle of the night.”

“Yeah, you are probably right. There is nothing special about her,” Wayne said. “I will go ahead and send her to the sale. I can use the cash around here right now.”

“How are things going for you?” I asked.

“We are doing okay. There is just not anything extra right now,” Wayne said. “I get pretty frustrated. We pay such a high price for land around this valley, and then everyone grows grass hay that sells for forty dollars a ton.”

“I have brought that topic up a time or two. Making hay around here is almost a religion,” I said.

“Well, I have to figure out a better crop to plan, something more valuable than grass hay,” Wayne said.

“You might want to talk with some of the grass seed farmers out in the valley,” I said. “If you need an introduction, I know a few of those guys.”

“Not at this time,” Wayne said. “I just have to do some thinking first.”

“Okay, just keep in touch. I’m here to help,” I said. “I’m not much of a crops guy, but I can point you to the right person if you need any help.”

***

The following spring, I noticed that Wayne had about twenty acres of corn planted. He was irrigating it out of his pond on the little creek that ran through his place. I wondered what he planned to do with the corn at harvest. There was an old silo on the place, but I am sure it had not been used in years. This might be interesting to watch, I thought.

***

It was not long after that observation that there was an article in the paper. It seems that Wayne had planted more than corn in that field. On one of the sheriff flyovers, they had spotted a large marijuana patch growing in the middle of Wayne’s cornfield. It seemed that Wayne’s ranching days were coming to an abrupt end.

Photo by Crispin Jones on Unsplash.

Jake’s Hay

 D. E. Larsen, DVM

The sun was just poking up over the Cascade foothills as I headed home from an early morning calf delivery in Crawfordsville. The weather was super, and I am sure that all the Memorial Day campers were making their last-minute plans for the big weekend.

We had been in Sweet Home for several years now, and without failure, Memorial Day weekend was the same every year. We would see a steady stream of traffic coming through town headed to the mountains for the weekend. Then on Sunday, or at the latest, Monday, the rain would start. All the happy, optimistic campers would be staggering back through town with wet crying kids hanging from the windows. Soaked tents and sleeping bags almost dragging behind the trailers.

I turned at Holley Church to take Old Holley Road into town. I just wanted to check on another local legend. If my prediction was correct, Jake Marker would be cutting his hay this morning. 

Jake was always the first to cut his hay. And without fail, Jake would get his hay cured and in the barn before Memorial Day. The remarkable thing was, he would accomplish this feat without getting a drop of rain on his hay. Jake’s hay was the best in the Sweet Home area.

As I came around the corner, Jake’s ranch came into view. I could see Jake on his tractor, already in the field, mowing his grass. It would be interesting to watch the next few days to see if he could again beat the odds and get his hay in the barn before the inevitable holiday rainstorm.

***

“Did you see old Jake mowing his hay yesterday?” Irvin said when he was in to pay his bill.

“Yes, I drove by his place yesterday morning, just to check,” I said. “The sun was just up, and he was out in the field with his mowing machine already.”

“I don’t know how he figures it,” Irvin said. “But he gets his hay in the barn before Memorial Day every year. And then a couple of others, who watch for Jake, start cutting theirs. But they always lag a day or two. Jake’s hay goes in the barn dry, and the good Lord brings the rain. Then all those campers get soaked, and the other’s hay gets wet. Their hay lies out there in the field, and most years, it is completely ruined.”

“You would think if they were going to do their hay early, that they would start cutting the same day that Jake cuts his hay rather than waiting a day to two,” I said.

“I know, it is hard to figure how some people make decisions,” Irvin said. “And it is the same every year. Jake cuts his hay, and the sun stays out. Then I guess it is the same as those campers going through town this coming Friday. They figure it will hold for the whole weekend.”

“Old Jake is pretty tight-lipped about how he decides when to cut hay,” Irvin said. “I have tried to pump him for his system a time or two, and he never says a word. I have no clue about how he decides when to cut.

“One of Glenn’s fields, out on the highway, I have not seen them get the hay off the field once in the years we have been here,” I said.

“It has been going on long before you came to town, Doc,” Irvin said. “The wife and I snicker about it every year. I just go about my business and cut my hay when we have a good stretch of good weather later in June. My hay might not be a pretty as Jake’s, but it is a heck of a lot better than Glenn’s.”

“Well, from what I have seen, Jake works pretty hard getting his hay dry,” I said. “He will be out there working it, turning in over every day at least. Sometimes, I think he maybe turns it morning and night on some days.”

“Yes, I know,” Irvin said. “All that gas just adds to the total cost of hay. Grass hay is worth so much, you know.”

“I had argued that point before,” I said. “But changing the way you do things is hard, sometimes. I think guys would get more value from their grass if they gave up on the grass hay idea and concentrated on posturing it until it dried up in the late summer. They might even need to buy some feeder steers to pasture for a few months in the spring and summer.”

“I haven’t heard that idea,” Irvin said. “What are you going to do for feed in the winter.”

“Rather than having all that expensive hay equipment that sets in the shed most of the year, why not buy alfalfa hay,” I said. “The nutritional value of alfalfa is far superior to grass hay. I think if we put a pencil to it, you would come out on top.”

“Doc, my guess is you’re going to have a lot of talking before you get people to change their haying practices around here,” Irvin said. 

***

I made a point of checking Jake’s progress each evening before going home after the clinic was closed. As Irvin and I had discussed, he worked hard at getting his hay dry. That probably had as much to do with getting it in the barn before the rain started as any magic formula that Jake had in his back pocket.

This year was no exception. Jake hauled his hay to the barn on Saturday. It started with light rain on Sunday. And on Monday, there was a downpour, and the bedraggled campers started their parade back through town. And Glenn’s hay, not yet baled, was soaked as it laid in windrows in the field.

Photo by Barbara Olsen from Pexels.

From the Archives, one year ago

The Lasso and the Wire, click on the link:

https://docsmemoirs.com/2020/11/30/the-lasso-and-the-wire/