No Snow, No Bull......

Well, we finally got some snow around here.  Just in the last two weeks, we got around 2 feet or so (depending on where you're standing) of snow.   All the businesses and the ski hills around are very glad; me and my Farmer, not so much.   I believe the cows were also enjoying the no snow months.  They were able to wonder the whole pasture and graze a little, which normally does not happen around here in the winter.  And how you ask, do I know the cows were enjoying it?  Well, because day 2 of the snow storms, (we received about 10-15 inches in those 2 days) the cows decided to misbehave.  Yep, that's right.  They decided they wanted in a different pasture.  The one where the heifers were.  (Refresher course: Heifers are females that have not had calves yet. Cows are females that have had calves)   It would be OK for the cows to be in the same pasture as the heifers, except for our bulls were also in the pasture with the cows.  This is the problem.  Our heifers are still open (not been with a bull yet), and we do not want the bulls with the heifers just yet.  Reasons: #1 They are too young to get bred yet.  # 2 These bulls are not the bulls we want to breed them with.   So yes, they were able to push the fence down and co-mingle.  So now we had to get them separated.  again.  and the faster the better, before the bulls introduced themselves to the heifers.  (I'm assuming they had not met before I got there, but you know what they say about assuming....) Step #. 1 Get them in the corral.  As I was rushing around opening and closing gates, I was reminded how much nicer it was (just 2 days earlier) to not deal with snow.  Some gates were only pushing a couple of inches of snow to close, others had to be shoveled out to open, and then others were frozen to the ground and forget using them!  Step #2. Get them separated.  Our cows are very use to our corral.  In fact, they think they know how it works.  Once they are inside, they know which gate takes them back out to the pasture.  Next problem.  The gate they are use to exiting from is frozen to the ground with 2 feet of snow behind it so that escape route is out! My Farmer thinks this is no big deal, cuz they can just go out the other gate.  NOT!  So around and around the corral my Farmer and I (so did you start to sing a song from grade school too, or was that just me?) ran trying to get the cows to go out the other gate.  You talk about a work out!  Especially when you are wearing your "not a fashion statement" boots, in 2 feet fresh snow, with frozen cow shit under the snow.   But eventually we did win, cows finally went out the other gate, heifers got put back in their pen and the bulls stayed in the corral locked away from everything.  (Yep, they totally got the short end of the deal.)  As I said, the no snow was nice while it lasted.  But just like that, we are back to reality, we live in snow country, we get snow, so we'll deal with it.  Come this summer, when it is time to irrigate, we will be thankful that it snowed.  As for now, we're still livin' the life, the farm life that is...........and counting down the days till spring.