In this business, there’s nothing like an injury, and potential tragedy, to make one consider quietly retiring from this lifestyle in one piece. Unlike so many other professions where the workplace is predictably safe, there’s always that wild card when handling livestock.
Loading cows in less than ideal facilities, Robbin got crushed against the gooseneck and run over by a cow that had become suddenly snuffy. Ten times Robbin’s weight and on the move, we feel fortunate that the cow only broke her collarbone.
After two weeks of unseasonably warm weather followed by high winds, temperatures dropped into the low 70s last Thursday, but there was an electrical freshness in the air Friday morning as we gathered the cows to be hauled. Sorted afoot in the corrals, none of the cows had shown themselves as being the least bit agitated, but one of them jumped out of the gooseneck to the end of the short lane and back again to put two of us on the rickety fence. It all happened in a second or two. At the door of the gooseneck, Robbin couldn’t get away. Just to get to the asphalt on the way to the hospital, as in most rural parts of the West, can take a long time over rough dirt roads.
Midday today, it’s 57 degrees. It has been raining since four this morning, accumulating about .25” – our first rain since March 30th. If the rain continues tomorrow as forecast or evolves into afternoon thundershowers, it would do the dry feed we’ve saved more harm than good.