Stay in Missouri

Stay in Missouri

Click here to see the next page in this series.

Click on the back button of your browser or click here to see the previous page of this series.

Click on any of the little pictures to see it full size (as big as it goes).

Later that evening Martin and I went to check on the herd that currently calving. We took out a bale of hay and scanned the fields for cows off by themselves with new calves. We found 558 (by ear tag) with her very new calf. Here is a short video of Martin approaching cautiously and putting in the calf's ear tag.	If your browser is not set up to show movies you will get an error dialog box instead of a player and can just press cancel.
Some cows are very protective of their calves so Martin was careful, but 558 was an ideal mom and calf. The calf gets the same number as the cow so that we can match up cows to calves if they get separated. Here is a short video of the new calf walking around, not the first steps, but pretty early for sure.	If your browser is not set up to show movies you will get an error dialog box instead of a player and can just press cancel.
Here is a picture of the cow 558 and her calf. She was eating her calf's placenta which sounds reasonable to me (waste not, want not) and I am told is moderately common, but still seemed a little gross to me (silly me)! Oh well, circumstances prevented me from getting any pictures of that so you will just have to imagine that is what the cow is doing here.
After a bit, some of the younger calves came over and seemed to be investigating the new arrival. We hadn't had any new calves in about ten days, so this was a new event to them.
The next day, Martin brought in their gooseneck trailer and pulled it in front of the barn. The gates and doors where I had been standing when we weighed the calves and cows were reset so that instead of directing the cattle onto the scale, it directed them directly into the trailer. Martin picked up four cattle for a neighbor who has a really small operation (mostly just a hobby).
Then we divided the cattle into two groups of six cows and four calves and a group onto the trailer. Here is the view of the trailer from inside the barn. Martin then drove the cattle over to the sale barn in New Cambria.
The next day Martin and I drove over to New Cambria to watch the auction and pick up the check. I had driven by this sale barn on my way to Martin's but it wasn't nearly so crowded then (no sale one, of course). Behind the office area at the front (which is nicely finished) there is an open area sort of like a theatre with center area being for the cattle with the auctioning staff above and behind them (shown below). There was a large area behind that where the cattle were kept.
The cattle enter through the door on the left and leave through the door on the right. There are a couple of areas down in the area with the cattle to direct them. There are also barriers that they can dash behind in case an animal charges them. Some of the bulls and cows were not nearly as tame as Martin's and charged a lot (the staff caught on quick). They didn't get as good as price and were more likely candidates for the slaughterhouse. Anyway, Martin got a good price of $800 for each pair of cow and calf he sold. His cows were each far along and in the second trimester of their next calf.
Here is the Adair County Public Library. It is the library Bev uses and is quite a nice library. However, she has to pay a fee of $30 a year as she lives in Macon County and, hence, is a non-resident. I was quite surprised that there is no public library for residents of Macon County; the county seat, Macon City, has a city library, but county residents have to pay non resident fees there too; Macon City is not where they go to shop normally and so is out of the way.... My other surprise is that Adair County Library has an excellent collection of science fiction books (the only ones I am knowledgable about), better even than Houston's Public libraries combined. Go figure!
Here is Nate's school bus coming to pick him up. It picks up kids of all ages, from kindergarten through High School. Even so, the bus is only about half full at the school. Martin and Bev live right on the boundary between regions and so the bus turns around once they pick up or drop off Nate. That being the case, they turn around in the driveway so that Nate doesn't have to walk to the road (and the house is back a bit).
Here is a picture of Colorado Avenue, the road that Martin and Bev live on. It looks a lot like the driveway (gravel road) so you can see why the bus would turn arund in the barn yard as well as the road. Throughout Adair county all the roads have been given regular street names, though in this case avenue sounds a little presumptuous for this road. The gravel is quite important when it rains as there aren't a lot of rocks in the soil as I learned when digging holes for the new beams for the barn.
On April 16, Martin went with another farmer friend to Alabama to look at some cattle they were interested in buying. They got back late the next day (actually it was the day after as it was really late, 2AM, which makes it early two days later). So, Bev and I got to care for the cattle on our own. Normally we would trade off opening the gates while Martin drove, but while Martin was away, Bev drove and I opened the gates. Each gate is different and has its own quirks to open and close. In this picture you have to look close to see the gate as it as it mostly just two branches at the end and barbed wire. This entrance to the pasture used to be particularly muddy until Martin put down gravel. Right now this one looks almost like the road.