City Life 2 Ranch Wife...Sorting

Another possible option for a blog name...My friends and family are so talented to think of names... 

So we are getting ready to ship. Very exiting and very stressful culmination of all your hard work for the year. 


Blog Readers: Pssssttt Andi...

Andi: Yes?  

Blog Readers: 

When you say "ship"....

Andi: Oh right right, you being a greenhorn (newbie) and me being soOoOoOo experienced ::drenched with sarcasm:: needs some "splainin" 

Before my post for the day, I would like to make it real for all of you.I am writing this post while Junebug (my kiddo) is watching Curious George A Very Monkey Christmas on the other monitor. Now why is this pertinent to this post?.... It isn't, I just realize I have been watching this movie for an entire year and now it has come back into "season." Dear goodness a whole year of Christmas Monkey!!! 


Okay Okay... 

Shipping: The day we ship our calves off to the buyers, who then keep them in a feed lot until they go to meat heaven. 

I know my explanations are pretty awesome...this is how it is processed in my head after Zeke has explained it for the 100th time. Props to the patient man I married but in reality he did this to himself right?  

So before moving out to a ranch there were a lot and I mean a lot of things I thought I knew which made no sense but made perfect sense to me. Part of this is growing up in NY and the other part is since it had nothing to do with the life I was living I didn't need to think too much on it. I am a girl who knew stuff grew on farms and lived on ranches but my food came from the grocery store...

So here is this embarrassing revelation but I am not the only one every time I go home to New York other people have this revelation as well:

This ladies and gents is a Holstein cow.... most symbolically thought of when you think of milk and the ever sacred Chick-fil-a. What you may not know or at least I tell myself I wasn't the only one who thought this, is that this is not a cow consumed for meat (well some chefs are experimenting with Holsteins meat and look to be doing some fabulous things but that is a different topic). If you already knew this...good for you "you're very smart now shuddup" (Princess Bride). If you did not, join the club we've got jackets. Like dogs, horses, and a number of other animals there are different breeds and some are way better then others for certain outcomes. You've probably heard of Kobe Beef--very fancy, yummy, and pricey. Kobe Beef is made from Wagyu (translates to Japanese Cow) breeds. There are plenty of breeds for meat consumption, we have Black Angus on the ranch so they are mostly all black and to me hard to tell apart unless they have an extremely distinguishing mark on them. 

Am I right? 

Zeke and his Uncle can tell these things apart as if they were actual people....crazy. Love for what you do makes you do crazy things...

So why am I going through all this? Because before we ship we have to sort. 

Sort: breaking up the calves or cows into categories (while simultaneously fearing I'll be trampled or pretending to be in color guard ) 

 If  I am given one of these ^ I automatically think I am this:

So last week I was asked for my irreplaceable (at this point you should know where sarcasm is inserted....it's in  Bold Italics from now on) assistance in sorting the heifers from the steers. 

Heifers: girl calves

Steers: boy calves without their...how do I say this? Huevos or manhood (which makes them different from Bulls who do have their manhood) 

Now my job was just to wait in back and push (move) the calves up to the men that were sorting. This year we started tagging: numbers to distinguish each calf

with tags on the right side for steers and tags on the left for heifers (which works except when you're looking at them and it's like the opposite). The men still double check with a quick ducking of their heads as the calf run by and one man yells to the other whether the calf goes "in" or "by" and such is sorting. 

So I stand in the back pushing up the calves and they jump and startle and kick and surge in my directions and I quickly try and do the math:

400-700 lbs. x 20-30 calves= 

"bahhh I suck at math and always have to use a calculator and I just know I'd be sorry so quick hop up on a fence but wait I have to sprint in sloshy mud/poop and also actually scale a fence or gate" 

Makes for some fun entertainment if you're not me. This past week was especially entertaining when one of the steers (that's right I sorted this one) kicked and I jumped back as to keep my limbs intact but it instead kicked a clot of something round and hard straight into my face....now it hurt like a rock but stunk like a hard piece of mud-poo and in that moment I really really hoped it was a rock and not mud-poo and then I laughed and couldn't believe I rather a rock hit my chin and teeth than mud-poo. 

But the stench that tattooed my skin the rest of the afternoon made it abundantly clear it was mud-poo...and every time I took a wiff of my mud-poo chin I thought back to how if I was on Long Island and could be walking to get pizza or a knish and hot dog or a bagel only to be snapped back into reality by calves looking straight at me instead of the complete opposite way with a look saying "we could totally take this chick on--trample her and break the gate...just for fun." 

But for reals all they needed to do was fling some more mud-poo and I'd peace out... 

Calves 1, Andi: 0