Warm Weather

Well I am going to admit that I am ready for warm weather. If it had stayed cold I wouldn't have minded however after these last few days of the beautiful weather. I'm ready for it to get warm. Today was awesome, it was warm enough to drive with the windows rolled down and the music blaring it was a good day. The warm weather also has some drawbacks though. I spent all afternoon welding on Sunday and it was to hot to wear long sleeves and my left arm is sunburned. It isn't actually from the sun but since it was to warm for long sleeves the arc from the welder "sun burnt" my arm. It looks a little funny because my left arm is bright red, because it is closest to flame, and my right arm is fine.
Also with the warm weather, work on the farm is picking up so I've started working again. Quite a bit of stuff has been going on since the beginning of December. The guys have been building a new corral and cattle working facility and the last time I saw it, it was just a bunch of posts. Now it has wire, gates, and a new set of alley ways and working chutes. For those who don't know, to have a corral that work wells you have one main alley that comes off of a large pen. This alley way has smaller pins opening off of it. When you haul the cattle in from the pasture you unload them from the trailers into the large pen. Then you drive them into the alleyway where they are sorted, because of the small pens you put one group in one pen and the others in a separate pen. For example when working calves we have to separate them from their moms for a little while while we give them shots. Once the cows are sorted into their separate pens we take the group we want and drive them back into the alley way toward the working chutes. In the working chute we have two options, one run them into a trailer or two run them through the squeeze chute. The squeeze chute does exactly as its name says. One cow at a time enters it and their head is locked into a head gate. We can then clamp the sides down, or squeeze until the cow can't easily move. This doesn't hurt them, actually it helps keep them safe because if they are allowed to thrash, they can injure themselves. Once we have finished working the cow, it is released forward into another pen and the next cow is ran into the squeeze chute. This isn't an easy concept to explain or understand without actually seeing it however I hope it makes sense a little bit. Anyway that is what the guys have been doing, they have built a new alley way and working chutes in the last few months. It isn't quite complete however and I am looking forward to getting to work more now that it is getting warm.