I started off a little before 8:30 am scraping the underside of the trailer's receiver hitch. I wanted to improve the contact with the pickup to ensure the trailer's lights work properly.
I am keeping three heifers as replacement heifers, so once I got the calves in the loading corral I sorted the replacement heifers back out into the main corral. Cow #20 - the one with the healed broken leg - is good. So Donna and I herded her into the corral with the bull, then out the next gate into the hayfield to be with the other cows. We watched to make sure the other cows didn't start fighting with her. Some cows came up and sniffed her and all seemed to be getting along.
Loading the ten calves was a challenge. They are so tame they preferred to stand and look at me rather than run away. I had trouble turning them around, and keep turned around. Donna was trying to entice them with apples down the runway to the trailer but only a couple calves followed her.
Eventually we got most of the calves in the trailer. Not all the calves. It was a struggle to get the ninth calf into the trailer. Finally we got the other calves in the trailer to move slightly and squeeze together more so the back half of the ninth calf would fit inside. Then we closed the door. Looking inside there was room for about a half a calf if all the rest squeezed together super tight. The last calf was Buster, the Holstein. The biggest calf. He was the most resistant in going down the loading chute. Even when I had him in the middle of the group he would work his way to the back.
I had to leave him behind.
I never had a problem with ten calves in the trailer before. The calves really are bigger this year. They started to be born about ten days earlier and they are leaving for market two weeks later. So it makes sense they are bigger. And last year when Dan bought four steers, he had bought the four biggest steers.
I had six steers and three heifers to sell this year. Well, seven steers counting Buster, the Holstein.
Buster refused to come out of the loading chute until the truck and trailer were out of the corral, and both Donna and I were far away from the loading corral. He had been standing there locked leg refusing to move at all; then once we were away he quickly came out and ran out of the corral to join the three heifers.
We were finally on our way around 10:20 am.
This felt like the heaviest load I have ever hauled in my trailer. As I drove I could feel the calves move about in the very small space open inside the trailer. Usually when the trailer moves the cattle stop milling about. It took much longer for the calves to stop moving. And a few times on the trip they would begin moving for a little bit - which I felt as I drove.
It took longer than usual at two and a half hours to reach the auction in Missoula as I drove slower due to the extra weight. The check-in lady was by herself and was harried. A load of cattle had just been unloaded as I got there, then after she did my paperwork three more large stock trailer with cattle arrived. Another auction worker told me there would be lots of cattle sold on Thursday. When I got my cattle trip permit in Kalispell on Tuesday the worker told me she had written lots of permits this week.
Unlike last year when Clyde tried to get back into the trailer to return home, these calves all wanted out. The concrete was slippery from the manure and several calves slipped when they hopped out of the trailer. No one seemed to get injured.
It was like night and day towing the trailer when empty. Sometimes it didn't feel like I was towing anything.
I drove around Flathead Lake on the east side which is curvier, less hilly and has a slower speed limit. I was going the 50 mph speed limit when a car two vehicles back passed me and the pickup behind me. He had passed the pickup when we could see an oncoming car. He briefly hesitated. I am not sure there was room between the pickup and my trailer for the car to get between in time. So he gunned it and passed me. Donna and I both thought the two cars would have a head-on collision next to us between my pickup and the guardrail across the other lane right next to Flathead Lake. But he just slipped in front of me before the oncoming car reached us. This must have has a sobering effect on the driver as we noticed that he declined to pass the pickup a distance ahead of us once the car caught up to that pickup. Another crazy Montana driver.
We made it home without further incident. I parked the trailer in the NE pasture so I could wash the manure out. There was so much manure it had been oozing out of the side door. Once I parked Buster immediately came over and checked the trailer out. I think he was disappointed I hadn't brought the other calves back home.
Then the long and dirty task of washing the manure out of the trailer. Tomorrow I will finish cleaning the rubber mats as it got too dark to clean them well.
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The 10 (well.. 9) good-looking calves going to market.
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And once again, the Mission Mountains near St Ignatius, Montana seen on our drive home. I do believe that snow will stay until Spring.
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