More calves taken to auction

I got my check from the last week's livestock auction.  The prices all calves are being sold for are down this year.  For me on average, it is about 11 cents a pound less. The prices were not as low as I feared since I didn't make the newsletter.  The heifer who didn't make the list was two cents a pound lower than the ones on the list.  The steers, four of my steers should have made the list as they were above the bottom four mentions on the list.  My brown steer - once I account for the small weight difference to another one of my black steers - sold for around $150 less.  I guess, because the steer was brown, not black.  So, no, that calf wasn't close to making the list.

My calves were again a good size.  I had three steers who weighed 710 pounds each.  One steer weighed 600 pounds.  The brown steer weighed 560 pounds.  One heifer weighed 645 and the other heifer weighed 450 pounds.

Anyway.   I have 7 calves left.  I decided to keep the smallest (because they were born months later) three calves till Spring.  I decided to sell the other four calves now.  I do have enough hay to keep them to Spring also.  But wait, due to global warming and our colder weather, I'm now feeding hay to the cattle a month earlier than normal.  So maybe I don't have enough hay for these four calves.

The three calves not taken to auction.

One of the long legged heifer calves taken to auction.

The weather was decent today.  Meaning it wasn't snowing or raining or windy.  So I took the calves down to Missoula today, the day before the auction.

The snow is still on the ground.  So pulling the stock trailer with the "newer" pickup had the pickup spinning its tires through the snow as I very slowly pulled the trailer.

The calves were easier to load into the trailer than the calves were last week.

The two calves with white on their faces are the twins born March 27.

The black area at the far end of the loading ramp is the stock trailer's open door.

Four calves and not seven calves.  These calves are smaller and lighter.  And the ground was frozen. This time I was able to drive and pull the stock trailer loaded with the calves out of the corral and did not need the tractor to pull the pickup out of the corral.

Because the road on the east side of Flathead Lake is shaded a lot by trees, Donna thought the road could be slippery than normal.  So I drove on the west side of the lake even though it is hillier.  Traffic was lighter today than last week so I didn't slow much traffic when I went up hills slower.

Even though I only go to the auction a couple times a year, the secretary inside the building remembered I had fractured my skull last year and asked how I was doing these days.  I was surprised she remembered.  I forgot I had told her about my injury in the past.  I guess my story made an impact.

Views on the drive home.

This time we could see the mountains near St Ignatius where the waterfall is located.  The waterfall is located in the 'gap' just left of center in the photo.  Though at this time of the year one can't see the waterfall under the snow.