hi-ho silver!

I should've been a cowboy.

Other than a line from a great country song, I often feel that this is the truth.

Some of the more astute of you may have noticed that, during all this talk about farming, I rarely speak about the joys of growing grain. There is a simple explanation for this - I find very little joy in dirt-farming.

Now, I can't write off grain farming as complete torture - I love combining in the fall and seeing that grain pour into the hopper - but in general I find grain to be a dirty, machine-infested business that I would prefer to avoid.

I am, at heart, a cattleman. I belong on the back of a horse loping across the prairie in pursuit of escaped cattle. And I look really good in giant hats.

There is, of course, more to it than my love of headwear. Grain-farming is about changing the land and making it work for you, and sometimes that land comes back for revenge: ranching, or at least some forms of it, requires you to work with nature and make concessions from time to time.

But the real reason may be that, in my experience, scratch a cowboy and you find a guy or gal working hard at something they enjoy. I have a lot of respect for that.

There are, of course, a few things preventing me from turning cowboy right now. Number 1 - I am suffering a lack of horse at the moment and refuse to be one of these pick-up truck bound cowpunchers; Number 2 - my hat is a bit too big and keeps blowing off; Number 3 - I specialize in roping fence posts and empty oil barrels, both of which are known to behave differently from cattle on the range.

I guess that for now I'll content myself by going to horse sales, listening to Corb Lund and dreaming of the day that I'll have a fine string of horses out back, some longhorns out on the prairies, and a whole day of cowboying ahead of me.

Regards from the brush plain.

cattle based observation.

Yesterday we brought the cattle home, and just in time too: by the time we got to the winter pasture to round them up there were three newborn calves running around the field.

I've always loved moving cattle - it's fun. An extended walk through the prairie with some critters walking ahead of you seems like more of a game than a job to me.

Of course, things don't always go well. There is a reason I learned to swear like a sailor whilst herding cows - unless the stars are aligned, something usually goes wrong.

Yesterday was one of those fortuitous days when weather and luck combined to bring the cows home quickly and easily, but sometimes the cattle decide to break through fences, jump into other herds, run through the bush, swim across creeks and all other manner of mischief.

Sometimes they decide they have lost their calf and will run madly back to the previous pasture.

Sometimes they are struck with a terrible thirst and decline to leave the slough in which they stand.

Sometimes they don't want to be found determine that the appropriate course of action is to hide behind a tree.

At the end of the day though, when the job is done and the cattle are where they ought to be, you have to admit it's pretty damn satisfying.

Over the next month or two we'll have to be out amongst the herd most of the time - I'll probably change straight into my farm duds after work and see how things are amongst the cows - and a lot of things can go wrong: calves might be born backwards or maybe their hips will catch on the cow's pelvis; the weather will turn and we'll have to find shelter for wet calves; conditions may go wrong and disease appear.

It's stressful, but in a good way, and man does it feel good when you get through it.

Dear reader, if you are one of those who happens to live far from the farm in a world in which beef and milk appear miraculously in the supermarket cooler, I suggest you come out and meet the cows. When you learn a greater appreciation of the smells and the sights of the farm you gain a greater appreciation of the food that you eat.

So don't pity me because sometimes I have to tramp through the mud and manure of spring to haul around wet calves, feed cattle at four in the morning or check on the calves at two. Because in the end, I pity those who don't get to.