Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Worked cows, and calves today.

Always a good job to have done.

Nice!

Right time with the moon too.

Two calves were back in the yard this morning. Son Jake held down one calf in the pickup back to the cow. 31 calf was too big to hang onto, we had to drive the cow back to the calf, which by now was back in the front pasture. Sound like a rodeo, it was.

I asked an old rancher in Wyoming if he branded, castrated and weaned calves by the moon, as that is what dad did. He said the moon is right when the job is done...

Great stuff, thanks for sharing.

Been fooling with cows all day. We cut wheat and rolled it for hay off a field, and I worked this week on fencing it in so we could pasture it. Son and I moved them across the road this morning, and everything went but 4 calves. Of course, when I tried driving them, they went in the other direction. Mama cows on one side bawling for baby, and baby bawling back. Finally moved cows back across road, let them settle down, then moved them back and they all went this time.

Back in the 80's and 90's, I raised hogs. I have no idea how many pigs I cut, and never lost one. I was cutting some once, and a neighbor came by and couldn't believe I was, because he said the sign wasn't right. He told me I'd probably lose some........which didn't happen. After that, every tile I'd see him, I'd ask him if the signs were right to do this, or do that. My grandfather was a big believer in them, I couldn't tell you what they even mean.

Just simply learned that things perhaps grow, bleed, or whatever.... faster in a waxing moon and slow down, don't grow as fast, or bleed as much during a waning moon.

I have seen livestock losses due to bleedouts in a waxing moon. But, it kinda hard to prove if the moon had anything to do with it, or an idiot with the knife did.

I will say this... The moon affects lots about what goes on here on earth in some pretty powerful ways.

Like the ol' boy said, the moon's right when you get 'em in the pens....

I started farming in 1973, that's when I raised my first crop of tobacco. Since then, I've been farming in one way or another, Worked in a factory, and for USPS, but still was either farming, or took care of it when I had some ground in CRP. I've raised cattle and hogs, grew corn, wheat, soybeans, tobacco, and had a garden for 50 years. I have never once done anything in which I paid attention to the "sign." Maybe some of the bad crops were the result of me not planting by the sign, instead of not enough water or too much. I honestly don't know.

I know that the phases of the moon do affect certain things, or at least I'm told that they do. I know some folks who faithfully do everything by the "signs," and they wouldn't do it otherwise. I've hunted on days when there was no movement of game whatsoever, and the "experts" said that it was because the moon was in the wrong phase.

Most of my farming has been done with very little help, and when you're working by yourself, you have to do job when you can, not when you want to. That eliminates me from going by the signs more than anything.

My grandfather alway said he planted in the ground, not in the signs.

I always wondered about those who followed the signs.
When you are working around weather, maybe equipment issues, and whatever else comes along.
Do you really sit on the porch, and refuse to plant because of moon phases?

I asked one of my professors if he believed in working cattle by the "sign".

His reply? "Damn right-the $Dollar$ sign!"