By Greg Doering, Kansas Farm Bureau
The middle of May was usually the quietest time on the ranch when I was growing up. With the cattle just turned out to pasture and hay season still weeks away, the tasks didn’t seem to carry much urgency. There’s never a shortage of things to be done, but priorities change when cows aren’t calving or waiting for their breakfast to be delivered.
It was a season defined by upkeep rather than urgency. We’d spend time fixing fence, patching weak spots in the corral or painting. We’d make a dent in the backlog of maintenance items, but I’m convinced fencing wears out faster than it can be fixed and paint seems to start fading while it’s still in the can.
Occasional and odd chores also occupied our time during this quiet season, and a couple stand out most notably because they were worse than fixing fence. One year we brushed on several five-gallon buckets worth of sealer for the asphalt driveway. Another year we spent two days hoisting buckets of silt out of the spring that delivered water to the house.
Maintenance tasks during this clam period also extended to pastures. We’d haul rock to create crossings in ditches, clean debris around outflow pipes in ponds and hunt for things that didn’t belong like cedar trees and musk thistles, which are considered nuisances or invasive plants because cattle won’t eat them and they grow faster than the native grasses, disrupting the natural habitat.
Small cedars are difficult to spot this time of year as the blend in with the tender shoots of prairie grasses, but they’re not impossible. Whenever I took the four-wheeler out through a pasture, I always carried a pair of long-handled clippers. They made easy work of the small cedars.
The thistles were far easier to spot as the stems bolted several feet above the short spring growth. They also helpfully announced their presence with a bright purple bloom, which was easy on the eyes and full of risk. Each flower could produce hundreds of seeds capable of surviving a decade or longer in the soil.
Thinning thistles was considerably more work than chopping cedars. The first order of business was donning leather gloves to guard against the spiny leaves, then with hand shears I’d clip the blossoms off into an empty feed sack. Then out came the spade, which was used to slice through the taproot. The goal was to get at least two inches below ground level, but the rocky terrain where the weeds readily sprouted didn’t always allow for that.
One benefit of being out in the pasture alongside the cattle, aside from preserving the prairie, was stumbling on a patch of wild strawberries just as they were ripening. Finding a cluster of the plants bearing small red orbs made the work more worthwhile.
It’s been a long time since I’ve gone hunting for a wild strawberry patch, but I can still taste the sweetness of those berries and appreciate the slower pace that came when the cattle were out to pasture. The slower, quitter place allowed everything room to breath just a little easier.
“Insight” is a weekly column published by Kansas Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization whose mission is to strengthen agriculture and the lives of Kansans through advocacy, education and service.
