Thank you, kind sir. I don't work very hard at all but my wife and son do. :wink:
My objective all through the years has been to run the most cattle I could on the least amount of time and attention per head. I watched my father-in-law make more work out of running 30 cows than other operations that ran over a thousand. He was a fun guy and an old horse trader, but he sure knew how to make mountains out of molehills when it came to getting a simple job done. This line is stolen from one of Spike Van Cleve's books, but there are three ways to get a job done. There is the easy way, there is the hard way, and there was my father-in-law's way which made the hard way look plum easy. :wink:
If I buy anything, it is to make less work not more. I would rather hire day help as needed than to hire extra full time help. There are certain advantages in doing it this way. A big one now is not needing to provide insurance for labor hired by the day. In bad weather, the boss doesn't need to figure out busy work to get his moneys' worth out of the help.
We hire some of our hay put up each summer. The guys that do the job know their stuff and have good equipment. They come in the last week of June and are gone by mid July. They bale the hay for us when it is at its prime, with protein value at its highest. By haying early, any summer rains help make excellent after-grass to graze in the fall. Some of our windmill work is hired done, as well as some fencing. The people that do these jobs like what they do and do it well. If the weather doesn't cooperate, that is their problem not mine.
I have never hauled manure. :wink: Some of our windbreaks get a bit shorter each year, but so far this has not proved to be a problem. Even our saddle horses don't spend much time tied in the barn. We catch them, saddle up, use them, and then unsaddle and turn them in the corral or out in the horse pasture. If a horse isn't tied up in the barn, they are less apt to get in trouble, and the best part is the barn doesn't need cleaned very often.
My philosophy is to keep chores to a bare minimum. This is why we don't raise colts, show cattle, have a milk cow, or raise a garden. We just try to be time and effort efficient, and have a little fun as we strive to enjoy the ranching way of life.