Dear Reader,
It’s the end of May, and the summer heat is cranking up, but we haven’t seen anything yet. It has been really dry in the last few weeks which makes the heat not so bad. When the rain comes, which we are all praying for, so will the humidity. It is amusing to compare ranchers who are in northern climates just holding out for summer, to ranchers in Florida who almost dread it. We are grateful for the rain and the grass to feed the cattle, but it’s a long, hot and humid summer.
To promote an understanding between ranchers of different climates I present:
Reasons Florida Ranchers Are Not Fond of Summer.
1) The Humidity and Rain.
Since we know it is coming every year you would think we would stop complaining about the humidity and rain in Florida or at least move, but they can put a real, well, damper on things. The humidity intensifies the heat, and the rainwater everywhere makes being outside feel being inside a sauna. And yes, because of Florida’s wet environment, we do need more rain for our ecosystems to thrive, but during the summer it puddles up everywhere excessively in places we would rather it not. Some pastures are almost under water for parts of the year, or there are pastures that it is impossible to get across in a truck because of the water and the mud during the rainy season. The wetness and the rain can be hard on the animals as well because it tends to breed disease and bugs. The summer weather can also cause distress for curly haired rancher’s daughters.
2) The Mosquitos
No one likes mosquitos. I have a theory that Florida is a summer destination for mosquitos as well as humans. Mosquitos can spread diseases and cause general discomfort for both animals and humans alike. But they aren’t as bad as they used to be. There are stories of the old days where there were large bodies of standing water (which is a lot of places in Florida) that mosquitos would swarm so badly that it was like a locust swarm. Today it isn’t that bad; a lot of times waterways in more populated areas are sprayed to keep the mosquitos down. When I was a little girl after a hard freeze one year, I asked my dad how cold it would have to be to kill all of the mosquitos for good. When my dad said that if it got that cold, it would kill a lot of other things, I learned that I was just going to have to accept the mosquitos.
3) The Heat
Now, I know there’s a universal dislike of the summer heat, but when you have to work in it all day and it affects your animals, you learn to dread it even more. Of all the things we were taught to be careful with in the outdoors, heat was ranked pretty high. My dad probably warned us more about getting over heated or “sunsick” more than he warned us about snakes and gators. The heat can take the strongest men down, even a horse. But the most vulnerable for heat on the ranch are cattle and dogs. When the cows are out in the pasture just living their lives, they are not really at risk for overheating, it is when we handle them that they can be at risk for overheating if they are put under too much physical and psychological stress. When we gather our cows, a lot of the time we will use our dogs to help get the cows into a controllable bunch. While gathering cows the dogs have just as much of a risk of overheating as the cows do. Cowboys do their best to make sure their dogs do not get heat exhaustion. A lot of times they will carry alcohol in their saddle bags to pour on their dogs if they do get overheated, the alcohol evaporates quickly, taking the body heat with it.
So now you know why a Florida rancher, or any Floridian isn’t exactly ecstatic about summer.
Sincerely and heatedly yours,
The Rancher’s Daughter
