Spring 2010

Spring (April-May) 2010

APRIL 25, 2010 – We had warm weather last week but now it’s cold and freezing. We sawed up the rest of our log-length firewood, and even though we’re still having a fire in the stove every day, it looks like we’ll have some wood left over, for a start toward next winter.
Michael and Carolyn branded more of their calves last week, and the 31 yearling heifers they bought. We’ve had stormy weather but they picked a day the cattle weren’t wet.
Lynn has been turning on some of our ditches to start irrigating. Even though it’s been rainy off and on, the wind keeps drying things out, and cold weather slowed the grass growth. We need some moisture and better growing weather.
Our grandson Nick (a junior in high school) did well at his track meet last weekend, placing first in the 400 and 800 meter races, and helping his team finish first in the relay race. We hope he does well at the district meet next month.
Michael and Carolyn borrowed our tractor and loader to haul big round bales from their stackyard on the lower place. They need to get all that hay moved down to the Maurer place before the creek rises and the ground gets too wet to cross the creek with their big truck. We loaned them our flatbed trailer so they can haul our tractor over to Sandy Creek and bring their hay from that place. They are still feeding hay, and had to buy a few more semi-loads to supplement their dwindling supply, because the grass hasn’t grown much yet this spring.

Yesterday they rounded up their yearling heifers to put a few of them through the chute to take out porcupine quills.

They’re also treating a calf for diphtheria; they’ve had several bad cases of diphtheria in baby calves this spring (caused by the same bacteria that cause foot rot), and have saved most of them. They lost one of the calves, however, and grafted the last “extra” twin onto its mother.
They now have just 3 cows left to calve. We are still waiting for our last cow to calve.

MAY 9 – Michael and Carolyn probably won’t lease the Gooch place and lower place this year. Even though they’ve leased it for the past 11 years (and we leased it for 29 years before that), the landlord (who lives in Maine) keeps raising the rent and they can no longer afford it. Ever since they started leasing it, they’ve been paying more than it’s worth (the landlord raised the rent when they started). A bigger problem is that the terms of their lease include a 3 percent increase each year (which is unheard of in agricultural leases) so by now it is priced half again what it is actually worth.
The landlord didn’t believe them when they said their banker thought it was priced too high, and had an independent consultant look at the figures (the number of acres of pasture and hay ground, and what the ranch has produced for the past 10 years in hay and how many cattle it pastures). When the consultant confirmed that the rent was indeed overpriced (and would not be attractive to other leasers because it has no corrals or facilities), the landlord still would not come down in price. So Michael and Carolyn decided to rent some other pasture and try to get by this year without the Gooch place and lower fields. Now the landlord is trying to find a renter, but so far no one else has wanted to rent it. Time will tell whether the landlord finds a renter or whether the place will sit idle this year.
We’ll let Michael and Carolyn use our upper place, the 160 and 320-acre mountain pastures, and our range permit this year, since they will be short on pasture.
Last Sunday we stopped at Andrea’s place on our way home from church, to see the goose that “adopted” one of their dogs. It’s a wild Canadian goose that was hanging around their place for several weeks. It showed up with two other geese in the field next to the house. When the other two left, the lone goose came into their yard and with the dogs and started eating their dog food. Two of the dogs were afraid of the goose but the younger dog and goose became inseparable, and it was the strangest friendship I’ve ever seen. The goose preened the dog, picking bugs out of its fur. The goose became tame enough to eat food out of Emily’s hands. The kids were fascinated by their new “pet” until it finally left a few days ago.

The last 3 cows at Michael and Carolyn’s place calved. Even though the weather has been cold they put those 3 out with a small group of cows and calves and were not watching them at night. We had some blizzards and cold wind, but those cows were accustomed to calving in a barn and went into a loafing shed to calve, so their calves weren’t too chilled.
Our last cow, Rishira, has been ready to calve for more than a week. I was checking her several times during the nights—so we could put her in the barn if she started calving. Wednesday night we had a terrible blizzard and 4 inches of new snow the next morning. It felt like winter instead of early May. It reminded me of when my first foal, Khamette, was born 51 years ago on May 5th, in 6 inches of new snow!
Michael and Carolyn drove to Helena in the snow on Thursday to bring Heather home from her first year of college. She was eager for summer vacation, though it hardly seems like summer yet. On Friday we had a visit with Heather while she and Michael were here with their big truck to load up 8 of our round bales. We won’t need all our hay, with our smaller herd.
Friday night Andrea brought Charlie out here after the kids’ dance and gymnastics program. Rishira was in early labor so we put her in our calving pen under the yardlight where we could watch her from the window. I checked on her all night but she didn’t do anything. Lynn and Charlie got up at 3 a.m to drive 200 miles to Blackfoot for Charlie’s Boy Scout Jamberal (100th year celebration for the boy scouts, with more than 7500 boy scouts). I continued watching Rishira, who put off actual labor until daylight. Even though it got down to 20 degrees that night, the wind quit and the temperature got warmer at sunup, so I didn’t have to put Rishira in the barn. She had a red bull calf.
Lynn and Charlie got home at 5 pm after their day with the Boy Scouts, and we hurried to town for the 2nd night of the kids’ dance and gymnastics program. Today we are recuperating from our long day. When we tried to feed the cows this morning, however, we had a set-back. We pulled out in the field with the feed truck and turned off the motor while we took the strings off the big round bale—and then the truck wouldn’t start. We unwrapped some of the hay and scattered it around by hand, then had to pull the truck back out of the field with the jeep.
MAY 19 – We fed hay with the jeep (backing it up to the feed truck and forking hay onto the jeep) until Lynn could put a new starter on the feed truck. The truck is a 1973 model that we bought in 1978.
On Sunday (after they turned some cattle out on our low range) Michael and Carolyn took a few cows over to our Cheney Creek pasture. It should hold them until the other pastures grow taller. They moved the cows before the creek gets too high to safely cross with young calves.
Nick did well at the district track meet, and goes to the state competition this weekend. The kids have only 1 more week of school. Danielle had tooth surgery last Friday and has a sore mouth, so she skipped a few days of school.
She, Sammy and Charlie have been staying with us a few days while Andrea went to Salt Lake for an appointment with a lung specialist. Dani especially liked playing with the cats and taming some of the new kittens.

The doctor here was concerned about Andrea’s breathing problems and sent her to the specialist in Salt Lake. The lung specialist said she has a lot of scarring in her lungs and airways—damage from the fire, and also from the several times she’s had serious pneumonia, in the burn ICU and in following years. She was in the hospital for a week with a collapsed right lung, a year after the fire, for instance.
She did very poorly on the breathing test because her air passages are so narrow. The specialist put her on several new medications to see if those might help, and wants to see her again in about a month. Andrea says she thinks the medicine is helping a little. Recovery is never complete, for a burn survivor.
While the kids were staying here with us, they enjoyed helping grandma and grandpa and seeing the cows and baby calves, and feeding the horses. Dani made friends with Maggie, one of our gentle old cows, and fed her some grass through the gate.


MAY 31 – What a crazy spring we’ve had! It doesn’t seem like summer yet. We are still feeding hay. Lynn put a new starter on the feed truck and got it working again. The grass is slow growing in the cool weather, but is finally coming nice and thick--from all the rain. Michael and Carolyn turned cows out on the range a few days later than usual but the range grass should be good this year. They borrowed our 4 bulls—3 to turn out on the range and one to use as a heifer bull—since their own bulls are worn out from the first 6 weeks of breeding and they need some spare bulls to finish up the breeding season. We won’t need a bull until later this month.
We’ve had more than a week of heavy rain. On Saturday (May 22) it started to snow and snowed all night—making roads treacherous as the kids drove home from Nick’s track meet in Boise; they didn’t get home till midnight.
At 2 a.m I was wakened by a loud crash. A huge branch broke out of our elm tree and hit the house roof. Power lines broke at 4:30 a.m. By morning we had more than 10 inches of new snow, and no electricity for about 12 hours. A tree was down across the road below our ranch, so we didn’t go to church. We spent the morning taking broken branches off fences above our house, after feeding the cows. Lynn had to brush the snow off our truck windshield with a broom before we could feed them.









One of the trees by the gate was broken down by the snow, and when I went up to open the gate a magpie was sitting on one of the few perches that wasn’t completely covered.

On Wednesday Michael hauled 15 more pairs to our upper place to pasture for summer, but it’s not summer yet. It’s muddier now than in early spring; we’re having trouble driving into the field above our house to feed our cows. Today will be our last day of feeding; tomorrow we’ll move the cows and calves to pasture above the corrals.
The horses are standing in ankle-deep mud in their pens. Young Heather’s mare Classy had her foal a couple nights ago, and Michael carried it into the barn to get out of the wet weather. It will probably have to stay in the barn at nights until the weather gets better.

Early Spring (February-March) 2010

Continuing updates on our family and life on the ranch

FEBRUARY 18, 2010 – A week ago Michael and Carolyn had another set of twins and had a tough time getting them born alive. The cow was taking too long in early labor so they suspected a problem, and checked her. The first twin was breech—nothing entering the birth canal but the calf’s tail—and difficult to reach the legs. By the time they got that calf out it was nearly dead because the placenta had started to detach. It took several minutes to revive him. The second twin was simply backward and easier to pull. They took the “slow” calf to the house to warm and dry it and give it colostrum. They now have several spare calves in case they need to graft one on a cow that loses a calf. The next morning they had another difficult delivery—a calf with both front legs turned back, but Michael was able to get the calf safely born.
Granddaughter Heather was home from college for a 3-day weekend, and enjoyed helping her folks with calving. They really appreciated her help; they had 30 calves during a 30-hour period, bringing their calf number to nearly 200.
On Sunday Michael loaded 8 more big bales of 2nd cutting alfalfa on the flatbed truck for us. This winter Lynn and I have been feeding some big round bales—grass hay to the cows and alfalfa bales to the heifers, using two different pickups. By setting the bales on their ends, there’s room on the flatbed for Lynn to go round and round, unrolling the hay and pitching it off. The last part of the bale we push off the pickup and unroll it down a hill. Most of the bale cores unroll very nicely that way.

On Monday Michael and Carolyn had another difficult calving. They now have more than 240 calves, with only a couple losses. Yesterday they had another set of twins to deliver, and when Michael reached in to check the cow, he said, “Oh, good! It’s only breech!” After some of the horrendous challenges they’ve had, a breech calf was easy!
I finally went to the doctor to check my knee. It’s still painful, after falling down while running through the rocks to head off the cows when we brought them home from the 320-acre pasture on November 14. An x-ray showed the bones are ok, so the doctor wants to do an MRI to check for soft-tissue injury.
MARCH 2 – Last Friday I went to town for the MRI on my knee. The doctor said there’s torn cartilage and it won’t get better. But it also won’t get worse. If pain gets unbearable he can do surgery to clean up the torn cartilage, which might help reduce inflammation, but I don’t want surgery because that would mean not being able to bend the knee at all for several weeks as it recovers. We’ll soon be calving and I don’t want to be laid up. I can live with it the way it is—being careful to not bend it tightly because that’s when it’s really painful.
My brother came to visit from Boise, and while he was here we drove up the creek to visit Emily Binning—our good friend and neighbor who is dying of cancer. We had a nice visit with her, but didn’t stay very long, so as not to tire her. She is enjoying visits with friends. She has outlived the doctor’s predictions by twice as long as expected, but she’s becoming very frail.
Sunday we brought our cows down from the field and sorted off 24 to sell to Michael and Carolyn—12 young cows and 12 pregnant heifers. Their banker wants them to build up their herd again. Even though we bred our cows to calve in April, these will fit with their late group and will breed back earlier for them next year.
Today we forgot to latch the gate when we drove out of the field below the house after feeding the heifers, and mid-morning the heifers came trooping up through the barnyard, across the driveway, through the calving pen and up to my horse haystack. They made a mess of broken bales, but at least they didn’t go out to the range!
MARCH 18 – The “heifer escape” was a good practice lesson for them on coming out of their field. The next Sunday we brought them into the barnyard instead of feeding them—and they came eagerly when we opened the gate. We took them to the corral and sorted off the oldest and biggest ones we’re selling to Michael and Carolyn. We deloused the others and took them back to the field below the lane to feed them. Michael and Carolyn came with their trailer to haul the 8 heifers to the Maurer place.
Last week Lynn put a new battery in his 4-wheeler so he could get it started. It’s been parked all winter in our second-day barn and we need to get it out of there when we start calving. Also, our weather is turning warmer; he’ll need to use the 4-wheeler to start irrigating. Snow is rapidly leaving the fields and grass is starting to grow.
Our good friend June had a stroke a couple weeks ago and was in the hospital in Hamilton, Montana. She was doing a little better a few days later, and Andrea drove over to see her. Then she had another stroke, and could not recover. She was brought back to Salmon to spend her last days in a hospice room at the local care center, and died peacefully this past Monday. She will be greatly missed.
When Lynn was loading some small bales onto our pickup, one tumbled off the stack and hit his head and shoulder, hurting his shoulder. He put DMSO on it to ease the inflammation and pain but was unable to raise his arm for several days. Granddaughter Heather was home from college for spring break, and she came the next morning to help us feed our cows. Thankfully Lynn’s shoulder is doing better now and he’s able to use it again, carefully. While granddaughter was home from college she helped her folks with their cattle and they branded calves Thursday and Friday while the weather was good. Then it snowed hard again on Saturday.
Yesterday we sorted off 2 of our 5 yearling bulls to sell to Michael and Carolyn and they came to get them.

MARCH 27 – Last week Andrea’s kids spent a day with us. Sammy and Dani had fun making crowns and headbands and all sorts of other creative projects. Dani made a long tail for herself and put stickers on her face for cat whiskers.

















Emily learned how to make biscuits, and helped me do chores. We brought our cows down from the field and sorted off some that are about to calve. Emily enjoyed seeing her pet cow, Buffalo Girl, who is close to calving. That cow always likes to see Emily, and walks up to have her head scratched. Ever since Emily was 5 years old and Buffalo Girl was an orphan calf, they’ve had a special relationship. The cow tolerates Lynn and me, but is more bonded with Emily and is very trusting--and not pushy, like some pet cows. There’s just a quiet communication between Em and her cow.




The day after we sorted our herd to put some in the maternity pen, Lilly suddenly developed a larger udder. I noticed this new development the next morning when we went up to the field to feed the rest of the cows, and eased her over to the gate. We brought her down through the field, to put in the maternity pen, too. On Monday we took a big straw bale into the barn on the jeep and spread it into 5 stalls so we’re ready in case weather is bad. On Tuesday afternoon Lilly calved—a red bull calf—but the day was warm and we let her calve in an outdoor pen.
The next day the weather changed—cold, windy and snowing—so we moved Lilly and calf to our “second day barn”. It’s basically a 3-sided shed that gives protection from wind and rain or snow. Lynn had just taken all the “stored” things out of that barn, and the four-wheeler (parked in there all winter).
More cows up in the field are looking like they’ll calve soon, so this morning we brought them all down and put several in the maternity pen and the rest in the pasture next to it—much more handy to get them in when their time comes to calve.








Outie (a 4 year old) started labor yesterday evening and we put her in the barn, with Buffalo Girl in the next aisle to keep her company. Outie calved outdoors for her first calf, and last year (with her second calf) the weather was bad and we put her in the barn. She was horribly nervous, trying to climb the walls. She was more at ease this time, with Buffalo Girl for company. She calved quickly, and the calf was up and nursing within 30 minutes. Buffalo Girl calved today, a nice bull calf, and Emily named him Buffalo Bill.
APRIL 4 – Michael and Carolyn are trying to build their herd back up, after selling everything they could reasonably cull two years ago, when hay prices were so high and they chose to not buy any. This year, hay is priced about 1/3 what it cost in 2008. Their banker insists they get more cows, so we’re selling them more of ours, and the rest of our yearling heifers. Now we’ll have even fewer cows to calve out; Lynn and I are ready to slow down and we don’t mind letting Michael and Carolyn have more of our herd.
On Thursday Andrea and kids left early in the morning to drive to Salt Lake for her checkup at the burn center. The roads were good most of the way, but there was 5 inches of fresh snow in Salt Lake. As soon as her checkup was over, they got out of Salt Lake’s nasty roads and traffic and drove partway home, to stay the night at Pocatello at a motel. The doctors in Salt Lake were not happy with the graft surgery; the skin is healing well, but shrinking up again and negating the progress that was gained in “releasing” the contracture that is pulling on her arm, shoulder and spine.
On Friday Cub Cake (daughter of Cubby, granddaughter of Cinnabear) started calving at 2 a.m. so we put her in the calving pen by the house where we could watch her under the yardlight. It was a very cold, windy night and we were glad she waited till morning to calve. She calved just as the sun was coming up, and licked the calf dry very quickly, so it didn’t need to be in the barn. She had a red heifer named Sugar Bear. Andrea and kids stopped by that afternoon on their way home from to Salt Lake, and Emily got to see Buffalo Girl and her calf.
Emily Binning (our good friend and neighbor) died and was buried on a hillside on their property. A few days later they held a memorial service at one of the local churches. Emily had tape-recorded her own life sketch and it was a joy to hear her voice, telling about her life, her eagerness to go “home” to be with Jesus, and some of the exciting adventures she and her husband experienced during their years as missionaries in many countries.
We were glad to have known her, and to have been friends/neighbors for more than 40 years. At this point in our lives we get continual reminders that life is precious and fragile and that we should be grateful for every day, and its blessings—and to show our friends and family how much we love them. When we are young we take so many things for granted and don’t realize how precious and wonderful these relationships are.
Easter Sunday was a busy day. My nephew Matt Smith came last night to stay with Andrea and then visit his grandmother (my mom) this morning at the nursing home. I stopped in to see mom, too, then Lynn and I went to church with Andrea and kids, then stopped by her house to visit with Matt awhile. This evening we had a late supper for Michael and Carolyn and kids after all their chores, feeding and calving tasks. Granddaughter Heather is home from college for 3 days (going back tomorrow) and her birthday is next week. We had an early birthday celebration for their whole family, since all their birthdays are in April.
APRIL 15 – The day Michael and Carolyn took Heather back to college in Montana it started to snow. They hit a terrible blizzard on their way home, just before midnight, with 8 inches of new snow. The road was obliterated and they couldn’t see from one roadside reflector to the next so they crept along at slow speed trying to stay on the road. It took them more than 2 hours to travel 30 miles. We got only 3 inches of snow here, but it was a nasty blizzard. Nick was doing their chores and checking cows after school that evening and found a cow that had just calved. He managed to get the pair in from the field and into the barn just as it started snowing and blowing.
A week ago our old gentle cow Maggie calved, a nice big red heifer. Weather was nice for a while, then we had another storm. Lynn and I went to town to watch Charlie’s school program, and the rain hit just as we were leaving to come home. We hurried home, with strong winds threatening to blow the car off the road. We put Maggie and her new calf in the barn before they got drenched with rain. Calving this time of year, we usually figure it won’t be bad weather, but we are glad we have a barn!

Winter 2009-2010

Winter 2009-2010
Continuing the update on our family and life on the ranch:

DECEMBER 20, 2009 – Last Monday when Lynn went to town to get our mail and groceries, the car wouldn’t start when he came out of the store. He had it towed to the repair shop, and hitched a ride home with Jim--who was staying with Andrea’s kids while she was in Salt Lake for surgery on her arm. Andrea had surgery on Tuesday as planned, but due to a scheduling mix-up at the hospital, the surgeon had to work her in between some other surgeries and didn’t have enough time for the whole repair. He only did 2 of the 4 contracture releases—one on her little finger and one on her upper arm—saving the most serious one (over her shoulder) until later. He checked her arm and rebandaged it the next day and released her to come home.
Lynn and I went to Sammy’s 1st grade Christmas program at school, since Andrea wasn’t home yet from Salt Lake. The kids in Sammy’s class put on a skit and dressed as mice, using mouse faces they made from paper plates.

It’s been cold. Ice build-up in the field where our cows are grazing made it impossible for them to drink at the spring, so we let them into an adjacent pasture where they can go to the creek. Lynn was able to chop an adequate hole in the creek ice.
We plugged in the backhoe so it would start, and Michael used it to fill in the low spot in our corral that floods every spring. Then he took the backhoe to the Maurer place (where he and Carolyn will be calving their cows) to work on a spring and take out an old, leaking water trough that needs to be replaced.
Jim came out to the ranch on Thursday and got a Christmas tree for Andrea’s kids, and Lynn went to town to get our car, which had been repaired. Andrea and her friend drove home from Salt Lake. She has her entire arm bandaged and cannot use it until the stitches are taken out.
The cows have been able to keep grazing, without any hay, but they’ve nearly eaten all the grass. Michael and Carolyn loaned us their old flatbed pickup to feed big round grass bales to the cows, since we use our feed truck to feed big alfalfa bales to our heifers.


DECEMBER 30 – I spent several days before Christmas sorting through piles of papers and magazines in my office, and cleaned out the space in front of the window and the old front door—which no longer opens because the log walls settled. Cold air comes in around the door and window, so I stuffed rags in the cracks and put duct tape over them. During the summer of 2000 I stuffed rags around the door and sealed it with masking tape to keep out the smoke from the forest fires, but the masking tape disintegrated over the past 9 years. Duct tape will work better.
The day before Christmas it got really cold again and we started feeding the cows.


Michael and young Heather stopped by with Christmas gifts and we sent ours home with them. Heather is enjoying her 3-week break between semesters at college, helping her folks with their cattle.
Christmas day we cooked a big dinner and had Andrea and kids here. She likes to cook, but with her arm bandaged it was impossible for her to do much cooking.
After Christmas her kids stay with us when she went back to Salt Lake to have the stitches removed from her arm and finger.
We chopped a new water hole for the cows in the creek below the corrals; they have to come into that little pasture to drink. The brush along the creek had a lot of burdock growing there this year, and we didn’t get it cut down. Several of the cows are now covered with burrs.


The weather has been bad—with snowy roads. Andrea and her friend decided not to try to drive home yesterday evening after her checkup and removal of stitches; there were too many car accidents clogging the streets and freeway. They drove home today, and it took 13 hours (rather than the usual 6 hour drive).

JANUARY 8 – Friends from British Columbia, Pete and Bev Wiebe, stayed with us for 3 days on their way south to New Mexico and California. They spend some time every year working with the Mennonite Disaster Service, rebuilding homes destroyed by fires or hurricanes. Pete is an electrician and does electrical work on these building projects. He and Bev both help with construction. We always enjoy seeing them when they stop here. We became acquainted with Wiebes after Andrea’s burn accident in 2000. Pete is a burn survivor, and he and Bev learned about Andrea’s burns by reading my monthly “Rancher’s Diary” column in Grainews, a Canadian farm newspaper.

On Tuesday we had 3 inches of new snow, and Wednesday 2 more inches. Then the temperature plummeted to 10 below zero. The ice buildup in our lower field and lane is increasing; the cows will soon have difficulty crossing it to go to the creek for water, so we moved them up through the barnyard and to “heifer hill” pasture above our house. We’ll feed them there until we bring them down for calving.
Our good friend and neighbor Emily Binning learned last week that she has a large mass in her abdomen; she went to a specialist in Boise a few days ago, and found she has terminal cancer. She decided to not have surgery or chemo. She wanted to just come home and enjoy whatever time she has left—with friends and family. Our 12-year-old granddaughter Emily was devastated by the news, not wanting to lose “big Emily” who has been a dear friend. So this afternoon Lynn brought young Em out to the ranch, and she and I went up the creek to visit “big Emily” who gently told the child her life story and how much she loves Jesus and that she is ready to go to heaven to be with Him. I am grateful to Emily for sharing her love and faith with us, and for trying to help a child cope with the emotional trauma of losing a beloved friend.

JANUARY 20 – Michael and Carolyn vaccinated their cows (pre-calving shots), doing part of the herd the day before young Heather went back to college after Christmas break, and sorted out the ones that would soon start calving.
A week ago Andrea went back to the burn center in Salt Lake (with a friend) for more surgery on her arm. Em and Dani went with them, and we are keeping Charlie and Samantha here with us. This time the doctor did another release on her hand, and the major repair at her shoulder—which meant a new skin graft over the top of the shoulder and in the armpit. He took a large patch of “good” skin from the top/front of her left thigh, the only area on her body large enough to supply healthy skin--that had not already been grafted or harvested for a graft when she was in the burn ICU 9 years ago.
These past days have been very miserable for Andrea, because the harvest site is very painful until it heals. The doctor checked the graft and changed her bandages yesterday, and didn’t like the looks of the graft. It is still very pale and hasn’t started to turn pink yet. If it doesn’t “take”, she’ll need a new graft—which would mean trying to harvest more skin from somewhere else on her body, and they’re running out of places.
While the kids were staying with us, we celebrated Sammy’s 7th birthday.
The weather warmed up this week, which was nice, because Michael and Carolyn started calving. Their first two babies arrived Saturday, with another one Sunday morning and the fourth one yesterday. The next few weeks will be really busy for them, so we hope the weather stays mild. Our cows won’t start calving until March, so we have a little more time to sleep at nights!
Charlie and Sammy have been enjoying their stay at the ranch, playing with the cats, and helping me do chores—feeding the horses.

JANUARY 28 – It’s been a hectic week. We met with Michael and Carolyn and their banker—who wants them to have more cows (to generate enough money to meet their obligations), so they will be buying a few more cows and heifers from us. After that meeting, Michael and Carolyn hurried home to check on 5 cows that were in labor when they left.
Andrea called us from Salt Lake when we got home, to report that the doctor still didn’t like the looks of her graft and wants to see her again in 2 days. We hope her body isn’t rejecting the graft. She may be staying in Salt Lake awhile longer. We’ve been keeping Charlie and Sam but Emily and little Dani have been in Salt Lake with Andrea and Rick. They already missed a week of school and can’t afford to miss more. Lynn decided to drive to Salt Lake on Friday, to bring them home, but the weather looked really bad.
Andrea and Rick left Salt Lake at 1 pm (the same time Lynn left our place). Lynn met them halfway and got the 2 girls, then drove home and got here late that night. The roads were bad, but not as bad as they were the next two days. We had several inches of new snow. Andrea’s checkup on Saturday was still inconclusive regarding the graft, and the doctor wanted her to stay in Salt Lake.
By Sunday Michael and Carolyn had 36 calves. Even though weather hasn’t been too cold, they had to thaw one calf whose mother calved next to a fence and pushed the calf underneath where she couldn’t lick it. They warmed up the calf and fed it colostrum, then put it back with its mother.
Andrea’s checkup on Monday was still not good, but her body isn’t rejecting the dead-looking graft yet, so the doctors want to give it more time.
Meanwhile, we’re managing with all 4 kids, taking the oldest ones 2 miles to the bus each morning, and little Dani to a neighbor’s place at 8 am to catch a ride to Head Start. Lynn goes to town each day to check on their house and feed the pets. In the afternoons the kids ride the bus or go to boy scouts, dance and gymnastic class—and on those days Lynn makes a later trip to town to pick them up afterward. Little Dani is always tired after school and generally takes a nap.
Today Andrea’s graft finally started getting pink in spots and the doctor let her come home. She and Rick left Salt Lake right after her appointment, and got home this evening. After 15 days in Salt Lake, she is REALLY glad to be home.

FEBRUARY 4 – It took a few days for Lynn and me to catch up on things. We really enjoyed having the grandkids here, but it wore us out more than we care to admit! I’m still catching up on some of my article writing that got neglected while I was helping kids with homework, playing games with them, etc.
On Friday I attended a neighborhood get-together for our friend Emily Binning (who is dying of cancer). It was a nice time of sharing.
The next day I wrote a letter to Emily, trying to express how much her friendship has meant to me. This is what I told her:
Dearest Emily,
Lynn and I have been thinking about you every day for the past several weeks, keeping you in our prayers and in our hearts. Knowing that you are coming to an awesome milestone in your journey gives us pause, as we reflect on the immense significance of this next step, and also on the wonderful friendship we’ve had with you for the past 43 years, and how blessed we have been to know you. We appreciate, admire and delight in your trust and faith in the Lord. Your strength of spirit is a huge inspiration to us, and to all who know you. We thank God for this blessing and for the privilege of having you as our friend.
There are so many ways that people leave this world and enter the presence of the Lord. It’s always hard for the loved ones and friends they leave behind, but there are blessings in having a chance to say good-by. I used to think that when my time came, I wanted to leave this life quickly, with as little pain as possible. Over the past 10 years or so, however, I’ve come to realize that maybe that’s a selfish way to look at death, and that even though some ways are harder, there is more time to say good-by, to tell people we love them, to have some “final moments” together before departure.
I am grateful you took the time to visit with young Emmy and me several weeks ago. It was a beautiful sharing that touched me greatly and I hope it helped comfort young Em as she deals with what she considers the harsh finality of death (taking a person out of her life) and the loss of people she loves.
I also enjoyed seeing you at the get-together at Solaases. That was also a nice time of sharing. You are greatly loved and will be sorely missed, but the empty spot you leave behind will be softened and entwined with wonderful memories and by your gentle but firm assurances of Faith and Love. You have made our world a better place, by your kindness, love and wondrous example of a simple, trusting walk with Jesus. Many of us are more open to His presence and guidance because of your beautiful example.
This note is intended to be a love letter, a statement of appreciation and recognition of all that you have meant to me (and to Lynn) and a simple “thank you” for all the fun times we’ve had together over nearly half a century.
We have wonderful memories of getting to know you when Gordon brought you here after you were married, and the memories of doing many things together when we were young and struggling to get started here on Withington Creek--you two building your house and creating your little place and starting your ministry together, and Lynn and me getting started in ranching. All the times we helped each other—I can’t even remember all the times. Helping you build your house, taking messages up the creek until you eventually had a telephone, Gordon helping Lynn with ranch projects (fencing, plowing, haying) in those early years, you taking care of our little kids when Lynn and I had to ride or work cattle.

We did a lot of fun things together (I have fond memories of the rides you and I made together, on Sedge and Khamette—like the time we rode across the valley to visit Della Soule), and we shared many meals and visits. We remember the times when you and Gordon were building your first little house, that first cold winter, and the two of you would often come down here for a meal or a get-together for popcorn, enjoying the warmth of our heater in the front room.
I remember and putting lots of apples through the old cider press, getting firewood, Lynn and Gordon working on the ditch, etc. We had a lot of fun, a lot of good times. My kids loved you like a second mother, and still do. Thank you, Emily, for “being there” for me, for my family, as a friend and neighbor.
With much love, Heather
* * * *
Lynn picked up some things from Michael and Carolyn to mail that afternoon; they are really busy with calving and don’t have time to go to town. Thursday night they had 7 new calves (more than 70 total). Two young cows calved at the same time and were fighting over their calves, rolling them around in the straw. After Michael got the two pairs separated they mothered the calves fine.
Michael and Carolyn had 2 sets of twins Sunday, born within a couple hours of one another. This makes the 4th set of twins for one of those cows. They took the extra calves (named Thumper and Flower) and made a place for them in the garage until they have cows to graft them onto. They now have 93 calves.

FEBRUARY 12 – Last Friday we brought our cows down from heifer hill and Nick helped us put them through the chute and give them their pre-calving vaccinations and delouse them. Even though we deloused them last fall, they were getting itchy again so it was time for another treatment.
Tuesday night Michael and Carolyn had a tough calving situation. The cow had a uterine torsion and the calf was upside down. Michael got it turned but there was still a partial twist in the neck of the uterus. There was no veterinarian available so Michael and Carolyn pulled the calf, which was difficult because of the constriction caused by the twist. The head wouldn’t come through. It kept deviating off to the side. Finally Carolyn worked the puller while Michael kept his arm in the cow to bring the head through. It was one of the toughest calving situations he’s ever dealt with, but once they got the head through the cervix, the cow started straining, and they were able to get the calf out. Mama and baby are doing fine now. Present calf count is 170 babies.
Andrea went to Salt Lake again to have her graft repair checked, and to be fitted for a pressure glove and a pressure garment to help keep the upper arm graft smoother as it heals and matures—to try to prevent the thickening and contracture that made it necessary for corrective surgery. We kept her 4 kids here for a couple of days, until she got home last night. On a bright note, her graft is FINALLY looking healthy, and beginning to heal.

EARLY WINTER 2009

(November-December 2009)

OCTOBER 24, 2009 – We took care of Andrea’s girls when she went to Salt Lake last week for some tests for Charlie and for assessment of severe graft contractures on her arms. The shortened scar tissue has pulled the little finger of her right hand off to the side, and a thick scar on her upper arm has pulled her shoulder and spine out of line. She’s finally reached a point of pain and disability that she can’t put off corrective surgery any longer. It’s scheduled for December 15. She’ll have to stay in the burn ICU several days after the surgery, since it will involve more grafting to cover the areas after surgical removal of the contractures. We’ll take care of her 4 kids during that time, and help her awhile, since she won’t have use of that arm and it will need frequent wound care. Eventually she’ll have the other arm repaired, also, but not until the first one heals.
Our calves were supposed to be shipped last week but the buyer postponed; the calves won’t go on the trucks until October 28. We weren’t happy about the delay because the weather is getting worse. Michael and Carolyn had their cattle all gathered onto the Maurer place, with enough good pasture to last until the calves were sold, but with this delay they’re scrambling to figure out enough feed for their herd. They’re patching fences and paneling off the back road and haystacks so they can utilize all the available pasture on that place. Lynn used our big tractor to load jackfence panels (from our field below the house) onto our flatbed trailer, to haul over to Maurers to help make an instant portable fence.
After entering the internet world of blogging with my every-other-week installments on Storey’s website: http://insidestorey.blogspot.com ) my other book publisher, Oak Tree Press, set up this site to tell about my book Beyond the Flames and how I came to write it. I periodically update it with new installments, too—trying to tell what has happened between when my book was published (in 2004) and the present time.
On Monday we moved heifers to the field below our lane; they ran out of grass in the pasture above the house. I have them trained to come when I call (I gave them hay hand-outs from my wheelbarrow when we weaned them) and it was easy to move them—we just opened the gate and called them in from the pasture.
Our cows on the 320-acre mountain pasture are still doing well but grass is very dry and mature. We bought tubs of protein supplement and Lynn took those up in the jeep. This will help keep the cows eating that rough feed so they can stay there longer—if it doesn’t snow under too soon.

NOVEMBER 3 – We had a storm the day after Lynn took the lick tubs to the 320—rain that turned to snow. We were glad he got up there with when he did; there’s no way he could have driven up there again for several days. The storm hit just before we shipped our steer calves. It was still windy and nasty the day we rounded them up. Lynn wasn’t feeling well that day (a stomach “bug” and diarrhea—probably the same thing Andrea’s kids had; they all missed school for part of a week) so we it took us awhile. We lured the cows in with the feed truck, sorted off 3 pair (2 red steers and a small one that won’t go on the load) and put them in the post pile pasture. One of the biggest steers was dull, with ears down, so we put him in the chute and took his temperature. It was 104 degrees F. We gave him injections of antibiotic and Banamine and left him and his mama in a different corral—and called Michael to tell him there’d be one less steer than planned, for the load of calves. We fed them hay in the hold pen that evening, and put Shiny (the orphan steer) in the pen by our house.
Early the next morning we got the cattle in before daylight, sorted off the steers in the dark, and were ready to load them when Michael came with his trailer. I used a bottle of milk-replacer to lure Shiny around to the corral. He was weaned a month ago, but he still followed my bottle in the dark, and nearly knocked me down in his eagerness to suck it. When we loaded them in the trailer Shiny was the first to jump in, leading the others.
Our steers helped fill one of Michael’s loads and weighed well (ours averaged 588 pounds) considering they’re only 6 months old and one was raised on a bottle. The stormy weather nearly halted their departure to a feedlot in Oklahoma, however. The 3 truckers debated whether to go or not, with roads closed in Wyoming due to heavy snow. They finally took an alternative route, but ran into bad roads and had to off-load the calves for a couple of days in a big hayfield until roads were open again.
We kept the steers’ mothers in the pasture above the corrals a few days until they quit bawling. The big steer that was sick (Ursala’s calf) was feeling better by the next day but we still gave him another round of antibiotics on Friday, and moved him and his mom to my horse pasture.
We sent the 3 other steers on a trailer load of calves to the auction at Blackfoot. We’ll send Ursala’s steer later.
Yesterday Andrea rode with me—we took the cows (now over the weaning of their calves) to the upper place.

Yesterday evening I became very ill—with vomiting and diarrhea--probably the same “bug” Lynn had earlier. I didn’t get much sleep last night but I’m feeling better today, but not eating anything except broth.
NOVEMBER 12 – I was weak and wobbly for several days, unable to eat much. It took a week to get back to normal. Lynn brought some big round bales (first cutting alfalfa) from Maurer’s place to feed our bull calves, and Michael hauled 8 big bales on his big truck. We may have to start feeding the heifer calves. They still have grass, but it’s snowing this morning and may cover the grass. If it snows much we’ll have to bring the cows down from the 320.
Michael and Carolyn brought their cows from the Maurer place last week, putting some on the lower fields and some on the Gooch place. We’ll be pasturing the upper place with our cows till they eat it all or it snows under. Last Saturday Lynn took the tractor up there, unstacked the big straw bales in the old stack yard and gathered the strings. These are some old bales Michael and Carolyn never used, and the strings are too rotten to move the bales without breaking. We’ll eventually let our cows into that big stackyard to clean up the grass and old straw.
I took shoes off Rubbie this week and trimmed her feet, and later take off Breezy’s shoes.
We weaned Ursala’s steer 5 days ago, leaving him on one side of the orchard fence (in my horse pasture) and the cow on the other. I feed them next to each other through the fence and they are both happy--no bawling at all.

This morning we put them together briefly to move them around to the corral so we could load him onto a trailer that’s taking calves to the auction in Blackfoot, and he didn’t even try to nurse his mother. He’s happily weaned, and ready to go. Michael will pick up the cow later today with his trailer and haul her to the upper place to join our other cows.
NOVEMBER 21 – It was snowing hard last week when Duwayne Hamilton (who hauls cattle to the auctions in southern Idaho) came to pick up our weaned steer—the one that was sick the day we sold our calves last month. Lynn plowed our driveway, to make sure the truck and trailer could make it back out again. Later that morning Michael came with his trailer to haul the cow (the mother of the weaned steer) to our upper place. We put her with the cows on the wild meadow—the mothers of the calves we sold earlier.
The next day, Lynn drove the 4-wheeler to the 320 to check on the other cows (the pregnant heifers, and the mothers of our heifers and bull calves we weaned in September). The snow was so deep he barely made it to the top of that mountain pasture, and most of the grass is covered. The protein supplement tubs were almost all gone. We decided to bring the cows home the next day, since weather predictions indicated more snow, and colder weather.
That next afternoon we drove the jeep to the upper place, and hiked a mile up to the ridge—no sign of cows. We hiked down into Baker Creek and found 5 young cows and herded them up the creek to the top trough, then out through the timber, on our little jeep road, onto the upper ridge.

We met a few cows along the way, and took them all to the ridge. Since we were still short a dozen, I held the herd there, talking to them, while Lynn trudged on around the hill through the deep snow to find the others. After we had them all gathered, he hiked down the ridge, calling them, and they followed. I brought up the rear. The sun was going down as we got to the gate at the bottom of the ridge, and let the cows into the lower part of the 320 acre pasture.

From that point on it got harder. At that lower elevation, on the south-facing slope where snow was less deep, grass was showing, and the cows immediately spread out to graze on the hillsides—no longer interested in following Lynn. We had to drive them the last mile down to the field, which took a lot more effort to turn them down the hill. At 65, I’m not as agile as I used to be. Running through the rocks I tripped and fell down a couple times—landing on my right knee each time. We finally got the cows to the field just before dark. That evening I put DMSO on my swollen knee, and several times the next day, to reduce the swelling. Our cows usually follow us very nicely, but they were hungry that evening. I needed my horse!
On Tuesday Lynn took salt and mineral to the cows in our jeep; they are still happily grazing on the upper place. There’s lots of feed there and the snow isn’t as deep.
Andrea and her friend Rick made several trips to the woods with her pickup and a small trailer, to get firewood. A couple days ago they had a flat tire on their way home, and had to get a new tire—and barely made it home in time to go to work. Andrea enjoys being a waitress at the restaurant, and her friend Rick is one of the cooks.

DECEMBER 2 – We’ve had more snow and cold weather—and a cougar on the upper place. Last week the cows were upset and all ganged down at the bottom of the lowest field, so Lynn called them to the old stackyard and let them in—where they happily started eating the old straw bales. Later that week we got more protein supplement for them; they’ll do nicely on the straw and dry grass that’s left on the fields, and a little protein.
For Thanksgiving we went to the restaurant where Andrea works. The family that owns it closed for Thanksgiving and had a big dinner for their whole family, and invited Andrea and her kids and us to join them.
Weather has been colder (down to 6 below zero); the cows on the upper place haven’t been grazing much in the early mornings. Those fields are in a canyon and the sun doesn’t come up till about 9 am, so they stand in the sun awhile to get warm before they start grazing. So we’re feeding them a few bales of grass hay in the mornings, just to get them going quicker, so they won’t be losing weight. Michael and Carolyn had to start feeding their cows some alfalfa to augment their pasture.

DECEMBER 14 – We’ve had a couple weeks of cold weather, down to 15 below zero. and nasty wind for several days. Lynn started a fire in our other wood stove, and we had to leave our water dripping at night so the pipes won’t freeze. He bought several bags of pelleted insulation and poured it around our water pipes under the bathroom floor. We’ve been chopping ice in the creek for the cows on the upper place; the water holes freeze solid every night. Heifers in the field below the lane are no longer grazing, so we give them a little grass hay in the evening to augment their alfalfa.
The cows on the upper place ran out of protein supplement so we started feeding them a little alfalfa, to encourage them to graze more. We’d like them to use the rest of the grass before it all snows under. They’ve eaten all the straw bales in the stackyard.
The prolonged cold has created serious ice problems on the creek. It flooded across the lower fields and Michael’s cows can no longer get across the creek. There are only a few areas for feeding. He decided to move that group to the Maurer ranch, but had to bring them up through our place and across our bridge and then down the road, since they couldn’t get across the creek on the lower fields.
Yesterday it was warmer, above freezing. The ice on the creek is still very thick, however, and it’s hard to create water holes that will stay open. When we went to feed on the upper place, one young cow (Buffalo Chips) was missing. We heard her bawling from across the creek. She ran back and forth along the brush, wanting to come back, but afraid to cross the ice. We found tracks where she’d gone across, by the water hole. She probably got pushed and shoved when the cows were drinking, and ended up on the ice and went on across.
We didn’t want her to fall down trying to get back across. During the past 35 years we’ve had two cows get paralyzed, with hind legs spraddled out on ice. So we skipped church and focused on the cow problem. Lynn shoveled dirt and gravel into the jeep from one of the steep banks along our road (where it wasn’t frozen) to put on the ice, to make a path across it. By the time he got back up there with the dirt, however, Buffalo Chips had gotten brave and crossed on her own—seeing the other cows eating alfalfa hay and not wanting to be left out. That solved our problem, and we decided to bring the whole herd down to the lower place. We went back up with the feed truck and Lynn led them 3 miles down the road with the truck and I hiked along behind. We put the cows in the hayfield below the barns, that hasn’t been grazed yet this fall. The snow is not as deep as on the upper place, so they were VERY happy.
Andrea and her friend Rick left yesterday afternoon to drive to Salt Lake. Her graft repair surgery will be tomorrow. We hope it all goes well. Jim (Emily’s dad) came up from Nevada to stay at Andrea’s house and take care of all the kids for part of this week, and we will help, too, since Andrea will be gone about a week.

Fall 2009

Fall 2009
I will continue with diary entries and memories, as I gradually catch up these blog installments to present day—filling in what’s happened between when I wrote BEYOND THE FLAMES: A FAMILY TOUCHED BY FIRE, and what our family is doing today:

AUGUST 20, 2009 – Last Tuesday Andrea came out to the ranch and rode with me to round up cows on the upper place and bring the 4 year old bull home. Our breeding season is over and we want to sell Posie because he’s becoming aggressive and unpredictable. We brought a few of the yearling heifers with him, to create a little herd so it would be easier to bring him. Otherwise he would not have come willingly by himself—he would have tried to go back to his cows.
When we got the cattle down to the corral, we sorted off the bull and put him in another pen (to send him to the auction next week), then rounded up the cows in the swamp pasture to sort off 6 heifers to take to the upper place. Those cattle didn’t want to come down to the corral; they ran through the brush and across the creek. The brush was too thick to go through on horseback, so Andrea went on foot to herd them back across the creek and out into the open, and I led her horse. The cows tried to run the wrong way when they came out of the brush. Rubbie, Breezie and I had to trot quickly through deep bogs to head them off. Breezie came along very nicely as we floundered through the bogs, and didn’t slow me down much as I led her from my horse, so I was able to head the cows and we got them down to the corral. We sorted out the heifers and took them (along with our decoy heifers we brought down with the bull) to the upper place.
Last Saturday I helped Michael, Carolyn, Heather and Nick round up cows off their Sandy Creek range. We trailered horses over there (15 miles) and rode all afternoon gathering cattle. It was the first time I’ve ridden on that range allotment. We sorted off Don Hatch’s cows and took the rest of the herd to Michael’s leased place on Sandy Creek. Young Heather rode one of the green horses she’s been training this summer for another rancher. Nick rode Chester—one of Michael’s best cowhorses.

On Monday I put hind shoes on Breezie; she’s too tenderfooted for any more rides without shoes. I’d forgotten how obnoxious she was about shoeing her hind feet! When we bought her as a 5 year old (12 years ago) she was challenging to shoe, but gradually improved as I worked with her feet and shod her several times each summer. But the spring of 2000 was the last time she was shod. After Andrea’s burn accident that July, she didn’t ride Breezie any more that year, and only a few times each summer after that—not enough riding for the mare to need shoes.
This summer Andrea rode more often, and Breezie was tenderfooted. She was ok with shoeing her front feet, but her hinds were a different story! She kept trying to take her foot away from me, and I’m not as strong as I used to be—she jerked the first one away when I had only 2 nails it. She caught my wrist with a nail (I hadn’t had time to twist it off) and tore a gash in my wrist, and scraped my arm. I had a serious “talk” with her and finished the job, then went to the house and bandaged my wrist. After time off from being shod for 9 years, she apparently reverted back to phobias she arrived with. She was always worse about her left hind foot, perhaps because of bad memories. There’s an old scar above the hoof; maybe she had painful experiences being treated for that injury, and perhaps used that as an excuse to not let anyone handle that foot.
Michael and Carolyn took Heather to Helena, Montana to start her Freshman year at Carroll College. She’s enjoying all her classes, but her favorite is the Human Animal Bond course, which is part of the psychology program.
Lynn took the turner rake off our small tractor, to put the blade on, to clean out the barn (which we didn’t get cleaned this spring before it flooded and was too boggy to drive in there with a tractor). But some yellow jackets were nesting in the attachment hookups on the blade, and came swarming out. He used a can of WD-40 spraying them (it works great as a bee/hornet killer) but wasn’t able to get rid of them all. He went out at night in the dark to hook up the blade when the yellow jackets were inactive.
Today Andrea came to the ranch and rode with me again. We checked troughs on the high range and I was glad to see that the ones Em and I fixed last summer (that had been vandalized) are still working. This was the first time in 10 years that Andrea has been back to the high range--since before her burn accident--and she enjoyed being out there again. It was nostalgic for her—and for me, happy to have her riding again.
Then we checked the 320 and 160 fences and patched numerous places where elk had broken the wires or knocked wires off posts. On our way back down the mountain we could see down into our fields.

We noticed cows in the wrong place, above our fields, so we gathered and took them back where they belonged, and found a big hole in the fence by the ditch. Someone had taken it apart. Andrea and I spent about an hour putting logs and branches across the gap and tied everything together with baling twine to make a fence that would last until Lynn has a chance to repair it with poles and steel posts.
SEPTEMBER 11 – Michael and Carolyn finished hauling our big bales, and their bales on the Gooch place, but their big truck got stuck in the creek. Michael came down and borrowed our backhoe to pull it out. Then they moved their haying equipment over to the Maurer place they are leasing, and Lynn helped them haul and stack a field of second cutting. They still have 4 smaller fields left to cut.
I trimmed Veggie’s feet. Em hasn’t ridden him enough this summer to keep his feet worn down and they were getting too long. I’m hoping she can ride him a few more times this fall, and I don’t want him stumbling because of long toes.
Granddaughter Heather came home from college for Labor Day holiday and brought a friend from her dorm. Samantha loves horses, too. They had a great time riding all 3 days, to move cows and check the range gates up Withington Creek. They also helped Michael and Carolyn work cows on the Maurer place—vaccinating and preg-checking. It was the first time Samantha had ever worked with cows but she enjoyed it. She got a crash-introduction to cattle work and really enjoyed learning how to help put cattle through the chute.
Young Heather enjoyed riding in special performance last Friday at her college; it was a “dances with horses” production--put on by professional dancers (Equus Projects). These dancers come to various communities around the U.S. and practice with local horses and riders for a week, then put on a performance that involves 6 riders and 4 dancers. Several of the HAB students got to ride in this production, and Heather rode one of her professor’s Arabian geldings.
Her professor, Anne Perkins, is head of the psychology department at Carroll and the HAB curriculum is her brainchild. Anne was impressed with young Heather’s riding ability--which I’m sure has been helped by growing up with horses, riding all kinds of horses, and training young horses.
Andrea’s girls stayed with us Monday and Tuesday while Andrea took 8 year old Charlie to Salt Lake City for a doctor appointment. She also visited some of her old nurses at the burn ICU, and had the contractures on her shoulder and finger checked. She needs surgery to release those; her little finger is being pulled off to the side and the contractures at her shoulder are pulling her backbone out of line. But the surgery will require more skin grafting, so she keeps putting it off.
The girls enjoyed helping us do chores while they were here, and playing with their cats—and the new kitten they hadn’t seen before.

Sam and Dani had fun being rabbits, taping ears and rabbit “teeth” to their faces.





They also enjoyed “typing” on one of my old typewriters, which has been “retired” since 1995 when I started using a computer for writing my articles and books.





Lynn took Em and Sam to the school bus Tuesday morning, and Dani helped me all day; her preschool classes don’t start till next week. The days are getting shorter and feel like fall. It froze hard a couple nights ago, and my hose for watering the horses was full of ice. I guess it’s time to start draining it again every day.
SEPTEMBER 19 – It’s really hot and dry. We’ve been short on irrigation water for more than a month, unable to water the fields again after getting the hay off. Right now we’re down to one ditch (out of 6 ditches coming out of the creek at various elevations, to water our many small fields) and the water hasn’t made it across the field yet after Lynn set it there more than 2 weeks ago.
Michael and Carolyn worked their Sandy Creek cows last week, to preg check and vaccinate. They were short one calf off that range. It might have been killed by wolves; ranchers on that range found several wolf-killed carcasses this summer and fall.
Lynn has been working on our corrals and fixing our squeeze chute, in preparation for working our cows. On Thursday Andrea came out to the ranch and helped me gather our cows off the upper place. We brought them down to the swamp pasture above the corrals.


Yesterday I helped Michael and Carolyn start rounding up cattle off our high range. We got 49 pair and a bull from the Baker Creek side, putting them down into the 160 acre pasture.
We got home before dark and I helped Lynn feed a few bales to our cows and calves to lure and lock them in the lower end of the swamp pasture to be easier to round up at daylight. This morning we sorted off the calves and were bringing our orphan calf (Shiny) around to the corral when our vet arrived to preg -check the cows and bangs vaccinate the heifer calves.
All our yearling heifers and cows were pregnant. We weaned the heifer calves and several bull calves, and put the cows with steers in the field above the corrals where there’s good grass. We’ll be keeping the heifers, and selling the steers in late October, shipping them with Michael’s calves.
SEPTEMBER 30 – We kept the weaned heifers in a pen for a few days, where they can’t crawl out. There was a little green grass and we also fed them some hay just to get them gentled. They were used to us walking amongst them last spring when they were babies, and are pretty gentle, but feeding them with a wheelbarrow got them REALLY gentle. The bull calves were confined in the grassy pen below the barn, but Freddy George (the biggest, tallest bull calf) jumped over a panel so we locked him in the calving pen next to the house until we could put them all out at pasture.


After 4 days the cows were no longer worried about their weaned calves, and Andrea and I rode Breezie and Rubbie and took the cows and pregnant yearlings to the 320. It was a hot day and we took them slowly, especially up the last steep hill. But when they got to Baker Creek—with shade and green grass--they were happy.

There isn’t much water in Baker creek, due to the hot, dry weather—barely enough for the cows to get a drink. Andrea and I rode again the next day and worked on a water trough that had been vandalized (just like the range troughs last summer); someone had taken apart the elbow on the plastic pipe that goes into the trough. Andrea was able to put it back together with a temporary “fix” and Lynn went back the next day with tools and a new elbow and fixed it better.
Michael and Carolyn got their second cutting baled (though they had to fix a flat tire on their baler) and hauled. Lynn helped haul, driving one of the flatbed trucks. We got done in time to go to town late afternoon to watch Nick’s cross-country track meet. Nick did the 3-mile run in just over 18 minutes, and came in 8th out of more than 50 runners. He was the first Salmon runner to cross the finish line.
On Friday I helped Michael and Carolyn round up more cows. Some were in the neighboring range; several gates between the Forest Service and BLM allotments were left open by 4-wheelers. We rode to Mulkey Creek and found 3 more pairs and a dry cow, but as we were sorting them from neighbor’s cattle in the timber, the dry cow got away and ran down the mountain with the neighbor’s cows. I held the 3 pairs while Michael and Carolyn tried to get her, but the terrain and timber were challenging (and the group she went with was very wild) so they had to give up. We brought the 3 pair down along the steep canyon above our range, and down to the 160—where we gathered the 150-plus pairs that were already in that mountain pasture. It was 6 pm when we started gathering them off the mountainsides, and by the time we rounded them up and brought them 5 miles down the road to the lower fields, it was dark.



Michael and Carolyn rode again for several days and found a few more of their cows and calves in Mulkey Creek. The rest came home with the neighbor when he rounded up his cattle—all but one calf that’s still missing. Last night we had rain (the best rain since early summer), with snow on the upper place and 320. There was 1.5 inches of water in Shiny’s grain tub this morning. We desperately needed this moisture.
OCTOBER 14 – We’ve had some cooler weather (down to 4 degrees) and Lynn has been sawing firewood. Our power went off for several hours last Sunday. The wind blew two lines together and burned them up, and it took awhile for the power company to find the problem. I always get up early and type articles, but that morning there was no power for the computer or lights, so I lit several candles and wrote letters at the kitchen table, and Lynn and I ate breakfast by candlelight. We couldn’t water the horses because the pump wouldn’t work, but fortunately most of them still had water from the day before. Lynn carried 2 buckets to Breezie from the creek because her tub was nearly empty.
Last Monday I was on the Martha Stewart radio program. She’d seen my book Stable Smarts, and asked my publisher to contact me for her program. She has horses and wanted me to talk about how I became a horse person, and discuss various aspects of horse care.
On of my publisher (Storey) talked me into doing a “blog” on their website, where several of their authors and editors post thoughts and comments. I’ve never done anything like this before, but all I have to do is send my “installments” and photos to the person who does their website. My installments are posted every 2 weeks. In the first one I introduced myself and told about my first horse. The second one tells how I became a cow person. To view my blog, go to http://insidestorey.blogspot.com and click on my name in the list of authors on the right hand side of the page. I guess I’m finally entering the modern world of internet communication.
One more update: Andrea finally decided to have the surgery on her arm that she’s been postponing for several years, to release the contractures (from the skin grafts)—the shortening and thickening scar tissue that’s pulling her little finger and her shoulder and spine out of line (giving her a lot of pain, backaches, headaches, etc.). She’ll probably have it done in November or December. It will entail more skin grafting and a long recovery.