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.

Summer 2009

LATE MAY – We had a long, cold spring and the grass wasn’t growing. The cows ran out of grass on our small hill pasture, so we sacrificed the hayfield below the house and brought the cows down to graze it until we could fix fences and install a new water trough on our 320-acre mountain pasture.
I trimmed Rubbie’s, Breezy’s and Veggie’s feet and the next day Andrea and Emily rode with me to gather cows on the hill pasture and bring them down to the field. We hoped the hayfield would last the cows about a week, until we could move them to the 320—and then grow back for hay later.
We moved the 12 yearling heifers to another small pasture but were still feeding hay to 7 pairs (the last cows that calved). This was the latest we’ve ever had to feed hay! That Saturday we branded/vaccinated those calves and vaccinated the cows. We took out Rishira’s stitches while she was in the chute. Her incision, from the surgical correction of the uterine torsion, had finally healed.
The next Friday evening we went to our granddaughter Heather’s high school graduation to hear her Valedictory speech. We were very proud of her! Hard to believe that we’d been grandparents for 18 years!
That week we also attended granddaughter Samantha’s graduation from Kindergarten. We were very proud of her, too.
On Saturday Andrea helped Lynn take a new water trough and springbox to the 320. They dug out a spring in the upper draw and installed the springbox to collect the water, to pipe it into the water trough. Over a course of several days they finished putting in the long plastic pipe, and set new posts to fix the fence on the south side of the 320.
MID-JUNE – Michael and Carolyn moved their cows off the low range to the middle range on June 4, and that afternoon we moved our cattle to our 320-acre pasture. Andrea and I gathered our pairs and yearlings, leaving 3 cows (with the youngest calves) home. It was a long trip for the calves (more than 4 miles, uphill) and by afternoon the temperature was hot. We took them as slowly as possible. When we got to the 320 we let them rest and graze periodically as we took them the last mile up the steep mountain to the new water trough. Some of the calves and fat yearlings were panting with their mouths open, and we didn’t want them to suffer heat stress.
It rained hard that evening and we hoped none of them would get pneumonia from the stress. We checked them the next day and they all seemed fine. They were happy to be up on the mountain pasture.
The rain washed mud into our new springbox, and there was mud in the pipeline. Lynn cleaned out the springbox and put a valve on the end of the by-pass pipe, so he can open it whenever necessary to flush out the mud.
Weather warmed up and the grass grew—and the water in the creek was finally dropping enough that the calves wouldn’t drown if they tried to cross it. So on June 11 we let the cows have access to the 160-acre pasture next to the 320. The only water in the 160 is the creek, down in the bottom corner. We were afraid to let the cattle use that pasture until the creek went down to safe level. Now they could use both pastures, watering at the creek in the bottom, and at our new water tank near the top of the 320.
One of Michael’s friends and range neighbor, Don Hatch (age 59), was severely injured that week, when he was bucked off a young horse while riding range. It was a cold, windy day and something spooked the horse; it whirled and took off running down a steep mountain. It was too steep to safely pull the horse around to stop it (the horse would have fallen down if Don had tried to pull it’s head around) and it started bucking. Don tried to control the horse, but split his pelvis during the jarring impacts while trying to ride the bucking horse. When he finally bucked off, he broke his arm in 10 places when he landed on the ground. The horse kept running, but the dogs soon came back to Don. He tried to get up but couldn’t, and lay on the cold ground for 6 hours.
His wife Kathy was worried when he didn’t come home, and phoned Michael and Carolyn at 8 pm. They only had a couple hours of daylight to try to find Don. Luckily they knew which range allotment he was riding. Michael and another neighbor, Bill Andrews, drove 4-wheelers up parallel ridges and Bill saw Don’s horse down in the canyon. In the wind, it was hard to hear anything, so Michael turned off his 4-wheeler to try to hear what Bill was hollering. Then he heard a faint cry for help, farther up the canyon. The wind was blowing just right, or he never would have heard Don hollering. He found Don just before dark, which was a miracle, because Don was severely cold and going into shock, and would not have survived the night.
Actually it was one of Don’s dogs that saved him. She’d snuggled up against him to help him keep warm. Don is hard of hearing and didn’t hear the 4-wheeler, but the dog heard it and suddenly lifted her head. Don raised up to see what the dog was looking at, and at just that instant Michael was going along the ridge above him--at about the only place where Don could see him. Don started hollering, and it was just then that Michael turned off his 4-wheeler. Otherwise he never would have heard Don. Everything lined up perfect; otherwise no one would have found the injured man that night.
Michael drove down off the ridge in the direction of Don’s hollering, and found him lying in the sagebrush, then went back up the ridge to where he could find cell phone service, called Carolyn—who called for help. She and Kathy directed the Search and Rescue vehicles up a jeep track to where they could get to Don. Then the EMTs used a 4-wheeler and cart with a backboard to take him up to the ridge where they found a place for a helicopter to land, setting out lights in the dark, to mark a landing spot in amongst the tall sagebrush. Don was life-flighted to a hospital in Missoula, Montana, where he was treated for hypothermia and shock, and had extensive surgery on his fractured arm. He would recover, thanks to friends and neighbors and a miracle—and a good dog.

EARLY JULY – We put our bulls out with the cows. Andrea rode with me and we took the 4-year-old bull “Posie” 3 miles to the upper place with Rishira and Lilly and their calves to keep him company on the trip. We put them in the small corral, then rode farther up to the 320 and gathered those cattle down to the gate. Lynn met us there on his 4-wheeler.
With 3 of us it was easy to sort out the cows and heifers we wanted to breed to the yearling bull and we brought that small group down to the corral. We then took Posie and his companions up to the 320; they’d had a chance to rest, which made the trip less stressful on the two calves. We then came home again, and took Rosie (Posie’s mother) and her calf up the road with the yearling bull (Buffalo Billy) to the upper place to join his breeding group, and took them across the fields and over the hill to Cheney Creek.
It rained most of the day, and we were soaked by the time we got finished, but the cool weather was easier on the cattle (for their long trip) than being hot. The only bad part was when we first started out, when Andrea and I herded Posie and cows off the road so a vehicle could get past the cattle—and Posie suddenly turned and threatened Andrea’s horse. He rooted his head at Breezy, ready to charge and hit her, but Andrea spurred Breezy to make her hold her ground, and I charged at the bull with my horse, and we both yelled as loud as we could. The bull backed off. If Breezy had flinched away from him, the bull would have taken advantage and rammed her. He was grumpy, from being in the corral by himself, but that kind of behavior is intolerable and we decided we’d sell him after that breeding season.

JULY 5 – I wrote a letter to my friend Liz on July 5, and told her: “Today is the day that always (ever since 2000) makes me pause and reflect upon my entire life and purpose; it is the 9th anniversary of Andrea’s burn injuries and our nearly losing her—and I think this is a bittersweet day for Laurel, too, because this was Sara’s birthday. Such a journey this has been, and I am eternally grateful for the friendship between the 3 of us mothers—you, me and Laurel—because this wonderful, extraordinary friendship has been a very big part of the strength that has sustained me throughout my “detour” into frightening new territory. I thank God for friends, and for the Love that has kept me going and has blessed me, these past 9 years. I know I could not have struggled through that “wilderness” on my own. I think that by trying to help each other, and by accepting the love we offered one another, we became stronger. For this I shall be eternally grateful.”

MID-LATE JULY – Strong winds blew the big tarp off our straw stack. Lynn secured it again and put big bales against it to hold it down.
Our grandson Nick was driving many miles a day to irrigate several ranches, so we sold him our little red pickup (Ford Ranger) for $250; it uses much less gas than the vehicle he was driving. He helped his dad get the red pickup running again. It needed a new starter and fuel filter. Nick was excited to have his first vehicle of his own.
Emily rode with me to check cows, and when we rode across the Gooch place to go up Cheney Creek we had to cross a boggy area next to the ditch. Rubbie tried to jump the ditch instead of walking through it, and when she landed on the other side in the bog, her feet sank so deeply that she couldn’t make the next stride to catch herself. With her front legs sunk up to her knees, she plowed into the mud on her head, throwing me down into the mud right next to her. I rolled quickly off to the side--to be out of her way as she floundered and scrambled to her feet just inches away from me. Em was scared, watching Rubbie and grandma go headfirst into the mud, but it was a soft landing and Rub didn’t step on me as she struggled to get up, so we were perfectly fine. That’s the softest landing I’ve ever had, coming off a horse!
We continued on our way after I got back on Rubbie, and checked the cows in Cheney Creek, then rode on up to the 320 and checked those cows.

Michael and Carolyn started haying, and borrowed our big tractor and flatbed truck to haul and stack their big round bales. We had more stormy weather; one night a big branch blew off the tree in our yard, hit the house and broke out the screen door window, but luckily it didn’t come through the main door.
Granddaughter Heather spent the summer helping her folks irrigate and haul hay, and training 5 young horses for several ranchers.
Michael helped her for a few days with the 2-year-olds that had never been handled, getting a halter on them and starting to halter-break them. She rode a couple of the older fillies nearly every day, getting them accustomed to riding out on the range and following cattle. One Saturday Andrea helped me bring the cattle down from the 320. The water quit running for the new trough, and the best grass was nearly gone, so we moved them down to the meadows on the upper place.
Then Andrea hurried back to town so she could get to work on time. She was working 4 days a week (3 pm until midnight) as a waitress, and enjoying it. She loves serving people, and they enjoy her cheerful spirit. She worked as a waitress 20 years earlier (after she finished high school), and many of her old customers are delighted to see her again. Em was able to look after the younger kids while Andrea was at work, making sure they had supper and got to bed on time.
Andrea and Em rode with me the next Wednesday to our Cheney Creek pasture, to check cows and get pairs back together (some of the cows found a hole in the fence where trees blew down and smashed it), and the 3 younger kids stayed with grandpa.
When we got back, we gave each of them a ride down the road on Veggie, with me leading him alongside Rubbie. It was the first time Dani (4), Sammy (6) and Charlie (7) had ridden a horse, and they were very enthusiastic. I told them they were riding a grandson of the old mare (Khamette) that their mom learned to ride on when she was a little girl.

AUGUST – We finally started haying. Michael cut the fields above our house with his swather. When Lynn hooked up our baler to start baling, he discovered one of our big tractor tires was completely worn out--the tube was poking through. So we had to wait for the guys from the tire shop to bring out new tires ($650 apiece) the next day and replace the old ones. It rained that night, so the hay was too wet to bale. Two days later the hay was dry enough, and Lynn started baling—and the baler quit working! We couldn’t get parts for it over the weekend, so it was 3 more days before we got it fixed, and then it rained again. After it dried out a few days later, he baled part of the lighter hay, and Michael baled our heavier hay as big round bales.
Lynn got ready to haul the small bales to my hay shed (and we moved the last few bales out of it, in preparation for stacking new hay) and the stackwagon wouldn’t start! He tried to charge the batteries but they wouldn’t take a charge, so he went to town and get new batteries. Then it started, but the tilt tables wouldn’t work. Michael helped him later that day and they got it working, but before Lynn could haul any hay it rained again—and rained for 3 days, thoroughly soaking the little bales clear through. We had to let them sit in the field a week to dry and quit heating, before we dared stack them—and they were too moldy for horse hay. Lynn stacked them for the cows this winter. Michael helped us haul and stack the big round bales.
He cut the rest of our hay with his big swather, and baled some round bales. Lynn managed to bale enough small bales for the horses, but the baler had another problem; it caught the hay on fire and nearly burned up! Then the stackwagon started leaking hydraulic oil when he was hauling the 4th load to my hay shed. It would be a major fix job, so we had to borrow a stackwagon to finish. We’ve never had so much bad luck trying to put up such a small amount of hay!
Michael and Carolyn contracted their calves through the video auction, and we planned to sell our steers with theirs to help fill one of their loads. The calves would be shipped in late October.
I reset Rubbie’s front shoes and the next day reset her hinds. I’m getting too old to shoe all 4 feet at once! Her feet were getting long and needed to be trimmed and reshod. I didn’t want her stumbling and falling down chasing cattle.
Michael and Carolyn and kids were nearly done with their haying, and most of their fields had more hay than the year before—thanks to the great job of irrigating done by the two kids. The rain stopped them for a week, however, so they took time out from haying to move cattle to the high range. That first evening they got 40 pair gathered and moved, shut the gates and fixed a water trough—and got thoroughly soaked in a thunderstorm downpour. The next day they rode again and moved about 60 more pairs in the rain. I rode with them on Saturday and gathered 40 more. We rode again on Sunday afternoon for 6 hours. Young Heather rode two of the young horses she was training for another rancher—a different horse each day, and it was great to see how nicely they’re coming along. She and I gathered and moved cattle from one area while Michael and Carolyn gathered a different drainage. Our group was a challenge, with several cows trying to run the wrong way or back down the ridge, and Heather and her young horse did very well.