Diary from Sky Range Ranch - April 24 through May 16, 2019

MAY 1 – A week ago today Andrea and kids (Sam, Charlie and Dani) left at 5:30 a.m. to get on the bus at school for the kids’ music trip; their chorus was traveling to compete with several other schools, and Andrea was one of the parent chaperones for the trip.

It rained a little, but Nick and Justin worked on the fence along the horse road and got all the stays put in. The fence was essentially finished except for one small gap that needed a gate, which Michael was going to purchase and bring the next day.

Lynn took the tractor and harrow down to the back field and harrowed that field, and had just come back into the house when Alfonso and John and Sy Miller brought all of Alfonso’s cows and calves up the road past our place. They failed to come shut our driveway gate or tell us they were moving cows (or we could have shut the gate), and several cows ran down our driveway. Some went roaring up past my horse hay shed and some went down below the lane in the little barnyard next to the field where our heifers are, and where some hay is stacked. We happened to look out the window and saw some cows running through the calving pen and up by my hay shed, so I ran outside, climbed into Willow’s pen and ran through her pen to chase those cows back to the driveway.

Meanwhile, John Miller rode his horse down into the hold pen by our heifers to try to get some cows and calves out of that area. They all ran out but two, so I went into the second-day pens to get one calf that had run behind the gate instead of back out to the driveway. The other calf made it out the gate. As John was trying to herd the wayward calf back toward the gate, it ran the wrong direction and crashed into the gate by the heifers, then squeezed under the gate and into the field with the heifers.

Up on the road, the main herd was going past our place, but the cows were out in front and a bunch of calves in the back didn’t know where their mothers went. Alfonso has never learned how to move cattle in a low-stress manner and they don’t stay paired up. So a lot of calves were turning back and trying to go back where they came from, and some dropped down off the steep bank and were going along the horse road. One of them found the gap in the fence (where the new gate had not yet been installed) and ran in there and into our heifer hill field. That calf came running down through our field and ended up next to our cows and calves. Fortunately we have a really good new fence around that pasture and no cattle can get through it!

This was the third time this spring that Alfonso and John had a mess with their cattle moving, with some cattle coming down our driveway and into our barnyard. As John left to go help the other cowboys get the rest of the herd up to the Gooch place, he said he would come back with Alfonso later to rope those two wayward calves and haul them up to where they needed to be.

The last thing we wanted was a wild rodeo amongst our heifers (which have become very mellow and easy to handle, this past winter), so Lynn and I decided to get the heifers in from the field and corral the calf ourselves, without the heifers becoming spooked and wild with someone riding around through them trying to rope a wild calf. I called the group of heifers up through the gate into our hold pen, but the wild calf did not come with them, and chose to stay down by the fence at the bottom of the field. We put our heifers in the little pen in front of the barn, so they wouldn’t be out there running around when Alfonso came back to try to rope his calf.

It was taking a long time for him to come back (we saw him haul a bale of hay up the creek on his pickup instead), so Lynn and I decided to try to get the stray calves ourselves. The one pacing the fence above our cows (just like the wild cow of Alfonso’s did, that came down into our place last month) might be easiest, so I hiked up the ditch bank and opened the little wire gate into that skinny pasture along the horse road while Lynn drove up the road with his 4-wheeler and came down through our field to herd the calf. It ran past him the first time he tried to herd it along the fence to the gate, but he sped up around it with the 4-wheeler and got it turned back around and heading along the fence again. This time it found the gate and came down the ditch and out the gate I’d opened at the bottom end—and ran on down the road to Alfonso’s lower place where it had come from.

Since Alfonso still hadn’t come back with his horse, we decided to try to get the other calf out of our heifer field. With the heifers safely out of the way, in the pen by the barn, Lynn went down in that field with his 4-wheeler and after some false starts and the calf running the wrong way, he gently hazed the calf up to the gate. It was very bumpy in the swampy side of the field (that we always pasture instead of cutting hay) and rough on the 4-wheeler, but probably safer than trying to run around through those humpty bumps on a horse and possibly fall down and get a broken leg.

Lynn got that calf up through the gate and shut it, and then had to stay there and guard the gate while I tried to get the calf out through the next gate and back onto the driveway. The calf had a bad case of scours (another reason we don’t want his cattle mixing with ours, possibly bringing some new disease) but it was still very lively; it kept trying to crash back through/under the gate to go back into our field, and Lynn had to beat it away with a stick to keep it from getting back under the gate. Alfonso’s cattle are very wild and crazy, but it’s partly due to the way he handles them. We prefer to have our cattle gentle and trusting and easy to handle.

I finally got the calf back out onto the driveway and up to the main road, just as Alfonso and John were starting to pull into the driveway with Alfonso’s truck and horse trailer, with their horses. They saw me bringing the calf and backed out of the way so the calf could go on down the road to Alfonso’s lower fields. I told them we got both calves out and they didn’t need to try to rope them (which may have saved a bad horse wreck in our field’s bad footing), and to PLEASE shut our gates (or tell us, and we would shut them) the next time they move cows past our place! When we take cattle up and down the road (from our lower place to the upper place and vice versa) we always shut our neighbors’ gates along the way. It saves time and problems. This little fiasco took a couple hours’ extra time to resolve, and Alfonso still had several calves that went back to his lower fields without their mothers. We knew those cows would crawl out through his bad fences on the Gooch place to come back down, so we left our driveway gates shut all night.

The next day was cold (24 degrees that morning). Alfonso’s cows did come down for their calves, and at dawn I saw Alfonso taking 4 pairs back up the road. Andrea left early that morning with Dani to take her to Idaho Falls for her appointment with the orthodontist to adjust her braces.

Meanwhile, granddaughter Heather in Canada sent us photos of her new filly that was born the night before.

new foal

new filly

Granddaughter Heather's new foal

Michael and Justin brought the new gate to put in the gap in the new fence along the horse road, and set a bunch of posts with the post-pounder to shore up the falling down fence around our stackyard across the creek. Eventually we will get all our old fences tuned up to where they will last longer.

Friday was warmer but raining and windy. Michael and Justin built a jack fence at the top of the ditch pasture where they had to tear out the old fence, and Michael used his skid steer to repair the ditch just above it, where it nearly washed out last spring when Alfonso put too much water in it trying to get more water down to his field below us. The bank is very fragile at that spot and if we lose the side out of the ditch it will take a major repair.

new jack fence across ditch

Saturday was very cold again, so I plugged in the feed truck and tractor at chore time so they would start better when we needed to feed the cows. After we fed the cows a few little bales, Lynn, Andrea and Emily went to the fire school to get their fire cards so they can work on any fires this year. That took all morning, and when they got home Andrea helped us take a couple big round bales up to the cows’ feeders. Then she and Lynn rolled out a big roll of plastic dam material to cover the new spillway out of the ditch that Michael repaired, and tacked it down with spikes that Lynn bent (making hooks) with his big hammer on the anvil. Those spikes, and a bunch of dirt along the edges to weight it down and make sure it won’t ever shift, should keep it in place to protect the ground underneath it so it can’t erode away when water comes down that spillway to the lower ditch.

new spillway out of ditch

plastic dam material covering spillway

Sunday was windy and cold all day, too, and I plugged the tractor in again that morning. The wind had destroyed the remaining tarps over what’s left of our stack of big round bales, so Andrea helped me take those shredded tarps off (before the pieces blow all over the ranch). Lynn used the tractor to blade some more of the deep straw off the horse pasture where we had the straw feeder for the cows before they calved. Michael and Carolyn brought their truck and trailer down and gathered up more of the old fence and torn-out sagebrush along the new fence, and got most of the debris cleaned up.

We’ve had a fire again in the stove these cold mornings, and Jim filled our wood-box again. That evening I cooked supper for the kids when they came home from their weekend with their dad, and Emily (and baby Christopher) and Jim joined us. I took a couple photos of Em holding Christopher on our messy couch.

baby Christopher

Em & baby

The next day Nick and Justin cleaned up the rest of the fence debris and also used the skid steer to clean out our calving barn and haul the old bedding out to the heifer’s field. Those barn stalls will be more ready for next year!

That day was our great-grandson Joseph’s birthday. He’s 2 years old now. Granddaughter Heather (in Canada) sent us photos of Joseph enjoying his birthday cake—Gregory presenting Joseph with his special cake, and Joseph delightedly contemplating it, then devouring and demolishing it.

Gregory giving Joseph his cake

Joseph admiring his cake

Yum yum! Cake almost gone!

Yesterday was cold again. It’s been freezing hard every night and the grass isn’t growing much at all. Andrea has been really chilled (freezing her hands) trying to do the irrigation, but we have to keep changing water; we still haven’t gotten over all of our fields with water yet and the wind is drying everything out. After she got her hands warmed up from changing water she helped us lock the heifers in front of the barn again (I was able to call them in from the field) and we put up a hot wire enclosure at the top end of their field and put their bale feeder on a high spot. We fed them a new big bale and let them back out. Our heifers grew up with hot wires but Michael’s didn’t, but they are smart and didn’t even touch it. They could “smell” and sense the electricity without having to touch their noses to it. Now they can stay in this smaller area and the field can grow. They were eating down the new grass faster than it could grow!

Today was really cold, down to 16 degrees this morning. I started a fire in our stove when I got up. Our neighbor John Jakovac turned his cattle out on the range this morning and drove them up along our fence. He always turns his cows out early, even if it’s a slow spring and the grass isn’t ready yet. Since those cows will be pressing our fence trying to get into our fields, Andrea hiked along it to see if there was much damage over winter from wildlife going through it. She only found one fence clip missing and one metal stay bent up, which is very minor damage, considering more than 100 head of elk went through that fence one day after they ended up on the hill above her house.

Dani had a checkup with the bone/joint specialist today to evaluate her knee. It is healing. She won’t need surgery, but needs to keep the leg brace on awhile longer.


MAY 9 – The first part of the week it was cool and windy and still freezing hard at night, but we had a couple days that actually got up to 60 degrees in the afternoon.

Willow’s feet have been getting really long; they hadn’t been trimmed since last fall and one of her front feet was starting to split. So last Thursday Andrea held her for me and pampered her with a little green grass (it took about 30 minutes to find enough new grass tall enough to pick and put in a bucket!) while I trimmed her front feet. Her hinds were not so bad; I will trim them another day. We need to get all the horses’ feet trimmed before we start riding again.

All the light bulbs in the ceiling lamps in our livingroom have now burned out, except for a couple on the far side. We are basically in the dark if we try to watch a movie on television in the evening. Jim brought in our stepladder and since he is taller and a little more agile than us old folks, he helped us change out the old bulbs and put in new ones. Then he helped me take new salt blocks to some of the horses and one to the heifers; they were running out of salt.

Andrea sent me a couple photos she took this week at her house, of Em and baby, and also one of Charlie holding his little nephew. Here are some of those pictures.

Em & Christopher

Charlie and new nephew Christopher

The cold, windy weather resulted in a few cows getting chapped teats. When they are wet from being nursed, the teats are more vulnerable to chapping and cracking. One cow’s teats were so sore that she wasn’t letting her calf nurse—kicking the calf. But the calf was determined, and kept trying, and was able to get a little milk, sometimes nursing from behind so she wouldn’t get kicked so hard. It took a few days for the teats to heal enough that the calf was able to nurse out the udder completely.

Sometimes in the past (when we were calving in January) we’d have a cow or two that got such sore teats that she wouldn’t let her calf nurse at all, and we’d bring the pair in and put hobbles on the cow (made from baling twine). Then she couldn’t kick the calf. We’d leave the pair in a small pen where the calf could easily catch up with mama, and be able to nurse without being kicked—until the teats healed.

Some of the other range neighbors took their cows out to the range a few days ago and pushed/jammed them up the hill along our fence. They jammed and crammed them so hard that one calf got pushed through our fence. One cowboy got off his horse and went over the fence and tried to chase the calf back through it on foot. They went over the hill out of our sight and we weren’t sure if he got the calf out; we just saw him get back on his horse and gallop after the rest of the herd.

The next day, however, we saw that the calf was still in, pacing the fence and bawling. The mama had come back to find him and was pacing the fence on the outside. So Andrea hiked up the hill and got the calf back through the fence. I guess those cowboys didn’t care about that calf!

With all the cool weather this spring, the horses have been slow to shed out. Here’s Ed napping in her pen on a sunny afternoon, still wearing her winter coat.

Ed still has winter hair

We’ve been having trouble getting several of our fields watered this spring, even though there is plenty of water in the creek and our high water is starting. Our neighbor Alfonso has been using almost all the water in two of our ditches (because they come through his place first). It’s been frustrating to Andrea, trying madly to get our fields watered, when the neighbor takes all the water. There’s plenty right now to share, and we have the prior right to the water, but this has always been a problem. Even when he “shares” the water, he turns more of it onto his field at night so it never gets down to our place. We may have to tell him that we won’t send water on down to his lower field until he sends us our share of the water on our other ditches.

Emily started working again at her old job at the school, cleaning classrooms at night. She works from 6 pm. until midnight. Andrea takes care of baby Christopher while Em is working. That kid is almost 6 weeks old now, and really growing.

On Wednesday Andrea drove to Idaho Falls for her appointment with her pain doctor. The doctor will set up a date to have another MRI on her neck, this time looking at some of the vertebra farther down. The bone spurs are pressing in on the nerves and she may have to go to a neurosurgeon to get the problem resolved.

Today was cold again. Jim left early this morning to drive to Colorado to his new job. He will be managing a ranch property for a fellow who recently bought a place in the mountains. He will be fixing a lot of fences, doing repairs, planting some apple trees and caretaking the place this summer and fall.


MAY 16 – Dani went to her 8th grade formal dance last week, and here are photos of her in her prom dress. She stopped by after the dance to show us her dress.

Dani's dress for 8th grade Formal

Dani after Formal dance

Saturday was the warmest day we’d had this spring, up 72 degrees by afternoon. Andrea had the kids that weekend, for Mother’s Day, so on Saturday we had their help and branded the calves. One of their friends was staying with them, and he helped, too. When they came down that morning, we carried some panels into the little corral by the creek where we sort cattle, to fence off the spot where Michael’s bull crashed under the fence a couple years ago. There’s not only a hole in the fence, but the creek is trying to take a new channel down around the old bridge, and the bank is caving away, so we didn’t want a cow or calf falling into that hole.

While Andrea and the boys were patching that area with panels, Sam and I got the cows and calves in from the field. Our cows are fairly easy to gather; we just call them and open the gate. They were eager to come into the lane by my hay shed because there’s a little green grass there; their little pasture is eaten down and they are eager for green grass instead of hay. The calves were a bit timid, however, having never come back through that gate, so while Sam called the cows in through the gate I quietly encouraged the calves to follow them. Eventually I got them all through the gate and put them in the calving pen corral until we were ready to take them to the sorting pen.

Then the kids helped me and Andrea sort off the cows into the main corral, holding back the calves. Then we put the calves in the front stall of the old “sick barn” which is right next to the little chute and calf table where we brand. While Lynn strung out the electric cords (for the branding iron and clippers) Andrea and the kids and I put the cows through the main chute and vaccinated them. Dani insisted on doing her old job of pushing the cows along the runway to the chute, in spite of being on crutches. Charlie ran the head catch, and his friend Jack ran the tailgate and squeeze.

Dani ready to move the cows down the runway

Dani pushing a cow into the squeeze chute

Charlie had never run the headcatch before, but he did a good job catching the cows as they came through, and Jack closed the tailgate.

Charlie catching the head and Jack closing the tailgate

Sam and I vaccinated the cows. Sam was learning how to use the multi-dose syringe gun, and she gave the 8-way clostridial vaccine which includes redwater, blackleg, malignant edema, blacks disease and several perfringens types. Here are photos of her taking down a bar on the side of the chute to make more room for giving the vaccination, and injecting the cow.

Sam lowering a bar so she can have room to vaccinate

Sam vaccinating

Sam learning how to use the syringe gun

Sam giving the 8-way clostridial vaccine

I gave each cow her lepto shot and the modified live virus vaccine (BVD, IBR, PI3) after Sam gave her injection, and then the boys let the cow out of the chute.

me giving the lepto and live virus IBR-BVD vaccines

Charlie and Jack letting a cow out of the chute

Andrea helped Dani push some of the more reluctant cows up the alley to the squeeze chute. Dani was a little handicapped with her leg in a full brace, but she didn’t let it slow her down much. She often just put aside her crutches and just hopped along.

After we finished vaccinating the cows, we branded the calves. Sam and Jack brought the calves in small groups out of the sick barn to the calf table chute, Andrea pushed them into the calf table, I head-caught them, Charlie tipped the table, and Lynn clipped the area for the brand. Here are photos of Lynn clipping calves, with various crew members helping hold the calf still.

Lynn clipping

Lynn clipping a calf; Andrea holding leg

Lynn clipping, Charlie & Dani holding

Dani and I vaccinated the calves. It was Dani’s first experience, learning how to vaccinate and how to use the syringe gut. She gave the 8-way vaccine and I gave the modified-live virus vaccine. Here are photos of Dani giving shots, and Sam and Jack are in the background at one point, getting another group of calves into the little alley to the calf table.

Dani learning how to vaccinate

Dani vaccinating; Sam & Jack in background getting more calves in

Dani giving the 8-way vaccine

After Lynn clipped each calf, Charlie held the tail straight up (which keeps a calf from kicking) and Andrea branded. We made a good team. Since the little bull calves were already banded (soon after birth) we didn’t have to castrate, and this year for the first time we also didn’t have to dehorn. Usually we have a few calves with horns, but not this year. So that saved time, and was also less stress on the calves.

Andrea branding & Charlie holding tail

We got them back with their mamas and up to the field, and I fed everyone chili and corn bread. Emily came down to join us for lunch and Christopher napped on grandpa’s bed during lunch.

Christopher napping while we ate lunch

Then the kids went back home and Andrea stayed to help us take big bales to the heifers and the cows/calves. It was good to get those calves branded; they were all getting pretty big!

One of the calves had diarrhea and squirted all over the calf table when we were branding him. Before we let him out of the headcatch we gave him a dose of liquid neomycin sulfate solution to help combat the intestinal infection. Here’s a photo I took of him later. He still has pasty diarrhea all over his hind end but isn’t sick anymore.

calf with diarrea

The next day was hot again, up to 75 degrees. The calves aren’t used to the warmer weather because we had such a cold spring. They were lying around panting and trying to find a little shade. It was even hotter the next two days. Finally the grass is starting to grow!

On Monday Lynn went with his sister Jenelle to Idaho Falls. She had a dental appointment and he went along to keep her company. Andrea spent most of the day shoveling, cleaning out the ditch above our house so it won’t overflow when we put a little more water in it. When Lynn and Jenelle got back from Idaho Falls we gave Jenelle some DMSO for her sick calf that she’s been treating for diphtheria. The swelling in its throat makes it hard for it to breathe, and a DMSO gargle (with a little water) will reduce the swelling and inflammation.

The next day Lynn helped Andrea irrigate and get a little more water coming down our ditch next to her house. Alfonso had a lot of water in the ditch but none of it getting down to our place. I trimmed Dottie’s feet. They were very long and needed trimmed before I start riding her. That afternoon it got up to 80 degrees, but was partly cloudy.

It was cooler the next morning and I took my camera when we fed cows. I took some photos of the cows and calves lounging by the water tanks waiting for the feed truck while I opened the gate.

cows & calves by water troughs

lounging by water tanks

After we fed the cows I took photos of some of the cows and calves eating hay. The calves are no longer uncomfortable from their new brands.

cows & calves eating hay

Yesterday at chore time when I watered the cows I noticed that LillyAnnie had a big udder and was worried about her calf. He hadn’t nursed for a while, and had very bad scours. After Lynn and I fed the cows, Andrea helped us get that pair in from the field. Andrea and I gently herded the sick calf and his mom down to the gate and Lynn guarded the gate so no extra cows or calves would come through. We took that pair to the little pen in front of the barn, where we could put the calf in the runway to the headcatch, so we could get hands on him in the small area. We gave him some oral electrolytes and a liquid antibiotic. We left him and his mom in the pen next to the barn (between the 2nd day pens and the lower bigger pen) where there’s some grass. We could keep an eye on him there to see if he needed any more treatment before we put them back out to the field.