MAY 29 – My cousin Ned Moser and his wife Pam arrived here last Friday (on Andrea’s birthday) to stay a few days. It was still raining/snowing and they had snowy roads over the mountain, coming from Missoula Montana. They had flown to Montana from Texas, spent a few days at Kalispell and drove through Glacier Park, then came here to visit, staying a few nights at Andrea’s house (she cleaned out Charlies old room for them). We were looking forward to a visit with them; we hadn’t seen them since they were here for Emily’s wedding 4 years ago.
Andrea was pretty miserable the first evening they were here; she had her root canal done that morning—and the tooth abscess was still draining. Emily took Christopher to town with her when she went to work, and he stayed with friends until Dani picked him up and brought him home.
Ned and Pam got here mid-afternoon and visited with us until chore time, then drove on up to Andrea’s house. We all went up there for Andrea’s birthday dinner; Sam and Charlie joined us, and visited before dinner. Here are photos of Sam greeting Pam and Ned, and Charlie visiting with Ned.
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| Sam greeting Pam & Ned |
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| Ned & Charlie |
It was a nice get-together except for Andrea’s very sore jaw. Sam helped her finish the meal preparations and did a great job. We all sat visiting for a while until dinner was ready, and Christopher showed Pam some of his favorite toys.
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| visiting while Sam helps fix dinner |
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| Christopher showing Pam some favorite toys |
I took more photos during dinner, of Sam and Charlie, and after Andrea opened her gifts a photo of Sam looking at an old recipe book I gave Andrea—and a photo of Andrea and Christopher.
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| Sam & Charlie |
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| Sam checking out old recipe book |
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| Andrea & Christopher |
While Pam was helping clean up dishes after dinner, Christopher got one of the leftover pieces of corn on the cob and used it as a make-believe microphone; he stuck one of his toy balls on top of it and was talking into it, and I thought that was very innovative for a 2-year-old kid.
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| corn cob & ball become a microphone |
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| Christopher's makeshift microphone |
We all stayed late visiting, and it was still snowing when Lynn and I drove home to our house.
The next morning was very cold and still snowing. The cows were out of hay in their feeders and it was too muddy to get around in the stack yard with the tractor or to take bales up to the field without getting stuck, so we decided to put the cows out on pasture. Lynn and I took a couple little bales from my hay shed to put into the calf houses in the lower swamp pasture, for bedding for the calves (they needed to be able to get out of the cold, wet weather), then Andrea helped us move the herd from the field above the house, up through the barnyard to the lower swamp pasture. The cows were happy for green grass. Ned and Pam took care of Christopher while we did this.
That afternoon the rain stopped for a while, and Lynn’s younger sister Ann and her husband Tom came by for a short visit; they came over from Washington the day before, to bring Jenelle (Lynn’s other sister) an old cream separator. It was fun to see them, and they enjoyed meeting and visiting with Ned and Pam. Ann and Pam compared notes about quilting (which they are both good at) and Ned and Tom helped Lynn and Charlie load an old car (from our barnyard) onto a car carrier. Charlie wanted the old car for parts, so we gave it to him, and he hauled it out to his dad’s place to work on.
Andrea and Dani took Christopher to the high school rodeo (where Dani’s friend Kendall was competing in barrel racing) and I cooked dinner for Ned and Pam and we had a nice visit with them until late that evening. Andrea sent me a photo she took of Christopher sitting on one of the horses.
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| Christopher at highschool rodeo |
On Sunday it rained almost all day. I checked on the cows and calves when I did morning chores, and almost all the calves were snug in their calf houses, out of the rain. Lynn and I put the heifers into the driveway to eat green grass, finally off hay. After a few hours grazing there, we put them on the ditch pasture above the orchard. Andrea helped me take several wagon loads of hay from their feeder (pulled two wagons hooked together, with her 4-wheeler) and took it around by the bull pen and put a tarp over the pile) to mix with grass hay for the young bull. It was hard to pull the wagons through the deep mud around the feeder but once we got out of that field it was easier.
Now that the cows and calves are out of the little field above the house, Andrea started irrigating it. Until this rain, that poor field was very dry, but we didn’t want to water it with the cows and calves in there or the cows wouldn’t have any dry place to bed. The young calves are also more vulnerable to disease and scours when everything is wet (old “bugs” in the ground come to life!) so we try to have them in a dry place until they are a little older.
With the heifers gone from the field below the lane, we took out the temporary electric fence that held them in the upper end (so the rest of the field could grow, without constant grazing) and started putting the step-in posts on down the field to divide the swamp part (which we will graze with cows) from the hayfield part.
That evening we all had dinner at Andrea’s house, and Sam and Charlie came out again. Emily didn’t have to work that day so she was able to join us, too. Here are photos taken that evening, including photos of Pam & Ned and Andrea’s kids.
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| Pam & Ned with Charlie & Sam |
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| more mug shots |
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| Christopher joins the line-up |
Monday was cool and cloudy but not as much rain. Ned and Pam visited with us for a while before they headed back over the mountain to Missoula, in preparation for flying home to Texas the next day. One more photo was taken, when Dani had a chance to tell them good-bye.
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| Dani saying goodbye to Pam & Ned |
That afternoon Andrea started putting up hot wire for the temporary fence along the creek in the upper swamp pasture. We want to be able to graze it soon and not risk the calves drowning in the creek during high water. The creek isn’t very high yet but soon will be, as the snow on the mountains is now starting to melt.
The next day we had more rain, and it rained hard that afternoon. Altogether in several days of “winter” weather we received about 2 inches of rain, total, which was enough to really help our dry conditions and get the grass growing on the hillsides.
Wednesday was cool but our rain was over. It was the first day in about a week that we didn’t start a fire in our old wood stove.
Andrea went back to the dentist and he prescribed another antibiotic, trying to finish clearing up the abscess before he puts a crown on that tooth. He also looked at Christopher’s broken front teeth; that kid has taken several tumbles and damaged his teeth and they need to be fixed.
That afternoon Andrea helped me take wire panels up to the end of our driveway and tie them in the burned-up fence line, and one of the old pole panels, since Alfonso still hasn’t fixed the fence he burned. We let the heifers into that ditch pasture after we got the fence fixed so they can’t get out.
On Thursday the culvert at the top of our driveway was plugged—where the ditch goes under the driveway—due to debris that washed into the ditch, and the water was running down the driveway and about to flood the barn/shop across from the house. Lynn and Andrea used a long pole to poke into the culvert and jar the blockage loose.
Then we put netting over the new jack-fence along the creek side of the field below the lane—so calves can’t crawl through the poles—and finished the electric fence dividing off the top part of that pasture so we could put the cows and calves in there; they’d run out of grass in their first pasture. Andrea dragged the feeders out of the field above the house (where the cows and calves spent this spring, being fed hay) so we can get that whole field irrigated and growing grass for later.
Yesterday Andrea went to her pain doctor again and had injections in her neck between some of the vertebrae and we’re hoping it will help relieve some of the pain she’s had for several years.
Emily took Christopher to town with her and spent some time at AJ’s place, and Christopher had fun on the riding lawnmower with AJ’s stepdad.
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| Christopher with Aj's stepdad |
Today we put up the next hot wire and moved the cows into their next segment of the pasture below the lane. Then we moved the heifers from the lower ditch pasture to the pens around the barn; the grass has grown up nicely in those pens and will probably last for a couple of days’ grazing for the heifers. I patched some of the old fence in the little swamp pen below the bull corral, so we can move the heifers in there next.
Michael brought his flatbed trailer this afternoon and loaded three of our round bales (some that were left over from winter, that we didn’t need) to take up to his cattle. Most of his cows are out on grass now, too, but he needs just a little more hay. Since we had the tractor running to load those bales, Lynn used it afterward to take our feeders around to the corrals and put them in an out-of-the way corner of the lane for summer.
JUNE 9 – The Sunday before Memorial Day Lynn, Andrea and Christopher went out to the cemetery with Jenelle (Lynn’s youngest sister) to put flowers on family graves. Andrea also looked up the headstones of several old family friends, including Jerry and Velma Ravndal (ranchers who raised Arabian horses for many years and were my 4-H leaders in the 1950’s and 1960’s), and Dennis Morgan (a relative of the folks we bought part of the ranch from, and also a good friend and pilot—who died young). Christopher enjoyed checking everything out, and carefully smelling the flowers at Lynn’s parent’s gravesite.
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| Christopher smelling the flowers |
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| headstone - Don and Betty Smith |
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| Andrea at Dennis Morgan's headstone |
That evening we put the bull back into the main corral so we could move the heifers into the grassy pen below the bull pen and they wouldn’t be nose-to-nose. We don’t want the bull trying to go through the fence; it’s not quite time to put him out with the cows and heifers yet.
That night Michael and Carolyn’s mare foaled. She had a little filly. Everything seemed to be going well for the first day but then they noticed swelling under her belly at the navel area that was getting bigger. They had a vet come out and examine the foal but he wasn’t sure if it was an infection or a hernia, so they loaded up the mare and foal and hauled them to a horse vet in Challis (70 miles away) who told them it was fluid leaking from the bladder (that cord didn’t seal off). The vet drained the fluid but kept the mare and foal at the clinic for a week, to make sure it would heal up, without infection.
On Memorial Day Andrea helped me create a corridor in our swamp pasture after we moved the cows down to the 3rd segment of the pasture, so they could still come back up to the ditch to drink, but not go out into the segments they’ve already grazed—so those segments can begin to grow back again. Emily took Christopher out to AJ’s place again, where he had fun on the riding lawnmower again with AJ’s stepdad.
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| mowing the lawn |
I had an interesting message from a lady in Wisconsin named Sara who read my blog and was fascinated by our creek because her great-great-grandfather spent time at the old Harmony Mine in the 1920’s. She wanted to learn more about the mine, and the history of our creek because she’d heard about it as a little girl, from her grandmother. We had a couple of phone conversations and she told me her great-great-grandfather’s name was Julius, and he was the president of the bank in Grand Mound, Iowa. His family was well-to-do and he was very involved with the town (he was on the fire department and school board and was respected and well-liked). But then he started investing people’s money without their knowledge.
In the mid-1920s his bank failed, and several people in town went bankrupt because he had invested all their money in the Harmony Mine. Julius had a childhood connection to a man named Niemann who told him he could double everyone’s money if they put it all into the mine. He did, and lost everything. Then he panicked and hopped on a train to try to go to Idaho and try to turn the mine around himself. Eventually his wife Hattie joined him and their son Rhodie (Sara’s grandma’s uncle) joined him too, and Hattie worked at the mine, possibly as a cook. Meanwhile back in Iowa, the police were sorting through what happened and searching for Julius to arrest him.
He got on a train to go home, was met by authorities along the way and arrested, and taken into custody. He spent a couple of years in prison. Oddly, a distant relative who was a young girl in Grand Mound at the time said she remembers how everyone dressed in their Sunday best and met the train he took back to town upon his release from prison. She said they all excitedly welcomed him home, so maybe they were able to forgive him. He didn’t stay there, however; he and his wife moved to Chicago. I found that interesting when Sara told me this, because during that time the controlling interest in the Harmony Mine was owned by Al Capone (famous Chicago gangster). Anyway, I was able to tell Sara more about our creek, and send her some photos.
We had an e-mail from granddaughter Heather in Canada and she sent us some photos along with the update on their family news.
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| Gregory & kids |
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| taking little brother for a ride |
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| very tired little brother |
Stan drove here from California, and on Wednesday he and Andrea and Dani left at 6 a.m. and drove to Soda Springs (near the Utah border) to get a used stock trailer that we bought sight unseen from a gal who needed to sell it. We need a trailer of our own (and not have to borrow one every time we haul cattle to the sale or need to haul some up or down the creek) and found this one on a classified ad website. It’s an older trailer (1978 model) but in fairly good shape for its age, and has new tires. It was cheaper than the newer one trailers, and for what we’ll need it for it will probably last a long time.
They got back with the trailer early that evening, and Andrea helped me move the cows to new pasture. We took them up through the corrals to the lower end of the upper swamp pasture.
The next few days were very hot, above 90 degrees in the afternoons. Stan worked on the wheel bearings and brakes on the trailer we bought; the brakes were dragging a bit on the two wheels on the driver’s side. On Friday he took the trailer up to Andrea’s house where he could use his welder and put more supports under the flooring and put log oil on the old brittle floor boards to give them a bit more life. He also welded some old breaks in the door latches, and added an extension on the partition to make it higher so no cattle would ever try to jump over it. This trailer has had a lot of wear but with some fixing it will probably work for our purposes.
Andrea and I put deer netting around the few bales left in the stackyard—so the heifers wouldn’t try to eat the hay, and then put the heifers in the stackyard to graze for a few days and clean up all the grass before we need to stack hay in there.
Friday afternoon we went to the high school to listen to the Jazz band and Legacy Choir. They weren’t able to have their spring concert last year because of COVID so it was nice to be able to attend it this year, since it is Sam’s last year in the band and choir, as a senior. Andrea took photos of Sam with me and with Charlie after the event when we were congratulating her for all the awards she received.
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| Sam & Charlie |
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| Sam & I |
She got several year-end awards in music, including the Louie Armstrong Jazz Band award for best senior, for the state of Idaho, for her 4 years of excellence with her trumpet playing.
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| Sam's awards |
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| Sam's award for best trumpet player |
On our way home from that evening Lynn and I were driving up the creek ad met a horse with a halter on it, trotting down the road, and a young Amish fellow running along behind it. We helped catch his escaped horse.
Saturday morning Andrea discovered that a cougar had recently killed a doe on heifer hill, dragged it into the ditch and partially covered it with grass and brush (as cougars often do, to hide their kills from scavengers.
That afternoon Andrea finished the temporary hot wire around the lowest segment of the ditch pasture below the field by her house, and we moved the cows into that pasture. We moved them into the next segment on Sunday, then Andrea and I rode Shiloh and Dottie for their first ride this year—just a short ride out over the low range.
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| first ride for Shiloh this week |
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| riding over the low range |
The neighbor’s cows are still on that first pasture and they are out of feed; there wasn’t much grass out there to begin with (a very cold, dry spring) and it wasn’t able to grow with all the cattle out there eating it too soon. On the way home I took photos of the signs Stan made for our “street address” at the end of the lane, using horseshoes to create the names and numbers.
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| our ranch signs that Stan made |
While we were riding, Stan drove up the creek and got a pickup load of firewood (sawing up some dead trees that had fallen down across the road).
On Monday Stan and Andrea drove to Pocatello to take Dani to an appointment with a doctor there. Emily started her new job, at the Discovery Care Center. She enjoyed working at The Meadows (a smaller care facility for elderly people) because she had great rapport with the patients there, but that facility was understaffed and had a few other issues, so it was time to switch jobs. She has better hours, better wages and better working conditions at the new job. Lynn and I took care of Christopher while she was at work, until Andrea and Stan got home that evening. Lynn tended Christopher while Andrea and I moved the cows and reconfigured the fence for the next grazing segment, finishing just before dark.
Yesterday Stan finished all the welding on the trailer and it’s good to go now, as soon as we have the title transfer accomplished and can get it licensed. I trimmed Willow's front feet. Hopefully Andrea will have a chance to start riding her soon. Andrea and Stan took Christopher up the creek on 4-wheelers and picked wild flowers.
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| bringing home wildflowers |
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| Christopher helped pick the wildflowers |
Today we moved the cows to the 4th segment of their ditch pasture. Lynn and Stan took the stock trailer to town to have it inspected for its Vehicle Identification Number certificate so we can eventually get the title for it. Andrea and I made another short ride on Shiloh and Dottie; we went up the ridge from our house and patched some broken wires in the fence around our 50-acre hill pasture. We rode around the whole fence to make sure the rest of it was ok.
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| Andrea patching fence on ridge |
Stan got another load of firewood then he and Andrea helped Lynn hook up our little tractor to Jenelle’s old damaged swather that’s been parked in our stackyard ever since Andrea and Stan pulled it home from John Miller’s place last year. Jenelle loaned it to Millers several years ago but it didn’t work for them (trying to pull it with their teams of draft horses) so one of their son’s used it to cut hay for Alfonso and ran it into a ditch and bent it all up and ruined the springs. Jenelle didn’t realize it was damaged and wanted to loan it to us last year when we were having swather problems, but when Andrea and Stan went to get it at Miller’s place Andrea realized it was too damaged and would never work. So we stored it here for Jenelle, and now we need to get it back to her place—so she can fix it if she wants to, and so it will be out of the way when we need to stack hay this summer. Christopher rode on the tractor with Lynn to the stackyard, and while they were hooking up the swather to the tractor to pull it out of the stackyard, I entertained Christopher and took him for a piggyback ride.
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| Christopher helped Lynn bring the tractor to the stackyard |
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| piggy-back ride |
Lynn and Stan were able to pull the wrecked swather out of the stackyard and up to the top of our driveway. Christopher rode on the tractor with Andrea when she brought the tractor back down the lane and parked it.
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| driving back down the lane |
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| parking the tractor |
Then Christopher helped me feed the horses, and before he went home with Andrea and Stan he wanted to sit on the tractor again!
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| helping feed horses |
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| back on the tractor again |
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| always wanting to drive tractors! |
JUNE 23 – A couple weeks ago I put front shoes on Dottie. A big windstorm hit just after I finished, and I was glad it didn’t hit us while I was still nailing that last shoe on, because it would have really spooked Dottie.
Andrea and Stan took Christopher with them when they went to town (while Em was at work) and spent a little time at the park, and Andrea took a photo.
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| Christopher and Stan |
The next day Alfonso and Millers finally moved their cattle to the middle range pasture (so they are not right down here trying to get through the fences into the fields) but they missed about 20 head. That evening we went to Sam’s graduation. It was a nice ceremony and the seniors in the Jazz Band played Moon Dance—with Sam having a solo with her trumpet. Andrea took photos when the seniors received their diplomas, of Sam receiving hers and coming back to her seat with the band.
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| Sam's Graduation |
Christopher and Em sat next to Lynn and me and Christopher was pretty good for a restless 2-year-old, and clapped when everyone else clapped, for all the seniors.
More photos were taken outside, after the ceremony, of Sam with her siblings and her dad.
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| Sam's Graduation |
Afterward, Lynn and I were taking him home to stay with us (everyone else was staying longer) but as Emily put him into our pickup and went back to her car to get some of his toys, she twisted her foot and broke a bone in her foot by her little toe. She had to go to the ER to have it x-rayed and is still wearing a walking boot to help stabilize and support it as it heals.
The next day Stan pulled Jenelle’s swather out to her ranch the other side of town, and Lynn followed in our pickup with flashing lights, to make sure no one would run into the back of it on the highway. That evening we ate supper at Andrea’s house; Stan barbecued the last 3 packages of Wagyu meat that we’d had in our freezer for a special occasion (the meat that Feddersens in Iowa sent me, after I wrote an article about their Wagyu breeding program for the Wagyu World magazine).
Sunday was hot. I hooked up the electric fence in our back yard and Andrea helped me bring the heifers down from the stack yard (where they did a good job of grazing all the tall grass, so it will be easier to stack hay in there) and we put them in the back yard for one day, to mow that grass. I took a photo of them through the dining room window while they were lounging around after eating grass.
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| heifers lounging in backyard |
I’ve also been letting the young bull graze a few hours each day in the side pens around the corral—where the grass has grown up—to get him adjusted to green grass. Then it won’t be an abrupt transition when we take him out of the corral (fed hay) and put him with cows on lush green pasture. A gradual transition will help ensure that he won’t get emphysema (a serious and usually fatal lung condition) from an abrupt change.
Andrea and I were about to saddle our horses and ride up to the 320 to check all the fences around that big pasture (now that the range cows are in the middle range and next to our mountain pasture for a mile). There’s not much grass yet on the middle range and we don’t want the range cows trying to get into our place. But before we actually saddled the horses Lynn got a phone call from our neighbor who is an EMT, saying that Dani had run off the highway on her way to work (where she does housekeeping at one of the motels in town) and her pickup went through a fence.
Andrea and Stan immediately took off to go see what happened and make sure she was ok, and I put our horses away. Dani was dazed and disoriented and the ambulance had arrived to take her to the hospital to check for injuries when Andrea and Stan arrived. Andrea went on in to town to the hospital to be with Dani and Stan drove Dani’s pickup back out onto the highway and took it to town to get parts to fix the headlight and brakes. She took out 4 fence posts and banged up one side of the hood and bumper, etc. She wasn’t badly hurt—just bumps and bruises—and thought she blacked out when she ran off the road.
That afternoon I put up a temporary hot wire around the small haystack in the hold pen next to Shiloh and Sprout, and the next day we moved the heifers into that pen to graze for a few days and eat down the tall grass.
After we moved the heifers, Andrea and I rode 2 ½ hours and checked the fence along the 320, next to the middle range. The fence was ok except one place where we patched it last year after a big tree blew down over it. The tree branches we’d tied over that spot had sagged a bit so Andrea put a long slim dead tree over the top and tied it in place, to make a better barricade.
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| Andrea patching fence where tree fell over it |
While we were down in Baker Creek we found one of John Miller’s bulls lying down by the creek, all by himself (no cows within a mile or more) and he didn’t look normal. We made him get up and discovered that his right hind leg was very swollen (from foot to thigh) and he would not put any weight on it. It was worse than swelling from snakebite; it looked like a serious injury like a broken leg. When we got farther up the mountain checking the rest of the fence, where we had cell service, Andrea called John to tell him about his crippled bull and where it was. We checked the rest of that fence and took a few photos, then we hurried home so Andrea could tend Christopher when Em went to work at 2 p.m.
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| riding up around the rocks to check fence |
Lynn did all the town errands that morning and bought 4 big buckets of log oil (shingle oil) and Stan started putting it on our house. The old wood siding hadn’t been oiled for many years and was showing a lot of sun damage, so it was overdue to have more oil and weatherproofing.
Christopher is extremely fascinated with our tractors and always wants to get on them and ride with Lynn or Andrea or climb on them and try to drive them, so Emily bought a little battery-powered tractor (with trailer) for Christopher and Stan to put it together. Andrea took a photo of Christopher trying out his new tractor.
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| Christopher learning how to drive his own tractor |
On Tuesday Christopher drove it all the way down here from Andrea’s house to show us (nearly a half mile down the driveway, with Emily and Dani coming along with him to make sure he didn’t run it off the edge) and then he drove it back again. He had a little trouble getting it up the hill, and Emily tried to push it but he insisted on doing it all by himself. Very determined 2-year-old tractor driver kid.
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| Christopher driving tractor down to our house |
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| Christopher heading back again on his tractor |
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| driving it back home |
That afternoon Lynn babysat Christopher while he napped (wore him out doing all that tractor-driving!) while Andrea and I gathered up all the division-fence hot wire in the upper swamp pasture so we could move the cows in there from the ditch pasture and let them have the whole area. The creek is no longer high (no danger of drowning a calf if they cross it) so we let them have both sides of the creek. We rolled up all the wire on spools and gathered up the step-in posts.
The next day we tended Christopher while Stan and Andrea went to the 320 on 4-wheelers and then on up through the high range and made a loop down through the middle range and home. They checked on several water troughs on the middle range and none of them were working. Andrea tried to fix one water line that was plugged up and got a trickle coming through, but those poor cows out there are very short of water.
The next day she and I rode for several hours and checked fences and some of the other troughs, and on our way home saw that there are still a few cows on the low range that didn’t get moved to the middle pasture. We may have to help those guys finish moving their cows, and help them fix some of their water troughs. I took a few photos during that ride.
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| riding to check the range fences |
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| Andrea on Shiloh |
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| checking the middle range fence |
On Friday I put hind shoes on Dottie, then Andrea and I took some wire panels down to the post pile pasture to fence off a place we don’t want the cows going into a small bottleneck area by the creek, then moved them into that pasture. Then Andrea went to town for her appointment with the pain doctor.
Late that afternoon we all went up to Rocky’s place to meet him there and go to the 320 to scatter my cousin Roger’s ashes. He died Easter Sunday of a massive stroke. Roger was a few years older than me (he was the oldest child of my dad’s older brother Arthur), and spent some time with our family when he was growing up. He later lived in the log cabin above our upper place a few times (his dad owned it at that time). Roger loved the 320; he and one of his college friends stayed in the cabin the winter of 1959-60 and got out posts and poles from the forest above the ranch, peeled and treated hundreds of posts, and then in the summer of 1960 built most of the fence around the 320 for my dad. It was his family’s wish to have his ashes scattered up there.
Roger had a fantastic singing voice, and sang solos at many churches. For the past 30-plus years he also sang for opera companies, including one in Sacramento until it shut down. Then he joined the Vallejo Opera Company, where he sang and created backdrops for some of the operas (he was also a very talented artist and did a lot of paintings). Part of the magnificent Egyptian-style backdrop that he created for Aida (performed in Vallejo) may now be for sale, along with Roger’s paintings at the Lakeport Art Museum.
My father wanted Roger to sing at his funeral service, which he did, when Dad passed away in April 2007. Roger was one of my favorite cousins and when his family asked me to scatter his ashes on our ranch and make a video of it to be viewed at his memorial service on June 27th, I was glad to honor those wishes, with help from my brother Rocky and granddaughter Emily. We planned to do it Friday (which was Emily’s day off from work), which turned out to be the nicest day of the whole week (not as windy, no lightning storm). We drove up there in Rocky’s jeep and on two 4-wheelers, and Andrea kept track of Christopher (who went with us and enjoyed hiking around in the rocks and sagebrush, picking wildflowers and poking at ants with pieces of grass) while Emily took a few videos. We scattered Roger’s ashes on the ridge across from Preachers Spring.
She put the videos on a thumb drive that my brother Rocky was able to work with to create something to send to the family for the memorial service. She also took a few still photos, some of which I’ll share here.
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| Rocky & me on the 320 with Roger's ashes |
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| preparing to scatter Roger's ashes |
On Saturday we brought the heifers down from their ditch bank strip pasture and put them with the young bull in the corral, then moved them to the orchard. Andrea changed water and shut off some of her ditches to get some fields dried up so we can start cutting hay. That evening Christopher drove down here again on his little tractor, with Stan driving along with him on a 4-wheeler, and took a few detours to get off and pick grass to feed to Dottie, and to go climb up on all of our big tractors.
Sunday (Father’s Day) I checked on the cows and calves in the post-pile pasture and discovered that the ditch was overflowing and running into the bog crossing that Andrea was trying to get dried up--where we drive out to the lower back field with the haying equipment. So Andrea and I shoveled/cleaned out that ditch—shoveling out the sod that was overgrowing the banks—so it won’t overflow at that spot.
Emily and her friend A.J. took Christopher to church with them, and then Em brought Christopher home for Lynn and me to babysit while she went to work. Andrea took him home later that afternoon on the 4-wheeler after she got done irrigating. She and Stan were having a family dinner that evening with all of us and a few other friends; Stan was barbecuing and I brought some fruit salads. Sam, Charlie and Dani were there, too, but Em had to work.
It was a nice “indoor picnic” and everyone enjoyed it, until our friend Jerry choked. No one noticed him choking, however, but Stan saw him heading for the door like he was going to go outside, and then collapse, hitting his head. He was blue and unconscious, not breathing, when everyone rushed over to help him. Sam immediately called 911 and stayed on the line for 30 minutes, calmly stating the situation, where to send the ambulance, and updating Jerry’s circumstances. Dani drove the 4-wheeler down through our barnyard to the end of our lane to meet the ambulance and direct the driver where to come. Jerry’s son, Andrea, and friend June (who has been an EMT) kept working diligently on Jerry, placing him on his side, doing Heimlich compressions to try to dislodge the obstruction, and finally some fluid, food and blood came out of his mouth and he started breathing, though still unconscious. Lynn and I distracted Christopher, away from the frantic actions, and I also consoled Jerry’s daughter-in-law who was emotionally distraught because she’s very recently lost her own father and was fearing that her husband was about to lose his father.
By the time the first responder from the Sheriff’s department arrived, Jerry was conscious and responsive, and by the time the ambulance and EMT’s arrived he was able to sit up and walk—with help—out the door to be placed on the gurney to be taken down the steps to the ambulance. He didn’t want to go to the hospital, but with the blow to his head, and the vigorous efforts to dislodge the blockage in his throat (which may have cracked some ribs) it was best to have a doctor check him.
His family went to the hospital also, as did Andrea and Stan, and Lynn and I came home and took care of Christopher here until Emily got home from work at 11 p.m. Andrea gave us a report on Jerry; he was doing much better and mainly just had bruising but no broken bones. It was a huge relief to know that he’s ok, thanks to the quick actions of several people who rushed to revive him. The next day Andrea talked to him and he was doing a lot better—just a black eye from hitting his head when he fell.
I had another e-mail from Granddaughter Heather in Canada and she sent a cute photo of Gregory hiking along with little James next to their garden, with Dude the dog, and it was amusing to see the same posture in father and son.
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| Gregory & James walking with Dude |
That morning Andrea changed water and helped me bring the cows and calves up from the post pile pasture and sort off the 3 cows that we know we will be selling this fall and we put them back down in that pasture. There’s no point in putting them with the young bull; he will have plenty of cows to try to breed. We put the main herd with him and the heifers in the orchard.
Later that morning Andrea went to the dentist to have the temporary cap put over her tooth until the crown is put on it next month. Lynn and Stan serviced the mid-size tractor and got the swather working and ready to cut hay, then took the blade off the big traction (that we bale with) and used it to move some of the obstacles in the stackyard (the old plow, and hay grabber) that have been parked along the edge for many years. We need to make more room for stacking hay.
Yesterday we moved the cows to new pasture and Stan sawed down the willow trees that have overgrown our bridge, so the stackwagon can come through with loads of hay without rubbing on those branches. Lynn started cutting hay and cut the field below the lane, and that afternoon cut the lower back field. Lynn rode around with him in the tractor and learned how to run the swather.
I took care of Christopher all morning and then when Dani and some of her friends came out, one of them babysat him while Dani and a couple other kids helped me haul two truckloads of hay out of my hay shed and stack it over by the Shiloh and Sprout’s pens and put a tarp over it.
Today was hot and we continued haying. Stan propped up the falling-down fence along our bridge while Andrea and I took out the hot wire division in the horse pasture and let the cows have the whole pasture. I took a photo of the cows enjoying the new pasture.
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| cows in new grass |
Then we hauled another truck load out of my hay shed and started a small stack next to Rishiam’s pen. Lynn took the swather up through the corrals to the field by Andrea’s house and Stan did part of the cutting. Then they took the swather up the road to heifer hill and Andrea cut that field. Stan cut the field below it, and we are done with all the cutting for this year! I took photos of him cutting that field.
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| Stan cutting the last field |
