AUGUST 13 – Last week was really hot, in the 90’s, but recently it’s been cooler, especially at night, getting down to 40 degrees in the early mornings, which makes it easier for the fire fighters.
Last Wednesday Stan hooked up the wash station trailer he created last winter (sink units for firefighters to have hot and cold running water and towels, for washing up when they get back into camp after a long day on the fire lines) and headed for central Montana to a spike camp on the American Fork fire. He will be working there until that fire is under control.
Andrea moved our cows into the next section of pasture along the lower portion of the field by her house (ditch pasture) then she and I rode for a couple hours to check the 320. As we headed up the ridge from our house, I took some photos to show how green our fields are—on this dry year—and how good a job Andrea has done with the irrigating.
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| green fields above our house and below Andrea's house |
It had been 9 days since we’d been up to the 320 to check our fences, and the cows outside our place--out on the range--are starving because of the drought and lack of grass and it was past time to check our fences. I also took photos as we rode down through the 320 on our way home, showing how tall and green our grass is, compared with the no grass on the range outside our fence. |
| Andrea riding down through 320 |
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| Andrea riding down Baker Creek in 320 |
We discovered two of Alfonso’s cows in our pasture. They were some older cows he bought this spring; they had his fresh brand on them. From the looks of all the manure in the lower end of the 320, they’d been in for several days, but they didn’t have their calves with them, and they had full udders so we knew they weren’t dry cows. We looked all along the fence, trying to find where they might have climbed through it, but couldn’t find any bad places, and didn’t find their calves. The cows wanted to go back into the middle range to go find their calves but we don’t have a functional gate on that side on the low end of our pasture, and it would have been impossible to take those cows (both of them wild, and a bit belligerent) up through the brushy creek bottom and out the side gate that was ¾ mile up the fence line.
We didn’t have a lot of time, since Emily had gone to work and Lynn was babysitting Christopher and we needed to get back home, so we decided to leave those cows in our place and come back the next day to try to get them out. We hurried home, but I took a few more photos as we came down the ridge toward our fields, and as we rode down our lane to the house.
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| pasture and fields above our house |
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| riding down the lane |
We rode up to the 320 again the next day, prepared to cut a hole in the lower fence corner (and then repair it) to get those cows out. To make sure we could find all the cows that might be in, we rode up the ridge first so we could come down the whole length of Baker Creek and find any cattle that might be in that canyon along the creek, where the grass is still fairly green (the most likely places they would be). I took photos as we went up the ridge and came back down Baker Creek.
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| riding up the ridge in the 320 |
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| coming down into Baker Creek from the top |
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| coming down Baker Creek |
We found only one cow still in our place. The other one apparently found a way to get back out and go to her calf. The one that was still in had an ear tag number R-75 and was really mean (she looked like she’d charge at a horse if we got very close) and looked a lot like the tall skinny cow that came down our driveway this spring and went up past my hay shed and tried to jump in with our cows and calves. That one also had a fresh brand and her ear tag was R-67. She’s the one that tried to attack me when I went up past my hay shed to try to herd her back out to the lane—and I was only able to defend myself because I grabbed the pitchfork by my haystack! I think those two cows came from the same place when Alfonso bought them and they are probably related.
Anyway, the R-75 cow was down by the creek when we found her that day, and I took a photo of her.
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| Alfonso's wild, mean cow |
After looking all through the brush and realizing she was the only one still in, we were able to get her going up the jeep road—instead of along the fence. Andrea rode along the steep hillside below the jeep road, to keep her from coming down off it, and I followed the cow, and we managed to get her out to the ridge and heading down the ridge trail. Andrea hurried on ahead, and opened the ridge gate, and we got her out the gate—and didn’t have to cut a hole in the fence in the bottom corner to get her out. We took her down the ridge a ways, then came on home. That evening we actually got a little bit of rain, but not enough to do much good.
The next day was a little cooler and cloudy and we had too many things to do and didn’t have a chance to ride. I had several phone interviews (for future articles) and Andrea caught up on her irrigating. Bob Minor came over to look at our trailer and did a little work on one of the latches to make it more secure.
John Miller returned a phone call; I’d left him a message a few days earlier to ask if the halter Andrea and I found in the timber in the high range might be his (since we knew he and Alfonso had moved a bunch of cows from the high range back into the middle range—after they’d gone into the high range several weeks too early). He did lose the halter, actually lost two that day. The halters were tied to the pack saddle on a mule he was leading. The halter we found was one that John and Ruby’s son Jeremy had made for John for his birthday, the first year they were here, so it had sentimental value. Lynn drove over to their place and took the halter to them.
Andrea took her Dodge pickup to town to get new tires on it (before we have to pull a trailer load of cattle) because her old tires were worn out. On her way home late afternoon she saw Millers’ lame bull (the one that’s had a severely injured hind leg since June and got really skinny) coming down off the low range to try to find some feed and water. She was surprised to see that he was still alive. The last time we saw him—after Millers put him below the middle range gate in Baker Creek and into the low range—he looked so bad that we thought he would die. Since there is no water this year on the low range this summer, with the drought, she opened the gate and let him come on down to the road, and he went into Alfonso’s field through his open gate. She told Alfonso she’d put the bull in there, and called John that evening to tell him where his bull was.
She also told Alfonso that we would help him move some of those range cows up out of Baker creek—where there is no grass left (and that’s why they keep trying to get into our place) and offered to help put them on the high range. Alfonso told us he planned to move some cows on Sunday.
So the next day (Saturday) I got up at 4 a.m. and typed some articles with urgent deadlines, then after Andrea changed the irrigation water we rode to the 320 to make sure there were no cows in. We weren’t very surprised to find the same two cows of Alfonso’s back in again. The cow we’d put out the ridge gate 2 days earlier had gone through two fences to come back into our 320 again.
They both had full udders again, and no calves. This time, however, they were up in the meadow along Baker Creek, above the brushy area and downed trees that a horse can’t get through, and they headed up the hill toward the rocky cliffs between our place and the middle range. As we suspected, they had found a way through the barricade that we created many years ago in that slot in the rocky cliffs, and had been coming and going through that steep slot—going back and forth to their calves that apparently stayed out there on the middle range somewhere. We patiently gave them time to scramble up that steep slope and up through the rock cliffs, and back to the middle range. I didn’t think about taking a picture of them as they weaved up through those rocks (I was too focused on making sure they went up there) but took a photo after they were safely out, to show where they’d climbed up through. Here’s a photo of those rocky cliffs, and a closer-up view of the slot the cows climbed through to go back out.
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| the rocky cliffs the cows came down through |
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| a closer look at the slot through the rocks that the cows went back up |
After the cows were back where they belonged, and heading down the mountain to go find their calves, Andrea and I rode out our side gate just past those cliffs, and rode back to those rocks. I held her horse while she propped up several posts that were flattened and tied them to sagebrush and a mahogany bush to keep the fence upright. That fence was ok when we checked it earlier this year, but those cows had trashed it. I took photos of her tying the fence up to bushes to hold it upright. |
| Andrea tying the fence up to a mahogany bush |
When she went on down to the end that ties into the big rocks, she started to prop it up and nearly stepped on a big rattlesnake. She had to kill it before she could safely finish propping up the fence. I took a photo as she propped up the rest of that fence. |
| propping the fence up on the end next to the rocks - after killing snake |
When we went on around to the slot through the cliff, we could see that our old barricade was trashed and non-existent where those two cows had been coming and going. Again, I held Willow while Andrea created another barricade, using sagebrush and twines (I always carry baling twines in my coat pockets, in the coat tied to my saddle). I took a photo as she started down into those rocks, taking some baling twines to try to find a way to tie up the old fence again. I took a photo afterward, looking down toward that slot, but it barely shows the bushes she tied up across the top of that narrow slot down through the rocks. |
| Andrea taking twines down into rock slot to try to patch fence |
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| bushes tied up to make barricade |
Then we rode on down through the middle range and I took a few photos of the horribly skinny cows all grouped there at the gate to the low range, hoping they could go somewhere else. |
| skinny cows gathered at gate |
They were so hungry, and wanting to go home, that they mobbed us as we went through the gate, and we feared they might trash the gate after we shut it.
We hurried home to relieve Lynn of his babysitting job (he took care of Christopher when Emily went to work).
On Sunday Andrea changed water and then she and I rode out to the middle range to help Alfonso move cattle. She rode Ed that day (since Willow doesn’t have shoes on yet, and Ed does). We knew we’d be crashing around through a lot of rocks and didn’t want to take a chance on Willow chipping her feet or stone bruising. Her feet are really tough and hard, but we didn’t want to risk problems.
We got out there ahead of Alfonso and could see that there were cows still spread all over the mountain on the other side of Baker Creek; none of them had come down yet for water. They have been spending more and more time grubbing around on the steepest slopes and in the rocks, trying to find some grass. Usually by late morning they come down for water, but not that day. Some were starting to drift toward the ridge into Baker Creek, however, and we figured we’d just wait a little bit for Alfonso and give the cows time to come down off the hill. But as we waited, we saw two people on mountain bikes heading around toward the jeep road gate into the middle range. The cows we saw moving toward Baker Creek as we came up the ridge through the low range never did come into view and we realized they probably got distracted by the bikers coming up into the middle range. Those cows thought those people were going to let them through that gate so they turned around and went back that direction!
So we rode up that steep mountain and around it to start gathering those cows, about the time Alfonso showed up. We gathered them off that mountain and down into Baker Creek, and took them up along our mile of 320 fence, to go to the high range. We didn’t see either one of the renegade fence-crawler cows, but also didn’t see them in the 320 when we pushed the herd up the mountain past our place.
After we helped Alfonso get the herd started up the last hill, we rode into the 320 through the side gate to see if those cows were in there and hiding, but found no sign of them, and no fresh manure, even though we could see that they’d trashed the barricade that we recreated the day before. So we went back out and helped Alfonso finish taking the big herd of skinny cows into the high range. He went back home, and we came down through the 320, the whole length of Baker Creek, searching for those stray cows, but didn’t find them. I took photos as we rode down through our place, looking.
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| Andrea on Ed, looking for cows in 320 |
When we got home a huge windstorm hit, blowing several branches off the elm tree by our house, and raining a little. It cleared off by chore time, however, and I gave Ed some bute (anti-inflammatory drug, similar to aspirin) so she wouldn’t be too stiff and sore the next day, from her ride. She is a tough old horse and did really well for age 30 and not in shape. She’d only been ridden once this year—a brief ride in early Spring when Dani rode her over the hill on the low range.
The next day Andrea put up more hot wire around the hayfield on heifer hill, so we can move the cows over there and keep them out of the regrowth on the field. Then we rode again, to go check the 320 to see if those darn cows were in again. Dani and her friend Jake rode with us. Dani rode Shiloh, and Jake rode up here from his grandparents’ place (Jeff and Jill Minor, at Baker). We were hoping to do a more thorough check through the 320 (in the brush and timber) to see if those 2 cows were back in again, since we didn’t see them the day before. I took photos as we rode up the ridge from our house, when Jake stopped to tighten his cinch, and as we rode on up the long ridges toward the 320.
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| Jake tightening his cinch |
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| Dani & Jake riding up the ridge to 320 |
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| riding up ridge just below 320 |
When we went into the 320 we didn’t find the cows in their usual places and kept going on up the creek. I took photos of Dani and Jake going up Baker Creek. |
| going up Baker Creek |
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| Jake & Dani in Baker Creek |
We finally found those trespassing cows—with their calves, for the first time—at the top end of Baker Creek. This was handy because we were able to put them out that gate, and join them with a group of cattle that was hanging down there on our fence. There is no grass at all on the high range in Baker Creek, so we took that group, picking up a few more cattle along the way, and moved them all the way up the creek to where we could put them out on the big ridge between Baker Creek and Withington Creek where there is actually a little grass left—that wasn’t eaten by the cows that got into the high range a month early. It was nice having Dani and Jake help us because we could split up and be more effective moving those cows up through the creek bottom and heading them out through the timber to the ridge.
It was also nice that Shiloh got along well with Jake’s mare, and they could work together on one side of the herd while Andrea and I handled the other side. I took photos as Andrea and I moved the main bunch up the creek bottom.
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| taking the cows on up Baker Creek in the high range |
When we got home, I fed everyone lunch, and Jake took his mare to the creek in the corral so she could have a drink.
After lunch Andrea hauled some steel posts down to our lower back field, in preparation for building a fence around the deep chasm that eroded down the hill from the ditch (created after Robbie used a mini-excavator to clean the ditch and made a spillway down the hill, not understanding that it would create horrible erosion). That chasm is about 15 feet deep in one spot and very narrow, and if a cow or calf fell in it they would never get out.
She also hauled a couple rolls of net wire (that we saved for recycling after rebuilding some old fences) down to the bottom of the post pile pasture so we can put it along the jack fence down there.
We talked to Heather and Gregory in Canada and they were excited and happy at how their well drilling project turned out. One well was only 40 feet deep and producing 100 gallons a minute, with the water rising to within 5 feet of the surface. They hadn’t drilled the second one yet, but they are delighted that they will have plenty of water for their cattle in that pasture.
Tuesday was hot and we didn’t ride. I helped Andrea finish the hot wire around the edge of the hayfield on heifer hill, then Jake and Dani helped us move the cows from the ditch pasture by Andrea’s house into heifer hill. Then they helped Andrea for a couple hours, setting steel posts and fencing off the chasm on the hill in the lower back field. Lynn went to town for mail and groceries and more staples for our fencing project. I took photos of the fence around the chasm in the back field. The grass around it is tall and it’s hard to tell that the little “ditch” in the pictures is actually about 15 feet deep.
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| fence around the deep chasm |
Gregory called that evening to tell us that the second well for their cattle turned out nicely also—at 50 gallons a minute.
On Wednesday Dani had to work at the motel, but Jake and one of his friends came and helped Andrea staple netting to the jack fence in the post pile pasture. This will ensure that no calves can crawl through the jack fence. We need a very secure boundary between our pasture and Alfonso’s field.
Yesterday Andrea, Dani and Dani’s friend Kendall took our stock trailer over to Phil Moulton’s place to help him haul some cattle to Blackfoot for the sale. Phil has helped us haul cattle a few times so this was payback; he had too many cattle for one load so Andrea hauled 7 cows and a bull in our trailer. After they were loaded, the tires on our trailer were pretty low, and Phil put more air in them before they started the trip. We realized that the tires that came with that old trailer were too small; they were camp trailer tires, not adequate for a stock trailer hauling more weight. The wheels also got hot and the trailer brakes weren’t working very well. We were glad they made the trip safely; we’ll have to get new, bigger tires, and check the brakes.
While they were gone we helped take care of Christopher and he had fun playing for several hours in our cluttered livingroom. He found some little hand weights that Lynn used at one time for physical therapy for his shoulders, and he immediately lay down on the floor and played with them like he was a weight lifter, lifting weights. We were amused at that because he must have seen people doing that on television.
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| Christopher lifting weights |
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| Christopher in our living room |
When he got tired of that he played with some of his toys, then found Lynn’s old radio and was checking it out. He figured out how to turn it on and pull up the antenna and change the station. That kid is too smart and likes to try to figure everything out. |
| playing with Lynn's old radio |
Today was hot again. Andrea took her truck and trailer to town to get new tires for the trailer. They weren’t able to figure out the brakes, however, so we’ll have to take it somewhere else for that problem.
AUGUST 22 – Last Saturday Lynn went with his sister Jenelle to Blackfoot to get a new PTO shaft for a tractor; it broke down while baling her hay. Andrea and I made a fast ride to the 320 to check and make sure no cattle were getting in from the high range side. I took a photo of Andrea looking toward the south fence to see if there were any range cattle on that side of our 320.
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| Andrea checking 320 |
When we got back, we moved our cows from heifer hill to the upper swamp pasture.
The next day I put front shoes on Willow. She’s done really well to make 9 rides without shoes, but we don’t want to risk a stone bruise; it was time to put shoes on. Then Andrea and Lynn took our stock trailer over to Vern England for more fixing. He lowered the tongue a bit so it will be more level and not so much weight on the rear axle when loaded, but he couldn’t fix the brakes. He suggested taking it to the Good News Garage—an auto shop that’s good at working on trailer brakes, so we made an appointment with that shop.
Andrea’s friend Jerry came out that afternoon and helped her put net wire all along the jack fence in the lower back field, so there will be no chance for the range cattle to crawl through into our place. There was a bull down in the swamp below the fence, and Andrea chased him over the hill, but he was back again the next day.
On Monday Andrea took Christopher to his swimming lessons. At age 2 he’s not afraid of the water but needs to learn how to swim.
Lynn and I hauled 9 small bales from the stackyard on the feed truck and I put them in the lane by the main corral so we can feed the bull and his heifer companion for a while in that corral when we have to move them out of the bull pen.
Dani and Jake rode for 3 hours on the low range, just for fun, and had a picnic by the Baker Grove. When they got home they helped Andrea for a couple hours, putting more staples on the netting on the jack fence in the lower back field (Andrea and Jerry ran out of staples the day they put the wire on, and we had to buy more staples), and a couple more poles on the jack fence. I took photos of the jack fence with net wire on it.
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| net wire on jackfence |
The next day we moved the cows and calves to the back lower field and I put the bull and his companion in the main corral so they would not be adjacent to those cows (the bull corral is next to the upper part of that back pasture). Since we have 3 cull cows in that group that we didn’t put with the bull this summer—knowing we will be selling them—we didn’t want to have them next to the bull in case one of them comes into heat and the bull would try to go through the fence.
Andrea drove to Montana to spend a few days with Stan, and spell him off on the wash station, since government regulations specify that no one can work on these fires more than 14 days in a row; they have to take 2 days off and then resume the job. Andrea has her qualifications to work at fire camps, so she was technically in charge of Stan’s wash station while he took those 2 days off.
The weather turned cold over there, and it rained, which helped a bit with the efforts to control that fire. Andrea took her irrigating boots and was the only one in camp who had totally dry feet! We had cool weather here, but no rain. We desperately need rain. While Andrea was gone, Lynn and I took care of Christopher while Emily was at work. Em didn’t work on Wednesday, however, so she took care of him that day, and we had her and Christopher here for supper. Dani spent a few nights at her dad’s house; he is helping her work on an old pickup to get it running so she can drive it. Currently she is still borrowing our old car (“Luna”) to drive to work.
While Andrea was gone, Lynn and I changed the irrigation water, but there wasn’t much to change since the creek is low and we are cut down to one ditch. Andrea drove home on Friday.
The next day was still cool, with a tiny bit of rain. Andrea changed water and set a few more steel posts along the lower end of the chasm in the back field, and put several strands of wire on those posts so no cattle will fall into that lower end. The chasm there isn’t very wide, but quite deep.
Yesterday Andrea and Lynn helped me move the heifers from their ditch pasture by the driveway and put them in the little swamp pen below the bull corral. Being able to rotate them around a lot of small areas where we can’t graze the whole herd helps extend our pasture and provide forage for the heifers for the whole summer except when they are with the main herd during breeding season.
Then I put front shoes on Shiloh. Her feet are generally so hard that they are hard to trim and hard to drive nails for shoeing, but after the little bit of rain the day before they were softer and I was able to get her front feet trimmed and shod. They were starting to get a bit raggedy after traveling through so many rocks on Dani’s recent rides so it was time to put shoes on.
Emily brought Christopher down that afternoon and we gave him his first ride on Ed, using the little saddle that we got for Dani when she was little. He was delighted to be up on that horse!
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| Christopher proudly rides Ed |
His legs aren’t long enough yet to reach the stirrups, but he hung onto the saddle horn and enjoyed the ride while we led Ed up the lane and out the driveway and back, and he didn’t want to get off when it was time to put her away. |
| Christopher riding Ed |
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| Andrea leading Ed up the driveway |
He “helped” lead her back to her pen, and fed her some handfuls of hay. After we put Ed back in her pen, Andrea changed water, and killed a rattlesnake on the ditch bank just below the driveway.
Today I’d planned to put hind shoes on Willow, but she still has a fair amount of hoof wall left (and her feet are hard to trim if they are dry and not soft from mud) so Andrea and rode to check the 320 (no cows in!) and went on up into the high range. Those poor cows up there have no salt (not since early June when they were still on the low range) and are spread out over the big mountain down toward Withington Creek—the only place there is still a little grass, but it’s about gone.
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| riding on the high range |
This evening Heather and Gregory called to tell us their exciting news. They let Joseph (4 years old) tell us first, saying that he is going to have a baby sibling in February! He said he wants a sister this time, because he already has a little brother and he’d like to try a sister. If all goes well, the baby will arrive in late February, about the time young James has his 2-year-old birthday.
SEPTEMBER 1 – Last Tuesday (August 24) was Charlie’s 20th birthday. Andrea, Em and Christopher had lunch with him in town, and that evening we had dinner at Andrea’s house to celebrate his birthday, after he got off work.
That afternoon Andrea and I made a short ride up through the fields to check on our ditches; we asked the watermaster to put a little water back in # 8 for us, and a little more in # 7. We’ve been really short of water lately, with less than our 70 inch right. We discovered that there was still a little water in #8 but none of it is getting down to our place. It’s all dammed off on the Gooch place above us. We rode up the horse road to go into heifer hill, and I took photos as we went through the tall sagebrush along the way. These tall bushes are Basin Sage, that sometimes grow as tall as a small tree, but it takes them many years. The sagebrush along the horse road are more than 50 years old. I took photos as we rode up through them, and when we came back down.
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| riding up the horse road to go to heifer hill |
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| coming back down the horse road |
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| riding through the tall sage |
That afternoon after Dani got home, she spent an hour trimming the overhanging brush out of the runway to our chute. It’s become so overgrown that the cows have a hard time going down that alley when we need to put them in the chute, and we wanted the brush cleared out before we preg check and vaccinate in mid-September. The young bull was curious about Dani standing in the alleyway (and standing on the poles to reach the higher brush) and he stood next to the poles licking and chewing on her shoes!
That evening we all went to Andrea’s house for Charlie’s birthday dinner, but as Lynn and I were about to go out the back door, we saw our little friendly skunk eating the last crumbs of cat food on the porch, so we didn’t want to startle him by opening the door and bumping him. He knew we were there but he didn’t leave. He is so used to me walking past him here and there around the barnyard when I do chores morning and evening that he doesn’t spray—but he might if he was startled. So we patiently waited there inside the screen door while he finished crunching/eating all the cat food and after he left we ventured out, and I took photos of “Stinky” gobbling the cat food.
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| Stinky the skunk eating cat food |
One of the cats was there, too, hoping to eat some of the food, looking wistfully at the skunk gobbling it up. It was one of our older cats, nicknamed Fencing Cat (because she likes to tag along with us when we are fixing fences around the barnyard). |
| cat watching skunk clean up all the food |
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| Stinky eats it all |
When we were finally able to go out the door, we went up to Andrea’s place for Charlie’s birthday dinner (20 years old!), and I took photos of Christopher playing with his toys before dinner, and some photos of the family during dinner. |
| Christopher playing |
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| Andrea and Charlie |
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| Charlie and Christopher |
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| Charlie's birthday dinner |
Then Emily brought Charlie the special carrot cake she made for him, and Christopher admired it and wanted to eat the candy carrots off it. |
| Em presenting Charlie with cake |
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| Christopher admiring cake |
Then Charlie opened his birthday presents, and I took photos of him opening a gift, and of the funny card I made for him that had a photo taken 10 years ago on his 10th birthday. |
| opening birthday present |
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| old photo of his 20th birthday |
The next morning Andrea and Lynn went to town early to take Andrea’s pickup and stock trailer to the Good News Garage to have the brakes checked. They figured out that there was a communication problem between the trailer brakes and the pickup, and ordered a new “controller” for her pickup.
Phil Moulton brought us two loads of second cutting alfalfa (for our heifers this winter) and stacked it next to Shiloh’s pen. With the drought, hay is scarce and high priced. Phil didn’t have quite as much 2nd cutting for us as we’d wanted to get from him, but I think we’ll still be ok unless it’s a long hard winter. He did honor the price he told us it would be, when we ordered it from him this spring, even though hay prices have nearly doubled what they were at that time. The drought is hurting a lot of folks—many ranchers are running out of pasture, and will have to feed hay sooner than usual, and the hay is costing more.
We were going to put black plastic over the two new stacks that afternoon but the wind came up horribly, with a little bit of rain, and we didn’t get a chance to cover them. It didn’t rain much, but did clear the smoke out of the air briefly.
We’ve had horrible smoke all summer, from fires near and far. It’s been one of the worst fire seasons across the West, due to hot dry weather but mainly due to the ‘let burn’ policy of the government land management agencies—both state and federal. They often don’t try to put small fires out immediately, and they become big fires, and less easily controlled. I was asked to write a series of articles about this growing problem and have interviewed some interesting people.
Wednesday afternoon Lynn tried to put more air in a leaking tractor tire on the mid-size John Deere (fortunately not the tractor Phil used for unloading the hay for us) but the valve stem broke off. It’s been leaking fluid as well as air (those big tires are partially filled with calcium chloride to give them more weight) and the leaking fluid had eaten up part of the valve stem as well as corroding the rim. So the tire went completely flat. We had to call the tire place to have them send out a guy the next day, to pump out the rest of the fluid and replace the inner tube and valve stem.
That morning we were able to put black plastic over both new haystacks; it didn’t rain enough the night before to soak in and make them too wet, and now they are safely covered if it does rain for real---which we hope it does! Jeff Minor came up that morning and put hind shoes on Shiloh. He can do it quicker and easier than I can! Now she has shoes on all four feet and won’t get tender-footed traveling through rocky terrain.
The creek is low and Jack (who has the first right) has been short of water, so Tony (our new watermaster shut down our ditches even more. The creek didn’t seem that low where it goes through our place, however, so we suspected that Alfonso is still using his illegal diversion (a ditch just below our place that has never had a headgate and weir, and is illegal for him to use except in high water, since it can’t be controlled or measured; to use it during regulation, he is essentially stealing water).
So on Friday when Andrea and I made a short ride through our cows on the back pasture and out that far side onto the other range to chase some cattle away from our fence. There is hardly any grass out there, and the range cows want to come into our fields. I took a photo as we rode out there, and it shows there is no grass left.
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| riding on the neighbors' range on the south side of our place |
After we chased those cows over the hill, we rode down the ridge and looked at Alfonso’s fields on the back side—and it looked like he’s been using the illegal diversion all summer. This is probably why Jack (who has the first right, below Alfonso’s fields) has been short of water lately as the creek dropped; even if we send more water down the creek, some of it goes out Alfonso’s illegal ditch and never gets to Jack.
So we called Tony and mentioned that this might be part of the problem, and that it happens every year, and has been the reason that our creek had to go into regulation some years much sooner than necessary (making the upper users shut off their ditches) because Alfonso was stealing water. Tony was not aware of that illegal ditch, and he hiked down along the creek that evening and found it. So he wants to find out (from his boss at IDWR) what he can do (beyond making Alfonso take out the dam across the creek, diverting it into the illegal ditch) to make sure he won’t continue doing it.
On Saturday, I got up at 3 a.m. and typed some interviews and articles, to meet some urgent deadlines. Later that morning Andrea and I made a short ride to chase range cows away from our fence again on this back side. There’s no grass left out there and those hungry cows are trying to get into the field with our cows. There is a bog just below our place, and one cow was out in it trying to get a little taste of green grass (it grows in the bog when everything around it is too dry). Andrea got Willow a little too close to the bog and one of Willow’s hind legs went clear down in that bottomless mud, and as she tried to turn around and get back out of it, all four legs went down and she was in mud past her belly, with Andrea’s feet and stirrups clear down into the mud.
Willow floundered and struggled but didn’t panic, and Andrea didn’t dare get off for fear of being wallowed into the bog by the struggling horse. Willow finally lunged and lurched out to firmer ground. That poor mare was mud from feet to tail/shoulder. But she seemed ok (no pulled joints or strained muscles) and her lurching around in the bog scared the cow on out of the other side and we were able to take the cattle over the hill and about 2 miles to join them up with some other cattle. Hopefully they won’t come back—and hopefully their owners will gather them up and take them home soon, because they are starving.
Meanwhile, the same problem is occurring on the range above us on the other side. Alfonso’s and Millers cows are coming down into Alfonso’s leased pasture above my brother’s house on our upper place, and coming through Alfonso’s bad fence, out onto the road, and getting into my brother’s yard and garden. Bev called me to find out how to get in touch with Alfonso and was able to call him on his cell phone and he came up and got the cows out of their place and did a little patching on his fence.
The fire Stan was stationed at was finally under control that day, and the crews were demobilized. He drove home and arrived here that evening. He and Andrea took Christopher to the rodeo at the Fair (Emily was working that evening).
