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| Joseph and James riding their critters |
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| brothers finishing lunch |
Friday we took some of the cows to the 320, to graze through the rest of the fall, leaving just the young cows home on the back pasture. The ones to go to the 320 were in the little pasture above the house, where they’d be already sorted out and handy to move. We’d planned to haul those cows up the road in the trailer to the upper place (to get them past the Gooch place where Alfonso’s fences are falling down and flat), and then take them up the mountain from there with horses.
Jill Minor and her grandson Jake were going to help us; they planned to ride the 2 miles up here from Minor’s place at Baker, and Dani and I would ride with them to the upper place—and Andrea would drive up and get Dani and Jake to come back and help load the cows while Jill and I held the horses until they brought the cows up the road. Then Andrea was going to take the trailer home while we 4 riders took the cows on up to the 320 and into Baker Creek. Andrea was getting a bad cold and didn’t feel up to riding anyway, and it seemed logical that we could manage to get the cows on up the mountain without her.
Early that morning we brought the cows in from the pasture above the house and took them to the corral, to have them there while we got our horses ready and waited for Jill and Jake to arrive. But realizing how big those cows are, and the fact they might not all fit very easily in our small stock trailer, and how difficult it might be to load them since most of them had never been in a trailer before, Andrea and I both had a bad feeling about trying to haul them. We didn’t want anyone to get hurt trying to load them.
So we quickly went to plan B. With the extra riders, we figured we might be able to just take the cattle up the road the 3 miles, past all the bad fences, if a couple riders went along the fence on the inside of Alfonso’s field to keep his cows from trying to get out and join our herd, and to discourage our cows from trying to go through the fence to get into the field. So Andrea rode with us on Willow, and there were 5 of us to escort our small herd up the road.
When we got up around the corner to the Gooch place, Dani and Jake went into that field and chased Alfonso’s cows away, and rode along the fence. Andrea, Jill and I were able to keep our herd mainly on the hill side of the road and away from the fence (which was flat in several places). There were a few places along the upper fields where we also had to make sure the cows didn’t get down off the road and next to the fence because over the years the road graders have partially buried that fence and it’s not very tall. Someday Michael will need to rebuild that fence, but at least it’s not as flat as Alfonso’s fences!
Lynn came along on his 4-wheeler and helped block a few of the neighbor’s driveways where there are no gates. We got the cattle safely up the creek without any of them trying to go through the various fences, and headed them up the hill. Andrea rode ahead and opened the first gate, and then I rode Dottie up ahead to open the gate into the 320. We were glad it was a cool day because the cows were fat and the trek was all uphill, especially the last mile up into the 320 and then up the steep jeep road to the ridge gate heading toward Baker Creek. I took photos as we waited a bit and let the cows head up the jeep road at their own pace; here are photos of Jill and Dani following the cows at a distance.
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| Jill and Dani following cows |
Most of those cows had been up there for fall pasture before, and knew where they were going. None of them tried to run back (like happened a couple years ago with some of the younger cows that had never been up there before). We were able to just let them go their own speed and not get too tired and overheated. They lined out and hiked slowly up the steep trail to the ridge.
Andrea and Jerry had left the ridge gate open (in the internal cross-fence) two days earlier when they took the protein tubs up the ridge in the jeep, in preparation for bringing the cows, so no one had to hurry up past the cows to open the gate. The cows went through the gate and headed down into Baker Creek, knowing there would be good grass and water down there.
We had planned to leave them at that point and ride home down the ridge, but as we came through the saddle to follow the cows a short distance, there was a brief point at which we could see through the trees up toward the highest ridge on the high range between Baker Creek and Withington Creek (about 2 miles on up the mountain) and Andrea noticed what looked like a cow on the hill above Cat Hole trough. I got out my monocular and she looked more closely and determined that there were a couple animals there. Millers and Alfonso still had some cows out on the range.
So we went to Plan C. Jill needed to get home for an afternoon appointment, so Andrea gave Dani her gate key, and they rode home down the ridge. Andrea and I followed the cows into Baker Creek and left them there in the good grass, and rode on up through the 320 and out to the range—and on up Baker Creek. There were no fresh tracks in Baker Creek and none coming in from the timber to any of the water troughs. We rode out to the big salt ground and there were no tracks or fresh manure there.
Hopefully the only stray animals left out on the range were the two we’d seen up by Cat Hole trough. So we rode on up the steep trail through the timber and over to that trough and as we came over the hill we saw the two animals; it looked like a bull and a heifer. As we got closer, however, we could see it was two bulls. The young skinny one had looked like a yearling heifer from a distance. Both of them were emaciated and the older bull looked like he’d been sick. His ears were drooped down and he was dull—and when he stood up we could see a large swelling at the back of one hind leg, just below his buttocks. It looked like he may have been snake-bitten or had a torn muscle from injury, but even though it was severely swollen he was able to walk. He’d probably been more crippled earlier in the summer and was healing. Both bulls belonged to John Miller.
We didn’t want to leave them there, because they might be attracted to our cattle and try to get through the fence into the 320. Michael is planning to put his cows on the lower portion of the 320 for a couple weeks, and his bull would be with them. Bulls fighting through the fence would not be good! We had to get these bulls off the range.
Our best option to get them rounded up and home to John was to take them over the ridge into Withington Creek, and bring them down Withington Creek to Alfonso’s 160-acre leased pasture, where John would be able to find them and come get them. So we started easing them up the trail toward the ridge. The young bull was very insecure and stayed with the bigger bull, but that bull was a bit reluctant to travel and kept trying to hide in the trees. We got them through the patches of trees until the very last patch, where that bull hid out and refused to move. The big tree he hid under was too low to get in under with the horses and we were reluctant to get off and try to chase him out on foot. Andrea got a couple of rocks and chucked him, but he wouldn’t budge.
Dottie (being a small skittish horse) was afraid of the bull and he knew it. Willow wasn’t afraid but she was too big and tall to get in under the tree. Finally she ducked down and crashed through the branches right at the bull, and Andrea had to duck down alongside and nearly got knocked off her horse with a big branch, but they plowed right in at the bull and he came out the other side. Andrea had a headache for a while after crashing into that branch, but we got the bulls out of the trees and over the ridge. I took a photo after we got them over the ridge and started around the hill.
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| following the bulls around the mountain toward Withington Creek |
Then we simply had to take our time and get them down off the mountain into Withington Creek, through some steep treacherous terrain. When we reached the fence between the BLM and the Forest Service and let them start down along the fence into Withington Creek I took photos showing the big swelling on the older bull’s hind leg. |
| swollen hind leg on bull |
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| bulls starting down the fence |
I took another photo as Andrea followed them down along the fence. |
| Andrea following the bulls |
Then when we finally got them down to the creek we had to patiently follow them down the jeep road, hoping that they wouldn’t dive off down into the jungled brush of the creek bottom where it would be impossible to follow with a horse. Both bulls were tired and very sore-footed and we let them go their own slow speed and didn’t press them, and they stayed on the jeep road. It took 3 hours to bring them down a couple miles, but we eventually got them into Alfonso’s 160-acre leased pasture and let them go to the creek. We stopped at Rocky’s house to use his phone to try to call Millers to tell them where their bulls were, but didn’t get anyone, so we rode on home.
I couldn’t get hold of Millers after we got home either, but left a message on their phone. Eventually Ruby called me back, and said John had been gone for a week hunting but would be back later that night. She was glad to hear that we’d found those bulls, but told me there were short three bulls, which meant another one was still out there!
At chore time Andrea and Christopher came down and helped me feed horses; Christopher loves to put handfuls of hay in my wheelbarrow, and likes to stick bits of hay through the fence for the horses. My wheelbarrow had a bolt coming loose, so Andrea helped me fix it and Christopher rode in the wheelbarrow.
After supper, just before dark, my brother Rocky called to tell us the bulls had finally come on down to the meadow across the road from his house and he was hoping they wouldn’t come through Alfonso’s bad fence—like the big herd of cows had done a couple weeks earlier; the whole herd came across the road and got into Rocky’s place. There’s no grass in Alfonso’s rented pasture and those bulls were already starving.
So we called Andrea, and she and Christopher came from her house. We loaded a couple bales of my horse hay into our pickup and drove there, and fed those bulls all of it, just at dark. That would keep them busy eating until John could come get them.
John called us that next morning and was grateful that we’d found the bulls and taken the time to bring them down off the range, and said he planned to get them that day. I told him we’d be riding again to check the cows we put on the 320 and that we might take another ride through the range to try to find his other bull. He told me that the bull that’s missing is dangerous and that if we find him we shouldn’t try to do anything with him—but just tell him where we see him and he’d go get the bull.
I did a couple phone interviews that morning (for articles) and then Andrea, Dani and I rode for 5 hours to check our cows and look for the missing bull. When we went through the 320 we went up the ridge and didn’t see our cows anywhere, but found their tracks at the protein tubs and knew they’d made it up there and found the tubs. There were a few tracks out toward Preacher Spring but we didn’t see the cows, and figured they’d gone back into Baker Creek for water. We rode on out the top ridge gate to make a bigger loop through the high range to look for John’s bull. I took photos as we looked over the ridge into Withington Creek.
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| looking over the ridge and down into Withington Creek |
There was cell service on the ridge so I took a photo of Andrea and Dani using their cell phones. Andrea called Lynn to tell him we might be late getting home and that he might need to babysit Christopher if Emily had to go to work before we got back. |
| gals using their cell phones |
We finally picked up some relatively fresh bull tracks at Lower Cat Trough that were headed toward Basco Basin. We knew it had to be a bull; the tracks were too big to be a cow. We rode through that area and found a few tracks, and went on down through the open gate into French’s range. All the range gates were open. We found a few more tracks but no cattle.
We rode back into our range and down through High Camp and across the top of the middle range, and saw nothing. So we went back around to the 320 to see if we could find our cows in Baker Creek and check on them. We came in the side gate and as we headed down into the creek we looked across the little meadow into the trees and saw a mama bear and her 3 cubs. She saw us and sent them scattering; one ran a little ways up the hill and hunkered down in the brush, one ran behind a big tree and the third one tried to climb the tree. He got partway up it and just hung there, trying to seem invisible. The mama bear crouched down in the grass. I took photos of the mama, and the baby hanging onto the tree; it turned out a bit blurry because Dottie wasn’t standing still.
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| Mama bear |
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| baby bear hanging on to the tree |
Our horses weren’t too worried about the bears, but Dottie kept trying to eat grass and wouldn’t stand still enough for me to focus my camera on zoom so I got off and went a little closer so I could get a better picture. That alarmed mama bear and she got up and made a little rush toward us and woofed. The baby that was hanging on the tree was getting tired and he slid back down and hid behind the tree with his brother, and mama went over to be next to them. I took a few more photos but they were also a bit blurry. |
| the two cubs hiding behind the tree |
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| Mama bear lying down before I got off my horse |
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| Mama bear up and upset at us |
I held Dani’s horse while she got off and took some photos, then we rode on down the creek and met our cows coming up the creek. They’d apparently been down to the lower trough and were coming back up. The bears probably wouldn’t be too happy about seeing so many people and cows! At least the mama would probably leave the cows alone. A grizzly will often kill cattle but our black bears rarely bother them.
Yesterday Andrea helped me bring the cows from the lower back field into the lane by the post pile pasture, and we sorted off the other open cow that we plan to butcher. We put her with Training Wheels in the corral and took the two of them to the upper swamp pasture where they can live together until we get a chance to butcher them.
Shiloh had some kind of eye infection/irritation; the lids were swollen and the eye was running. I put ointment in it for 3 days and it’s doing better now. Andrea’s cold is worse and I seem to be getting it now. I had a fever last night and feel pretty rotten today. It probably didn’t help that we both overdid for several days, with all the cattle work and riding so long in the heat bringing home Miller’s bulls and looking for the other bull. Fortunately, the third bull showed up. The tracks we saw coming down out of the high range were probably his; he came down through the middle range and low range and into Alfonso’s field. He was there in the field when John brought the other two bulls down the road. John was able to take all three bulls out the back side of Alfonso’s place and over the hills and home.
Today was hot again. Andrea and I still didn’t feel very good but we rode for a couple hours to check on our cows on the 320. I took a photo as we rode into Baker Creek. The cows were all in Baker Creek, lounging around in the shade and a I took a photo of some of them.
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| riding into Baker Creek |
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| cows lounging in the shade |
They had been to the protein tubs—we saw their tracks on that ridge--and something else had been there, too. There were deep scratch marks in the protein, and we don’t know what kind of critter was trying to eat it. Hopefully not the bear!
On our way home Andrea noticed that Dottie had a bloody hind foot. She must have hit her coronary band on a rock or something sharp; it had an inch-long slice along one side of her foot just above the hoof, and it had bled a lot. She wasn’t lame, however, and we didn’t think much of it at the time.
Emily had another COVID test today. Where she works at Discovery Care Center she gets tested about twice a week, and this time she tested positive, in spite of having the shots a few weeks ago. She’s not very sick, and will continue to work, but only short days, mainly serving meals to the patients in the COVID ward.
We finally got our check from the cattle we sold at Blackfoot. The market is dropping off on cull cows and isn’t very good on calves; they didn’t sell as well as the cattle last year. We also lost about $500 selling them at Blackfoot versus the sale in Montana (comparing the prices from each sale) but it was easier taking them to Blackfoot (a better road and easier haul). Another year, however, we’ll probably go back to selling in Montana.
OCTOBER 6 – Andrea and I both have been pretty draggy for several weeks, with a head cold and sinus infection, but no longer have a sore throat or fever. Last Tuesday she parked the stock trailer partway up the driveway where she could reach it with the hose from the hydrant and belatedly washed all the manure out of it, from hauling the cattle to the sale. We hope to try to find time and energy to load the horses sometime and refresh their trailering lessons, since none of them have been in a trailer for a very long time.
That evening Christopher was jumping on his bed and slipped and hit his face, and broke out his front teeth again and cut his lip. That kid is too rambunctious! Andrea and Emily took him to the dentist the next day to have the damage checked, but the dentist can’t do anything this time (at least not for quite a while) because he’s not able to do dental surgery at the hospital right now. It’s all shut down again because of the increase in COVID cases.
After chores that morning when I brought Sprout back from letting her graze for a few hours in the stackyard, I led her into the trailer. She went in readily; she remembers her early trailering experiences and would be easy to haul again if we ever had to. Then I put Sprout back in her pen and caught Ed and brought her to the trailer, and she also hopped right in. Ed was trailered many times in the past, when Michael and Carolyn had her; they hauled horses to their other leased places to move cattle and ride range on other ranges. Here’s a photo of Ed—always eager to come out of her pen, whether to go for a ride, eat grass, or get into a trailer.
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| Ed is always eager to come out of her pen |
Now the only trailer lessons we need to refresh are the younger horses. Willow and Dottie only had a couple trailer-loading lessons the winter after we bought them, and Willow was bolder than Dottie about going into the trailer. That was 10 years ago.
Thursday morning we were planning to lead Willow and Dottie around to the trailer and entice them in with a little grain, but when I went to get Dottie she was lying down and didn’t want to get up. When she did get up, she staggered and almost fell down. Her hind foot was swollen (up past the fetlock joint) and she was very lame and very dull. So I brought her out of her pen and took her temperature. It was 102.5 degrees (normal for a horse is 99 to 100.5) so she definitely was sick. Apparently she’d belatedly developed an infection in the injured coronary band.
So we washed the foot, soaked it in hot Epsom salts for 30 minutes, then dried it off and applied DMSO and nitrofurazone (an antibiotic ointment) over the open cut and bandaged it to keep it clean and dry. I gave her an injection of penicillin for the systemic infection. It seemed a bit unusual for her to develop a problem 3 days after the injury, so she must have gotten some contamination into the open cut.
That afternoon Lynn went to town for mail and groceries—to get a bunch of case goods for us and Andrea during the annual case goods sale at the store. Dani helped Andrea and me take down the temporary electric fence dividing the field below the lane. None of us felt very perky (still had bad colds) but with three of us it was fast and easy to gather up the step-in posts and roll up the wire.
By chore time that evening Dottie was feeling a lot better, starting to put more weight on that hind foot and it wasn’t as swollen. Maybe we caught the infection quick enough to turn it around fast. I took photos of her bandaged foot, with the swelling about gone.
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| Dottie's bandaged foot |
The next day she was walking even better and the swelling was just about all gone, and her temperature was back to normal. Andrea helped me take off the bandage and we soaked her foot again, and re-bandaged it and gave her another shot of penicillin.
Emily’s aunt and uncle (Jim’s sister Barbara and her husband Marty) came from Florida on a trip around the West and arrived here that evening. They’ll be here a couple days to visit.
Saturday was really nice –not too hot, and no more smoke in the air. Dottie’s foot was doing better when we took the bandage off that morning, but when Andrea started to wash the foot, there looked like a little bulge of something in the deepest hole. Andrea was able to grab it with pliers and pulled out a piece of wood about an inch long. That explained the problem; it wasn’t just a slice and abrasion, but a deep puncture that probably took some dirt in with it and set things up for the infection. We soaked her foot again and massaged the swollen coronary band in that area to try to work out any other possible debris—then applied more DMSO and antibiotic ointment and re-bandaged it—and gave her a final shot of penicillin. It would probably be able to heal now that the piece of wood was out of it. She must have jammed it into the top of her hoof when we rode through a bunch of brush in the 320 on our last ride to check the cows.
After lunch Emily’s aunt and uncle came out to the ranch from their motel. Emily had a couple days off from work so she could spend time visiting with them. Barb wanted to ride a horse, so Dani caught and saddled good old Ed for her, and Dani rode Shiloh, and took Barb for a short ride over the hill on the low range. Andrea took a photo of Barb and Dani on their short ride.
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| Barb riding Ed & Dani on Shiloh |
Christopher and Emily visited with Marty while they rode, and Christopher wanted to go into Shiloh’s pen and play on the dirt pile in there. |
| Christopher & Em visiting with Marty by Shiloh's pen |
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| Christopher & Marty in Shiloh's pen |
Then he wanted to go in our yard and play on the slide—the old swing set that is set back against the house in the tall grass. He had fun climbing up the slide and going down it. |
| Christopher checking out the old slide |
Then after Barb and Dani got back from their ride, Christopher sat on Ed with Barb for a few minutes. |
| Christopher on Ed with Barb |
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| Christopher sitting on Ed with Barb after they got back from their ride |
Then they all went home to Andrea’s house and she took a photo of Christopher checking out a gift that his Great Aunt Barb brought for him. |
| Christopher looking at a present from his great Aunt Barb |
Sunday we skipped Dottie’s soak and bandaging, figuring that it could go a couple days now that the foreign body was out of the wound and it was doing better. Emily and Christopher spent the day in town visiting with Barb and Marty and Andrea joined them later for pizza at their motel.
Lynn and I moved the weaned heifers from the orchard and horse pasture and put them in the big field below the lane. They’d eaten the best grass and I’d been feeding them a little bit of hay just to help gentle them, and this made it really easy to move them into the calving pen; they followed me with some hay. Then we put them across the driveway and down to the big field. The green grass (regrowth from the haying) is tall there, and should last them through the fall unless it snows under. I took photos as we moved them from the calving pen—across the driveway and through the pens by the barn, and out to the field.
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| moving the heifers out the the calving pen |
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| moving the heifers across the driveway |
I took another photo as they went out into the field and some of them stopped to check out the block of salt, and then as they spread out over the field enjoying the lush green grass. |
| checking out the salt block |
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| grazing the new pasture |
I also took a candid photo of Lynn sitting on the old tire by the driveway, with his favorite old cat Edna that loves to follow him around. |
| Lynn and his old cat |
Alfonso took his cows up to the Gooch place (after having them a few days on his lower place) and hauled calves off to sell. Now his cows are going through his fences and coming back down the road to try to find their calves, so we’ve had to keep our lane gate shut for several days, so they won’t try to come down here—attracted to our calves.
On Monday we soaked Dottie’s foot again. It’s looking really good and healing but there is still some heat on that side of her foot. We re-bandaged it and figured we could probably get by with doing it every other day.
Emily and Christopher had fun on her day off, playing with some paints and paper plates out on the deck.
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| playing with paint |
Andrea and I rode to check the cows, and I rode Ed. It will be a while before I can ride Dottie again; we need to get her foot completely healed first. I took photos as we rode into Baker Creek, and as we went up past the rock cliffs where we had to build a fence to keep the range cows from coming down through the rocks into the 320. |
| riding into Baker Creek |
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| the rock cliffs where we had to build the fence |
I took more photos as we looked for the cows along Baker Creek, and then rode out to the ridge from the top end of the 320. |
| looking for cows |
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| riding out to the ridge |
The cows were all at the ridge, licking the protein tubs. They haven’t lost any weight and are managing ok on the very dry grass, augmented by the protein. In fact, a lot of them look like they are fatter now than when they went up to the 320. |
| cows on ridge |
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| cos licking protein tubs |
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| fat cows |
As we came down the ridge to head home, several deer were grazing in the sagebrush below us. They didn’t notice us at first and we stopped and watched them.  |
| Andrea & Willow watching deer below us |
They still didn’t see us until we got quite close, and then they watched us for a moment before bounding away. |
| deer watching us come down the ridge |
When we got home we took Willow and Ed to the trailer. I loaded Ed and let her eat a few bites of grain in there, then took her out and Andrea loaded Willow. It was the first time Willow had been in a trailer since she was a weanling, and even though she hesitated a bit, she went in, and then the rattling noise scared her. She jumped around a little, but soon calmed down as Andrea reassured her. Then she relaxed and ate the grain.
Yesterday we took Willow around to the trailer again, and she did a little better—still a bit nervous but didn’t jump around so much, and was content to stand in there awhile and eat grain. Afterward we put her back in her pen, Andrea and I hiked down to the lower back field to check on the young cows down there. They are fat and sassy and still have quite a bit of grass, so it might last them another week. On the way back I took photos of some ancient antique barbed wire that Lynn found in one of the areas where he was locating water wells this past summer. He brought some of it home and it’s very different from any barbed-wire from modern days.
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| old style barbed wire |
Today was cooler and windy. Andrea helped me put a new bandage on Dottie but we didn’t soak her foot, though that part of her hoof still had some extra heat in it. The wound itself is looking much better, and healing.OCTOBER 13 – We’ve had colder weather—suddenly going from summer to winter without much transition in between. Lynn helped Andrea get her pump out of the ditch (that she uses for watering her tiny yard by her house) and put it away for winter. Andrea got the rest of the split wood at her house stacked, and stacked part of ours. She doesn’t have much energy or endurance, still getting over the bad cold.
On Friday she tried to do a little irrigating; we only have a little water in a couple of ditches and it takes a while for it to get very far over our dry ground, but she wants to get some of the dry fields watered a little more before winter. That morning we re-bandaged Dottie’s foot. Finally it is looking healthier, the wound is smaller, and there’s no longer any heat on that side of her foot.
The cold nights are signaling a change of season and the leaves are starting to turn golden. I took photos of trees along the creek in the fields above and below the house.
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| fall colors |
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| trees changing colors |
Saturday was cold and windy. Andrea changed water again, while Lynn tended Christopher, and she let the two “butcher cows” into the little pasture below the ditch above the swamp pasture, where there’s still some green grass. We want them to continue to gain weight.
Sunday was colder and I plugged in the tractor that morning when I did chores, to make sure it would start by afternoon. Andrea and I went up to the 320 on her 4-wheeler to check on the cows and make sure the top ridge gate was still shut and locked, with all the hunting pressure. We don’t want people hiking or driving through the cows or that would disrupt their grazing and they might think it’s time to come home. I took a few photos of the fall colors on our way up the creek—along the wild meadow on the upper place, with Michael’s cattle grazing on gopher meadow across the creek, and the view above Michael’s corrals—Binning’s old place where the Yoder family lives now.
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| wild meadow |
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| view above Michael's corrals |
We drove on up to the 320 and looked for the cows. They were nowhere in sight as we went up the ridge, but they’d made a pretty good dent in their protein tubs (about 1/3 of both tubs eaten). I took a photo of Andrea looking across the canyon with her binoculars, searching for the cows. |
| Andrea looking for cows |
We drove down into Baker Creek to check the top trough, and found the little herd hiking up Baker Creek to the trough to drink. We took photos of them drinking and then waited for all of them to get there—and drink. |
| cows coming to water trough |
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| cows drinking, then heading up the trail |
Then they headed out the high trail to go back out to the ridge to their protein tubs. We waited for them to hike up the trail from the trough (so they wouldn’t be tempted to follow us when we went down the jeep road) and I took photos as we waited. |
| cows heading up from trough |
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| cows heading up trail to go out to ridge |
We drove on down Baker Creek and back through the 160. As we came down to the main road I took photos of the golden trees along Withington Creek, and my brother Rocky’s house. |
| golden trees along the creek |
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| Rocky's house |
We got home about noon, and Lynn started the tractor. We took a new bale around by the bull’s feeder, since the old bale was nearly gone. Andrea changed water again and turned on the #9 ditch for one last bit of watering on heifer hill, now that the locks are off the headgates for winter. We’ll try to get some of the dry fields wet up and then shut the ditches off before things ice up.
That night it rained (the first real rain since the end of July) and the rain turned to snow before morning. It was very cold, snowing and windy all day. Lynn had to go to Leadore (a 30 mile drive on wet treacherous roads) early that morning to locate a water well for a rancher up there. There wasn’t a lot of snow, but it was cold and miserable. Andrea took a photo from her house showing snow on the mountains, and I took a photo from one of our windows.
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| view from Andrea's house |
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| view from our window |
It never got very warm, but there was a brief span of time with less wind so Andrea and I re-bandaged Dottie’s foot. She was cold and shivering, but stood nicely while we cut off the old one (which was getting raggedy after 3 days). There was some dirt inside the bandage, but the area over the wound was still clean, and it is healing. We got a new bandage on and put a lot of duct tape around it to try to keep it dry in all the snow and mud.
When I got back in the house, Cody Hamilton called (the guy who was going to work on our tractor tires sometime this week) and said he was coming out that day. I quickly plugged in the big tractor (because it won’t start when the weather is cold) and told him it would be a few hours before we’d be able to move it out of the way. So Cody decided to do his other field call first and come up here second, to give it time. By the time he got here early afternoon Lynn got home and was able to get the tractor started and moved, so Cody could drive back of the barn and get to the tractor that needed the fluid pumped out of its tire—and he also fixed the old valve stems on the little tractor.
Granddaughter Heather sent a couple more photos of those two little boys in Canada; they are pretty cute!
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| Joseph |
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| James |
Yesterday morning I was scheduled to do an interview with some ranchers in Canada, but our phone wasn’t working. The phone company had to come out to Baker and fix the line. Lynn went to Carmen Creek yesterday afternoon to locate a well site for some folks from Montana who bought property there. It was cold and miserable again, but not as windy as where he had to locate the well near Leadore.
With this much moisture we don’t need to keep irrigating very much so Andrea shut off a couple ditches. Later that day, by chore time, there was water coming down through the horse pens so Andrea and Christopher came down on the 4-wheeler and helped me shut off that water—and Christopher hiked around to the bull pen with me to feed the bull. He had fun jumping into all the mud puddles along the way. Then he gathered up some of the loose hay on the ground and put it in a rubber tub and plunked the tub in the feed manger. That little kid is so busy!
Today was cold again, but not stormy this morning. It was clear this morning and I took some photos from our front room window – of snow on the mountains, and my hay shed with K Mountain in the background.
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| snow on the mountains |
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| photo of snow on K mountain |
That afternoon Andrea and I drove up to the 320 to check on the cows and see how they are faring with the snow. We took the old red 4-wheeler this time, because it has 4-wheel drive. I took a photo as we drove up the creek, and another when we got up to the protein tubs to see how much protein was left. |
| snow on the upper place |
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| checking the protein tubs |
There was about 5 or 6 inches of snow up there on Monday but by today it has settled to about 3 inches. The cows looked a little empty but it was still early in the day—so we are hoping they are grazing enough. The snow mashed down a lot of the grass but there’s still quite a bit of grass. As long as the snow stays soft, and not crusted, the cows should be able to find enough to eat.
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