JANUARY 24 – The weather this month has been steadily cold, often getting down toward zero or below at night, and rarely above 25 degrees during the day. We’ve been breaking ice daily on the creek water holes for the cows, and I’ve had to break ice morning and evening for the bulls in their corral; there’s just a tiny nose hole through the ice on their spring channel that I try to keep open for them. Andrea and Jim took a lot of dirt (in a plastic sled) several different days—digging it out of the dirt pile in Shiloh’s pen that isn’t very frozen—and spread it over the icy bank at the cows’ water holes, and finally got it to where it wasn’t at all slippery, and #38 (the timid cow that was reluctant to go down the slippery bank to the creek) is drinking from the creek again.
Andrea also took more loose salt and mineral to the young heifers, and took a photo of them after she put the mix into their mineral feeder.
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| heifers checking out their new salt & mineral |
Lynn was asked to locate water for a well for some folks who bought property up Carmen Creek, so Andrea drove him up there. She and a couple other people broke trail through the deep snow to make it easier for him to walk around and locate the water, and it worked out ok.
Last Saturday we had to open up the big haystack some more, to get several days’ worth of bales down, which meant taking the black plastic off another row of bales—and shoveling the foot-deep packed snow off the plastic so we could remove it. We backed the feed truck next to the stack and put the ladder on the flatbed, and Dani went up the ladder to get onto the stack to shovel the snow off. She is afraid of heights but volunteered to do it because she wants to get over her fear of heights. Then we got the plastic off, and Lynn got several more big bales out of the stack, and loaded one on the truck for feeding the next day.
The next day Andrea and Dani helped feed, and I took a photo as Andrea was measuring the bale to divide it for the two groups of cows. We split each bale into two days’ feed and then split that day’s feed between the young cows—who get slightly less of it because there are less of them—than the older cows. Andrea does the measuring and then ties off the portion to be left on the truck, so none of it will come off as she feeds the current group.
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| Andrea dividing the bale |
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| Dani taking a bucket of mineral to young cows |
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| dumping in the salt and mineral |
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| replenishing the salt & mineral |
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| Dani stirring up the mix |
That night Emily hit a deer on her way home after work; it jumped out in front of her car and crashed into the radiator and banged up the car pretty badly. She was able to drive it off the road, and called Andrea, who went to get her. A tow truck came to get it the next morning. Fortunately her insurance covers deer collisions, since that’s the most common cause of vehicle accidents in our part of the country.
Andrea had a doctor appointment Monday morning, so she helped me feed the cows early (right after she called the insurance agent about Emily’s car) and hurried to town. I loaded 10 little bales onto the empty feed truck to bring around by the calving pen to replenish our dwindling stack of little bales (we take 3 or 4 every day to augment the big bale, to have enough hay for each group of cows).
Tuesday was a little warmer; it was actually 18 degrees that morning and got up to 30 degrees in the afternoon, and Wednesday was also a bit warmer, which meant the ice wasn’t as bad on the water holes, and easier to open up for the cows (and bulls).
The Christmas package we sent to Canada for Heather and Gregory and their two little boys finally got there. Heather sent me photos of James and Joseph wearing the T-shirts I sent (with the horses I drew on them). She said they wore them all day and insisted on wearing them to bed that night.
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| James & Joseph and their Christmas T-shirts |
Andrea helped me feed Wednesday morning then she and Dani and Emily got ready to go to Idaho Falls; they were taking Christopher a day ahead, to be ready early Thursday morning for the surgery on his teeth (to take out the one broken off tooth and repair his broken front teeth). They stayed that night at a motel near the hospital.
Jim helped me feed the cows the next morning and Lynn drove the feed truck. When we got done feeding we had a call from Andrea to tell us that the doctor was unable to do the surgery on Christopher’s teeth and they would be bringing him home fairly soon. Andrea and Em had been a little concerned beforehand because he seemed to have a bit of a cold and a cough, but he was bright and felt good and didn’t have a fever so the doctor had decided to go ahead with the procedure. But when they had him prepped and under anesthesia his oxygen level plummeted and heart rate dropped and they discovered one lung was congested. They put a tube into it (which was probably a mistake, irritating the lung worse) and realized that this kid had a more serious respiratory problem than they thought. So they didn’t proceed.
Instead they kept him there just long enough that he was out from under the anesthesia and sent him home. That was another mistake; they should have monitored him a big longer and evaluated his lungs more fully because by the time they got home late afternoon he had a high fever and didn’t feel very good at all—with a horrible cough.
On their way home it started snowing and was snowing hard by the time they got here, and we were glad they made it home safely with the bad roads. Andrea and Emily were awake with Christopher most of the night, trying to keep his fever down. He was very congested and having a hard time breathing.
Friday morning Andrea and Dani helped me feed cows and give the heifers more bedding hay—and Emily took Christopher to the ER at the hospital. As soon as we were done with all the feeding, Andrea went to town to check in on Christopher and Em and do all the town errands and then came home to get ready to drive back to Idaho Falls. The ER doctor realized that Christopher had very serious pneumonia and was preparing to have him sent back to Idaho Falls on a life flight. The poor little kid was panting fast and shallow, not getting enough oxygen; x-rays showed the one lung completely congested and non-functional. His blood oxygen was down to about 80%. They were not able to put him on oxygen because he was screaming and fighting it and struggling for breath and they were afraid to give him any kind of sedative to calm him down because his condition was too precarious.
So Emily and Christopher went on the life-flight, and Andrea drove back to Idaho Falls so she could help with his care in the hospital there. We alerted friends and relatives about Christopher’s condition and asked them to keep him in their prayers.
Lynn and I loaded the feed truck and he plowed all our driveways again. The UPS truck tried to bring a package to our place and got stuck in the driveway and had to put chains on to get turned around and back out.
Christopher had a very rough night. He was miserable and restless and screaming a lot, and Emily was trying to keep him calm. Andrea sent this photo she took late that evening.
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| Emily comforting Christopher in hospital |
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| Emily sleeping next to Christopher |
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| Asleep at last, and leaving the oxygen mask alone |
That morning I did chores early and Jim came down to help Lynn and me feed the cows. Dani’s friend Roger arrived from Oregon and will be staying here a few days, so the two of them carried in some sacks of wood pellets for Lynn’s stove, and more firewood. They can help us with all the feeding chores while Andrea is gone.
The next morning Dani and Roger helped me feed the cows and Dani took more salt and mineral to the young cows. The hay dust really bothers both of them so they were wearing masks to try to not breathe much dust.
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| frosty morning |
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| Dani taking more salt & mineral to young cows |
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| masked helpers |
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| night of Jan 22 - a new toy |
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| night of Jan 22-23 feeling a little better |
They thought he might be able to come home that afternoon, if they could check his oxygen level again while he was asleep and see if it stayed at a better level and might be safe to let him come home.
But a different doctor that came on shift discovered that he had a heart murmur, and wanted to check it out today. Also, his oxygen wouldn’t stay up high enough yesterday without the oxygen mask, so another day in the hospital. I received an e-mail message from Andrea this morning and she said: “Christopher just had the echo on his heart, and we’re now waiting to hear the results. Those results have to come from Denver and take a couple hours. The X-ray crew also came in and took a new picture of his lungs. They look a lot better than they did the other day in Salmon. I got more sleep last night. Em stayed up till 2:30 a.m. watching his oxygen. It dipped down but then recovered. So hopefully we'll be headed home after hearing the report from his heart.”
She also sent a few more photos, taken that morning. Christopher was looking and feeling better but still had dark circles under his eyes.
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| Jan 23 - a little better |
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| mom & kid |
A few hours later she called and told us that Christopher has a leaky valve between the right ventricle and right atrium, but the doctor didn’t know how serious it is because Christopher was fussing too much when they did the echo ultrasound and the technician was only able to check about ¾ of what she wanted to look at. So this is something that will need to be checked again more thoroughly to see if anything needs to be done about it, and perhaps monitor it over time.
The doctors let him come home today, and they arrived home this evening. We are glad to have that little fellow safely home again!
It was quite cold today and very frosty this morning. I took several photos of the frost on the trees around the house and barnyard..
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| frosty barnyard |
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| frost on the elm tree in our yard |
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| frost on the pens by the house |
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| frost on the horse pens |
The day after Andrea and Emily brought Christopher home from the hospital in Idaho Falls, Andrea helped me feed cows. Dani and her friend Roger also helped, and then brought in more sacks of wood pellets and filled our wood-box. It’s nice to have some young, strong people do those chores!
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| Dani & Roger feeding hay |
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| view of the mountains from the feed truck |
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| Dani & Roger helped feed hay |
It stayed cold that day, but we were finally able to get the tractor started by late afternoon (it got up to 23 degrees) so we could load another big bale on the feed truck. Anything below about 22 degrees and the tractor won’t start—even if it has been plugged in for 24 hours; we have to use the battery charger to help it out.
Thursday morning was 3 below zero and our high was 17 degrees. It was so cold when I fed the horses that morning that I didn’t water them. They already had ice in their tubs and the water would just freeze before they drank it. They usually don’t drink any until they’ve eaten part of their morning hay. So when Andrea came down to help me feed cows, she first helped me break ice out of all the horse tubs and water them, and they were ready for a good drink by that time. I took photos while we fed cows.
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| feeding cows |
I was running out of hay for the bulls, so she also helped me take down the “Babe cage” of deer netting by the bull pen, so we could put a couple more big round bales in there. A couple bales will last Babe and Bimbo about 5 or 6 weeks. We also got some snow off the black plastic on our big stack and removed more of the black plastic, and got the snow and plastic off a couple round bales. While the feed truck was empty we loaded up more little bales to take around to our “spare hay” stack by the calving pen.
Then she and Jim loaded up the plastic sled with dirt from Shiloh’s pen and dragged it up through the fields to work on the water holes for the cows. They chopped out more ice, and spread the dirt on the icy banks so the cows won’t slip and fall down when they try to go down into the creek to drink. Dirt works so much better than sand because it holds the heat of the sun and tends to melt down a bit into the ice. A bunch of dirt over the ice makes good footing for the cows and they are more confident about going down the bank without falling. The ice had gotten really bad again during the past week so it was time to resolve the precarious footing.
It was too cold to try to start the tractor so we used the battery charger on it late afternoon and it did start, so Lynn and I were able to put a big square bale on the feed truck and take two big round bales to the “Babe cage” for the bulls. The deer haven’t been coming lately to try to get into the haystacks, so we didn’t bother to put the “cage” back up. It could wait until I had more help.
Friday morning was 10 below zero and our high for the day was 15 degrees. I’ve been plugging in the feed truck every morning when I get up at 4:30 or 5 a.m. to type articles and interviews, to make sure it will start readily when we feed the cows. That morning I did chores early (to be back in the house in time for an early morning phone interview) and didn’t water the horses or feed the bulls until after breakfast. The ice on the water hole in the bull corral has been very thick and I have to chop it out again every morning and evening.
After lunch Michael came down to look at the places we need fences rebuilt and new gate posts set. He and his fence crew will be through with one of their big projects soon, and part of the crew can come in a week or so to work on our fence projects.
Christopher is doing much better and seems to be over his respiratory infection. Andrea took this photo of Dani helping him line up all his toy cows and horses.
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| Christopher lining up his critters |
Saturday was 10 below zero again. After we fed the cows, Dani and Roger helped me and Andrea pull the deer netting back around to set it in place for the cage around the bulls’ hay. We stood it back up between the two trailers and propped it on both sides with poles to keep it upright in the middle. It was a lot easier with several people! This will keep the deer out of the hay until we have to take it down again to put new bales in there, but by that time maybe the weather will be warmer and the snow melting and the deer won’t be such an issue; they might be able to graze again on the hills and fields.
That afternoon we needed to load another bale on the feed truck, and take a now bale to the heifers’ feeder, but the high was only about 11 degrees. Even being plugged in 24 hours, and using the battery charger, the poor old tractor barely started.
It was 10 below zero again the next morning. Jim took more dirt up to put on the ice by the water holes on the creek.
Monday morning was warmer, but it started snowing and blowing—a nasty blizzard. Andrea and Emily took Christopher to town (he had a doctor appointment, for a checkup, and Andrea had an appointment with the doctor who was going to check out her hernia—that needed to be repaired a couple years ago and is getting worse) so Jim helped me feed cows. Both appointments were canceled, however; the doctors were both sick with COVID.
Dani helped Jim break ice for the cows.
Andrea spent most of the afternoon working on stuff for our water district, trying to get last year’s financial stuff (including tax requirements) and records complete before deadlines and the annual meeting in early March. She can’t pay the watermaster (Tony) yet, because he hasn’t completed his report and there’s no way to know how much to pay him. She’s been bugging him since October to get it done so she can pay him and finish the year’s records, but he hasn’t sent in his report because he didn’t record any of the water measurements when he checked headgates and changed the use in the various diversions. There is no way to make the assessments of water use for any of us because there are no measurements recorded!
It’s a real mess, so Andrea talked to the new IDWR guy who took Cindy Yenter’s place when she retired last summer, but he doesn’t know much about how any of this works, so she talked to Steve Adams, the watermaster we had in 2020 who did a great job, and who trained Tony last spring to be our watermaster. Tony is refusing to talk to Steve, and trying to blame him and say Steve didn’t tell him how to do this stuff, but in reality Tony is trying to cover up for his own failure to do the job.
So the water users will not be happy to find out that they are being charged for water use on a 4-year average instead of what they actually used. This means most of us will be overcharged because during this past summer’s drought there wasn’t much water in the creek and none of us were able to use our full water rights. Some of the folks on the creek used hardly any water (or none, after the creek went into regulation) but will be charged anyway. It won’t be a very happy meeting when they find out. Andrea has done everything she can to complete her tasks but it’s a mess and she has decided she won’t be secretary-treasurer again. She got talked into it for this past year because no one else would do it, but now they’ll have to come up with someone else.
Dani started back to school. She stopped going to school a year ago, after she failed to get the help she needed from anyone at the school, and finished up the year by getting help through the summer from friends who were homeschooling their grandkids; she drove up to their ranch several times a week and got caught up with her studies and passed her tests. Then she decided to just get her GED instead of going through the school hassle again, and started working on that.
In the meantime, several people encouraged her to go back to school and she decided to give it another try, and this time the principal promised to get her the help she needs. So she is back in school and hoping to graduate with her class.
Christopher was sick in the night in the wee hours of Tuesday morning (vomiting and diarrhea) so Emily and Andrea didn’t get much sleep, staying up with him. Andrea was exhausted by morning and also not feeling very well—and her hernia is bothering her again—but she came to help me feed cows and check their water holes in the creek.
Yesterday was really cold again but Andrea was feeling a little better and we got the feeding done easier, and ice broken for the cows. Then she went to town to meet up with Dani at school and meet with her counselor, and also talk to the accountant for our water district and get all the tax stuff up to date.
The cold weather made crazy icicles that are curving down off the roof toward the windows; the sun melts the snow on the roof a little and the icicles slide down a bit but because it is so cold they still hang on and just curve toward the house.
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| icicles curving toward window |
Lynn and I got the tractor started and the truck loaded again for morning feeding. Emily took Christopher to the doctor for a checkup and referral to a pediatric heart specialist in Seattle, who comes occasionally to see patients in Missoula, Montana. Missoula is a lot closer to us than Seattle, so Christopher will have an appointment set up with that doctor to more thoroughly check out his heart valve problem and see if he needs to have it corrected.
Today was a little bit warmer. After we got the cows fed, Emily left Christopher here with us while she and Andrea went to town. He enjoyed swinging in his doorway swing and watching some of his favorite TV movies.
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| swinging & watching a movie |
The insurance paid part of what Emily’s car was worth (totaled by the deer collision) and another guy wanted to buy it for salvage and fix it because he really likes that kind of car, and he paid her $2200 for the car and it’s new snow-tires plus the original tires and rims. So altogether Emily will have enough money to make a down payment on another car. She is looking for a good used car that has 4-wheel or all-wheel drive (for our winter roads) and a little more room in it than her old car. After Emily got the transactions accomplished to sell the car to the guy who wants it, she went to work.
Andrea met again with some of the personnel at the school, to get Dani started with a program that will help her, and give her the encouragement and support she needs. Christopher spent the afternoon and part of the evening with us and enjoyed swinging and watching movies, and I was able to do a phone interview and finish an article and get chores done while Lynn “hung out” with Christopher.
Emily got sick at work (vomiting) and seems to have the same “bug” that Christopher had, so she had to come home early that night. We hope it’s a short-lived illness for her, too!
FEBRUARY 13 – Last week Michael brought his skid steer down here and plowed the driveways wider and plowed the snow away in the barnyard to have more parking space for the fence crew. He also cleared all the snow out of the hold pen so he can bring posts and poles and put them there for the fence projects. After Lynn and I took another big bale to the heifers and loaded a bale on the feed truck, he used the tractor to pick up the old non-working snowmobile that’s taking up space in the barnyard and loaded it in Jim’s trailer to haul to town and get rid of it. Andrea’s friend Robbie hauled it out here quite a few years ago thinking he could get it running, but couldn’t, and it’s been taking up space ever since. So Jim hauled it to the guy who runs the motorcycle/4-wheeler/snowmobile shop, to use for parts. Now we’ll have more space in the barnyard and Michael can finish clearing snow away for the fencing crew.
That evening after we were done for the day and I was about to do chores, my brother Rocky called. His wife Bev had gotten her jeep stuck in the neighbor’s driveway (slid into the deep snow berm) and they needed help. Bev had taken supper to their neighbors (the Yoder family), who were not home at that time, and had gotten stuck trying to drive back up the steep driveway.
The reason she was taking supper to them was because they’d had a family emergency the evening before. Their little boy (one of the youngest of 6 kids) had drunk lamp oil (probably kerosene) and Rock and Bev took the little boy and his mother (Rosina) to the emergency room, since the Amish don’t drive. Rosina spent the night in the hospital with her little boy. He was ok, since none of the oil got into his lungs—which could be deadly, since oil in the lungs can’t be removed as readily as water and some of the ingredients could be more dangerous in the lungs. Vomiting creates risk for the oil getting into the windpipe and lungs. If it stayed in the stomach and none got into the lungs it would mainly cause irritation and diarrhea but not be as life threatening.
Anyway, the little boy was doing better by that next afternoon when Bev took supper to the family, but they were not home, so when she got stuck in their driveway she had to walk home—about ¼ mile. Rocky was recovering from shoulder surgery a few days earlier, and had only one functional arm—and his own jeep was down town and being fixed. There was no one to assist in getting Bev’s vehicle out of the snowbank, so Rocky called us.
Fortunately it was still daylight, and our tractor had been running a couple hours earlier and would probably start again, so we could come to their aid. Andrea and Dani were home, and could help. Lynn started the tractor (which barely started!) and started slowly up the road—3 miles to Yoders’ place. He couldn’t go very fast because the chains on the tractor have several broken and missing links and are patched together and he didn’t want the chains to come off. I went out to do my evening chores and break ice for the bulls before dark.
Andrea and Dani bundled up Christopher and gathered up chains, tow-straps, and ropes and went up the road in Andrea’s pickup. They caught up with Lynn and the slow-moving tractor, and passed him, and went on up to Rocky’s place to get him, since he thought he could at least steer the vehicle as it was being pulled out of the snow berm.
Andrea and Dani were hooking up the tow strap to the vehicle (Dani had crawled under it and found a secure bar in front of the axle, to wrap it around—and then be able to hook longer chains to the tow strap), when Michael and Carolyn came up the creek.
Luckily they had seen Lynn go slowly by their place in the tractor and realized there must be a serious emergency because otherwise he would not have been driving our old tractor, with chains on, clear up there, just before dark. Michael has had a lot more experience pulling stuck vehicles, including a couple other situations at that same driveway that Yoders created after they bought the property from Binnings. The original driveway came in from the other direction at a more gradual gradient, but Yoders created a new one—a shortcut, right up to the main road on the lower end of the property. It is much too steep and sidling for winter traffic, and several vehicles (including a van that hauls the Amish) have gotten in trouble trying to drive out of there.
The way Bev’s jeep was off the driveway and stuck in the snow put it at risk of tipping over. So Michael had Andrea and Dani bring the chain through the trees and across the ditch and up to the main road, for a better angle for pulling. It took two long chains, hooked together, to be long enough to reach the tractor up on the main road. Michael pulled the vehicle a little bit and then had to reposition everything and come back down the road a ways with the tractor, to get the vehicle up onto the road safely without it tipping over. If he hadn’t come along and done the actual engineering and pulling, it would have been a serious (and maybe fatal) disaster. So we thanked God that everything lined up just right to have all the help we needed for the rescue mission.
Christopher watched it all from his car seat in Andrea’s pickup, and then he rode home with Lynn in the tractor. He loves tractors and was delighted to have his longest tractor ride ever. It was dark by the time they got home; Andrea and Dani got here a little quicker. So we had 4 generations of rescuers—Lynn, our two kids (Michael and Andrea) and Andrea’s daughter and grandson.
Saturday was a little warmer and got above freezing. The ice was easier to break on the creek and also in the bull pen. I took advantage of that and chopped a much bigger hole for the bulls, so it will be less likely to close down and clog up with more ice. When Andrea and I fed the cows I also helped her break more of the ice so there are larger open areas; the cows are less afraid of going down into the creek if they can actually get down in there and drink and turn around and climb back out. We also spread more dirt over the ice on the bank. The dirt makes it much less slippery for the cows.
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| Andrea spreading dirt on the icy bank |
That evening when I was doing chores, our other Amish neighbors (over the hill from us) John and Ruby Miller, came up the creek with their horse and buggy and stopped by our place. They had visitors—an older Amish couple from Montana—and were showing them around the area, and those folks wanted to meet me. They have several of my cattle care books. The older gentlemen got out of the buggy to shake my hand, and his wife said that the women in their family like to read the books when the men are gone, to know how to take care of calving problems. So I guess my books are being read, and helpful, and I was humbled and flattered that they wanted to meet me.
Sunday the weather was mild again and we took advantage of it and vaccinated our cows. They need their pre-calving vaccinations, to make sure they have adequate antibodies in their colostrum to give good passive transfer to their calves at calving time, to protect them from the common causes of calf scours (rotavirus, coronavirus, E. coli and Clostridium perfringens). It was time to do this—about 6 weeks before calving—so the cows would have a chance to build maximum antibody levels. Also we needed to get it done before the fencing crew tears down the lane to the corral (very old fences that are falling down and repeatedly patched) to rebuild.
Dani helped Andrea and me get the cows in from the field by her house. They don’t like to come down to the corral this time of year and are always suspicious because they know we are not moving them to another pasture (no grass!) and they don’t want to come to the corral. Andrea led them with a little bale of hay on her 4-wheeler and Dani and I followed them down. It was a good thing there were two of us following them because they rebelled along the way and wanted to run back to the field.
We fed them the little bale in the hold pen as a reward for coming into that pen, and they ate it while we got the young cows (that will be first and second-calvers) in from the field on the other side of the creek. They followed the 4-wheeler nicely till they got to the gate into the lane past my hay shed and then a couple of them started fighting and goofing around and wouldn’t go in. Andrea kept the first ones from running back out, and Dani and I finally got the naughty ones through the gate.
By then Charlie had arrived and he helped us. We put the young cows through the chute first. Andrea pushed them along the alleyway into the chute, Charlie caught their heads, I vaccinated them, and Dani deloused them.
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| Charlie caught their heads |
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| Dani applying the delouse oil on the neck and head |
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| Dani delousing cow |
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| Charlie pacifying the cow |
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| herding the cows out of the corral |
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| taking cows out of the corral to go back to the field |
As we drove up into the field for the young cows, our feed truck ran out of gas! I guarded the hay (so the cows wouldn’t pull any off the truck) while Andrea and Charlie hiked back to the house, got his gas can out of his truck, filled it, and brought it back with the 4-wheeler. After we fed that group we put gas in the feed truck. That’s the first time in a very long time that we’ve run out of gas while feeding cows!
We fed the other cows, and Charlie stayed out here at Andrea’s house the rest of the afternoon. Jim taught him how to play cribbage.
That night was cold again (8 degrees) and it only got up to 24 during the next day but it was sunny and pleasant. Michael, Nick and a couple guys from their fencing crew came and started on the fencing projects—tearing out a couple old deteriorated fences in the lane to the post pile pasture and the top end of that pasture. The guys sawed out the brush by the creek so they can build a jack-fence through there, and Michael took the old posts, poles and brush to the burn pile with his skid steer. Nick took out the old rotten gate post that needs to be replaced.
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| taking out the old fence |
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| taking the brush to the burn pile |
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| Nick taking out the old gate post |
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| burning old fence material & brush |
Andrea helped me feed cows then went to town for two doctor’s appointments—her regular pain doctor, and also to schedule an ultrasound to check out her hernia and gut problems before she sees the doctor who wants her to have hernia surgery. Lynn got the tractor started and we put a new big bale on the feed truck.
The next day was still a bit cold but sunny and the fence crew had a good day and got part of the jack fence built, and took out more of the old fence along the lane that needs to be replaced. I took photos of the progress.
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| jack fence across creek |
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| old lane fence gone |
Lynn went up to Andrea’s house after evening chores and she gave him a haircut. I called my Uncle Bob in Tennessee. He’s my dad’s youngest brother, but in his 90’s and the last living sibling. He had a stroke a few years ago and has a little trouble getting around but his mind is still sharp and it’s always a joy visiting with him on the phone. This time he was reminiscing about UFO’s that were so prevalent in our area during the 1950’s and 1960’s and his experiences with them up close and personal when he spent a summer here as a young man on one of the Forest Service lookouts.
Wednesday Andrea went to town early morning for the ultrasound on her hernia, and afterward she got our mail and groceries. We fed the cows mid-day after she got home.
Michael and crew worked on the fencing project again, and finished building a new jack fence across the top end of the post pile pasture and made new gates. Then they started tearing out the ancient fences in the lane from the main corral to the driveway and “sick barn”—the area where we bring cattle from the corral to the lane for loading into a trailer, and also for branding the calves.
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| new jack fence |
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| tearing out old fence toward corral |
That afternoon we needed to load and move some hay, and since Emily was at work, Andrea brought Christopher down and he rode with Lynn in the tractor for all the hay moving, and loved “helping” drive the tractor. We took a new big round bale to the heifers’ feeder, and then went around to the stackyard to get more big square bales out of the main stack. Andrea climbed up onto the stack with a ladder and got the snow off another row of bales so we could remove the black plastic covering and get to the bales. Lynn and Christopher took out 6 more bales—one to load on the feed truck and 5 to set in a row for future use—covered with a long tarp. This makes it easier for Lynn and me to grab a bale to reload the feed truck every other day, without having to get into the big stack. Christopher didn’t mind being in the tractor all that time, and it was a good way to keep him out of harm’s way while we were moving bales around.
After we got done moving hay, we hiked down to the post pile pasture to check on the fence progress and I took photos of some of the new fences.
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| new fence in lane to post pile pasture |
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| new fence & gate at top of post pile pasture |
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| Christopher wading in the water |
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| feeding hay |
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| ready to spread hay |
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| hay for bedding in the bushes |
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| Babe |
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| old loading chute |
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| taking down fence & loading chute |
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| Nick sawing down sides of chute |
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| old fallen-down shed & string pile |
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| old piles that need burned |
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| 40 years accumulation of strings next to fallen down shed |
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| snow coming off roof |
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| snow coming off roof |
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| using skid steer and mini excavator to tear out the brush along the creek |
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| getting rid of brush so we can rebuild the fence |
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| hauling off the brush |
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| tearing out brush & old fence |
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| tearing out brush in swamp pen |
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| Michael tearing out brush along old fence |
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| fence crew sawing out old fence |
Yesterday Andrea, Jim and Dani made several trips with his trailer and Dani’s truck to haul the unstacked wood up to Andrea’s house and stacked it there. She should have enough wood now for the rest of the winter, and we’ll have enough here—with what’s stacked by the corner of the shop and along the side of our house.
Today Lynn and I went to Andrea’s house after chores and feeding, for a brief birthday celebration. Christopher brought me some presents and diligently supervised my opening them—some new shirts and some nice seamless pants for riding; my old ones wore out last summer. I think Christopher was disappointed that I didn’t get any toys in my presents!
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| Dani & Christopher helped with my birthday gifts |
