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| Andrea getting ready to feed young cows |
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| Andrea untying the big bails |
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| Andrea tying up the rest of the bale after feeding the older cows |
The next day was warmer—actually a really nice winter day—and Dani went with us to help feed. She took another bucket of loose salt and mineral for the young cows. I took photos of her putting the mineral in their tub, and a photo of Andrea taking a photo. |
| Dani putting more mineral in the tub feeder |
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| Dani stirring up the salt and mineral |
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| Andrea taking photos of Dani |
Last Monday Michael brought a rented mini-excavator and started pulling all the junk away from the old loading dock in our barnyard, and moving the things that we need to keep—the old post pounder, some big old tractor tires, the harrow, etc. and took those to a new location out of the way. Then he lit the smaller burn pile at that location--debris from the fallen-down shed, big string pile, etc. By afternoon it was almost all burned. |
| burning the small pile |
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| small pile almost burned up |
The fence crew started burning the brush piles again, and taking down the rest of the ancient falling-down fence in the pen below the bull corral. I took photos of the brush piles being burned, and the fence crew at work taking out the old fence, and hauling off the old material. |
| burning more of the brush piles in pen below bull corral |
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| fence crew taking out old fence |
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| hauling old fence and debris with skid steer |
Michael spent most of the day using the mini-excavator to tear out brush where we need to build the new fence, and piling it to burn. |
| Michael tearing out brush in the fence line |
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| piling the brush to burn |
The next day we had 3 inches of new snow. This made ideal conditions to go ahead and start burning the bigger pile of old material (remains of another old shed that got bulldozed out of the way many years ago, and old posts and poles) without danger of sparks starting anything else on fire. So then we had two burn piles going nicely, and with all that material to burn up it would take several days. |
| the bigger burn pile |
The fence crew kept going on their projects. Andrea and I fed cows and gave the yearling heifers a couple more bales of coarse grass hay for bedding. I took photos as we drove up to feed them, with the smoke from the burn piles in the background. We came home a different way so we didn’t have to drive through the heavy smoke and area where the guys were hauling more stuff to put on the burn piles. |
| feeding young cows |
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| coming back from feeding cows |
That afternoon I took pictures of the piles nearly burned and gone. |
| old string pile burning |
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| string pile and old debris nearly all gone |
I also took photos of the crew getting ready to rebuild a new fence on the creek side of the main corral, now that all the old fence and brush is gone. They got the jacks laid out and the poles cut to length. |
| fence crew laying out poles |
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| getting ready to rebuild fence |
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| laying out rails for jack fence |
Andrea made a nice stew that afternoon to take to Cope and Terrie for their supper. Dr. Cope has been our main cattle veterinarian for 44 years, and in the past few weeks has been forced to abruptly stop doing large animal work, due to health problems. During the past few years he’s had heart problems (and received a pacemaker), a ruptured appendix and peritonitis, and prostate cancer, which all slowed him down, but he kept going. Then the cancer went into his spine, and he can no longer walk. He still tries to help all of his clients, since we don’t have any other large animal vet here in our county who works on cattle. There are a couple vets who work on cats and dogs, and one that works on horses, but Cope is our only cattle vet.
He has always “been there” for his rancher clients—preg-checking thousands of cows every fall, testing bulls, Bangs vaccinating heifers, coming out in the middle of the night to pull calves or perform C-sections, taking care of any health problems that needed attention. He is like family to most of the ranchers in our county and we are devastated by his predicament. He still gives advice over the phone, and he will still go out to ranches to supervise various procedures from his wheelchair, if someone else can do the physical task required—and he can work on small animals and calves at his home, on a table. He recently worked on a calf with a broken leg, at his house, but it’s tearing him up emotionally to not be able to do all the things he’s needed for.
Having him here for the past 44 years has been a huge blessing to our ranching community because he’s not only been an excellent veterinarian, but in his research efforts he also solved several major cattle disease issues that were plaguing the cattle industry when he arrived. As just one example--with his research and recommendations, ranchers in this valley were the first in the nation to use modified live (rather than killed) vaccine to halt BVD (bovine virus diarrhea) in their herds, making sure every heifer had 3 doses of vaccine before breeding.
He has made a huge difference in the cattle health and livelihoods of ranchers in this area, but it was just a fluke that he came to Salmon, Idaho. He was a Kansas boy who’d planned a career in the Navy. He received some prestigious scholarships and was appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy, but a high school injury (playing basketball, damaging a knee) disqualified him from service so he went to Kansas State University instead and became a veterinarian. His first job, working for another veterinarian in North Dakota, wasn’t going well, and after two years there, he saw an ad in the American Veterinary Association Journal about a mountain practice in Idaho for sale. Cope decided to look at it, and the rest is history.
I am writing a tribute to him for one of the regional papers, and I looked through some of my old photos to find some that had him in them, when he was here at our place, and here are a couple pictures—of Cope when he was Bangs vaccinating heifers, and semen testing some bulls.
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| Cope preparing to vaccinate heifers |
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| Cope checking bull semen |
When I talked with Cope on the phone a few days ago, checking up on him, he told me, “Lou Gehrig was wrong. He said he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth, but in reality I was that luckiest man. I wandered in here and found my true home. I was able to spend 44 years doing what I loved, with the people I loved, and where I loved doing it. I’ve lived a life that other men could only dream of!”
He drove into Salmon for the first time in October 1977. “I am not a big John Denver fan, but I like some of his music, and the opening line of ‘Rocky Mountain High’ says it all: ‘He was born in the summer of his 27th year, coming home to a place he’d never been before,’ and damned if that didn’t happen to me!” Cope told me. His friends and clients (who are also his friends) are glad that he did find Salmon, Idaho.
We are all grateful for his help and his friendship, all those years. In our own herd, he helped us save a number of unusual and/or otherwise hopeless cases of sick or injured animals, and he was always willing to share his knowledge and advice—often just over the phone. Sometimes when I needed a veterinarian to quote for some of my cattle articles (especially at times an editor gave me a short-notice assignment and there wasn’t time to line up someone from elsewhere in the country) he graciously gave me the information I needed, for an “expert” to quote.
So, now his rancher friends are wondering what we are going to do, without him. He has many visitors each day, and several ranchers pitched in and built a wheelchair ramp at his house. Andrea gave him the wheelchair she’s had since her burn injury—because the wheelchair Cope was given is too wide to fit through most of the doors in his house, and hers is a little narrower. She has been dropping by to see Cope and Terrie nearly every time she goes to town, and taking them food or something special. The day she made the stew she took him the wheelchair, and was pleased to see that it will work in their house.
The next day I started writing a long letter to Cope, thanking him for all the help he’s given us over the years, and recalling some of the “special” and unusual cases he helped us with.
That was also the morning we got a phone call from granddaughter Heather in Canada. Her baby boy arrived at 4 a.m. that morning. The weather was terrible and their roads were bad, but Gregory managed to drive her safely to the hospital in time to deliver that new little member of the Eppich family. He weighed 7 pounds 5 ounces and was 20.5 inches long, and they named him Ian Thomas Eppich. We were delighted with their choice of names! Ian was my dad’s middle name. Here are the photos she send us of that new little kid.
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| new little Eppich baby |
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| Ian Thomas Eppich |
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| Granddaughter Heather Eppich and baby boy |
When Michael and his fence crew arrived here that morning we congratulated Michael on his new grandson. The burn piles were still smoldering and the crew added more material to them as they cleared more debris away from their fence lines. I took photos of the smoldering piles and Michael stirring them and adding to them. |
| smoldering burn piles |
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| Michael stirring up and adding to burn piles |
I also took photos of the completed fence on the creek side of the main corral. |
| completed fence in main corral across creek |
The fence crew spent the day working on the new fence around the little swamp pasture below the bull pen and Michael did more digging with the excavator and sorting the burnable stuff from the dirt in those big piles next to the main corral.
Andrea went to town for a doctor appointment and did all the town errands for us, and took one of my books (Cow Tales: More True Stories from an Idaho Ranch) to Cope, since he played a role in some of those adventures with some of the “critters” we saved.
The next day I took photos as we finished feeding cows, when Andrea was dividing the rest of the bale for the next feedings..
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| Andrea dividing the rest of the bale for the next feedings |
..and of the new fence the guys were building below the bull corral, replacing the old falling down fence that they took out. I took photos of the crew building a brace and stringing the wire along the new posts, and stapling the wire to the posts. |
| rebuilding fence |
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| building a new brace |
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| stringing out wire for new fence |
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| stapling wire to new fence |
I also took photos of the new jack-fence they’d already build around the bottom end of that pen, and a photo of the new fence at the top of the post pile pasture. |
| new jack fence |
That afternoon Lynn and Andrea went to town and out to a property by the airport where Lynn located water for a well. Since they were very near Cope and Terrie’s place, they stopped there on their way home to say “Hi” and to give Cope the letter I wrote him, in appreciation for all he’s done for us and our critters.
Sammy called that afternoon, all excited, to tell us she got a job (working from 4 pm to 10 pm) as a Certified Nurse’s Assistant at the Twin Falls Transitional Care of Cascadia. This will fit in nicely with her college courses.
Saturday Michael spent most of the day here working with the mini-excavator getting the burn piles sorted and the metal junk taken down to the pit in the post pile pasture to bury. We also need to get some rocks to put in a couple of eroded ditches in the field by Andrea’s house, so yesterday when Michael was here finishing up some of dirt work Andrea showed him those spots. He will order several dump-truck loads of rocks to resolve those ditch problems. The eroded channels are so deep it’s nearly impossible to put a dam in them to divert the irrigation water to the field, and they are also a risk for cows to get stuck in the ditch.
Today was cold and windy. At chore time I moved the bulls from their pen to the main corral. They can live there while part of the fence in their pen is being rebuilt. The old fence is nearly 40 years old and the posts and poles are disintegrating.
Andrea went to town early for her GI tract scoping. Dani’s friend Roger is here visiting, so they helped me feed cows, and also took a little bale to the heifers for bedding. Jim brought Andrea home after her scoping.
The weather is supposed to be really cold and windy for several days (below zero) so the fence crew will be taking a few days off until it warms up a little again. The wind was so fierce and strong that it tore loose part of the black plastic on our big haystack and also kept the trash pile fire burning briskly, well into the night. The temperature is dropping below zero tonight.
MARCH 1 – Last Tuesday stayed very cold and windy, with a high that afternoon of 10 degrees. The wind chill made it like well below zero. It was so cold that day and the next that I didn’t water the horses at morning chores, but waited until after breakfast—when they’d be thirsty enough to drink, after eating part of their hay. I didn’t want the water to freeze up before they had a chance to drink it. Andrea had her barium enema scoping (CT) to more fully check out her GI tract, but won’t know the results until later. She helped me feed cows later that morning after she got home from town. We had to break ice for the bulls and cows. The ice was so thick on the creek where the cows drink that it took her 2.5 hours to break it out.
I interviewed several ranchers to get their input for the feature I’m writing about Dr. Cope. They had some interesting things to say, and some great memories about some of their experiences with him.
The weather stayed cold for several more days (below zero some nights), creating a big chore breaking ice, and necessitating having the tractor plugged in for 24 hours (with a tarp over the motor) on the days we needed to start it, to load hay or take a new bale to the heifers. Our neighbor Alfonso came back from Mexico (where he spent the last couple months). This year the blackbirds came back before he did!
Sunday morning was cold and we didn’t have the bathroom sink faucets dripping enough, and the cold water line froze. The old walls on that side of the house are not insulated, and also some cold air comes in through the floor by the water tank and the line from the pump. It took several hours of running an electric heater—aimed under the sink—to thaw out the cold water line.
The tractor started ok that day, however. We had it plugged in for more than 24 hours. So we were able to take another bale to the heifers, load the feed truck, and take down 3 more big bales from the stack to have on hand for the next few days’ feeding.
Yesterday I spent all morning doing a very condensed version of my tribute to Cope, to send to the Farm & Ranch section of the Post Register (daily newspaper). It was still twice as long as the editor prefers, but he decided to use it anyway. Michael and his fence crew worked all day on the fence projects. They got the back fence finished on the bull corral, and most of the round corral finished except for putting in the major gate posts. Here’s what the new fence looks like in the bull corral, and the side pen heading to the bull corral from the round corral.
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| new fence in bull corral |
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| new fence in side pen toward bull corral |
The guys also bolted together some railroad ties to make taller, stout gate posts for the round corral, since they need to be set deeper than a regular railroad tie because of all the water underneath the surface, and the frost heaves every year—and remain secure and solid for holding a heavy gate without shifting. So by adding several feet of length to the railroad tie, it can be set deep enough and still have enough height to hang a big gate. Here are photos of the guys bolting railroad ties together. |
| bolting railroad ties together |
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| measuring and bolting railroad ties together |
Today was warmer. It didn’t even freeze last night, and got up to 54 degrees by late afternoon. The fence crew finished tearing out the old rotten jack-fence up the hill behind the bull pen, and clearing the brush away, and got the new fence rebuilt. They got that project done in the nick of time; with the warmer weather the snow is melting and the ground is thawing out, and that area is a horrible bog when it’s not frozen. They would have trouble doing that job after it completely thaws out. Here’s what the finished jack-fence looks like. |
| new jack fence up the hill behind bull corral |
They got that finished and started working on the new loading alley (after tearing out the old loading dock we built 50 years ago for loading trucks). We haven’t hauled cattle in trucks for a long time, and need a better way to load them into stock trailers. Michael and Nick measured the space where they plan to build the new loading chute. |
| Michael & Nick measuring for width of a new loading chute |
With snow melting, water was running down off the hills above the fields and filling our ditches. By this evening it was starting to flood down across our lower swamp pasture and into the barnyard and areas where the guys will be working again tomorrow on the fence. So Andrea brought Christopher down here (since Em was at work) and I took care of him while she and Lynn and Jim took dams up to the two ditches that are a problem, and tried to set dams higher up the ditches to divert the water directly to the creek. They worked on it until dark and got most of the floodwater stopped.
Christopher and I had fun; he played with some of his toys here, and played the piano for a while…
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| Christopher playing piano |
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| our youngest pianist |
…then spent the rest of the evening in the swing, watching one of his favorite movies (Madagascar) while I sorted the piles of magazines and papers stacked on our dining room table. I filled several big sacks with stuff that we don’t need to keep, and it will go to the burn pile, and also took a couple photos of him multi-tasking—swinging in the swing, playing with his roller-coaster train cars, and watching TV. |
| swingin kid |
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| multi-tasking -swinging, playing with roller coaster cars & watching TV |
MARCH 7 – Last Wednesday I did chores really early so I could get back in the house in time to do a phone interview at 7:30 and then Andrea and I fed the cows. Michael and the fence crew arrived early also and spent a long day working on their projects. The snow around our barnyard was melting and nearly gone. It was a good thing we got the flood stopped the evening before, or the areas where the guys are working would have been too boggy. They started building the new loading chute and got it finished by the end of the day. |
| working on the new loading chute |
Lynn and I had an early lunch and then went to town at noon to do a couple errands and go to the water meeting (annual meeting for our irrigation district). Even though Tony (the watermaster we hired for last year) didn’t keep records of any water measurements (of actual use for all the users) like he was hired to do, and never has turned in his watermaster report that was due before the end of the year, he had prepared a big presentation showing his hours and mileage, and how he’s going to use an average of use for the past 9 years to create the “charges” for water use, and budget for next year. He’s a fast talker and appointed himself as watermaster again, and promised to do it correctly this year. We voted to have him send an e-mail report to all the users at least once a week this year, to show the amounts and any changes he makes in the ditch diversions. I think he was expecting to be paid for last year after his big presentation, but he can’t be paid until he turns in an official watermaster report.
After the meeting, Lynn and I drove out by the airport to visit Cope and Terrie, and take them the uncondensed version of the tribute I wrote about him. Even though the condensed version hadn’t come out yet in the paper, the editor had already posted it on the Farm & Ranch website, and it immediately went viral. Many people in our valley saw it and sent it to their friends, and some sent it to Cope. He and Terrie were amazed at how many people contacted them about it, from all across the country, and even one guy from Europe. Cope has made many friends in the past 44 years, not just locally, but also nationally because he spent a lot of time behind the scenes on many national advisory boards trying to help shape policies affecting the West and public land use. He has spent time on issues as diverse as wolves, weeds, sage grouse, wild horses, WOTUS, roadless areas in the Forest Service lands, and many others issues that affect ranchers and rural communities in the West.
We had a great visit with Cope and Terrie, though he was getting tired and we had to let him rest—and went home to do our chores. When I got home I had an e-mail from my editor and Farm & Ranch, attaching a list of the most read stories on the Post Register website as of 4:30 p.m. that day. His e-mail said, “I've never seen a story on Farm & Ranch make that list, let alone top the list. But there's Dr. Cope at No. 1. Super cool!” I responded to him and replied: “I didn’t really write anything super cool... I just had a super cool guy to write about!”
The next day was warm again, and the fence crew finished up a couple projects, including rebuilding the falling-down short piece of fence at the top of our driveway, with new gate posts so the little gate there will actually swing again and be easy to open.
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| new fence at top of driveway |
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| new fence and gate posts |
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| new fence & a gate that actually swings again |
With the ground thawing, it’s too muddy to keep driving up past my hay shed to the field above it, without making deep ruts, so Andrea and I took the feed truck up the road and fed the young cows on heifer hill—above the field where we’ve been feeding all winter. Those young cows were confused at first, but after we fed them and walked down toward the gate to call them, they figured it out and came running, and found the gate. Andrea called them and led them up and across the ditch culvert to the field, where they ran and bucked and galloped down to the hay we’d fed them. |
| young cows came running & found the gate |
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| Andrea leading them |
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| galloping down to the hay |
Then we crossed the bridge and drove to the next field to feed the older cows.
Lynn was asked to locate another site for a well, so as soon as we got done feeding, he and Andrea drove up the Lemhi to do that. Emily dropped Christopher off here on her way to work and I took care of him until Andrea and Lynn got home.
The place he had to locate water was a bit challenging, on a muddy hillside, and it was a little difficult to get around, but he managed. After they got home, Andrea took Christopher with her to put another dam in one of the ditches that she dammed off earlier, since a little water was leaking past it. Christopher was very good; she told him to sit on a big rock next to the ditch and not go anywhere until she was finished putting the dam in place. He’s finally old enough to follow instructions (most of the time!) and not get into predicaments, so he may be able to go with her this summer when she is irrigating.
Friday was windy and cold. Andrea and I took more little bales to the lane by the bulls, since it will be a few more days that they’ll need to stay in the main corral. We won’t be able to move them back to the bull pen until the fence crew can get the gate posts set and gates rehung in the side pens and round corral.
We fed the young cows on heifer hill again. That field desperately needs more fertilizer and it’s too bad the snow was too deep the last two winters to feed cows there, since that’s the best way to add fertility to the soil, with the cow manure and hay litter. But now that the snow is suddenly gone, we can feed here for a few days.
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| feeding young cows on heifer hill |
At chore time that evening I took photos of the new loading chute the fence crew finished a few days earlier. |
| new loading chute |
Andrea spent Friday and Saturday (after feeding cows) helping her friend Anita clean and redecorate an apartment complex that Anita and her husband are fixing up so the rooms can be rented. Christopher spent some time there also, during the hours Em was busy and couldn’t take care of him, and he was really good, playing in the vacant rooms and hallway, without getting into trouble.
Friday night was colder, and it started snowing at chore time. By the next morning we had over an inch of snow and it took all day to melt. I plugged in the tractor at 5 a.m. when I got up, then typed articles till chore time—and fed the little heifers a small bale. After breakfast Andrea helped me feed the heifers another little bale, move their empty feeder, and uncover a big bale in their stack. After she helped me feed the cows she went to town to help Anita again, to finish up the cleaning on the apartment.
Lynn and I took a big bale to the heifer feeder that afternoon, then cleaned house a little bit (cleared the piles of magazines off the table and swept the floor—we’ve tracked a lot of mud into the house lately). It was our 56th wedding anniversary and we invited Nick to come have supper with us. We cooked chicken and potatoes and gravy, and it was all ready to eat when I got done with evening chores.
Then as we started to eat, Emily stopped by with a lovely meat loaf (her special “famous” recipe) and some banana bread she made that afternoon—so we had lots of good food. She made 3 meat loafs—one for us, one for her own crew (Andrea and Jim and Christopher) and one to take to town for Cope and Terrie. They love her meat loaf!
Yesterday was cold and windy. When we fed the cows we fed all the hay on heifer hill. Then we moved the older cow group across the bridge and into heifer hill, to have both groups of cows all together. We’ll soon be moving them down to the “maternity” pasture for calving. Also it will be good to have the cows gone from the field by Andrea’s house when the fencing crew is working up there to rebuild the fence at the top of the swamp pasture—where those cows go down to the creek to drink. I took photos as we moved the cows from the field by Andrea’s house and across the bridge to heifer hill. They were reluctant at first to go through the open hot wire gate, since they don’t want to take a chance on being shocked, but after they realized it was open they came through it and followed the feed truck across the bridge to heifer hill—except some of the cows are too leery of the bridge and insisted on crossing the creek just above the bridge instead of walking across it.
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| cows coming to the hot-wire gate to follow the feed truck |
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| going through the gate |
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| crossing the bridge and the creek |
Today it was a little warmer, up to 32 degrees in the afternoon, but snowing a little. Andrea and I fed the cows early so she could go to town to a couple doctor appointments. The fence crew also arrived early and Michael hauled posts and poles up through the field by Andrea’s house. The guys started working on the new jack fence and got it completely finished by this afternoon. They also burned the pile of brush that was in their way. Lynn went to town to locate a well site for some folks who bought a piece of property above town, and then we loaded a big bale on the feed truck when he got home. It was snowing more by chore time this evening.MARCH 16 – Last Tuesday it snowed hard all morning. Andrea and I fed the cows very early, then she and Lynn went to a property north of town so Lynn could locate water for the new owners. It snowed quite a bit but was letting up by the time they got there, and finding the water wasn’t too miserable.
The storm moved this way, however, and it snowed here all morning. The fence crew worked all day in spite of the nasty weather. They got cold and wet, but kept going. They finished up part of the round corral, setting a couple of the stout “extended railroad ties” 5 feet in the ground to hold the gates. There’s water about 2 to 3 feet under the surface and the posts have to be deep enough to get below those water courses and not be affected by frost heaves. The old gate posts didn’t stay in place very well and the gates didn’t stay level and were dragging and hard to open and close. These posts will hold the gates a lot better. They couldn’t finish setting all those posts, however; they are waiting on a load of rocks to put around those posts to hold them in place better than dirt would.
The guys also drove 3 very tall posts next to our yard-light pole in the orchard (driving them 5 feet into the ground) and bolted the old pole to the new posts. The posts were so tall that the post pounder had to start them at an angle and then move them closer to the post (and tight against it) as it finished driving them. Then the guys bolted those posts to the old light pole. I took pictures from our house window.
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| preparing to pound post |
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| pounding a post next to the light pole |
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| preparing to pound another post next to light pole |
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| pounding the post |
The light pole is very old and was starting to rot off; it was part of the original power line that was put up our creek in 1950. We salvaged this pole when the power company had to move the power line by our driveway in 1970, and replaced that pole. We put it at the top of the orchard/maternity pen as a yard-light; Lynn dug the hole for it with a little tractor-mounted backhoe that we had at that time. So the old pole is 72 years old—almost as old as we are! No wonder it was getting tired and wobbly! With the new strong posts around it, however, it should last many more years.
The next day was bitterly cold—12 degrees that morning and a nasty wind—so the crew took a day off. I fed the horses early but didn’t water them until after breakfast because it would have frozen in their tubs before they drank. When I went out later to water them, I discovered that I didn’t drain the hose completely, the day before, and there was a bit of ice in it. I had to bring it into the house to thaw out. By the time we fed the cows and broke ice on the water holes in the creek, the hose had thawed and I took it back outside to water the horses.
The fence crew wasn’t here that day, but Michael came to fix a hydraulic hose on the mini-excavator, to have it ready again for the next day. While he was here he helped Lynn put more hydraulic fluid in our tractor.
Granddaughter Heather in Canada sent a photo of their family, taken at the christening of little Ian Thomas Eppich.
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| the Eppich family & priest - christening baby Ian |
Thursday morning was 2 below zero, but no wind, and it got up to 24 degrees. The guys were able to work on the fence again. We had to load the feed truck but we kept the tractor plugged in for more than 24 hours, with a tarp over the engine to help keep it warm, and we were able to start it by late morning and use it to load hay and take a new bale to the young heifers.
The load of rocks we ordered several days earlier finally came, so the guys were able to finish digging and seating the gate posts in the round corral, filling in with rocks around them so they won’t shift around with the frost heaves. We ordered 4 more loads of rock, to put along ditches in the field by Andrea’s house, to fill in some eroded places, but those loads didn’t come till the next day.
Friday was warmer and the guys were able to finish the corral. It looks really good and the gates swing nicely again! I took photos of the finished round corral and rehung gates. The swinging, hinged ends are hooked to the well-buried railroad ties (with extensions) and the gates, when closed are tied to very long, deep posts.
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| new gate posts - top end of round corral and new post |
They gathered up a lot of the debris to burn, and stacked some of the re-usable poles and boards down in the post pile pasture. This fencing project is almost finished. The rocks we need for the ditch repair didn’t come until afternoon however, and the ground was starting to thaw by then—so the truck made some ruts in the field. The last load came after dark. But it’s good to have those loads here before the frost goes out of the ground; some of that field is boggy and the truck would get stuck if we tried to haul rocks after it all thaws out.
Saturday I did chores really early so Andrea and I could feed cows early, before she had to go to town. We fed the hay in the orchard and horse pasture and then drove up through the fields to heifer hill and led the cows down with the feed truck. Some of them are starting to develop udders and it was time to bring them down where we can start watching them. The first ones are due to calve the end of March, but if one or two of them calve a bit early, we don’t want them calving up in the field where the coyotes or cougar might try to get a newborn calf. Some of the cows were a little goofy and ran around a bit as we led them down through the field, but they willingly came into the horse pasture because we’d already put hay in there for them. I took photos as the cows came down into the horse pasture and orchard.
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| cows finding hay in orchard & horse pasture |
That afternoon I got a couple barn stalls ready to start training the heifers. Dani and her friends got all the old soiled bedding cleaned out last spring after we finished calving, and the stalls had a chance to dry out completely over the summer and fall. I put bedding hay around the edges of two stalls, so we can put some good hay along those edges (and it won’t be right down on the dirt). We can entice the young expectant mamas in there a few times to eat some good hay. Then they will willingly go into the barn if we need to put them in there when they calve—if the weather is stormy and wet or cold. At chore time I let the 7 young cows into the calving pen to eat a little good hay, so they will be eager to come in whenever they do start to calve.
I let them in again on Sunday morning (before we fed the herd) and this time the ones that were a little reluctant the day before knew what it was all about and came to the gate when I called them. After Andrea and I fed the cows, she brought more little bales around on the truck, to offload onto our stack by the calving pen. It’s always handy to have some extra hay there.
Even though it snowed off and on all afternoon, Nick and Michael spent part of the day finishing up some loose end on the fence projects, cleaning up more stuff out of the barnyard. Nick used the skid steer to carry a bunch of old junk down to the disposal pit. Michael used the mini-excavator he rented, and placed the 4 loads of rocks in the ditches where needed (above and below the field by Andrea’s house). He filled in the deep chasms that eroded over the past several years—so no cow will get stuck in the ditch, and so it will be easier for Andrea to set dams to get water out of the ditch to put across the field. Then they loaded up the skid steer to haul to their next fencing project up toward Leadore.
Monday morning Jim and Andrea left early to drive to Idaho Falls for Jim’s scoping procedure. He had to check in that morning and start drinking the “gorp” to get cleaned out for the upper and lower GI tract scoping.
Lynn and I fed the cows, and then Lynn went to town to do all the town errands. I dumped and scrubbed out the heifer’s water tank and unplugged it and refilled it. The weather is a bit warmer now and ice probably won’t be such a big problem. We won’t need the tank heater plugged in anymore. Michael, Nick and one of their fence crew finished up the last of the fencing project and then headed off to their next job.
Emily dropped off Christopher on her way to work early that afternoon and we took care of him until suppertime when Emily’s friend AJ came to pick him up. I took photos of Christopher and his great grandpa Lynn watching one of Christopher’s favorite movies, and Christopher playing with toys and running his tractor over the footstool.
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| Christopher & Lynn watching TV |
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| Christopher playing with his toys |
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| running a tractor over the footstool |
