JULY 1 – Last Thursday the water tank on the hill pasture was nearly empty so Andrea, Lynn and I took the pump and hoses up there and pumped from the ditch across the road and filled it again for the 6 pairs that are still grazing up there. Andrea and I rolled out the hoses and Lynn monitored the pump after we got it running.
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| pumping water out of the ditch |
Here are a few more photos that Andrea took as we filled the tank for the cows. The cows and calves were there by the, and many were thirsty, and some of them drank as we were filling it. |
| calf trying to get a drink |
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| filling the tank |
I took a couple photos as Andrea finished filling the tank. As the cows got a drink, some of them started back up the hill to go back to grazing. |
| filling trough |
That afternoon I helped Andrea finish putting up the electric fence to split the big pasture above the horse pasture, in preparation for moving the main group of cows to that new grazing area. Then Lynn and I made a fast trip to town to record the deed to our upper place—transferring it to Michael and Carolyn. They’ve been making payments and improvements to the fences, ditches, etc. for 22 years and finally got it paid for, so now it is officially their ranch.
On Friday Charlie came out and helped us with some of the machinery repairs (and changed oil in the big tractor) so we can hopefully start haying as soon as the repaired part for the mid-size tractor comes back. Lynn bladed some of the old straw away from the backstop where we’ll need to stack our little bales, and I made a fake fence for sprout to let her graze in the stackyard a few hours each day—to clean up some tall grass and weeds before we stack hay there.
Jim has been sick a few days, and tested positive for COVID. He spent several days in bed. Andrea took care of Christopher a few nights at AJ’s place in town while Em was at work, not wanting to bring that little kid out here and expose him to COVID.
On Sunday the water tank for the cows was nearly empty again, so Andrea put more water in the ditch to heifer hill that morning so we could pump out of it to fill the tank again.
Granddaughter Heather in Canada sent us photos of Joseph “helping” on the day they put in a new water system, and a photo of the new well—pumping water to their cows into a big tire tank.
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| Joseph shoveling dirt |
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| fresh water |
They have been very pleased to have water for their cows in those far pastures, and no longer need to haul water to them. Being able to “witch” a good location and have a relatively shallow well that produces a lot more than 50 gallons per minute has been a big improvement!
The past few days have been really hot, up in the 90’s. Monday was a very sad day. When I went out to do chores early that morning I checked on the cows and calves as always—to make sure they were all doing ok, and to write down any cows that are being bred, so we’ll have their estimated calving dates for next spring. As I went out into that pasture above the house I saw one cow lying flat, and a group of cows gathered around her, which was an ominous sign that something was very wrong with that cow.
As I hurried closer I could see that it was China Doll (my favorite young cow) and that she was still alive. I thought maybe she’d gotten a little bit on her back and couldn’t get up, but the place where she was lying was relatively flat. I rushed up to her to try to startle her enough to make her try to get up, and though she raised her head, she could not get up. She wasn’t bloated; something else was wrong. I tried briefly to get her up, then ran back to the house to get Lynn and to call Andrea. She came hurrying down on her 4-wheeler. We put a halter on China Doll and tried to pull her head around a bit and get her upright onto her belly instead of lying flat (a cow can’t breathe very well if she stays flat very long, and tends to bloat), but we could not get her very upright.
We propped her up with some saddle pads under one shoulder, and kept her head tied to the 4-wheeler to keep it up. I took her temperature and it was only slightly above normal. I ran back to the house to call our vet, Dr. Cope, for advice. There’s no way he could come out to the ranch to diagnose the problem; he’s been confined to a wheelchair for several months, with no use of his legs due to cancer in his spine. We have no other cattle vet here in our valley—just a few veterinarians who only work on pets and horses. Cope thought from the description of the cow and the fact we’d recently moved them into a new pasture that had grown fast (after the weather finally warmed up this spring) and was heavily fertilized by all the manure from the cows being in there during calving season, that she might be suffering from “grass tetany” (magnesium deficiency that causes limited function of the muscles). This can kill cows very quickly if the condition is not reversed.
So Andrea drove to town, to Cope’s house, to get a bottle of magnesium and the tubing we needed to give it to her in a large amount of IV fluid and some dexamethasone. China Doll was still alive when Andrea got back, but fading fast. We managed to run the fluid into her but it was too late; she died just as we finished.
The next task was to take care of the carcass. I’d asked Cope if what we were giving her would be ok if we had to butcher her, and since we hadn’t given her any antibiotics he said the meat would be safe to eat. The big problem was getting the cow butchered in time. It was going to be 90-plus degrees again that day.
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| Andrea hooking chain around the cow's neck |
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| ready to lift her up |
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| ready to put China Doll on the flatbed truck |
We put the herd into the horse pasture so they wouldn’t be in our way, and took the hot wire down so we could drive to the dead cow. Lynn got the tractor and Andrea brought the flatbed feed truck and we were able to get the cow loaded onto the truck. China Doll was quite heavy and it was all the tractor to do to lift her high enough to get her onto the truck. They drove over the dump hill to dress her out over there and not have a gut pile in our field. I shoveled dirt over the blood where we’d bled her out—so the cows and the bull wouldn’t go crazy over the smell of it.
While the herd was in the horse pasture I got part of them into the orchard and lured them into the calving pen, to capture China Doll’s calf. He’s not quite 3 months old and we needed to get him in where we can feed him better, after losing his mom. We put him in one of the 2nd day pens by the calving barn.
Andrea got the cow gutted out and they brought the carcass to hang from the loader next to Andrea’s house, on the shady side, so she could skin off the hide and try to split the carcass. The meat room we made a few years ago (when we had to butcher Lida Rose—the yearling heifer with the broken foot) wasn’t quite cool enough even with the air conditioner unit running, so Jim went to town to get ice blocks. The cow was too big to try to cool out by hanging her in that meat room, so Andrea put ice blocks all around the quarters, and started cutting up meat. It was a race against time to get the meat cut up and packaged because we couldn’t keep it quite cool enough to completely chill out. She worked at it into the evening, and left ice blocks around the carcass all night.
China Doll’s calf, Kung Fu (the one we’re keeping as a bull), was desolate. There was some green grass in his pen and I gave him a tub of water, but he spent most of his time pacing around, crying for mama.
The next day was very hot again. Andrea kept cutting up meat. She periodically brought coolers full of packaged meat down here to put in our freezer, and finished the hindquarters—as much as she could salvage. Even with the ice, some of the larger, thicker areas didn’t cool out well enough and there was some she couldn’t save because it was starting to “sour” but most of it was good enough to package. She had to go to town for a doctor’s appointment mid-day and brought home more ice—and kept cutting up meat. Our tractor part was finally repaired, in Idaho Falls, so Jim drove over there (150 miles) to go get it.
Wednesday Andrea spent all day again cutting up meat. The front quarters had cooled out better (not being so large and bulky) being surrounded by ice, and she was able to salvage almost all of that meat—not only chunks for roasts, but also put a bunch of it in coolers to grind for hamburger. Charlie came out and he and Lynn got the tractor put back together so we can finally start cutting hay.
We put a feed tub on top of a cinder block in one corner of Kung Fu’s pen and tied it to the fence (so he can’t root it off) and put some calf manna pellets in it with a little block of salt. He tried it out—licking the salt—and ate some of the pelleted feed. We decided to see if we could get him sucking a bottle, since he’s not quite 3 months old and will probably do better if he has a little milk replacer for a while.
That evening Andrea and I caught him behind a gate panel (so he couldn’t get away—we tied a rope behind him, securing the panel to the fence so it acted like a squeeze chute) and she kept him from backing up while I got the nipple into his mouth. At first he was too scared to swallow any, but as some trickled down his throat he decided it tasted pretty good and he sucked the bottle.
Yesterday morning we fed him another bottle, but he was more leery this time and wouldn’t go into the “trap” between the fence and the gate panel and we had to put him in the head-catch by the barn. He finally did suck the bottle, but coughed a lot; we realized it would be counterproductive if he gets milk in his windpipe and gets aspiration pneumonia. He is starting to eat the calf manna better, so we decided he’ll probably do ok just on grain, and we won’t try to feed him any more milk replacer.
Andrea checked the cows’ water tank on the hill pasture and they were nearly out of water so we pumped water for them. After lunch Lynn took the swather up to the field by her house and cut that hay. Andrea went to town and got more freezer bags and started grinding the meat for hamburger.
Jim took his pickup, trailer and side-by-side up the creek to camp for a while and try to take it easy and finish recovering from COVID, and hopefully cut a little firewood on days he feels up to it.
JULY 15 – Lt was challenging to get our hay put up; we had thundershowers periodically. Not enough rain to do much good for the dry conditions, but just enough moisture to stop the haying. And instead of having really high quality hay, the rain and having to re-dry made it less green and fresh (lower protein level) and dustier. Lynn did the cutting and Andrea did most of the baling on the 5 little fields. Christopher was here for a few days (Andrea took care of him while Em was working, and he wasn’t going to day care) and he drove his little tractor around in her driveway.
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| Christopher |
He enjoyed riding in the swather with Lynn part of the time when Lynn was cutting hay on heifer hill. |
| cutting hay on heifer hill |
He also got to ride in the tractor for a little bit of the baling. He was in the tractor with Lynn when Andrea helped hook up the baler, and rode around for part of the baling in the field by Andrea’s house.] |
| hooking up the baler |
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| baling hay in field by Andrea's house |
Last Sunday after cutting the final field of hay, we cleaned off the swather before parking it in the new machinery parking lot where it will stay until next year’s haying. I cleaned all the hay off the top of it (and gave it to Sprout to eat) and cleaned all the grass seeds off that accumulated on it. I scattered those over the bare ground where Michael and crew built our new loading chute, after pulling up all the weeds that grew in there this spring.
Maybe some of those seeds will grow and make that area a grassy spot rather than a bunch of weeds. Christopher rode with Lynn in the tractor to take the swather around to the new parking spot.
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| ready to move the swather |
We thought we would have to turn some of the hay before we could bale it (since it got rained on and was damp again) but the wind was blowing so hard most days that it helped dry the hay, and we were also afraid to turn it--and put it more at risk for the wind to pick up the windrows and scatter the hay. Even so, the wind rolled up some of the windrows into big piles, and we had to use pitchforks to put them back into place so the baler could handle them. There were still some green wads in some of the hay—that didn’t fully dry out—and they will probably mold. As long as they don’t heat (and get to the point of spontaneous combustion, which could burn down our haystacks) they will probably be fine.
We opened some of the bales to let them dry out, but none of them were heating, so we ended up stacking most of those wet ones. There was enough really dry hay in those bales along with the green wads that the dry portions dissipated the moisture; there’s probably no risk of the bales heating.
On Tuesday the cows on the hill pasture were out of water again, so we pumped and filled their tanks. Andrea and I got the last of the extra hay out of my hay shed and hauled some of it over by Sprout’s pen and some in the lane toward Rishiam’s pen. To make that corner with the loaded feed truck, she had to back into Dottie’s pen, but when I opened that gate for her to back in there, the darn gate fell off its hinges! We had to bend the top hinge back into place and put the gate back on, and I tied it up with baling twine also, to make sure it never does that again.
The old stackwagon worked fairly well this year in spite of its bad clutch; we never really had a chance to try to fix it. It only stuck a few times, but didn’t cause any real problems or accidents. Here’s a photo of Lynn taking it up to the field to start hauling the hay by Andrea’s house.
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| taking the stackwagon to field by Andrea's house |
When he brought the first load to put in my hay shed, he didn’t realize he had a low rear tire and when he tipped the load up, that corner dragged on the ground. There was no way we could safely stack that load, or get the stackwagon back to the shop where the air compressor is, to re-inflate the tire, so Andrea kept filling the little portable air tank at the shop and bringing it up to my hay shed on her 4-wheeler, to put air in that tire. After 3 trips, we got the tire up to pressure and Lynn was able to stack that load.
The 2nd load went better and we got it unloaded ok, and the 3rd one—but then on his way back out to the lane, Lynn ran it into the gate post in the calving pen and splintered the top of the post. Fortunately the old stackwagon is built sturdy, and it didn’t seem to hurt it much.
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| back for another load |
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| picking up another load |
He hauled a couple more loads that day but was getting tired, and when he drove back up to my hay shed to unload one of them he ran into Dottie’s fence and broke the top rail off. At least that fence is really old—and was always too close to the hay shed, making it difficult to drive between the hay shed and the fence with something as wide as the stackwagon. We cobbled up the fence and it will be ok until we can have Michael rebuild the whole thing this winter and set it back a few feet to make that lane wider.
We had a thunderstorm Wednesday morning, and had to wait a few hours for the hay bales still in the fields too dry out enough to bale and haul. We did get a little more baled but ran out of daylight, and a couple more loads hauled.
Andrea nearly finished baling the field below heifer hill, but some of that hay was still too damp and it was starting to get dark. She quit for the night, and brought all her milk jugs down to refill; she hauls a lot of water around with her in the baler, to periodically pour over the roller bearing on one of the rails. That bearing is froze up and instead of rolling, it just slides on the rail and the friction makes it hot. It would be a major expense and tough job to replace it, so we haven’t. If we pour water on it when it gets too hot, it keeps the baler from burning up! The old baler still works and makes good bales, and we can’t afford another one—not for our small amount of hay that we bale each year.
Thursday morning was cool and cloudy. Andrea and I gathered up all the loose hay in the field below the lane—the fat windrows that had some hay missed when the baler went through. We got it all, in a couple of trips, and unloaded it by Sprout and Shiloh’s pens so I can feed it to them.
We had a hard rain for about 5 minutes but it didn’t take long for the hay to dry out again so Lynn could finish hauling the rest of the bales. He finished out my hay shed and started a stack over in the main stackyard. Here are photos of my full hay shed with a couple extra loads in front of it.
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| full hay shed |
When Lynn went to get the first load of hay from heifer hill, to start a stack in the main stackyard, I pulled a bunch of weeds over there, and took out the rest of my “fake” fence where I grazed Sprout in there earlier. By the end of the day we got all the rest of our hay hauled. We are done haying!
We did have to make a repair when the stackwagon hooked the electric wire over the driveway, and tore it down—AND the old telephone pole it was hooked to. That old pole was rotted off, and we’d reinforced it once a few years back, but lately it had been leaning a bit. The wire it was holding up (that spanned the driveway, between the power pole on one side and the old telephone pole on the other) had sagged just enough that the stackwagon hit it. That was all it took to pull the old pole over and break the wire.
Andrea and Lynn moved it out of the way and Lynn was able to take the stackwagon on up the driveway to the main road to go haul the bales from heifer hill. After he got those bales hauled, Andrea and I put the wire back up across the driveway (so there would be electric current to all the hot wires above the driveway, around the horse pens and pastures, etc.) using a long piece of white PVC pipe as a “pole” to get the wire high enough. We tied it to the fence corner at the bottom of the orchard, with a short piece of wood pole underneath it to give it enough height. It isn’t high enough for the stackwagon to get under, but will be high enough for anything else to drive under. Before haying season next year we may have Michael and crew put a buried electric wire under the driveway this winter when they are here to rebuild a few more of our old fences. That would eliminate the problem. Here are photos of the temporary pole we rigged up.
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| old pole that broke off, and temporary fix |
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| white PVC pipe tied to fence, holding up electric wire |
Friday morning we pumped water for the cows again, and put duct tape over the leaks in the bottom of the aluminum tank. I’d been putting mud packs over those holes, but that meant we had to totally empty and rinse the tank every time we pumped (since the force of the water as we pumped it in would always disrupt the mud packs and make the water very dirty), and repack the mud after the tank was full. The duct tape meant the water stayed cleaner, and stopped the leaks pretty well.
Andrea got a couple of her ditches started again, to try to get water back on our parched fields now that we finally have the hay off. It will be a race to get the fields watered and growing again (for fall pasture for the cows) before the creek is too low and doesn’t have enough water to utilize all our ditches.
That evening she and I took the feed truck up to heifer hill and gathered the last few bales that didn’t fit on the stackwagon’s final load. We put them over by Sprout and Shiloh; I can feed that hay to them.
Saturday morning the guy who will be putting a metal roof on Andrea’s house came by to do the final measurements so he can order the materials. Even though her house isn’t very old, the shingles keep blowing off and there are huge bare areas down to the plywood. A metal roof will be more durable.
Lynn tended Christopher while Andrea changed the irrigation water, then she and Christopher gathered up some of the step-on posts between the hayfield and pasture and moved the fence. She took some photos while he was trying to help.
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| Christopher trying to help with fence |
Then I took care of Christopher in the house (it was hot and the mosquitoes were biting him out in the field) while Andrea finished that fence project. She also moved another fence over a few feet–out of the tall grass and into the hayfield, to include some windrows the cows will have to eat because that hay was a little too wet and the field was too boggy to get them baled.
That evening Andrea took her dog and Christopher up the creek to the woods where Jim was camping, and took her tent, and Christopher enjoyed a campout. The next morning when she got ready to come home, her pickup wouldn’t start. It was not in a location where Jim could get near enough with his pickup to try to jump-start it, and was blocking his pickup’s access to the road, so she borrowed his side-by-side to bring Christopher and her dog home.
Lynn babysat Christopher while Andrea and I took the hay out of the baler and gathered all the loose hay in the field below the lane that the baler missed. Then she helped me get my new haystack more user-friendly; she climbed up the backside of the hay shed to get on top of the bales and went out to the far end of the final stack and knocked down enough bales to stack and stair-step so I will be able to climb up and pull bales down to feed the horses.
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| Andrea starting to push a few bales off the top of the tall stack |
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| pushing a bale down |
Then I tended Christopher while she and Lynn parked the stackwagon in its slot and put the baler back in the sick barn. Here is our new machinery parking lot with most of the haying equipment (and the old manure spreader) parked there. |
| machinery parking lot by bull pens |
Charlie came out after work and he and Andrea drove up the creek and got her pickup started. It seems to be ok except the old batteries are low.
When I did chores Christopher helped me, and we took all the hay from the baler around to my horses, in a cart. He rode in the cart on top of the hay, but when we brought the cart back from the final load he wanted to pull the cart himself, and he did. He’s a very strong little boy!
The next day Lynn went up to Andrea’s house to babysit Christopher while she changed the irrigation water, then she and I moved the cow herd down to the calving pen from the field above the house. We sorted off Biffidy Boffidy Boo Hoo (the yearling heifer that’s been sucking Blindy) and a couple other heifers (that were recently bred and won’t need to stay with the bull) to keep her company in a separate group. We took the main herd to the first segment of pasture below the lane.
We put the 3 heifers in the little ditch pasture by the road. Biffidy desperately tried to get out of that pasture to go back to the cow herd, and we realized that the fence along the top of Shiloh’s pen was bad—mainly held in place by the tall sagebrush in the fence line. So Andrea got her chain saw and sawed out some of the chokecherry trees along the trail between the fence and the ditch so the heifers could go along it easier, and used those little trees as poles to tie into the old saggy fence to make it taller. We laced and tied little trees into it and reinforced it so there’d be no way the heifers could crawl through into the horse pen. That darn yearling heifer that was robbing milk from Blindy spent the next three days pacing the fence and bawling, having to be “weaned” all over again! Blindy is happy to be rid of her, and so is her calf; he can now have all of his mom’s milk!
Tuesday morning Phil Moulton called to tell us he was bringing hay that day (some of the hay we are buying from him), so Lynn put air in the low front tire on our big tractor—the one Phil uses to unload and stack the hay when he brings it.
Andrea, Lynn and I pumped water for the cows on the hill pasture, then Andrea took a tub of protein supplement up there for the cows, since the native bunch grass on that pasture is drying out and doesn’t have as much protein in it anymore. Then she finished changing her irrigation water. Phil brought all 4 loads that day—big square bales of first cutting alfalfa and stacked them next to our stack of little bales. I took a photo of the stack he started, next to our little bales, and a photo of our little bales.
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| tractor by start of big bale stack |
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| our stack of little bales |
Little Kung Fu (China Doll’s orphan bull calf) is doing very well, eating his grain meal twice a day. He ate most of the grass in the 2nd day pens so I let him have access to the pen in front of the barn where there is a lot of nice green grass. He grazes a lot, along with eating his grain, and is growing nicely and staying plump. I took photos of him eating his grain from the tub in the corner of one of his pens. |
| Kung Fu enjoying his grain |
The next day after Andrea changed her water, we rode Willow and Dottie up through the ditch pasture above her house to go to her upper driveway and cross the creek. We grazed that little pasture once this spring with the cows but it has grown back really tall. |
| riding through ditch pasture |
We rode past the new jack fence that Michael and crew built last winter (to replace the old falling-down barbed-wire fence in the brush) at the top of the swamp pasture and I took photos of it. The grass in the upper end of that pasture is as tall as the new fence! |
| new jack fence |
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| tall grass in upper swamp pasture |
Then we rode along her lane and across the bridge to heifer hill so we could go out through that gate and across the road to our hill pasture to check that group of cows. |
| riding along Andrea's upper driveway |
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| across the bridge to heifer hill |
Those cows were still doing well, content, and still had some protein supplement (but are eating it rapidly). We wanted to evaluate how much grass is left up there. We rode out the top gate onto the range and rode around to the saddle out of Gooch’s Basin and down to Baker Creek and made a loop over the low range and home again. There is hardly any grass out there after Alfonso’s and Miller’s cows were out there too long. |
| coming home through low range - no grass left out there at all |
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| coming through tall sage on low range |
Jim brought a trailer load of firewood home from his camp, unloaded it, and went back up the creek. The hot wire below the lane wasn’t working very well and 3 calves crawled through it and out into the hayfield. Andrea, Lynn and I gently herded them back in, after turning the fence off and laying a section of it down on the ground for them to walk over. We moved the herd to the next segment of their pasture.
That afternoon we had a bad lightning storm and a lot of wind. In town, the wind blew the metal roof off the NAPA store, blew over a building and a big tree by the junior high school, and blew over the bleachers next to the track and football field.
Yesterday was hot again, up to 90 degrees, with more wind. But that morning, before the wind came up, Andrea and I took some black plastic around to the stackyard and covered most of the stack of big square bales that Phil brought.
Today was hot again, and threatening rain quite early in the morning. Andrea and I put black plastic over the rest of the square bales (except a few on the end of the stack) and put plastic over our stack of little bales. We finished just as the wind and rain hit. It didn’t rain much, but the wind was fierce.
Emily brought Christopher out here before she went to work, and Lynn took care of him for a while since Andrea was putting an electric fence around the hayfield on heifer hill, so that we can graze cows around the edges (the tall grass along the ditch and fences) and let the field grow back.
AUGUST 1 – The past 2 weeks have been horribly hot, dry and windy—up in the 90’s most days—and the air has been filled with smoke from the fire on the other side of town. Our fire season started with a bang a couple weeks ago, on the weekend, when a fire started along the river north of town, but was actually seen and reported by our grandson Nick, from the top of Sal Mountain (behind our ranch). He was hiking/running up our creek and went to the top of that mountain (elevation 9564 feet), to the old lookout, which he usually does every year.
This old abandoned lookout has a view of more of the surrounding country than any other Forest Service lookout in this part of Idaho. It was built in the early 1930’s and though it hasn’t been manned for more than half a century, the lookout building is still intact. Our kids used to enjoy hiking up there now and then.
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| Sal Mountain lookout |
The fire was still very small when Nick saw the smoke along the river (near Highway 93 about 15 miles northwest of Salmon) and called it in. With the heat and strong winds, it grew rapidly in spite of attempts to contain it, and within a few days had expanded upriver toward North Fork and down river into Moose Creek. People were being evacuated from their homes along the river and creeks in that area, and many are still on notice that they might have to evacuate at short notice.
That Sunday morning (the day it started) Andrea changed water while Lynn babysat Christopher at her house. We put a little hay in the round corral and side pen. We moved the 3 heifers from the ditch pasture below the driveway to the ditch pasture above it, then moved the cows to the next (lower) segment of pasture in the field below the driveway, and took out the dividing fence.
Then we rode Willow and Dottie up to Andrea’s house, and I held Willow while Andrea helped Lynn get Christopher ready to come with us to help move cows; Lynn and Christopher came on Lynn’s 4-wheeler and we all went across to heifer hill on her upper driveway and out the gate to the road. Andrea and I rode up into the hill pasture and gathered the 6 pairs that had been pastured there for 28 days, and brought them out through the gate, and Lynn and Christopher helped head them across the road and down the horse road, then drove down the road to help head them down the driveway when they got down there.
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| Lynn & Christopher |
We took them to the round corral and side pen where they can graze the tall grass in those pens for a couple of days, augmented with a little hay. They needed to fill up with not-very-lush grass before they go to a green field, to make sure they don’t get “emphysema” (a deadly condition that sometimes occurs with a sudden change from low-protein dry forage to lush green forage). They can eat the tall drier grass and weeds in those pens and Babe’s old pen.
We put our horses away and Lynn and I took care of Christopher while Andrea did more irrigating. Jim came home from the woods with all his camping stuff and another load of firewood. He was doing much better and seemed to be over COVID.
Andrea put up more hot wire for her fence around the heifer hill hayfield, and drove up to the hill pasture to bring home the cows’ salt block. They ate all of the protein supplement.
The next day Andrea and Lynn moved the rest of the haying machinery back where it belongs. I put elk panels up around the gas and diesel barrels and we shut the gate into the sick barn so we could let the 6 pairs (from the corral) into that barnyard area to graze for a couple days. Andrea and Jim put another pole on the bottom of the corral fence next to the new loading chute, so a calf couldn’t try to go under it. When we got everything secure, we let those pairs into the barnyard.
Andrea and I secured the black plastic a little better on our haystacks in the stackyard; the wind has been getting underneath (billowing the plastic up) and threatening to rip out the “ears” we made for tying it down. To more adequately secure it, we tied long baling twines together to make long “ropes” to put over the stacks in multiple places. To get them over the stacks, we tied a rock to the end of each “rope” and Andrea threw it over the stack; the weight of the rock carried the twine on over and I got hold of it on the other side. Then we tightened and tied it on each side. The stack of little bales was too tall for her to throw the rock/rope clear over it, so she got up on top with a ladder, taking a bunch of the long “ropes” with her, which she put down over the sides for me to tie.
By that evening the smoke from what they are now calling the Moose Fire had rolled in so thick that it was making visibility poor here at our ranch. The fire had blown up and was headed for North Fork on the one side, and toward Stormy Peak and back of the fairgrounds (where Lynn’s sister Jenelle lives) on the other side. Michael and his fencing crew were working on a project up 4th of July Creek and they were showered with ash and burned branches, blown from the fire. Their equipment was covered with charred material. To be safe, they pulled all their equipment out that evening and brought it home, but were able to take it back the next morning and finish that job.
We heard sad news that day; one of the big Chinook helicopters that had been dipping water out of the Salmon River to dump on the fire crashed in the river (due to some kind of malfunction) and both pilots died. One was from Post Falls, Idaho and the other was from Anchorage, Alaska. Loss of human life is always the worst kind of tragedy associated with these catastrophic fires that destroy so much!
Granddaughter Heather and Gregory called us that evening from Saskatchewan. They recently had a terrible hailstorm that completely ruined some of their neighbors’ crops but had been lucky in that they only lost about 25% of their grain crop. The main reason they called, however, was to tell us that Gregory had been able to “water witch” several more well locations, and they’d all turned out exceptionally good, with plenty of water. They now have adequate water for their cattle in multiple pastures, using solar-powered pumps, and even a new well for their house water.
Heather sent photos of the pump house they made from an old metal grain bin, and of Joseph and James playing in the mud from the water tank installation project.
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| pump house |
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| boys making mud |
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| playing in the mud |
She also sent a photo of Joseph and James snuggled into a cozy blanket on a chair, hamming it up for the camera. |
| Joseph & James |
The next day Andrea finished putting up the electric fence around the hayfield on heifer hill, except for hooking it up. She had a lot of electric wire to unroll and created an innovative way to hold the spool of wire on her 4-wheeler while she pulled it out and unrolled it to create the fence. She secured the spool of wire to her shovel and a broom handle on her 4-wheeler. |
| innovative hot wire unroller |
That day she got a phone call from Sam, who had suffered severe whiplash when a car behind her at a stoplight ran into her, going about 35 miles per hour. The lady driving the car drove off—a hit-and-run—and still has not been identified and located. Sam’s vehicle wasn’t too badly damaged, but Sam had to go to the ER and was in severe pain from lower back injury. The doctor prescribed some powerful muscle relaxants and she was not supposed to drive because these drugs make her sleepy. So Andrea planned to go down there and spend a few days helping her.
She adjusted her irrigation water the next morning, to some places where it would be ok to run for several days while she was gone. She and Lynn and I moved the 6 pairs from the barnyard area they’d been grazing, and took them up the horse road to the outer fringes of heifer hill. Andrea had hooked up the hot wire, and opened the gate between the lower end of that pasture and the horse road, so it was easy to move those cows and calves. Lynn followed them on his 4-wheeler, Andrea and I headed them up the horse road at the top of the driveway.
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| Lynn bringing cattle up the driveway |
Then I walked ahead of them and called them (they will follow me anywhere, to new pasture) while Andrea went on up the main road to make sure none of them tried to go up that steep bank.
I took a few photos as Lynn brought up the rear on his 4-wheeler, as I led the cows and calves up the horse road and in the gate at the bottom corner of heifer hill.
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| Lynn following cows up the horse road |
Andrea took photos also, as I led the cows in through that gate and Lynn brought the stragglers; some of the calves were at the back end of the herd. |
| leading the cows to the gate |
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| Lynn following the herd |
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| bringing the stragglers |
The grass around the hayfield is very tall but still a little green (and some of the grass down at the lower end that was irrigated along with the hayfield was really lush and green), so the cows were very happy to go into that pasture. |
| cows coming into the tall grass |
Fencing off the hayfield and keeping the cows out of it will allow it to regrow while they eat the tall grass around the edges. Otherwise they would eat the lush new green grass into the ground and ignore the taller grass around the edges. This way we get more efficient use of the entire pasture and grazing days later this fall after the hayfields regrow. |
| hayfield fenced off; cows can eat tall grass around the edges |
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| short grass on hayfields |
Then Andrea went to town to take some things to Emily and Christopher and gas up her car, and drove to Twin Falls to spend several days with Sam. That evening at chore time Lynn and I drove up to heifer hill on his 4-wheeler and I hiked around in the brush below the ditch where the cows were bedded (in the shade), to check on them.
We checked them twice daily while Andrea was gone, to make sure they were doing ok and making the adjustment to the greener feed without getting emphysema.
Meanwhile the fire on the other side of town was raging, devouring more and more acreage as the hot weather and strong winds kept it from being readily controlled. People in the area from North Fork to the fairgrounds (including Lynn’s sister Jenelle) were preparing for evacuation. By that time the burned area had grown to more than 20,000 acres, with more than 500 firefighters (many coming in from other states) and was not a bit controlled.
The next day was hot and windy again, and the fire took another big leap. Andrea was still in Twin Falls with Sam, helping her fix her refrigerator and taking her to the doctor again. She sent me a few photos, including a selfie of her and Sam, and one of Sam with her pet lizard Gizmo.
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| Andrea & Sam |
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| Sam & pet lizzard |
Sam was spending most of the time in bed, sleeping. At one point when she was awake, she and Andrea did manage to call our good friend Pete Wiebe in Canada who recently lost his wife, Bev. She died very suddenly with a rare type of brain tumor. She will be greatly missed. Pete and Bev are some of our dearest friends who came into our lives after Andrea’s burn injury, to help us through the toughest challenges. Pete was a burn survivor and was a bit farther along in his journey to get back to a relatively normal life, and he was a big inspiration to us. We corresponded by letter and phone for several years, and then Pete and Bev visited us a few times as they came through on their way south to donate their time and efforts in building homes for people who had lost their homes in disasters. They dedicated their lives to helping others. We cherish the visits we had with them; they always stayed a few days at Andrea’s house when they came, and her kids all dearly loved them.
Now Pete has not only lost his wife, but is also suffering from Parkinson’s disease and early dementia. When Andrea and Sam called him, Andrea suggested that maybe one of Pete’s kids and spouse might sometime drive him down here for a visit, to stay again for a while.
With the hot dry weather our creek has been dropping daily, and the watermaster came out to put locks on headgates, to regulate how much each ditch is using. The problem he encountered, however, is that the new locks that the new secretary-treasurer purchased (cheap bicycle locks she found online) do not fit through the headgates and face plates. Another problem is that Alfonso has never put his face plates back into his headgates and is running most of his ditches wide open—with no check-down—taking more than his right, and the watermaster didn’t even bother to put those face plates back in. So with Alfonso using most of the creek above us on the Gooch place, our ditches weren’t picking up enough water to fill our right. Andrea discovered this when she got home from Twin Falls Saturday morning and went to check her water; some of the water she’d set 3 days earlier hadn’t even run clear across the fields because there wasn’t enough water in her ditches!
We brought the cows in from the pasture below the lane; it lasted them 11 days but was getting short. We sorted off the heifers and put them in the area next to Sprout and Shiloh’s pens, to graze that down before Phil brings us some 2nd cutting alfalfa to stack there. We took the cows and calves to the corral and sorted off the bull and put him back in his pen. Our breeding season is over. We like it short (about 4 ½ weeks—which gives every cow and heifer a chance to be bred) so that next year’s calving season will also be short. Any cow or heifer that didn’t settle during that time, we will sell this fall.
Monday we put the 11 yearling heifers in the pen below the bull corral. We haven’t grazed it yet this year, and the grass was about 4 feet tall or higher, and the areas where Michael and crew removed the big willow patches and burned them (to rebuild the fences around that pen) had all grown to weeds—ragweed more than 10 feet tall! It was a true jungle—too thick to walk through--but the heifers (which we’ve nicknamed jungle bunnies) loved it. They are eating the tall weeds and made trails through them, and eating the new willow shoots, as well as the grass. They will be our best tool to keep the weeds and willows trimmed back and eventually the grass will fill in those areas. I wish I’d taken a photo of that dense jungle of tall weeds when we first put the heifers in there, but I didn’t. Here are photos I took a few days later after the heifers had eaten most of those weeds, but you can see how tall the remaining ones are—like small trees!
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| tall weeds |
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| ragweed patch mostly eaten by heifers |
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| weeds were more than twice as tall as the heifers |
That whole week was really hot, up to 95 degrees and higher in the afternoons. Our ditches were short of water again, so Andrea hiked up to see where it went. Alfonso had his two ditches on the Gooch place going full blast, with not much coming down to our headgate for the ditch that comes through his pasture and down to the field by Andrea’s house. She spent several hours digging sand away from the headgate—sand that accumulated there during high water. She was able to get enough water into that ditch to increase the flow to about half of our allotted right—which was enough to make do for now, until the watermaster can come adjust and lock Alfonso’s ditches.
Lynn babysat Christopher while Andrea was working on the ditch; they always have fun together. That little kid loves to torment his great-grandpa and his latest bit of fun is tickling him. When Andrea came back from irrigating she took a photo of Christopher tickling Lynn.
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| tickling Lynn |
Jim has spent several days splitting the wood that he sawed up earlier and brought down from the woods. It looks like we should have enough winter wood for our house, Andrea’s house and Jim’s shop. I took a few photos of him splitting some of the last of the wood, with his loyal dog Ezra helping. |
| Jim & Ezra splitting wood |
Andrea created another temporary fence above the hayfield between our house and heifer hill, so that we can graze cows there when they run out of pasture where they are, and let the hayfields keep growing back. The key to having enough pasture for our cows (and still grow some hay) and be able to expand our herd numbers a little is to rotationally graze every little piece of ground that isn’t a hayfield. By grazing ditch banks and barnyards, we’ve extended our grazing days quite a bit.
Lynn located a site for a well for one of our neighbors, and was contacted by some other folks to find a well on property they are buying at the mouth of 4th of July creek. The fire was so bad down there for a while that it had to be postponed a week, hoping conditions would get better. A few days ago, however, the fire had burned more than 43,000 acres and there were more than 900 firefighters working on it.
Friday morning Andrea was changing water on heifer hill and bent down to pick up a rock by her ditch, to use it on the dam she was about to put in the ditch, and heard a rattle and realized there was a snake under that rock, and it’s head was right there poking out. She was inches away from being bitten. So she backed up and grabbed her shovel to flip over the rock and kill the snake and then took a photo of it.
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| the snake Andrea killed |
We don’t want the risk of anyone (including our cows and calves in that pasture!) being bitten. Last year a man in our county was bitten on the arm by a snake in his garden and died on his way to the hospital.
I’ve been letting Sprout graze in the backyard to eat down the grass and weeds, and letting Ed mow the front yard for about an hour each morning. It’s good to get that tall dry grass eaten so it won’t be a fire hazard or a place for snakes to hide. I took photos of Ed from the window.
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| Ed grazing in front yard |
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| enjoying the grass in yard |
The flies were bothering her, so every now and then she rubbed up against the little tree (chokecherry) to brush them off. |
| rubbing flies off with tree
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Friday afternoon she and Lynn drove down to 4th of July Creek to locate water for a well for some people from Pocatello who are buying property there. The new owner and the real estate agent drove down there also. We weren’t sure if it would be safe, since that’s right across the river from where the fire is burning, and there is a lot of fire-fighting equipment/traffic on the road. We also worried that the hillside area where he needed to try to locate water might be covered with dry grass and sagebrush and not safe to drive out into for fear of the vehicles starting a fire. But the access onto the property was already a well-beaten track, being used as a vantage point for firefighters who were monitoring the blaze on the mountain across the river.
Lynn was able to locate a good spot for a well—in an area that had already burned at an earlier time in the past; the sagebrush was gone, and there were remnants of an old cabin that had burned up. Andrea took photos of Lynn finding the water.
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| Lynn walking around to locate water |
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| counting with the bobbing stick to estimate depth of the water |
She also took photos of the mountains across the river and the areas that have burned. |
| areas that have already burned |
While they were there, the fire on the mountains across the river took off again with more smoke, and Andrea took a few photos of the fire as it put more smoke into the air. |
| fire going again |
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| a lot more smoke |
She and Lynn also met three of the crew that were monitoring the fire from that spot. One of them was a firefighter from north Idaho who has worked on other fires where Andrea has worked (during her years helping at various fire camps) and he was also on the fire up our creek in 2003. He was training the two younger crew members who were with him on the current fire.
It was horribly hot in that canyon, and after Lynn finished locating the site for a water well, he and Andrea drove back to town and got some big strawberry milkshakes to take back out there to those firefighters and they were very grateful!
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| happy firefighters with their milkshakes |
Saturday morning the smoke had temporarily dissipated here at the ranch and we had blue skies for a while. Andrea changed her irrigation water and Jim split more wood. Then that evening the smoke rolled in again, thicker than ever, from both directions—the Moose Creek fire from the north and the Wood Tick fire near Challis, from the south.
Yesterday it was still a little smoky and very hot. It’s been getting up in the high 90’s every afternoon. In the morning while it was still relatively cool, we moved the yearling heifers from their jungle bunny pen (where they’ve eaten most of the grass and 10-foot high ragweed) to the upper end of the stackyard to eat down that grass. We also moved the cows and calves from the lower swamp pasture to the pasture above it, and Christopher helped us. He sat on the 4-wheeler to help head them through the gate, and make sure none went past the gate. He is very good about staying quiet on the 4-wheeler and waiting for “Gammy” (Andrea) whenever she tells him to stay and wait for her.
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| Christopher on 4-wheeler heading cows through the gate |
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| cows all moved; Christopher waiting for Gammy |
He also had his first horseback ride this year, on dear old Ed. He rode her a couple times last year, but his little legs were so short that it was harder for him to stay balanced on the saddle. His legs are still too short to quite reach the stirrups, but he had a secure seat in the saddle with no danger of tipping or sliding off. We took photos as we led Ed up the lane… |
| Andrea leading Ed |
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| heading up the lane on Ed |
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| grandma leading |
At the top of the lane Ed wanted to stop for a snack, so we let her grab a little grass and some of the tall alfalfa that grows along the driveway. |
| mouthful of food |
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| lunch break - stopped for a snack |
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| good snack |
Then Christopher rode her out to the end of the driveway to the main road.. |
| out to the end of the driveway |
And then back again, and down to the house, pausing once to get one more good mouthful of good green “lunch”. |
| riding back home again |
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| heading back down toward the house |
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| pausing for one last bite of good stuff |
He and Ed posed for a “good little cowboy” photo… |
| good little cowboy |
Then after we got back to the house and took the saddle off, Christopher helped me lead Ed back to her pen. He really enjoys interacting with the horses. |
| leading Ed back to her pen |
