AUGUST 10 – The weather continues hot and dry, with a lot of smoke most days from the big fire north of town that just keeps growing. By this past Sunday it had grown to more than 70,000 acres and there were more than 1000 firefighters working on it, trying to control it, but it is still growing every day.
I’ve been grazing Sprout in the backyard to eat down all the grass and weeds, letting Ed graze in the front yard. My “grass-powered” lawnmowers are doing a good job of eating down the area around the house to reduce the fire hazard.
We let the heifers eat the grass and weeds in the upper part of the stackyard. From there they also have access to a little grass on the other side of the creek, next to the field above our house, and that grass was getting tall and dry and needed to be grazed before it gets too mature and dry. Andrea used her chain saw to cut a blown-down tree out of the trail that goes through the thick brush along the creek, so the heifers could get over there, and I lured them through the brush so they could find that patch of grass across the creek. The nice thing about this group of heifers this year is that I can call them and they will follow me anywhere.
The orphan bull calf, Kung Fu, is doing well, enjoying his grain meal twice a day and grazing in the lane by the barn. I recently let him have access to the bigger pen below the barn; the grass in it is taller than he is and still nice and green, so he can graze it for a while.
Andrea sent me some photos she took of Christopher when she was at the park with him and he was playing with some of the kid toys there.
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| Christopher at the park |
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| playing in the dirt |
While we had the feed truck running, we drove up the road to the hill pasture across from heifer hill and brought home the aluminum water trough (which we will need later this fall in the orchard) and the long black plastic pipe that we put through the culvert under the road for pumping water to that hill pasture.
Andrea started putting up a temporary hot wire around the edges of the hayfield below heifer hill so we can graze the tall grass around that field, the brush and ditchbanks, etc. There will probably be 10 day’s worth of pasture there for the 6 pairs currently grazing around the edges of heifer hill. By utilizing those outlying rough areas and letting the hayfields grow back, we extend our grazing days quite a bit.
We have been very short of irrigation water, so last Thursday Andrea hiked up the creek to see what happened to it. Alfonso had the entire creek dammed off and going out his 2 ditches on the Gooch place. She had to rearrange his dams a little bit to allow some water to come on down the creek. Otherwise the rancher with the first right (Jack) would also be short of water and he would be calling the watermaster to come out and shut us all off. We need to share a bit and make sure there’s still enough water for Jack!
The next day she went to town to pick up Christopher so Emily could go to work. She also went to a benefit that was being held for the families of the 2 pilots who died when their helicopter crashed into the river while they were dipping water to dump on the fire. Our town has been putting on several benefits for them, and also had a big parade and ceremony honoring those two men.
Lynn and I took care of Christopher for a few hours while Andrea was irrigating, and Christopher wanted me to try to get into his little tent in our livingroom. Lynn took a photo of me and Christopher stuffed into the tent.
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| in the tent |
We’d moved the heifers from the upper end of the stackyard and put them down in the post pile pasture, so now I am letting Sprout graze the rest of the stackyard; I can keep her out of the hay stacks with a “fake” fence made of baling twines and step-in posts, whereas the heifers are not that trustworthy; they would eat on the hay bales! I am also still letting Ed graze briefly each day in the front yard, to mow it down.
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| Ed grazing in the front yard |
Since we will soon need to haul cattle to the sale in Montana, we checked our stock trailer door to see if it will slide ok. Now that we have a loading chute we can back right up to it and use the little sliding door (half of the big door) to put them into the trailer, rather than having to herd them into the trailer from the lane, with the whole door open. We haven’t used the little sliding door or tried to open it since we bought this old used trailer last year; we’ve only used the big door.
It’s a good thing we checked the smaller door before the last minute. It wouldn’t slide open at all; it was catching on the rubber mats that Stan screwed down to the floorboards of the trailer after he reinforced those old rotten boards with more crosspieces underneath them. So Andrea used her power drill to unscrew all the screws and we took the screws and washers off the rubber mats. Those mats were rolled up when we bought the trailer sight unseen and brought it home last year, and after Stan reinforced the floor and rolled out the mats they were a little too big. That’s probably why he bolted them down, so they wouldn’t buckle and shift, not realizing that mats need to be removed periodically and washed, and the floor underneath.
So we unscrewed them and were able to pull them forward a bit, and bend them up at the front, so they were not sticking out under the door. Then the little door was able to slide open and shut.
When Andrea irrigated later that day she took a photo of one of the fawns that has been living in the field by her house.
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| fawn in field |
Andrea gathered up more of the temporary electric fence around the heifer hill field yesterday afternoon and didn’t realize the power went off while she was watering her little bit of yard with sprinklers (using her house water since there isn’t enough water in our irrigation ditch to pump from). With the power off, it ran her tank out of water, but didn’t seem to hurt the pump. The power was off for a couple hours, just on our creek, and the power company guys had to come out and locate the cause. We never did hear what happened to it, but it could have been a tree blow over it (with all the wind we’ve had lately) or the power lines popping together and shorting it out if a big flock of birds took off all at once after sitting on the lines.
Charlie came out on Sunday, and he and Andrea took a drive down past Northfork in her little jeep. Andrea took a picture of some of the burned area from the big fire that’s still out of control in those mountains beyond the river, and a photo of Charlie after they got home.
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| burned area across the river |
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| Charlie lounging around |
Today was very smoky again, all day, with the smoke so thick we couldn’t see the mountains on either side of us. Andrea went to town to do the town errands and get the mail and groceries, and pick up Christopher from Emily. On her way home she saw a bull in Alfonso’s field right below our place, pacing around like he was looking for a way to come up through our place. All of Alfonso’s gates are open to the road, so the bull could easily come up the road and come in our driveway. So Lynn babysat Christopher while Andrea and I went down and shut Alfonso’s gates to the road, and saw that the fence was falling down enough that the bull could walk right out of there even with the gates shut. So we closed our driveway gate in case the bull got out and came our way.
Granddaughter Heather sent an e-mail updating us on their farm and family news, and sent a couple photos of the boys—little Ian Thomas who is now almost 6 months old, and his big brothers James and Joseph.
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| baby Ian |
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| James & Joseph |
We still have the 6 old cows and their calves in the fringe area around the hayfield above the house, and Andrea took a photo of them resting in the shade.
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| cows and calves resting in the shade |
Last week I trimmed some of the rose briars that are growing in the front yard. Ed has done a good job of eating the tall grass and some of the weeds, but she won’t eat the rose briars and chokecherry tree shoots, so cut them off with tree pruner nippers, along with some of the low-hanging branches from the elm tree that are obstructing our view from the windows. Then I cut down all the burdock plants and young willows in the pen below the barn where Kung Fu grazes. I wanted to get rid of the burdock before the burrs are ripe enough to stick to him.
I also pulled up all the tall weeds that grew in our new loading chute, so that when we haul the cows to the sale they can make it through that chute. Some of the ragweed and other weeds were 5 feet tall in there.
Andrea had Christopher with her in town and she went to the fire camp and visited with some of the firefighters she knows, and Christopher was fascinated by the big trucks. He got to get in one of them.
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| Christopher in truck |
Last Saturday Lynn put diesel in our big tractor and parked it in the hold pen next to Sprout and Shiloh’s pens, so it would be handy for Phil to unload hay. We babysat Christopher while Andrea changed her irrigation water—the little bit that we still have. I cooked chicken and potatoes and gravy and we invited grandson Nick to eat dinner with us. We had a great visit (hadn’t had a chance to talk to him since he was here this past winter with the fencing crew rebuilding some of our old fences and creating the new loading chute, etc.) then played Tripoli –a game that he’s loved since we used to play it with him and his sister and parents occasionally when Nick was a kid.
We have been leaving our lane gate shut every night in case the stray bull (which belongs to John Miller) in Alfonso’s field ever gets out on the road and comes our way. Even though we shut a couple of his gates, he leaves his lower one open, and the bull could easily go out on the road.
On Sunday Andrea had Christopher in town with her and they met up with Charlie for a while and she took a photo of Christopher and his uncle.
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| Christopher & Charlie |
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| hay for the heifers |
Andrea drove Lynn to a property along the river past North Fork, where some folks from Washington wanted him to locate a site for a well. A lot more of that area has burned now, since they were on 4th of July Creek locating water 2 1/2 weeks ago.
That evening Andrea and I took some protein blocks to the 6 pairs in the fringe pasture around the hayfield below heifer hill. They’ve eaten all the green grass but there’s still a lot of tall mature grass that they are less fond of—but they will eat it if they have some supplemental protein.
The next day Lynn and I took care of Christopher again for a few hours while Andrea was irrigating, and Christopher wanted me to get into his tent with him again, and pretend to be sleeping on a camp-out. He had it stuffed with blankets and pillows and it was pretty tight quarters when we both got in it! Lynn took a couple pictures of us.
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| peeking out of the tent |
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| pretending we're camping and sleeping |
On Wednesday morning I did 3 phone interviews (for various article assignments for cattle and horse magazines) and started typing them (short deadlines). Andrea had to go to town early to report for Jury duty but whatever trial they needed jurors for was postponed so she’ll have to go back again in 6 weeks or so.
It’s been really hot, up to 95 or 98 degrees in the afternoon. The creek is dropping more and more and the fields are drying out badly wherever we haven’t had enough water for them. We desperately need some rain.
The 6 old cows and their calves are enjoying the protein blocks we gave them, and eating them rapidly. This balances their diet and they very willingly eat the tall dry grass that they were fussy about eating—and cleaning up most of the rest of that fringe pasture. When Andrea checked on them the past few days, they were quite content, and she took photos of some of them eating the protein blocks.
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| Blackhead eating protein |
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| Alligator Eyes eating protein |
Yesterday morning early (barely daylight) Tony the watermaster came out and I saw him go through our place when I was doing chores, so I talked to him. He said Jack was really short of water and that he was going up to the Gooch place to lock one of Alfonso’s ditches that has been running wide open all summer with no face plate in the headgate.
A little later that morning the truck from Lemhi Lumber Company brought out the roofing materials for Andrea’s house. Even though the house is only 11 years old, the shingles have all been blowing off, so we are going to have a metal roof put on. The guy who will be putting the roof on will hopefully start working on it soon—before more shingles blow off.
After the metal was safely unloaded, Andrea came down here and helped me put black plastic on one of the stacks of round bales near Shiloh’s pen. We had a short piece that we put on the other stack, then found another piece in the “sick barn” where we store the plastic that we roll up after taking it off the stacks when we’ve fed up the hay. It was getting windy—which makes it hard to get the plastic in place over the hay—and decided to put that piece on another day, earlier in the morning.
After lunch she drove Lynn to town to the eye doctor. He had noticed that he’s lost about half the vision in his right eye. The left one has been compensating and he didn’t realize it until he shut the left eye and couldn’t see much with the right eye. So the eye doctor worked him in (rather than wait a year for an actual appointment). He waited awhile until the doctor had a few minutes to check his eye, and Andrea did all the town errands while Lynn was there. The impaired vision is due to damage caused by high blood sugar levels, so now Lynn has to be more careful what he eats, and try to avoid sugar as much as possible—and fewer carbohydrates.
Ed ran out of grass in the front yard, so I am now letting her graze some of the tall grass next to the pen in front of the calving barn.
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| Ed eating tall grass |
This was the weekend that Emily, AJ and Christopher went camping at a lake near Leadore. They had fun, but it rained hard on them for part of the day, and they got soaked on a hike—and a lot of their camping stuff was wet. So Andrea drove up there yesterday evening to take them some dry clothes, towels, etc. She stayed overnight, sleeping in the back seat of her truck while they slept in a tent.
She drove home early this morning, but had to wait a bit on the little road coming down out of the mountains, while a bunch of search and rescue vehicles drove by; they were going out into that area to search for a lost person.
After Andrea got home, she backed her pickup up to the end of the stack that we didn’t have fully covered yet. At least it hadn’t rained here yet and the hay was still dry. She used the pickup to climb up onto and up on the first bale, and put a tire up on that bale to enable her to step up higher and climb onto the top bale. I handed her the black plastic and she pulled it up over that end of the stack, and Lynn and I tied it down on both sides. Then we secured it more completely by throwing long strings (with rock tied to one end to give it weight to sail completely over the stack) and tied those strings down on both sides. We put these over-the-stack strings every 6 feet all along the stack. That way the wind can’t get under the plastic and rip out our “ears” that we tied to the stack. We got the rest of that stack covered before it got too windy, and also covered the big square bale of 2nd cutting that Lynn brought around from the stack yard a couple days ago with the tractor.
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| black plastic on stacks |
After we got the stack secured, she checked on her irrigation water and discovered that she had practically NONE in any of her ditches—in spite of the fact that Tony told me he was going to shut off one of Alfonso’s ditches yesterday morning. So she hiked up and checked, and found that one ditch was locked (allowing a little bit of water to come through) but the one that Tony told me he was going to shut off was running wide open with the whole creek dammed off to come into it. The face plate (which earlier was just lying there on the ground) was gone, and Andrea discovered a lock lying on the ground. It was sprung and bent—the hasp was so widened that it would never work again. So she assumed Tony HAD locked the head gate shut and Alfonso probably got bad and pried the lock off and broke it. Tony will have to come out again, and emphasize to Alfonso that he’ll need to have a faceplate and it must be locked until the creek has more water in it again this fall. It’s past time to shut off that 3rd right when the first and 2nd rights cannot be filled.
A thunderstorm was brewing so on her way back through our barnyard Andrea put a piece of black plastic over the end of the big square bale stack in the stackyard. When we covered that stack, our plastic wasn’t quite long enough, and we’d never taken time to cover the end of it, so she did.
We had Nick come out again for supper and another game of Tripoli, and hoped Andrea could join us, but when she did her chores she discovered that the refrigerator in her trailer had quit working (like it did last year), and the frozen stuff in the top was all thawed. She had to get everything out of it. So later she brought down a big cooler full of stuff to put in our refrigerator and freezer, and sent home a lot of things with Nick that he will be able to use. It started raining about the time we finished unloading her cooler, and it rained hard for a while—the first real rain we’ve had for a long time. I’m glad we got the haystacks mostly covered! It didn’t rain enough to make puddles, but enough to wet the ground, which will temporarily help the dry parched grass.
We also got an e-mail from his sister in Canada, telling us their good news; Gregory and a neighbor were able to make a trench for a pipe from their new well, and another guy did some horizontal boring to get it under the road and into their basement. Since it’s just a dirt basement, it was very easy to pipe it in there—with nothing to repair or replace. Yesterday Gregory got it all plumbed so that they can also water their garden. As of this morning he got it plumbed in to supply well water for the house. She said it will be nice to not have to fight with frozen hoses to try to get water to the house in the winter from the storage tank they were using, or to have to be very conservative with water when it’s 40 below zero and they only have 200 gallons left in the tank. She sent photos of the trenching for the pipe, and the plumbing project in the basement.
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| trench for water pipe |
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| water piped into basement |
When Andrea arrived, she helped me get Pandemonium and her calf out of Breezy’s pen and around to the corral. We sorted off the calves into another pen. I had the bull locked in the little pen by the chute. When Chad Stephenson arrived with a big trailer, we put the cattle all together and into the new loading chute that Michael and crew built last winter. This was our first time trying it out, and it worked nicely. The cattle went right into the trailer and Chad took them down to the Eagle Valley Ranch where Rusty Hamilton (the trucker who takes cattle to the sales at Montana Livestock Auction near Butte) was picking up more cattle.
After our cattle were loaded and gone, Andrea and I hiked over to the lower back field to check on the heifers. When she’d looked at them the day before, one of them—Malindy--had noisy breathing (though she didn’t seem sick) so we wanted to check on her again.
She was the last one to come out of the brush when the heifers came out to greet us, and her breathing was much worse. She was having trouble drawing air into her lungs and sounded like she was snoring—a classic sign of diphtheria. This is an infection in the back of the throat, affecting the larynx (voice box), caused by the same bacterium that causes foot rot in cattle. It gets into the mouth and throat tissues if there’s an abrasion or nick, as from eating sharp or abrasive feed. The infection and swelling reduces the diameter of the airway and if it’s severe enough can totally shut off the air passage and the animal suffocates. The way you can tell the difference between diphtheria and pneumonia is that the animal has trouble drawing air into the lung if it’s diphtheria, and has trouble pushing air out of the lungs if it’s pneumonia (due to fluid and congestion in the lung tissue) and the animals is sicker; pneumonia is a systemic infection whereas diphtheria is more localized in the throat area.
We decided to bring Malindy to the corral to doctor, with a couple buddies to keep her company, so we could leave them in the corral and hold pen (where there’s grass to graze) until she recovers. We didn’t want to have them attracted to the cows above the hold pen on the ditch pasture by Andrea’s house, and vice versa, so we moved the 9 pairs from the ditch pasture and took them across the bridge on Andrea’s upper driveway and into heifer hill (to graze the new green regrowth after we harvested the hay). We brought the 11 heifers to the gate out of the lower back field and were able to sort out Malindy and the two buddies she lived with part of the summer before we put all the heifers back together.
It was an effort for Malindy to breathe as she exerted, so we brought them very slowly up to the corral. We got her into the chute and head-catch and gave her antibiotics—a long-acting oxytetracycline that gives coverage for 2-plus days--to combat the infection, and a small dose of dexamethasone to help reduce the swelling and inflammation, and a large dose of DMSO squirted into the back of her mouth.
DMSO is excellent for treating diphtheria because it is a great anti-inflammatory and reduces swelling immediately. We’ve used it many times over the years to treat calves with diphtheria and it works better than anything to shrink the obstructive swelling and allow them to breathe. When I checked on Malindy an hour later (after we let them into a side pen next to Babe’s pen, where there was shade so she could get out of the heat—because she was really stressed by the time we finished treating her) she was breathing easier, no longer making snoring sounds, and contentedly chewing her cud!
That afternoon we also put a tarp on the last two bales at the end of one stack of big round bales; the black plastic we’d used to cover that stack earlier wasn’t quite long enough, and left two bales exposed to the weather, so we finally got them covered.
The newly weaned calves grazed happily for a while in the lush green grass in the maternity pen (old orchard) where we put them after we sent their mothers away, then started missing their moms and bawled all night. We usually wean with nose flaps (and they get to stay with mom through the stressful weaning process) but this time we wanted to get those cull cows gone quicker, and had to wean the calves “cold turkey”.
The next morning Rick Doroney came at 6 a.m. to start working on Andrea’s roof. It gets so hot during the day that he prefers to start work almost before daylight and be able to quit by mid-afternoon when it gets up to 90-plus degrees and windy.
Even though Andrea’s house is only 11 years old, the wind started blowing the shingles off the very first year. The guys who built the house didn’t take the backing off the shingles and they didn’t stick down like they were supposed to. Every time there was a strong wind, more shingles blew off. We kept putting shingles back on, but it finally got to the point where there was just too much bare roof, so we hired Rick to put a metal roof on. He came to work early in the mornings (almost before daylight) to work on it before the heat and wind (which always seems to blow every afternoon this summer) make it difficult.
Andrea and Jim helped a lot on this project. Andrea was on the roof quite a bit, taking out nails and removing old shingles, and she and Jim lifted the long metal pieces up to Rick so he wouldn’t have to keep going up and down the ladder. We rented a dumpster for 3 days to put the old shingles and other debris into. Andrea took a photo of the roofing project.
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| new roof |
The day after we treated Malindy for diphtheria she was continuing to do well (no more loud breathing) so we didn’t have to put her in the chute again for any more treatments. We felt lucky that we caught it in time and treated it aggressively enough to resolve it with one treatment.
That afternoon Lynn’s sister Jenelle called to tell us that their oldest sister Edna Stauber had a stroke that morning. Edna’s daughter Mary, who has been staying with her, took Edna to the ER and she was in the hospital. They did a lot of tests, and kept her in the hospital a couple days, then sent her to a rehab facility where she is getting physical therapy. Her mind and speech is ok, but she has some limb impairments so she’s walking with a walker and undergoing lots of physical therapy. She calls us briefly every evening to give us an update on her progress, and sounds really good on the phone.
Christopher went with Andrea a few times to irrigate, and one afternoon she took photos of him playing in the water with his trucks.
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| littlest irrigator playing in the water |
Dani and her boyfriend Roger drove home from Oregon this last week, where they were staying with his younger brother to help take care of him—after he was finally able to come home from the hospital after his serious accident this past winter. They plan to stay here a couple weeks, until after the funeral for one of Dani’s friends who drowned in the river a couple months ago (his body was finally found recently).
This past week was the Fair. Andrea took Christopher to a couple of the rodeos, along with Dani and Roger, and Charlie joined them for a while also.
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| at the fair grounds |
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| Christopher & Dani at one of the rodeos |
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| Christopher climbing one of the obstacles |
On Thursday we decided that Malindy was fully recovered (and not going to relapse) and we put her and her two buddies back down to the field with the rest of the heifers. That afternoon Lynn and I went to town and he did the town errands while I went to the dentist. It was finally time to try to do something about my broken teeth. I had a couple chipped teeth a few years ago, and then broke some more when I had my wreck in October 2019 with Dottie (when she tripped while galloping after a wayward cow when we took a group up to the 320 for fall pasture). When she did a somersault over the top of me and squashed my head into the snow and frozen mud, it not only broke the back of one eye socket but also broke more of my teeth.
At that point I was more concerned about my vision problem than the teeth and I put off having them fixed. Then COVID came along and I didn’t go to town at all, and didn’t worry about the teeth. I was getting by ok until a few more pieces broke off and I had to just carefully chew on one side, and then another tooth shifted/broke and now I can’t chew on either side and have to just eat soft stuff or things I can nibble with my front teeth. The nice thing about the meat from China Doll is that it is so tender I can take small bites of those roasts and mush it around with my tongue enough to break it up and swallow it!
But it was time to get some teeth fixed. So I went to the dentist and his daughter took x-rays of all my teeth and he’s going to try to fix them, but my next appointment isn’t until September 27th so I’ll be eating very carefully (soft foods) in the meantime.
We’ve been very short on irrigation water for several weeks, and even shorter after Alfonso took the lock off one of his headgates on the Gooch place and removed the face plate and dammed off the creek so all the water would go out that ditch. We were mainly just picking up a little tail water from the field he was irrigating, giving us a little water for heifer hill. We had just a trickle in the ditch that comes by Andrea’s house.
Then this past Friday when Andrea checked that ditch to see if the trickle had irrigated enough to move it (after running for more than a week in one place, trying to get the water to the bottom of the field in that small area), she noticed a bunch of muddy water coming down the ditch! She realized Alfonso must have made some kind of change in his stolen water. Technically the Gooch place—a 3rd right—must be shut off by now, since our 2nd right on this place is not being filled, and the 1st right at the bottom of the creek is also short-changed. We haven’t complained about being short, however, because if Alfonso’s 3nd right is shut off, that means Michael’s 4th right at the top of the creek has to be shut off also, and at this point he is still using his 3rd right (though sometimes it’s a bit short, too, just because the creek is so low during this hot, dry weather). The fact that the creek is holding up as well as it is, this late, is due to the fact that the upper places keep using water, which mostly goes back to the creek and also recharges the springs and bogs that keep seeping into the creek. We all benefit if the upper places are not turned off completely. They could all keep using water all summer, like we used to do before Alfonso started renting the Gooch place and the place between us and Jack Jakovac; we could keep irrigating and always make sure that 1st right had enough water. The only reason Jack is sometimes short now is when Alfonso uses all the water between us and Jack, and some of that water doesn’t get back to the creek.
Anyway, Andrea was curious about the muddy water coming down her ditch so she hiked up it and found there was a lot more in the creek at that headgate, so she went on up the creek and discovered that Alfonso had brought back the missing faceplate (that he took out of the one ditch when he sprang/ruined the lock taking it off) and put it back in and it was obviously damaged but he got it flattened out enough to put back in. He’d dammed off that ditch and jimmied the lock off the other ditch (on the other side of the creek). The lock and faceplate were missing on that one and he’d dammed off the creek up there so everything was coming out that ditch! That’s why some of the tail water from that back field was ending up back in the creek and coming down to where Andrea’s ditch was able to pick some of it up.
On Saturday Rick came out and put the last of the metal on Andrea’s roof, except for a small piece along the edge (facia trim) that didn’t arrive with the material he ordered. The roof is basically finished now, except for that. He’ll have to re-order that piece and put it on when it arrives.
That afternoon Andrea heard a calf bellowing on heifer hill, sounding like it was in trouble, so she called us. Lynn and I drove up there on his 4-wheeler and Andrea came from her house, with Christopher, on her 4-wheeler. We checked all the cows and calves and they all seemed ok; we never did figure out why one of the calves was bellowing. Andrea took a photo of some of the calves checking out Christopher.
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| Christopher helping us check cows |
I reactivated the hot wire on the far side of the horse pasture (after tromping down the tall grass along it--that regrew so nicely in that pasture—so it won’t short out the hot wire) and let the 7 weaned calves out into that pasture. They were really happy for the new good grass and are no longer bawling for their mamas.
That evening Andrea took Christopher to the Fair again and he had a lot of fun. We had Nick come for dinner and another game of Tripoli and it was great to have another visit with him.
Sunday Andrea was really short of water again (creek dammed off by Alfonso on the Gooch place). Jim went to town to help A.J. on the wood shed he’s building. Andrea took Christopher with her (on the 4-wheeler) to start gathering up some of the hot wire and posts on the field below heifer hill (where we had the old cows and calves fenced out of the hayfield, grazing the rough edges and ditchbanks). Christopher checked out the cows and calves on the other side of the fence—on heifer hill.
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| Christopher checking the cattle |
Monday was cool in the morning (40 degrees, feeling like fall) but hot again (87 degrees) in the afternoon. Emily signed up Christopher for pre—school, which he will start next week, going half days, 2 days a week. He will get a little assistance with speech therapy. He’s talking a lot more now but gets very frustrated because it’s hard for people to understand what he’s saying.
Andrea gathered up a lot more of the step-in posts and rolled up more of the hot wire; we’ll need to move the 9 pairs down to that field very soon from heifer hill so we need to remove the rest of that electric fence.
That evening I let Sprout graze for a couple hours in the area by the calving barn, as usual, but when I went to get her just before dark, she had gone into the willows below the barn and was kind of stuck back there against the fence. Lots of tall green grass, but lots of willows. I managed to get her turned around and lead her out through the thick willows. So the next day while she was doing her morning grazing in the stackyard I used tree pruners to nip off the willows behind the barn so she can get in and out of that slot to graze it down. We need to be able to get in there anyway to put some tin along the bottom of the barn wall where moisture from the snowdrift (that stays there most of the winter into the spring after sliding off the barn roof) is starting to rot out the boards. We have a little bit of tin left over from Andrea’s house roof project and we will screw that to those boards. With 3 feet of tin along that back wall it should protect them.
I took photos of some of the already-weaned calves in the orchard and horse pasture, and the small water tank we bought for those calves.
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| heifer calf |
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| already weaned |
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| new water tank |
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| calves lying next to horse pens |
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| calves in tall grass |
Yesterday Emily and AJ took Christopher to his appointment in Missoula with the heart specialist and had his heart murmur checked. The doctor determined that it’s not serious enough to need any treatment or surgery, so that was good news.
Today we moved the cows and calves from heifer hill and let them into the field below that pasture. I helped Andrea pick up the rest of the step-in posts that she’d taken out—to remove the temporary fence around that field that kept the 6 pairs (the cows we sold and their calves we weaned) out of the hayfield. They grazed the tall grass around the edges for quite a while.
The horn flies have really multiplied lately and the weaned calves were covered with them and driving them crazy. So we brought those calves into the pen by the barn and put my orphan bull calf (Kung Fu) with them—and put 4 at a time into the little chute by the headgate so we could pour insecticide on them. That took care of the flies and there are no more flies on those calves.
