OCTOBER 21 – Last Saturday Andrea checked the water in our ditches and we have none; Alfonso is using all of it on the Gooch place above us. There was no water for the heifers in the orchard and horse pasture so we locked them out of the ditch pasture and filled a water tank for them in the orchard.
That morning I took photos of some of the horses—Dottie and Willow in their pens, waiting for breakfast.
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| Dottie waiting for breakfast |
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| Willow |
With cooler weather, leaves are starting to turn from green to gold so I took a few more photos later that morning, but when I was trying to take photos of the view looking up the creek from Willow’s pen she came to see what I was doing and blocked the view. |
| view from Willow's pen |
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| Willow hogging the camera view |
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| Rishiam in his pen |
Andrea took Christopher to a birthday party in town, then she and Dani went to visit Bob Minor at the Discovery Care Center. Afterward they stopped in briefly at the Appreciation Dinner for Dr. Cope at the Elks. Then they picked up Christopher from the birthday party and got our mail and groceries before they came home.
Sunday morning was cold (26 degrees) but the afternoon was warm. Andrea took a salt block to Willow and more salt and mineral to the weaned calves. Andrea went to town that evening and stayed with Em and AJ so she could take Christopher to pre-school early Monday morning (since Em was sleeping after her night shift) and visit Bob again at the care center before she came home and brought Christopher.
I trimmed off all the willow and aspen shoots in the pen below the calving barn; those darn things are trying to take over several of our pens. That afternoon I drew horses on a bunch of T-shirts (little shirts for James and Joseph, and big ones for Heather and Gregory) so we can send them home with Heather and the boys for Christmas and birthdays and not have to mail them. I’m also sending some of my books and my dad’s books (for them and for Gregory’s parents) for Christmas, to save the horribly high cost of postage. Mailing anything to Canada has become very expensive.
That evening I took my camera with me when I did chores, and took a couple photos—one looking up the creek and one looking down the creek at the golden trees alongside the heifer pasture.
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| leaves turning gold |
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| heifer pasture |
When I went around to the corrals to feed Babe, I took a photo of our trailer parked at the loading chute, and a photo of Babe after I fed him his supper. |
| trailer |
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| Babe eating supper |
The nights have been cold, and Tuesday morning I built a fire in our wood stove for the first time this fall. Later that morning Andrea took me to town to the dentist and did our town errands while the dentist put a temporary cap on one of my broken tooth, and will put a crown on it in a few weeks. Then Andrea and I both went to see Bob Minor at the care center, and Jane was there too so we got to visit with both of them. He was doing much better, able to get around now in a wheel chair, and planning to go home on Thursday.
I received two packages in the mail from Darol Dickenson—a few gifts he sent in appreciation for an article I wrote about his Longhorn cattle. He sent some mugs with Longhorns on them, Longhorn calendars, a purse/carry bag made of longhorn hide, and a full hind tanned with the hair on, from one of his longhorns. It will make a beautiful covering for one of our old couches!
That evening when I went out to do chores, I put several pans on the stove to warm up some leftovers for supper, but forgot to turn down the burner that was warming the pork chops and gravy. When I came back, there was smoke billowing through the kitchen, the smoke alarm was going off in the hallway, and that burner burst into flames when I opened the door. Lynn was in the livingroom watching the news on TV and hadn’t heard the smoke alarm in the hallway or smelled the smoke yet.
I got the fire doused and we opened all the windows for a few hours (until we went to bed) and turned on some fans, to get the smoke out of the house. The gravy was charcoal but the pork chops were only half black (bottom half) and Lynn cut off the burned part and ate them anyway. It took a lot of scrubbing to get the black stuff out of that pan and its lid! The burned smell lingered awhile in the house, but not as long as when Lynn accidentally heated up a corn dog in the microwave for too long (I think he put it on 10 minutes instead of 30 seconds) and it was just a pile of charcoal with smoke coming out when he went back into the kitchen. That was quite a few years ago, but that smell lingered most of the summer and we jokingly referred to our house as the burnt corndog café.
On Wednesday Lynn got up early and Jim took him to town for his appointment with the heart doctor for a checkup and an EKG. His checkup went well and the doctor was pleased that he’s lost a little weight.
Andrea brought Christopher home from pre-school. That afternoon Heather brought her three boys down to visit. They’d been staying at her folks’ place the past few days—visiting with them through the weekend—and some of her old friends came to see her on Monday and Tuesday. When she and the boys came down here Wednesday afternoon Christopher played with James and Joseph. We took a tour around the barnyard and first went to look at the weaned heifer calves below the lane. Some of the heifers were curious and came up to the gate and the boys tried to pet them.
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| looking at heifers |
Then we went up above the house to see the horses, and the boys enjoyed feeding Dottie some hay. |
| Joseph & Christopher feeding Dottie |
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| the 3 boys feeding Dottie hay |
James tried to stuff a big wad of hay through Ed’s gate to feed her. |
| James feeding a wad of hay to Ed |
Then they tried to feed Willow, but it was difficult to try to poke hay through the netting, especially for James, with his little broken elbow and cast in a sling. |
| James trying to poke hay through the fence |
So they ended up trying to throw wads of hay clear over the fence, which was also a challenge, but they had a lot of fun doing it. Some of the hay landed on Willow’s head, but she didn’t mind. |
| throwing hay over the fence to Willow |
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| hay landing on her head |
They got tired and decided to rest in the shade for a few moments under the old crabapple tree. About that time Dani came along and stopped by here on her way home from town, and joined us for a few minutes, and petted Willow while the boys played in the shade. |
| tired boys resting in the shade |
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| Dani petting Willow |
Then the boys were eager for more exploration and adventure so we hiked up into the field above the house, and they were attracted to the old stump (from one of the other crabapple trees that is long gone) that the cows like to rub on. It’s just part of the old stump and no longer in the ground and fairly mobile if it gets pushed around. The boys climbed on it and pretended it was a pirate ship and they were the pirates. When one of them was up on the top end, however, another one had to counterbalance the bottom end so it wouldn’t tip over. |
| checking out the old stump |
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| climbing up on it |
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| taking turns making it rock and roll |
They got tired and came back to the shade by the horse pens, where I visited with Heather while the boys played. I took some photos of her, and the happy baby. Ian is always smiling when mom is nearby, |
| in the shade again |
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| smiling kid |
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| baby Ian |
Then Andrea came along and took Christopher and Joseph up to her house to play on the trampoline, and they also had fun taking turns driving Christopher’s little tractor and riding in the little wagon behind it.
James stayed here with his mom and baby brother and played with toys while his mom looked through a bunch of old family photo albums, interested in some of the family history she never knew about before. After chores Andrea and her friend Russ brought the two boys back down from her house and we all had supper here.
Yesterday was cold again in the morning but got up to 70 degrees in the afternoon which was lovely weather for the kids to play outside. Heather brought the boys down here from her folks place mid-morning and the kids all played in the dirt in the driveway below the lane, with tractors and trucks and cars and pretended to make cakes and pies (sifting dirt like it was flour).
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| Christopher & Joseph playing with trucks |
Lynn’s sister Jenelle came out to visit with young Heather; she hadn’t seen her since Heather’s wedding more than 6 years ago. We sat outside and watched the kids play while we all visited. The kids were trying to play catch with a big ball, and Jenelle joined in for a few minutes and threw the ball back and forth with Joseph. |
| Jenelle playing ball with Joseph |
Bob Minor was able to come home from the care center that day, so Andrea made a quick trip to his house and took him a walker that we have; Bob is starting to try to stand up from his wheelchair and thought that if he had something to hang onto, like a walker, he would be able to do it. Andrea and Jane helped him stand up.
When Andrea got back from that errand, and Dani came out here, too, we all had lunch—I made a big batch of chili and fruit salad and jello, and Andrea brought a few salads and Jenelle brought some breadsticks she’d baked that morning, so it was a great pot-luck meal. I took a few photos of Dani with her little cousins.
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Dani and Ian
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| Dani with Heather and two kids |
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| Dani giving Joseph a hug |
Christopher was getting tired and grumpy by then so Andrea took him home for a nap, and Jenelle stayed and visited awhile with us and Heather and the boys. After Christopher woke up from his nap, Heather and the boys went up there and had a good time visiting there until late evening.
Today was warm again. Andrea brought Christopher down and he played outside with Lynn supervising him while Andrea and I did a few more projects that need done before winter, and she gathered up more of her irrigation dams to put in the shed. Heather brought the boys down from her folks’ place late morning and had lunch with us and we took photos of all of us by our porch.
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| family photo by the back porch |
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| old folks with Christopher & Joseph |
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| Lynn and me with Joseph |
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| Lynn & Joseph |
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| Lynn with the two boys |
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| two 2nd cousins with great grandpa |
Then Heather went to town to get gas for her car, and Dani and Emily met up with her at the gas station to visit with her for a few minutes. Someone took a photo of the three cousins. |
| Cousins |
Christopher and Andrea helped me do chores and by then it was quite windy. Andrea and I put some deer netting along part of the round bale stack where the deer have been digging into one bale pretty badly. Andrea was trying to prop a pole against it to help hold it and the wind blew a gust and knocked the pole into Andrea and knocked her down, hitting her on the head. It gave her a pretty good headache and a bump but she thought she was ok otherwise. The wind blew in a storm and it rained all night—our first real rain for many weeks.
OCTOBER 29 – Early Saturday we had ¾ inch of rain—the most rain we’ve had since about June—with snow on the mountains. It stopped raining by 9 a.m. and Andrea came down to help me put another piece of tin on the back side of the calving barn where the old boards are getting rotten on the bottom (from ground moisture and snow that slides off the roof and piles up against that back side). Then Heather and the boys came down and Andrea went with them to Arco so they could visit their other grandma/great grandma for a few hours. Heather hadn’t seen her grandma Irene since her wedding 6 ½ years ago. Andrea took a photo of them.
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| Heather & Ian with her Grandma Irene |
The roads were a little bad in a few places from all the rain and snow but they had a good trip down there and back. Andrea was able to help take care of the 3 boys on the trip, to make it easier for Heather while she was driving.
The next day was windy and cold. Heather and boys headed back to Canada, and Michael and Carolyn convoyed with them to the border, where Gregory and his folks met them. They all had dinner together in a little town across the border and then headed home.
Jim went hunting that day (but didn’t find a buck) so Lynn went up to Andrea’s house to tend Christopher while she shut off her ditches securely for winter. She hasn’t had much water, with Alfonso using all of it above us, but the ditches needed to be shut off (head-gates pounded down tight) so no water this winter will come through and make ice flows across our fields.
She let the cows into the upper swamp pasture, then went to visit Bob and Jane and help Bob stand up again from his wheelchair. When she came home she got a bale from my hay shed to take home for bedding for her two dogs, to keep them warmer in their dog houses. I took a couple photos from up in my hay shed—of the cows and of Ed looking up at us on top of the hay.
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| view from my hay shed |
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| Looking at Ed from up in my shed |
On Monday Andrea and I put most of the rest of the tin on the back side of the calving barn, then went up to help Bob and Jane again. She stopped at the Amish store to buy some cinnamon rolls for them, since that’s one of Bob’s favorite things to eat.
That afternoon she gathered up more of the hot wire along the lower part of the field by her house (that partitioned off the ditch pasture for summer grazing). She’s trying to get all the wire and posts gathered up from all our rotational grazing, before the ground freezes and it’s hard to take out the posts and/or the snow gets too deep. We don’t want the deer stringing the wires all over, or have the cows get tangled up in them this winter.
With the little bit of rain we had, there is now snow on the mountains. I took a few photos around the barnyard with the snow-topped mountains in the background.
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| snow on the mountains |
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| weaned heifers in field below lane |
We moved the bred heifers from the horse pasture to the big pasture above the house; there’s enough grass there (that regrow after the cows grazed it during breeding season) to last several weeks. I trimmed a bunch more willow shoots and chokecherries in the front yard and the little pen below the bull corral.
The power went off that afternoon at 3:30 and didn’t come back on until after chores, and
the phones didn’t start working again until after 6 p.m. We were just trying to decide what to have for supper that didn’t need cooking, but then the power came back on in time to cook supper.
Andrea brought Christopher home with her when she came back from her 2nd trip to town and it was dark by the time she came in our driveway. She nearly ran into two stray horses that were fighting with Shiloh at the gate to her pen. She left Christopher in the car and came to tell me about the horses and I ran out there in the dark to try to help her get those strays out. By then they’d gone into the area below the driveway next to Sprout and Shiloh’s pens and were fighting with Sprout. We chased them back out to the driveway and up our lane and shut the lane gate. They came right back to the gate and were trying to get through it, so Andrea chased them down to Alfonso’s open gate (that they’d come out of) and locked them back in his field.
Tuesday was a little warmer, up to 50 degrees, but I plugged in our big tractor at chore time that morning to make sure it would start. Andrea put power service in all three tractors, for winter, to make sure the diesel doesn’t gel in cold weather. We ran the tractors a little while to circulate it through the diesel—except for the little tractor that wouldn’t start because the battery is dead.
I took a couple photos of some of the bred heifers in the field above the house. They are enjoying that tall green grass.
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| bred heifers in field above house |
I’ve been letting Ed graze in the strip of green grass above my hay shed. She needs to be a little fatter for winter (she’s getting old) and she’s enjoying that last bit of green grass; soon it will be dry and dormant and possibly snow-covered. |
| Ed grazing by hay shed |
I trimmed a few more willows in the pen below the bull corral. It was a relatively nice day, and Rick Dorony came to finish the edge of Andrea’s roof (the proper tin finally came, that he ordered) and vacuum out the drain gutters before winter.
That evening Heather and Gregory called us, to let us know that James was able to have the cast taken off his arm that day; his broken elbow has healed enough that the pins could be removed and he won’t need another cast.
Wednesday was colder, with snowstorms off and on all day, but it didn’t stick. I worked on as many articles as I could finish that day, and send to editors to meet my deadlines, because my computer had to go to the fix-it shop. The past few days the e-mail hadn’t been working properly, with hundreds of duplicate e-mails coming in that I kept deleting. Steve at Computer Zen told me I needed a different e-mail program (he said that Windows Live mail was becoming obsolete) and also my computer needed some cleaning up. So Andrea took it in to town for me early Thursday morning and Steve worked on it all day and most of the next day, transferring all my old e-mail stuff to the new program and also adding a backup hard drive.
It was frustrating not having the computer for a couple of days, with no way to contact editors or the people I need to interview, and unable to work on articles to meet deadlines. I spent some time raking up buckets of small rocks from the barnyard driveway to put by the bull’s feed manger, where he has to stand in deep mud during wet weather. I’ve been gradually building up that area with small rocks so that hopefully he (and the new bull we’ll be getting) won’t be ankle-deep in mud this winter.
Thursday afternoon Dani and Andrea helped me put a big roll of deer netting around the two rows of round bales (alfalfa for the weaned heifers this winter); the deer have already been digging into some of the bales and making a mess. We took the other big new roll to the stackyard to hopefully put around that hay when we get a chance. I took photos of them taking that big roll on the 4-wheeler.
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| taking a roll of deer netting from shed |
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| taking the deer netting into the stackyard |
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| heading for the haystacks |
Then I came back to the big round bale we’d just “fenced off” with netting to prevent deer access, and took a few photos of our handiwork. |
| netting around heifer hay |
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| netting to keep the deer out |
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| deer netting around stack |
Yesterday morning I spent a couple hours sorting through the piles of stuff on my desk, getting rid of whatever I don’t need, so it would be easier to set up my computer again. It got finished that afternoon and went to town with Andrea to get it, so Steve could walk me through the new e-mail program (Thunderbird). It’s pretty confusing and not nearly as efficient and user-friendly as the old one. We brought the computer home and got it set up again, but some of my old e-mail folders (the important messages from editors, people interviewed, etc.) from earlier years hadn’t copied to the new system so I had to call Steve (after our phones finally started working again; they were dead for more than 2 hours) and it took him another couple hours to transfer them remotely and show me more about how to use the new e-mail.
Andrea went to town to help Emily take Christopher trick-or-treating; all the little kids do the Halloween stuff during the afternoon business hours when the merchants have candy for them. She took several photos of him in his little fireman’s costume.
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| Halloween |
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| fireman |
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| the littlest fireman |
Today Andrea, Dani and Dani’s boyfriend Roger rented a car carrier trailer and headed to Bonanza, Oregon in Andrea’s pickup--hauling Roger’s mom’s car back to her and planning to haul Dani’s pickup back home. Andrea had planned to help them do this next weekend, but the weather may be worse so she decided to go today. It’s a really long drive, about 15 hours, and they had to go a little slow because they discovered that the car carrier trailer has a bad tire that keeps losing air; they have to stop now and then at a gas station to put more air in it. We are hoping they can make the trip and get back home again safely! She took a photo as they were hooked up with the pickup on the trailer, and ready to head home.
NOVEMBER 7 – Andrea and kids finally got to Bonanza, Oregon (to Roger’s mom’s place) at 6 a.m. Sunday morning and slept a few hours then headed back home with Dani’s pickup and all her other things she’d left there earlier this fall.
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| ready to roll |
It was a long, slow trip and they were really tired by the time they got back early Monday morning. The bad tire on the trailer held up all the way—which was a good thing, because the spare tire looked like it was in worse shape.
Sunday afternoon Lynn and I used his 4-wheeler and a cart to haul a mix of dirt and small rocks that we gathered up along our driveway and put it next to the bull’s feed manger, continuing to build up that area so it won’t be so muddy this winter.
I took a few more photos of the trees before they start losing their fall leaves—along the field below the lane, and the trees beyond my hayshed looking up the creek.
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| field below lane |
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| trees in fall color |
Monday Allan Probst brought several dump truck loads of dirt/gravel for our driveway—the lane from the top of our driveway out to the main road—and smoothed it out with his skid steer. That part of the lane has been getting really bad for years—with deep holes that collect puddles—and really rough on vehicles. Allan filled those holes and got it smoothed out nicely.
That afternoon Andrea and I moved the cows from the swamp pasture to the field below heifer hill. Hopefully the new pasture will last several weeks.
By the next day the stress and lack of sleep (driving for more than 32 hours over the weekend) was catching up with Andrea and she has a bad cold, and so does Christopher. But he wanted to be outside, so Andrea brought him down on the 4-wheeler along with several buckets of small round rocks she gathered up at her house along her driveway, to add to the rock base we are creating next to the bull’s feed manger. We nearly have it built up enough to keep it from being deep mud where the bull has to stand there to eat. We put those along the feeder and then took a cart up the driveway behind the 4-wheeler to get a few more small rocks to add to that project. Christopher enjoyed riding in the back of the cart, bouncing up the bumpy driveway.
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| Christopher in cart |
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| heading up the bumpy driveway |
Wednesday was cold and windy all day, with a little snow off and on. Andrea took Christopher back to AJ’s house in town and helped Emily and AJ cut up the elk AJ got during hunting season, and grind the hamburger.
The next morning was cold—16 degrees—and I broke ice on all the horse tubs and the water tanks for the heifers (the weaned heifers below the driveway, and the bred heifers above the house). That afternoon Lynn and I went to the dermatologist—for the first time in several years, since before COVID—a bit overdue for our annual checkup! We both had several pre-cancerous lesions frozen off on our faces and the doctor removed a hunk of hard, deep material from my left cheek and put in several stitches, and sent off a sample of it to be checked. When we got done there, we did our regular town errands (mail and groceries) and got our flu shots.
Friday it snowed a little but it didn’t stick. We’ll soon have colder weather and have to plug in the tank heater for the heifers’ water, but their tank was getting pretty dirty so I baled it out with a bucket and dumped it—and rinsed it out thoroughly before filling it again. It will be much harder to dump it once the heater cord is plugged in, so I wanted to get that done ahead of time.
Saturday the weather was nasty—snow/sleet and very strong winds while I was doing chores that morning. It almost blew down the deer netting we’d put up across the end of the round bale stacks and I had to prop it back up again and retie some of the props. With the wind and snow my fingers got so stiff and numb they would hardly work. The wind blew the tarp off my little stack of hay for the bull and I had to secure it again. It’s a good thing Andrea and kids weren’t traveling in this weather! We were glad they did the trip to Oregon last weekend.
That afternoon I did part of my chores early, so we could go to town to one of the restaurants where Andrea had a birthday celebration for Dani—her 18th birthday. Her dad and his girlfriend came, and Charlie, as well as AJ and Christopher and Andrea’s friend Russ. Emily had to work, but came briefly during her break, so it was a nice family get-together for Dani’s birthday. Andrea took photos of the dinner, and the birthday cake, and Christopher helping Dani open gifts.
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| Dani's birthday dinner |
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| Christopher helping Dani with birthday stuff |
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| cake! |
Dani took that opportunity to tell her dad that she is pregnant. She and Roger have been living together since early summer, and are expecting a baby in late April. They are now renting a little house in town.
Yesterday the weather was nicer for a change. Lynn and I took a new block of salt to the bred heifers, and a bucket of loose salt and mineral to the young heifers. Andrea still has a bad cold and a severe ear ache so she rested at home most of the day. Dani and Roger came out early afternoon and helped me put the deer netting around the stack of big square bales in the stack-yard, then helped me put duct tape over the broken window in the front of our old stock trailer. We simply covered the whole window with duct tape; Roger covered the inside of it and Dani and I stood on the 4-wheeler and put gorilla tape over the outside. That way the wind and snow won’t blow in there when we bring a new bull home in couple weeks from a sale in Three Forks, Montana.
Jim got home yesterday afternoon after spending 5 days house-sitting for his friends Ken and Barb, the other side of Darby, Montana. He has a really bad cold, too—so he and Andrea and Christopher are just lounging around and resting today. The weather is really nasty, snowing and blowing. It rained all night, turning to snow by morning, about 3 inches, but a lot of it settled by this afternoon.
Lynn took me to town to the dentist this morning, to have the temporary cap replaced by a crown. I’m gradually getting all the bad teeth fixed that should have been attended to during the past 3 years, but I put it off because of COVID. We were delayed about 20 minutes on our trip to town; the road was blocked while Eagle Valley Ranch brought their calves down along the highway from Bohannon Creek, crossing the bridge on the highway, and moving them to the field on this side of the bridge. The riders were bundled up against the cold wind; it was a miserable day to be moving cattle.
While we were in town Emily met up with us and gave us some cold medicine to take home to Andrea for Christopher, and we got him some apple juice when we went to the grocery store. Andrea was feeling a little better by this afternoon (throat no longer so sore, and ear aches a little less painful) so she let the cows into heifer hill so they can have both fields. The watering places along the creek are better in cold weather in the heifer hill pasture.
She also brought down the solidified concrete packages (left over from putting a cement floor in the meat room 3 years ago) and we placed them along the feed manger for the bull, to cover the start of a rock base that we’ve put there. The solidified concrete packages built up the area to the height it should be and this might keep it from becoming deep mud in wet weather.
Lynn babysat Christopher while we did this, and they had fun together.
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| Lynn & Christopher |
NOVEMBER 16 – We’ve had winter weather; it snowed on and off—with strong wind—all day Tuesday and the prediction was for colder temperatures, so Lynn and I plugged in an extension cord in the calving barn and ran it under the wall and across the second day pens to the tank heater for the weaned heifers. This will enable us to keep their water from freezing. Then we went to town to vote, and got groceries for us and Andrea; she was still pretty sick and didn’t want to try to go to town.
The next day was worse weather, snowing and windy all day. I fed the horses early and came back to do a phone interview, then went back out to water the horses and heifers. I put up a fake hot wire and let Sprout graze a few hours in the area next to her pen, where the grass is still green and tall enough to graze through the snow.
Andrea was still pretty sick but she bundled up and went outside for a short while to gather up the piles of step-in posts she left along the ditch bank after taking down that hot wire a couple weeks ago. She wanted to gather them before they snowed under and were harder to locate. We still have one little area that needs the hot wire taken down before we put cows in the big field by Andrea’s house.
Lynn got his pellet stove working again, so we can run it at night and just keep the wood stove going during the day. Andrea decided to take Christopher to the doctor, since his cough and congestion was still very bad, but was delayed a bit because when she went outside to start her car she could see that there was ice in the ditch by her house, starting to create an ice flow down across the field. This was an upsetting discovery, because she very thoroughly turned off that ditch at the creek at least 6 weeks ago, to prevent that kind of problem. We don’t want ice on the field where we’ll have cows all winter; it would be hazardous for them (slipping and falling down) and make it impossible to drive out there to feed them hay. Also, when that ditch builds up ice in it, the water tends to flood Vicki Colston’s house, which is situated in the field above our place. We always try to have that ditch completely shut off before winter.
Andrea realized Alfonso must have turned the ditch back on, at the creek. He’s been irrigating out of his upper ditches all fall--on his fields above the one next to our place—and already has ice across those, but must have decided to irrigate out of our ditch, above us, too, even though it’s too late in the year and too cold to grow more grass. So Andrea spent 30 minutes trying to dam off the water on his side of the fence (a difficult job with so much ice in the ditch), so it won’t come on down the ditch to our place. It will still run down along the fence and flood her upper driveway and make it icy, which will be a problem all winter, but maybe won’t ice up our field.
When she took Christopher to the doctor he had a serious sinus and respiratory infection and needed antibiotics. While they waited for the doctor she took a photo.
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| Christopher waiting for doctor |
Andrea got prescriptions for Christopher and herself (for her ear infection) and while she was in town she got our mail and picked up some vaccine for our heifers. She left Christopher with Emily. When she got home she stopped by here with our mail, etc. and took the stitches out of my cheek, where the dermatologist took a biopsy a week earlier to send off. The results came back the next day; the solid lump is a squamous cell carcinoma. I thought we’d opted to remove the whole thing, but when the dermatologist called to tell me the results he said he’d only taken a biopsy, so if it grows back he’ll have to remove it again. I don’t know why he didn’t take it all out while he had the chance.
I thought about taking a few more photos when we were out doing things with the cows, but my camera doesn’t work very well when it’s cold, if it’s low on battery power. I was checking it to see how much battery was left and took a couple of photos of Lynn reading his newspaper at the dinner table. There wasn’t really enough battery power left to take the camera outside
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| Lynn reading paper |
Our weather continues cold, nearly down to zero every night, with highs about 20 degrees during the day. I spent about an hour Friday digging a better channel for the spring that comes through the bull pen, cleaning out old leaves, sticks, etc. below the pen so it will flow faster, and digging a deeper channel where it goes through the corner of his pen. With it flowing faster through a narrow but deeper channel (and an ice flow over it just above there, that helps insulate the water underneath) it is staying open now and probably will be fine unless the temperature drops well below zero. I need it to stay open during the next few days so Lynn won’t have to go break ice when he is doing my chores for me while Andrea and I go to a bull sale in Montana this coming weekend.
Emily has been working 14 hour shifts for several days in a row (2 p.m. to 4 a.m.) so Andrea stayed in town those nights to take care of Christopher and let Emily sleep a few hours in the mornings.
The bred heifers in the pasture above the house aren’t drinking as much water these cold days and they let the water freeze up in their water trough. I had to chop some holes in the 2-inch thick ice so they could drink it down, and was then able to break up all that ice and shovel it out of the trough. We eventually want to move those heifers to the lower back field, but there is still a lot of grass where they are, and we need to stretch our pastures as long as possible before we start feeding hay. This is too early; if we start feeding now, we will run out of hay before spring. With this early cold weather, the water in the back field may also be an issue. Andrea hiked around back there a couple days ago and the spring the cattle usually drink from is freezing up, too. When we do move the heifers we’ll probably have to break ice for them every day.
Saturday evening we invited grandson Nick out here for supper. After supper he enjoyed looking at some old photo albums and learning a bit more family history. He wants to know more about his ancestors and where they came from, and also enjoyed seeing photos of his dad and aunt Andrea when they were growing up here on the ranch.
Andrea gathered up the rest of the hot wire at the end of her ditch pasture, and on Sunday Charlie helped her load up all the step-in posts (that she’d earlier put in a big pile by her driveway after taking them out along the entire ditch pasture) and bring them down to put away for winter. Charlie spent several hours out here that day, helping us. He put more transmission fluid in our old feed truck, cleaned off the battery terminals, then helped Andrea and me get a load of small bales from the stackyard. We sorted out the coarser hay to make a stack to use for bedding for the bull pen, and stacked the rest by the feed manger, to replenish that diminishing supply. I spread a bale of coarse hay in the shelter corner, and we put up more windbreak on the two fences. We’ll need a bigger area this winter, for two bulls instead of just one. Then Andrea and Charlie hauled some pieces of tin down from her house and created a roof over that corner, screwing the tin onto some long boards across the top of the two fences that come together there.
On Monday I called the Sacajawea Hotel in Three Forks, Montana to ask about our reservations and let them know we’d have 3 people instead of two. Charlie will be going with Andrea and me, which will be a good thing if we have any trouble on the trip like flat tires or other problems. We were able to change rooms and have one with a hideaway couch bed for Charlie. There’s no place at the hotel to plug in Andrea’s diesel truck overnight, however, and it will be well below zero in Three Forks this weekend. I called the stockyard where the bull sale will be, and they have places we can plug in the truck. We’ll just have to hitch a ride back and forth to the hotel with other folks who will be at the sale; they are all staying at that hotel.
I went to the dentist Monday afternoon and waited there 1.5 hours and then the dentist decided that there was nothing he was going to do that day (the tooth he thought needed filled was ok) and rescheduled me for another crown to repair the final broken tooth on the other side of my mouth.
The ice has been building up on the creek and in the bull pen waterway with all the cold weather. We thought about leaving the cows on heifer hill until we get back from the bull sale, since there is a better water hole there for them to drink.
Yesterday morning the temperature was 6 degrees. Andrea and I decided to go ahead and move the cows from heifer hill to the field by her house, since the creek is freezing over so much that we might not be able to get them across it to move them after we get back from the bull sale. Charlie came out and helped Lynn put air in a low tractor tire and put chains on our tractor, and put the blade on the tractor in case we need to plow snow. While getting the chains out of the shed, a shrew ran around Charlie’s feet and tried to run up his pant leg. He caught it, and Andrea took photos.
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| Charlie & the shrew |
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| shrew in Charlie's hand |
Dani came out for a little while, too, and she helped Andrea and me chop the thick ice into pieces and shovel it out of the water tank above the house, where the bred heifers are. We don’t want to move them to the lower back field until we are here to break ice for them down there every day. Lynn can water them in the trough above the house while we are gone, being careful to not leave much extra water in it to freeze solid.
Today was cold all day, almost down to zero this morning. Andrea and I checked on the cows we moved yesterday to the field by her house to look more closely at Blindy, the 4-year-old cow that is blind in her left eye after having a serious case of pinkeye as a calf. Andrea was worried that she was having a problem with her good eye because it was watering profusely and looked bluish instead of clear. Indeed, it seems that she can’t see out of it now, either. Perhaps it got bumped or banged or she has an infection in it from irritation (like from a foreign body stuck under an eyelid and scraping the eye). She’s like a pet and very trusting, so she didn’t mind us being up close to her; she could hear and smell us and knows who we are. We watched her for a few minutes as she walked across the ditch and over into the main field, and realized that she can probably get around ok even if she can’t see, because she knows that area intimately and can smell out the trails where the other cows have walked. We’ll just have to monitor her closely and make sure she doesn’t get into trouble.
When we got back to the house, Lynn told us that Steve Herbst called and was bringing a trailer load of big straw bales in a few hours after he came back from delivering a semi-load of straw to a ranch near Challis. Lynn had plugged in the tractor so it could be used to unload the straw. Steve forgot that we told him the old tractor needed to be plugged in overnight because it’s so hard to start in cold weather!
Andrea went to town to do all the town errands, and I laid out piles of hay for all the horses and the bull (so Lynn can feed them easily, while Andrea and I are gone for 3 days to the bull sale in Montana).
I called Steve Herbst about the time he thought he would be getting back into town, to find out exactly when he would get here with the straw, and he’d just gotten home and was about to head out here. So Lynn got the tractor started (it barely started!) and we didn’t have to use the battery charger on it. He let it run a few minutes and was just taking it around to the stackyard when Steve arrived with the straw. He got it unloaded, and headed back out through the barnyard, and Lynn took a bale of straw around to the field below the lane, for our weaned heifers. The weather is supposed to be really cold and snowing tomorrow, so it was fortuitous that Steve brought the straw today. He probably wouldn’t be able to make it around in our barnyard and stackyard, or back up our steep driveway if there was much more snow. As it was, we were glad we put chains on the tractor yesterday because it spun a little bit in the stackyard unloading bales, in the small amount of snow we already have.
The heifers are glad for the straw; they are rubbing around on it, eating some and will have it to bed on when the weather gets colder.
