Diary from Sky Range Ranch - June 21 through July 22, 2017

JULY 1 – We had hot, windy weather but didn’t get started with haying quite as soon as we’d hoped. It took awhile to get all the machinery ready.

Andrea and I made a long ride on Sprout and Dottie last Wednesday after I trimmed Willow’s feet. We checked some of the troughs on the range and Andrea got Crawley trough working again; the spring-box had plugged up again. I held her horse while she took off the spring-box lid and unplugged the holes so water could run into the spring-box.

Andrea uncovering the spring-box so she can unplug the intake holes

Then we rode on up the ridge and I took another photo from the ridge above Crawley, looking out over the valley.

Andrea on ridge above Crawley trough

A couple days later we rode up Baker Creek on the high range and were pleased to see that the little creek is still running a strong trickle in spite of the hot weather, and the grass in the canyon is still green. Many years by now it’s fairly dry.

Andrea riding up Baker Creek on high range

It was so wet this spring that there are wild iris growing in one of the meadows in Baker Creek and they are blooming now.

riding past a patch of wild iris

We stopped at the trough near the head of Baker Creek (the lower Cat trough) and Sprout got a drink. We were pleased to see that our pipe/splice fix from two years ago is still holding together and that trough is still working!

Sprout drinking at Lower Cat trough

Then we took a swing through upper Basco before going back into the middle range to come home. I took a photo of Andrea as we headed down toward the Basco Trough but when we got down to that trough we discovered that the in-pipe was split and no water was going into the trough. 

Upper Basco

The next day was cooler and very windy; it only got up to 70 degrees. Andrea turned off a couple of our ditches to start drying up those fields for cutting hay. That evening she and Robbie went to town to watch Dani’s soccer game. Dani has enjoyed playing soccer this year; she’s the only left-footed kicker on their team and she makes a fair share of the team’s goal points.

Dani playing soccer

On Friday Dani’s friend Sekoya was here for the day and helped us move our cows down to the field from the hill pasture. Dani rode Ed, I rode Dottie, and the rest of the crew (Andrea, Lynn, Charlie and Sekoya) were “foot soldiers” going up the road on 4-wheelers to head the cows the right direction when they came down off the mountain, and going ahead of them to block various “wrong directions” on the way home. Our cows move very easily, but the calves don’t always know the way if it’s somewhere they’ve never been before.

After we got them moved and the horses unsaddled, Dani jumped on Ed bareback to ride her back to her pen. Dani is pleased that she’s now tall enough to swing up onto Ed’s back just holding onto her mane.

Dani riding bareback on Ed

Charlie and Robbie changed the oil in the swather and got it ready to go. Andrea and the girls put up a fake hot wire across the stackyard and we put Buffalo Girl and calf and George and his mom in the upper end of the stackyard to eat the tall grass before we stack hay in there.

Saturday I checked on the cows in their pasture and patched the fence in the brush by the creek, where trees had fallen over it and mashed it down. I put a few branches in the hole and tied them there with twine until we can fix the fence for real. We don’t want our cows crawling through into the neighbor’s field.

Lynn put air in the swather tires that morning and cut the hay on heifer hill and the field below it. Charlie drove up to Rocky’s place for the ham radio gathering, and enjoyed talking to people all around the country. He has his own radio now.

Michael and Carolyn brought their trailer down—to bring the yearling bull we bought from them and to haul their 2-year-old bull home (that we wintered here in the corral with our 2-year-old bull). Their bull didn’t want to go into the alleyway to get in the trailer, and ran by us several times. Michael finally had to let their yearling bull out of the trailer (that came along as company for our yearling bull) and then load the two together. The yearling he hauled here for us was not happy in the back corral with our 2-year-old bull and crashed over the jackfence into a side pen. Andrea and I patched the fence and the little bull settled down with his new buddy.

The next few days were hot (good hay-drying weather). We had to work on the little John Deere tractor (the one we turn hay with) to get it started. Robbie and Lynn worked on it and Andrea and kids helped me move the rest of my hay out of the hay shed so we can put new hay in it. We made a stack over by Sprout and Shiloh’s pen and by Willow and Breezy’s pen, and tarped those stacks. 

Tarped stack by Sprout's pen

Tarped stacks by Willow and Breezy's pens

The kids also helped bring the water troughs home from the hill pasture on the flatbed truck, and the girls helped me get the tall grass away from the hot wire along the horse pasture and field next to it so we could turn that hot wire back on again without it shorting out. We put the cows in the field above the horse pasture and turned the bull out with them, and put the 10 heifers in the orchard and put the yearling bull out with them.

Monday Dottie wasn’t feeling well—a little dull and not eating much hay. I took her temperature but it was normal. She wasn’t colicky, just dull. I put her in the front yard to eat grass but she only nibbled at it—not her usual greedy self at all. She wasn’t passing much manure, and what she did pass was firm and dry. I had our vet come out to check her because I was afraid she was impacted. She still had good gut sounds, however, and the vet thought maybe she had ulcers—and ordered some ulcer medication, but also took some blood tests.

Andrea baled heifer hill that evening, just ahead of a rain storm, and Robbie took the stackwagon up there and got it hauled. The last load wasn’t a full load so we just parked the stackwagon under my hayshed. We had a hard rain and some terrible wind. It blew some of the windrows away on the field below heifer hill, and piled the hay against the fence.

I put Dottie in the calving pen in front of the house for two nights, under the yard light, so I could watch her. She didn’t eat much, was periodically uncomfortable, but never down and out colicky. Her blood test results were all normal, but she didn’t have much appetite, wasn’t passing very much manure, and was eating dirt. She finally started passing manure normally by the 3rd day and then was back to normal. I gave her ulcer medication for 4 days, but by then she seemed to be doing fine again. I’m not really sure what ailed her, but it was good to see her feeling well and eating with her usual vigor.

Dottie feeling better - eating her hay again

Some of the bales we hauled from heifer hill were damp and we didn’t put them in my haystack because they would heat up and might burn the stack. We opened them up so they could dry out instead of heating, and not mold, and I’ll feed those first. 

We had more rain showers on Wednesday so we weren’t able to turn or bale hay. By yesterday afternoon the hay had dried out enough again to turn it (so it would dry more fully) and today Andrea got it all baled. Lynn turned the hay in the field below the lane, in hopes we can bale it tomorrow.


JULY 13 – Last week we baled and hauled the rest of our hay, filling my hay shed and stacking the rest of it in the stackyard across the creek (to feed the cows next winter). Robbie worked on the stackwagon a little more and put more teeth in the baler. We managed to get through this haying season without any major machinery breakdowns. All of our equipment is getting old (like us!). We bought the stackwagon (used) nearly 20 years ago and all of our tractors are more than 40 years old.

When Robbie took the stackwagon down to the back field to start hauling hay (while Andrea was finishing the baling), he got stuck; there’s a muddy area where you pull into the field. But since it wasn’t loaded with hay yet (which would have been several more tons of weight) and only one front tire was down in the mud, Lynn was able to pull it out with the little tractor (with the turner rake on it) and we didn’t have to use the big tractor Andrea was baling with.

Some of the hay from the field below the lane was a little wet when we baled it, so we opened up those bales over by Sprout and Shiloh’s pens, and I will feed those before I start feeding the tarped stacks or hay from my hay shed. 

wet bales opened up and spread out to dry

We finished the haying Thursday evening. Andrea was baling the last of it and Robbie hauled it (and Lynn stacked it in my hay shed). I cooked a big supper for the whole family and got chores done, and Charlie brought the girls home from their week with their dad, since everyone here was too busy to go to town to get them. It’s handy that Charlie has a pickup and a driver’s license! Emily stopped here on her way home from work and joined us for supper.

Friday it got up to 95 degrees, with threat of thundershowers. Sam and Lynn helped me tarp the two loads of hay sticking out from under my shed. 

tarped hay at the end of the shed

We moved the heifers and yearling bull to a new pasture and put the cows and their bull down to the pasture part of the field below the lane.

Saturday was very hot, with thunderstorms and lightning. This made it more risky for the 199 marathon runners doing the 50 K and about 100 runners doing the 100 K run along the continental divide across the valley from us. This is the most rugged terrain of any marathon in the world, and people from all over the world come to try it. With the heat this year, and high altitude, many of them didn’t finish. Local people helped with the check points along the ridge; Andrea, Robbie and the girls helped with the first checkpoint for the 50 K run (manned by the cross-country/track team and coaches). Grandson Nick had been preparing all spring and summer to run in it again (like he did last year) but he fell several times and hurt his feet and legs (suffering from tendonitis) and had to pull out of the run.

Here at the ranch we had a lot of lighting, rain and horrible wind that afternoon. The wind really tested our tarping job on my little haystacks. I’m glad we had them tarped or the top bales would have been soaked.

Heather and Gregory sent us a cute photo of baby Joseph wearing one of the little shirts Andrea gave him.

Baby Joseph

Sunday morning about 25 range cow pairs came over the hill and headed down into Alfonso’s hayfield but he saw them in time to head them off. Then he saddled his horse and took them back to the range. The gate in Baker Creek (between low range and middle range) was open and they’d come down through it, and came home.

Robbie and Michael put a new weir in one of our ditches and cemented it in so that it will work properly and not wash out or shift (and read wrong) like it has in the past. Nick was laid up for a couple days with his tendonitis and micro-fractures in his feet, so Michael used the backhoe to do the digging to install the weir.

With the hot weather our creek is steadily dropping, but we are trying to keep juggling and adjusting the water so that the 1st right (Jack), at the mouth of the creek doesn’t get short and call for water. Last year, with the manipulations by Bob Loucks (who did everything he could to get our water shut off or cut down early—putting our creek into regulation earlier than it ever had been, for no reason) the water master came out many times, and cost us all a lot of money. Alfonso decided to try to work with us this year instead of against us, cooperating on the use of our shared ditches. That way we can try to keep the water going longer, and not have the water master come out as much. He and Andrea also decided to not have a lateral water master on our shared ditches (which will also save money). So far, we’re getting by ok, trying to work together, and Jack hasn’t been short of water yet.

On Monday Nick started helping Michael and Robbie again on their custom fencing projects, even though his feet are still very sore. It’s just going to take a lot of time for them to heal.

We have a young doe with a fawn and an older doe with twin fawns living here 
and they often wander through the yard and barnyard. I snapped this photo as the mom and two babies went past the house and across the bridge.

doe & fawns

Emily has been busy making plans for her wedding; she and Sam and Dani went to Idaho Falls on Monday to get some of the things she needed. The girls are going to be in the wedding party as bridesmaid and flower girl. 

That afternoon Michael and Carolyn moved their cows down from the 320-acre mountain pasture, bringing them down to the green fields on the upper place. There’s still grass on the mountain, but it’s drying out and no longer high enough protein content so it was time to bring the cattle down. The calves will gain more weight (and the cows will milk better) on the green feed. This year their fields are still green because they haven’t had to shut off their irrigation water yet. Last year Bob Loucks, with his manipulations trying to shut their water off, had succeeded in making them turn off their water early, and their fields were dry—which cost a lot of money in lost weight gain on their calves. Mr. Loucks hurt himself by doing that, however, because his trespass water development (up into our place, to add more water to the system that supplies his house water a quarter mile away) also dried up; there was no sub-water coming into his system from our place. He’s also never understood that if we keep the irrigation water going at the top of the creek (our upper place) it is reused multiple times on down the creek and also helps keep the groundwater “full” so the creek doesn’t drop so fast in late summer.

On Tuesday Charlie’s best friend Cayson was here for the day, and the two of them moved the electric fence along the ditch pasture—taking out the steel posts and moving the fence out into the cut part of the field so the tall grass won’t short out the fence. Now we’ll be ready to put the cows back there when they run out of grass below the lane.

Today Andrea made 4 big pans of lasagna for Emily’s wedding dinner and put them in our freezer. Robbie, Nick and Michael started working on one of Alfonso’s ditches that needs a new headgate and weir. Then Robbie helped Art Turner (who owns the 15 acre piece that Loucks rents for horse pasture, who comes here for a month each summer with his camper trailer) with his well pump. It quit working last week and Robbie and Andrea helped him pull it up out of the well. He got a new one and Robbie helped him install it, and now Art and his wife have water again.

Andrea helped create a hot wire fence so we could put Buffalo Girl, George’s mom and their calves in the tall grass behind the barn, to eat that down before we park all our haying equipment back there again for winter.

I made a special card for Emily for her wedding gift, using a couple of old photos of her when she was not quite 3 years old.

JULY 22 – Last Saturday we moved the cows to new pasture and Jim brought his trailer out here to park it near the shop he created in the old trailer house. He’s moved back here from the job he had in Kentucky and will be staying with Emily and Robert or at Andrea’s house, and working here in his shop.

Andrea found a huge rattlesnake in one of our ditches when she was irrigating. We have lots of snakes this year.

On Sunday when our Amish neighbors were hurrying down the road to go to church at the Amish place around the hill, their buggy wheel came off, so one of the guys came to get some bolts from us to fix the wheel.

Robbie helped Michael finish the cement base for the new headgate and weir they put in for Alfonso’s ditch below our place.

Carolyn put together a spreadsheet showing how much the water master cost per trip out here (how expensive Gary was last year compared with the former watermasters during the past 3 years). Gary came up the creek last week-- the first time this year-- checking weirs for no reason; the creek is not short of water yet—there is plenty for Jack’s 1st right-- but Jack and Bob are eager to put us in regulation.

It was a sad day last week when Michael and Carolyn had to put down their old dog Tuff. He was 13 years old and dying of cancer. Tuff was one of their best cowdogs through the years and was just a pup in 2003 when he and his littermate Tiny helped rescue all their cows off the range just ahead of a terrible fire.

Here’s a photo taken several years ago of Baxter (Tuff’s younger brother) and Tuffy following granddaughter Heather’s horse on a range ride.

Baxter & Tuffy

Monday evening Mike Boyott came by from Tennessee to visit us. He is a professional photographer and took photos here at our ranch in the early 1980’s for the New Holland News cover and my article on calving.

Sam and Dani have been helping Emily make decorations for the wedding. 

Tuesday night a cow was bawling just before we went to bed. Andrea and I hiked up to the swamp pasture with flashlights to see what the problem was and found that Rosalee had a big udder. We brought her and her calf down to corral thinking the calf might be sick, but he was bawling too (very hungry). The next morning in the daylight we could see that the cow had mud caked on her udder from going through the deep bogs, and her udder was sore. She wouldn’t let him suckle. So we put her in the headcatch, washed off the thick mud, milked her out, and put vaseline on her teats but she still wouldn’t let him nurse. By the next morning, however, her udder wasn’t so sore. The calf had nursed and all was good, so we let them back up with the other cows and moved the herd to the next pasture.

Ned and Pam got here that evening from Texas. They flew to Salt Lake the night before, then rented a car and drove here, staying with Andrea for several days. That evening we all had dinner at Andrea’s place.

Charlie went up to Michael and Carolyn’s to get instructions for feeding the dogs and house-sitting at night while they and Nick are gone to Canada. They left early yesterday morning and will be gone a few days visiting Heather and Gregory and celebrating their first wedding anniversary. 

Yesterday Andrea helped us move the heifers and bull to the post pile pasture and put Buffalo Girl and calf and George and his mama on the ditchbank pasture above the horse pasture. Pam and Ned helped Andrea and Sam make a bunch of salads and desserts for Emily’s wedding dinner. Lynn and I made a huge potato salad. Robbie, Charlie and Jim loaded up 22 bales of hay from our stackyard and took them to Kolemans to create benches (with boards over them) for the outdoor wedding, then they all went to the Elks Hall in the evening to decorate it for the wedding dinner.

Emily’s friend Audra (best friends since they were in kindergarten, and they played hockey together for many years) came for the wedding to be her maid of honor, and then learned that her boyfriend Tristan had been in a serious accident. He was a truck driver, and his truck got broadsided by a big milk tanker truck—and Tristan was life-flighted to a hospital in Boise. Audra left immediately to drive to Boise to be with him, but he died before she got there. Yesterday she drove back here, bravely going ahead with her promise to Emily to be her maid of honor.

Today was Emily’s wedding and we were grateful for good weather. Even though it was hot, it was not windy, and there were no lightning storms like we’ve had many afternoons lately. The decorations were lovely and Em was dazzling in her beautiful dress. Jim walked her down the grassy “aisle” and Emily’s friend Jeremy did the wedding ceremony.

Jim bringing Em down the aisle 

Em & Robert

Here’s another photo of the newly married couple, and Jeremy, who married them, and Audra, the maid of honor:

married

Here are candid shots of grandpa Lynn giving Em a hug, and a proud papa (Jim).

Em & grandpa

Jim & Em

After the wedding, Lynn and I hurried home to do chores and heat up one of the big frozen lasagna pans from our freezer, and took a lot of the food in our pickup for the dinner that evening at the Elks Hall. Pam and Ned helped with the food preparations in the kitchen. 

Here are photos taken just before the dinner, of Emily and Robert, and Emily and her dad, Jim.

Robert & Emily

Emily & her dad

It was a lovely wedding, a wonderful dinner, with dancing afterward. Here are photos of Em and Robert on their first dance, and photos of Em dancing with her dad:

Em & Robert dancing

Em & Robert

Em dancing with her dad

Jim & his daughter Em

Partway through the dancing they cut their cake:

the cake, made by good friend Anita

Robert & Em cutting the cake

Lynn and I brought home leftover food to put in our refrigerator, and brought Charlie home to house-sit at Michael’s place. Everyone was exhausted, but grateful for a wonderful day.

Diary from Sky Range Ranch - May 27 through June 20, 2017

JUNE 5 – Last Saturday Andrea, Robbie, Sam and Dani drove to Hamer, Idaho to help Robbie’s dad truck cattle to summer range. Robbie drove one semi and Andrea drove a pickup pulling the loading chute. The girls enjoyed helping hold the cows and calves in a group after unloading, to make sure the pairs were all mothered up before letting them scatter to the hills. After they unloaded the cattle at Antelope, the girls and Andrea posed for this photo with a big roll of old barbed-wire they found at that site.

Andrea & girls with barbed wire roll

Charlie spent the day working on the old Velma truck, washing it and starting to polish it up so it looks like new again.

Michael drove down and got the backhoe, cleaned the buildup of old hay and manure away from the fence/feed rack in the bull’s pen and took a scoop of old manure back up to their house in the backhoe bucket for Carolyn’s garden.

On Sunday Andrea and the girls and I made a short ride. While we were getting the horses brushed and ready, Lynn’s old cat made herself comfortable on the lawn chair with Andrea’s bridle.

Edna (aka the Dump Truck Cat) napping on the chair

This was the girl’s first ride this year on Ed and Breezy. We made a loop around the low range and paused on the bentonite ridge overlooking lower Baker Creek and I took a photo of the girls on their horses.

Dani and Sam on Ed and Breezy

That afternoon Charlie helped Robbie make some jacks and drag some poles around to the swamp pasture crossfence. We need to build a few sections of jackfence to replace the falling-down fence on this end, where one of the heifers jumped over it the day before, to get in with the cows and calves. They also gathered up some steel posts to rebuild the electric fence along the ditch above the swamp pasture so we can graze that strip next with the cows and calves.

On Monday (Memorial Day) Lynn, Andrea and kids went to town to meet up with Lynn’s sister Jenelle and nephew Craig Hillis for breakfast/lunch and then they all went up to the cemetery to put flowers on family graves. I stayed home and worked on several articles with deadlines, put a hot wire around the last few bales of hay in the hold pen next to Sprout and Shiloh’s pens, and let Gemini Cricket and George out there to eat grass for a few days. It will be good to see if they can manage in a larger area—to see if George can catch up with mama when he gets hungry—since the cow is still a little indifferent and probably won’t keep very good track of him.
 
That afternoon Sam and Dani helped me, and took turns holding Dottie while I put front shoes on her. Later that afternoon Michael came home from a fence project on 4th of July Creek and shod Sprout, put hind shoes on Dottie, and trimmed Shiloh’s feet.
 
Robbie and Charlie built several sections of jackfence on the lower end of the crossfence in the swamp pasture while Andrea and Sam started putting up the hot wire along the ditch pasture.
 
On Wednesday Andrea and I sorted out #113 (the heifer that jumped in with the cows) and Sugar Bear (the young dry cow that lost her premature calf in February) and put them with the heifers in the top half of the swamp pasture. Then we let the herd of cows and calves up into the ditch bank pasture, and hope it will last them for several days of grazing. Andrea picked some of the tall grass along the hot wire so it won’t short out.
 
That afternoon was Sam’s 8th grade graduation, but as Andrea started out to drive to town she realized her car had a very low rear tire, so she stopped here in the barnyard to use our air compressor and put more air in that tire.
 
Thursday was the last day of school. Here’s a photo of Sam and Dani that morning getting ready for their final day, and a photo of Charlie’s truck. He drove it to school that day and Andrea took a photo of him with the truck, Sam and Emily.

girls on their last day of school

Charlie’s truck

Andrea gathered up all the things the kids needed for their first week with their dad (they alternate weeks during the summer). Charlie worked on his pickup after school and drove it out to his dad’s place that evening. He wants to keep working on it and his dad is going to help him put a different motor in it so it will run better, until he can get the original motor rebuilt.

Charlie hauling the motor for his pickup

That evening we had a hard rain, hailstorm and lightning. The cows were all huddled and crowded at the top of the ditch pasture trying to find shelter. Andrea was afraid they might shove one another into the deep ditch at that end so she herded them back down to the swamp pasture and locked them there—so the calves could go into the calf houses to get out of the pouring rain and the cows could go into the trees.

The next morning I let them back out to the ditch pasture. Then Lynn and I made a huge batch of potato salad (to use up the last of the potatoes we had in the back room, from the 3 bags we got last fall). Emily stopped by on her way home from work to get some to take home; she loves potato salad!

Andrea and Robbie went to Idaho Falls that day for her pain doctor appointment, then hurried back, in time to attend the high school graduation, since Charlie and the Jazz Band were playing the music for the ceremony. Here are photos of Charlie with his trombone case, and the kids with a friend at graduation.

Charlie and his trombone

kids at graduation

Saturday Andrea and I rode Sprout and Dottie up the ridge to the 320 to check the fence along the ridge, to make sure no range cattle can get into that hill pasture. Andrea fixed a section of broken wires at the end of the old jack fence. She took photos of Dottie and me riding up there.

me and Dottie checking fence

We rode again yesterday, just a short fast ride over the low range, to start getting our horses in better shape. We met Alfonso riding out with a pack horse and salt, heading out to take salt to the middle range in preparation for moving his and Miller’s cows to the middle range. He told us he was going to check the water troughs and gates and leave the gates open for the cows to start going into the middle pasture. We told him we would be glad to help move cows, especially after the girls get home from their week at their dad’s place, because they want to help, too. 

riding on low range

We had a thunderstorm that afternoon and were glad we’d made our ride in the morning. It rained a LOT last night. This has been one of the cooler, wetter years. It stopped raining this morning, however, so after Andrea finished irrigating, she and I rode again. Alfonso stopped by as we were leaving, and mentioned he lost his coat yesterday when he was riding on the middle range. He got caught in that thunderstorm and realized he’d lost his coat when he decided to put it on—so he got pretty cold. We told him we would look for it when we ride up there to check our boundary fence around the 320.
 
We rode a couple hours and moved a few cows for him, then hurried home so Lynn and I could make it to town in time for our appointment with a new doctor. The doctor we went to for many years changed her focus and is just working in the hospital now instead of the clinic, so we had to get a new doctor in order to have prescriptions refilled.


JUNE 13 – We had warmer weather for a few days, up to 85 and 88 degrees. A week ago I put front shoes on Ed, and then the next day put on hind shoes. I don’t have the endurance (at age 73) that I used to have, and it’s easier to just do two shoes per day! At least Ed is easy to shoe and behaves very well, except that the arthritis in her hocks makes it to where she doesn’t like to hold up a hind foot for very long at a time.

Andrea and I rode Sprout and Dottie 5 hours last Tuesday and moved all the cattle out of the little basin at the top end of the low range, next to our 320 and 160 acre pasture, and put them into Baker Creek on the middle range. Then we checked that part of our 320 fence (a mile long) and patched it in a couple places where trees had fallen down over it in Baker Creek. 

riding up along the 320 fence

As we rode up Baker Creek we looked for the coat that Alfonso lost, but didn’t see it.

When we got home we took another big round bale of hay to the bulls in the back corral, and moved the cows from the lower swamp/ditch pasture to the pasture below the lane. We put George and his mother out with them—the first time they’ve been with the herd. Hopefully George can keep track of her now in a group; she’s a better mother than she was earlier! I checked on them the next morning and they seem to be doing ok.

Alfonso had hoped to get the rest of the range cows moved that day with help from the Amish but they couldn’t ride until Saturday. The cows were getting short of feed, however, and needed to be moved. Also, we can’t put our cows on the little hill pasture above our house until the cattle are gone from the low range, because we can’t risk having one of their bulls try to go through the fence to breed one of our cows; we don’t put our bulls with our cows until the end of June, because we don’t want to calve before April. So Thursday Andrea and I made a short, fast ride on Sprout and Dottie and gathered 15 pair on the lower part of the range and moved them to the middle range. Robbie patched the big trough that we use for watering cows on the hill pasture. That evening the kids got back from their week with their dad.
 
Friday the girls rode with us to help us gather the rest of the low range cows. 

girls helping move cows

We didn’t find any in the low country but gathered quite a few from the ridge above our hill pasture, Gooch’s Basin and the Baker Grove. It helped having several riders so we could split up and cover more territory. We cut back one cow with a brand new calf, so that young baby wouldn’t have to travel so far. We ended up with a group of about 60 pairs that we took around to the jeep road gate into the middle range.

moving cattle to middle range

After we got them through the gate we let them spread out and graze and mother up. I took a photo of the girls on their horses waiting and watching the cattle.

watching the cattle

On our way back to Baker Creek we met up with Alfonso leading his pack horse to take more salt to the middle range. He also had a chain saw to clear some of the fallen trees off the trail in Baker Creek. He wanted to cook us a picnic, in gratitude for us helping move his cows, so we took time for that; he made a campfire to roast ears of corn and heat up some fried chicken. We let our horses graze and enjoyed a hot lunch, then Alfonso rode on up Baker Creek to work on the down trees.

On our way home Andrea and the girls and I went up along the 320 fence and found 5 more pair and brought them back down to the gate into the middle range. One of Alfonso’s calves was very sick, however, and not nursing its mother. That evening I called Alfonso and left him a message about his sick calf. On our way home that afternoon after moving the cattle, Dani found a deer antler and brought it home.

That evening it started raining. Saturday morning was cool and rainy. We were glad we’d moved the range cows the day before. Robbie helped Lynn start our little pump (it is always hard to start after not using it for a year) and then went to help Michael build fence. Andrea and kids helped Lynn take several water troughs, hoses, pipe (to go through the culvert under the road) etc. in the jeep and flatbed truck up the road, and pumped water from our ditch to fill the 3 troughs at the bottom of our hill pasture. I finished typing an article then got Sprout and Dottie ready to ride, to move cows.

When the crew got back from pumping, we got the cows in from the field below the lane, sorted off Buffalo Girl and Gemini Cricket and their calves (to leave home to graze the pens by the barn) and took the rest of the herd up the road to the hill pasture. Hopefully it will last them a week or so. Buffalo Girl is old and slow and we decided to leave her home so she wouldn’t have to climb around on that steep pasture, and we also left George and his mom home so he wouldn’t have to try to keep track of her in such a big pasture.

The Amish rode that day to gather the rest of the cattle on the low range but they only found 5 pair that we’d missed. That evening we watched the Belmont race on television, rooting for Patch (the one-eyed horse). We were delighted when he came in third! He’s missing his left eye, just like Breezy.

On Sunday the girls rode with Andrea and me on a short ride to check the cows on the hill pasture and then made a short loop around the low range, but didn’t see any more cows left out there.

Grandma and girls riding on low range

Sam on Breezy

Lynn took some salt to our cows on the hill pasture.
 
Yesterday was cool, with predictions for a lot of rain that afternoon, so the kids helped Lynn and Andrea pump for the cows (to refill their water troughs) before it started raining. They finished just as it started to rain—and it rained hard all afternoon and all night; we had a total of about 2 inches of rain by this morning and it continued to rain all day. We are glad we got the cattle moved before all this rain!


JUNE 20 – We finally got the trespass water development resolved. Last year in early June, Michael and Carolyn were looking through the brush at the lower end of their place (the part my dad owned originally, that Lynn and I bought and are now leasing to Michael and Carolyn and which they will someday own). They were searching for a missing cow that had a new calf somewhere hidden. In their search they came across an upright white pipe (standing about 3 feet above ground) about 50 feet from the property line. It had no lid and they looked down into it to find it was probably 4 feet down into the ground, collecting water into a buried pipe. They realized it was an extension of our neighbor’s water system, and had been put up into our property without our knowledge or permission.
 
Lynn and I started ranching here on Withington Creek, on a ranch downstream from my parent’s place and were leasing their place. When they moved to Boise, they sold off a couple small parcels (one of which included their house) before we bought the rest of their ranch. The subdivision between their house and the spring my father developed and piped down to the house had an easement for that spring and water line. The rest of the ranch, which we purchased from my parents, did not include an easement because the spring and water system were not on our land. When Michael and Carolyn discovered the trespass water development that our neighbor Bob Loucks installed, we did not want the potential liability and encumbrance on our property, and insisted that it be removed. He refused, and hired a lawyer, and had a restraining order put in place so that we could not remove it until the issue could be resolved in court.
 
Therefore we had to hire a lawyer, also. Loucks claimed that the extension of his water system into our place was in the “original footprint” of my father’s water development, but we could readily show that it was not. In 1955 when my parents bought the ranch, my father tapped into a spring coming out of the hillside—water that would never be contaminated by surface water, and it had a steady flow of about 3 gallons per minute. In 1961 when we built our house on the ranch (to live there year round instead of just summers in an old cabin) he put in a 1000 gallon storage tank below the spring, to collect the water to have enough for home use, and the water came gravity flow ¼ mile in a buried pipeline we installed when I was growing up.
 
Loucks had to replace the old storage tank in June of 2006, and in doing so he discovered an abundance of surface water coming from the direction of our property. Without asking us, he dug a line up into our place to collect some of that water, to add to his house system. He had so much water, that time of year (due to plenty of surface water from our irrigation) that he put in a 600 gallon collection tank instead of a 1000 gallon tank like my father had. He had so much extra water during the summer that he was using it to water his horse pasture and garden.
 
He didn’t want to give up that extra water (even though it was coming from sub-water from irrigation and might not be the best to drink). He may have realized there was a possibility he couldn’t win in court (because he was trespassing and this was not part of the original spring) but he still wanted that water. His lawyer wanted to settle out of court and come to some kind of agreement for an easement to make his trespass legal. The two lawyers agreed upon a mediator to try to resolve this.
 
In preparation for the mediation, our lawyer came Tuesday evening and we showed him the location of the original spring, the new system Loucks added to it on our property, and tremendous amount of water (about 25 gallons per minute) running out of one of the overflows (picking up sub water from our field above it) which is a lot more than the 3 gallons per minute from the original spring my dad developed in the hillside.

water gushing from Loucks water tank overflow

Even though Loucks trespassed, developed an additional water system illegally to add to his water system, is stealing water that should go back to the creek for legitimate irrigation use downstream (and threatened to sue us if we try to remove his trespass development), we decided to end this crazy battle. We can’t afford to spend money going to court (which would probably cost about $30,000) to prove that he is a thief and should remove his trespass water system. All we want is assurance that we won’t be liable and he can’t sue us if he (or his heirs or any future owner of his place) gets hurt on our property by tripping over a log, falling down in the rocks, or gets trampled by a bull or angry mama cow with a new calf, or any other reason--or if anyone in his household gets sick from drinking the surface water he’s collecting from our cattle pasture. 

We forgave him his greed for more water, allowed him an easement for the water line he put up into our place, and talked to the lawyers about ways to avoid possible future problems. Our lawyer and the mediator said that if Loucks insists on wanting surface water in his house water system, that’s his own problem and we can’t be held liable. So our lawyer will write an easement for the trespass system, absolving us or our heirs or any future owners of our property (in case Michael and Carolyn sell off a piece in that area for a home site) from any future liability, for any reason (contamination of the water from a septic tank, weed spray, fertilizer, whatever). Thus we are protected, and Loucks can drink surface water (the irrigation runoff from a cow pasture) as he wishes. It is a relief to have this problem resolved. Loucks can think he won, and that’s fine. We simply want assurance that his trespass won’t impact us or Michael and Carolyn adversely in the future.
 
Friday was cool and cloudy. Robbie and Andrea helped Lynn pump water for the hill pasture and I finally finished the revisions for my book (Storey’s Guide to Raising Beef Cattle) for the new 4th edition that will come out next year. Andrea and I put up an electric fence in the back yard and moved Buffalo Girl, Gemini Cricket and their calves into that tall grass to eat it down for a few days. Here’s a photo taken from the dining room window, of the cows and their calves lounging in the back yard.

cows and calves in yard

Charlie has been getting the old Velma truck polished up nicely. He drove it to town and out to his dad’s place when the kids went there for their week with their dad. On Saturday, Charlie took the old Velma truck to the annual car show and many people looked at it. Here’s a photo of Grandpa Lynn checking out the refurbished old pickup.

Lynn and Charlie’s truck

Charlie also drove it in the parade of old cars, and the girls rode in the back. Here are the girls getting ready for the parade.

Girls getting ready for parade

Yesterday Granddaughter Heather sent photos of baby Joseph Michael “Monkey” to show how much he has grown in just 7 weeks. Here are some of those photos.

“Monkey” Joseph

Since Lynn and I probably won’t make it up to Canada for a while to see him, we’ll have to be content with pictures! We are the ones who stay home and take care of the critters, and do everyone else’s chores when they are gone somewhere.

Another bit of news: granddaughter Emily will be getting married in July, so she is busy making wedding plans! It will be an outdoor wedding, so we are hoping for nice weather.


Postscript: For interesting stories about calving, baby calves and other adventures with cattle, you might like my book Cow Tales: More True Stories from an Idaho Ranch. This book is part of a 3-book series that includes Horse Tales: True Stories from an Idaho Ranch, and Ranch Tales: Stories of Dogs, Cats and Other Crazy Critters. These books are $24.95 each (plus $3 postage). Autographed copies can be ordered from me at 208-756-2841 or hsmiththomas@centurytel.net or P.O. Box 215, Salmon, ID 83467, with a discount when all three books are purchased ($70 for all three books, plus $5 postage).