LATE WINTER

Late January - Early February 2013

JANUARY 27 – We had a couple weeks of cold weather (down to minus 15 degrees F. or lower, every night). The old cow with the frozen calf we thawed out is enjoying life in our pen by the barn, where she gets pampered with all the hay she can eat, and some good alfalfa. Her calf is not very lively; it gets up to nurse but spends most of its time sleeping in the deep bedding, trying to keep warm. The calf (named Popsicle) has been dull and grinding her teeth (a sign of gut pain), so for a couple days we gave her some keopectate—squirted into her mouth--to coat and sooth the gut. She’s doing better now, and eating quite a bit of hay even though she’s only 2 weeks old.

Chores take longer every morning, breaking ice on the creek for the cows and in the bull pen, and getting ice out of all the horse tubs. In the cold weather 2 of my plastic tubs were so brittle they broke when I was thumping ice out of them, and I had to replace them.





In the cold weather Breezy and the 2 fillies have been chewing up the pole fence between them, in a few places where they could reach between the electric wires and get to the poles. One night they chewed a pole completely in two. The next morning Rick helped Lynn put a new pole there, and rearranged the electric wires so the horses can’t reach the fence.

Andrea took Emily to her hockey tournament at Sun Valley and we took care of the other kids while she was gone. Dani went with Lynn and me up to Michael and Carolyn’s house to take the blankets off their two old horses (Molly and Chance) and put wood in their stove. On the days Carolyn works, she has to leave before daylight, and in this cold weather that’s too early to take the blankets off those horses.

When Andrea and Emily got back from their hockey trip we had a belated birthday celebration at our house for Sam (who just turned 10) and Emily (turned 15). Charlie is starting to learn how to play the trombone in band class at school, and he played happy birthday for the girls on his trombone.





I was asked to write one of the chapters for a new book on wolves (looking at the wolf problems in North America). That book will be coming out later this year, so I’ve been trying to write a little on that chapter every day in between my other article deadlines and chores. I had a doctor appointment on Tuesday for a checkup and pneumonia shot, and the doctor also tried to freeze off some big plantar warts (on the balls of both feet) that I’ve had for nearly 40 years. Even heavily bandaged and with double socks on, it’s painful to walk!

The last few days the weather has been warmer. Rick and Andrea chopped through the thick ice on the creek in Fozzy’s pen and re-established his water hole—and dug out some gravel from the creek bottom, to spread on the slippery bank so he will be brave enough to step down to the creek. Now I don’t have to carry him water in buckets anymore. The ice was almost a foot thick and I’d given up on trying to keep that water hole open during our 2 weeks of cold weather.

This weekend Andrea took Charlie to his hockey tournament in Sun Valley.



Last night we had a blizzard and a nasty wind, so before we went to bed Lynn and I put the old cow and her calf in the barn. They were happy to get out of the cold, wet snow. It was very obvious that the old cow has been in a barn before. She watched us open the doors and as soon as I opened the gate from her gate she headed right for the barn! Some of the cows that Michael and Carolyn bought last spring are wild, but not this one. She is very much at ease with human handling.





This morning we had 8 inches of new snow. Emily helped me shovel out part of the pen before we put the cow and calf back out of the barn. We also moved our yearling heifers to the field below the lane and set up their heated water tank so we won’t have to keep breaking ice for them through the rest of the winter. Lynn tried to start our middle-size tractor to plow our driveways but the diesel gelled up again and he had to drain more gunk out of the tank. He got it running again and was able to finish plowing driveways.

We should have plenty of snow in the mountains for a good water supply this summer. Two of the Amish young men (our new neighbors) hiked up the mountain behind our place last week on snowshoes, exploring where the old Harmony Mine was located before it burned up in our 2003 fire. They decided to go farther, and hiked clear to the top, to see the old Forest Service Lookout. When they got up there, they poked a long stick down through the snow to measure the depth, and it was more than 6 feet—and that was before our latest snowstorm!

FEBRUARY 8 – The old cow with the rescued calf (Popsicle) isn’t milking very well and her calf is still very thin. We tried to feed the calf a supplemental bottle last week but she didn’t want it. For a few nights during the cold, stormy weather we continued to put the pair in the barn at nights, and back out in their pen during the day.

With the deep snow, the elk are coming down into the fields. About 30 head have been going into our neighbor’s alfalfa stack every night. The snow made our driveway a wonderful place for the grandkids to sled; there’s enough slope that they can get up plenty of speed and go shooting clear across the bridge.

Michael drove home from North Dakota last Tuesday, and got here at 3 a.m. the next morning. The day after he got home, another cow calved, in their herd in our lower field, but at least the weather was warmer this time, and the calf is doing fine. While Michael is home, he is trying to get caught up on all the urgent things that need to be done during these few days.

Last week our tractor was finally ready to come home, after several weeks of repair work, following the wreck. It looks much better than the day Andrea took this picture of it being towed to the repair shop.



The total cost of fixing it was more than $8000, so we had to borrow money to pay that bill. It’s good to have it home again. Lynn uses it to load the big bales onto our feed truck. Michael bought more hay for their cows, and borrowed a flatbed trailer to haul it—and used our tractor to load the hay. He and Carolyn hauled several loads of hay to the upper stackyard, and on the last trip Lynn went with them to drive our tractor home.

While Michael was home we borrowed a friend’s heavy-duty transport trailer and hauled our wrecked flatbed trailer to be fixed. Even though it was “totaled” in the wreck, a friend who is an expert welder thought he could straighten out the twisted frame and tongue and fix it.

Two days ago Michael and Carolyn lured their cows and calves up to our corrals with the tractor and bale processor and fed them in the hold pen so they could be sorted and hauled the next morning. The county truck sanded our road so it wouldn’t be so slippery. Early yesterday morning Michael and a friend brought their trailers and hauled 3 loads of cattle (some cull cows and last summer’s calves) down to a neighbor’s place to load them on a semi-truck to haul to the sale at Butte, Montana.

Andrea took me to town yesterday for a treadmill stress test at the hospital, ordered by our local doctor because of my chest pain and fatigue. The doctor said I did ok on it and he thinks my heart is fine, so I’ll just keep exercising and not worry about my heart. When we got home, Michael and Carolyn were vaccinating their remaining cows and calves, and Andrea helped them.



This morning Michael and Carolyn hauled those cows and calves to the upper place, putting the main herd in the field above the corrals and the 3 cows with young calves in the Wild Meadow. They were able to vaccinate the old gentle cow and Popsicle right in the pen by the barn before they took that pair around to the main corral to load up. It was good to see that little calf finally feeling good enough to run and buck when they went to the big corral. On the second load of cattle, Michael’s pickup spun out going up our steep slippery driveway; he had to back down the driveway, and put chains on the pickup.

While they were hauling their 5th load, Lynn and I lured our small herd of cows down through the field from heifer hill with our feed truck—a bit of a challenge, with the deep snow. Michael and Carolyn helped us vaccinate and delouse our cows, and then they ate lunch here with us.



Rick helped Lynn put chains on our feed truck before we tried to feed our cows in the field above our house; the snow is still about a foot deep and very dense.

FEBRUARY 16 – Last Saturday Lynn helped Michael haul 2 loads of our round bales of alfalfa hay up to the upper stackyard, to mix with the grass hay Michael bought. This will give Carolyn enough hay to feed their cows up on the upper place while Michael is gone. On Sunday Michael and Carolyn hung a gate (the one between their stackyard and field) so it will be easier for Carolyn to open and close when she’s feeding the cows. Michael left early Monday morning to drive back to North Dakota for his job driving trucks.

Michael also bought some alfalfa hay in big square bales, from a rancher near Leadore, 50 miles away. That rancher delivered it on Monday (two loads), and Lynn unloaded it here in our barnyard. Fortunately we didn’t have any new snow and the hay trucks were able to drive back up our driveway without a problem. We will trade some hay with Michael, since our round bales work better in his bale processor, and these new square bales can be fed more easily off our feed truck.

With Michael and Carolyn’s cows on the upper place again, and their driveway partly thawed and not so slippery and treacherous for driving the big tractor back and forth to their house to plug in at night, Carolyn is able to feed their cows up there now. The days are getting longer, so she can get them fed before she goes to work in the mornings—on the days she works at the vet clinic—and doesn’t need Lynn to feed them.

On Tuesday Lynn and I both went to town to see the doctor—me for another freeze treatment of my plantar warts (it is going to take several applications to kill them, so I’ll be hobbling around with sore feet again) and Lynn to ask about stronger medication for his asthma attacks in the mornings. For the past 3 weeks or so, ever since our cold weather, he often gets a sudden tightness in his throat that tends to shut off his breathing, and a pain in his chest and left shoulder. The inhaler he uses for asthma (that the doctor prescribed last fall after his breathing became impaired from the thick smoke we had to breathe all summer) helps a little, but not enough.

The doctor changed his respiratory medication to something stronger, but she was concerned that this was more than just a respiratory problem. She scheduled an appointment for him to see a heart specialist in Missoula on Thursday and have a test where they put a dye in the heart and send a probe up through an artery in the groin, to go inside the heart and take a look.

After we got home from the doctor, Lynn used our tractor to move all the hay bales up through the corrals and into our main stackyard where they will be safe from the deer and elk. We have tall elk panels around that stackyard.

On Wednesday we talked to Michael briefly on the phone while he was driving truck in North Dakota. They put him right back to work; some of their drivers had quit and he’d been driving for 27 hours with only a couple short naps. In the afternoon Lynn went to town for our mail and groceries, and to pick up his new asthma medication, and on the way home he got our flatbed trailer, all fixed. It looks as good as new. The welder who fixed it used an ingenious way to straighten out all the warps and twists. He also used some reinforcing metal and says it’s stronger than it was before.




Rick and Andrea took Rick’s wood-splitter up to Carolyn’s house and split the rest of her wood; it looks like she’ll have enough now to last through winter, and she won’t have to split any while Michael is gone.

Early Thursday morning Andrea drove Lynn to his appointment with the doctor at St. Patrick’s Hospital in Missoula (a 4 hour drive). Carolyn and Rick helped me feed our cows that morning. Andrea called to say that the doctor didn’t start on Lynn until late morning, and the procedure lasted all afternoon. She took a photo of Lynn resting and waiting at the doctor’s office, keeping warm under a blanket she’s been making.



The doctor scraped out some plaque buildup in the lower heart chambers, and then put stents in some of the major blocked arteries to open them back up. The first stent collapsed (and Lynn had a minor heart attack when that happened) and the doctor redid it, and put in 2 more. There was one more blocked artery but it was smaller and farther out on the branching network, and the doctor couldn’t reach it, but thought Lynn would probably be ok on that one. The 3 major arteries were the big concern.

It was a rough day for Lynn and he was dizzy and sick to his stomach after the procedure—which took twice as long as the doctor had anticipated--so they kept him in the hospital overnight. He also had a big hematoma/blood clot at his groin where the blood leaked from the artery they’d used for getting up into the heart. There were clamps on it to keep it contained. Andrea stayed with him, and took a photo of him wearing his cap in bed because his head was cold.

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Meanwhile, here at home, I drove down to the bus to pick up Andrea’s kids after school. They helped me do chores and feed the horses and heifers. I fed them all supper when Rick got home from the woods with his load of firewood. He goes to the woods as often as possible to cut firewood to sell. He has a lot of customers right now because the weather has been so cold and people have been burning more wood than usual.

Yesterday morning Rick helped me feed our cows, before he went to the woods again. I talked to Lynn on the phone mid-morning and he felt much better. The blood clot had resolved, and the doctor released him from the hospital. Then Andrea called again about an hour later. She started to bring him home, but hadn’t gotten out of Missoula when Lynn suddenly became very sick and dizzy again. So she took him back to the hospital and the doctor decided to keep him there another day. They put him on IV fluids and gave him more anti-nausea medication. By last night he was able to keep food down again.

Rick helped me feed our cows again this morning, and when we talked to Andrea on the phone she said they would be coming home today. So hopefully all goes well and Lynn will actually make it home today!

FALL 2012

SEPTEMBER 25, 2012 – Andrea and Emily had an inspiring and exciting time at the World Burn Congress in Milwaukee, Wisconsin earlier this month. They made many new friends and got very little sleep, spending most of their time visiting with other burn survivors and their families. Emily quickly got over being shy, realizing that most of the young people she met were more insecure than she was, and she enjoyed helping a few of them feel more at ease.




While they were gone that week, Lynn and I took care of the other kids. The 2 little girls had coughs and a fever so we took them to the doctor and got prescriptions for treating their respiratory infections.

Michael spent a day cleaning out all the old manure (many years accumulation!) from all our horse pens, so they’ll go into the winter without being a boggy mess.

We rebandaged Sprout’s foot several times this month, using a poultice and keeping the foot in a boot to keep the bandage clean and dry. Then we kept it in the boot awhile longer after the abscess cleared up, to protect the big hole in her sole until it fills in a little more with new horn growth.

Sammy and Dani were feeling better by the weekend, and helped us move our cattle from the field below the lane up to Heifer Hill. We didn’t want the girls to be outside very long, however, because the air is still very smoky from all the fires. We’ve had 2 months of thick smoke in our valley.


Right after Andrea and Em got home from Wisconsin my cousin Ned and his wife Pam (from Texas) came to stay a few days, on their way to his 50th college class reunion in Oregon. They stayed at Andrea’s house and ate meals at our house, and we had a good visit.

We brought the cattle down from Heifer Hill, sorted off the heifer calves into the grassy pen below the barn to wean (with their mothers right through the fence in the adjacent field) and left the steers with their mothers overnight in the orchard. Michael came with his trailer the next morning and we sorted off the steers to haul to the sale at Butte, Montana.

We left all the cows in the field below the lane for a few days until they quit bawling for their calves, then took them back to Heifer Hill—and put the weaned heifers in the orchard and horse pasture where there’s still some green grass.

Lynn and Michael took our tractor and post-pounder out to Michael Phillips’ place north of town and spent several days setting posts and building jack fence across the swampy part by the river—finishing the division fence on that property. Michael will be able to take his yearlings down there for fall pasture—trading fence work for pasture rent.

OCTOBER 8 – We actually had some rain last week. It cleared the air for a couple days, and then the smoke drifted back in; the big fire north of town is still burning.

Last Saturday Jason Beyeler hauled 2 Morgan fillies out here for us, the ones we looked at a few weeks ago at his place. We’re buying a dark chestnut weanling that will eventually be Dani’s horse, and a palomino 2-year-old for Sammy and me. The weanling hasn’t had much handling and was very shy. The 2 fillies will live together in the big pen where we kept Veggie last winter, when he was separate from Rubbie for the first time in their lives. We separated them so he wouldn’t lose weight—since his teeth were getting bad and he couldn’t eat hay as fast as Rubbie. This year they both eat slower (at age 25 and 26) and Veggie is able to eat his share, so we’re letting them live together again.

Emily spent an hour in the pen with the 2 fillies after we turned them loose, feeding them grass. Eventually Em was able to get close enough to pet them both. The next morning Dani and Sammy came down to see their “surprise” and were delighted with the new horses. They named the young one Willow and the palomino Spotty Dottie because of her dappled color. We have to patiently corner Willow to catch her, using the bigger filly to help block her escape.


The next day, Willow had a big glob of pus in the corner of her left eye. We had a vet come out and look at the eye. She had an infection, but the eye itself was ok. We had to put antibiotic ointment into the eye morning and evening for a week. The filly didn’t like to be cornered and caught so we left a halter on her for a few days, making it easy to just snap a lead rope onto it. After she got accustomed to being caught without a fuss, we removed the halter. The eye infection cleared up after a week of treatment.


Andrea and I have been handling both fillies every day, leading them, picking up feet, etc. Willow was reluctant to lead at first, so we used a rump rope “come along” and she is now leading nicely. The older filly is already trained to tie up, and we’ll gradually train the weanling to tie.



Michael took his swather out to the University Ranch south of town and cut 100 acres (3rd cutting) of alfalfa—putting it in windrows for their weaned calves to eat this fall. They’ve had problems in the past with cattle bloating when pasturing that field so they decided to cut it and windrow-graze it instead. Michael cut all night and got done by morning—just ahead of a cold spell that would have frozen the plants and diminished their nutrient quality.

We’ve been covering our little trough gardens every night, but knowing it was going to freeze harder Lynn and Andrea picked the rest of the tomatoes and cabbages.



The past several days Michael has been helping Lynn fix corral gates—the ones that no longer work properly because the frost keeps pushing the posts up out of the ground. Michael dug new post holes with the backhoe and hauled rocks to pack in around the new posts. We now have functional gates again!

Yesterday Sprout lay too close to the fence and rolled into it, sticking a hind leg under the netting and was caught there, on her back. Lynn looked out the window and saw her stuck, so we ran out to her pen and were able to pull her back away from the fence to get her leg free. We were glad she’s gentle and trusting; she didn’t try to struggle or fight when we were pulling her and flipping her over. After we rescued Sprout, we put a row of old tires along that side of the fence where she likes to sleep—so she can’t roll into the fence again.


Yesterday we put the cows in the swamp pasture above the corral, and today we brought them down to the corral at daylight and the vet came out to preg check. It’s nice to have gates that work! We vaccinated the cows and the weaned heifers. We didn’t preg check Rishira (she’s 16 years old and we plan to butcher her) or DingleBelle—the 4-year-old cow that was bulling a few days ago (we will sell her). The rest were pregnant.

OCTOBER 25 – Michael and Carolyn have been taking protein supplement to their cows and calves on the 320 and 160-acre mountain pasture to encourage them to graze the dry feed, but they ran out of grass last week. They took a few pairs out to the rented pasture north of town and brought 13 pairs down here to graze our little field across the creek.

We met our new neighbors—the 3 Amish families that bought the Maurer place around the hill from us. We’re looking forward to getting better acquainted with them.

Michael used the backhoe to tear out the falling-down side of our main corral and clean up a pile of old boards and junk behind it. He and Lynn set new posts along that side and hope to make a new hold pen in the area we cleaned out. We also had to dig a trench through the corral and put in a drain pipe, so the spring-water on the back side of the corrals won’t keep flooding the corrals. We repaired the old fence in the bull corral before Michael brought back the 3 bulls he and Carolyn borrowed this summer.

One day a couple weeks ago it wasn’t very smoky and we took Sam and Dani for a ride. It turned out to be our last ride for this year. With the very dry conditions, the dust was bad, and we came home covered with dust.


The smoke finally cleared up after some rain (and snow on the mountains). The big fire north of town is finally under control after burning more than 500,000 acres.

Andrea and I drove 800 miles to California to see my twin cousin, Kit Moser. Kit has been suffering from Parkinson’s disease and dementia, in failing health. I wanted to see her again while she still knows who I am.



We had a good visit (as good as could be expected) with her and her husband. Now I am trying to catch up on all my writing and other projects, taking shoes off the horses for winter, etc.

Andrea and I are working with the fillies every day, making up for the 5 days we were gone. Yesterday we led them a couple miles, out into the low range pasture. Lynn took a photo of us as we were leading them back home.


NOVEMBER 1 – Last week Lynn and Michael finished setting posts to rebuild the side of our big corral. Andrea helped nail up poles.



They also used some of the old pole panels (salvaged last year when we rebuilt the pens by the calving barn) to create a better fence along the lane to the lower pasture. Thick brush, fallen-down trees and wildlife travel had obliterated the old fence. Now we can let Michael’s small herd of cattle use that part of our lower pasture without risk of them getting out.

Andrea went to town on Thursday and bought a lot of instant dinners (the kind that keep at room temperature, to be warmed up in a microwave) for Michael to take with him to North Dakota. On Friday Michael helped me take shoes off Ed and Breezy and trimmed their feet, and spent the rest of that day getting ready for his trip.
On Saturday he left early morning and drove all day, and made it to Crosby, North Dakota in the middle of the night. After an orientation/training session on Sunday, he started driving a water truck on Monday, in the oil fields. He is working for Chris Bird, our local tire shop owner who has several trucks on that job, needing another driver. Michael hopes to work there all winter, to earn enough money to make some payments to the bank. We’ll help Carolyn take care of their cattle while he’s gone. He gets to come home occasionally, and plans to get their calves trucked to market and some hay hauled when he has a couple weeks off in December.

Andrea and I have been working with the young fillies nearly every day, leading them up the road, down the road and over the low range pasture—getting them used to many things. We’ve had rain and it’s no longer dry and dusty; the mud was deep and slippery on one of our hikes over the hill. We are thankful to finally have some moisture. The horrendous forest fire north of town is finally out.

Yesterday I dewormed most of the horses and today Andrea and I dewormed the rest of them. When we bought them, the two fillies were not very cooperative about having their mouths handled. For the past several days we’ve been putting our fingers (dipped in molasses) into the corner of Willow and Spotty Dottie’s mouths, to get them used to having something put into their mouths. The molasses tastes good so they didn’t resist. This made it a lot easier to administer the oral syringes of paste dewormer today.

NOVEMBER 7 – Sammy and Dani hiked along with us on Friday when Andrea and I led the fillies up the road. They enjoy helping with the fillies when they aren’t in school. They skip along and sing and chatter, and this helps get the young horses accustomed to more things. Sammy likes to brush Spotty Dottie, and lead her around in the barnyard. Emily sometimes helps lead Spotty Dottie on our longer walks.



The yearling heifer that was living with Michael’s cows and calves on our lower field disappeared. Lynn has been checking on them periodically and last Wednesday he didn’t see her. He looked in the brush but couldn’t find her. He looked again the next day, but found nothing. She might have gotten sick during the wet weather, and maybe she went off in the bushes, but there’s no sign of her. She’s still missing so we don’t know if she went through the fence into the neighbor’s place or died. We haven’t seen any magpies or smelled anything dead, however, so we are thinking she either left our field or died or got killed and totally eaten. We worry about wolves, since there have been several in our area.

We’ve talked to Michael a few times on the phone. He’s been busy hauling water, and a few loads of pipe. He’s had several problems with his truck, however, and had to fix the brakes and some of the wiring.

NOVEMBER 16 – Last week we celebrated Dani’s 8th birthday with a party at one of the pizza places in town. She invited a few of her friends for pizza, cake and ice cream. It was snowing hard that evening when we drove to town (making it hard to see the road) and still snowing the next day. Rick and Andrea went up on the mountain to get a load of firewood for one of Rick’s wood customers, and took Sammy and Dani with them to go sledding. There’s 2 feet of snow up there, and they had to chain up the truck. The girls had fun sledding and made snowmen. Rick and Andrea built a big fire so they could warm themselves and dry out their gloves.

There was a big snowstorm in North Dakota. We talked to Michael on the phone awhile when he was snowed in and waiting for the parking area to be plowed. The next day the roads were plowed but he got stuck in a snowdrift and had to shovel for several hours, moving his truck a few feet at a time. A farmer in the adjacent field, feeding cattle, saw his predicament and brought a tractor and loader to help. The farmer was unable to pull the truck with the tractor, so he used the loader to plow through the rest of the snowdrift so Michael could get unstuck—which saved 3 more hours of shoveling.

We had cold weather for a few days and now it has warmed up a little and most of our snow is settling. Andrea and I are leading the fillies again, most days, but we’ve been staying on the main road because the trails over the hill are slippery.

Early Winter 2006

In November we had several inches of snow and then the weather turned cold. Andrea drew an elk tag for the hunt in our area, and Lynn went hunting with her, making a 7-mile hike in Mulkey Creek, which is very steep terrain. They saw lots of elk tracks, but no elk. The tracks were all heading down out of the high country. One of our neighbors had more than 100 elk grazing on his ranch and eating in his haystacks.
Andrea finally got her elk on one of the last days of hunting season, after hiking all day on our cattle range and catching up with the elk just before dark. This was the most hiking she’d done since her burn injuries 6 years earlier. Lynn helped her cut up the meat to put in the freezer. After getting a deer earlier in the fall—that she shot from her back porch one morning—she and Mark had a good supply of winter’s meat.
Also in November Andrea took Emily to her team’s wrestling meet it Rexburg, a 4 hour drive. We kept the younger children here for 2 days. They “helped” grandma. While I worked on the book I was writing, they did lots of games and artwork, drawing about 30 pictures—some to take home and some to put up on our walls.
Lynn and Michael (and 13-year-old Nick) made numerous trips up the creek to get firewood, salvaging some of the burned trees in the burned area on our cattle range, from the fire in 2003. We finally had enough wood to get through the winter. The-fire killed trees make good firewood; they are dry and well seasoned--but very black and charred on the outside. The guys came home looking like coal-miners after handling the charred wood. Sawing up the burned trees created a fine dust of soot in the air from the chain saw. This irritated their lungs and made them cough, and they got respiratory infections. Lynn's respiratory problem turned into pneumonia, so he had to go to the doctor for antibiotics.
The cold weather and snow made it impossible for the cows to continue grazing, so we began feeding hay.
The sub-zero weather also created a lot of ice in the creek and it was overflowing and making ice flows down across several of our fields. Michael used our backhoe for a couple days to work on some of the frozen ditch heads to stop the flooding. With the cold weather, deer came into our haystacks to eat. They also started coming onto our feed grounds and chasing the heifers away from the hay we fed.
One of our “fall projects” that we were slow to accomplish was to dig up a water line and replace the leaking hydrant by our calving barn. The previous winter, it froze up during calving season. The “fall list” of projects is always too long, but we finally started working on the water line. Michael dug it up with the backhoe and we replaced the leaky hydrant. They had to bury the water line very carefully so frozen chunks of dirt wouldn’t crush the plastic pipe.
In mid-December Lynn and I helped Michael and Carolyn try to save a cow that had a serious problem after losing her 7-month fetus to a very unusual condition. She had too much fluid in the uterus, distending it grossly and putting pressure on the digestive tract, which shut down her gut. We had to give her massive doses of mineral oil and castor oil to get her gut working again.

Then we had to pull the dead fetus, which was a tough job because it was abnormal and monstrous for its stage of development, and this was an additional stress for the cow. She went into shock, but we turned that around with several gallons of IV fluids and medication to try to reverse the shock and restore circulating blood volume. Her hind legs were paralyzed from the difficult birth, and she was unable to get up or to eat very much, but we kept her going for 3 weeks, feeding her alfalfa pellets soaked in water. We fed this to her in a slurry mixed with 7 gallons of water, feeding her twice daily by stomach tube.


We gave her the mineral oil/castor oil on Dec. 10, and kept up the twice-daily feedings, morning and evening, until after New Years, with one of the grandkids holding the flashlight for us in the evening feedings. The cow was out in the corral at the beginning (and could not get up) and we made a windbreak of hay bales and put tarps over her to protect her from the cold wind and snow.

A few days later we moved her into the barn with the tractor and loader. We put plywood on the loader's hay tines and rolled her onto that and strapped her on, then carried her to the barn and rolled her off.
In the barn, we situated her comfortably in some deep bedding, with bales of straw helping prop her upright

We were able to get her back on her feet using a hip hoist for her hind end and a sling made from a wide lash cinch (from a pack saddle) for her front end. It was quite a challenge!

Her gut finally started working normally and she began nibbling hay and chewing her cud. But she never ate enough and we had to keep feeding her additional food via stomach tube twice daily. The most frustrating thing, however, was her inability to use her legs. Even though we hoisted her up for awhile each day, and she took some of the weight on her hind legs, she would never use her front legs.

They couldn’t straighten out because the tendons had contracted so much from being bent under her so long. The leg joints were swollen, and it was like she’d developed joint infection--perhaps from septicemia due to toxins that circulated through her body when she was in shock.
Finally, after much frustration, we regretfully made the decision to end her life. We’d jerked her back from the brink of death, and she wanted to live, but her inability to stand up on her own ultimately defeated us. We didn’t regret the time and effort spent trying to save her (that’s what raising cattle is all about) but as calving season approached we knew that none of us would have time to continue giving her this much intensive care. And a cow that can’t stand up cannot survive. We reluctantly admitted defeat on saving that cow, and moved on, trying to make up for lost time on our many other tasks.
Michael needed to haul a load of calves to the sale—the calves that were too young and small to sell with the big group in the fall. We also needed to tag, vaccinate and delouse our heifers, and give all the cows their pre-calving vaccinations, but the weather was bitterly cold (30 below zero) and we postponed those projects until early January. Michael helped us vaccinate the cows.
When we finally vaccinated our heifers on a Sunday afternoon during the warmest part of the day, the needle on my syringe kept freezing up—but I had a jar of hot water in an insulated picnic cooler, and I could stick the needle into the hot water to thaw it out.
For several days Carolyn had a very sore, stiff neck with some vertebrae out of place, so that weekend when the kids were home from school they helped Michael do their feeding. Young Heather (age 15) drove the big truck—chained up and loaded with 5 big round bales. She did a good job, and was able to drive up our steep, slippery lane without spinning out; she was becoming a very good truck driver!
I finally got my calving book manuscript (500 pages) finished, and the illustrations and photos for it, by the January 1 deadline, so that was a big relief. I hoped to catch up on some article deadlines before plunging into the next book project (cattle health handbook), which I had to finish by September. I kept biting off big projects, but it helped pay the bills! I don't think we can ever afford to "retire". Our work is too much fun and too necessary, especially since we are still trying to help our kids. Andrea was doing very well but still had a lot of expenses that we were trying to help her with.