Ranch Diary: March 15 through April 27

MARCH 24 – We had a lot of windy, stormy weather last week, and some snow. It got down to 23 degrees one night and the mud was frozen enough that Andrea was able to move the big bales out of harm’s way (where spring melt was coming through the stack yard) with the tractor, without getting stuck.

Lynn went to the doctor to see the results of his MRI. His hip sockets seem to be ok (he doesn’t need hip surgery) but there was evidence of old injuries that are causing some pain—an old healed fracture in the pelvis, and some other problems. We don’t know whether those happened when he was trying to stay on a horse that was bucking, or when the dirt under the old bridge caved in on him when he was trying to get some debris out from under there during high water—and had to pull his leg out from under several hundred pounds of dirt and mud before he drowned—or when he had a motorcycle accident coming home from irrigating and met a pickup that was on his side of the road on a blind corner.

The doctor thinks the old injuries are causing him more pain now because he has favored the leg and sore back, and has lost some of the normal motion. She prescribed physical therapy, and also wants another MRI on his lower back because it is badly out of place.

We brought the 7 young cows down from the field last week, and put them in the maternity pen and horse pasture where we can watch them easier, since several of them were looking like they are close to calving. The next day we moved the older cows across the creek over the bridge and into heifer hill, where they will be a little closer when the time comes to bring them down, too.

The calving barn’s dirt floor is pretty wet because of the big pile of snow behind it that slid off the roof this winter. We should have shoveled that pile away, because it’s been melting and soaking into the dirt floor in the barn.  We opened all the doors to help it dry out faster. Even though we’ve had some spring weather, the occasional blizzard makes us glad we still have a barn for calving cows during bad weather.

Last Thursday we went to town for the funeral of our neighbor Bill Sager. He fell and broke his hip a few weeks ago and never recovered.

The next few days were cold, down to 14 degrees at night. We started training our heifers to go in the barn, in case it’s cold and stormy when they calve. We put a little hay along the edges of a couple barn aisles, with some alfalfa on top of the grass hay. After putting them into the barn the first time, they eagerly went in every day after that, for several days, to eat the alfalfa hay. Now if we have to put one in the barn some dark night, it won’t be a scary experience!

Alfonzo left his gate open on the lower place and almost all his cows got out and went over the hill to the low range, looking for something to eat, but the grass hasn’t grown enough yet to provide any feed. He finally realized the cows were out and rounded them up again.

Michael, Nick and Robbie put tall wood slabs on this end of our 2^nd day pens to create a good windbreak. Now our pens are ready for calving.

They also put a pole “cover” over the ditch by the culvert under the driveway, so no calves will fall in the ditch when we are taking them back and forth across the driveway. The cover will also keep vehicles from driving into the ditch.

Andrea cleaned out her little travel trailer to loan to Michael and Carolyn and Michael smoothed out the mud ruts in their driveway so they could pull it up to their house for Gregory’s sister and her husband to stay in. They drove down from Canada yesterday and hope to stay a few days.

Michael and Carolyn had their first calf born day before yesterday morning and another one that afternoon. We put some slough grass bedding in a couple barn stalls yesterday so we’d be ready when ours start calving.

Dani’s friend Sequoia stayed overnight with her last night, and the two little girls came down early this morning to help us feed cows. When we drove to the field above the house we noticed one cow on heifer hill and she didn’t come down to the feed truck. We could see she had a baby calf lying there, so after we fed the cows their alfalfa we drove up there.

It was Buffalulu. She had calved 3 weeks ahead of her due date—a tiny bull calf. She’d licked him dry and he was several hours old, but very cold and hadn’t nursed yet. We put him on the back of the feed truck and Dani and her friend hung onto him while I drove the truck to the next field and Andrea and Robbie followed the young cow. She was a bit confused because she wasn’t exactly sure where her calf was, but he bellowed and bawled almost continually, and she followed his voice. We got her down with the other cows and through the gate, and drove on down to the barnyard. It was windy and cold, and he needed some food. She was too nervous to let us help him suckle, so we put her in the headcatch by the barn and got him started on a teat. After helping him get as much milk as he could hold, we put the pair in the barn, out of the wind.

It was windy and snowing off and on all day and the power went off for a couple hours. By afternoon the little calf had figured out how to suckle his mom without help. That evening another young cow (Twinkle Twinkle, a second calver) started calving so we put her in the other barn aisle and she calved quickly—a nice heifer calf. She was about 10 days ahead of her due date, but not as tiny as the little guy next door. Dani named him King Cong Gorilla Boy because he was so tiny he needed a big name, and also because his face looks a bit like a baby gorilla. The heifer is charcoal color (more gray than black) so Dani named her Charky.

APRIL 5 – We had more snowstorms and windy weather the last week in March. We put more of the cows in the maternity pen and horse pasture where we could see them from the house, and fenced off the deep ditch in the top corner of the orchard. The cows like to sleep in that corner and we didn’t want any of them to roll into that dry ditch.

Young heather’s boyfriend Gregory and his sister and brother-in-law stayed with Michael and Carolyn several days before they had to drive back to Canada. Carolyn brought Gregory’s sister and husband down here last week to meet us.

The next day Dani helped Andrea bring some of the loose hay (stored in the “sick barn” across the creek) around in the little trailer with the 4-wheeler in several trips to spread as bedding in the pen below the barn. She had fun riding in the hay.

We put the two young cows and calves down in that big pen where there are several good windbreaks. Little Gorilla Boy is still very tiny, but doing great.

Several more cows were getting very ready to calve so we locked those in the orchard (maternity pen) at night where we can see them from the house with a spotlight.

Charlie was very sick last Friday, with a high fever, so Andrea took him to the clinic. The doctor’s aid who looked at him thought it was a virus and didn’t prescribe an antibiotic, but his fever and cough kept getting worse. Every night his fever was up to 104 degrees and Andrea had to give him a lot of ibuprofen to try to keep it down. She couldn’t get another appointment for him after the weekend (the clinic was booked solid), so she took him to the ER Monday evening, and the doctor there took a chest x-ray and diagnosed the problem as pneumonia. He gave Charlie a shot of high-powered antibiotic and a prescription for follow-up. Charlie was sick all through spring break but was finally recovering enough to go back to school this week.

We’ve had several more cows calve. The evening that Andrea took Charlie to the ER, Dani helped me put Magnicate in the barn to calve—since it was cold and windy. She calved quickly at 8:30 p.m. and the heifer calf was up and trying to nurse within 30 minutes. But the cow kept having severe cramps and kept lying down trying to clean, so finally Dani and I intervened. We put a tub of alfalfa hay in front of the cow to encourage her to stay standing up and eating, and I helped the calf get onto a teat.

The kids were out of school that week so the girls enjoyed helping with the cows and calves. Sam helped Andrea take a couple trailer loads of loose hay up to the calf houses for bedding, and put new bedding in the two barn stalls.

On Thursday we brought the last 5 cows (the later calving ones) down from the field to put with the others in the horse pasture because they are all starting to get udders.

Andrea put up the electric wire around the calf houses before we started putting pairs up there, so the cows can’t get right next to those little houses. Then they can’t gang around the houses to eat the bedding out of them and won’t step on or lie on any calves that sleep in front of the houses. We put several cows and their calves out there this week.

Andrea started harrowing the fields, now that the snow is gone and the cows are off them. It may be an early spring and we want to start irrigating quicker than last year. She harrowed the field next to her house (where the largest group of cows spent the winter) with her little jeep pulling the harrow, to scatter the manure and the wasted straw from the big bale feeders. It all makes good fertilizer. The little jeep is pretty rough and bouncy, however, so Robbie helped her take the blade off the tractor so she could finish harrowing with it. Charlie was feeling well enough by the end of the week to ride around with her in the tractor, and he enjoyed driving it.

Our mud finally dried up enough that we were able to take the chains off the tractor for harrowing. Andrea has been using the tractor nearly every day to load alfalfa hay on the feed truck or take big bales of grass hay out to the heifers’ feeder or oat/barley bales to the cows’ feeders. The heifers go through a big bale every 3 days.

It’s also not too muddy out on our low hills anymore, so on Sunday Andrea and I rode Breezy and Ed for their first rides this spring. We need to get those horses going and back to their routine so the girls can ride them.

It’s time to start irrigating so we’ve been cleaning ditches. Robbie burned the grass off one of the ditches, and we hired Allan Probst to go through several of the worst ones with his little excavator. The ditch that comes to heifer hill through the Gooch place was silted full in several places, and in other places the bank was washed away from Alfonzo’s hap-hazard irrigating. Allan was able to clean out the clogged areas and rebuild the bank on the places where the ditch was about to wash out. While he was here, we had him go through the ditch to our lower field across the creek, since it would be faster and easier for him than for our old backhoe. But just after he finished and was bringing the little excavator down the hill to come back from that lower field, one of the tracks picked up a rock and it jammed and threw the track off. Lynn tried to help him get the track back on, after jacking it up, but it needed a new part. Allan had to order the part and come back again the next day (yesterday) to fix it and take it home.

We’ve had a few more snowstorms, so Andrea started spending part of the night here to help me watch the cows, to put the calving cows into the barn. As long as we have a good barn we’re not going to have new babies born outside in a blizzard!

Today was a little nicer, and Andrea started the water in the newly cleaned ditch to heifer hill. We don’t know how long our irrigation water will last this year, so we want to get all the fields growing early. 

APRIL 14 – Last Thursday Dani stayed here overnight because she wanted to help watch the cows, and she got to see Cub Cake calve. Dani has stayed here several nights and I get her up for school; Robbie picks her up on his way by with the other kids to take them all to the bus. Andrea sleeps in a little, after spending part of the night watching cows until I get up early to take over. Later that day Andrea and I rode Breezy and Ed again for their second ride this year.

The next day I trimmed Dottie’s feet and rode her for her first ride, and Sam and Dani rode Breezy and Ed for their first ride this year.

Dottie was goofy and obnoxious but the older mares were a good influence on her. They were nicely mellow for the girls. Just as we were leaving, Buffalope calved in the horse pasture (so Andrea put the other cows in the orchard so they wouldn’t interfere with bonding of mama and new baby), and by the time we came back the calf was up nursing.

Robbie is helping Michael and Nick on fencing projects around the valley. Word is getting around about the good job they do, and they have several more jobs lined up. Michael probably won’t have time to rebuild any more fences for us until next winter.

Dani and Sam have an after school job once a week, cleaning house for Conrad Vitzthum, our elderly neighbor down at Baker. He lost his wife a few years ago and needs a bit of help with the house cleaning, so the girls enjoy doing that for him and earning a little money in the process.

The grass is trying to grow in the fields, so on Saturday we moved the electric fence in the field below the lane and confined the yearling heifers to a small area at this end by the gate and the water trough, and moved their hay feeder to a high spot in that corner. We’ll keep them in this smaller area and give the rest of the field a chance to grow (so we can cut part of it for hay and pasture the marshy side of it later). We’ll put them out on pasture when the grass is taller.

That afternoon Andrea and I rode Breezy and Dottie; we need to put a few more rides on the horses before our friends from Colorado come to visit, because Jodi wants to ride a horse. Walter and Jodi have a bed and breakfast business in Durango, and they’ve been hoping to come visit us. Walter is like part of our family. He came here in 1980 from Austria, not knowing much English, and needed a job and a place to stay. We arranged for him to stay in the little cabin my uncle owned (above our upper place) and he worked for us a few years, building fences. Later he had some other jobs, sold cars, then went to California and had a thriving business making billiard tables, then met and married Jodi. They moved to Durango and have a great bed and breakfast. We’ve never met Jodi so we’re looking forward to their visit.

Charlie took a test on Saturday for his ham radio operator license and passed it, so he is really excited. My brother Rocky loaned him a radio until he can get his own.

On Sunday Michael needed more alfalfa bales, so Andrea loaded a couple on our feed truck when she was moving more bales around for our cows, and Lynn drove it up to the upper place, where Michael loaded on a couple big oat bales for Lynn to bring home for our cows. We’re mixing the oats and the alfalfa and it’s working very well for the cows.

Andrea also brought a little trailer load of hay bales around for the cows in pens by the barn.

That afternoon Andrea and I rode Breezy and Dottie again. This was Dottie’s third ride this spring and she’s starting to behave herself a little better.

I cooked a big dinner for everyone when Andrea got the kids home again from Mark that evening. Buffalo Girl (Em’s old pet cow) started calving so we put her in the barn after supper. She’s a very strange cow and even though she’s a good mother, the first few hours after she calves are a bit challenging. It’s as though her hormones are mixed up. She licks and roots her calf, bellows at it, and knocks it down when it tries to stand up. We have to be there to intervene, so she won’t hurt it. This is her 11^th calf, and she does this every year. If we can keep her from injuring the calf, get him on his feet, and help him suckle, then everything is fine from then on. Once she actually starts nursing her calf, the hormones of motherhood kick in and she mellows out and behaves like a normal mama.

So Andrea, Dani and I sat in the next barn stall and watched the progress as she gave birth to her calf. She lay down tight against the back panel of the stall toward the end and we had to untie the panel and give her more room, which caused her to get up before the calf was fully born. So we just pulled him on out, and got him breathing. Buffalo Girl bellowed and rooted, but wasn’t as aggressive as last year. Andrea had to whop on her last year to protect the calf, and that old cow remembered. She backed off each time we had to reprimand her. After the calf got himself organized and was functional enough to try to stand up, we helped him to his feet. Dani brought the tub of alfalfa hay to distract and pacify the cow, while Andrea and I helped him to the udder and got him nursing. The old cow behaved herself and by the time the calf got full, everything was good and it was safe for us to leave them be. He’s red (all of her other calves have been black0, and here’s a photo of him (and a friend) a couple weeks later when he and mom were up in the field with the other cows and calves.

I continued watching the cows, and saw that Rocket (one of the first calf heifers) was in early labor, and more obviously calving by 3:30 a.m. but she didn’t progress. By daylight I put her in the side pen and did my chores (feeding the horses and heifers). She wasn’t progressing normally but finally about 8:30 she pushed out a water sac, but there were cotelydons on it (the red fleshy buttons that attach the placenta to the uterine lining), which meant the placenta was detaching. So we took her around to the headcatcher by the barn and Lynn reached in to see what was going on. The front feet were there, but back a ways, and the calf was a bit sideways. He couldn’t get the head coming.

Michael and Nick were coming down the creek on their way to a fencing job (Michael pulling the flatbed trailer loaded with materials, and Nick in his pickup), so they stopped to help us. Michael was able to push the calf back and get it coming straighter, and the legs pulled forward (they’d been hung up at the elbows) and finally got the calf pulled. It was alive—a little heifer. We got her breathing and took her around the corner into a pen, then let Rocket out of the headcatcher and gently herded her into the pen, and she immediately began licking and loving that baby.

Michael was very slimy by then, and Nick took him home to change clothes. I went to finish my morning chores, and Lynn went back around to the pen to check on the new baby. Rocket was lying down again, licking the calf lying down, and straining hard. It looked like she might be trying to have another calf. I went quietly into the pen, crept up behind her, and reached my hand in—and felt a big furry rump and a little tail. She was having another calf, but it was breech.

Michael and Nick had come back down to Michael’s truck and trailer by that time, so we flagged them down, and began round two. Rocket didn’t want to go back into the headcatch, but with 3 guys pushing on her, she went in. Then Michael had to try to push the calf back into the uterus far enough so he could manipulate each hind leg, one at a time, up over the cow’s pelvis and bring it backward. The young cow was straining so hard, pushing against him, that it was almost impossible. Nick and Robbie pushed her tail up over her back as hard as they could, to put some pressure on those nerves (which makes it more difficult for her to strain), and finally Michael was able to get both hind legs into the birth canal and then pull the calf. It was limp and dead, and had been dead for some time. It wasn’t full term; it had very short hair and wasn’t as fully developed as the other twin. So, we let Rocket out of the headcatch and she went back to the pen to finish licking her live baby. By that time Michael and Nick were really late to go work on their fencing job, so they just washed up a little and left. I took a photo of Rocket and her baby in the pen.

Early the next morning we had several more cows calving. When I looked out the window at 1:30 a.m. Buffalo Baby was calving, so Lynn and I went outside and put her in the side pen where we could see her more easily. While we were out there I heard a cow up in the orchard gently mooing so I hiked up there to find Rosalee in early labor. I brought her down and put her in the front pen. Rosalee calved very quickly and had a heifer calf at 3:25 a.m. Buffalo Baby calved soon after, at 3:35 a.m. but I had to rush out there and break the sac and clear the membranes and fluid away from its head, because the cow didn’t get up immediately. The calf was still encased in the sac and fluids and would have suffocated. It was a big heifer calf. The cow licked it for a few minutes then lay down to clean, and the calf was getting chilled. It was cold and windy. So I went back out and got the calf up, but she wasn’t able to get onto her mother’s big teats. That cow’s udder has gotten progressively worse over the years and she’s on the list to sell this fall! She still hadn’t nursed her calf by daylight.

Robbie took the kids to the school bus then helped me feed the cows. Rosalee and calf were doing great, but not Buffalo Baby’s calf, so we put the cow in the headcatch, tied a leg back so she couldn’t kick us, and I helped the calf suckle those big teats. Then Robbie went to help Michael and Nick on their fencing project.

That afternoon Merinina calved out in the horse pasture, right after lunch. After the calf had nursed, Lynn and I moved the pair to one of the pens by the barn, so the other cows wouldn’t bother them. She had a heifer also. We now have twice as many heifer calves as bull calves, just like last year, and only a few more cows left to calve.

The old horses, Veggie (age 30) and Rubbie (age 29) are finally shedding most of their winter hair and looking a little less shaggy. Veggie is doing pretty well in spite of bad teeth, and Rubbie is actually quite fat.

Today it’s raining again. The creek is really high, and Andrea caught up on her irrigating, moving some of the water and shutting down some of the ditches that are flooding the fields too much. Alfonzo had way too much water in one of his ditches that comes on down to our place, and it was starting to wash out the ditch bank.

Andrea went to town to pick up Sam from school and take her to the ER to have her elbow checked. She was doing cart wheels at school and landed wrong and heard something snap, and her elbow is really painful.  The doctor took an x-ray but couldn’t tell if it’s broken. He put it in a sling, and told her to come back in a week to have it checked again.

Lynn and I nailed up several poles and a board on the pen next to the field, to eliminate the wide spots where the heifers keep sticking their heads through the poles to try to check out the baby calves. One heifer got her head stuck this morning and couldn’t get loose until I went into that pen and spooked her enough to try harder to get out. We eliminated that possibility of happening again.

Lynn got the kids off the bus this afternoon and Dani helped me do chores—feeding the horses and heifers. This evening she helped me sort out a couple cows and two heifers that look like they could calve tonight, and put them in the pen in front of the house where they’ll be easy to watch. She really enjoys helping with the cattle. 

APRIL 27 – We had more rainy weather with a bit of snow last week. One of our heifers, Sugar Bear (a daughter of Cub Cake) started calving on a cold, snowy night so Andrea stayed here and watched her. When she went into serious labor we put her in the barn to calve. She finally had a bull calf, and Andrea gave a little pull on it at the end because the heifer got tired. She mothered it well, and it was up and suckling by the time it was 1 ½ hours old. Here’s a photo of that pair a week later, up in the field.

Lynn goes to town twice a week for physical therapy for his back. It helps his back, but then he usually does too much lifting or bending and makes it sore again!

Another young cow, Lilly Annie, started calving the next day and we ended up putting her in the barn to calve that evening because the weather was still very cold and windy. By the time Lilly Annie finally calved, Andrea stayed here on the couch to nap, and Dani was sleeping on the other couch. Lynn got up at 4 a.m. and looked out the window and noticed the young cows in the front pen were looking intently at Magrat in the side pen. She hadn’t been doing anything obvious when we all “crashed” at 2 a.m. but by 4 a.m. she’d calved. Andrea and Dani both got up to help us sled the new baby to the barn, since the weather outside was nasty/windy/cold. The heifer calf was black with a white star in her face, white feet, and white tip on her tail—a throwback to her great-great-great-great grandmother Baby Doll and to her grandmother Maggie (Dani’s favorite pet cow that we had to sell a couple years ago when she got old). So this heifer is named MagDoll and Dani hopes to make a pet of her. Here’s a photo of Dani with the calf, soon after it was born.

We helped the calf nurse (because Magrat’s teats are too long and low), then Andrea went home to go to bed. Dani went back to bed on the couch and I took one last look outside and noticed that our final heifer (first calver) was in labor. I got Dani up to help me, and we were able to put her in the barn to calve. I sent Dani back to bed and stayed up to watch the heifer because the calf’s feet that were emerging were huge. She finally got down to business and had the calf ok, but I gave a pull on it, too. It was a huge heifer calf. It’s nice to have all our first calf heifers safely calved out. There were only 3 cows left to calve, at that point.

The next day, Sunday, was a nice day (after a cold night) so Dani came down and rode Ed and I rode Dottie. The horses hadn’t been ridden for a week and were a little goofy but we had a good ride. Dani practiced using snaffle reins as well as the curb (she wants to learn how to ride English style as well as western), for the first time, and on our way home we found a nice white tail antler. Dani got off and got it and brought it home. Andrea was busy irrigating all afternoon. In spite of the cold nights, the grass is growing in the warmer afternoons and everything is looking green.

Dani helped me clean house a little, in anticipation of guests. On Monday Lynn went to town for physical therapy, and Andrea and I made a quick ride on Breezy and Dottie. When Dani got home from school she helped me with chores and we put several pairs out to the field and brought Rocket and her calf back in. Rocket still hadn’t cleaned, after having the twins, and is losing weight. She’s eating ok and doesn’t seem to be sick, but we brought her back to a pen by herself (below the barn) where we can pamper her with good feed and she doesn’t have to compete with the older cows.

On Thursday we tagged more calves and put those pairs up to the field with the other cows, and cleaned house. I made chili and corn bread and we had lunch when Walter and Jodi arrived. They drove partway here the day before, spent the night in Pocatello, and drove the rest of the way that morning. It was great to see Walter again (after nearly 16 years) and meet Jodi. We visited a bit then they went with Andrea to town (she had to go get Charlie, who missed the bus). Dani stopped here when Lynn got her and Sam off the bus, and helped me peel carrots and potatoes and do chores. I’d cooked a roast and we had dinner for everyone here that evening.

Friday morning Andrea took Sam to the doctor to have her elbow checked again and this time the x-rays showed both bones obviously broken, next to the growth plates. She was to continue wearing the sling, with lots of padding to keep the elbow immobile, until the bone doctor could look at it. Fast forward to today, and Sam’s appointment with that doctor. He ordered a hinged brace for it, which he will put on her elbow tomorrow.

Meanwhile, last Friday Walter and Jodi enjoyed helping us feed the cows and put Cupie Doll and her heifer calf out to the field. 

Jodi had been hoping to ride a horse while they were here, so Dani rode Ed, I rode Dottie, and we adjusted stirrups on Sam’s saddle for Jodi to ride Breezy. We had a really nice ride, making a big look over the low range, and Breezy did very nicely for Jodi. We were lucky to get that ride accomplished, because the weather got stormy again by late afternoon and then it rained the rest of the days of their visit! 

Friday evening was a bit hectic because Em’s car broke down on her way home from work. Andrea had to take the kids to Mark, and Robbie borrowed a car trailer and retrieved the car. We’d planned to have dinner at Andrea’s house (she made lasagna) but it got really late and Lynn and I just went to bed.

Saturday it rained all day. Andrea, Walter and Jodi helped feed cows. Then Andrea used the tractor to take new bales to the heifers and cows; Walter helped her while Jodi babysat the new batch of kittens that one of Andrea’s cats had (which Andrea rescued and brought in the house). Then they took Andrea’s car in to town for Em to drive until she gets her car fixed. We eventually had supper at Andrea’s house. Lynn and I drove up there in the rain on the 4-wheeler because her driveway was too slippery for our pickup, even with 4-wheel drive (the tires have no traction).

With all the rain the creek was very high (some of the snow on the mountains coming off) and our ditches were flooding. Sunday morning there was water coming down across the field where one of our hay feeders is, so we couldn’t get to it to put in new hay. Walter cooked a delicious brunch for all of us that day, and again we drove up there on the 4-wheeler. Then Andrea, Jodi and Walter helped Lynn put up an electric fence along the creek side of the field above the house, to keep the calves from sticking their heads through the elk panels (and getting stuck) and to keep them away from the ditch where they love to eat dirt and gravel.

Andrea, Walter and Jodi went to town that evening to pick up the kids from Mark, and I put Emerald (a second calver) in the calving pen. Since we wanted to make sure she calved ok, we ate dinner at our house that evening (so we could watch her, and because Jodi wanted to see a calf born). Andrea went up to her house and brought the food down and we had a pot luck. Emerald calved after dark, with her hind end pointed the wrong way for Jodi to get a very good view from the window. I ran out to make sure the sac was broken, and Andrea and I got the calf breathing, but had to fend off the mama because she was quite upset with us messing with her calf! It was a huge bull calf (twice as big as the little heifer she had last year) so it was a wonder she was able to have it so quickly and easily (only 15 minutes from the time the amnion sac came into view, until the time she delivered the calf).

That pen was muddy and wet, several deep puddles from the rain. The calf didn’t get up, so when he was 2 hours old Andrea and I went back out to get him up. He was big, clumsy and wobbly, flopping around and likely to end up in the mud puddles. So we got the calf sled and pulled him to the barn with mama following—so he’d have a clean dry place to get himself organized and get up and suckle.

The next morning the power went off while I was doing chores and watering the horses, so I had to wait and finish watering them later. Walter helped Andrea move hay around with the tractor before she went to town for her physical therapy. Her old graft contractures are still pulling her back and neck out of line, and the physical therapy is helping her a little. I cooked dinner for the whole crew again, and Emily and her boyfriend came out, too. Meanwhile we put Emerald and her calf out of the barn into one of the second day pens.

Yesterday Andrea, Walter and Jodi took the kids to school and then helped me with chores and feeding when they got back. Before they left to go back home to Colorado, Andrea took them for a drive up the creek, so Jodi could see the old cabin where Walter lived when he first came here. They drove on up the creek into the forest, so she could see the view looking down the whole valley.

Then they headed home, but hope to come back and visit us again in November.

Today the weather cleared up and we actually had sunshine. Andrea helped me feed the cows after she got back from taking Sam to the doctor to have her elbow checked (and will take her in again tomorrow for the hinged brace). We’re still waiting for our last cow (Maggeriete, nickname Shrek) to calve. She was our last one to calve last year, too, when she had Butterflybrow.

This afternoon when I checked on the calves and watered the cows, I took a few photos of some of the cows and calves, including Dani’s favorite calf MagDoll, and snapped a picture of Lynn waiting for me, sitting on some bales at my haystack, enjoying the afternoon sunshine.

Ranch Diary: December 15, 2015 to January 18, 2016

DECEMBER 15 – We had several more inches of snow last week so the cows are on a full feed of hay. Michael brings his truck down every few days to load some of the big bales to take up to his cows. 

One of Alfonzo’s bulls was out on the road below our place; the neighbors who fed his cows the day before had left the gate open. Andrea and Lynn drove down on 4-wheelers and put the bull back into Alfonzo’s field before it came up to our place.

Michael, Carolyn and young Heather drove to Butte, Montana to do Christmas shopping and meet up with Heather’s friend Gregory driving down from Canada. This is his first trip to Idaho to meet the family and visit here for a few days. With the stormy weather and bad roads, they wanted to make sure he could make it over the pass between Montana and Idaho in his pickup. Later that week Carolyn cooked a nice dinner and we went up to their house and got to meet Gregory—a very nice young man!

Last Wednesday we fed our cows close to the gate into our heifer hill pasture, and sorted out the young cows (first and second calvers), putting them through the gate. Now we can feed them separately so they’ll get their share of the hay--and the older, bossier cows can’t hog so much of the feed. We can also give some of the better hay to the younger cows, since they are still growing as well as being pregnant. We are feeding them all some alfalfa, but we can save the best grass bales for the weaned heifers and the young cows.

That evening Lynn and I drove to town and attended the school Christmas concert. Sam and Charlie were playing in the concert band and also sang in the chorus.

 My boxes of books finally arrived (my latest book, Ranch Tales) so I packaged up a bunch of them to mail out to family and friends as Christmas gifts. If only I could write a book every year, then my “gift list” would be easy!

Andrea and Robbie took his pickup and went with Michael and Carolyn and kids (in their truck) up the creek to get firewood. The snow was really deep up there and they had to chain up both pickups, but were able to get into a good patch of dead trees (killed by the fire in 2003) and brought home two big loads of wood.

We’ve had a lot of snow and cold weather; the snow is getting quite deep. Andrea and Robbie helped Lynn take a couple of big grass bales up to the group of young cows—a good one for their feeder and an extra one (a spoiled top bale) to spread around for them to bed on, so they won’t have to lie in the deep snow.

The kids are now out of school for Christmas holiday, and got to spend the first few days (before Christmas) at home with Andrea this year. Dani helped feed the heifers a few times (so she could pet her favorite one -- Deerling) and made our calving calendar. She wrote all the cows’ names on the dates they are due to calve. She also enjoyed spending time with her favorite pets, including her cats.

Tuesday evening Dani and Sam went with Andrea and me to deliver gifts to a couple of our neighbors up the creek. We stayed awhile to visit with David and Rosina and their young children (the Amish family living in Gordon Binning’s smaller house). It was cold that night by the time we got home, nearly down to zero.

Wednesday Sam had another checkup, and another x-ray, and the doctor said her foot has finally healed enough that she no longer has to be on crutches! It’s been a long recovery; she’s been on crutches since July.

Robbie helped Lynn put the blade on our big tractor and Lynn plowed snow off Andrea’s driveway and ours; it was getting too deep to drive to her house, or to get up our driveway. Robbie spent a couple days taking the old straw out of our calving barn, loading it into a little trailer and pulling it out with the 4-wheeler. He took some into the adjacent field for the little heifers to bed on, and several trailer trips up to the field by Andrea’s house where the main group of cows are. With the deep snow they had to place to bed, so he spread the straw along the bottom edge of the field along the willows, out of the wind. They are appreciating their nice bedding area.

We have several cottontail rabbits living in the barnyard and one of them has taken up residence under by the parked machinery next to some of my horse pens. This rabbit likes to eat the alfalfa leaves that spill when we are loading our sleds to feed the heifers, and is very unafraid of people. Lynn’s cat (that also lives in the same area, by the tarped alfalfa bales for the heifers) has caught and eaten several cottontail rabbits this winter, but not this one. She likes to chase the rabbit, but so far these games of cat and rabbit haven’t wiped out this bunny.

 With the snow and cold weather the whitetail deer are coming in droves to eat the alfalfa. We have the haystacks wrapped with netting, and put tarps over the feed truck and the hay for the heifers, but they come boldly into the feed trail to eat with the cows and heifers. Even when we chase them away, they wait in the bushes until we leave, and come right back again. Some of them come through the house yard.

On Christmas Eve my brother Rocky and wife Bev and son Aaron stopped by on their way home; they are now finally in their new house up the creek; it is finished! Rocky had just been to a couple Christmas Eve events downtown, playing Santa. He’s perfect for the part, with his white beard and jolly smile. 

Yesterday (Christmas) we did chores early, fed the cows their alfalfa, then went up to Andrea’s house to watch the kids open their gifts.

That afternoon Michael came down for more hay and helped us take big bales around to fill the cows’ feeders again. Andrea took the kids to Mark that evening; he gets them for most of the rest of the Christmas vacation.

Today Andrea and Robbie helped feed, and break ice for the cows. With all the cold weather it’s been harder to keep their water holes open and we have to chop them open again every day. Michael came down late morning and we took the shoes off Shiloh, Sprout, Dottie and Ed.

Andrea and Robbie put up more electric wire around part of Willow’s pen to keep her from chewing up the fence posts and poles. That filly loves to chew on everything!

Tonight the temperature is dropping below zero. 

JANUARY 5 – Magrat’s young heifer Mallulamae was lame with foot rot last week, so Andrea and Robbie helped me treat her. We lured her and a couple other heifers into the 2nd day pens (by the barn) with a little hay, then put her in the headcatch by the barn and gave her injections of oxytetracycline. By the next day she was walking better, and by the 3rd day was no longer lame, and the swelling nearly gone.

Jim has been creating some lovely lamps and chandeliers in the old “rolling wreck” trailer house that he converted into a shop. Robbie helped him take out a wall, to make a bigger working space. Jim is making several lamps and pieces of antler art for some clients and also some extra ones to take to an art show in a few weeks, to sell. As a fun project he created a decorative “flower pot” and some huge “flowers” made of antlers and turquoise.

He’s also spoiling us, splitting wood and filling our wood-box every morning. With the cold weather we’ve been using both stoves and going through a lot of firewood.

Jim and Robbie repaired our two old runner sleds that needed some new boards. Our kids used them when they were little, and one of them dates back to when I was young. Those are still the best sleds because they steer. Andrea’s kids are now enjoying them; they can come down her driveway all the way to our barnyard. It makes a great sledding hill. They also enjoy having someone pull them back up the lane on their sleds, with a pickup or 4-wheeler so they don’t have to hike back up. With the new snow the other day they were having a snowball fight on their way back up to their house.

Rocky’s daughters Amber and Amanda made a fast trip up here from Boise to visit and see Rocky’s new house. They stopped briefly at our place early the next morning on their way home, to say hi and to see Andrea.

The deer have been jumping in with Veggie and eating his alfalfa hay at night. Andrea and Robbie screwed some small poles onto the fenceposts to make the fence taller, and strung more electric wires above the fence. We hope that will keep out the deer. Poor old Veggie is 30 years old now, and it takes him awhile to eat his hay; he picks at it all night long. If the deer eat it, he won’t get enough.

On New Years Eve Andrea got the kids back from Mark (for 1 day) so we had a potluck pizza dinner at our house when they got home. Andrea made a pizza and I made one and after dinner we all went up to her place to watch movies. We took our old VCR tapes of The Gods Must Be Crazy and The Gods Must Be Crazy II and Andrea made a big batch of popcorn. The kids hadn’t seen those old movies and we all enjoyed them. That’s the first time Lynn and I have stayed up until midnight on New Year’s Eve for many, many years! It was 8 below zero when we got home, and 11 below by morning.

In this cold weather the cats like to find warm spots, like our “fencing cat” on a favorite perch enjoying the sunshine’s warmth reflecting off the barn door.

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The water holes in the creek froze over and it took 30 minutes to chop out the ice and re-establish the water holes. Charlie and Dani enjoyed their “new” repaired runner sleds and coasted all the way down to the barnyard, and helped do chores that evening, then Andrea took them home before they got too cold. It dropped to 15 below that night. She had to take the kids back to Mark for the rest of the holiday.

The deer tore down the high hot wires around Veggie’s pen that night, so Andrea fixed it and strung more wire. I think we finally have them fenced out.

The young heifers ran out of grass hay in their feeder and it was too cold to start the tractor. It has to be plugged in overnight and even then it won’t start at this temperature so we don’t even try it. So we backed the feed truck up to the stack and four of us rolled a big bale onto the truck to take out to their field. We rolled it off the truck into their empty feeder. We give them alfalfa hay twice a day, but also keep grass hay in their feeder at all times, and they are doing very well on that program. The deer don’t bother to eat the grass hay; they just want the alfalfa! We select the best grass bales (not too coarse) for the heifers—and it sometimes has a little clover in it, too.

When the kids got home from Mark's, Andrea had a turkey dinner cooked and we all ate at her place. She hadn’t had a chance to have a Christmas dinner for the kids so this was our belated get-together for dinner. 

Andrea took bales around today to the various feeders. It’s hard for Lynn to get in and out of the tractor with his painful back and hip, so Andrea is doing more of the tractor work.

Today Michael and Nick rehung the gate below the old barn. Ever since we put rocks and gravel on that lane (to keep from getting stuck in the mud with the feed truck and haying equipment) the gate has been hard to open and close, dragging on the built-up ground. Michael and Nick were able to raise the gate up on the posts, moving the hinges, so it swings again.

Then Robbie helped them tear out the old fence between the calving pen and the orchard. We need to rebuild it before calving season. I locked the two little bulls in the horse pasture so they wouldn’t get out, and moved their water tub; I can take a hose through Dottie’s pen to water them. Michael rerouted the hot wire, putting it on tall poles above the fence they’ll be rebuilding. I fed them lunch. This afternoon, they built fires over each post hole they need to dig, to thaw the frozen ground, and put our half barrel “ovens” over the fires, to keep the fires contained through the night.

JANUARY 18 – Michael, Nick and Robbie set new posts and rebuilt the fence on the north and west side of the calving pen in front of the house and we put the little bulls (yearlings) back in the big pen next to it.

Then they started rebuilding the old falling-down side of our main corral. We moved the big bulls out of that corral to the back corral temporarily, and Michael used the backhoe to dig away the debris and snow along the fence they sawed out. There was so much stuff covering the ground in that area that it wasn’t frozen, and they were able to dig those post holes without using a fire overnight to thaw the ground. They set all of those posts except the two big gate posts; Michael had to buy some bigger posts and set those in concrete this past weekend. 

Andrea went to the doctor last week to have her shoulder checked; she’s torn something loose, and it’s very painful every time she chops ice or has to use that shoulder very much. If it’s not starting to do better in a couple weeks she will be referred to a specialist. The doctor prescribed physical therapy for her in the meantime, to try to help it. 

 Last week we had major snowstorms—10 inches of new snow in town, and not quite that much here. I took photos of the new snow on our new fence.

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Lynn plowed our driveway and Andrea’s again, and his hip is really bothering him now, after getting in and out of the tractor. It was hurting so badly during the night that he had to use crutches to go to the bathroom. Since then he’s been taking pain medication and has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow to have it checked. It doesn’t hurt much when he’s sitting down, but standing and walking can be very painful. We’ve been doing all the chores and letting him sit in the house and read his newspaper!

Since we started feeding the cows 2 weeks earlier than last year, and feeding grass hay in their feeders rather than straw, they’ve been going through the hay more quickly than we expected. We’ll have to buy some more hay or straw to make it last the winter. A nearby rancher offered us some baled cornstalks to try (and we’d buy some from him if the cows will eat it) but the 4 bales we put out for the cows—2 for our cows and 2 for Michael’s cows at his place—weren’t accepted very well by the cows. We’re looking for another alternative. The cows are enjoying the corn stalks for bedding but won’t eat them.

Robbie took the kids sledding last weekend, pulling them around on a big tractor tire inner tube with a snowmobile, in the deep snow on heifer hill. They had a lot of fun. The next day they went sledding with friends. 

 We had another stretch of sub-zero weather but Michael, Nick and Robbie kept working on our fences, hanging the gates in the calving pen, and starting on the big corral. Nick and Robbie kept working on it the two days that Michael had to haul a couple horses and a dog to the veterinarian at Challis (tooth issues on one horse, and a yearling colt to be gelded -- and to have cheat grass seeds removed from the old dog’s ears and sinus cavity).

Thursday evening we all went to town for Sam’s birthday party. She’s 13 now. The party was held at a pizza place and she invited about a dozen school friends.

Afterward she had a friend come home to spend the night with her, and then Sam spent the night at her friend’s house and they had fun making big snowballs and snow art.

The next day both Dani and Sam had their hair cut and styled, as sort of a birthday present for Sam and belated present for Dani.

Dani’s friend Sequoia stayed overnight with Dani, and both girls came down to help do chores and feed the cows the next morning. Rosalee, one of our older cows, had been lame with foot rot for a couple of days, so we brought the whole herd down from the field, sorted her out, put her down the chute, and gave her antibiotics. Andrea and Sequoia helped us herd the cows down to the corral, following the feed truck. They also came down that evening on the 4-wheeler to help us do chores, feeding the horses and heifers.