Sky Range Ranch Diary: May 18 through June 30

JUNE 1 – Last week we had a little rain. Michael drove over to Dillon, Montana last Thursday to get a load of poles for his fencing jobs, and planned to make a second trip in the afternoon, but the weather got worse (snowing on the mountain pass) and he didn’t want to risk sliding that big trailer off the bad road. He turned around and came back home, to make that trip another day.

In the rainy weather our electric fences weren’t working very well; one of the young cows (Sugar Bear) went through a fence, and during the night Willow tore down the electric fence around the top end of her pen. I fixed it the next morning, and we also moved the cows and calves around to the lower swamp pasture. When we brought the herd through the lane by my hay shed, and calving pen, I could hear a calf coughing. It was Charky. She had a snotty nose and was breathing hard. All the wet, cold weather probably made her more susceptible to a respiratory infection. We sorted out her and her mom and put them in the far pen next to the barn, since that pen has a tarp over one corner to make a little roof. On the way through the pen in front of the barn, we captured Charky at the headcatcher and gave her injections of antibiotic and an anti-inflammatory medication to help ease her respiratory distress.

By the next day we realized she had diphtheria rather than pneumonia (swelling in her throat and upper airway, hindering air passage) so we changed antibiotic and gave her a shot of dexamethasone to help reduce the swelling so she could breathe easier. One way you can tell the difference between pneumonia (infection/inflammation in the lungs) and diphtheria (infection/inflammation in the throat/windpipe) is that an animal with diphtheria will have trouble inhaling because the windpipe is restricted. An animal with pneumonia has more trouble exhaling--with more effort required to push air back out of the damaged lungs. This calf was struggling to breathe, and coughing, especially if she moved around and exerted very much. We treated Charky for several days, until she got over her cough and was healthy again.

Last Saturday we had a hard rain and a hailstorm, but Charky had her sheltered corner to get out of the downpour. I got soaking wet doing my evening chores. It was Andrea’s birthday so we all had dinner at her house. The rain had stopped by then, but her driveway was too muddy/slippery to drive our pickup up there safely, so Lynn and I drove up there on the 4-wheeler. Robbie baked Andrea a cake, and the kids had fun decorating it.

The rain and cool weather prompted us to use the wood stove again on a couple of the coldest mornings, but our chimney was plugged with soot. Robbie and Lynn got up on the roof and used a long plastic pipe to clean the chimney.

Last week the Millers turned their cows out on the range, but Alfonzo kept his in longer, feeding them some old hay and straw that he bought cheaply. He has his cows crammed into the little field above our place, feeding them in a tiny area above the ditch. Wasted hay and straw, and wads of twine and net wrap are falling into the ditch and obstructing the flow, and not much water is coming on down to our field. Frustrating. First he starves his cows during winter by not feeding them at all until late February (after overgrazing all of his fields and pastures, and several of them died of starvation) and now he’s overfeeding them some very poor quality hay instead of turning them out on green grass on the range. We don’t understand that man!

Over in our swamp pasture, two of our yearling heifers (Panda and Surprise) jumped over the crossfence to get in with the cows and calves, but we’ll probably just leave them in that group for now. I pulled up the net wire they’d mashed down and repaired the fence so no more heifers would try to jump over it.

The next day Lynn and I went to town for our appointment with the dermatologist, who froze several precancerous lesions off both of us (my face, Lynn’s face and arms). We’ve both had too much sunshine exposure, for too many years!

Dani is playing soccer this year and really enjoying it. She and a boy her age are their team’s best kickers; both of them played hockey and were good at it, and that seems to give them some kind of advantage.

The kids went on several field trips during the last weeks of school. Dani’s class went to a ranch and had fun panning for garnets. A few kids found some nice stones.

Andrea and Robbie put up an electric fence in the field below our lane, to divide off the hay field from the swampier side that we can’t cut for hay. We moved the cows to that side where they can graze for a week or so. That pasture stays wet all summer and is too boggy for haying equipment, but grows back 2 or 3 times for our rotational grazing.

Later that day Andrea and I rode Breezy and Ed to check the fence around our little hill pasture, to make sure the range cows won’t get into it. Several of the wires were off in the posts in the gully at the far corner, and we had to fix that spot.

Our water problems are starting early this year. There is lots of water in creek but not much in our 2 ditches that come through the Gooch place. Alfonzo keeps damming them off to use most of the water on his fields and isn’t letting very much come on down to our place, even though we have a prior water right for those ditches.

We have the opposite problem on the upper place, where Michael and Carolyn are trying to irrigate their fields. They have plenty of water, and are sharing their wild meadow ditch with Barb Peets (who lives on the small acreage below them, around the hill from the wild meadow). She wanted more water for her little pastures and to keep her pond full. But the neighbor below Peets, Bob Loucks, keeps sneaking into the upper place and shutting down their headgate on that ditch. He claims they are flooding him. There’s water subbing out of the ground just above his house.

The actual problem was the wet spring (lots of rain), saturated ground, and the pond that Peets’ dug 35 years ago as a swimming hole for their kids. They run their ditch into that pond, and it was very full all spring. It actually doesn’t hold water very well; some of the water seeps out the bottom. There seems to be an underground water course from that pond. When we were leasing the Gooch place (for 40 years), we started having problems with a bog near the top end of the field below Loucks’ place, after Peets’ created their pond. There was a large area that we couldn’t cut for hay anymore (the machinery would sink into the bog) so we just used that part of the field for cow pasture in the fall.

Alfonzo finally turned out his cows on the range last Thursday, so they are no longer jammed in the little field that our ditch comes through.

That evening we went to the school’s Spring Concert to hear Sam and Charlie play in their band concert (Charlie on the trombone, Sam with her trumpet), and singing in their chorus. The kids all did a great job.

A few days ago we moved the machinery and the brush pile out of the pen below the lane. The brush was from the fence rebuilding project this past winter. With those obstacles out of the way, I put the old gray horses out there to have a bit of green grass. Veggie is now 30 and Rubbie is 29. They are happy to be out on grass again. 

A couple days ago Andrea and I rode Sprout and Dottie (Sprout’s first ride this year), and then that evening I went with my brother Rocky and his wife Bev to the cemetery. We put wildflowers (a lovely arrangement Bev created) on my parents’ grave.

Yesterday Andrea and Lynn had breakfast downtown with Lynn’s sister Jenelle, his sister-in-law Nita and her daughter, and his nephew Craig (who drove over here from Washington).

Then several of them went out to the cemetery -- Andrea, Lynn, his sister Jenelle, and his nephew Craig -- to put flowers on Lynn and Jenelle’s parents’ graves.

Afterward Craig came out to the ranch to visit us, and to see Andrea’s house (which he had never seen). That afternoon Andrea and I trimmed horses’ feet—Sprout, Dottie, and Veggie. Their feet were too long, and starting to crack and break. We need shoes very soon on the ones we are riding. 

Today we patched the electric wire the deer tore down last night—before the cows got out into the hay field. Then Andrea went to Dani’s end-of-school track meet. Tomorrow will be the last day of school for the kids. They had an awards assembly this afternoon; Sam and Charlie each received music awards, and Sam got a special award from her teachers for being the friendliest 7th grader.  

All the kids are eager for summer vacation. Several of Em’s friends graduated this year (she finished her GED a year ahead of her class) and this photo was taken at graduation--of Em and her best hockey buddy (Audra) and the old gentleman who helped sponsor several of the hockey kids. 

JUNE 15 – Two weeks ago I put front shoes on Sprout; she was becoming too tender-footed and I couldn’t wait until Michael had time to shoe her.

The middle school had an end-of-school party for the kids, and Andrea took photos of the kids before they went to that event. 

That evening Andrea and Robbie took the kids fishing. The next day Dani’s friend Sekowa came out to stay with Dani a couple days. They always have a lot of fun together and Sekowa loves to ride horses. Andrea and I took the girls riding—Sam rode Breezy, and Dani and Sekowa rode Ed double. That old mare is a jewel; she didn’t mind the extra weight of those two giggling girls.

A couple days later Michael put hind shoes on Sprout, and shod Ed and Dottie for me. Breezy can probably get by a little longer without shoes, since she has very strong, hard feet and isn’t being ridden very much. 

We’re still having water problems. Bob shut off Michael’s ditch again, and Alfonzo is stealing our water before it gets to heifer hill! 

Last Saturday we moved the cows from the little pasture below the lane and put them down in the post-pile pasture. We are rotating them through several small pastures until we can get the hayfields cut and some grass growing back on those fields—IF we get enough irrigation water to get adequate regrowth.

We had a streak of hot weather, and our high snow on the mountains is about gone. Our high water is past; the creek is dropping. We hope to get the hay off a little early this year so we’ll still have enough water to irrigate the fields afterward.

Our old machinery needs lots of maintenance. Robbie took one of the balers apart last week and we ordered the new parts we’ll need for fixing it.

Last Monday morning there was a lot of bawling down in the post-pile pasture when I went out to do chores, so I hiked down there and discovered a stray calf was in with our cows. Several range cattle had gotten into Alfonzo’s field down below our place, and one of their calves had come up through our fence. The calf was very wild, and ran into the middle of our group of cattle that had come to greet me. I waited awhile until the calf’s mother’s bawling finally got his attention and he went back down to the fence. I quietly started down toward him to try to take him along the fence to hopefully find a weak spot where he’d come through, but those wild range cows took off, and the calf went ballistic and crashed over/through the fence like a wild animal.

Then I walked along the fence in the bushes and found a spot where he might have come in—and patched it with a bunch of tree branches. That morning we called Alfonzo to tell him there were range cows in his hayfield. He was unaware that the range neighbors on that side had moved their cattle into the area next to our places, and he would soon have a field full of cows because he’d left his back gate open! So he was grateful that we told him about those cows.

I’ve been letting Ed graze several hours each day in the lane by my hay shed, to gaze down the tall grass before we stack new hay in there. She enjoys the green grass!

We had a storm and very strong wind a few days ago, and it blew the tarp off the bales of hay in the pen below the lane. Now the weather has turned hot again. Michael, Nick and Robbie are very busy building fences for a lot of people around our valley, and are now starting very early in the mornings (before sunup) so they can beat the heat and get most of their work done before late afternoon.

Andrea has been doing all our irrigating again this year, trying to keep the fields green and growing—to grow our hayfields and pastures. Her dogs love to go with her as she goes around to all the fields to change the water, and I snapped this photo as they came through our driveway.

Last Tuesday Andrea took Lynn over to Missoula, Montana for his doctor’s appointment with the neurosurgeon/back specialist. After looking at the MRI results, Dr. Mack said that he would not be able to do anything surgically to help Lynn’s back; there is too much damage and deterioration. But he did prescribe some medication that he says is safer than the pain meds and Tylenol that Lynn has been taking (which is hard on kidneys and liver) and told him to try it. This is actually an anti-seizure medication and works on about half the patients who try it for back pain. Lynn has been taking it, and it does help—but he only takes it at night because it makes him drowsy. He’s getting much better sleep than he’s had for many years!

Andrea and I have been riding Sprout and Dottie a few times, to start getting them back in shape again. When we came home from a long ride Wednesday afternoon, we repaired some old fence along the lane above the post-pile pasture and let the cows in there for a couple of days, since they were running out of grass. Then we let the cows graze our stackyard above the corrals for one day.

Alfonzo and Millers finally moved their cattle out of the low range pasture and took them to the middle range. Then we were able to move our cows to our little hill pasture above our house. We always have to wait until the range cows are gone, to make sure no bulls try to come through the fence and breed our cows. We don’t put our bulls in with our cows until late June. We don’t want our cows bred this early, or the fence torn down. We especially don’t want our cows bred to Alfonzo’s bulls because that would put our cows at risk for several diseases that we don’t want in our herd.

Andrea, Sam and Dani and I rode over the low range to make sure there were no range cattle left behind in the low pasture, and didn’t see any, so we went ahead and moved our cows and calves to the hill pasture. I took this photo of Dani as we were looking for stray cows.

Robbie and Andrea helped Lynn haul water troughs up there, and finally got our old pump started—and pumped water for the cows from our ditch across the road. Andrea made sure there was enough water in the ditch, early that morning, but just before we started pumping, Alfonzo changed the water in the field above us and the water flow cut down drastically—and was also murky and brown from the tail water coming into it from the filthy pasture where he’d confined his cows to feed them! So our cows had to contend with dirty water, their first few days on that hill pasture. 

Robbie got our baler put back together after we had the plunger welded, and hopefully the old thing will work better than it did last year. Lynn loaded manure from our bull corral for David Yoder (who brought down his little trailer) for his garden. 

Charlie took his second level test (now that he has earned his ham radio operator’s license) and passed it, so now he is determined to take the highest level test.

On Sunday Emily drove out here to take photos for young Heather and her fiancé for their wedding invitations, and showed us her new car. She borrowed $8000 at the bank (her first loan, to start establishing her credit) to purchase this 2008 Chevrolet. It is in really great shape and gets good mileage, and is bright red—her favorite color.

Day before yesterday the range cattle next to our back field were pressing our fence, and that evening we could hear bulls bellowing and fighting. We went down there to make sure they hadn’t crashed through the fence, and they were dispersing by the time we got there. But the next morning when Andrea went down there to change water in that field, she discovered that cattle had knocked the fence down and gotten into our field. They’d mashed down some of the hay. Andrea propped the fence back up again.

Andrea, Dani and I rode that afternoon and chased some range cattle away from the fence. That evening Robbie helped us set some steel posts in the fence to hold it up.

Andrea has a very sore, red eye, ever since a branch hit her in the eye when we were riding through some brush. She went to the eye doctor, who sent her to an eye specialist in Idaho Falls, so she and Carolyn drove over there early this morning. Andrea was able to go to the eye doctor late morning, and then to meet with the court-appointed mediator in the custody case.

The mediator met with Andrea, and with Mark (separately, in another room) and tried to encourage them to work out some kind of compromise so this case won’t have to go to trial. The mediator was very good, and Andrea was willing to make some concessions (and let Mark off easier on his contempt of court judgment and give him more time to get her name off the mortgage without him having to sell his house) but Mark refused to budge. I guess he’d rather spend thousands of dollars on a trial trying to save a few hundred dollars in child support! He doesn’t really care about the kids (and his girlfriend hates them) and this whole battle seems to stem from the fact he wants to take the kids away from Andrea and not have to pay child support! We’d hoped for a miracle and some kind of peaceful resolution without having to go to court, but we are not surprised that the mediation attempt didn’t work.

JUNE 30 – What erratic weather! The last couple days have been in the 90’s, while just two weeks ago we had morning temperatures below freezing! The weather was so cool for several days that the cows on the hill pasture didn’t drink much water and we only had to pump water for them three times to fill the tanks while they were on that pasture. One of those mornings it was so cold that Lynn and Andrea had trouble getting the pump started.

The range cows on the other side of our place have been pressing our fence along the back field, and last Saturday Michael, Robbie and Justin (the high school graduate who has been helping on their fencing jobs) built a sturdy jack fence along the lower end of that field so the range cows can never push the fence over again. There’s a spring there that keeps the ground boggy and it’s hard to keep posts upright when the cattle keep reaching and pushing to get through the fence, which they always try to do when the range grass is dry or gone. They want to get into our green fields. The jack fence should solve the problem.

The next day Andrea and Robbie set steel posts along the ditch in our field above the corrals, and put up a hot wire so we can graze the strip along the ditch like we did last year. We put the cows there when we brought them down from the hill pasture, and put the yearling heifers (from the upper swamp pasture) with them.

Willow went under her hot wire again. She’s always reaching under it for grass, even though it’s 4 strands of electrified tape. She got clear under it and then couldn’t figure out how to get back, and was stuck between the electric fence and the boundary fence of her pen. I rescued her, but two days later she did it again. That time she was stuck in the little corner by the crab-apple tree.

We have the tree fenced out of her pen because we don’t want her eating all the apples (fallen and reachable ones) when they ripen, since overeating on them can cause colic. So, I took down the hot wires and extricated her, and moved her to another pen (our extra calving pen next to the house). She can live there until we rebuild her fence with no-climb netting—something she can’t chew on--so it won’t need to be augmented with electric wire to keep her from destroying the wood fence. She is too smart, and figures out ways to nibble right next to an electric wire without getting shocked.

Andrea has been diligently irrigating, trying to keep our fields growing, but she’s been constantly short of water on our shared ditches that come down through the Gooch place. Alfonzo keeps using his share and some of ours, too. Last week she was very short of water for heifer hill and hiked up the ditch to see what was wrong. She found that Alfonzo had stuffed a bunch of net wrap and hay twine in the ditch to divert the water out before it could come down to our place. She spent about 30 minutes digging and pulling about 80 pounds of saturated junk out of the ditch and headgate, and strained her shoulders and back.

Alfonzo has been using his little tractor to make lots of small ditches out of the big ditch, to take more water out. A few days ago he parked his little tractor on the hill above the country road. It seems to have a bad battery and he has to roll it downhill to start it. The next morning the poor little tractor was upside down in the field. It had apparently rolled down off the hill, across the road, through the fence and tipped over next to the ditch.

Lynn started cutting hay, on our back field across the creek. Andrea went with him for a few rounds, to show him where the wet spots were, to avoid getting stuck. She had to move a newborn mule deer fawn out of the tall hay; fortunately she saw it before he swather ran over it. It was so tiny and new! The mama came back for it and found it; Lynn saw them together a little later. 

Last week Bob Loucks called a big water meeting at his house, theoretically in an attempt to resolve the water issues but more obviously to tell us all what he wants us all to do regarding our own ditches. He told us he would have a lawyer there to interpret the legal aspects, but the lawyer refused to come (Bob doesn’t have any legal right to stop Michael and Carolyn from using their decreed water right). Bob also wanted us all to go to regulation so Michael and Carolyn would have to shut down their water use, but the creek is not that short yet. We agreed to share our ditch water with Alfonzo 50-50 until we actually go into regulation (at which time we would have the prior right) but the very next day Alfonozo took all our water again! I’m afraid this is going to be another stressful summer on Withington Creek. 

We had all the kids here for dinner Thursday evening when they came home from their week with Mark. On Friday Dani and I rode Dottie and Ed and checked the 320 pasture gates and the fence between us and range cattle. I took photos of Dani on Ed as we were heading out to go up Baker Creek, and again on the way home as we passed the colorful rock outcroppings on lower Baker Creek.

Charlie spent the weekend at a ham radio workshop at Rocky’s place and had a great time. Now Charlie plans to learn Morse code along with everything else. 

Saturday Andrea started baling hay down below. We moved some hay out of my hay shed and rearranged the rest so we could start stacking. Lynn finished cutting heifer hill and field below it. 

Sunday morning Michael and Carolyn brought their trailer down and hauled our spare 3-year-old bull (Lightning Strike) and their yearling bull up to the upper place to put the yearling with their heifers and young cows and our big bull with their older cows. Then we sorted our herd and put our 3-year-old bull (Thunderbull) with our cows and calves. We took them to the little pasture above our house, and put our yearling bull with the yearling heifers in the orchard. The grass in there has grown nicely and is about 2 ½ feet tall. It might hold them for a few days and then we’ll put that little group in the horse pasture.

Michael came down that afternoon and showed Robbie how to run our old stackwagon. They stacked 4 loads of hay in my shed. Meanwhile, Lynn was trying to grease the swather before heading out to cut hay below the lane, and discovered a serious problem that needed fixed. Bob Minor was going to Idaho Falls the next day for sprinkler parts and picked up the bearings and parts we needed, to fix the swather.

Range cows broke through Rocky’s fence on his little acreage on the upper place, and were getting into his garden. Michael and Carolyn helped get them out, and Rocky propped up the fence. Those cows are pressing our fences all along that back side—for 3 miles—because they are hungry for green grass. They need to be moved to their next pasture.

These past two days have been really hot. Andrea got most of the hay baled on heifer hill and then the baler broke down just before she finished. Robbie worked on it that night and got it working again, so yesterday she finished baling that field and the little field below it. Dani and I rode Ed and Dottie, so Dani could get a ride before she has to go back to her dad for a week.

With the swather fixed, Lynn started cutting the hay below the lane, and after Robbie got home from helping Michael on a fencing job he stacked hay. So maybe we will eventually get our haying finished!

Ranch Diary: November 17 to December 14, 2015

NOVEMBER 27 – Michael, Nick and Robbie have been putting in a water line for the horse pens at Michael’s place, but had some challenges with big rocks, and accidentally cut the water line to the house--and had to fix it, too. But now they have heated water tubs for the horses in their pens.

Emily had a rough week after her wisdom teeth were removed, but she continued working in spite of pain from the surgery.

Andrea went up to the 320-acre pasture on her 4-wheeler to check ice on the water trough last Tuesday and to check cows. They were nearly out of grass, except for some that’s deeply snow-covered on the north slopes, so she let them into the adjacent 160-acre hill pasture. There were 40 deer in there eating the green regrowth, pawing through the snow. Our cows might as well get to eat some of it before it’s all gone. The cows can have access to the water trough in the fenceline that supplies both pastures.

The next day we noticed a lone bull of Alfonzos on lower place, trying to come up through the fence and get in with our heifers. We wondered why he showed up there; maybe he was fighting with some of Alfonzo’s other bulls and jumped in there when they brought a bunch of cows and bulls up the road a few days earlier. A few days later Alfonzo tried to bring the bull up the road on foot to put on Gooch place with his other cattle, but the bull charged back past him and went back into the field below our heifers. Alfonzo just left him there and didn’t try to anything else with him—and left the next day to go to Mexico for the winter. He goes every winter, leaving neighbors to take care of his cattle.

Andrea’s kids went to hockey practice a few nights, then Andrea realized they can’t do hockey this year. Andrea doesn’t have the time nor money for hockey trips, with the custody battle and lawyer expenses—which we are all trying to help with.

Sam and Charlie are getting really good on the trumpet and trombone, playing in the pep band for basketball games at the high school.

Last Thursday it snowed all day and the roads were very slippery, and treacherous going to town and to the school bus. The storm continued through that evening and we ended up with several inches of new snow.

Friday morning the kids had to get up at 4 a.m. because Andrea had to take them to Idaho Falls to meet with the parenting evaluator (for the custody case), and Emily had a checkup with the dental surgeon.

Our good friend and former pastor Stillman Bond came to visit, and loaned us the September 1957 issue of LOOK magazine, which he found in the church archives. It had an article on Methodism, and many photos of my father (as a “modern day circuit rider” tending his congregation in far-flung regions of our county, when I was a child). We had a good visit with Stillman, and gave him a couple of my new books for Christmas.

On Saturday the temperature dropped below zero. Andrea helped me do chores and break ice for the horses. We started feeding the heifers a little alfalfa hay even though they still have some grass in their pasture. Alfonzo’s bull was pressing on the fence, wanting to come through it.

Andrea went with Lynn and me to 320 on his 4-wheeler to break ice on water trough so the cows could drink. There was 2 inches of ice that we broke and scooped out with a shovel. The battery was dead on the 4-wheeler; Lynn had to pull start it and was going to just leave it running while we were up there, but he forgot—and turned it off. It was even more difficult to pull-start it again, but it was either that or walk home!

After we got home, Andrea and I rode Ed and Sprout to move Alfonzo’s bull. He will be trying even harder now to get in with our heifers because we are feeding them, and he is hungry. I rode Ed because Dottie is still not very experienced with difficult cattle. Carolyn came down on her 4-wheeler, and granddaughter Heather rode down on her horse Danny. We started to bring the bull up through field to take him out on the road (to go up to the Gooch place, to put him with Alfonzo’s other cattle) but he charged at our horses. Alfonzo makes his cattle wild and mean by the way he mishandles them.

Not wanting to get anyone hurt, we gave up trying to herd the bull, and got some of Alfonzo’s cows from the Gooch place to bring down and put with the bull, and then we were able to take them all back up the road together, and put them back in the Gooch place. The sun had gone down by the time we finished, and it was getting very cold.

On Sunday afternoon Andrea and I rode Sprout and Dottie to the 160/320 to break ice again on the trough (2 inches thick again) and scooped out all the ice with a shovel and rake.

 Afterward Andrea didn’t want snow/ice on her boots (to make them slippery in her stirrups) so she scraped her feet on the pole fence to get the ice off the bottom of her boots, then got on Sprout from the fence!

It was sundown and cold by the time we got home. We quickly did chores, then I cooked dinner for the whole family and kids after they got back from Mark's.

The weather was cold for several days. Andrea and I rode up to the 160 each day to break ice. One day we noticed a new big hole in Alfonzo’s fence along the road, next to his gate into the Gooch place, and stopped to fix it before his cows got out. Earlier this year he had set some new posts and leaned the old, falling down fence against the new posts, but the wires were never stapled onto posts. His cows had knocked some of the wires clear off and made a big hole. His cows are very hungry because they ran out of grass on the Gooch place several weeks ago and no one is feeding them yet, so they are trying to get out.

It was warm for a couple days, and melting snow on top of the ice was very slippery. Our tractor was spinning out a lot when we got big bales off the stack for our heifers and bulls. Jim (Emily’s dad) helped Lynn put chains on the tractor so it won’t be so hard next time. Jim will be staying at Andrea’s house for a couple months, until he flies to Florida to build a big antler chandelier for a client, and then goes back to work again for the outfitter/hunting guide in Montana. Andrea and Robbie will help him clean out and fix up the old trailer house here in our barnyard (that Michael & Carolyn used as a calving camp in earlier years) for him to use as a shop this winter, to build the lamps and chandeliers that he sells.

That evening we had an early Thanksgiving, before the kids had to go out to Mark’s place for the Thanksgiving holiday. Andrea cooked a turkey and we had a really nice dinner at her place.

The kids had a lot of fun, and we all enjoyed it.

The next day we had 4 inches of fresh snow on top of what we already had, but the cows are still out grazing on the 160.

Two cow elk stayer for several days the hill behind Andrea’s house. Dani helped us feed heifers Wednesday evening, and enjoyed pulling one of the sleds full of alfalfa, and helping scatter the hay.

With the deep snow we’ve started feeding them twice a day. Dani always likes to pet her favorite heifer, Deerling, every time she helps feed.

Our driveways are slippery again. Em’s little car spun out on her way home, and she didn’t make it up the last hill to Andrea’s house. She had to back down Andrea’s driveway and leave her car in our barnyard.

Yesterday it was 4 below zero, with high of 17 degrees. Lynn put an elk panel across the corner of Breezy’s pen where the deer are crawling through into the stackyard to try to get into our alfalfa bales. It was windy and cold for riding, so Andrea and I drove up the creek, parked the pickup at the bottom of the 160, and hiked up to the trough to break ice.

Robbie got our feed truck running again, and brought a few little bales of grass hay around to feed to the heifers along with their alfalfa, since their pasture is snowed under. This morning it was 9 below zero, with a high of 12 above, and we decided it was time to bring the cows down to our fields, where the grass isn’t completely snowed under yet, and it will be easier to break ice for them at the creek instead of having to go clear up to the 160 every day. Michael and Carolyn want to put their cows on the wild meadow and road pasture (to water at the creek in the wild meadow), so they needed to move their horses out of the wild meadow. Michael and Nick were working on a custom fencing job that day, so Carolyn and Heather took shoes off their horses and trimmed feet, moved their horses to different fields, and then Andrea and I rode Sprout and Ed up to meet them at their corral. We gathered the cows off the 160 and bought them down.

Then we sorted them in the corral, leaving their cows (to graze their upper fields and roadside hill pasture that hasn’t been grazed at all this year). Andrea and I brought ours down the road to our place, and made it past the Gooch place without Alfonzo’s cows jumping out (they tried to get out and come with us).

We put ours in the heifer hill pasture where there is still some grass that hasn’t completely snowed under.

DECEMBER 4 – We had several nights below zero, with a high of only 10 to 12 degrees in the daytime. Andrea helped me break ice for all the horses, and broke ice on the creek for the cows (on heifer hill) and bulls in the corral. She checked the water for the two old cows in the lower field, but they are still able to drink from a spring that’s not freezing over very much. The heifers in the field below the lane are appreciating their heated water tank; they drink more water than they would otherwise on a cold day/night and its one less chore not having to break ice for them.

Emily and her dad (Jim) went hunting a couple times, trying for an elk during the muzzle-loader season, but didn’t get close enough to shoot any. Andrea and Lynn took salt to our cows on heifer hill and Andrea patched the fence along the horse road where the deer have knocked out a lot of staples. I cooked another big dinner for the whole family Sunday night, when the kids got back from Mark’s place. They all love roast beef, potatoes and gravy!

Sam didn’t have as big an appetite as usual, however, and mentioned that she’d had pain in her lower abdomen the past 3 days when she was out at Mark’s, and that she hadn’t been eating very much, and just lying around resting because of the pain. Mark and Dawn didn’t pay any heed to her complaints, however, and told her to just eat a few antacid Tums. Sam was miserable for 3 days.

Andrea tried to make a doctor appointment for Sam the next morning, but because of the location of the pain (and possible appendicitis) she was told to just take Sam to the ER. The ER doctor did a CT scan and also gave Sam an IV dye to check things out. Her appendix seems OK but the poor kid has a possible ovary problem, and also has gallstones! She may have to be careful what she eats. The thing that worries us is that Mark and Dawn don’t seem to have much concern about the children’s health problems; they are irresponsible guardians. Andrea spent 6 hours with Sam in the ER as the doctor did all the tests and finally determined what was causing the pain. He gave her a few suggestions on things to do to help ease the pain.

We got new tires for Em’s car, with good traction, so now she can make it up and down the driveway even in snowy, icy conditions to get to and from her job. Jim split the cost of the tires with us.

Every chance she gets, Dani helps us with chores. She likes to walk among the heifers and get them used to her, and pets her favorite heifer again.

I wrote our family Christmas letter and started mailing it to friends. I didn’t have as much time this year to make cards, so most people will simply get letters.

On Wednesday Andrea took Sam to the doctor again to have her foot checked, with another x-ray. The bone in her heel is slow to mend and she has to be on crutches for ANOTHER three weeks.

Jim has the old trailer house functional now as a shop, with the chimney cleaned out and the stove working. Andrea helped him string a power cord across the creek from our barn, so he has electricity for light and for his saws and equipment for working on the antlers and wood he uses to create lamps, chandeliers, etc. Jim and Robbie borrowed a trailer from a friend and hauled some tools and other things out here from his storage shed in town, so he’s now able to work on his projects. He has several to complete before the next trade show he plans to attend.

Alfonzo’s starving cows have done poorly in the sub-zero weather, with no feed. We called John Miller, the Amish neighbor around the hill who helps Alfonzo sometimes, and asked what the plan was for those cows. John told us that several neighbors were going to take turns feeding them this winter while Alfonzo is in Mexico. We told John the cows were in bad shape, bawling at every vehicle driving past on the road, hoping for food. So the Amish brought their little tractor up a few days ago and fed a few big bales of hay from the stackyard on the Gooch place, but the cows are only being fed every other day or so. A couple days after they started feeding hay, one of the skinny old cows just lay down in the feed trail and died. The cows also broke into the haystack and are eating on it.

This afternoon Dani rode with Andrea and me to check our cows on heifer hill, and we were glad the horses have good shoes and good traction on the slippery snow.

Then we rode on up to the Gooch place to check our ditch (to make sure there’s no water leaking into it from the creek, to create an ice flow) and to check our weir and make sure Alfonzo’s cows haven’t trampled it (since it’s right behind the haystack they are ganged around). While we were there we took photos of the dead cow and some of the emaciated cattle. Those poor cows needed to have some hay long before now; the skinny ones were losing even more weight all through the sub-zero weather. He has some skinny crippled cows that can hardy get around.

DECEMBER 14 – We’ve had several more snowstorms the past 10 days. The cows grazed all the tall feed on heifer hill and were happily enjoying the short green regrowth until it snowed under on December 5. Andrea and I moved them to the field by her house the next morning. She walked ahead and called them, and they followed her, and I followed the cows. Some of them were hesitant to cross the bridge, and the last 4 refused to walk over it, and went alongside it, across the creek, instead. They fell through the ice and were in water up to their bellies, but managed to flounder on through it and up the far bank. They were enjoying the little bit of green regrowth on that new field--rooting through the snow to eat it--and quite a bit of rough feed around the edges.

Rocky and Bev (my brother and his wife) have now moved into their new house on the upper end of the ranch. There is still some work to be done on finishing it, but it was functional enough for them to move in. Last Saturday they had a group of friends with pickups and trailers haul a lot of their furniture and other things from their storage shed in town.

That Sunday I cooked another big dinner for Andrea and kids, Robbie and Jim, for when the kids got home again from Mark’s house. The next day the weather warmed up and we got a little rain instead of snow. Robbie helped Michael and Nick finish a fencing project just before the weather turned nasty.

It changed to snow by evening and the roads were treacherous again. By Tuesday morning there was ice on everything. Highway 93 South was blocked for several hours by a wreck, and it was too slippery for the buses to run, so school was closed that day. Jim spent the morning shoving dirt onto our driveway and Andrea’s so it would be safe to drive in and out. She often drives her 4-wheeler down here (instead of her car) to help me do chores, because the 4-wheeler has chains on it. Lynn’s black cat loves to sit on her 4-wheelr while we feed the heifers.

Then our weather warmed up and it was windy and thawing on Wednesday, with rain and snow blizzards off and on through the day. It cleared off by late afternoon, and the Amish neighbors brought Alfonzo’s cows down the road past our place and put them on the lower fields just below ours. We’re hoping Alfonzo’s bulls won’t try to get in with our heifers!

The next day it snowed again, with slick roads and treacherous footing around the barnyard with snow on top of ice. Andrea and Robbie spread sand in the places where we walk around to do chores, so no one will fall down. Andrea moved the two cows from our lower back field (the ones that were too old to spend the fall on the 320) and moved them up with the main herd. We don’t want them attracting Alfonzo’s starving cows through the fence into our place.

On Friday (no school) Andrea and Robbie took kids, dogs and sleds up the creek to get a Christmas tree, and they had a lot of fun sledding.

Even Sam got to sled a bit; they pulled her sled, and she didn’t have to walk very much on her crutches in the snow.

On Saturday they put up their little tree in the playroom, and Dani decorated it. She was quite proud of her beautiful project.

Sunday (yesterday) we had nasty weather again, and decided we need to give the heifers more grass hay because their pasture will probably be snowed under the rest of the winter. Lynn, Andrea and Robbie brought a big bale feeder around to that field, and today we put a big bale in it for them to work on whenever they wish—without so much of the hay being laid on, pooped in, and wasted. Then we can feed them a little less alfalfa—and maybe the deer won’t eat so much of the alfalfa! The deer are coming into that field and eating with the heifers, but they only want the alfalfa and won’t bother their grass hay. We also started feeding our cows today (two weeks earlier than last year) because we had several inches of new snow this morning on top of what we already had. Even though they still have grass left in the field by Andrea’s house, it is deeply snowed under and the cows are discouraged! It’s time to feed them.

Meanwhile, my new book, Ranch Tales, is now published. The press release (shown below) has a nice photo of the front cover. Anyone who wants to order one can contact the publisher, me, or any bookseller.