Ranch Diary – August 10 through September 8, 2016

AUGUST 18 – It’s been a dry summer and we’ve had problems on our creek with irrigation water; a couple of neighbors have been using more water than their allotted portions and shortchanging the rest of us. Last week the Idaho Department of Water Resources sent a letter to all water users on our creek, stating that everyone must have lockable headgates by August 19^th.

We welded additions to our headgates and made them lockable, and even put our own locks on until the watermaster can come around and put his lock on them, since someone has occasionally been tampering with our headgates.

Michael and Carolyn’s dog Fred was bitten by a rattlesnake last week. She suffered two bites: one on her nose and another on the side of her face. Fortunately all their dogs received the anti-venom vaccine this spring, or the swelling would have been worse and she might have suffocated. Even so, they had to give her dexamethasone and an antihistamine for several days to reduce the swelling. She’s doing fine now, but she looked pretty sad with her swollen, droopy face; she looked like a Saint Bernard on one side.

There’s been a family of cougars roaming our creek—two big females, and kittens. They’ve killed several deer on our upper place, and one evening some hunters were driving down the creek just before dark, and saw the two females stalking Classy (Carolyn’s mare) and the yearlings. The horses didn’t even know the cats were there, creeping up behind them. One of the cougars was just about to pounce on Classy, so one of the hunters shot at the cougar to scare it away, and the other hunter took photos. They later sent some of the photos to Carolyn.

Cougar stalking Classy

Last week Michael hauled our 3-year-old bull (Thunderbull) to the sale at Butte, Montana. We have to wait awhile to sell the other bull, after treating him for foot rot, so we’ll send him to a sale in September.

Michael and Carolyn hauled their young bull down to our corral and we put him with our yearling bull to spend the winter here again.
They found their missing calf, the one they feared was dead. He had a broken shoulder and wasn’t able to walk much, and was living in a patch of brush up on the hillside. Carolyn got him down off the hill, but his mother is the mean cow that tried to knock Carolyn down in the ditch this spring. As Carolyn was bringing the calf down to the field across the creek to join the cow herd, his mama tried to charge at her 4-wheeler.

On Thursday Andrea and Carolyn drove to Idaho Falls for Andrea’s appointment with her pain doctor and to meet with Andrea’s lawyer to prepare for the custody trial and to take Mark’s deposition. Lynn brought Charlie home from his drivers’ education class that morning. Sam and Dani had breakfast here and then we rode to check the 320 gates and fences. We trotted along the way, wherever the trail was relatively flat and not too steep.

Sam and Breezy

Sammy and Dani trotting up to the 320 acre pasture

Those girls enjoy riding, and also enjoy getting up into the mountains to check our upper pastures; we always see wildlife and it’s always a fun experience.

riding through the 320

When we rode up Baker Creek through the timber, we had to move a fallen tree off the top trail. I held their horses while they pushed it around and down off the bank.

Later that afternoon, after we got home, I checked the cows in our back field, and discovered that the fence getting worse between our field and Alfonso’s field. The deer going through it and trees falling down on it have compromised it. We moved the cows on Saturday to heifer hill, then Andrea and I rode around our Cheney Creek fence and propped up several bad spots and put in staples where the wires have been knocked off. There is a stray bull in there, from the neighboring range, and 3 more bulls above the fence. These bulls were left behind by those range users when they moved their cattle to their next pasture.

That evening I heard a rattlesnake in the tall grass by Sprout’s pen when I did chores but I couldn’t get to it quickly enough to kill it. The snake went through the tall patch of stinging nettle and down through the brush toward the creek.

Sunday Robbie worked on our old jeep and also changed the oil in Andrea’s pickup. Andrea and I rode Shiloh and Dottie more than 3 hours –up the ridge to the 320 to check all those fences and gates--and then went out the ridge gate and around to big salt ground on high range and down Baker creek. Halfway down Baker Creek we found a big calf of Millers that had been freshly killed by wolves. The head and front end hadn’t been touched yet, and the blood was still fresh in the ribcage and the contents of the rumen were still moist and fresh, but the hindquarters had been nearly all eaten.

calf killed in Baker Creek by wolves

hindquarters mostly eaten

As we rode on down the creek we found a smaller calf’s carcass. It was killed about a quarter mile below the first dead calf, just above our 320.

smaller calf killed by wolves in Baker Creek

Andrea sent the photos from her phone to our neighbor Mike Davis who hunts wolves and cougars. He thought it looked like a wolf kill, and told us to call the Fish and Game Department.

Mike told us that a rancher about 9 miles from us, Joe Caywood, lost several cows early this spring, killed by a pack of wolves. After those losses were confirmed to be wolf kills, the government trapper (Eric Simonson) hunted that pack from the air and killed 6 of them, but 3 wolves got away. Perhaps they are the ones that are now killing livestock in our area. This is probably what happened to Miller’s cow that we found dead on the low range earlier this summer; she had struggled downhill, leaving a drag trail behind her, as would have happened if the wolves hamstrung her and were pulling her down as she tried to get away.

After our ride, I trimmed and smoothed Shiloh’s feet with a rasp so she won’t chip and break them, traveling through the rocks. She is still doing fine barefoot, thanks to her tough, hard feet.

Andrea and I rode again on Monday, and checked on the dead calves in Baker Creek. The big calf was nearly all eaten by then, and what was left of the carcass had been rolled over a log and down the hill.

calf carcass after 2nd day of wolves eating on it

We made a loop down through Basco and discovered that the water trough was not working (and I took pictures of it) – just like the Baker Creek troughs. Once again, Millers and Alfonso’s cattle are very short of water on the range, just like last year. They haven’t been checking on or maintaining their water sources.

Andrea riding Shiloh in Basco area 

Basco trough not working at all

Our weather has been hot again and the creek is lower. Gary shut down our water again, but Alfonso is still using some at night illegally. Gary and Cindy Yenter (the Idaho Department of Water Resources person who is Gary’s boss) came out and put locks on everyone’s lockable headgates but Alfonso’s aren’t lockable yet.

Robbie, Nick and Michael have been going to the woods the past several days, getting firewood.

Rubbie and Veggie ran out of grass on their little pasture, so Tuesday I moved those old grey horses to the back yard to graze.

Veggie & Rubbie in the back yard

I also fixed Willow’s water tub. We have to keep it up off the ground on a big tire so she can’t paw it, but she has been straddling the tub to scratch on it. We had to move the tire and tub into a corner and snap the tub to the fence so she can’t itch her tummy on it and knock it off the tire!

That evening Rubbie was squealing at Rishiam in the adjacent pen, and trying to get through the fake hotwire barrier we put between the old greys and the fence. Lynn and I went out at dark and put a real hot wire along the top of the fake one so Rubbie won’t crash through it to try to fight Rishiam. As I was coming back to the house in the dark, I heard a rattlesnake in the tall grass. It went under the old water tank we’ve used in the past as a vegetable garden. Lynn went to get a flashlight, and about that time Andrea and Robbie came down to our house to help us. They found the snake with the flashlight and Andrea killed it with a shovel—before it had a chance to bite the horses.


Yesterday was very hot. I reset Ed’s front shoes then did 5 interviews later that day, then Andrea and I made a short ride over the low range on Shiloh and Dottie, getting Shiloh settled in enough for Sam to ride.

Today it was 95 degrees. Watermaster Gary thinks we are stealing water because our place is green, not taking into consideration the fact we got our hay cut and harvested very early so we could water the fields again before the creek got short of water, and the fact that Andrea has been doing a very diligent job of irrigating.


We rode Shiloh and Dottie again this afternoon for 3 hours. We up Baker creek and checked on the wolf kills. There’s nothing left now but a few bones. We made another loop around the high range, checking to see if there were any more problems, but we didn’t see any more dead cattle.

Andrea riding Shiloh checking high range

AUGUST 30 – Last week I put new front shoes on Dottie; her old ones were worn out.

Andrea changed water every day and took Dani to cross-country practice and Charlie to driver’s education classes.

We caught one of the raccoon that’s been chasing the cats off and eating their food. We caught him in a live trap, and transported him a few miles away. Hopefully he won’t come back here to steal cat food!

Raccoon in trap

Andrea took her kids on a camping trip. It was their last chance this summer, before school starts. Lynn changed some of our irrigation water the 2 days Andrea was gone. He can’t hike very much anymore with his bad back and hip problems, so he rode the 4-wheeler.

Lynn on 4-wheeler

Dani’s best friend Sekoya went with them and had fun on the camping trip. I took a photo of the two girls and dogs when they came home.

girls & dogs

A tree fell over the power line along the road below our ranch on Saturday evening and we were without power several hours.

The old grey horses grazed down the back yard, so we moved them to the hold pen next to Shiloh so they can graze it, and moved our cows into the field below heifer hill. The cows are always easy to move; we just call them, open the gate, and get out of the way! They are enjoying the new green pasture.

Lynn calling the cows 

Lynn opening the gate

cows coming through the gate into new pasture

cows enjoying the new pasture

We are still short of irrigation water, and Alfonso’s headgates are still not lockable and he is still using extra water (that he’s not entitled to) at night.

Last Monday Andrea and I rode with the girls 3 ½ hours to check fences and gates on the 320. I took a photo as we rode up the ridge to the 320.

Andrea on Shiloh, and girls riding Breezy & Ed to the 320

Then we rode up into high range. The girls wanted to see the location where the wolves killed the calves. We rode up Baker Creek and we showed the girls where the dead calves had been, but by that late date there was no more evidence; the wolves had eaten and/or dragged off everything.

Girls riding up Baker creek on high range

going up Baker creek

When we were coming home through the middle range, Breezy tripped coming down one of the steep trails and the hillside bank gave way. She tripped, somersaulted, and for an instant (as she and Sam both hit the ground) it looked like she was going to roll right over Sam. But that mare used all her strength to do a contorted twist and bring her front end around the other way, to keep from crushing her young rider. Sam’s leg was badly bruised from hitting the ground, but Andrea assessed her leg, comforted Sam, and was able to help Sam get back on the horse. We rode slowly home (3 miles), with Sam dangling that leg (unable to keep her foot in the stirrup because it was too painful). Breezy walked very slowly and carefully, and didn’t try to trot like she usually does on the way home, so as not to jar Sam. She seemed to know that Sam was hurting.

Sam coming home on Breezy - leg dangling

After we got home, Andrea had to hurry to town to take Charlie to his graduation from the driver’s education course (he can now drive on his own with a licensed adult in the car) and took Sam to the ER at the hospital to have her leg checked. Fortunately it was just badly bruised and not broken. When she got home we put ice and DMSO on it to keep down the swelling.

Sam’s leg was doing better by the next day; we all went to a neighbor’s wedding. It was a very nice outdoor wedding. Emily took the wedding photos and Sam took a video for the groom’s uncle who was doing the service. We all enjoyed a barbeque afterward.

Wednesday Sam and Dani helped me clean house. Our friends from Canada, Pete and Bev Wiebe, got here by early afternoon. We visited awhile with them and then had a birthday dinner for Charlie. He’s 15 now!

The next day Andrea and girls and I took Bev for a ride. She hadn’t been on a horse for many years and wanted to ride, so we took her up the ridge to the 320.

taking Bev for a ride

heading up the ridge to the 320

When we got to the little meadow in Baker Creek we had a picnic – letting our horses graze in the meadow by the creek while we ate. Andrea had made peanut butter and honey sandwiches for all of us, so we enjoyed sandwiches and cheese sticks.

picnic with Bev

Pete and Lynn drove up the creek so Pete could see what our upper country looks like. This is the first time Pete and Bev have come to visit in the summer. The snow has always been too deep in winter to drive up in the mountains to show them the country.

Friday afternoon Pete replaced some of our burned-out lightbulbs. Andrea cooked a big spaghetti dinner for all of us at her house, and we had Michael and Carolyn come too. Pete and Bev had never met them.

Saturday they left early to drive all the way home to Kelowna BC.

This past weekend Robbie, Nick and Michael have been cutting and hauling more firewood to several people who want to buy wood for winter, but had a fix a flat tire on the wood trailer.

We moved our cows to the field by Andrea’s house. We’ve been rotating them around the various pastures, hoping to make the green feed last until we sell the calves.

It is really smoky today, with many fires around the region. Andrea and Carolyn left early this morning to drive to Idaho Falls for Andrea’s appointment with her pain doctor and to have cortisone injections into her neck and back.

We ran out of green pasture for the greys, and put them in their winter pens to start feeding them hay again. They both have bad teeth so I have to select the finest grass hay in my stack, something that’s easy to chew. I’m feeding Veggie a little alfalfa along with the grass hay.

SEPTEMBER 8 – Andrea took it easy for a few days after her cortisone shots to try not to overdo and strain her back. Lynn changed some of the water for her, though it’s difficult for him to get around.

Robbie helped Lynn unhook the baler and put the hay fork back on the tractor. Michael hauled 2 loads of barley straw (big square bales) on our flatbed trailer from a neighbor who wanted to sell what was left of his straw. We may be getting some barley hay from him, too, if it tests at a safe level for nitrates.

Last week Andrea’s kids had orientation and are getting ready to start school again. On Thursday Andrea and Carolyn drove to Mud Lake to watch Dani’s track meet and cross country run—the first competition of the season for these young runners.

That afternoon strong winds and lightning started several fires above our ranch in heavy timber between Sal Mountain and K Mountain—above the head of Cheney Creek. Several helicopters worked all afternoon and evening flying buckets of water from the Lemhi River to dump on the fires, and smoke jumpers were lowered into that area by helicopter. We could still see the flames after dark. The smoke was thick--too smoky to open our windows to cool off the house that night. The helicopters dumped more water on it Friday. By Friday evening the fires were nearly under control, and by Saturday they were successfully halted.

Veggie has become very lame and stiff so I started giving him bute every day (pills dissolved in water and molasses and squirted into his mouth) and he’s walking better again. I hope I can keep him comfortable and happy through another winter but that may be a difficult goal, at his age (he was 30 this past spring).

I spent a little time with him last week, and also took photos of some of the other horses, including Willow and Dottie.

Willow

Dottie

We haven’t had time this year to ride 4-year-old Willow and continue her training, so her training program will have to be postponed until next spring. We’ve been too busy this summer with all the crazy things going on, including the custody battle.

This fall we’ve been preparing for the custody trial (Mark is taking Andrea to court, wanting to have the kids for more time; he’s thinking that Andrea would then have to pay him child support). Carolyn has been putting in a lot of hours and work helping Andrea prepare for the case.

It started raining late Sunday night and rained most of the night—the first good rain we’ve had in many weeks. This helped our dry, dry hill pastures and the areas in our fields that have been short on irrigation water.

Andrea and Robbie went that afternoon to the Blackfoot Fair and drove home late that night – in a blizzard!

With all the rain the creek came up even more (it had been up for 4 days, with the cooler weather) and Gary finally adjusted our headgates to allow us our full 70 inches again—so we can hopefully water more of our dry spots.

School started Tuesday. That afternoon Andrea and I made a fast ride on Sprout and Dottie to check the 320 fences and gates. The range cows on the outside are starving, but they haven’t got in yet. Those poor cows look terrible. Alfonso and Millers don’t seem to realize that the only way to effectively use the range and not abuse it or the cows is to keep the troughs working and to ride frequently to make sure things are taken care of, and to encourage the cows to use ALL the grazing areas and not just beat out parts of it and eat those areas into the ground. It didn’t help that they let their cows into the high range two weeks ahead of schedule and now they’ve run out of grass.

Yesterday, after Andrea came home from taking kids to bus she started irrigating along the ditch below our house, then heard our cows all start bellowing. She saw them running down off the hill to the field across the creek. She hurried to our house, grabbed the 22 rifle that we keep inside the door and rushed over there – just in time to see a big wolf going through the field. She got a couple shots at him but he ran off. As she was hiking up to check on a few cows that were still on the hill, another wolf came around the hill, following the first one, and it appeared so suddenly that she didn’t’ have a chance to try to shoot it.

With so many predators around, we have seen several deer kills, in our fields. One little family of mule deer (a doe with 2 fawns and a younger doe with a single) is living in our barnyard, yard and horse pasture. Perhaps they feel safer here by our house.

 

deer in pasture by the house

After Andrea finished irrigating that morning, and we moved the cows from that field across the creek (they were all ganged at the gate wanting to get out of there, after the wolves went through) and brought them to the field below the lane—the last bit of good green pasture. We hope it will last them at least a week or more, and then we will wean the calves and preg-check the cows.

Right now we’re madly preparing for the custody battle –trial dates Sept 13 & 14.

Ranch Diary: April 28 through May 18, 2016

MAY 4 – When Andrea took Sam back to the doctor a week ago to have her elbow checked again, the x-rays showed both bones broken near the growth plate. They are not displaced, and should heal ok if she doesn’t over-extend the elbow (and keeps from moving it very much). The doctor now has her wearing a hinged brace that limits the movement of her elbow.

Last Wednesday Dani came home sick from school and Thursday stayed home from school. She didn’t feel well all day, and slept quite awhile here on our couch while Andrea irrigated and took new bales of hay around for the cows and heifers’ feeders.

She was feeling better by evening. Lynn went to town that day for the MRI on his lower back, and for his physical therapy, and brought Sam home after her physical therapy. Charlie got back that evening from the music trip (with the school band) and Emily picked him up in town.

Everyone was really tired that evening and Lynn went to bed early. I put Maggeriete (nickname Shrek because of her jaunty ears) in the calving pen where I could see her easily from the house. She’s the last one to calve, and she decided to do it that night. I got up and looked at her from the window, not long after I went to bed, and she was obviously in labor, pacing the pen. I watched her awhile and then when she got more serious—in active labor, lying down to strain—I put her in the barn because it was raining. Just after midnight the calf started to come, and the feet (when they appeared) were huge. I called Andrea, and she came down from her house and brought Dani, who insisted on being present when our last cow calved. Andrea and I pulled the calf, and Dani helped get him breathing.           

Shrek is a very gentle cow and knows and trusts Dani (that kid feeds her grass!) and didn’t mind having all three of us in the stall helping with her new baby. Then Andrea took Dani home to bed and came back to help me suckle the calf. He was so big and tall that he didn’t understand how to put his head down low to find the teats. Rather than try to force his head down (which would have made him resist) we simply milked a little colostrum from Shrek into a bottle and got the calf started sucking the bottle. After a taste of that good stuff he was very eager for more, and much more cooperative about following our fingers to suck on—and readily suckled when we stuck a teat in his mouth. He was so big it took a lot of colostrum to fill him up, and we managed to get him on all four teats. By then he was starting to figure out how to get onto them by himself.

About 30 minutes after we finished that task and Andrea went home, the power went off and was off for 2 hours. We were lucky it didn’t go off while we were trying to suckle Shrek’s calf, since it’s very dark in that barn without lights!

It’s a relief to have our last cow calved out! We actually finished 3 weeks quicker than last year and got done calving in just over 4 weeks from start to finish. The next morning we put Shrek and her big boy out of the barn, into a nearby pen. He’s the biggest calf we had this year, and still a bit clumsy.

Dani still wasn’t feeling 100% that day (Friday) and had a fever, so Andrea tried to get a doctor’s appointment for her, but the clinic was booked up and they told her to just wait and take her to the walk-in clinic on Saturday. Andrea took her in early Saturday morning but the doctor’s assistant who examined her said it was just a virus and that she didn’t need any antibiotics.

She still had a fever on Sunday and felt even worse by Monday morning so when Andrea took Charlie and Sam in early to school that morning to get on the bus to go on their next band trip, she took Dani to the ER. The doctor there concluded that she had a serious infection and should have been started on antibiotics two days earlier when Andrea brought her in to the walk-in clinic.

Lynn did his physical therapy again on Monday and got the results from the MRI on his back. It doesn’t look good, and he was referred to a specialist in Missoula, Montana—a neurologist who does back surgery.

Later that day Carolyn and young Heather stopped by and we gave them their belated birthday gifts and belated anniversary gift for Michael and Carolyn. Their anniversary was April 27th.

That night Dani had high fever of 105.3 and Andrea stayed up all night with her, giving a cold shower to get the fever down, giving her medication, etc. It was pretty scary. Tuesday (yesterday) she stayed in bed and we hoped that soon the antibiotics would help her fight the infection.

Last night Dani was still pretty sick, with fever and a bad cough, and Andrea stayed up all night with her again to keep track of her temperature and bring it down whenever it got too high.

Today Andrea took her to the ER because her fever had gotten very high again. The doctor took blood tests and put her on oxygen and IV fluids; her oxygen level was too low and she was dehydrated from the fever. They decided to keep her in the hospital but it was middle of the night before they got her into a room. She and Andrea were camped out in the ER all day.

MAY 11 – Last week Michael brought us two more loads of oat hay (4 bales total) since we need to keep feeding the cows a little longer until the pasture grows enough to put them out on grass. The new water master for this year (Gary Thomas, no relation) came last week to become familiar with all the ditches and locations of headgates and weirs. We are hoping that we can have a better irrigation year without so many conflicts!

Last Thursday Sam and Charlie went on a school bus with their music teacher and a group of other students to Boise to see a musical play, but Robbie took them in early that morning so they could stop and see Dani and Andrea in the hospital. It was an overnight trip; the kids stayed in a motel after the play, and were scheduled to come back home on the bus the next morning. The bus broke down however, and they were delayed in Boise all day—and finally had to borrow a bus from a Boise school to come home, arriving home about midnight on Friday.

Emily stopped by to see Dani in the hospital a few times and give her support and comfort.

Andrea stayed with Dani in the hospital all day Thursday and Friday, except for a couple hours when Lynn went in to sit with Dani so Andrea could come home and help me move some big bales out to the feeders for the cows and heifers and load more alfalfa hay on the feed truck.

Dani was starting to do a little better by Friday evening, but still not eating much. The doctors decided she was doing well enough to come home by Saturday afternoon, but even though it was Mark’s weekend to have the kids, he didn’t want the responsibility of having to take care of Dani—and told Andrea that he thought it would be ok for her to take Dani home. 

Andrea brought her home to our house where she took a 4-hour nap on our couch (after we enticed her to drink a little water and have a few sips of chocolate milk) while Andrea did the irrigating. We didn’t want Dani to get too dehydrated, since she was no longer on IV fluids, so after her nap we encouraged her to drink more water, and a glass of milk. She actually had an interest in food by then, and ate a peanut butter sandwich (the only thing that sounded good to her). This was the most food she’d eaten at one time since before she got sick. 

Then she insisted on seeing the calves, so she and I walked slowly up to the pasture above the house and she sat on the big tractor tire (that serves as a holder for the mineral tub) and many of the cows and calves came up to her. She always picks grass for them and they were wondering why she didn’t have any! She was delighted to see her favorite calves, and enjoyed watching the calves playing around, especially her favorite one, MagDoll, who ran around bucking and then sniffed noses with Sugar Bear’s mom.

Then Dani and I walked slowly back down to the house. By then Andrea had brought her medicine and breathing treatment (puffing medication into her lungs). It’s great to see Dani starting to feel better! 

I called Carolyn to tell her that Dani was home from the hospital, and Carolyn told me about the close call she’d had that morning when she was irrigating on gopher meadow on the upper place. After all the runoff and high water from the early snow melt, a lot of sand had washed down into the ditches and one of her irrigation dams was full of sand. It was too heavy to get the dam out of the ditch, so she was going to cut the dam and let the water wash through it and take the sand with it. She had driven down into that field on her 4-wheeler, and one of their leased cows (a second calver) had snorted at her and then went into the brush with her calf. 

This young cow calved more than 2 weeks ago, up on the hill behind gopher meadow, and didn’t bring her calf down to the herd until it was about a week old. At that point, Michael and Carolyn drove toward the calf on their 4-wheeler to see if it was a bull or a heifer. It was a little bull, and very wild and crazy! It charged right at them and tried to climb up onto the 4-wheeler with them! This was quite unusual behavior for a young calf. The mama cow was also aggressive and crazy.

So when Carolyn drove into the field to irrigate and deal with the ditch full of sand, she drove around that pair at a good distance and was relieved to see them disappear into the brush. She didn’t think much more about it, and started to slit the irrigation dam with her knife—when all of a sudden she heard a bellowing snort behind her and that cow was charging at her. The cow hit her and knocked her over the dam into the ditch on the other side, and kept trying to hit her again. The only thing that saved Carolyn was the fact the cow couldn’t quite get over the pole holding the dam. Carolyn still had ahold of her shovel so she hit the cow over the head with it—multiple times, since the cow wouldn’t back off. Finally, after many whacks on the head, the cow departed, and went back into the brush to find her calf. Carolyn was lucky. She was up there all by herself and it was a good thing she wasn’t seriously hurt by that crazy cow.

The next day, Sunday, was Mother’s Day. Dani came down for a little while when Andrea came to irrigate, and they picked grass for their pet cows and calves, then Dani took another nap. Andrea kept her home from school Monday and Tuesday because she needed to rest and recuperate a more, and then was able to go back to school today.

In spite of the cool weather, it’s feeling like spring, and most of the birds are back. The killdeer are nesting in our fields, and Emily took photos of some newly hatched killdeer chicks.

We had some rain and snow on Monday—so much nasty weather that Michael, Nick and Robbie had to quit working on their fencing project (the other side of town) by early afternoon; they got soaked and cold. Yesterday was cold and windy again but it didn’t rain so they resumed their fencing. Andrea hiked around the swamp pasture fence to see if there were any repairs needed before we put the heifers in there, and shut the top gate. She and Robbie put a bunch of staples in that evening, where the deer have been going through the fence in several places. 

This morning I put some of my horse hay in the heifers’ feeder, since they’ve run out of the last big bale, and their alfalfa. After Andrea got home from town (taking the kids to school and Sam to the doctor for a check-up on her broken elbow—which is healing very nicely) she helped us move the heifers to pasture. We brought them through the pens by the barn and sorted off Michael and Carolyn’s heifers—to keep in the lane by the barn where there’s some grass, until they can be hauled up to the upper place. Then we took our group around to the swamp pasture above our corrals. The grass has grown enough now for grazing, and the heifers are eager for green grass instead of hay!  

Lynn got the kids off the bus, and Dani was exhausted after her first day back at school. She went home and took a nap.

This evening, about the time I was getting ready to go to bed, I heard cows bawling in the field above the house, so I went out there to check on them and make sure everything was ok. The heifers had crossed the creek and come down along the fence above that field, where the cows could see them, and they were bawling at the heifers. But one of the calves was up the field above, right next to the heifers, and I wondered how he could have gotten through the net-wire fence. Then I noticed that the gate between the two fields was wide open! The only thing keeping the whole herd from escaping into the hayfield was the electric fence on this side of the gate. The calf must have crawled under the hot wire and gone out the gate. So I chased him back in and shut the gate, and then it took a little time to encourage him to go back underneath the hot wire to his mom, because he didn’t want to get shocked again! 

MAY 18 – We had a few nights last week that got quite cold (down to 24 degrees one night), and froze all the apple blossoms. It took a few nights for Andrea to catch up on her sleep after being up so many nights while Dani was sick, but Dani is doing a lot better now. Last Thursday Lynn went to town for his physical therapy, got the mail and groceries, and picked up the vaccine for our cows and calves at the vet clinic.

That afternoon we had another kid emergency; after school Charlie was waiting to get on the bus to come home, and a new kid (a bully) was teasing him and messing with his backpack. Charlie told him to quit, and tried to push the kid away, and the kid retaliated by shoving Charlie so hard it knocked him down backward, hitting his head on the concrete. It knocked him out for a few seconds but he got up and insisted on getting on the bus to come home—even when one of the teachers thought he should stay and be checked out. The teacher called Andrea, who was in town for her physical therapy, who called Lynn (who was stopping on his way home from town to pick up Charlie off the bus). Charlie was still a little unsteady, with a twitch in his right eye, so Emily (who was heading home from work at that same time) took Charlie back to town so Andrea could take him to the ER and have his head checked. He had a nasty bump and probably a mild concussion, but seemed to be ok.

Our weather continued cold and windy with a bit of rain now and then. On Saturday our neighbor Alfonso had about 30 people up at the Gooch place to help him brand calves. They had a big social get-together mid-day before they started getting the cattle in, and that afternoon it was raining hard before they finished branding. Michael and Carolyn had planned to brand their calves on Sunday and take their herd to pasture on the 160, (and brand ours next Sunday) but it rained all day Sunday so the branding got postponed. Calves can’t be branded if they are wet. It would scald the tissues and create a more serious burn. Michael and Carolyn brought their trailer down and hauled their heifers home, to put with their cows and calves. The heifers have all grown very well over winter, and hopefully they will all breed this summer.

Our cows are unhappy because the heifers went to pasture and the cows are jealous; they are tired of eating hay. A few of the cows were reaching through the fence in a few places--between the net wire and the barbed wires on top, and squashing down the net wire—so I pulled it back into place and tied it up more securely.

Monday it was still rainy, but Michael and crew worked on a couple of their fencing projects anyway. Then yesterday it was clear, so Michael called early that morning and told us they’d decided to go ahead and brand, and get ours done, too, while the weather was good. They want to take their herd to the hill pasture in a few days, and just try to get both herds branded first.

So Lynn helped me feed the cows, Robbie and Andrea moved a few stored things out of the front stall of the little barn next to our calf chute, and then they went up to help Michael and Carolyn vaccinate their cows and brand their calves.

We planned to do ours right afterward, and Carolyn asked Lynn if he could go to town to pick up some more dewormer for the cows, so he did that while I cooked a big pot of chili for our lunch, and got a few gates ready. Then Lynn and I moved the yearling bulls to a side corral, and the big bulls to the back pen, so we’d have the main corral free. Then as soon as the branding/vaccinating was finished on the upper place and the whole crew came down, we got the cows and calves in from the field above the house, sorted off the calves into the little barn, and vaccinated the cows. Lynn and Robbie strung out the extension cords and got things ready for branding while Michael and Carolyn were vaccinating and deworming the cows.

Andrea hiked up in the swamp pasture and called the 13 yearlings down to the corral (they followed her all the way down) and we vaccinated them and put them back up to their pasture. Then we vaccinated the bulls, and branded/vaccinated the calves. Michael did the branding this year, and dehorned the handful (4 calves) that needed dehorned, since Lynn didn’t feel physically up to doing it, with his painful back. Lynn sat on a lawn chair and let the rest of us do the various tasks. 

Nick pushed the calves into the calf table.

Carolyn vaccinated the calves

Michael did the clipping

We always clip the area to be branded, so the branding iron doesn’t have to burn through a lot of hair. This makes a better brand and doesn’t hurt the calf as much, because the iron doesn’t have to stay on as long.

Here’s what the finished brand looks like.

           

Most of our calves had no horns; there were only 4 that needed to be dehorned, and Michael did the dehorning.

Everything went well, and we put the cows and calves back up in the field above the house. Afterward everyone had lunch here, and even though it was rather plain fare (a big pot of chili, with brownie for dessert), it was a nice “birthday dinner” for Lynn, having family here. He’s now 73. He said the best birthday present was having so much good help to do our branding! 

Today the calves all seem ok after their branding and vaccinating, and the weather is still fairly nice (though it might rain this evening). We’ll give the calves another day to recover and then move the herd out to pasture.