LATE WINTER

Late January - Early February 2013

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

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





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

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

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





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

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

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



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





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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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



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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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



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

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

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

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

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

JANUARY 2013

JANUARY 1, 2013 – With the cold stormy weather in late December, we decided not to wean Michael and Carolyn’s summer-born calves. They would do better if we left them on their mothers awhile longer (and didn’t stress them by weaning in nasty weather), since those cows won’t be calving until May and later. We preg-checked and vaccinated the cows here in our corral, and vaccinated the calves, while Michael was home from North Dakota briefly from his truck-driving job, and his kids were still home from college to help. Nick and young Heather brought all the cows up to the chute.



I fed everybody lunch here after they got done working cattle. We put their cows and calves down in our lower field. Carolyn, Lynn and Andrea can feed them here, with the round bale processor, while Michael is in North Dakota.

Thursday before Christmas we all had supper here (Andrea and her kids and Rick, Michael and Carolyn and kids). The next day Lynn and Michael went to town to meet with the Farm Bureau Insurance claims adjuster. She assessed the damage on our flatbed trailer (which was totaled in the slide off the road upside down on December 14). She said the insurance might pay the equivalent of what a used trailer of that age might be worth, but will pay only $1000 toward fixing our John Deere tractor—which needs extensive repairs after that wreck. The damage to Michael’s pickup bed will be fully covered, however. The day after Christmas he drove it to Blackfoot, Idaho where the old box bed was removed and a new flatbed put on it.

A few days earlier, Michael and Lynn brought down a truck-load of big round bales from the upper stack, and Michael strategically placed more round bales in our hold pen, to make it easier for Lynn and Carolyn to load them into the bale processor to feed. Lynn and Carolyn took turns several days, going with Michael in his tractor to feed the cows, having practice lessons running the bale processor. It pulls behind the tractor and chews up the big bale and puts it out the back end in a windrow as you drive along. Carolyn will feed the cows most days and Lynn will feed them on the days Carolyn works at the vet clinic.

Emily’s dad, Jim Daine, came to spend a couple days with Andrea and kids for Christmas. We had a simple Christmas dinner here at our house with homemade pizza. Andrea’s other kids were at Mark’s place for Christmas this year. We had another celebration when the kids got home, opening their gifts at Andrea’s house.





Dani was delighted to get a set of grooming tools, which she’s eager to try out on the horses.



The morning after he got his pickup fixed, Michael left early to drive straight through to North Dakota, back to his job driving trucks. He hauled 20 new truck tires back there, for the outfit he’s working for.

Since our big tractor is still in the shop downtown being repaired, Rick and Andrea helped Lynn put a hay fork loader on our smaller tractor, so we can load big bales. Lynn brought some big alfalfa bales around to my horse stackyard, for feeding our heifers in the field above my hayshed.

We’ve been feeding the 2 Morgan fillies a little grain and some alfalfa pellets during the cold weather. We give most of the supplemental feed to the weanling Willow—who needs the extra nutrients to grow--and only a handful of pellets to Spotty Dottie because she’s fat and doesn’t need the extra energy. She simply gets a little treat so she doesn’t feel jealous and grumpy when we feed Willow. Andrea and I have been leading the fillies up or down the road a few times, but not as regularly as when the weather was nicer. Emily and Andrea led them a couple of times.



JANUARY 10 – Lynn did chores for one of our neighbors for two weeks while they were visiting their children and grandchildren in California. The weather got really cold and froze the water line into their house, but Lynn was able to get it thawed out.

We are breaking ice daily at the creek for the cows. Last Wednesday when Lynn started our tractor to move some big bales, the diesel gelled up in the tractor. We apparently didn’t have enough Power Service in the mix to keep it fluid at this cold temperature.

On Sunday Emily went with Lynn and me to feed our cows and had her first practice session driving our feed truck. While she was driving, I took photos of the cows, and one photo of Maggie—Dani’s favorite old cow.





While we were on Heifer Hill feeding, a friend of Rick’s drove in that driveway in a little car, and spun out. Lynn didn’t have a chain or rope to pull the car, so he tied the baling twines together from the bales we’d just fed, to pull the car up out of the driveway.

Later that morning, grandson Nick stopped by. Lynn helped him install a new toolbox in the bed of his pickup, and then Nick drove back to college in Iowa. Young Heather went back to Helena, Montana last week for her final semester at Carroll College. She’ll be graduating in May.

After Carolyn fed their cows Monday, she took the tractor and processor back up the creek to feed their horses on the wild meadow the next morning (she feeds them a big bale every 3 days) and to bring more grass bales down here. She got the horses fed, but when she backed up to another big bale to load into the processor, that bale was frozen to the ground and didn’t move—breaking the processor and smashing one of the hydraulic hose ends. She noticed it leaking fluid, so she turned off the tractor and hiked back to her house to call us on the phone.

Andrea helped Lynn and Carolyn jack up the processor to where they could work on it enough to safely bring it down here, and carefully fed off the bale in it. By then the day was warmer, and the ice on our driveway too slippery to take the tractor/processor back up it, to take to our local welder/repair man to fix. So we fed their cows some of our small bales, with our feed truck, to finish their feeding for the day. Early the next morning Lynn and Carolyn took the tractor/processor to be fixed, and Andrea and Carolyn fed the cows some little bales again with our feed truck.

Today it warmed up and snowed 6 more inches. Lynn used our little tractor this evening to plow our driveway and Andrea’s driveway and he hopes to plow Michael and Carolyn’s driveway in the morning.





JANUARY 17 – Last Friday it was Lynn’s turn to feed cows with the processor, since Carolyn had to work at the vet clinic. When Lynn pulled out into the field he found a newborn calf. Most of the cows Michael and Carolyn bought last summer had very young calves at side or were ready to calve, but a few of them had large calves and 3 of them probably had a chance to breed before they were sold. When our vet preg-checked the cows a few weeks ago he said this old cow, number 206, would probably calve in January but the other two wouldn’t calve until April.

It was cold and windy when Lynn found the new calf, but 206 probably calved in the brush where the cows were bedding, which would have given some protection from the wind. The new calf was dry, and had nursed its mother. Later that morning Rick helped Lynn adjust the processor to blow hay out the side, and they spread an extra bale of grass hay into the edge of the brush, to give the cows and calves more bedding in the cold weather.

Andrea took Emily to her hockey tournament in Kalispell, Montana Friday through Sunday. Their team won all 4 games, for the first time ever. Emily made several of the winning shots.



Saturday morning it was 12 below zero. It took awhile to break ice out of all the horse tubs and to chop open the water holes in the creek ice. We fed all the cows extra hay, to give them more calories to withstand the cold weather. Carolyn had to leave for work early in the morning so she left the blankets on Molly and Chance (their two skinny old horses) because it was still cold. Lynn and I drove up there late morning to take off the blankets and to put more wood in Carolyn’s stove.

It was cold again on Sunday. When Lynn and Carolyn fed cows that morning, they discovered another newborn calf—from one of the cows that was supposed to calve in April. The calf was cold but seemed ok, and had nursed at least one teat. After sub-zero weather for a couple more days, however, it wasn’t doing as well as the older calf. When Andrea and Carolyn fed the cows on Tuesday they saw the younger calf lying on the old feed trail, on its back, stuck between 2 big frozen manure piles. The calf looked dead, but twitched its hind leg when they approached with the tractor and processor.

They jumped out, with an ax-handle for a weapon in case the mother cow was aggressive, and grabbed the calf. The cow was worried but didn’t attack them. It was a big calf, about 90 pounds--about all Andrea could lift while Carolyn held off the cow. Then Andrea handed the calf to Carolyn and climbed up into the tractor, grabbing the front legs of the calf as Carolyn handed it up and pushed on the back end. They got it into the cab, finished feeding (not much room in the tractor!) and brought it to the house.

We spent the rest of the day thawing out that calf. She must have been stuck on her back quite awhile. Perhaps a cow knocked her down or rooted her out of the way, rolling her between the frozen manure piles. Her body temperature was below 80 Fahrenheit; too low to register on my thermometer. Her feet were stiff and frozen so Carolyn and Andrea used hot water to try to thaw them out. We lay the calf on blankets by the wood stove with an electric heating pad under her, and used a hair dryer to warm her back, continuing to use warm water on her cold feet.





I injected dextrose under her skin in several places. After we started warming her, we tubed her with 1 ½ quarts of warm water with powdered colostrum mixed in. By this stage in her life (3 days old) she wouldn’t be able to absorb the antibodies from the colostrum, but we thought this mix might give her more energy than regular milk replacer. Lynn inserted a nasogastric tube into her nostril, and down to her stomach, and Carolyn poured the energy-rich mixture into the funnel for the tube feeding.





The calf probably hadn’t nursed her mother since the day before; she was dehydrated and didn’t urinate until evening when we gave her another quart and a half of colostrum mix. By that time her temperature was rising, up to 99 degrees (normal for a calf is 101.5) and she was strong enough to stand.

Lynn, Carolyn and Charlie (who was here doing homework after school) took the calf to Carolyn’s house to stay in their basement by the wood stove. Carolyn fed the calf a bottle at 2 a.m. and again at 8 a.m. She stayed home from work yesterday, and after she and Andrea fed the cows, they put the calf back out with its mother. Lynn and I were outside feeding the 2 fillies their grain when I heard Andrea yelling, so he went to see what was happening and I led both fillies back to their pen. The cow was kicking at the calf, and wouldn’t let it nurse—smelling it and hitting it with her head. Perhaps the calf smelled different after we’d taken care of it for more than 24 hours, thawing its feet. Andrea and Carolyn realized the calf needed more help, and they were bringing the pair to the barnyard.

Once we got the pair into the corral the cow was very upset and more worried about the calf, and she let it nurse. We could see she had a very sore hind teat—the end was raw from frostbite. So we put the pair in a small pen by our barn where we can monitor them. We shoveled snow away from the windbreak side, and bedded along it with hay. The old cow is smart and acts like she’s been handled on foot before; she made herself at home in the pen and was not upset about being confined.

She’s an old cow, without much milk, but we can pamper her here. Andrea and Carolyn brought her a little alfalfa hay from the big bale by my hay stack and the cow was eagerly eating it. When they went back again to check on the pair, the cow looked at them, sniffed the ground, and looked at them again, as if to say, “Where’s some more of that alfalfa hay?” She is not as wild as some of the other cows Michael bought; she acts like she’s accustomed to being cared for by people. This morning (15 below zero again) the calf was cold, but nursing, so we won’t have to raise it on a bottle.

EARLY WINTER 2012

NOVEMBER 26 – Andrea and I have been working with the young fillies every day, leading them, tying them, and feeding the weanling (Willow) a little grain and alfalfa pellets. Since she is still growing, she needs more nutrition than her older sister, especially during cold weather.



On weekends the grandkids like to help with the fillies. The cats like to help, too.





Last week our neighbor Alfonzo branded, vaccinated and weaned some of his late calves. Two riders from the Miller family (one of our new Amish neighbors from the 3 families that bought the Maurer place around the hill from us) came over the hills to help with the branding. One young man rode through our place, unsure of how to get to Alfonzo’s place from the back side. His 17-year-old sister came along later, following his horse’s tracks in the mud, but she couldn’t close the tight wire gate. We saw her up on the hill struggling with the gate, so Lynn drove up there on his 4-wheeler and helped her shut it. He showed her an easier gate (out of the old Gooch place that Alfonzo is leasing) for the next time they come riding across the hills.

Last Tuesday Lynn took a box of supplies to town to send to Michael in North Dakota—his prescription medicines and warm socks from Carolyn, and 2 more boxes of Adapt energy drinks. Those help keep him awake and alert when he’s driving truck nearly 24 hours a day.

We had rain and mud, and then the weather changed to snow and cold. The ice rink in town is solidly frozen and the kids are finally playing hockey. Charlie is doing hockey this year, and Emily is helping him practice.




We started feeding our cows on Heifer Hill (and 10 pair of Michael’s cows on our lower pasture) a liquid protein/mineral supplement to augment their dry pasture. Granddaughter Heather came home briefly from Carroll College for Thanksgiving. Lynn and I ate homemade pizza with her and Carolyn. Andrea and kids had dinner with Rick’s family. Yesterday we had another Thanksgiving dinner at Andrea’s house—inviting Lynn’s sister Jenelle and Emily’s dad Jim, who came from Montana.

DECEMBER 10 – A week ago we butchered Rishira, Andrea’s 17-year-old cow. She’s had 16 calves but wasn’t pregnant this fall. Andrea and Lynn were skinning her (with the carcass hanging from the tractor loader) when our up-the-creek neighbor Gordon Binning phoned to tell us that Michael and Carolyn’s horses were in his place. A tree had fallen down across the fence, smashing it down, and the horses walked over it. Carolyn was at work at the vet clinic in town so Lynn and I drove up there and helped Gordon put the horses back into their proper pasture. We rescued one mare that was trapped in the thick brush along the fence.

A couple days later Lynn helped Carolyn move the horses to our 160-acre mountain pasture, where they can paw through the snow to grass. He and Carolyn set steel posts and fixed Gordon’s fence where the tree knocked it down.

Andrea cut and wrapped meat for several days. We ordered an electric meat grinder and after it arrived Andrea got all the hamburger ground. The buckets of meat chunks stayed cold in her little travel trailer; she had to bring them in the house to thaw before she could grind the meat.

On Saturday Alfonzo hired another neighbor with a backhoe and finally got a weir put into the ditch that waters his lower fields. This will make it easier to measure water use next summer when the creek gets low.

On Sunday Lynn and I watched one of Emily’s hockey tournament games after church. Their little team won a couple of games this weekend. Emily is becoming an excellent hockey player.





The motor in Rick’s old wood-hauling pickup blew up so Andrea towed his pickup home with her truck. Lynn used our tractor and loader to help Rick take the motor out and put a different motor (from one of Michael’s old pickups) into it. Rick worked on it a few days and got it running again. He used 2 of our old post-hole oven barrels set on top of one another for a stove to warm his hands in the cold weather.
Michael drove home from North Dakota. He’ll have 12 days off from his truck driving job, hoping to get some urgent projects done at home. The roads were bad, with storms and ice. Coming through Montana he hit a patch of ice and went off the road. Fortunately the car didn’t roll; it just tore a tire off. Michael was able to change the tire and drive home, getting here at 4 a.m. yesterday morning.

With the cold windy weather Lynn helped Andrea made a windbreak shelter for her dogs. This afternoon Michael helped Lynn clean up the battery terminals on our big tractor so it will start better. They’ll be using it to haul hay.

DECEMBER 17 – On Tuesday Michael loaded our tractor on our flatbed trailer and hauled it north of town where he’s been pasturing cattle on Michael Phillips’ place. He bought some hay from him and we helped haul it home. Lynn borrowed another trailer, but it had a damaged spring and it broke during the first trip and we couldn’t use it for any more loads.

The next day Michael and Carolyn gathered their cattle off that pasture. Bringing them along the slippery road to sort and load at Jenelle’s corral, one old cow slipped and fell down the 20-foot bank, and landed upside down against the fence. She was on her back for 45 minutes while they went to get a tractor. They pulled her back up onto the road with a horse and the tractor—with a chain around her front end and rope around her hind feet. The cow was able to get up and they got her to the corral and into a trailer with a load of calves.

With friends, they made 2 trips with 4 trailers to haul their cows and calves home to our upper place. It snowed 4 inches before noon and our creek road was slippery in spite of being sanded earlier that morning. One of the loaded trailers nearly went off the edge of the road when the pickup tires spun out. The driver had to back up into the snowy edge of the road to get enough traction to get up the grade. They got the cows and calves safely hauled, and then Michael hauled yearlings to the sale at Butte, Montana.

The cow that fell down the bank was able to walk off the trailer but collapsed out in the field and couldn’t get up. They decided to butcher her and Andrea offered to do it because Michael and Carolyn didn’t have time.

Friday morning Michael hauled another load of hay, unloaded it at the upper place with his tractor, and used the tractor to put the carcass of the crippled cow on our flatbed feed truck after Andrea shot her. He went for the last load of hay while Lynn and Andrea gutted and skinned the cow at our place. They discovered that the cow had a broken hip.

It started snowing again after Michael went back to get our tractor—after hauling the last load of hay. He planned to use the tractor here at our house to load alfalfa bales to take up the creek--to mix with the grass hay for his cows. But as Andrea and Lynn were hurrying to cover the hanging cow carcass with sheets and a tarp during the snowstorm, I got a phone call from Michael.

The tractor and trailer had slid off the same slippery road where the cow fell off, but thankfully off the other side, which wasn’t such a huge drop-off. Fortunately the trailer popped off the hitch as it twisted over the bank, and didn’t drag the pickup down with it! The flatbed trailer was totally wrecked, with our big tractor still chained to it, still running, with one side of the cab smashed in. Michael carefully crawled down into cab and shut it off.



We called a wrecker and Lynn drove out there, but it was dark by then and everyone decided to wait until morning. In the daylight, with a wrecker and another tractor they were able to flip the flatbed trailer off our tractor and pull it up onto the road, then carefully pulled the tractor back over onto its wheels and pulled it up, too.





The wrecker towed the tractor to a repair shop. Hopefully the motor isn’t ruined (all the oil ran out of it). We are thankful that Michael and granddaughter Heather are safe. The tailgate was torn off the pickup and the hitch in the bed was destroyed, but the pickup didn’t go over the bank upside down.

Without that tractor to load our hay for feeding this winter, and with Carolyn having to feed their cows by herself (Michael will be in North Dakota), driving their tractor up and down their steep and slippery driveway to plug in every night, we decided to combine forces. Michael and Carolyn brought their cattle down to our place yesterday (to be preg-checked and vaccinated this morning), and will keep their cattle here this winter. We’ll all work together to get the cows fed—thankful that our family is still intact and only a cow, vehicles, tractor and flat-bed trailer have been damaged by the slippery roads!

FALL 2012

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




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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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



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

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



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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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



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

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


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



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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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