OCTOBER 2013

SEPTEMBER 28, 2013 – The kids are back in school and enjoying their classes, but also enjoy the weekends they get to be home, here on the ranch.



The calves we sold through the auction at Butte, Montana a couple weeks ago did fairly well, considering they were only 5 months old.  The biggest steers averaged 480 pounds and brought $1.78 per pound and the smaller steers averaged 420 pounds and brought $1.82.  The heifers were smaller and brought $1.88.  That night it rained, the first real rain we’d had for quite awhile.  The heifers and 3 bull calves we weaned that day got cold and wet, but didn’t get sick.  The didn’t want to graze the wet grass in the little pasture below the barn, so we fed them some hay in tubs to keep them from wasting it, and they ate the dry hay more readily than the wet grass.

Andrea and I have been riding Sprout and Spotty Dottie nearly every day and their shoes were worn out.  Michael put new shoes on them, and reshod Ed and Breezy before he went back to North Dakota for another stint driving trucks.  Last weekend Andrea and I took Sam and Dani for a ride.  Veggie was colicky the night before—and we had to give him a shot of Banamine—so Sam rode Breezy instead of Veggie.

On Sunday Andrea and I made a ride through the low range, taking Dottie some new places she’d never been before, and discovered a dead cow belonging to our neighbor Alfonzo.  It looked like she might have died this past spring, possibly while trying to calve.  That afternoon we moved the weaned heifers to the little field above the house to live with Freddy (the old thin cow that nearly died a few weeks ago, now regaining weight), and put the 3 bull calves in my old horse pasture.

Last Monday Andrea and I made a short, fast ride on Dottie and Sprout.  Carolyn and Heather made a loop through the low range, too, with Heather on a gaited horse nicknamed Romeo—one she’s training for some people in Montana. 

    

Carolyn called Andrea on her cell phone to mention they were going to move their cows.  We hurried home so I could change horses and ride Ed to help them gather and move their cows down from the 320-acre mountain pasture before the weather got bad.  A snowstorm and cold weather were predicted.  If the north slopes freeze or gets snow-covered, it will be harder (and more risky) to gather those cattle.

The next day was cold and stormy but Andrea and I rode Sprout and Dottie down the road a ways, not wanting to skip Dottie’s training ride.  Both horses were goofy in the wind and spooked at birds and other “normal” objects.  By afternoon it was raining hard—and snowing in the high country.  We skipped our training rides for the next 2 days during stormy weather.

With the rain and snow the creek has risen a little, and we had a little more irrigation water.  Lynn is trying to water a couple of our dry fields before the ground freezes up.  Yesterday it was cold but not raining, so Andrea and I rode Sprout and Dottie for nearly 4 hours.  It was too muddy to take Dottie out in the hills so we went up the road about 6 miles, almost to Mulkey Creek, and back again.  Today we rode again, this time with young Heather, riding the horse she’s training, and rode more than 3 hours—up the right fork of Withington Creek to the top gate on the jeep road through our high range

OCTOBER 5 – Last Sunday Andrea and Lynn butchered Opie for Michael and Carolyn.  He’s a big yearling that had a very rough start in life.  Born a twin, his mother abandoned him when she had the second calf, and he never had a chance to nurse.  Carolyn found him after the calf was at least half a day old.  He was chilled and unable to stand up, and magpies had eaten his umbilical cord and pecked a big hole in his belly.  Carolyn brought the calf home on her 4-wheeler and called Michael, who was helping a neighbor.  When Michael got home they tubed the calf with colostrum and tried to clean up the gaping hole and sew his belly back together.  They had to leave a gap for him to urinate through, since his sheath had been eaten by the magpies.

The stitches didn’t hold very well and they treated him with antibiotics.  He was soon able to nurse a bottle, but still had an infection in the umbilical area.  A few weeks later, they lost a big calf that got knocked into a water trough on its back and drowned.  They brought that cow home and grafted the orphan calf onto her.  She was high strung, however, and kept trying to crash out of the corral.  Even though they still needed to keep treating the calf with antibiotics, it wasn’t going to work if they had to keep the pair confined any longer.  So they gave the calf a final dose of antibiotics and let the pair out in the field with the other cows, and Michael said, “Hope he lives.”  The person he was talking to didn’t hear quite what he said, and thought “hope he” was “Opie” so that became the name of the calf.

Opie survived and grew big, in spite of the hole in his belly.  He couldn’t be sold with the rest of the calves last fall, so they planned to butcher him.  Andrea volunteered to do that, and cut up the meat for them.  It was interesting to see how the inner wall of his belly had healed, with a lot of scar tissue on the outside to protect it.  Opie also had unusually big joints, probably from septicemia (similar to navel ill or joint ill)—the infection that nearly killed him as a baby.  Otherwise he was a nice big healthy yearling.

On Monday I took off Rubbie’s shoes and trimmed her feet.  I probably won’t be riding her any more this year; I only rode her on short rides when Sam rode Veggie.  The rest of the fall and winter Sam will probably ride Breezy.

Tuesday Andrea and I rode Sprout and Dottie up the right fork again, in spite of the cold windy weather.  We picked a sample of the strange new weed that appeared all over our range this year, since our county extension agent was unable to tell what it was from the photos we took.  Andrea took it to her, and she was finally able to identify it as Elk weed or deer ears.  The variety on our range looks like the type that’s called Monument Plant.



Elk season is open now in our area and we’ve had a horrendous amount of traffic up and down our road, and 4-wheelers going all over the range.  On our ride Wednesday we met 5 4-wheelers coming down out of the middle range.  That afternoon I went to the eye-doctor because my vision has suddenly become blurred in my right eye.  The doctor says I’m starting to get cataracts. 

Andrea finished cutting up the meat for Michael and Carolyn, but slipped with the knife while cutting through a leg joint, and sliced her forearm.  Emily helped her bandage the spurting wound.  They put butterfly bandages across the cut to hold it together, and it looks like it will heal ok that way without stitches.



That evening Lynn and I lured the cows out of the lower back field and brought them up to the little pasture above the corrals for overnight so we could preg check them the next morning.  It started raining at midnight and rained all night.  The next morning it was snowing when Duwayne Hamilton brought his truck and trailer to load our big bull to haul him to the sale.  We decided to sell him because he will be 5 years old next year and is starting to get too aggressive.  We have some younger bulls coming on.  The old bull was belligerent and angry when Lynn tried to bring him out of the back corral, and Lynn had to grab a pitchfork.  Andrea and I helped herd him through the main corral to load him, and it was a good thing there were 3 of us; the bull thought about charging at us, but we had him outnumbered.  It was a relief to have him safely in the trailer!

It was still snowing when Lynn and I brought Freddy and the heifers around from the field above the house, and the 3 little bulls from the horse pasture.  We locked them in side pens.  When the vet came to preg check, we had all the cows in the holding corral to preg check and vaccinate, then vaccinated the bull calves and heifers.  Carolyn and Heather came down to help.  Then Andrea went up to their place to help vaccinate and preg-check their herd.  A couple of neighbors (the ones Heather has been riding range for all summer) also came to help.  All of their cows were pregnant.  Our cows were also pregnant (except for Freddy, who was sick during the time she should have been with the bull).  Two of the heifers where questionable.  They are either open or just recently bred, so we may check them again later.  It was a wet, miserable day with the wind and snow, but we’re glad to have the cows worked.

Yesterday was clear, so Andrea and I rode Dottie and Sprout, in spite of the deep mud.  We made a loop over the low range; a good experience for Dottie in learning to try to keep her footing and balance on the slippery hillsides.  She’s come a long ways in her training in the last 2 months.

 

Today Andrea finished grinding the hamburger from Opie.  Lynn and I moved the cows down to the lower back field, holding back the two questionable yearling heifers.  We put them above the house with Freddy and the heifer calves.  We may check them again to see if they are pregnant; we don’t want to sell them unless they are truly open.

This afternoon Andrea and I made a short ride on Sprout and Dottie, and I changed Dottie from the broken snaffle (a training bit) to a Pelham—using the snaffle reins on the Pelham.  Now I can eventually transition her into the curb.  A Pelham is actually a curb bit (with shanks) and snaffle rings.  I can now use 4 reins and gradually get her used to the curb bit and finish her training.

OCTOBER 14 - Last Sunday afternoon after church Emily rode with Andrea and me.  She rode Sprout and Andrea rode Breezy. 

 

        

   

 

That evening Andrea took Sam’s turtle out to Mark’s place (those 3 kids were with their dad that weekend) so Sam could say good-by to the turtle.  Andrea turned it loose by the ponds where Sam found it this summer, so it could hibernate for winter.

 

           

Monday it was warm, so Andrea and I rode and Sprout for 3 hours—up the ridge to the 320-acre mountain pasture to check the gates and make sure they were still shut with all the hunter traffic.  It was the first time I’d ridden Dottie in very much snow.  Both the top and bottom ridge gates were shut and we decided not to ride down into Baker Creek to check those gates because the snow was very deep on that timbered slope.

 

           

We were expecting a check in the mail that day from the bull we sold, but all we got was a note saying the check was being held for lack of proof of ownership!  We were flabbergasted, because the bull had our brand on him (branded as a calf, since we raised him).  We called our local brand inspector, who knows our cattle, and he called and talked to the saleyard’s brand inspector and got it straightened out.  We got our check a few days later.

When Lynn went to town that day for mail and groceries he talked with a person who saw 7 wolves a few days ago--in the field over the hill from us, just through the fence from our low range.  That’s way too close for comfort!  I just did an interview with a ranch family a few miles the other side of town who lost a horse to a pack of wolves earlier this fall.  The horse was in a pasture with several other horses and a herd of cattle, and the wolves singled out this horse and killed it.

Michael drove home from North Dakota; their job was shut down for a week and he decided to come home and get caught up on some things rather than stay there in the truck.  He got home in the wee hours Tuesday morning—the morning Andrea and Emily were going to drive to Boise to catch a plane the next morning to fly to Rhode Island for the World Burn Congress.

We’d planned to put down the 4 old horses before winter (Chance and Molly—Heather and Carolyn’s old horses—and Andrea’s Fozzy and Snickers) the next time Michael was home, so we quickly decided to do it now.  The weather was still decent; a nice time to do it instead of in the cold and snow.  Andrea and Em postponed their drive to Boise until afternoon.  Early that morning she came down and we took photos of Fozzy (her crippled 23-year-old gelding) and Snickers (the 29-year old mare that was Andrea’s best cowhorse in earlier years).

 

           

After she’d had a chance to say good-by to each of them, Michael came to help.  The kindest final gift a person can give a beloved animal is a merciful release from pain and infirmity.  Fozzy had been unsound for several years.  More recently he’d developed several cancerous growths up under his flank and they were getting worse; he was losing weight and didn’t have any fat under his skin for insulation.  He was shivering and miserable during cold nights.  Snickers was becoming unstable on her feet and her vision was failing.  It was time to let them go.

     

A well-placed bullet to the brain is the most instant and merciful death, quicker than the veterinarian’s sedation and lethal injection.  Michael did this act of mercy for his little sister’s beloved horses, and then used our backhoe to dig a grave for them beneath some trees along the stackyard across the creek—a nice final resting place.

Andrea and Emily drove to Boise that afternoon, on the first leg of their journey to the World Burn Congress, a special event that would help Andrea fill the void and ease the pain and grief of loss.  Early the next morning they flew to Chicago and then on to Providence, Rhode Island. 

On that day, Michael performed the same kindness for Chance and Molly.  Chance was 30 years old and has had bad teeth for several years, unable to chew hay very well.  He spent a couple winters here while young Heather was in college, and I fed him grain, alfalfa pellets and senior horse pellets, and cut fine grass hay into inch lengths with scissors--a couple buckets per day.  He did ok on soft green grass during the summer, but needed help with his winter diet.  This past summer he was losing weight even on green grass, so Heather fed him a special mush every day—soaking the pellets so they’d be easier to eat.  He’d become extremely thin by this fall, in spite of the pampering, and his eyesight was failing. 





Molly, 31 years old, was one of Carolyn’s first horses growing up. After she married Michael her kids both learned to ride on Molly.  It was hard for them to say good-by.  Michael dug their grave below the big fallen tree along the edge of the Wild Meadow on the upper place, and set a big rock—with the backhoe--to mark the spot.

Later that afternoon Heather rode down here on the horse she’s training, and I rode Dottie.  We made a loop over the low range.  Riding out there on these young horses was good emotional therapy after the morning’s sobering finale for the old horses.

When we got home I helped Lynn make a dividing fence (using two electric wires) for Rubbie’s pen.  We put Veggie on one side and Rubbie on the other.  I’ve had Veggie separate from her all summer in an adjoining area—so they could be next to each other but fed separately.  For winter we need to be able to drive through that area to feed cattle, so we just divided their old pen.  Veggie, who will be 28 years old in the spring, eats slower than his sister who is a year younger, and we don’t want him to lose weight during winter.  Last winter she got too fat and he became thin, just because he eats more slowly and she got more than her share.

Andrea’s younger kids are spending this week with their dad while she and Emily are at the World Burn Congress, and Lynn is feeding the dogs and cats while everyone is gone.  Andrea and Emily arrived at the WBC the first evening in time to go on the walk of remembrance—a special time of remembering friends and loved ones lost.  She and Em walked in remembrance of Jeff Allen (son of Bill and Diz Allen—friends of ours here in Salmon) who died fighting a forest fire 10 years ago, and Sara who died after suffering burns over 100% of her body in an accident in Yellowstone Park, the same summer Andrea was burned.  She also walked in remembrance of the team of firefighters who died this year in Arizona—all of whom Andrea met last year when she was working at the Halstead fire. 

Andrea and Em enjoyed reconnecting with people they met last year, and some that Andrea and I met at the WBC in 2008, including George Pessotti.  Em wants to help start a support group for children of burned parents.

 

While Michael was home he borrowed our flatbed trailer and hauled big round bales (purchased from a neighbor) for Heather’s horses, and a load of small bales.  While Andrea was gone, Heather rode with me so I could keep training Dottie.  Our second ride out through the low range, Dottie got mad and grumpy at having to follow the other horse on the way home and she bucked up the hill and passed him, and I had to spin her around to stop her.  That’s the most she’s ever misbehaved!  She did better the next few rides.

While the younger kids were staying with Mark, the deer season opened, and Charlie (age 12) shot his first deer.  He was very proud of that accomplishment.

Lynn took down some of the old tangled electric fence around Snicker’s pen, and put up new ones before we put Dottie in that pen.  I picked some of the big rocks and moved them, and dug out some of the noxious weeds that Snickers didn’t eat—that Dottie started eating.  After we moved Dottie to the bigger pen, we took down the temporary divider fence in Willow’s pen so she could have her whole pen again.

On Saturday Michael drove back to North Dakota to resume his truck driving job.  Lynn turned off our irrigation water.  With it freezing hard at night we don’t want ice flows across the fields.  I helped him cover our woodpile with tarps, in preparation for winter snow.

Yesterday morning Andrea and Em flew back to Chicago and then to Boise, and drove home late last night.  They had a wonderful time at the WBC and met a lot of new friends.  Nearly 1000 people attended, from 7 countries.  They hope to keep in touch with some of the special people they met.

 

 This morning Andrea and Em were sleeping after their late drive home, so Lynn took the kids to the school bus.  Carolyn and Heather rode down here late morning and I rode Dottie and went with them for another training ride.  Later after Andrea had a chance to catch up on some sleep she wanted to ride, so we took Sprout and Ed for a short loop over the range.  I fed everybody supper this evening.

OCTOBER 23 – After Andrea and Emily got home from Rhode Island we had some nice weather for awhile.  Last Tuesday Andrea and I rode Sprout and Dottie up the creek to meet Carolyn and Heather, and we rode with them about 6 miles up the creek.  They brought along two of their cowdogs, and it was the first time Dottie had been around dogs.  It was good for her, to get used to the dogs.  We also met a lot of traffic on that narrow little jeep road in the canyon, with hunters coming and going.

The next day Andrea and Lynn drove to Idaho Falls for Andrea’s monthly appointment with her pain management doctor, so I rode with Heather for Dottie’s daily ride.  Andrea and Lynn got back in time to get the kids off the bus, and Andrea took Charlie to town that evening for singing practice.

On Thursday Andrea and I rode for 3 hours, making a loop through the low range and stopped to take a picture of a rattlesnake—unusual for them to be out this late!

           

The next day, with no school, Sam and Dani rode with us on Breezy and Ed for a short ride over the low range.

 

       

Lynn set tall posts to make a capped gate into Veggie’s end of the pen he shares with Rubbie.  Andrea helped him put a pole across the top.  It’s handy to have a gate there; I no longer have to climb over the net wire fence to get into that end of the pen to break ice on their water tubs, and it will be nice to be able to bring Veggie in and out without having to go through the division fence between him and Rubbie.

On Sunday we took Dani and Sam on a much longer ride, into the middle range, with Carolyn and Heather.  We decided it was safer to ride out there in the mountains than on the creek road, with all the hunting traffic.  We rode past a couple water troughs and the dogs enjoyed cooling off in the water.

   

Monday I had a severe nosebleed after I got up in the morning, and couldn’t get it stopped for several hours.  Lynn helped me do my morning chores.  By afternoon I was doing better, and managed to make a short ride on Dottie.  Our weather has been so nice I hate to skip any days with her training. I know there will be a lot of days this winter we won’t be able to ride.

Yesterday Andrea and I made a much longer ride, through the middle range and into the high range, to see where the elk might be, since Lynn drew for an elk tag in the cow hunt next month.  We checked the gates on our 320-acre pasture on our way home, to make sure hunters haven’t tried to go through. There’s some snow on the high range and the ground was frozen and slippery in places; we led the horses down the steep slope off the ridge, down into Baker Creek, in case they fell down.  Dottie managed fine and led nicely down the steep, slippery mountain.  I’m glad I led her a lot last winter during her early training and groundwork.  Coming down Baker Creek through our 320 there were dozens of big trees blown down and broken off from a recent storm, with some trees down over the trail.  The horses had to jump over some and plow through a bunch of downed tree branches.  Dottie didn’t hesitate to go over and through the obstacles.  She’s coming along very well in her training.

Andrea’s kids are looking forward to Halloween and Sam and Dani gave us a preview, posing for us in their costumes.

           

CHRISTMAS 2013

Box 215, Salmon, ID 83467

December 2013

 

Blessed Christmas! 

                           

We humbly thank God for His gift of Love to us, and express our gratitude for that Love in sharing it with others. We are grateful for friends remembered at Christmas.

 

It’s been a good year. Lynn and I are both getting older and slower, and more forgetful, but we have a lot of things to be thankful for, here on Withington Creek.

 

During January—and through most of the year with only a few short periods home--our son Michael stayed safe driving big trucks in horrendous weather on bad roads in North Dakota. His wife Carolyn, with help some days from my husband Lynn and daughter Andrea managed to get their cows fed, and save a calf born unexpectedly in sub-zero weather. Carolyn and Andrea found it nearly dead, hauled it to the house in the tractor, and thawed it out in our kitchen by the wood stove.

 

In February we got our tractor and flatbed trailer repaired after their rollover wreck, and got Lynn’s heart repaired, on Valentines’ day. He went to a heart doctor in Missoula, Montana for a “look”at his heart, after shortness of breath and chest pain. He ended up having several stents put in his heart to open some blocked arteries. They kept him there a couple days because of complications, and we had help feeding our cows for a couple weeks (including young grandkids driving the feed truck while Andrea and I threw off the hay) but he’s doing much better now.

 

During March Andrea and I led our two young fillies on long walks, and started riding the ranch horses again to get them back in shape. Our cows calved in April. GranddaughtersDani and Samantha (age 8 and 10) had fun naming calves—with names like Thunder Bull, Lightning Strike, Twinkle, Merrynina,Buffalope and Silver Belle. We built a house here on the creek for Andrea and her kids a couple years ago, and it’s been fun having grandkids here helping and enjoying the animals. Dani insisted on coming down to the sick barn with her mom one night, to hold the flashlight for us while we gave fluids to a calf we were treating for scours.

 

Michael and Carolyn’s kids came home from college in May. Nick finished his second year at William Penn University in Iowa where he has a track scholarship. Our oldest granddaughter, Heather Carrie, graduated in May from Carroll College in Helena, Montana with a 4.00 grade point for all four years. Lynn and I didn’t make it to her graduation; we stayed home to do everyone’s chores. Andrea was in Utah with her kids, where 10-year-old Samantha was at the national dance competition with her clogging class. We also did Michael and Carolyn’s chores for 2 days, including taking care of Peabody—a newborn twin calf abandoned by his mother.

 

Michael was home for a little while from his North Dakota job and helped Lynn clean some ditches, and shod our horses. His kids helped brand and vaccinate their calves, and helped us do ours.

 

Andrea and I rode nearly every day all summer, putting miles on horses we were training, taking her kids for rides, fixing fences and water troughs on the range, helping our new range neighbors’ cattle learn the range. Young Heather was busy training several groups of Rocky Mountain gaited horses for people in Montana, but managed to ride with us occasionally. She also had a job helping neighbors on their range allotment whenever they had to move cattle. She started my 3-year-old filly Spotty Dottie and did a nice job getting her accustomed to being ridden so grandma could start riding her. At my age I don’t mind having a little help starting our young horses!

 

Lynn got our haying accomplished, in spite of several frustrating days with tractor and baler problems, and Andrea helped with baling. For awhile we were treating a cow named Freddy who had a high fever from some mysterious illness. Our vet couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her, but she stopped eating and drinking and we kept her alive feeding her gallons of water and“mush” (alfalfa pellets soaked in water and run through the blender) twice a day by stomach tube. She recovered and slowly regained all the weight she lost.

 

We had some bad fires again this year. In August and September Andrea spent several weeks working at the fire camp at Challis, as part of a weed-wash crew, washing trucks coming and going from the fire area. While she was gone young Danirode range with me numerous times and was proud to be able to help grandma move cattle. 

 

I continued writing numerous articles for horse and cattle magazines, and contributed a chapter to the new book The Real Wolf, which is coming out in January.

 

Nick went back to college in Iowa for his third year. Young Heather continued training horses through the fall, and is helping Carolyn with their cattle this winter. I’ve been riding Spotty Dottie for 5 months now, often riding with Andrea and/or young Heather on her training rides. We quit riding for awhile in December when temperatures dropped well below zero.

 

Michael was home briefly in early October and while he was here he helped us put down 2 of Andrea’s old horses. Snickers was 29 and going blind. Fozzy was only 23 but had malignant growths and was very thin. Michael also put down Molly (age 31) and Chance (age 30 and very thin) for Carolyn and Heather. It was time to say good-bye.

 

Andrea and Emily flew to Rhode Island to attend the World Burn Congress again, with scholarships to help pay their way. It’s a wonderful, amazing experience, this time with more than 1000 burn survivors, families, and caregivers. Both Andrea and Emily have found blessings in being able to help other burn survivors and family members who struggle with various challenges. Emily (nearly 16 now) wants to help start a support group for children of burn survivors, since they have their own unique needs.

 

November was busy, with Andrea’s kids starting hockey practice, Charlie singing and placing third in the junior Salmon Idol, Lynn and Andrea tracking an elk herd and Lynn managing to get his cow elk. At age 70 he was pleased to be able to do this again; he and Andrea haven’t hunted elk since before her burn accident 13 ½ years ago. 

 

Then for two weeks Andrea helped friends put a new roof on one of the local churches. It was a great team effort, finishing the day before Thanksgiving.

 

Thanksgiving day we had a lot to be thankful for; we had all of our family around our table—the ones who were home. Nick couldn’t make it home from college in Iowa and Michael was driving truck in North Dakota, but they were with us in spirit and will be home for Christmas. Family, and the love we share, is truly the greatest blessing on this earth. Looking back, the best of the best times spent this past year for Lynn and me have been the times we spent doing things with our family.

[forupdates on our lives see www.heathersmiththomas.blogspot.comand to read some of my “critter” stories, see my posts on http://insidestorey.blogspot.com ]

 

With love and best wishes from Withington Creek, Heather and Lynn Thomas

September 2013 Diary from the Ranch

AUGUST 27, 2013 – Andrea had a tough time for awhile after losing the fragile skin on the sides of her knees; the pain was excruciating—like being burned all over again.  She has been to the doctor several times and was put on antibiotics because her legs became so hot and swollen.  They are doing a little better by now and it looks like the raw areas are starting to fill in some skin around the edges.

Young Heather and I are coming along with Dottie’s training.  This past week we got her used to wearing a breeching (to hold the saddle in place because she doesn’t have enough withers to keep it from going up onto her neck when she’s going downhill).  The first day we put it on her and started to walk her around she spooked and tried to run, making speedy circles around Heather at the end of the lead rope.  At least she didn’t try to pull away—she was just running as hard as she could go in a tight circle.  When she finally calmed down she realized it wasn’t hurting her, and from then on she was ok with it.  We gave her one lesson in the corral and now we’re riding her with it and no longer have to get off and reset the saddle several times when going downhill!

       

 

Freddy (the cow that almost died) is doing better now but still very thin.  She’s been covered with horn flies lately, so last Friday I put some delousing pour-on along her back when I fed her some alfalfa hay, since it will also kill flies.  By the next morning there were NO flies on her.  We’re still keeping her separate from the other cows so they won’t beat up on her as she continues to recover and regain lost weight.        

On Saturday we moved the herd from heifer hill to the swamp pasture, then Dani rode with me for 4 hours up through the 320 and high range to check gates, troughs and Michael’s cattle.  That night we had a birthday dinner for Charlie (12 years old!) at Andrea’s house.

 

 

Sunday afternoon Andrea, the girls and I went for a very short ride—Andrea’s first ride in over a month (since before she went to work at the fire camp).  She bandaged her raw knees but they were still so painful that we only rode for about 30 minutes.

 

 
Today the kids went back to school.  I rode Dottie on a short ride on the low range, with young Heather riding Ed as my “baby sitter horse”.  Afterward, while she waited for old Chance to eat his mush of watered alfalfa pellets and senior feed, Heather worked with Sprout (the 7-year-old spoiled mare we bought last year), teaching her better ground manners.  The first time she worked with Sprout, a few days ago, the mare—who is very stubborn and independent—didn’t want to trot in a circle and reared up and tried to strike at her, so Heather got after her with the popper on the end of the halter rope and made her work, trotting in circles, stopping and turning the other direction, etc. on command.  By the end of the session Sprout had a lot more respect for her handler.

 

We’ve been pasturing Chance and Molly here for Heather this summer.  They’ve been eating the grass in the hay stack yard, grazing the tall grass behind the barn, etc. and currently they’re grazing along the ditch bank above the little pasture where Freddy and her calf are living.  Chance has bad teeth and can’t chew his food.  Heather feeds him a big tub of “mush” once a day and it takes him an hour to eat it.  So while she waits for him to eat, she does ground work with Sprout and Willow (the yearling filly).  Both of them are coming along nicely in their training program.

Molly finishes her grain/pellets much quicker than Chance, and then tries to eat his, so Heather brings Chance through the gate into the pasture so he can finish his mush without help.  But today Freddy realized Chance had something good and she marched up there and started eating with him.  I wish I’d taken a photo of them eating together—the skinniest old horse and the skinny cow sharing a tub of mush together!  I hurried up there to chase Freddy away from Chance’s feed, and locked her and her calf in the orchard until Chance could finish his meal.

SEPTEMBER 7 – Andrea had a big abscess on her leg last week (staph infection from the raw areas) and went to the doctor to have it lanced and drained.  She is on antibiotics again.  The raw areas are healing now, and getting smaller.  She also had to go to the dentist for emergency repair/covering of two molars that broke—and will eventually need crowns.  By this week the pain in her legs and her mouth is more tolerable!  She is riding Sprout again, with thin bandages over the raw area on her knees, and managing ok. 

Heather and I have been riding Dottie every morning, making longer rides on the low range.  Some days Andrea rides with us.

Last Friday I rode Dottie and Heather rode Ed, then later that day Andrea, Dani and I rode Sprout, Ed and Breezy 4 hours to check on the range cows and gates, and moved some cattle around the mountain to better grass.  

When we headed out through the sagebrush from the big salt ground, Breezy got caught in a snarl of old wire and it scared her; she jumped and bucked and tried to bolt, and nearly fell down.  Fortunately the wire broke and she kicked out of it before we had a bad wreck.  This is some of the wire the BLM left out there after they made a temporary fence to keep the cattle out of the area that burned up in 2003.  The wire has been a serious hazard, being dragged around by wildlife and cattle.  Michael and Carolyn rolled up a pick-up load of it a few years ago, along the ridge above our 320 after getting their horses in it, but there was still some left out there.

It was strung all through the sagebrush where we were riding that day.  A couple minutes after Breezy tore loose from one tangle of wire, Dani spotted another big wad of wire just ahead of her horse, and was able to stop in time and didn’t get into it.  Moments later Andrea’s horse got her hind feet in some wire, but stopped and Andrea got off and picked up Sprout’s feet and got the wire off her hind legs.

Last Sunday Lynn, Andrea, Charlie and a friend took 2 4-wheelers up on the high range and spent the afternoon rolling up as much wire as they could carry home on the 4-wheelers, after fixing one of the water troughs that was leaking.  Charlie enjoyed helping. The next day they went back up there and rolled up more wire. 

While they were doing the wire, Heather, Dani and I rode through the middle range to give Dottie another training ride.  We’ve been riding her every day and she’s coming along very well.

Thursday afternoon a big storm went over the mountain (and missed us—we only got a little bit of rain) and knocked out the power line into our valley.  The power was off for 17 hours.  We didn’t want to use much water in the house because the pump couldn’t run, so Friday morning we carried water from the creek for flushing the toilet and got several gallons of drinking water from my brother’s spring above the upper place.  We took some of the horses to the creek to drink.  We were about to haul water from the creek to the rest of the horses—after our short training ride with Dottie—when the power came back on that afternoon.  Our phone still doesn’t work, however.  Something happened during the power outage to mess up some of the phones and computer lines and the phone company is working round the clock to try to get everything fixed.  

Today Andrea and I rode Sprout and Ed 5 ½ hours to check troughs and cattle on the high range.  It was a hot day and Andrea stopped at a water trough to fill her water bottles.

We spent most of the afternoon rolling up more of the old fence wire.  Actually Andrea rolled up the wire and I held her horse.

 

We had 3 rolls—one tied on my saddle, one on Andrea’s and she was carrying another.  She got off Sprout to lead her down the very steep hill going down to Peach Pit trough from the ridge between Baker Creek and Withington Creek and put the loop she was carrying over the saddle horn.  Going down the mountain Sprout tripped, and the loop of wire sailed off the saddle horn, over her head, and bounced.  The mountain is so steep at that point that by the next bounce the roll was several hundred feet down the slope.  It bounced again, right over the top of an old dead tree!  It bounced a few more times down the draw, gaining momentum at every bounce, and finally came to rest half a mile from us, where the draw makes a bend.  Our horses just stood there entranced, watching the spectacle.

SEPTEMBER 17 – Our phone finally started working again last Sunday afternoon and I was able to do the 3 interviews early Monday morning that I was supposed to do the Friday before.  Afterward, Andrea and I rode Breezy and Dottie up the ridge to the 320 to check the fence—because Carolyn had mentioned that a cow was hiking down the mountain behind their house just before dark the evening before.  When we rode up toward our fence we encountered 5 pairs, but they were range cows that had come down from the high range.  As we got closer to the 320 we saw the gate was wide open.  Someone had cut all 6 wires and taken the gate out!  The range cows had come clear through our place, so we knew there must be a gate open at the top of the 320 as well.

Michael and Carolyn and young Heather were riding that day on the range across the canyon, helping those ranchers round up, and we could see them bringing a bunch of cattle out of Cheney creek, above our fence corner on that side.  Andrea called Michael on his cell phone (fortunately we had cell service up on our ridge and he did, too) and told him what we’d discovered.  We had tied up the gate temporarily with baling twine (which I always carry in the jacket tied to my saddle) and were heading home to switch horses—since Dottie was too inexperienced to do any cow sorting--and come back to check their cows.

Michael, Carolyn and Heather cut short their help for the neighbors and hurried back across the canyon to their corrals to grab some wire and come fix the gate.  We got home with Dottie and Breezy, grabbed Ed and Sprout, and trotted back up the ridge to the 320.  Almost all of Michael and Carolyn’s cows were down in the northeast corner, which was strange.  None of them had come out the cut gate on the ridge.  We hurried on up Baker Creek and found 4 more pair and a calf, and the gate in Baker Creek was ok.  So we knew the leak had to be the top ridge gate.  We hurried up through the timber to the ridge and met up with Michael, Carolyn and Heather heading up to check that gate.  With the cattle we’d seen in Baker Creek all of their cows and calves were accounted for, which was a relief.  None had gone out the open gates.

            

The top ridge gate had also been cut and thrown open—with cattle tracks, horse tracks and 4-wheeler tracks coming through.  Someone had taken cattle from the high range and pushed them through our 320 acre pasture to the low range!  We rebuilt the cut gate, then rode back down Baker Creek and checked the 2 side gates (both ok) and rebuilt the bottom ridge gate.  There were 4-wheeler tracks coming down through that gate and on down the ridge—which Andrea and I hadn’t noticed earlier.

So it’s still a mystery.  Did hunters cut the gates to come through on 4-wheelers?  Did a rider bring the range cows down through and cut the gates or do it after the gates were already cut?  We’re not sure exactly what happened, but we are glad none of Michael’s cattle got out and no range cows stayed in the 320.

The next day Andrea and I rode Dottie and Breezy up through the 320 to check on things, and on up into the high range, coming home through the middle range.  It was Dottie’s longest ride so far (nearly 4 hours). 

 

 

Andrea has been riding with me on Breezy or Sprout nearly every day, and Dottie is coming along nicely in her training.  Michael, Carolyn and Heather have been riding for more than a week helping round up cattle on the other range.  There are some fences down and some of the cattle have scattered into other allotments and will take awhile to find them all.

 

On Thursday we put a temporary electric fence (3 strands) across Willow’s pen to split it, and put Dottie in this end of it.  We had to get her out of the pen next to the house and elm tree before the elm starts shedding its leaves this fall.  Dottie loves to eat the leaves and this spring ate so many (before we trimmed the low-hanging branches she was reaching up to nibble on) that it made her a little sick.  I trimmed Willow’s feet while we were keeping her at the far end of the pen as the fence was being built.

Friday Dani rode with Andrea and me on Dottie’s training ride.  We met some hunters on horseback, and then another group that had just shot 2 elk as the herd came up out of our neighbor’s fields in the early morning.  The man we talked to was a volunteer for a Wounded Warriors program, taking handicapped war veterans on various hunts.

On Saturday Alfonzo and the Amish rounded up their cows off our range.  They had 15 riders and took the cattle the longest way home.  Instead of bringing them home the short way through the middle range like Galen Kossler (our old range neighbor) used to do, they took them clear up over the mountain at the head of Baker Creek and down into Withington Creek—then all the way down the creek.  They sorted them above our upper place, and broke the fences in several places, then brought them down in two groups.  They dumped Alfonzo’s cows into the old Gooch place and brought Miller’s cattle on down the road and over to their place.  They are still short some cattle and will probably be riding several more days to try to find them.

Saturday afternoon my cousin Ned and his wife Pam came to visit and stayed a few days.  They are on their way to Fox Island (in Puget Sound, near Seattle Washington) from Texas.  Pam is making some really nice curtains for Andrea’s house—for all the kids’ bedrooms and living room.

Yesterday Michael and Carolyn rounded up their yearlings and brought down to our corral for overnight.  We got in our small herd and sorted off the pairs with calves we are going to sell, and put them in the orchard.  This morning at daylight we sorted off the calves and sent them with Michael’s yearlings to the sale at Butte, Montana.  The calves are only 5 months old and not very big, but hopefully they will bring a good price.

Later we weaned the rest of our calves—the heifers we are keeping, and 2 bull calves, and put them in the little pen below the barn, next to their mothers in the adjacent field.  There’s good grass in that pen so they won’t need to be fed hay.  Freddy’s bull calf is already weaned (5 days ago) and out in my horse pasture, so in a few days we’ll put the other 2 bull calves with him.  The heifers can live with Freddy in the little field above the house; we saved that grass for them.  Hopefully Freddy can gain back her lost weight.