SUMMER - JULY, 2013

JULY 5, 2013 – We had several days of cool, rainy weather last week after we scattered the cows out on the middle range pasture, and they stayed scattered, doing very well for awhile. Granddaughter Heather rode with Andrea and me one day to check on the cattle and gates.

As we were going up through our 320-acre pasture, we nearly stumbled over a pair of elk calves hidden in the sagebrush. One of them jumped up and took off immediately, but the other one lay low, thinking we couldn’t see him—until Heather’s horse took a step closer. Then he, too, bolted away.

We skipped Dottie’s lessons while it was cold and rainy and her pen was wet and slippery. Andrea caught Willow a few times and brought her out of her pen to let her eat grass and be brushed, and I trimmed her feet. I hadn’t trimmed her feet since winter and they were getting too long.

Andrea and I took time to re-locate some of the salt blocks that our range neighbor Alfonzo put out on the middle pasture. He put them in odd places where the cows might never find them, and on steep hillsides where the cows were rolling them down into the creek bottoms in their attempts to lick salt. We carried those blocks to the traditional salt grounds in areas where the cows need to be—we’ve always used the salt to entice them into areas that need to be grazed. On one long haul Andrea tied her sweatshirt around a block and tied it to her saddle, and I led Sprout while Andrea carried the smaller block by hand. Another day we rode up to the top of Mill Mountain and put the fence back together. Every year we have to fix it; hunters take it apart every fall. We led our horses down the other side, down the elk trails through the rocks and thick mahogany brush.

After the weather cleared up again, our Amish neighbors started haying, using their draft horses to pull their swather, rake and baler. Lynn took photos of them using the horses for haying.

Heather and Nick drove 4-wheelers up into our 320 to haul several bundles of steel posts up to the Baker Creek side. They spent a couple days fixing some of the bad spots in the fence where elk have been going over it. The fence was leaning and about to fall down. We don’t want range cattle getting into that pasture; we need it for Michael and Carolyn’s cows later this summer.

Last Thursday we brought the cows into the corral, sorted off the 4 yearling heifers and put them with the little yearling bull in the orchard and horse pasture, and put the 4-year-old bull out with the cows in the lower swamp pasture. Sam and Dani helped us move the cows, and Sam tripped in the rocks and skinned her knee and elbow. A few of grandma’s Bandaids fixed her up nicely.

We started working with Dottie again, after skipping her lessons for a week. Heather got on her again and I led her around in circles. The second time, Dottie was a little nervous and she jumped around a little, but didn’t buck, and soon settled down and Heather was able to ride her in circles around her pen as I led her. The following days she did very well and soon Heather was riding her solo around the pen without me leading or longeing her. Within a few more days she was able to start doing a little trotting in circles, with me at the center of the circle holding the lead rope. After her first bit of panic, Dottie settled into it and by the next day didn’t need me anymore.

Last week Lynn drove his 4-wheeler up the creek to our high range to check the gates on the road, and discovered about 40 pair of the neighbor’s cows in our high pasture; they’d come down through some open gates. The next day Andrea and I rode up there and moved the cows back out. The cows were easy to herd, but it was hard to get around the fallen trees in several places we needed to go. The old trails up the creek bottom have been obliterated by downed trees. The dead ones, killed by the terrible fire we had 10 years ago, keep blowing down over the trails and fences.

We managed to get the cows out and shut the gates, but the fence is flat in several spots, mashed by fallen trees. We tried to take the cows over into Mulkey Creek where they belong, and had trouble getting them down those trails through the timber—more fallen trees obstructing the trails. We got them part way down that creek, and then climbed out of Mulkey Creek (leading our horses up the steepest part of the mountain) and back onto our own range.

We made a place for Molly and Chance to graze above our stackyard; there was a lot of grass there going to waste. There isn’t a very good access to the creek, so Heather is hauling water for them.

Last Sunday Andrea and I rode to check the range after giving Sam and Dani a short ride on Veggie and Ed. We went up into the high range and discovered that the windstorm and/or lightning strike had felled a huge tree across the trail up through the timber above the 320. We had to make an awkward detour through the trees, to get past it. When we came back through the middle range after driving some high cows back down, we checked the troughs that John and his family recently worked on. Lynn had told him how to get one of those pipelines working again—by digging it down farther to prevent an airlock. It was still working nicely; they got it repaired successfully. We also found the binoculars that John told us his friend left hanging in a tree by the other spring box they’d worked on. Andrea carried them home, and Lynn took them over to John’s place that evening.

Andrea and her friend Mike took his 4-wheeler up on the range that same evening and sawed out several trees that have fallen over the main trails through the timber in the middle range.

Our weather turned very hot and dry—up into the 90’s—which is quite hot for our part of the country. On Monday Andrea and I rode to the upper place to meet Carolyn, Heather and Nick and help them bring their cows down from the south half of the 320 pasture. One of their last 2 pregnant cows had just calved the day before, and we had to find that new baby before we brought the herd. He was barely able to travel that far and was hot and tired when we got them down to the upper corral. We let them rest while Carolyn, Nick and Lynn took their stock trailer down to our place and loaded up our 2 young bulls (2-year-olds) and hauled them up to the corral. Dani came up to the corral with Lynn and Mike on the 4-wheelers, and she waited with us, sitting on Sprout, while Andrea helped Heather sort out 3 yearlings to leave in the corral.

When we unloaded the bulls we put them with the cows and took the herd across the fields and over the hill to the Cheney Creek pasture. The new baby got tired on the way, so we left him and his mama in Gopher meadow. On our way home I let Dani ride Ed and I rode with Lynn on his 4-wheeler.

On our various rides recently, we saw the cow elk a couple time, with the twin calves, in Baker Creek in our 320. The twins are really growing and have now lost their spots.

Yesterday, Lynn and I helped Carolyn, Heather and Nick dehorn, band and brand one of their little yearlings, and deloused both of them.

They didn’t brand or castrate Opie. He is the twin that almost died last year when his mother abandoned him and the magpies ate his umbilical cord and pecked his belly open. He was nearly dead when Carolyn found him, and she and Michael stitched him up. Part of his sheath was completely gone, however and they had to leave an opening for him to urinate. He still just dribbles urine, but has managed to survive and grow and stay healthy. They will eventually have to butcher him, but in the meantime he’s having a good life and growing bigger. Carolyn and kids hauled the two yearlings up to the wild meadow in their stock trailer and turned them out with the other yearlings.

Today is the anniversary of Andrea’s burn accident 13 years ago. Last year we celebrated this day with a picnic ride with her kids. This year the 3 youngest kids are with their dad this week, so we will have a celebration later, when they come home.

JULY 13 – Heather is making nice progress with Dottie. Last week we started taking her around to the new corral Michael built for us when he tore down the falling-down round corral that was built more than 100 years ago. The new corral isn’t round, but it’s bigger than Dottie’s pen and has better footing for training horses. Heather has been riding her there, working on walking, trotting, turning, stopping, and general flexibility. She’d been using just a halter with reins and then started using a bridle a couple days ago, giving cues with both the halter and snaffle reins to start making the transition. Now she is riding her to and from the corral, always doing something more and different each day.

Last Saturday Andrea and I rode 4 hours to check the range troughs; some of the springs are running less water in this hot weather, and lower Baker Creek is drying up. There were 40 cows trying to drink at Withington trough (which only runs a trickle and can only water about a dozen cow per day at most), so we moved that group of cows over the hill and down to some other areas with more water.

Lynn hooked up the swather to our big John Deere tractor and started cutting hay. He was able to cut heifer hill and the field below it. He turned off the rest of our irrigation water to start drying out the other fields so he can cut them, too. Sunday evening we went up to my brother’s campsite for a picnic supper.

Monday was a full day. Andrea took Emily to town for her driver’s education class, went to the dentist for a temporary covering over a broken tooth and scheduled an appointment for a root canal and crown. She got home about noon and we rode Sprout and Ed for our usual cow-checking. Lynn started cutting the big field of hay above the corrals and discovered a hydraulic line was leaking, and had to fix it.

There were too many cows at Withington trough again, with no water, so we herded them over the mountain and down to the Bear trough area. Some of them didn’t want to go the right direction. When we got down toward the brush above that trough a bunch of them ran into the brush to go the wrong way. Andrea galloped Sprout to head them off and chase them out of the brush while I was chasing the wayward cows on the other side of the herd.

I heard her holler from the brush, saying she was in trouble, so I galloped around the hill to come see what was wrong. She’d run into a sharp tree branch that had stabbed a couple inches into her thigh, clear to the bone, and broken off. It was spurting blood and she had her hand pressed over the gash to slow the bleeding.

While she held pressure on it, we dug out the bandages in her saddle bag and I got 3 dishtowels (that I use for scarves in cold, wet weather) from my saddle bag. I got a big square bandage ready to slap onto the wound the instant she removed her hand, and we wrapped and tied the scarves around her leg to hold the bandage in place and put pressure on the area to help stop the bleeding. Then we rode home, cleaned it up a little, and she went to town to the ER at the hospital—where she had to wait several hours. The ER doctor flushed and suctioned out a lot of wood fragments and tree bark, and put some internal dissolvable stitches into the flesh (since her graft skin is fragile and wouldn’t hold stitches very well).

She asked about antibiotics but the ER doctor thought it wouldn’t be necessary, and by Tuesday night the leg was hot and red and she had a fever. So Wednesday she went to the clinic and the doctor there didn’t like the looks of it and immediately put her on an antibiotic—and checked her again yesterday to flush it out some more.
They also took an x-ray to see if there were any fragments left in the wound, and to see if the puncture damaged the bone (which was the only thing that stopped the branch from going clear through her leg). The x-rays were encouraging; the bone seems ok and there were no obvious foreign bodies.

The only things that showed up were a fairly large number of staples that are still in her flesh from the graft surgeries 13 years ago. After the grafted skin “takes”, the staples holding it in place are removed, but there are always some that end up under the skin and get missed—and over time they tend to migrate around through the tissues. Over the years Andrea has had numerous staples removed when they showed up in bad places, like under a tendon or pressing into a blood vessel.

Tuesday evening Lynn finished cutting hay above the corrals and started baling the hay on heifer hill and the field below it—until he had a flat tire on the tractor. We moved the last few bales out of my hay shed, to make room for new hay. When Andrea went to the doctor on Wednesday she picked up several more boxes of baling twine.

Grandson Nick came down that morning and helped Lynn change the tire on the tractor; fortunately we had a spare, because the old tire was ruined and we had to order a new one. Nick ate lunch with us. When Lynn went out after lunch to bale hay again, the tractor wouldn’t start. It’s had some problems before, but not this serious. We had to call Jake, the tractor repair person who fixed that same tractor after it was badly damaged in the trailer tip-over wreck.

While we waited for him to come out to fix it, we moved our herd of cows from the little pasture above the house—since we’ll need to drive through there with the loads of hay from the fields above it. As the cows were coming down through the gate (coming eagerly because they knew they were going to a new pasture), Freddy was still up in the pasture. She’s usually front and center when we move the herd, so this was unusual. I walked up there to bring her to the gate, and she seemed a bit dull. I had to make her hurry to catch up with the herd that had already left the field. When she trotted she made a grunting noise. Her udder was empty; she’d gone dry.
So when we moved the herd through the barnyard and corrals to take them to a different pasture across the creek, we held Freddy and her calf back, and kept them in the corral for observation. Her calf was bawling and hungry. Freddy was not interested in food, just picking at the hay we gave her. For a cow that isn’t eating, she was very full.

She was worse the next morning—dull and lethargic—and still very full. She made soft grunting/burping noises when I made her walk to the chute so we could take her temperature. It was 102.8 which isn’t a high fever, but more than a degree above normal. So we treated her with LA-200 (long-acting oxytetracycline) and also gave her Banamine (an anti-inflammatory drug that reduces fever) in hopes it might help her feel better and start eating again. Our vet was unable to come look at her until late that afternoon, and by that time she was feeling much better (thanks to the Banamine), acting like her normal self, chewing her cud. He checked her for mastitis and hardware disease, but she seemed fine. His guess was that she had temporary indigestion from something she ate. That would explain why she wasn’t chewing her cud and was full of gas.

We kept her in the corral overnight for observation, but she was eating a little better again and seemed normal, and had some milk again for her calf, so we turned them back out in the field again the next morning.

Meanwhile we were still having haying challenges. Jake got the tractor problem figured out and it started again. Lynn was able to finish baling the field below heifer hill—almost. The baler quit working just before he got done. He couldn’t get it figured out, so he hauled a load of hay on the stackwagon. They didn’t load very well, being a little smaller and lighter than normal, and trying to load them on a hillside. By the time he got the stacker loaded, it was late evening, so he didn’t unload it in my hay shed, but waited until morning when he wasn’t so tired. When he tried to back it into the shed the next day to unload, the bales started falling off it. When he pulled forward, more fell off, and he finally just had to dump the rest in a pile.

Nick came down to help him try to fix the baler. But it only worked a short while and quit making bales again. Andrea and her friend Mike helped me load the dumped bales in the jeep and take them around to stack by my horse pens—to get them out of the way--and Nick helped us finish loading, hauling and stacking them. Since we had to wait for Jake to come again and look at the baler (and Jake didn’t make it out here that day), Lynn got another load of hay and was able to get it safely unloaded in my hay shed without mishap.

Yesterday he hauled more hay while he was waiting for Jake, and got all the hay off those 2 fields except for the last windrow that isn’t baled yet. Andrea rowed the bales to make it easier. Jake finally came late afternoon, worked on the baler a couple hours, and got it working again. So Lynn baled hay until dark, to finish the field across the creek. He also baled the little bit of hay left on this side, and picked those bales up in the jeep in the dark—using a flashlight—so he could turn the irrigation water back onto that field before the creek drops any more. Our creek is really low and we need to get some the fields watered again (after haying) to grow fall pasture for the cows. He finally got done last night at 11 p.m.

Today young Heather had a good session with Dottie, riding her around the barnyard, corrals, and up into the little pasture above the corrals.

Then Andrea and I rode with John Miller for 6 ½ hours to show him the high range—the larkspur that needs to be chopped before the cows go to that pasture, and all the water troughs, fences and gates. There are several troughs and fences that need fixed. Some of the troughs are rusting out and need to be replaced, and more trees have fallen down over the fences in the old burned area. It will be a major project to fix the fences.

Lynn tried to haul more hay, and had another problem with the stackwagon, dumping part of the hay. He laboriously restacked those bales onto the wagon and got it unloaded. That wore him out so he didn’t try to haul any more hay. It was another “bad hay” day. The next load tried to tip sideways but we were able to prop it and then push the top tiers back into place with the 4-wheeler and a long pole.

We finally got all the hay off that field, and hope to cut the two lower fields tomorrow.

EARLY SUMMER (MAY - JUNE) 2013

MAY 22 - On Saturday Lynn helped our new neighbor, John Miller, work on water troughs on the low range pasture, cleaning out the spring boxes so there would be more flow into the troughs.

Lynn and I put up an electric wire along both sides of the fence between Dottie and Sprout. Even though the fence between them is 6 feet tall, they try to fight each other, rearing up and trying to strike and bite over the fence. The hot wire will keep them more civilized!

Emily helped me clean house and Sunday evening we had our family all together for dinner—Michael and Carolyn and kids, and Andrea and kids. This was a group birthday celebration for all of Michael’s family (birthdays in April) and for Lynn and Andrea (birthdays May 17 and 21).

Today Andrea and I rode for nearly 5 hours on Sprout and Ed, checking the fence around the middle range pasture, fixing some broken wires where the elk went through, and shutting gates. There were a few places where new posts are needed, and those will have to wait until we have more help.

MAY 28 – On Thursday we had a little rain, and new snow on the mountains. I put new front shoes on Ed; her feet are getting long (stumbling) and the shoes are worn out. Then Andrea and I rode to check more fences and fix a range gate, and went through the road pasture on the upper place where Michael and Carolyn’s cattle are grazing. One of their calves (Popsicle—the one that Carolyn and Andrea rescued in January when it was stuck on it’s back and freezing to death) was lame with a swollen front leg. It looked like a rattlesnake bite. We’ve seen a lot of snakes already this spring. After we fixed the gate and checked several water troughs we hurried home so Andrea could go to town and pick up the kids; it was their last day of school and they got out early.

Our new neighbor, John Miller, put his cows out on the low range pasture that afternoon and took them to Baker Creek. They are pasture cattle and have never been on the range before, so they tried to go back home. They were all ganged up along the fence the next morning—hungry and thirsty. Andrea and I rode Sprout and Ed and moved them back to Baker Creek, where they all drank and then went to grazing. We left them spread out over that area and continued our ride up into the middle range to check a few more water troughs to see which ones need worked on.

Saturday we rode with John to show him the middle range and where all the troughs are located. He was delayed awhile because one of his neighbor’s cows had come into his place that morning and had a broken leg—and the neighbor asked him to butcher the cow and hang it in a friend’s cooler. While we waited for John to ride over here, we got our horses ready and picked more than 100 ticks off the two of them. Riding through the sagebrush this spring we’ve gotten a lot of ticks, on ourselves and our horses. We keep picking them off the horses every time we ride.

We showed John the middle range and troughs that need fixed, closed another gate that had been left open all winter, and showed him the collapsed braces where we need to build a new gate between the high range and middle range. He was hoping he could remember the names and locations of all the troughs, so I told him I would make him a map of all the range pastures.

Sunday afternoon we took Sam and Dani for their first ride this summer on 27-year-old Veggie and Ed.

Andrea rode Breezy and I rode 26-year-old Rubbie. I trimmed Veggie’s and Rubbie’s feet just before we rode. Then we made a short ride over the low range and got back just ahead of a thunderstorm. We got the horses put away before it started raining hard.

Today I made enlarged copies of an old topography map of our area, so I can make the range map for John, drawing in the fences, gates, troughs and other important landmarks. This afternoon we vaccinated some of the horses with their annual boosters for West Nile Virus, encephalomyelitis, tetanus, influenza and rhinopneumonitis.

JUNE 4 – Wednesday Lynn, Andrea and one of Emily’s friends made a new gate in the middle range/low range fence. The old gate in the corner of the low range pasture was eliminated when the neighboring rancher put his property fence on line, moving it up the slope several hundred feet. This created a major obstacle for moving range cattle from pasture to pasture, so we built a new gate farther back along the range fence, on grade with the new fence corner, so the cattle can travel around that corner without having to climb straight up the steep mountainside.

Sprout was dull and lethargic for a few days after her vaccination, probably running a low-grade fever. Ed showed no ill effects from her shots, possibly because I’ve been giving her a small dose of “bute” every day to alleviate lameness from her old hock injury and her front foot soreness that has been getting worse the last couple of years. The “bute” is a good anti-inflammatory, similar to aspirin or ibuprofen and it probably minimized any fever or discomfort she might have had from vaccination.

Michael worked for a couple days hauling more dirt away from the back side of Andrea’s house, making more room for vehicles, and backsloping the hill so it won’t topple down or be dangerous for the children to fall down it. He hauled the dirt to our barnyard to cover the big rocks he put as a base in the lane to prevent trucks and tractors getting stuck during wet weather. Now there’s a good rock base but a smooth surface so we don’t keep stumbling over the big rocks!

On Friday we took Sam and Dani for another short ride on Veggie and Ed, and I put front shoes on Rubbie when we got home. That night it got cold again, down to 30 degrees, and froze our tomato plants in the back of the jeep. We’ll have to get some more from our neighbor’s greenhouse!

Saturday Andrea and I rode to check more of the range and then gave Sam and Dani a ride on Veg and Ed when we got home, and Emily rode Sprout—now that Sprout has settled down and become more dependable again. She no longer tries to buck.

Yesterday Andrea, Carolyn, young Heather and I helped John Miller and his family, and our other neighbor Alfonzo gather the cows off the low range and move them to the middle pasture.

Today Carolyn and Heather brought their two old horses, Molly (age 30) and Chance (in his late 20’s) down to Andrea’s house to let them graze around her place to eat down the grass and weeds. They’ve run out of pasture around their barnyard, and those old horses do better eating grass with their bad teeth than eating hay. Young Heather will be coming down each morning to feed them their “mash” of moistened pellets (easy to chew) and change the fly mask on Chance. The face flies bother him a lot, so the fly mask keeps them away from his eyes and he’s a lot more comfortable.

Lynn and I used a step-ladder in Dottie’s pen to trim the elm tree branches while I had her tied in the calving pen for a tying lesson. The branches have grown a lot this summer and are hanging down to where she can reach them. She’s been eating the leaves and branches and they’re not very good for her.

This afternoon we vaccinated Dottie and Willow. This evening just before we went to bed I looked out the window and noticed that Dottie was uncomfortable, alternately picking up all four feet, treading in place. I went out there, brought her out of her pen so she could eat a little grass (to distract her during her first experience with a rectal thermometer) and took her temperature. She was uncomfortable and trembling in pain, and kept her tail clamped down, but I kept rubbing alongside it—a place horse’s like to be rubbed because that’s hard place to reach for itching. Eventually she relaxed and lifted her tail so I could slip the thermometer into her rectum.

Her temperature was 102.4 degrees, which was definitely above normal (a horse’s normal temperature ranges from 99 to 100.5 degrees). She was probably having a reaction to the vaccination. I gave her an injection of Banamine to ease the fever and discomfort. When I put her back in her pen I turned on the yard light that illuminates that pen and the calving pen, so I could watch her during the night, checking on her periodically from the house windows.

JUNE 10 – The day after we vaccinated the fillies Dottie seemed ok (after the Banamine that night) and her temperature was normal. Nick and young Heather came down to our place early that morning and helped us get our cows and calves in from the field and sort off the calves. We vaccinated the cows, vaccinated and tagged the yearling heifers, then branded and vaccinated the calves. It was nice having the grandkids helping; they are a lot stronger than we are! We also vaccinated the three yearling bulls we’ve been feeding for Michael here in our corral.

Dani and Charlie came down to watch the branding. Afterward, they all had lunch at our house. Then the little kids went back to Andrea’s house to help Heather feed the old horses, and Dani went with Heather for the rest of the afternoon—to watch her working with some of the young horses she’s training. This summer she is training several horses again for various people.

Dottie seemed a little dull again by afternoon so I took her temperature and it was very high—105.5 degrees. So I gave her another injection of Banamine. Then Andrea and I rode Ed and Sprout for several hours to check the cows on the middle range. I gave Dottie a partial dose of Banamine just before we went to bed that night (even though her temp had come back down to normal) so I wouldn’t have to get up in the middle of the night to give her another dose. The next day she seemed ok and her temperature stayed normal.

On Thursday the little kids had another riding lesson with their big cousin. Emily and a friend put up a fake electric fence (baling twine) along Andrea’s driveway, so the 2 old horses could graze it and mow down the grass on the edge that we can’t cut for hay. Andrea and I rode and checked the range cows; some are too high (eating the short grass at the higher elevation before it has a chance to grow) and some of John’s cows are grouped too much in a canyon in the lower part where there isn’t enough water for that many cows. So on Friday we moved those cows to better grass and spread them out in a couple of draws where there is plenty of water. It will take them awhile to learn how to use the range.

I’ve been giving Dottie tying lessons the last several mornings and she’s learning to be more patient instead of pawing at the fence, and yesterday I trimmed her feet.
Michael and Carolyn branded and vaccinated their calves yesterday and took their herd up to the 320 acre mountain pasture. Four of their cows haven’t calved yet, so they will brand and vaccinate those calves later this summer.

Lynn made a new pipe to go through the culvert under the road (our old one disappeared) so we can pump water for the cows on the hill pasture. Emily and her friend Noah helped Lynn take water troughs and the pump and hoses up to the culvert under the road by heifer hill, and helped him pump. Today we moved our cows from the field below the lane and took them to the hill pasture, then Andrea and I continued riding up to the middle range. We found too many cows in the first canyon, without water. So we gathered them out of the brush and moved them to the 2nd and 3rd draws. It was stormy that evening, but Michael came down and put new shoes on Sprout. He was just finishing when Carolyn came down on her 4-wheeler to tell him that Heather had discovered a young calf hiding in the sagebrush by their upper corral. He was bawling and very hungry. Heather grabbed him and got him into the corral.

Apparently one of the pregnant cows calved a few days before the branding, and didn’t have her calf with her when they gathered the group to take to the corral. Like a deer, cows hide their babies (to be safe from predators while mama goes to graze) and come back to the hiding place to nurse the baby, until he’s several days old and more mobile. This young calf had been without his mama for 36 hours; she’d been taken with the herd up to the 320-acre mountain pasture.

So Michael quickly finished shoeing Sprout and went to help Carolyn and Heather take the calf back to its mama before dark. He drove their little truck up the mountain, with Carolyn and Heather holding onto the calf in the back of the truck. The cow was bawling at the gate, and baby answered her. When they let him out of the truck he ran to her and started nursing, just as a hailstorm hit. It was a downpour, and made the jeep track so slippery that Michael was barely able to drive back along the jeep track without getting stuck or sliding off the mountain.

JUNE 20 – Michael got all of Heather’s trainees shod, reshod Breezy for me and put new shoes on Ed’s hind feet before he went back to North Dakota to his truck-driving job. Heather started working with Dottie every day when she comes down to feed the old horses their pellet “mush” and change Chance’s fly mask. It took a couple days of persistent work to get Dottie over her saddle phobia. When we bought Dottie last fall she’d been halter trained (to lead and tie) and her former owner said that she’d been saddled (but not ridden yet). Something must have happened that scared her during saddling, because she was very skittish about having the saddle put on her from the left (traditional) side, but had no fear of it being put on from the other side.

She kept jumping and spinning away from the lightweight training saddle as Heather tried to desensitize her with it (and nearly work out Heather’s arm with all the repetition, trying to show her it wasn’t going to hurt her). Heather finally put her in a corner where she couldn’t move away from it, and Dottie eventually resigned herself to having it swung up onto her back.

Heather works with Dottie in the mornings while she’s here taking care of Molly and Chance, then spends the rest of the day working with the other horses she’s training. She works them in her round corral, and in the new arena (not fenced yet, but created with dirt that Michael hauled in and smoothed/leveled). As they progress she takes them out on the range, leading them from another horse, or riding one and leading another, then switches and rides the other one on the way home.

A week ago Andrea and I made a long ride in the rain to check cows, fences and fix another gate. The cows were spread out better in the cool weather and we didn’t have to move any that day. We spent more time checking fences and gates.

But when we got to the 3rd canyon our horses started snorting and didn’t want to cross the little creek. I made it across with Ed, and Andrea was just starting to take Sprout along the sidehill to the upper crossing when Sprout spooked at something and whirled around and tried to bolt out of there. It’s a good thing she’s very strong and agile and had brand-new shoes on, with good traction (toe and heel calks) or she would have fallen down on that steep, slippery hill and rolled to the bottom.
Andrea got her stopped and finally got her across on the lower crossing where it wasn’t so steep. We saw a lone black critter lying in the sagebrush along the trail ahead of us, and it looked dead. As we got closer we saw that it was indeed dead—one of John’s bulls. We found out later that the bull died in the creek the day before. John and his boys brought their team of draft horses out there to pull the body up the bank and out of the creek area. Our horses were spooking when they smelled the trail left from dragging the dead bull.

On Friday Andrea made a fast ride on Breezy to check the cows. Heather started longeing Dottie with the saddle on, getting her used to its feel and sound, and flopping stirrups.

Then she spent a couple days playing with a tarp, letting Dottie walk on it, paw it, and get used to it being put over her back, over her head, etc. She’s not a bit afraid of new things, so we realize that her saddle phobia must have been caused by something that really scared her when she was being saddled. Sammy and Dani “helped” her work with Dottie a couple days, playing with the tarp and longeing Dottie with it draped over her.

Then Heather got on Dottie for the first time and I led her around the pen, to get her used to the feeling of someone on her back. She’s coming along nicely in her training.

The little kids are also enjoying their occasional lessons up at Heather’s arena, riding Gus, Captain and some of the other horses. Heather enjoys teaching young kids and young horses.

On Sunday afternoon Andrea and I rode through the highest part of the middle range and found that lots of cows already using that area, eating the short grass (hardly any grass left up there). We spent an hour patching a big hole in the fence where a huge fir tree blew down over it, wiping out several posts. We used a lot of baling twine (which I always carry in pommel bags on my saddle) and tied a bunch of big branches together to make a barrier that the cows can’t go through—to keep them from going into the high range pasture too soon.

On Tuesday Andrea rode Sprout out on the range to check cows by herself, and ended up chasing a huge mob of cows down out of the high country. They are out of feed up there and wanting to go into the high pasture.

Yesterday was windy and stormy so we skipped Dottie’s lesson. Heather (riding a young mare she trained, named Lacey) rode with Andrea and me to chase more of the high cows down to better grass.

We rode up into the 320 pasture on our way, and a thunderstorm hit—so we waited it out for nearly an hour in the canyon as the lightning cracked all around us. Heather’s dogs were trying to hide under the horses. Lacey and Ed didn’t mind the dogs but Sprout didn’t like them and acted like she would kick them, so we made sure the dogs stayed away from her.

The pelting rain turned to hail and we would have been thoroughly soaked if we hadn’t been wearing chinks (to protect our legs) and good coats. When the worst of the lightning had passed, we continued on, and gathered a bunch of cows out of the high country and took them down to better grass. It was a bit challenging on the slippery wet hillsides, but it didn’t start raining again until we were done chasing the cows and started home again. Lynn had started a fire in our wood stove and it felt really good to come into a warm house and hang our wet coats by the stove to dry.

Today Andrea and I rode Sprout and Ed again and moved some of John’s cows that were grouped in the lower end of Baker Creek with too many for the water supply, and spread them out over the middle area of that range, where there’s a lot more grass--and access to several water troughs.

LATE APRIL - EARLY MAY 2013

APRIL 30 – We had a few more cold nights, down to 14 degrees. Then it warmed up a little. Michael helped Lynn take the post pounder off our smallest tractor, and put the blade on it, to start cleaning ditches. Andrea and I hadn’t taken time to work with the fillies for awhile, or ride Sprout, so on Thursday we caught and brushed the fillies, and then rode Ed and Sprout on a fast ride about 5 miles up the creek and back. We hurried home so Andrea could get to town on time to take the little girls to dance practice after school, and Charlie to the computer place where he is learning to fix computers.
Friday afternoon Dani came down to see her favorite cow, Maggie, and calf.

 

Andrea and I worked with the fillies again, and rode Ed and Sprout—a fast ride over to Beachy’s place (a 12 mile round trip). We were thinking Sprout was finally starting to behave again, until a group of horses came galloping up alongside the fence to greet us. Sprout spun and bolted (since Andrea wouldn’t let her buck), and Andrea had to pull her around really sharply to halt her. She behaved better on the way home.

When we got back, we checked on the cows and calves and discovered that one of the youngest calves (Maggeruete’s calf) was very sick with scours. He had been fine that morning, but by 6 p.m. was squirting watery diarrhea. He was very weak and staggery, not nursing his mother. We brought the pair in from the field and put them in one of the pens by the barn, and gave the calf 1 ½ quarts of warm water and electrolytes (with a liquid oral antibiotic and kaolin/pectin mixed in) via nasogastric tube.

We gave him more fluids/medication by tube in the middle of the night (at 1a.m.). Andrea and Dani came from their house, and Dani held the flashlight for us. She wanted to help: “I don’t want the calf to die, Grandma.”

He seemed a little better by morning and was nursing his mother, so we skipped the 7 a.m. tubing, which was a mistake. By late morning he was squirting colored water and was very weak again. We realized he needed fluid more frequently to keep from becoming dehydrated; this was a much more serious case than we’ve had for many years. We started tubing him every 4 hours through the days and nights.

Sunday morning was windy and raining, so we took the pair across the creek to the sick barn for shelter (we never put sick calves in our calving barn). The calf was barely able to walk, but he made it. We started giving him extra Keopectate by mouth (about 4 ounces by dose syringe) in between the every-4-hour tubings of fluid, to try to slow down the diarrhea. His gum color was still good, with good capillary refill time, so we knew he didn’t need IV fluids; the frequent oral tubings were keeping him hydrated.

That morning our neighbor Alfonzo started burning brush piles along the creek on the old Gooch place. The weather was windy and the fire got away from him and burned up some of the trees along the creek. He got worried and sped down the creek in his pickup, and brought back several of the Amish men and their water pump, and they spent the rest of the day helping him contain the fire.
Michael helped Lynn clean the old straw and manure out of our calving barn, so it will be clean for next year. During this stormy weather we’re glad we have the secondary barn for shelter.

Maggeruete’s calf is protected from the wind and rain. He’s finally doing better. I went to give him one of his doses of keopectate yesterday afternoon and he was actually nursing his mother. After we tubed him in the evening I gave him a dose of probiotics, a paste containing some of the “gut bugs” he needs—in case the antibiotics have killed off the natural flora in his digestive tract. He was doing so much better that we didn’t get up in the night to tube him, just gave him a dose early this morning and again at noon and at chore time this evening. When I checked on him tonight before bedtime, I decided that he has finally “graduated” and no longer needs fluids. He’s nursing regularly and his bowel movements have firmed up. He’s feeling strong and sassy again and can probably go back out to the field soon.

MAY 7 – Maggeruete’s calf is happy to be back out in the field again with all his buddies. After the prolonged diarrhea he lost all the hair off his hind end, and looks a little funny with all that wrinkled bare skin, so now his nickname is Elephant Boy.

 

Last Wednesday Michael and Carolyn moved their cows and new babies to the field above the upper corral, so they won’t have access to the creek. Where they’ve been crossing the creek from the Wild Meadow to Gopher Meadow, there is risk for calves being swept away and drowning, now that warmer days resulted in high water from snow melting on the mountain. That morning they also found a freshly-killed deer along the road, mostly eaten. It looks like a wolf kill.

Michael helped Lynn check a couple ditches on the Gooch place that serve some of our fields. Both ditches need new headgates. The next day he used our backhoe and helped Lynn fix one of our ditch outlets. Yesterday he used the backhoe to fix the two Gooch ditches and put in the new headgates. We need to get all our fields irrigated while we have adequate water in the creek.

Lynn and I sent to see the spring dance program at the school. Sammy and Dani were in several dances; both girls are really good at clogging.

On Sunday Andrea and I rode Ed and Sprout, shutting a few more range gates and going around our 320 pasture fence to see where it needs repairs after winter elk damage. The gate between the middle and high range pasture is non-functional; the brace on one end is completely flat. We’ll have to set new posts.

Yesterday while Michael was working on ditches (after feeding their cows that morning), Carolyn checked their cows again in the late afternoon and found another one had calved—with twins. She was mothering one twin but abandoned the first one before he’d had a chance to nurse. He was cold, hungry and very weak. Carolyn brought him home on the 4-wheeler. He was too weak and lethargic to nurse a bottle, so Michael tubed him with substitute colostrum as soon as he got home. They made a place for him in a corner of their basement.

Today Michael and Carolyn took their stock trailer to Helena to pick up young Heather’s horses and some of her things to bring home from college, so Lynn and I went up to their place this morning after chores to get clued in on what to feed the calf. They had to tube him again late last night, but he did suck part of a bottle at 5 a.m. He drank ¾ of a quart when Carolyn fed him just before they left for Helena.

Andrea and I rode today and shut more range gates, and patched a hole in the fence between the low range and middle range where bikers made a new little “bicycle gate” but failed to hook the fence wires back up again.

Lynn helped Alfonzo pull some brush out of the creek that was obstructing water flow into one of the ditches. Then Lynn and I went up at 4 pm to feed the calf, but he was very lethargic and didn’t want much milk—and had a high fever. So we gave him an injection of antibiotics. By the time Michael and Carolyn got home at 10:30 this evening the calf was feeling better and nursed a full feeding of milk replacer.

MAY 17 – Last week Lynn hauled another load of big round bales to the upper place for Michael and Carolyn’s cows. Nick drove home from Iowa (William Penn University) and got here Thursday afternoon. He and Michael took a few little bales up for their horses—for Lynn to feed them when we did their chores again. We were the “battery backup” for all the chores last weekend, with everyone gone.

Thursday afternoon Charlie sang a solo in his school program, and then Andrea and kids drove to Utah for Sam’s national dance competition that weekend, and her group got 2nd place!

Lynn fed all their pets while they were gone. Friday morning Michael and Nick brought the calf down here for me to take care of. Michael, Carolyn and Nick drove to Helena to spend 2 days for young Heather’s graduation from Carroll College.

We fixed a place in our barn for the calf, where he could go in and out—to the grassy pen in front of the barn. He gets a bottle 3 times a day—early morning before chores, at 2 pm in the afternoon, and last thing at night before bedtime. Lynn fed him a few times for me.

Young Heather graduated with honors on Saturday. She was one of 10 graduating seniors (out of 288 graduates) with a 4.00 grade for all 4 years. On Sunday Michael, Carolyn and Nick packed the rest of her things and came home that evening. We kept the calf here one more night. When I fed him just before bedtime, he was so determined to follow me afterward (wanting more milk) that he shimmied under the metal gate and came running after me. I had to lock him in the barn to make sure he didn’t escape again. Michael and kids came down the next morning with their trailer to take him back home. It was nice to see young Heather and give her a hug, and a graduation gift.

That afternoon Andrea and I rode Ed and Sprout to check more range fences.

We try to ride every day to put more miles on Sprout and get her settled into working attitude. She was doing pretty well (hadn’t tried to buck for several days) until yesterday when we made a short fast ride in the rain. By the time we came home it had stopped raining. We were trotting past another horse in a field, and when Sprout heard that horse whinny she blew up and started bucking. Andrea got her under control and made her gallop around a bit before we continued home. That crazy mare needs a lot more (and harder) rides to become more dependable.

Yesterday evening at chores I checked the cows and calves when I was re-filling one of their water troughs and noticed that Mary Mary Conskentrary’s calf was dull and had diarrhea. Lynn and I brought the pair in from the field, to one of the side pens where we could catch the calf and give her oral neomycin sulfate solution. They we hurried to town to the annual Spring Concert at the High School. Charlie’s 5th grade band group played several pieces (and Charlie had a trombone solo), and Emily’s high school choir sang several songs (and Em had a short solo). We are proud of both kids. Em has been too shy to sing a solo before now, and Charlie just started playing trombone in mid-January. We are glad they both enjoy music.

This morning it is actually raining. It’s been a dry spring, so any rain is much appreciated. We put Mary Mary and her calf into the sick barn where the calf can stay warm and dry. She seems a little better and stronger today.

April Calving 2013

APRIL 10 – After several days of treatment, Lilly Ann recovered, but we kept her in a small pen by herself so the other cows wouldn’t boss her around. We will keep her separate until she calves—and hope that her calf will be ok after her high fever.

Andrea and I rode several more days, trying to put a lot of miles on Sprout and get her past her attempts at bucking. I rode Ed most days, but also rode Breezy to help her get back in shape again, too.



On Thursday Michael and Carolyn helped one of our neighbors all day, branding and vaccinating calves. Bruce had recently broken several ribs after being bucked off his horse while helping another neighbor work cattle—so he needed help with his own branding.

That evening we fed a couple of Andrea’s kids supper after we brought them home from the school bus (the other kids were still in town for various activities and Andrea went in to get them). Dani and Sam helped me with chores. They love to see the new baby calves, and always help name them. Dani named the first ones Thunder Bull, Lightning Strike, Brownie Tip Tail, Merrinina, Bug Eyed Bear, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, etc. Sammy named the first heifer calf Emerald.



Andrea has been coming down here to watch the cows during the first part of the night, until I get up early in the morning to type articles and continue the cow-checking. Lynn and I went to bed early that night and I woke up at 9:30 and realized Andrea hadn’t come down yet. I looked out the window to check the cows in the maternity pen with the spotlight and could see that one of the heifers (Buffalo Baby) had just calved—lying there by the fence with a newborn calf emerging behind her.

I quickly dressed and went out there. It must have been a fast and easy birth because Buffalo Baby hadn’t shown any signs of labor when we went to bed. She didn’t even know she’d calved! She got up when I approached, and seemed somewhat startled by this wee creature behind her.

The night was cold and some of the other cows and heifers were approaching--curious to check out the new baby--so we needed to put this heifer and baby in the barn, out of the wind, where they could bond without interference from the other cattle. I woke Lynn and we pulled the calf to the barn in the calf sled. Buffalo Baby was confused and didn’t want to follow the sled, but her own mother (Buffalo Girl) came marching after us, sniffing her new grandchild, and I was able to persuade Buffalo Baby to follow her old mother. Thus we made a quaint parade to the barn—Lynn pulling the calf sled, Buffalo Girl sniffing the sled, Buffalo Baby following her, and me following the confused young mother.

We put them all in the barn, with Buffalo Girl in the adjacent stall from the new mama and baby, to give her company and reassurance. Buffalo Baby started licking the calf and mooing, but when the calf got up, the young mama wasn’t sure what to do with this lively creature that kept circling round her trying to find the udder. The little calf finally got cold and discouraged. So we heated up some of the colostrum that we’d stolen from Freddy a few days earlier and fed her a bottle. This gave the calf energy and renewed enthusiasm. She resumed her pursuit of the udder and finally caught up with it—nursing happily while her mama lovingly licked her little hind end.

Friday morning I put MagniKate (a second calf cow) into one of the calving pens when she went into labor. By noon it started to pour rain, so I put her in the barn to calve. She had a nice bull calf. It rained hard off and on the rest of the day, so we were glad we have a calving barn.



Saturday morning Michael had planned to go get the new backhoe tire and change the tires, but one of his horses (Gus) had gotten out of the pasture on our upper place and was out on the range, and Michael had to go find him. Lynn took our flatbed trailer to town to get the new tire. Michael eventually tracked down Gus and was glad to see that he was not injured. Then he spent the rest of the morning checking the fence, to fix it. He found the low spot where wildlife had mashed it down and Gus had stepped over it. Michael came down later in the day to change the backhoe tire (so he can use the backhoe to clean the wild meadow ditch on the upper place) and took home another big bale for their old horses.

That evening Andrea went to the benefit auction for a young woman in our community who has inoperable cancer. We all donated things for the auction. Andrea made a nice basket of Mary Kay products, and I donated about 20 autographed books (some of my horse and cattle books) and a few of my father’s books. Our family is forever grateful for the community support that came to our aid when Andrea was in the burn ICU in Salt Lake 13 summers ago, fighting for her life, and we try to help when other people are in desperate need.

Yesterday Andrea and I rode Sprout and Ed again for a couple hours (after skipping a few days when we were too busy), and took them on another fast short ride this afternoon. Sprout is still a bit obnoxious and tries to buck occasionally, but once the hills dry out a bit more (not so muddy and slippery) and we aren’t so busy calving, we can take her on longer, harder rides.

APRIL 15 – During Andrea’s night shift watching cows, she has been working on her old room here, getting some of the stored stuff sorted and moved out—to make room for the kids to sleep in there when they spend the night here, so they won’t have to sleep on a couch.



The two little girls slept there this past weekend, happy to be able to help do chores and feeding in the mornings while Andrea sleeps. They helped Lynn and me move cows and new calves out to the field, feed and water the pairs still in the pens by the barn, etc.



They also make sure that all the calves get named! Dani tries to pet any of the calves she can get close to, and we took pictures of her petting Cupie Doll’s new baby.



Thursday evening we had 3 calves. Maggie (Dani’s favorite old cow) was in early labor so we put her in the barn to keep Maggeruite (her granddaughter) company. Dani and I kept an eye on the heifer, watching quietly through the back door of the barn where she couldn’t see us. The calf’s feet were showing (and very large), and she was taking too long, so I sent Dani to the house to get Lynn and the OB chains. Lynn and I pulled the calf—a big bull.

By then it was getting dark but we could see that the last heifer (Mary Mary Conskentrary—named by Dani 2 years ago) was also calving. When we put her in the barn, we saw that Maggie had calved. Dani was very disappointed because the old cow did it so quickly that Dani didn’t get to watch the birth like she did last year. We let her go in and see the new calf and pet it quickly, and then we had to get out of the barn and leave Mary Mary (one of our most flighty heifers) in peace to have her baby.

When we peeked in next, Mary Mary was getting more serious about labor, and Maggeruite’s calf had tried and tried to nurse his mama and was giving up. Maggie’s big blundering boy was thinking about nursing, so Andrea and I sneaked into her stall and milked some extra from Maggie while her calf was nursing. Then we fed Maggeruite’s calf some of his great-grandma’s colostrum—which gave him enough energy to keep trying to nurse his own mama. By then Mary Mary had calved—a little heifer calf—and was tentatively mothering it. We ended up giving that calf a little “jump start” with some of Maggie’s colostrum, too. Both calves eventually caught up with their mamas. The next day we put Mary Mary and her new baby Silver Bell out in the pen below the barn.



Friday evening Andrea took the kids to the school play. Emily’s drama class put on “Little Shop of Horrors” for 3 nights, and did a great job.

Saturday was very cold and windy, with a nasty blizzard mid-day, after we’d put 3 new pairs out of the barn into the 2nd day pens.



Those pens have good windbreaks, but the bedding got wet and cold with new snow. Andrea put new hay in there after the blizzard quit, so the calves would have a dry place to snuggle into.

Lynn loaded 8 more big round bales on our big truck and hauled them up to Michael and Carolyn’s stackyard, since they’ve run out of hay. Andrea took our tractor up there to unload the bales. One of their old cows had just had a new baby during the blizzard, and was cold and wet, but trying to nurse. Andrea and Lynn put some hay in the brush for bedding for the new pair.

Saturday night one of the calves we’d put out of our barn (Maggeruite’s big bull calf) was lethargic and not nursing, so at 2 a.m. we put that pair back in the barn, gave the calf antibiotics, and fed him a bottle. He was feeling better by morning and it looked like he might have sucked one or two teats.

Sunday morning Sammy and Dani helped us do chores and feed the cows. They enjoyed petting Maggie’s calf, and searched around outside the pen to find some green grass tall enough to pick some handfuls to feed Maggie. That old cow loves licking grass out of their hands.





We had another blizzard last night. Snow was blowing hard when we checked on Maggeruite’s calf again in the barn. He was acting hungry again and it didn’t look like he’d nursed his mama, so we helped him. It’s almost like he’d forgotten how to nurse, but Andrea was able to get him on 3 teats, and the young mama was very patient. She seemed to know that he needed help.

Only 3 more cows left to calve. We’re hoping they get it over with soon, or the weather gets nicer. It seems crazy to be having such nasty weather this late in the spring, but we’re glad we have a calving barn for these windy, snowy nights!

APRIL 23 – Last Wednesday Lilly Ann finally calved. We were glad to see that the calf was normal and healthy, after her serious illness and high fever 3 weeks ago. He was a little small, perhaps because the cow was so stressed for awhile in late gestation, but he was strong and lively.

The next morning when Lynn and I were feeding cows, we noticed a group of cows and calves coming down the road above our place. We hurriedly finished feeding and got the 4-wheeler and roared up the road to head off the cows before they got down to our lane and into our haystack. We herded them back up to the neighbor’s place where a gate had been left open, and put them back into their own field. Lynn took another load of (eight) big round bales up to Michael and Carolyn’s place on our big flatbed truck. Michael finished cleaning the Wild Meadow ditch with the backhoe.

Magrat finally started calving Sunday morning. She’s never calved in a barn; her first 3 calves were born outdoors. The weather this year has been so miserable, however, that we were afraid we might have to put her in the barn, and she’s a huge, tall cow—capable of jumping over the division panel between the stalls and smashing it. In preparation for the possibility of barn calving, Andrea and I put her and Buffalo Girl in the barn for a trial run last week, in adjacent stalls so Magrat wouldn’t be all by herself. She was quite content. This is much different, however, than being in labor—in pain and upset. That’s when most cows get more frantic and try to “climb the walls” and get out. So a few days ago Andrea and I tied a big long pole across the low spot, above the panel, so it would be nearly impossible for her to jump over.

Even though the weather was fairly nice Sunday morning, by the time Magrat was in serious labor, the wind was blowing and it was starting to rain. So we put her in the barn, again with Buffalo Girl for company. Magrat didn’t try to jump out, and she had a nice bull calf. We put Buffalo Girl back out.

That evening we all went to visit our new neighbors (the Amish families) around the hill, and enjoyed singing hymns with them for a couple of hours. Afterward Andrea’s little girls enjoyed playing with one of the girls their age, and Charlie played chess with the boy that’s his age. Lynn and I left a little early, to come home and check on Buffalo Girl, since the weather was really bad by then—rain turned to snow.

A few hours later, in the middle of the night, Buffalo Girl started calving, and we put her back in the barn. Andrea went home to get Dani—who wanted to watch Buffalo Girl calve, since she’d missed seeing Maggie calve. Andrea and Dani sat out in the barn and watched. The calf wasn’t breathing at first, and Andrea had to jump into the stall and get the sac off its head and start it breathing. Buffalo Girl bellowed a lot, and rooted her new calf around until it was able to get up. Dani went back to bed on the couch, and later that morning wrote a story about the calving episode, took it to school, and read it to her class. So now we are finally done calving!

Michael helped us tag and band Magrat’s bull calf today, and eartag Buffalo girl’s heifer calf.



In a few weeks, after the weather gets nicer, we’ll brand and vaccinate the calves and give the cows their pre-breeding vaccinations. For now we are glad that calving is over and we don’t have to get up in the nights anymore to check on the cows.