Ranch Diary – April 20 through May 10, 2015

APRIL 28 – A couple weeks ago Emily bought her first car—a 1994 Pontiac that needs a little fixing. She found it on-line, in Rigby, a 3 hour drive from here. Andrea and Robbie borrowed a friend’s car carrier and went to get it last week. They left after Robbie got home from work (he works at a ranch south of town) and were nearly home by midnight, but came upon a wrecked semi blocking the back road—just before they got to our creek road. The semi was delivering stove-making materials to one of the Amish families that life around the hill from us, and didn’t make the corner. The trailer was tipped nearly over, into a ditch, and the tractor part was tipped over off the other side of the road.

There was no way past it, so Andrea had to turn her truck and trailer around (a bit tricky) and go back to the highway. The state patrolman directed them to detour through a private lane—but they had to take a locked gate off its hinges to get through. So they finally got home at 3 a.m. The road was blocked all night; there wasn’t a wrecker in Salmon big enough to handle the semi. They had to wait for two wreckers to come from Idaho Falls.
Last Monday the guys who built Andrea’s house 3 years ago came up and put new shingles on the roof where severe winds had taken the shingles off. That day Charlie’s singing group from school went to Rexburg to a singing contest. Charlie is doing very well with his music—both in band with his trombone, and in chorus. His teacher thinks he has a lot of talent and could have a career in music.
Robbie has been changing sprinkler pipes on a ranch that has some goats. Andrea’s kids enjoy going out there sometimes after school to see the baby goats, and pet the ones that are being raised on bottles.

On Tuesday we had 3 cows calving. LillyAnn calved first—a little red heifer calf. It was up and nursing within 30 minutes. Cupie Doll had a big black brockle-faced heifer that Dani named Panda Bear because of the big black spots on her eyes, and her black “lipstick” making a permanent smile. Dani helped me do chores that evening after Lynn brought her home from the bus. She helped me move that pair from the calving pen to the second-day pens below the barn, to make room for the next calving cow. Panda Bear was still a little unsteady on her feet and Dani enjoyed pushing her from behind to get her to go across the driveway. Then Dani rode in the tractor with her mom for awhile as Andrea finished the harrowing.
That night Lilly Annie (LillyAnn’s daughter) was restless and in early labor—and calved the next morning—a black heifer calf. The heifers are way ahead of the bull calves this year, and with only a few cows left to calve there is no way they will be able to catch up!
On Friday it rained and snowed all day. Charlie and Dani helped us dump and move a water trough from the maternity pen (since there are were only 3 cows left there) to the field above the house. We need an extra trough up there to water all the cows with calves. The weather has been cold at nights, down to 26 degrees, but getting warmer during the day, so the grass is trying to grow.
Andrea and Em drove to Idaho Falls on Saturday for a doctor’s appointment. That morning our last red cow started calving, but she didn’t progress in labor. Finally that afternoon, the feet started to show, but the amnion sac was filled with very dark fluid and we knew the calf was in trouble. If the calf is stressed too much during birth, he passes his first bowel movements, into the amniotic fluid that surrounds him.
We’d already called Michael, to help us check the cow in case it was a breech calf or some other abnormal position that needed correction, so we put her in the headcatch and Michael reached in and discovered that the legs were back at the elbows (feet and head all jammed together rather than the feet extended in front of the head), making it impossible for the calf to come through the birth canal very easily. He had to pull the legs out to proper position and then pulled the calf. It was a red bull calf, and covered thickly with meconium (that material he’d pooped out). His mama had to lick all of that off. But he was still alive, in spite of being too long in the birth process. Now we just have 2 cows left to calve, and they look like they’ll be awhile.

MAY 5 – Last Wednesday Andrea helped Lynn put up a temporary electric fence along the south side of the pasture where the cows and calves are—to keep the calves from eating gravel along the ditchbank and also keep them away from the elk panels on that side of the field (the backside of the stackyard). On year we had a calf reach through those and get its head caught, so we don’t want to have that risk.
Lynn cleaned more of our ditches with tractor and blade.

On Saturday our friend from north Idaho (who was here for a few days looking for elk horns in the mountains) helped him shovel and rake debris out of a couple ditches. We finally got some of our ditches turned on at the creek so we can start irrigating.
Dani likes to stop here after school when Lynn brings the kids home from the bus, and she helps me with evening chores, feeding the horses and heifers. She also likes to pick grass for the cows. They are still on hay in the little field above the house until the grass grows a little taller in our other pastures. They are very hungry for green grass, so they eagerly come to eat grass out of Dani’s hands. She’s determined to make pets out of ALL of them! She fills a bucket with green grass that she picks along the edges of the barnyard, and doles it out to her favorite cows.

On Sunday Michael and Carolyn moved their cows from the fields on the upper place, herding them up to our mountain pasture. They still have 3 cows left to calve, but they need to get that group away from the creek—which will soon be at high water stage. They don’t want any calves drowning, trying to cross the creek.
We are still waiting for 2 last slowpokes in our herd. The heifer, Buffalope, is most ready (she’s due to calve in about a week) so now I am putting her in the calving pen at nights, under the lights from the hay shed, so I can see her easier at night.
Michael had an article published in this month’s Progressive Forage Grower magazine, and has another assignment to write an article for a summer issue. He hopes to start doing more writing again.
Right now, however, he and Carolyn, Andrea and Em are getting ready for their trip tomorrow—to drive to Oskaloosa, Iowa for Nick’s graduation from William Penn University. Today Andrea and Carolyn drove to Idaho Falls to pick up a van to rent, for the trip. While in Idaho Falls, Andrea had her monthly appointment with her pain doctor, and also dropped off some documents with her lawyer, pertaining to the custody case that Mark is pursuing in his attempt to get full custody of Dani, Sam and Charlie. On their way home from Idaho Falls with the rented van, Andrea and Carolyn picked up Carolyn’s mom Irene Allen at Arco. She will be going with them to Nick’s graduation in Iowa.

MAY 10 – Early Wednesday morning Michael and Carolyn and Irene came down to pick up Andrea and Emily and they started their trip. Lynn took Andrea’s kids to the school bus an hour later. The travelers made it as far as Rapid City, South Dakota (by 11 p.m. that night) to stop for the night, and continued on to Oskaloosa on Thursday.
At chore time later that morning we took a photo of Dani’s two favorite calves—Mini Mag and Panda Bear.

Our last heifer, Buffalope, started calving Wednesday morning and we put her in the calving pen just before lunch. One foot started showing—just the tip of the toes. Within 20 minutes that leg was sticking out almost to the knee, and the calf’s nose was showing, but the other leg was not there. Lynn and I got all the gates ready to bring Buffalope across the driveway to the headcatch in front of the barn, so we could restrain her and go fishing for the other leg. But in the meantime Buffalope got up and down a few more times, the calf went back in, and the next time she lay down to strain, both feet were there. So we just left her alone and she soon gave birth to a red heifer calf.
It was on its feet within 30 minutes, and within a couple hours it had nursed adequately, so we moved the pair to the pen below the barn where there’s a windbreak on one side and brush along the other two sides. The weather had become stormy, starting to rain before evening. Brush in the far corner of that pen overhangs the pen, making a sort of roof, and that’s where the new mama and her baby spent the night. We had a gentle rain all night long.
On Thursday Lynn took Andrea’s kids to the school bus, and picked them up again after school. Dani stopped off here and helped me do chores and feed the cow and calf below the barn. She named the new calf Raindrop. This calf is uniquely colored. She’s all red, except for some black hairs on top of her head making her look like she has a wig, and a couple inches of black coloring at the tip of her tail! The next day, both Sam and Dani helped with chores, and helped us catch and tag Raindrop. They also went up in the field to look at their favorite calves and feed grass to the cows.

Saturday was Nick’s graduation. It started at 10 a.m and lasted until 1 p.m with 310 seniors graduating. As soon as it was over, Michael and Carolyn, her mom, and Andrea and Em loaded up all his stuff in his pickup and headed home. Em rode with Nick in the pickup.

 That afternoon Sam and Dani came down from their house early and helped me trim Veg and Rubbie’s feet before chores. They picked grass for those two old horses, which kept them both very happy as I trimmed their feet. With their stiff, painful joints, it’s hard for them to hold a hind leg up very long or very much off the ground. The grass treat helped their grumpy attitudes and they were not very hard to trim.
After we did chores we checked on all the babies up in the field, and Dani showed Sam her new pet. One of the calves has become very bold and comes up to Dani to have her head and back scratched. She’s a great-granddaughter of Maggie, Dani’s favorite old cow that we had to sell last fall. When this calf was born, Dani named her Mini-Mag, and it looks like she’ll be a replacement for Maggie as Dani’s best pet. At first she was timid and wouldn’t let Dani touch her (when this photo was taken), but now she’s more friendly.

 After chores, the girls helped me make pizza (biscuit dough, covered with browned hamburger, cheese, tomato sauce, sliced olives and slices of hot dogs) and Charlie hiked down to join us for summer. Robbie got home from work in time to eat with us, and took the kids home after supper. Then Lynn and I stayed up late, periodically talking with Andrea as we tracked their slow progress through a terrible rainstorm and wind. It started raining when they left the college and got worse as them went through part of Nebraska, changing to snow when they got into South Dakota. The road was treacherous and they counted 6 vehicles (including 2 semis) that had slid off the freeway. Nick’s pickup didn’t have enough traction and slid around a few times but Nick managed to keep it on the road. Their rented van doesn’t have very good tires for winter travel and it was a slow and treacherous trip, finally getting to Rapid City at 1:30 a.m. to spend the night.
This morning (Sunday) they had more than a foot of new snow in the motel parking lot. The snow plows were trying to keep the freeway clear, however, so they headed on home, with fog, rain/snow and poor visibility, but at least it was daylight.

Ranch diary – March 20 through April 19, 2015

MARCH 30 – I’ve been working on my next book, Cow Tales from an Idaho Ranch, writing chapters about some of the memorable experiences with various cattle we’ve raised—some humorous, some challenging.  It’s been fun recalling those adventures, and finding old photos to illustrate those chapters.

            Andrea’s kids have enjoyed helping with evening chores after school—feeding the horses and the yearling heifers.  Dani likes to help load the wheelbarrow and take the alfalfa hay out for the heifers.

 

 

 

            Our old black cat (the one that always had her kittens in the cab of the dump truck, before we had her spayed) likes to hang out around the big bales of hay I feed the heifers and the old horses, and catch mice there.  She always “helps” us do chores, and sometimes sits by the gate when we feed the heifers.  One day when a heifer decided to come through the open gate instead of following the loaded wheelbarrow, the cat stood her ground and hit the heifer in the nose with her claws when the heifer tried to come through!  She thinks she’s Lynn’s special cat and always goes with him around the barnyard.

            Last weekend Michael and Carolyn brought their truck and trailer and hauled their cows to the upper place, to calve up there.  We sorted our cows and put the ones closest to calving in our maternity pen and horse pasture, and left the later-calving cows in the fields above the house.   On Sunday Andrea and I rode Ed and Breezy for the first time this year—after their winter “vacation”—and we also caught Dottie and Rishiam and brushed them.  I saddled Dottie and led her around the barnyard.  The next day, I led Dottie down the road a ways, then Andrea and I rode Ed and Sprout, for Sprout’s first ride of the season.  

            I trimmed Veggie’s long feet.  He’s doing a little better (not so stiff) now that I’m giving him bute every evening, dissolving the pills in warm water and giving it to him with a little molasses mixed in.

Twinkle Twinkle, the sick pregnant heifer, started eating a little better.  Then on Tuesday she calved—nearly 3 weeks ahead of her due date.  The calf was alive, which we were relieved to see, in spite of the mom’s high fever a week earlier.   She simply calved a little prematurely, but the calf is ok, a little heifer.  Andrea’s kids were out of school for spring break and they enjoyed seeing the first new baby of the year, and helping with chores and feeding.  Dani named the new calf Surprise.

Later that day Sam and Dani helped me clean house, and Charlie helped Lynn put some netting along the gate on one of the second-day pens below the barn, so that when we moved the mama and new baby into that pen the tiny calf wouldn’t be able to crawl through or under the gate and get out into the field with the yearling heifers.  We had some wind and snow off and on that day, but the little calf managed to nurse mama and had shelter in that pen with its windbreaks.

Sam and Dani cleared off the stairway to the little attic room and took their bean bag bed up there.  They enjoyed sleeping in their own little “hideaway” room upstairs during their spring break, and helping with the chores and cattle during the days.

On Wednesday I rode Dottie on her first ride of the year, and Andrea rode along on Breezy. Then we rode Ed and Sprout on a longer ride.  In the evening Andrea and kids went to the upper place, where Emily took photos of the other kids posing with one of young Heather’s horses.  She got several good shots, for Heather to select from to choose a cover photo for her first book, which will be published later this summer.

 

 

The next day Andrea and I took Sam and Dani for their first ride (on Breezy and Ed) with us.  Then they helped us do chores and put the other 3 heifers in the barn for the first time.  We are feeding them a little alfalfa hay in the barn, to get them at ease with going into the barn—in case we have to put any of them into the barn to calve.  With the crazy weather we’ve been having (wind and occasional blizzards) it’s nice to have a barn!

On Friday we had visitors from Canada.  The editor of Cattlemen’s Corner in Grainews, Lee Hart, and his wife stopped by on their way home from a vacation.  It was fun to meet Lee for the first time (after writing monthly columns for Grainews for more than 30 years, and working with Lee for about 8 years).  He and his wife ate lunch with us and we had a nice visit.  Emily took a photo of Lee and me.

            After they left, Andrea, Sam and Dani and I went for another ride after I trimmed Breezy’s feet a little bit so she wouldn’t be tripping on long toes.  All went well until we were heading home, and then Sprout was misbehaving a little.  That wasn’t much of a problem until she tripped, going through some sagebrush, and nearly fell clear down, pulling Andrea forward.  About the time Andrea was quite forward over her neck, Sprout leaped back up to try to start bucking, and the top of her head connected with Andrea’s chin, cutting it open.  The blow to the bottom of her chin was severe enough that she started to black out, and wobbled a bit, but managed to keep Sprout from bucking.  Her chin was bleeding severely, so when we got home her friend Robbie took her to the hospital to have stitches.  Her chin was very swollen for a few days.

            Saturday we had a hard rain and strong winds that lasted a few hours.  Michael and Carolyn were helping a neighbor, Bruce Mulkey, brand calves that morning, and they’d just gotten the cattle rounded up and into the corral when the storm hit.  They put their horses back into the trailer and waited out the storm until it let up.  After the calves dried out that afternoon they went ahead and did the branding and vaccinating.

            Yesterday our friends from Canada, Pete and Bev Wiebe, stopped here to visit on their way home from working all winter with the Mennonite Disaster Service in Florida and the Southwest, rebuilding homes for people who lost their homes to flooding.  They ate supper with us, and spent the night at Andrea’s house, and this morning came down here to watch our second calf being born.  Bev had never seen a calf born, so she was excited that Merilena waited until daylight to give birth.  Merilena is a first-calf heifer, and we were delighted that she had the calf very quickly and easily.  Dani named the little heifer Starfire.  The next morning, before they left, Pete and Bev took photos of the calf and its mama in our windbreak pens.

 

APRIL 10 – The past 2 weeks Dani has been helping me with evening chores after Lynn brings the kids home from the school bus.  She likes to help feed the horses (she gives old Veggie his grain) and sort the cows for evening.  At night we lock the most-likely-to-calve cows in the small maternity pen where we can see them under the yard light, and if any of them start to calve we put them in the calving pen—where we can turn on the lights on the hay shed.

            Lynn and Robbie put a little straw in the barn in case we need to put a cow in there to calve (if it’s snowing!), and Andrea and Robbie replaced several burned-out light bulbs in the barn.  Andrea and I cleaned out the old bedding in the two calf houses up in the field and put some hay in for bedding, and put the first calves and their mamas up there.

Andrea checks on the cows during the first part of the night, then I get up about 3 or 4 a.m. and type (finishing up the Cow Tales book chapters, and writing articles) and check on them until daylight.

Last Saturday Em’s dad Jim Daine brought his mule to stay in one of our corrals until he can take her with him to his trail-clearing job in Montana.  In the meantime, Jim is staying at Andrea’s house.  He rode his mule (Reba) on a couple of long rides in the mountains behind our ranch, looking for elk horns.

Saturday afternoon Carolyn called, as she was hurrying home from her job at the vet clinic.  Michael had called her, to tell her that her old mare, Thelma, was foaling, and needing help.  He had gone to their upper fields to get something and noticed the mare was foaling—she had the feet out, but no head.  He hurried to get a halter, and led the mare a half mile down to their round pen by their house.  The foal went back into the uterus and was able to reposition, and Thelma was trying to lie down by the time he got her to the corral.  She started straining again, and this time the head was there, and she was pushing the foal out.  She didn’t lie down, and he had to try to catch the foal and break its fall as it was born.

The foal was alive, but a little wobbly at first because the umbilical cord broke too soon (with the mare standing up to give birth).  Then the next challenge was to help the sassy little critter nurse!  She refused to nurse the mare, and young Heather had to milk the mare and feed the foal from a bottle.  Every time they tried to get her on a teat, she refused; all she wanted was the bottle!  By evening, everyone was exhausted, but finally, just before dark, the stubborn little filly figured it out and started nursing Thelma.

 

            At 4 a.m. the next morning (Easter Sunday), Thelma woke them up, whinnying, because her baby had shimmied out of the pen, underneath the bottom rail, and was wandering around outside the pen.  They got her back in.  It snowed later that morning, and they created a 3-sided shelter for the foal with tarps.

 

            It snowed all day.  Michael brought a skid-loader down to our place and cleaned out a couple of our deepest horse pens (Sprout’s and Breezy’s).  The new little calves up in the field have all learned how to get into their calf houses, and out of the storm.

            This weekend is the annual Salmon Select Horse Sale.  Emily will be taking care of her dad’s table (where he will display some of his antler lamps) and plans to have some of my horse books there, too, in case anyone wants to buy one.

APRIL 20 – The horse sale went well.  Young Heather sold a couple of the horses she’s been training, including a gray mare named Angel. She showed Angel in the trail class before the sale, and Angel did very well.  Heather also rode another mare through the ring for a man who wants her to train a group of horses for him. 

 

 

            We’ve had a bunch of calves the past 10 days.  Dani named most of them.  As examples, Emerald had a heifer that Dani named Geminy Cricket, and Rosalie had a nice heifer that Dani named Zorrarose (the sire’s name was Zorro).  Magrat had a heifer that Dani named Malillamae.  Buffalo Baby’s calf got named Buffaloona.  Buffalulu had a bull calf named Buffalo Biffer.  As you can tell by some of the names, several of these calves are closely related; their mothers are daughters of dear old Buffalo Girl, who was Emily’s pet cow, raised on a bottle after her mama died.  Buffalo Girl is a family pet and the kids enjoy picking grass for her.  Dani fed her some grass in the maternity pen, a few days before she calved.

            It was very cold and windy the night that Magrat calved, and since we didn’t put her in the barn, we helped her calf nurse before it got too chilled, and then moved the pair to a windbreak pen.

The next night Buffalo Girl started calving, and we put her in the barn—not only because it was cold, but because she always needs a little help during the first hour of motherhood.  She bellows and roots her calf around too vigorously and won’t let it get up, so we have to intervene, so she won’t hurt it.  After it’s up and nursing she’s fine.

            This year Sammy, Dani, Andrea and Emily sat out in the barn with her, quietly watching from the next stall.  After she calved, Andrea, Emily and I protected the calf and helped him get up, and helped him nurse.  He was a large fellow, and it was all Em and I could do to hold up his hind end while Andrea guided his front end to a teat.  Buffalo Girl is Emily’s pet and was actually calmer this year than in previous calvings, maybe because Em was there to help.  After we assisted Gilbert in his first nursing, Buffalo Girl had settled down and was a normal mom.  The kids all enjoyed petting that calf the next day, and again after we put that pair up in the field with the other cows.

 

            Andrea didn’t get much sleep the night Buffalo Girl calved.  By the time we finished helping the calf nurse, it was 1 a.m. and Andrea had to get up early and take Charlie to a doctor appointment in Pocatello. 

That morning Magdalena had a heifer that Dani named MiniMag, but we were lucky to save that one.  I saw the cow calving just before daylight, with the water sac and amnion sac protruding, but no feet.  Lynn and I put her in the barn, in the stall next to Buffalo Girl, because it was a very cold, windy morning.  I kept checking on her during chores and feeding, but nothing was happening.  Then the next time I checked, there was placenta coming out, hanging clear to the ground. 

            This was a serious emergency!  The calf’s “envelope” and lifeline were detaching from the uterus and it would soon die.  So Lynn and I put her in the headcatch to check her.  The calf’s feet were coming through the birth canal, but the head hadn’t started through yet and the cow wasn’t dilated enough.  We attached chains to the legs and started to pull.  Andrea stopped briefly on her way out the driveway, heading for Pocatello with Charlie, but she’d called Michael and Carolyn and left a message for them, saying we had a calving emergency.  Michael was heading off to work, but Carolyn came down to help us.  With her added strength we got the calf delivered before it died.  We’re not sure why it was detaching, unless it just took too long for the calf to get into proper position for birth.  The little brockle-faced heifer seems to be fine.

            We had another calf the next night.  Cub Cake was finally calving, and she had a huge bull calf that Andrea and Robbie pulled.  The bull we used last summer (Lightning Zorro) sires bigger calves than the bull we used the previous years, and we’re having a few more calving problems than normal.  This makes it all the more important to be watching the cows at night, in case any need help.

            Dani named Cub Cake’s calf Cinnamon Bear (he’s golden red) and the kids all got a chance to see him the next day.

  Then Mary Mary Quite Contrary had a black bull calf with one little white spot on his face (so his name is Spotrick). 

 Our most recent calf is a big black brockle-faced bull, born just before midnight last night.  He needed a bit of help to be born; Andrea and Robbie pulled him, too, but he’s doing fine today.

            Meanwhile, Andrea has been harrowing the fields with the big tractor, scattering all the manure piles and wasted straw (from the feeders) around the field, before we start irrigating.  The straw the cows didn’t eat, and the manure, serve as excellent fertilizer.  We try to feed on the areas that need more organic matter to increase the soil fertility, and thus don’t have to buy any chemical fertilizers.  The natural stuff is best.

            Michael brought the backhoe down from his place (where he’d been smoothing more areas for additional horse pens for young Heather—for the horses she will be training this spring and summer) and cleaned one of our ditches that was filled with silt from all the snow melt run-off last month.  We have several more ditches to clean before we can start irrigating the fields.

February 26 through March 19, 2015

MARCH 4, 2015 – Andrea and Charlie left last Thursday evening to drive part way to Salt Lake for his appointment Friday with the doctor who has been overseeing the bowel problem he’s had since he was a baby. They stayed at a motel in Pocatello and then drove the rest of the way the next morning and made it in time for Charlie’s appointment. The doctor changed some of his medications and wanted to see him again in a year.
Friday afternoon Lynn visited with one of our neighbors who is having a lot of problems this year with calf scours. Lynn came home and got some of the medication we use, and took it to John to try.
Our closest neighbor, Alfonzo, got back from Mexico (where he spends part of the winter) and put all his cows and bulls in the little field next to our heifers. We moved our heifers out of that field for a few days and locked them in a pen here by the house; we certainly don’t want one of those bulls coming through the fence to breed a heifer! These heifers are too young; we don’t want them bred this early even though some are already cycling. After Alfonzo took his herd up to the Gooch place this afternoon and sorted off the bulls and late-born fall calves to leave there, we were able to put our heifers back in their field.
On Sunday we brought our group of young cows down to the corral and gave the 2-year-olds (the ones that will be having their first calves next month) their booster vaccinations, so they will have adequate antibodies in their colostrum to protect their calves from scours.
Early Monday morning Lynn went to the hospital to have blood drawn for the fasting blood tests his doctor ordered. While he was there he also went to the ER to have a doctor check out the severe pain he’s been having in his upper leg and thigh. An x-ray showed that he has arthritis and bursitis in that hip joint, along with degenerative spine disease. The doctor put him on some medication to help reduce the inflammation that’s causing the pain.
Dani is staying home from school this week (she has severe respiratory problems, along with mononucleosis) so Andrea went to the school to get her homework for her to do at home. She’s been having recurring respiratory problems, aggravated by all the cigarette smoke at Mark’s house when the kids are there on his weekends.
Today Lynn, Andrea and I went to the funeral of a good friend. Diana was only 60 years old. She died suddenly, due to her diabetic condition. Her 2 sisters came—from Colorado and Alaska, and it was nice to be able to visit with them.

MARCH 11 – Dani stayed home from school for 2 weeks and did her work at home. Andrea took her to school several different days for short periods, so she could take her tests. When the kids went this past weekend to stay with their dad, Andrea gave Mark a choice; he could either let Dani stay home here, or Mark could sign a statement saying that he and his girlfriend would not smoke in the house. He chose to sign the statement. Andrea attached the medical discharge papers from the ER, which specifically stated that Dani must not be subjected to any cigarette smoke, with her breathing problems. When the kids got back home from the weekend with Mark, they reported that his girlfriend was furious with Mark for signing that statement.
On Saturday Michael took more straw bales up to the field for the cows. Andrea got a new battery for her car; the old one died. That evening we had my brother Rocky and family here for supper and had a great visit. They are enjoying being “home”, renting the little house at Baker, until their house is finished up on the upper place. As soon as the snow melts up there and the ground thaws out, construction will begin again. The foundation for the house was done last fall.
Our weather warmed up enough (not freezing so hard at nights). We were finally able to unplug the extension cord from the barn to the heifer’s water tank heater. We unplugged it for a few days a couple weeks ago and one cold night there was 2 inches of ice on the water! We had to get that all out, put in new water and use the heater again. Hopefully we won’t need it now.
On Monday Michael helped me fix a computer problem and loaded more big alfalfa bales on our feed truck—and brought 2 more bales around for the heifers. While he was moving the hay he noticed a bull down in the field below our heifers! It had come down the road from the Gooch place and gone in through Alfonzo’s open gate. So we quickly lured our heifers back into the pen next to their field, and locked them up again until Alfonzo gets that bull out of there.
That evening Andrea took Dani, Sammy and Charlie to talk with Pastor Stillman. They told him about their traumatic weekend at Mark’s house and how mean his girlfriend was to them, and that she was violently angry about the statement Mark signed, claiming that Andrea made up the ER document for Dani.
Yesterday our irrigation district (for Withington Creek) held the annual water meeting, to elect a new water master and figure out ways to correct/prevent some of the problems we’ve had. Several people’s weirs are not in good shape for proper measuring of their water and will need to be fixed. One neighbor who has only 5 acres but wants to run the whole show tried to convince everyone that he could cast a vote for Alfonzo’s landlord by proxy, until Carolyn pointed out the illegality of this—showing him where this was spelled out in the Idaho water law regulations handbook. There’s never a dull moment on this creek!
Lynn, Michael and Carolyn finished making copies of all the documents (kids’ medical records etc.) to Fed-Ex to Andrea’s lawyer as exhibits in her response to Mark’s petition for full custody of the kids.
Andrea and kids went to bed early last night then left in the wee hours this morning—to take Sam and Charlie to town at 4 a.m. to get on the school bus for their band trip. Then Andrea, Robbie and Dani drove to Idaho Falls (with Dani sleeping on the way) for her appointment with her pain doctor today, and then to drive to Ashton to hear the kids’ band concert in the evening. Kids from many schools came for this event, practicing together all afternoon for the evening concert. Charlie and Sam play trombone and trumpet. Andrea took a photo of each of them while they were preparing for the concert.

 

 Today Lynn went to his doctor to find out the results of his blood tests, and she didn’t like the looks of some of the readings, which indicate kidney problems. She took him off his blood pressure medication as well as one of the anti-inflammatory/pain medications he’s been on for several years, since they may be causing kidney damage.
So now he is hoping he can get by without the blood pressure medication (that he’s been on for more than 20 years), and will be checking his blood pressure frequently.

MARCH 19 – Young Heather is back from Canada (where she was visiting friends for a few weeks) and is training horses again, getting several ready for the big horse sale in April. She bought 5 dump truck loads of sand, delivered to her outdoor arena, and Michael borrowed our old disk to disk it up and make a nice, smooth surface. The old disk had 2 flat tires, and we had to get some other tires before he could take it 2 miles up the road to their place.
On Sunday Lynn checked on Roger and Sharon Solaas at Baker. Sharon broke her leg last week in 4 places and was life-flighted to the hospital in Idaho Falls for surgery to pin it back together. She’s home now but will be laid up in bed for 6 weeks.
Dani was finally well enough to start going back to school. She has gotten over the respiratory infection and now just has to be careful to not over-exert for awhile so she can get over the mononucleosis.
When I helped Lynn feed the cows Monday morning, Twinkle Twinkle (one of the 2-year-old pregnant heifers, named by Dani) didn’t come to the feed. She was a bit dull, and wasn’t interested in eating when I brought her down to the hay. After our windy weather, we suspected she might have pneumonia. Lynn and I brought that group down to the barnyard so we could sort her off, with a couple other young cows to keep her company so she wouldn’t be stressed at being by herself, and took the rest back up to the field.
Andrea came down from her house and helped us put Twinkle in the headcatch by the calving barn. She felt hot to the touch and was breathing fast, so I took her temperature and it was 105 degrees—which is very high for a cow. We gave her injections of antibiotic and Banamine (the latter to help reduce fever and inflammation). When we let her out of the headcatch she squirted out a huge amount of bloody diarrhea. We called our vet and asked his advice and he said that it would be hard to tell whether the diarrhea was caused by the high fever or the fever was caused by some kind of acute intestinal infection. He said to just wait and see if she improved or not, and if not, we might change medications.
So we put her and her two buddies in the main corral (moved the bulls to the back corral), where we’d have access to the squeeze chute if we needed to treat her again. There’s no way she’d want to go into the headcatch by the barn again, but we could easily put her down the alley to the squeeze chute if need be.
By afternoon the Banamine was working to reduce her fever. She was chewing her cud again, even though she didn’t want to eat anything. She was salt-hungry (probably from losing so much body fluid and electrolytes through the diarrhea). She was no worse by evening, and the next morning she was actually eating a little hay. So we moved her and her buddies to the big maternity pen by the house, where we could observe her better, and fed them some hay in there. She ate a little, off and on all day. Then it rained hard during the night and we were hoping this stress didn’t set her back in her recovery.

 

 The next morning (yesterday) she seemed a bit dull again, so we took her and her buddies around the corral where we could put Twinkle down the chute. Her temperature this time was 104. Not as bad as it was on Monday, but still way too high. So we gave her more Banamine and injections of a long-acting antibiotic. Within an hour the Banamine was helping her feel better, and she was eating and drinking again.
This morning she is doing fairly well, but still not eating enough. We will have to monitor her progress and continue to treat her if necessary. We’re hoping that she will recover ok, and that she won’t abort her calf, which is due to be born in mid April.

February 4 – February 26, 2015

FEBRUARY 8 – We had some new snow this past week. The heavy snow on top of our woodpile shifted the tarps that were covering one end of it, and that side collapsed, crashing down on the wheelbarrow.

The new snow made our driveway nearly impassible. Lynn got the pickup stuck when he took Charlie home from the bus on Tuesday afternoon, and had to walk back to our house. Andrea and Robbie pulled it out of the snowdrift when they got home that evening, and brought it home for us. The kids had supper with us, and Dani made a calving calendar for this year, showing the due dates of the cows that will be calving in April, and we pinned it up on the wall. Every year we make a calving calendar, to give us an idea at a glance when each cow might possibly calve, and Dani likes to mark them off (circle their names) as they calve.
The next day Michael helped Lynn put chains on our big tractor so we won’t get stuck loading hay and straw, and took more straw bales up to the cows. Andrea picked up the kids from school that day and took them to hockey practice.
The cold weather has taken a toll on 29-year-old Veggie and he’s become so stiff that he can hardly walk. On Thursday I started giving him a dose of “bute” daily, dissolving 2 pills in warm water and mixing it with molasses, giving it to him orally with a big syringe. Like a big aspirin, it reduces pain and inflammation, and by the next day he was walking better, and not so lame and stiff.

The deer aren’t being dissuaded from eating hay with the heifers by having the dogs tethered next to where we feed the heifers. The deer come boldly, in spite of the dogs barking. So yesterday Robbie and Lynn took the dogs back home to Andrea’s house. The kids have been missing their pets!
Emily took another GED test (English) and passed it. So now she only has 2 more tests to take; she’s halfway done! She enjoys being able to study on her own time, and have a fulltime job—and pursue her photography.
With the snowy driveways, Lynn has been using his 4-wheeler to go back and forth from Andrea’s house, and to go to the mailbox.

This weekend Andrea took Emily to her hockey tournament in Sun Valley. The weather warmed up on Friday and the snow was melting, making slush on top of ice in our driveway. It was treacherous, and hard to get up enough speed to make it up the hill at the top when they left home. Michael spent that afternoon with our little tractor and blade, trying to make our driveways safer. He got the slush off, but some of the ice was still too thick and hard to get through. He had to spend another afternoon the next day, clearing the rest of it off after it melted a bit more.
It thawed for several days, and the snow melted off the low country, flooding the fields, ditches and roads. Now instead of snow we have mud! It washed some big gullies
across our county road, making it impossible to drive to and from our place without 4-wheel drive and a lot of clearance.
Yesterday my brother Rockwell Smith and his wife Bev brought a big U-haul trailer from Boise, the first load of things they are moving. They are selling their house in Boise, and moving to a little rented house here at Baker (just 2 miles from us), while their new house is being built this spring on the upper place. Lynn and Robbie helped them unload the multitude of boxes from the trailers.
The flooding continued today, but is slowing down. Most of the snow is gone off the low hills, and the higher snow hasn’t started melting yet. Andrea and Em got home from Sun Valley, where Em’s team won half their games.
Readers have been enjoying my new book Horse Tales: True Stories from an Idaho Ranch, so I am now starting my next book, Cow Tales from and Idaho Ranch. It’s a fun project, remembering some of the interesting adventures with cattle.

FEBRUARY 12 – On Monday it rained, so in addition to melting snow we had even more water, and more flooding. The frost went out of the ground and even the main road up and down the creek became deeply rutted and challenging. It reminded me of the days when my parents and little brother and I had to leave our car along the road and hike the last several miles up to the little cabin above our present ranch, where we stayed in the summertime before my dad bought the ranch. The road got so boggy that a vehicle would sink down to its axles.
Monday morning while Lynn and I were feeding cows, Andrea shoveled the ditches along her driveway to divert the water away; it was making deep ruts, washing out the driveways. Michael spent 3 days working at a friend’s ranch fighting floods.
The nice thing about the warmer weather and snow melting off the fields is that the cows are happily starting to graze again. There was still some grass under all that crusted snow.
This has saved several big bales of straw; we haven’t put out straw for more than a week. We’ll save it for when the weather gets cold again. We’re feeding the alfalfa hay on top of some of the straw where the feeders have been—so the cows won’t waste it. The alfalfa hay has very fine leaves and if it’s fed on wet ground the cows tend to tromp it into the mud and much of the value is lost. It’s best to feed it on the old straw or thick grass where there’s no mud.
Dani missed school on Monday, and Andrea took her and Sam to the doctor on Tuesday; they came back from the weekend at their dad’s place with more respiratory problems. This has been an all-too-common occurrence—missing school because they are sick when they come home--after they spend a weekend in an environment with people smoking in the house.

FEBRUARY 20 – Veg is doing better, not so lame and stiff, so I cut back on the amount of bute I’m giving him (one pill daily instead of 2) and that seems to be enough. I don’t want to give him too much bute because it can be hard on the stomach (just like aspirin) and I don’t want him to get ulcers.
On Friday Andrea and Dani helped Lynn feed the cows; Dani loves to see the cows and goes with us every chance she gets—whenever she’s here at Andrea’s house—when we do anything with the cattle. Andrea’s friend Robbie has a job on a ranch the
other side of town, feeding cows, checking the calving cows, etc. and on Saturday Dani went with him to ride around in the tractor feeding hay, and see the new babies. Our cows won’t start calving until late March, and Dani is impatient to see some calves!
Sam’s hockey team had a tournament here this weekend. She had 2 games on Saturday and Lynn went to town with Emily to watch the second one.
My brother and his wife made another trip from Boise, bringing more of their things to unload here at their rented house, and a trailer load of outdoor things that they took to their house site on the upper place.
We had more cold weather, and Lynn plugged the tractor in overnight to make sure it would start on Tuesday to load more big straw bales for the cows.
On Wednesday Andrea took both Sam and Dani to the doctor—Dani for medication to ease her terrible cough, and Sam for an x-ray of her hip bone. She got hit really hard with a puck at hockey practice the evening before, and her hip was very painful. Just badly bruised, however, and not broken. It’s probably a god thing that hockey season is about over!

FEBRUARY 26 – This past weekend was Emily’s state tournament in Boise. She and Andrea drove down Thursday evening and Em’s first gave was Friday, late morning. Her team played Sun Valley and won 7 to 0, with Em making one of the goals and assisting with another. Emily’s boss (at the music store) was in Boise that day and came to watch her team play. They didn’t do so well in the rest of their games, and didn’t win them.
Sunday afternoon some folks from northern Alberta stopped here to meet us on their way south to see the Grand Canyon. They have a ranch along the Frasier River, near Yukon Territory. They have been reading my Rancher’s Diary column in Grainews (a Canadian farm newspaper) for about 20 years and wanted to stop by. We enjoyed visiting with them, and they stayed for supper with us and Dani, Sam and Charlie. Lynn went into town just before supper to pick up those three kids from their dad, who had them over the weekend.
Andrea and Em got home very late that night and didn’t get much sleep. Andrea needed to rest on Monday but insisted on coming down that morning to help us feed cows and help Lynn refill our woodbox. With the cold weather (dipping down to zero for several nights) we’d gone through a lot of firewood.
Dani’s respiratory problem took a turn for the worse again and she had a fever and stayed home from school. Her fever got really high Tuesday evening and Andrea took her to the ER, where the doctor gave her an injection of antibiotic. She is doing a little better by today.
On a brighter note, granddaughter Heather’s first book has been accepted for publication, by the same editor who published my book Horse Tales (which came out in late October last year). Her book discusses safety when handling horses, and will be published in April. We are all very excited and delighted about this news.