One Reason My Hair Is Turning Grey

Today while reading Facebook, a friend posted a story about getting a call from her child’s school.  One of her older kids had gotten sick at school, so while hurrying to get to the school one of the younger ones took it upon herself to use an ink pad for makeup.

This reminded me of a very similar story of my own.

About 5 years ago on one snowy Christmas vacation, my kids spent the entire vacation sledding!  We have a very good sledding hill located right behind grandma and grandpa’s house in the Milk Cow Pasture.  It catches all the snow on the back side when we get a Northwest wind, and if you are from around here you know that we get those quite often.  If you point your sled head straight east or southeast, you’re usually pretty safe.  The hill has a nice slope and you usually come to a stop before you get to the bottom.  If you go off the hill to the North, it’s usually a bumpy ride.  Snow doesn’t stick much and the sage brush is hard on your rear end.  The South Side is no good!!! It’s steep and would be good fast sledding if there wasn’t a row of continuous fence right at the bottom.  Those who don’t know what continuous fencing is it is  ¾ inch solid steel fencing used for corals and arenas.  It’s very unforgiving.  Just ask TB!

TB was 5, a kindergartener; she loved to sled with her sisters!  After lunch one afternoon we all headed out to do a little sledding.  I made a couple trips down the hill with the kids, while at the bottom I turned to look up to the top.  There I saw TB, setting up her sled to go down the south side of the hill.  She lined it out jumped on head first on her tummy and there was nothing I could do, but watch!  She was gaining speed as the words “NOOOO” where coming out of my mouth.  I watched as the sled and the little blonde baby it was carrying crashed in to the steel continuous fencing.  I ran through the snow as she lay unmoving on the sled. As I got to her and rolled her over, her eyes rolled into the back of her head!  I yelled for help, KJ ran to get Grandma, we took her into the house as quickly as we could.  She didn’t know where she was at or who we were, so we started to make calls to our local clinic, the closest medical facility.  We were advised to take her to the nearest hospital. 

The nearest hospital is 60 miles away, and it was already turning dark.  Me, a slight bit panicky, distracted and stressed out I started to get the other kids ready to go to Grandma’s house, knowing we wouldn’t be returning that night or it would be late if we did. 

That was all 2 year old BR needed!  A family member had just given all of the girls paint by number posters for Christmas.  So while I was distracted with the 5 year old with a concussion the 2 year old broke into the paint by number and painted every piece of accessible skin on her extremities.  She even pulled up her sleeves and pant legs to broaden her canvas.  She was covered in mostly green that I remember, but all I could see was RED!!!  Her father narrowly saved her life, scooping her up and running her to the bath and cleaning her up! Possibly that was a typical 2 year old behavior, but now looking back, that was just the one of many chapters in the book I will one day write titled…”Why My Hair Turned Gray!”

TB made it to the Hospital, thanks to dad’s quick thinking we didn’t have to take her baby sister too.  The cop who pulled us over for speeding didn’t think much of his quick driving, but when he saw me with a 5 year old in my lap both of us covered in puke, he was kind enough to not give him a ticket and let us be on our way.  After a CAT scan and a night in the hospital, TB was put on sledding probation.   In her opinion this ruined the rest of her Christmas Vacation.   After returning from the hospital, Great Grandpa, and her Great Aunt shared stories about wrecks they had sledding off the South side of that hill too.  Well I can tell you everybody in this generation has learned their lesson! 1. NO SLEDDING ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE HILL IN MILK COW PASTURE!  2. BODY PAINT BY NUMBER OR ANY OTHER PAINT BY NUMBER PROJECTS ARE PROHIBITED, ESPECIALLY DURING A CRISIS.

In loving memory of "Old Fart" from your one and only Stringbean

Last Thursday I made a trip to Hettinger ND, on my way home I drove through Praire City. It's not really a city, it's more of a don't blink or you'll miss it bump in the road.  As I neared the edge of town the gates of the cemetery came into sight.  As I watched the cold prairie wind whip snow across the road in front of me, tears began to well up as I looked to the south and saw the two grave markers and the raised ground and site of the fresh grave. Tears poured from my eyes. I was a few miles down the road again before my vision cleared.

As my suburban rolled down the highway I remember the first Christmas after KJ was born.  We all went to my parents for Christmas, the weather was really yucky and cold.  My great Grandma and grandpa were planning on coming, but we weren't really sure they would make it with the weather. There was no knock on the door just the sound of the door blowing open and an 80 year old woman racing everybody in the car to the house so she could be the first one to hold the new baby. I know I wouldn't have gotten in her way, and she literally beat everybody to the house.  (Everybody else may have been senior citizens too, but Grandpa was known to be pretty spry!) The thought of her running in the house to be the first to see her new great great grand baby made me smile through my tears.

Grandma always said it how she saw it, she was never known to sugar coat anything.  She loved her family and could hear a pin drop, where grandpa couldn't hear anything.  He was the legs and she was the ears.  Together they were one heck of a team.  I remembered stopping in to have coffee with them on my way through town while I was going to college.  I loved sitting at their kitchen table having coffee and some sugar wafer cookies. Grandpa always had sugar wafer cookies and a full candy dish on the coffee table.  As a kid those dishes were so hard to stay out of, we would quietly sneak in and lift the lid and slide a gummy orange slice out of the dish only to be given up by the clinking of the glass lid going back on the dish. It was no different for my own children.  Generations of children were tempted by grandpa's candy dishes.

Everybody in our family loves black olives.  When we were kids we use to go through CANS of them at holidays.  Grandma and grandpa knew how much we loved them too, so they always came prepared with extra cans of olives.  One Easter, there was one can left when everybody was ready to a go home.  Mom tried to send them home with Grandpa.  He wouldn't have it. So I told him I would put them in the car then he would have to take them home. We headed out the door, me a teenager, him a man in his 70's on a neck in neck foot race to the car.  Some how he beat me down the stairs and to the car! I had to keep the olives, and I won't forget when he hugged me and said "Keep the olives Stringbean!"

The whole family came to our house for my senior graduation, as everybody was getting ready to leave we noticed Grandpa had disappeared.  Later Grandpa and Grandma were getting ready to say goodbye. Grandpa told me I was going to have to come outside. He wasn't a real tall man, and I am at least 5'8" tall.  While everybody else had been busy celebrating and visiting inside, grandpa had snuck out to the wood pile to find a block of wood he lugged it all the way to the house and put it on the deck.  He took me outside and stepped up onto the block of wood and then turns to me and says "Ok Stringbean, now you can give me a hug!" I hugged him and told him "I love you, you Old Fart!"

Grandma passed away the fall before CM was born.  CM never got to meet Grandma, but will always carry apart of her with her, CM was very affectionately named after a woman I loved and admired greatly.  Saying goodbye to grandma was so difficult.  She held my hand and told me she would be watching me!  She was laid to rest in the Prairie City cemetery 9 years ago, and I still feel her presence, hear her laugh and love her so much. I know she wasn't kidding when she said she was going to keep an eye on me.

My aunt and uncle would bring Grandpa up on Memorial Day to visit Grandma in prairie city.  One spring they came and had planned on planting flowers at her grave.  My aunt had purchased a new shovel on her way up just for the occasion.  The spring had been particularly dry.  Upon arriving at the cemetery I promptly gabbed the shovel, being the youngest able bodied adult I offered to dig the hole for the flowers. I took my foot and shoved the shovel in to the ground and leaned back to take a big scoop, that dry old prairie sod didn't give an inch but the shovel did! The handle of that brand new shovel busted right off, about landing me right on my can! Grandpa laughed and laughed, "Old Stringbean doesn't even know her own strength!". I teased, calling him Old Fart!

Grandpa celebrated his 96th birthday this fall. My sister and I had stopped to visit him a couple of weeks before, his eyes were getting bad and he couldn't see people well enough to tell who they were. We visited right along for quite a while. I asked him about his birthday in a couple of weeks, and he finally said "Who are you and how do you know it's my birthday?" We told him who we were, he couldn't see us well enough to recognize us! Everything made since after he knew who we were! When we left I didn't know that was the last time I'd hear him call me Stringbean, and hug me good bye.  I didn't make it to his birthday party, we were trailing cows that day and I couldn't make it.  He had 96 birthdays, why wouldn't he have another, at some point I just thought he would always be there, because he always was!

On Friday October 24th I got the call I knew someday would come, but secretly hoped it never would. Honestly I thought the "Old Fart" might live forever. He had taken a fall, and wasn't going to make it through this one.  I made it to the hospital 2 hrs away by 9:00 that night. I stood by his bed as he laid there with his eyes closed peacefully, I told him I loved him very much! The rest of the family stood near his bed and we all began telling and listening to stories about him. He heard Grandma call his name, and finally left to be with her. I will never hear anybody call me Stringbean again, he was the ONLY one to call me that.  And had I known that afternoon visiting him would be the last time I would hug him, and hear those words I may have held on a little longer.
Now grandpa is laid to rest next to grandma in the cemetery at Prairie City, his grave site still fresh, no grass and no flowers.  Perhaps when spring comes I will have to stick a shovel next to his headstone engraved with the words  "In loving memory of "Old Fart" from your one and only Stringbean". I think he'd love that!

13 year old...Women.

On Thursday morning last week I walked into the local store/post office in the middle of a conversation about how fast kids grow up.  I interjected that I would be the mother of a 13yr old and a two year old this year.

Like a movie playing in my head I can picture riding home in the back seat of the pickup with her on the way home from the hospital.  I remember holding her as she slept swaddled in a blanket thinking she was perfect, and I couldn’t have imagined at that time that I would have felt any more pride in her than I did at that very moment.

I had no idea what I was in for.  Four more babies later and every one of them continues to amaze me!

Now that infant that was born on a cold December morning is just months away from turning 13.  Saturday evening the husband returned from unloading a load of hay up west where we winter our bulls.  He noticed the top wire on the gate was busted.  He asked KJ to run horses in in the morning and wanted us to go ride and look and see if any of our bulls were in the neighbors cows.

After lunch my baby jumped on a 4 wheeler and ran the horses in the corral.  My sister was here visiting and wanted to ride along with us.  It had been probably 18 years since she had been on a horse so we mounted her on the girls’ old black gelding.  KJ saddled up her best friend, her palomino mare Soda.  (I will have to write a post someday about the relationship between a girl and her horse!) I saddled my little cow horse Carmel, the girls call her mom’s little blonde bomber. 

We took off out of the yard at a walk, I was hoping for a leisurely ride through the cows, hoping we didn’t find a renegade bull to put back.  Right of the bat, we found one of our 2 yr old bulls snuggled up next to one of the neighbors cows.  He jumped up put his head up, and let us know he was going to give us a run for our money.  I turned to my sister and said, “Don’t feel like you need to keep up with us.  Just follow along, I don’t want you hurt.”

And just like that the race was on!  Head up and tail in the wind he head out to the west on a run, I looked to my left to see a little palomino mare and my baby in hot pursuit; she pushed him out of the cows. As we sorted him off the cows he picked up the pace.  He tried to duck to the right and my little mare was onto him and was right there ready to head him off, we got him turned and headed due west, I looked ahead if somebody didn’t get ahead of him we were going to miss the cross fence running north and south and the gate we needed to put him back through. Out of the corner of my eye I see her loping up behind him, she sees what I see, she leans forward and gives the palomino some more reign and they kick into a whole other gear.  I quickly head for the gate; I can see she’s going to get him turned before the corner. I beat the bull to the gate, as I try to open it up I look up to see this bull hasn’t slowed down at all my daughter is now riding beside him just trying to hold him to the fence and slow him up enough that I can get the gate open.  My little Mare has her nose on my shoulder, I’m fairly sure he can’t see a whole lot of day light between us, and no time to get out of his way or get the gate open, I start yelling hoping he will stop or turn back down the fence.  My yelling did nothing to slow his progress he was still headed at me.  My only thought at that moment was this is REALLY going to hurt. He ducked around us and continued down the fence line at a dead run.  I threw open the gate and mounted my horse to see my 12 yr old put a stop on that bull and all I heard was the stretch of the top wire as she didn’t give him anywhere to go but over, guess that was easier than slowing down enough to turn around and use the gate.  We met up and she said “Sorry Mom, he broke the fence!”  I said, “That’s alright, he’s back were he’s supposed to be.”  In that moment, I see a young woman, not my little baby.  After the dust had settled, my sister trots up on the old black gelding.  She saw it too; my baby isn’t a baby no more!

So yes this winter, I will be the mother of a 13 yr old woman!  Wow, how did that happen?

Mommy ADD: Why are my pants wet?

I’ve been a little busy, or possibly a little preoccupied to sit down and do any writing.  June is a busy month; between getting cattle all sorted and out to grass, planting garden and running kids to all their many summer events and activities I recently experienced a little Mommy ADD

flair I guess you could call it.  I do the best I can!  That’s all I’m going to say about that.

If anybody has checked out the Momma Log Facebook page www.Facebook.com/MommaLog  you will have noticed I don’t mind ratting out my children when they do something.  So I figured to be fair I really should share my little oops!

Every year for at least 6 or 7 years we make the trek north to a small town in North Dakota to take swimming lessons.  They do such a good job, and it’s only an hour drive.  For anybody who has lived in rural South Dakota, you have to drive at least an hour to get anywhere.  I have to drive at least half an hour to get to some people’s places that we consider “neighbors”. 

Anyway… so we drive an hour to get to swimming lessons, spend an hour at swimming lessons, run any errands we may have (Haying season, means you more than likely will have to do parts runs while you are in the vicinity of the Case dealership.) and then drive an hour home. Repeat 5 times, with 6 kids in the car. Yes, I said 6.  As if having 5 of my own wasn’t good enough, I borrowed my 5 year old niece from my sister and drug her along with us for a week.

This year swimming lessons just happened to be from 11:30 to 12:30.  So we leave at snack time, and finish during lunch time.  Did I mention that to feed a group of six kids in town at a restaurant for 5 days will break you?  Especially in a town were a gallon of milk costs almost $6.00.  So to save some money we (me and the other moms who were also carting kids up there) decided we would just pack lunches for the kids.  Which I can only surmise saved us an arm and a leg.  Especially since packing my own lunches almost killed me.  They were absolutely ravenous when they finished lessons each day!  One day for snacks they ate half a dozen apples, and a container of goldfish crackers on the way to swimming lessons.  I went through 3 loaves of bread and several pounds of lunch meat, over 20 sticks of string cheese over a dozen individual applesauce cups, two and half bags of chips 3 bags of grapes, a Tupperware container of celery and cream cheese, two bags of apples a bunch of bananas and a large carton of Goldfish Crackers.  This was just for snacks and lunch, to and from swimming lessons. 

Every morning went, chores, breakfast, breakfast dishes, throw in a load of laundry, shower and dress myself, ride herd on the dressing of 5 children over the age of 5, dress the almost 2 year old, make lunches for 6 kids, brush and braid and fix 6 heads of hair, make sure swimming stuff was packed, ask somebody to double check to make sure everybody had a pair of underwear in the bag for after swimming, and if there was time before we left sweep the kitchen floor.

I was doing pretty well, I was managing alright.  We had a few spats between kids, that needed ironing out, but that is normal whether we are headed for swimming lessons or not.  We had successfully made it through the week, last day of lessons, nobody had forgotten clothes, or towels, and I hadn’t accidentally left any children anywhere.  We had successfully run errands to the implement dealership, the airport, and the vet’s office not to mention the grocery store and gas stations.   

The last day was here.  I had some girls who were dragging a little bit as the crawled out of bed and mustered up enough energy to go out and feed their animals.  They were starting to perk up as they finally sat down to eat their own breakfasts.  They had no trouble mustering up enough energy to pick and start some fights with each other.  We had some drama over wardrobe malfunctions, but that is all to be expected after a grueling week of traveling and swimming.

I got kids, bags, lunches and all other accessories that were required loaded in the car and we were off, we were on time, no need to speed, all was good.  We were looking like we would end the week with out too much fuss.  Got to the pool, got everybody changed and ready to go, so the baby and I made our way pool side.  We grabbed a seat next to one of the other moms and started to chat.  Suddenly I realized my lap was wet.  Not a big deal, the floor is wet.  The baby must have sat in some water.  As I started to examine a little closer, the mark on her pants seemed to more resemble that of a toddler who just had an accident.  Still thinking that she had to have sat in something, because that is a strange way for a diaper to leak, down both legs and so much, especially since I had changed her before we left.  So I took down her pants to inspect the diaper malfunction, to only find that when I had changed her I had forgotten to put a diaper back on her.  Yes, I forgot to diaper the baby.  I had a diaper in my purse, but not on the baby. 

So now we know that I can only keep track of 6 kids successfully for no more than 4 ½ days.  After that I start to slip.

The Long Trip Home

My children have been very fortunate to grow up living next door to my husband’s parents and grandparents.  They say it takes a village to raise a child, well that is what we have here.  At times it’s taken the whole village.  The lessons my children have learned and the memories they will have of their grandparents and great grandparents will be absolutely irreplaceable.

Every winter my husband’s grandparents have made their way to Arizona, where they enjoy the milder Arizona weather, and every spring they make their way back to the ranch in South Dakota where they spend the summers here with us.

Not many kids have the benefit of living this close to their grandparents, let alone their great grandparents.  What a blessing they have been in our family’s life.  I can’t even count the memories I have of spending time with Great Grandma and Grandpa, the stories Great Grandpa told of growing up here on the ranch.  I should have sat and wrote them all down, they were wonderful stories!  I won’t forget the afternoons spent fishing with Great Grandpa at JB dam next to the Slim Buttes.  Afternoons spent not catching a thing because 3 out of 4 girls were splashing half naked in the mud on the shore. 

Great Grandpa loved the ranch and the cows.  He loved to watch his family grow on the ranch that he and grandma had worked so hard to put together.  He loved the garden and to watch a crop grow.  I will have memories of looking out my kitchen window to find 4 little girls flocked around a golf cart parked next to the garden, each of them looking for the next ripe pea pod to pick and share with Great Grandpa.  Or girls picking and sharing ripe sweet corn with Great Grandpa, because that was one of his favorite garden treats.  Great Grandpa loved a big sweet juicy tomato out of the garden too! 

Great Grandpa always had a special treat for the girls, a fresh juicy Colorado peach, or maybe a Hershey kiss for delivering the mail after school.  They loved to pop in and say hello, even if it was just for a second or two.  My little TB spent the most time at Great Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  One time Great Grandpa told me that he just loved that little TB, she is just like a little newspaper.  She would share every bit on news from the ranch with Great Grandma and Grandpa.  She loved to spend time at their house!

So when Great Grandpa and Great Grandma readied to leave this fall, and we were all faced with the fact that for most of us it would be the last time we saw Great Grandpa, TB took it the hardest.  She couldn’t bring herself to even say goodbye she was heartbroken.  At nine, that is such a hard thing to understand.  Especially when they always leave in the Fall, and they ALWAYS come back in the Spring… both of them. 

So when we got the call that cold snowy morning in October that Great Grandpa had passed away in Arizona, we were all heartbroken.  We had lost a man who was truly the matriarch of the family.  It was decided to wait until Spring to hold a memorial service for Great Grandpa here in South Dakota.  So now that Spring is here, and we are all doing small things to prepare for his memorial service, we are all flooded with memories of time spent with him.

This week will be especially difficult; Great Grandma is preparing to make the first trip home from Arizona without Grandpa.  This is when the reality of the loss of a loved one will hit the hardest, because THEY ALWAYS came home, together, like clockwork, every year.  But this year won’t be the same.

That car has never pulled in the yard from Arizona without him in it.  It’s hard to imagine it now. For 4 little girls and some grown-ups too, the reality will sink in that Great Grandpa won’t be coming home this year. 

So now all we have are the memories… of 4 little blond girls holding on to the back of a golf cart, hair blowing in the wind laughing and smiling as Great Grandpa drives them around the ranch. One scared nervous little girl, afraid to tell Great Grandpa she had scuffed up his golf cart, by running into the neighbors pay loader when she went to go get the mail. Or the last fishing trip to the Dam next to Lermeny Butte, and listening to stories of going fishing as a kid with family in Minnesota.  Or the pride on the faces of little girls rushing over to share with Great Grandma and Grandpa the ribbons and trophies they won in 4-H for showing and riding their horses, or raising superb vegetables. The memory of coming home from the hospital with the 5^th baby girl to be greeted by great grandpa waiting to come over and meet her and hold her for the first time will be one I hold on to.   

Instead of watching us brand this year’s calf crop from the side of the branding pen, he will have the best view of the ranch. He will be watching over us and smiling as he knows that he instilled upon his family a great love of ranching as 3 generations come together for another day’s work on the ranch.

“Let the farmer forever more be honored in his calling; for they who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God.  Thomas Jefferson

Weathering The Storm

So it’s been a while since I’ve made a post.  We’ve been busy calving since the end of February.  Mother Nature has been fairly uncooperative, making a busy time of year way more work than necessary. 

The beginning of March brought bitterly cold temperatures, snow and lots of work looking after first time mothers.  Many long nights spent checking expectant first calf heifers.  In the middle of March we were lucky enough to have a few nice days, they turned out to just be teasers, meant for us to think spring was actually here.  Our cows were due to start calving the last week in March.  It doesn’t seem to matter what day we pick to trail cows home, the weather never seems to cooperate.  So when we picked the day this year the weather report 10 days out called for a beautiful day, we thought we had smooth sailing.  Mother Nature, fickle as she is this year, hand changed her mind…AGAIN!  We trailed them home in snow showers and winds gusting up to 40 mph.

By the time the cows due date rolled around, we had 50 pairs kicked out, and the weather was looking gorgeous.  Then Mother Nature must have been dumped by her boyfriend, she got her panties all in a bunch and sent a good old spring storm, dumping 8-10 inches of heavy wet snow on the calving grounds and everywhere else.  With most Spring Storms, the snow doesn’t last long.  The sun usually comes out to play, warms the ground and turns all the white into sticky brown mud!  Not so quick, this must have been one big bad SOB that Mother Nature needed to teach a lesson to. No warm sun on day 2, instead we woke up to -1.8 degrees on the first day of April, followed by yet another snow storm dumping even more snow.  By now, like most every farmer and rancher in Western South Dakota, we are smack dab in the middle of calving.

So this is where the real story begins.  Now that I’ve given the background story, picture not sleeping on  a regular schedule for over a month, and now for the past 4 days  you’ve been up anywhere from 18-20 hours a day.  Besides the fact that 12 inches of snow everywhere makes things difficult in the day time, it makes things 10 times more fun in the dark. 

10 o’clock rolled around time to take our first check of the night.  We bundle up and head out to the ranger.  My job: run the spotlight.  No ranch wife has ever shined the spotlight at the exact spot the rancher wanted her to at the exact time he thought she should. That was my first mistake of the night. So that along with sleep deprivation increases tension in the ranger. We drive through and find a couple cows that have calved safe and sound next to the stockade on the bedding we had laid out that night for them. They were mothering their babies, and all seemed in order.  Next we found a cow who had calved in the middle of some other cows right in the snow.  Another cow who was calving was trying to granny this other cow’s baby.  We could see this cow had big feet showing, we were going to finish our round around the lot.  Hopefully this cow would go lie down and have her calf, and give the other a minute to bond with her calf before we had to move it.

Down in the bottom of the lot in the deep snow we find Horny cow.  Yes that’s her name because she has tiny little stub horns.  She’s had her calf and is laying 5 feet away from it as it shivers in the snow.  Horny received her name for her horns, not because she’s a pet by any means.  Horny is a little bit of a flighty cow, so we throw out the calf sled, and get her baby loaded up.  I climb in the back of the ranger and keep eye on the calf in the sled, and try to keep her following the sled by bellowing back at her when she calls for her calf.  We’re doing well, we haven’t gotten stuck or tipped the calf out of the sled, and the cow is following along.  The husband heads up the hill out of the bottom of the creek and spins out, and Horny Cow takes off in the dark.  We both know getting her in in the dark will be nearly impossible, so we haul her chilled down baby to the shed, and throw him in the hot box to defrost.  We decide they will have to wait until daylight to be reunited.

Trip two, we find the cow that was calving with the big toes.  She has wondered off and found a place to lie down and work at it.  So we leave her to be, and load up the calf born in the snow.  We decide to see if we can get this one to follow us in too.  She is a little older cow, and this time it works.  I sit in the back of the ranger, and hold the strings to the sled trying to keep it from falling in the ranger tracks and tipping out the calf.  We are able to get this calf and her momma all the way in from the lot to the shed where they are snug and warm. 

We head back out to the lot again, old big toes hasn’t calved yet.  The husband says “I think we’re going to have to pull it.”  Not words I wanted to hear! Our options include trying to pull it out in the lot, or try to run her into the shed in the dark.   I can handle trying to get a cow to follow us in with the sled in the dark, that’s worked on more than one occasion.  Trying to chase a cow in in the dark, never usually ends well, and then add a foot of snow that you can’t get around in with anything but a horse or snowmobile unless you are in a pre-established track.  So, I suggest we go check heifers, and if she hasn’t calved by the time we get back we decide what to do from there. 

We get to the heifers to discover one of them has calved, so we get it drug to the shed and all settled in.  I think by know Old Big Toes has had to have calved out by now.  So back out we go…no luck chuck!  So the husband says, “Let’s get the puller.”  As we head back out, he thinks we are going to get this done out in the lot.  I looked at him and said, “I want to go on record right now saying I think this is a really bad idea.”  We have 3 options, try to do it here in the lot, try to run her into the shed, or calf dies because we aren’t able to get it out in time.  We make our way out find her, and after some thought he gives up on the idea of pulling it in the lot and goes to get a 4 wheeler.  We are going to try to get her in.  At this point I’m thankful I’m inside the cab of the ranger with windows shut I can’t hear the obscenities being yelled at me as she runs between the 4 wheeler and the front of the ranger hooking the grill guard on the ranger as she goes by.  We manage to get her turned around and headed in the right direction, until I can’t see her anymore, and I can’t make it up the hill on the ranger, but from beside me I can see the husband pointing and waiving from the top of the 4 wheeler.  I am apprehensive to open the door and crawl out, I not only am going to have to try to run this cow in on foot, with nothing but a small head lamp strapped to my forehead, but can now here all the 4 letter words coming from the 4 wheeler.  In these situations, I can’t help it either.  I cuss like a sailor too.  If I had a quarter for every bad word uttered aloud and under our breaths the last couple days, I would be rich!   We manage to get her run into the shed, him on the 4 wheeler and me huffing and puffing like a wheezing pachyderm.

Surrender all your hay at once!

The hard part is over, right?  Nope.  First we have a shed full of cows and calves, we have to move pairs around just to get her to the calving pen.  We get her in and are working on getting her head caught when I grab the lever of the head catch, and in a hurry and amongst all the excitement, and me still trying to catch my breath and sweating like a pig at a track meet with all my heavy winter clothes on, let her out the front of the head catch.  Whoops…That IS NOT what the husband was saying.  We have to now bring her back around and get her back into the catch pen.  This time I make sure I am nowhere near the head catch. We get her caught and get some chains on those big toes.  We finally after all the monkey business pull a 140 lbs. bull calf. 

After getting everybody snuggled in to a pen for the night, we decide to make one more run around the lot.  By this time it is 1:00 am.  What do we find?  You guessed it, another calf in a snow bank.  This cow was a pet cow that eats cake out of our hands.  We loaded her calf in the sled and she followed us into the shed, and we got her and her baby all tucked in for the night.  No fuss or muss.

I am proud to announce after the week is over, and a couple of other moments that ended in sailor language being exchanged we are still married.  As long as Mother Nature sucks it up and accepts winter is over, my marriage has a fighting chance of surviving the Spring.



Feeding Cows after the storm.

 

Hitching a Ride





Loving on my friends.



First Time Mommas

First Calf Heifer

Last night I went out to check heifers, and there they were: black, big bellied, moaning, groaning soon to be mommas all snuggled together tight in the straw behind the stockade.  The below zero temperatures had tipped their black furry hides in white frost.  As I opened the gate hardly anyone startled or moved to get up or even acknowledged my presence.   Imagine if you will, 47 pregnant women due any day, lying on the ground, I guess I wouldn’t have gotten up for me either.   As I walked quietly through them shining my flash light at every one checking for signs of oncoming labor, the only sound was my feet crunching in the snow and the grunt and groan of an uncomfortable soon to be momma cow.  For anybody who has been pregnant, I’m sure you can relate to how they feel.  I remember all too well not being able to get out of our waterbed we had for the first 4 pregnancies.  My butt would sink lower than my knees if I sat up then tried to stand up. I would have to lie back down on my back and roll out like a whale. Having been pregnant a few times myself I can sympathize with the poor girls.

However, I’ve always felt bad for first calf heifers.  They just don’t see it coming.

They are weaned off their momma’s in the fall, fed and taken care of in the feedlot all winter, not a care in the world except maybe when the next bale of hay will show up.  Soon spring shows up, and they are like a bunch of little kids with spring fever, they nibble at every piece of green grass they can find, sick of eating the dried up bales of hay.  Before they know it they are turned out on green grass!  It’s now time to eat, grow, run, buck, play and kick it up! Summer is here!  They are like a bunch of teenagers on summer vacation.  There is nothing worse than rounding up a bunch of yearlings.  It’s almost as much fun as trying to get teenagers to listen to you! 

Then round about June a trailer pulls up to this lush green pasture and out steps 3 of the prettiest black bulls you could ever meet, if you are a heifer in heat! These boys know how to strut their stuff and really know how to sweet talk the ladies.  Those poor heifers don’t even know what hit them, they start cycling and before you know it those 3 handsome boys have worked their way through all 60 heifers in 45 days then they’re gone!

They continue the rest of the summer, care free and feeling good!  None the wiser to what their little fling with the big black bulls got them into.  Fall rolls around and they start gaining a little weight by February, their waddling everywhere they go, their udders start to swell and there is something in their bellies kicking them in the ribs.  All you mommas can relate!  But you know why.  These poor girls don’t have a clue what’s in store from them.  With your first baby, your mom, your grandma, your best friend and quite frankly any woman who has ever given birth told you exactly how much fun labor was.   You don’t really know, but you have some idea.  Nobody has warned these poor girls, nobody has told them all the horrible horror stories about giving birth.  Surely nobody told her about pulling the calf if she can’t have it on her own.

So it starts, first they get a belly ache.  You can see them pacing the fence, really uncomfortable, then they are kicking at their bellies, trying to make the hurt stop… still no idea that their care free life of running bucking and kicking is about to come to an abrupt end.  No idea, that that handsome black bull that whispered sweet nothings into her ear last summer in one fell swoop made her a single mother. 

Before she knows it she’s in full on labor, and nature and instincts kick in now, thank God for that, because this poor creature still has no idea what’s happening to her.   Shortly, if all goes well, the contractions and pushing produce a baby calf that instincts tell her to get up and lick off.  Next this little guy is stumbling all around and she’s bellering at him, and before you know it every other heifer in the lot shows up to check him out.  They have never seen anything like it before.  A crowd forms as they try to decide what this little miniature cow is and what he wants.  Hungry, the calf stumbles around looking for momma in the crowd of black legs.  If her instincts have kicked in she’s looking for him too, but for some of these girls, that is not their first instinct.  Some of them won’t stand still and let the poor little guy get a suck, they are confused by this little mini me following them around and want nothing to do with him. 

And if heaven forbid, she couldn’t have it on her own… there is good chance she really won’t like the little guy.  He will have to be an acquired taste.  Once she accepts the fact that she is a single mother, they are sent out together and she is responsible for keeping this little guy safe.  And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t get between her and her baby!  Now she’s a mother, and she will stop at nothing to keep him safe. 

Next summer, that big black bull and his buddies will come waltzing back into the pasture. He will sing his sweet songs again and whoo her all over again, along with all her friends.  At least this time she knows that he isn’t sticking around to help out, and she knows who to blame for all the weight gain and the kicks to the ribs. 

Yet, there will be a whole generation of new first calf heifers with the same problem next year.