Sundries

The last week or so we've been preconditioning calves for shipping this fall.  Essentially this means that we bring in each bunch of pairs, sort the calves off the cows, run the calves through the chute giving them 4 shots so they won't get sick from the stress of shipping in a month or in the feedlot where they're going.  The cows get Ivermectin and their fly tags cut out, then we throw the pairs back together and put them in pastures with good grass until we pull them at shipping time.  It's been great weather, 80 degrees and sunshine, so working cows hasn't been an awful trial.  

We also preg tested our heifers by ultrasound to see who gets their big girl tags and will be having their first calves next spring.  I have to tell you...out of the first 20 heifers that were tested, we had 7 "open" or unbred cows.  It was tense, to say the least, and I was nearly in tears as I wrote their numbers on the sheet on the clipboard.  But then it picked up and eventually we ended up with 13 open heifers out of 113, the rate of 10% being average on any given year.  My little heifer, Violet, was bred!  78 days with a bull calf.  I know I sound like a little kid when I tell Dr. Beck "That's MY cow.", grinning as big as you please, but it's truly thrilling to hear that call "Pregnant" from him.  You might not believe it, but it's almost as exciting as seeing double lines on the little stick for your OWN pregnancy.  (There are about 50 of my 64 readers that will not understand that, but at least 10 of them that do.)  

All this means that we've had our hands on every cow and calf on the place...with the exception of the 150 pairs to do this Saturday, but they're not our cows; we run a cousin's cows in exchange for pasture lease, basically.  But still...every one of our cows, we've handled, examined, shot, sorted and moved this week.  And they're looking good.  Today I cried a little....mostly because I was tired and frazzled and thought I'd really messed up a gate, but more because I see a lot of hard work coming to fruition in these girls (and babies).  For as hard as it is calving in March, loading half frozen calves in the pick up to haul to the heating box, it's more than doubly gratifying to be moving them through the fall grass, seeing the big, soggy calves trotting along beside their moms.  

In other news, my friends Myron and Ada Pentz from Perth, Australia have sent me some really good literature about the land down under!  I finished "Melbourne" by Sophie Cunningham  and feel a real need to take a tour of that city with book in hand in order to fully appreciate it.  I read it every evening last week, underlining words I was unfamiliar with and marking references that I want to read up on.  Some of the more fascinating things are that right now, as we're doing our fall work on the ranch, the folks in Australia are doing their spring planting.  New Year's celebrations are in the middle of summer, sort of like our Independence Day celebrations.  The book walks through the seasons and areas of the city, exploring history and culture on the streets of Melbourne.  It also gets into "footy" which is Australian football, which is JUST as big to them as NFL is to us...I mean, me.  Sophie grew up in Melbourne, so the book is very personal in some places...she writes in a professional, journalistic style, but occasionally reminiscences sneak in to make the book read more like her own diary.  Good stuff.

I read about 89 pages of "From Strength to Strength" tonight while sitting on the deck with a cocktail, watching the clouds go to pink, listening to the prairie ease into evening.  It's an autobiography of an amazing woman who ends up ranching in Northern Australia, after marrying an American who had big dreams but nothing to substantiate them.  In the book right now, she's just survived a typhoon on a sailboat in Red China waters with her husband of 4 months and his man servant Ernesto...she's dying of what I recognize to be morning sickness and they're unsure what to do about the leaking bow, besides stuffing her wedding dress in the hole.  It's a dandy!  

I'll try to get some pictures this week for you. Really, you should see how green and lovely it is here since the rains,,,  Which makes me think of Ian Tyson's song "Since the Rain"...click on the title of the song and enjoy!  

Thoughts From the Corral

1. I don't care if everyone else IS all tense and driven, I have a better day if I pretend I'm one of Charlie's Angels with my Ivermectin gun.  

2. Cows have adorable chins.

3. And cheeks.

4. AND topknots.

5. But not snot.  That stuff is nasty. 

6. It's better to sweat like crazy in the corral than freeze down with icicles on your eyelashes and in your nose.

7. I'm always going to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, so I don't know why I try so hard to get it right.  I mean, I could be in the pickup, three miles from the sorting operation and I'd STILL be in the wrong place. 

8.  Really, the "right place" is anywhere a person can't get run over by a cow or bull.  

9. Or a 600 lb calf. 

10. Which brings me to Daisy, the World's Most Beautiful Cow (OC 1); this year was her first bull calf, Cactus Jack.

11.  I'm beyond pleased to tell you all that Mr. Cactus Jack turned out to be a real axle buster! He's going to make the 625 lbs easily by October 26th! Maybe by next week. 

12. Even the Farmer had to admit she raised a great calf this year, but he said it was because the calf was standing next to such a sorry cow.

13. He also said it was probably because of an LO Bar Cattle Co. bull from last summer when Daisy spent 30 days in the neighbor's pasture.  

14. Whatever.  

15. "Bum calves never amount to anything..." is hard to swallow every year at calving, branding and weaning time for my very pragmatic, unsentimental, smart, rain-gauge-half-empty men of Langs Fork, Inc. 

16. Three inches of rain and good sunshine making grass like June didn't hurt anything, though, this year.  Holy moly, it's gorgeous here, now!

17. There's really nothing slower and more stubborn than a cow who's had enough pushing for three days.

18. Except 133 cows (and calves) that have had enough pushing for three days.  

19. I can't hug the cows.  Or the grass.  Or even the men, because that sort of thing is just not done.  But today I wanted to.  

20. Except when I wanted to throw the cow paddles at them.  All of them.  

21. (I'm SURE the feeling was mutual.)

22. Throwing things, not hugging.  If a cow could throw something besides dirty looks, manure from her tail, and snot, she'd throw sorting sticks too.  

23. Someone forgot to buy Pendleton whiskey for the preconditioning/imminent retirement stress/planting/shipping month.

24. Also, frozen pizza. 

25. Life is pretty darn good on the ranch, anyway.   

Out of the blue...

I've been going through hundreds of pictures, trying to sort out good images for the family book I try to put together for the grandparents at Christmas, and found some that I wanted to share with you back in October, but life got busy.  So they are chronologically out of place, here, and will seem really strange now that it's November, but I'm going to post them anyway.

Pluhar Ranch (what it was when I married in), now Lang's Fork is opposed to horses on the place. Pretty adamantly opposed, I might add.  Neither Wayland or his dad are riders; in fact, I think Wayland has only been on a horse twice in his life and never cares to try it again.  Some people are born farmers (this is not a bad thing) and are much more comfortable with machinery as means of moving livestock.  I grew up on a ranch that used ONLY horses (and the occasional bumper of a pickup on bulls) and miss them.  I've been here 13 years and have never seen a horse even come near the border of the place.  So, when my father-in-law told me that our neighbors, Jack and Glen, were bringing their horses over so we could doctor some BIG steer calves, I thought he'd been drinking.  This is big, folks! 

Of course, we took the camera.
It was Wayland's little camera, because I was helping with the process, too, and couldn't very well have my big old Canon hanging around my neck, so the pictures are snapshots.  But still....they're proof that there WERE horses on the place.  And nothing apocalyptic happened! 

Sizing up the bunch...the calves are really big, in October, so it's not like roping them for branding in June.

Caught one!

You see the wrestlers, wisely moving out of the way.  They took a lot of abuse that afternoon and had to step lively on several occasions!

Turned the calf to heel him....

Moving in to doctor.

Concerned mama cow, certain that her baby was being tortured, and not happy about the proceedings!

I love this picture! Check out the cows in the background; you see how they stretch their necks out to bawl for their babies? In books, they're always standing there, rather pleasantly moo-ing, but in real life, when they want to make some noise, they use their whole body.  And they can sure make a ruckus!  The cow in the forefront is suspicious of me with the camera, but she has no time to investigate, really.  We had a tough time with her because she kept rushing the gate when we tried to turn the calf back in with the cows. 

This picture has no significance, other than I liked the perspective and the ropes.



I tried to post the pictures in a larger size, but it cuts off a lot of the image and you miss the WHOLE scene...I think you really need the "big picture" for things like this.

Now.

I'll probably be in trouble for revealing to the entire world that there were horses, here; after all, we have a reputation to uphold.  But I'm guessing it's sort of like those comets that only pass by once every 40 years or so, and there should be some evidence of it for posterity.

Today was shipping day on our ranch! 
As Angus says (and he really DOES say this, by the way), "Huz-zah!!"
The steer calves are G-O-N-E, GONE.

In a brief summary of the day....

The Highlights  :) 

• The steers weighed EXACTLY 625 pounds, average, which happens to be the EXACT weight we contracted them at. 
• The day was perfect.  And when I say perfect, I mean: sunshine, light breeze, 57 degrees F., no precipitation.  Perfect!  Yesterday, we read predictions of snow, wind, ugliness.  Today we saw...perfect.  (And I said, "Thank you, God!")
• We had a terrific, experienced crew that all showed up AND no one got hurt.
• The food turned out and the crew ate it!  Okay, my mother-in-law's food is always great...ALWAYS....but I worry every year that the coffee refreshments (my responsibility) will bomb. 
• My father-in-law didn't have a heart attack, stroke, panic attack or any other sort of awful medical emergency caused by stress.  And this was without the aid of the Valium we threaten to drop in his orange juice, the morning of.
• It was payday, rancher-ly speaking...we now have money to buy feed for the cows to get them through the winter to do it all over again next year. 
• The Farmer and I are still speaking.  This is BIG. I got yelled at for legitimately messing up, but I didn't cry or yell back.  (I quietly plotted what to put in his meal, later, to create gastric distress.  She laughs best who studies herbal properties and applies them, last....)
• Angus had a friend to play with all morning!  Jackson, the scale man's son, came and spent all morning with him, chasing around and having fun while the rest of us worked.  We love Jackson; he loves us.  Too bad we only see him once a year!

The Lowlights  :(

• Heifer calf #704 may be ruined for life on trailer loading.  It's not for lack of trying, that's for sure.  She is our new poster-girl for the term "bullheaded", closely followed by a picture of the Farmer, who was certain we could just shove her on there because...well....he wanted her to go on THAT trailer. 
• I screwed up.  A lot.  But they won't can me, because I bring the breakfast burritos and the cinnamon rolls. 
• Speaking of breakfast burritos, it was pointed out to me SEVERAL TIMES that the cattle buyer and the scale man really and truly were hoping for Scottish eggs.  They looked everywhere for them and even though they each ate a pile of breakfast burritos, the lack of Scottish eggs was a sincere disappointment.  To the point that I'm not sure we'll get that great a price on our calves next year unless this is figured into the negotiations. 
• My bum calves, Lily and Willie, had a really traumatic day (much like the buyer and scale man).  They were separated, loaded, hustled, mixed with strange calves, run around, re-hustled....it was awful.  The minute they were reunited, they went together like two sides of a sandwich and were completely content.  The heartache of bums....my inability to emotionally detach.  
•  Maggie had to go to school, missing all the excitement...the thrills, the chills.  She has made it her life's ambition to get a horse.  Several of the neighbors helping us today HAVE horses.  This was a monumental missed opportunity. (They don't bring their horses, mind you; she just shmoozes and bats her eyes in the hopes they remember her when they retire a good horse.   So far, nothin'.  But she's no quitter...)

It really was a perfect day!  Now the heifer calves are being weaned at the Big House and the next week or so will be fraught with anxiety about them breaking out and running amok.  I'll keep ya posted. 

Montana Ranch Glossary

For Joni C., who keeps telling me I'm talking in a foreign language, even though SHE'S the one with the accent. Go figure, huh?

Pairs- noun, pl.- A cow and her calf is considered a pair, more than one of these such groupings would constitute pairs and that's what we're gathering today.

Ship- verb- To send away from the ranch by truck, selling and procurring just enough money to keep the rest of the cows alive, fed and producing calves, in order to do it all over again.  Tomorrow, we ship the steer calves, which is the reason we're gathering pairs today.

Wean- verb- To remove the calf part of the pair equation from the cow part of the pair equation so that the calf will become independently sustainable and the cow will plod through the winter to produce another calf in the spring, thereby restoring the pair equation.  We will wean the heifer calves, tomorrow, as opposed to shipping them.


Cattle buyer- noun- Not the actual purchaser of the calves, as one might presume from the title, but the middle man who cuts the deal between the rancher and the actual purchaser; an agent, of sorts, who gets a commission from facilitating this transaction. Our cattle buyer, Toby Larson, will be here tomorrow to sort the calves and eat cinnamon rolls.

Sort- verb- The act of separating the cows from the calves, then the steers from the heifers, then the heavy steers from the light steers, weighing them, shaking one's head, separating steers again, etc.  It's where I generally make some memorable, monumental screw-up, thereby causing the neighbors to mention it every time they come back to help. We, the ranchers, sort the cows off of the calves and the steers from the heifers, then our cattle buyer sorts them by big and little. 

Portable panels- noun, pl.- Beautiful inventions of steel, basically light fence panels that can create pens or alleys where there had been none before.  They are also considered appropriate "Oh, are you hung over? What a shame. And we have to set up panels all day, too" disciplinary devices on some ranches or arenas.  We have portable panels set up south of our house, in the lot, to sort this little bunch of pairs.

Neighbors- noun, pl.- This should be common knowledge, but in Eastern Montana, neighbors can be people living as far away as 25 miles.  These are the guys that come help gather, sort and haul the cows and calves; in exchange, we help the neighbors gather, sort and haul THEIR pairs when the time comes for them to ship. They also bring interesting stories to the dinnertable at noon, compliment your cooking, make your kids feel 10 feet tall, say nice things about your cows and so forth.  Good neighbors are gifts from God and not to be taken for granted.  Our neighbors will come help, tomorrow, and one of them is a brand inspector.

Brand inspector- noun- The person liscenced by the state whose signature we have to get on many pieces of paper stating that he's looked at all the livestock we're shipping and certifies that yes, indeed, they are all ours because they all have our brand on them.  We call our brand inspector Mike Green, and he's also, very conveniently, our neighbor.

That's all the time I have for this little glossary; I have to start the cinnamon rolls for tomorrow.
Hope that helps, Joni C.!

Let's see....now, where was I...?

A college football post is a terrible place for a blog to die...

Well, it's no coincidence that the Chronicles stopped cold 24 hours before I turned 40. 
I couldn't stand the thought of trying to square off and face that dragon in my own lair.
Now, for those of you who have not yet turned 40, and for those of you who are past 40(stylishly), this is not a big deal.  Forty, shmorty!

It's a big honkin' deal, okay?!

All those surveys in the back of magazines and on websites?  I just jumped a bracket.  And in Shape magazine, it was a significant jump.  I'm only two brackets away from the final one....60+.   (Cold sweat...)

I can no longer shop at Maurices without getting that sweet little teenage clerk who asks if I'm buying something for my daughter.  I can no longer shop at Maurices, period.  (Not that this is a big deal; I never shop there.  It's just that I probably shouldn't, now.)

I HAVE to get mammograms, now!  It's no longer optional!  (I'm pretty sure the Mammo-cops will be showing up any day, now, to escort me to my manditory appointment...)

Probably should look into the add-on moisturizers from Mary Kay.  I can no longer pretend that all I need are the basics.  I've gotta spring for the plumping serums and smoothing creams, to fill in all the lines that somehow appeared to deepen after September 18th.  (Sniffle)

All those cards that were HILARIOUS at Hallmark a couple years ago have really lost a lot of their humor. 

Get this: the little "you can't buy beer or cigarettes unless you were born after this date" sign is the year after I graduated from high school. After!!! (You laugh; it's a blow, sweetie....just you wait!)

I turn up the car radio...not so I can be all bad, but so I can hear it.  (SOB!)

The word "matronly" is applicable.

Kid Rock turned 40 this year, too, and released an album that, except for one or two songs, could probably be played with kids in the room.  I'm serious!  What happened?!?  


I can't go on....

Let's just say that I've had a hard time coming to terms with the big 4-0.
My mother is positively gleeful at my angst!

And, so, the blogging stopped for awhile.

Coincidentally, the fall cow work began the next day and I haven't really had a moment to think of anything else.  John Moore, a Miles City author who deigned to join our bookclub one evening, told us that his stories came to him while he was riding and trailing cows.  Mine, obviously, don't. 

I have another 4 posts, brewing in my head, but I need to put babies to bed and read a paper for the Farmer's Intro to Government class. 

Don't go far...!

Movin' cows...

This week, the focus of our days is movin' cows.  We're getting ready to preg-test on Saturday, and need to start preconditioning the calves for shipping in a month, so we're bring all the bunches closer to the main place.  The weather has cooled down nicely, so it's not blistering hot on the wheelers, which makes it nice!

Yesterday afternoon, we gathered a big bunch out of the northern-most pasture on the place. It is a wretched pasture to try to find cows...rough, mean country with lots of deep little draws and steep buttes.  No place for 4wheelers, really; that's when I really wish we had horses!  It's the kind of place where I spent most of my time trying to figure out what the odds were that my wheeler would roll (60%, strong) and writing my obituary in my head. I was thinking how sad it was going to be, that I died just a few days shy of my 40th birthday. 

And the cows KNOW we can't get anywhere, which is the most maddening part!  They stand there, ten feet away, on the other side of Death Divide and watch with unabashed amusement and mock me.  I can just hear them thinking, "Alright, honey...you think I'm gonna move?  You think you can get over here and make me?  Bring it!"   After a while, they get bored watching me try to grind around, especially when the wheeler doesn't actually roll, and start ambling off in the wrong direction.  Another crazy-making tactic of theirs, designed to make me jump off the wheeler and stomp around, yelling ineffectively at them.  I can tell by the set of their ears that they are laughing at me....and it probably IS funny, this woman jumping up and down on the edge of the wheeler-eatin' coullee, making empty threats about all-beef sausage...

It's exhausting, because my wheeler is a big, heavy Honda Foreman and my arms and shoulders are in constant tension.  My legs are shock absorbers, especially when we're in country where there's a lot of potholes and sagebrush. 

Speaking of sagebrush and vegetation, the grasses are so high in this pasture right now that one can't really see the crevices and holes!  I hadn't realized it until W. pointed it out, but after doing this for so long, we intuitively know what types of grasses grow where and avoid those "hole grasses" before we get in a jackpot.  Most of the time, that is.  The tricky thing about all this is that we have to watch the terrain directly in front of us while scanning the country in the distance for cows.  I am not nearly as good at this as the guys, being rather fond of the whole "come back in one piece" way of thinking. 

We finally did end up getting all the pairs together and moved south, before dark, which was good.  And today we have a couple little bunches to gather, but in MUCH nicer pastures.  Updates will be forthcoming!

Going home

Yesterday, Angus and I spent the day at Dad's. Karen and I are working on a Cookie Day book (that's another story) and wanted to get a good start.  And Dad wanted me to take some pictures so he and Karen could get their Christmas cards. 

Most of the people who read the Chronicles know that there are no trees in the Cohagen area.  Well, there ARE trees, but they're all planted in rows, for the most part. It's truly prairie and beautiful in its own way.  What a lot of you don't know is that I grew up on a creek with big, old, old cottonwood trees. 

Summer nights, with the windows open, I fell asleep to the swooshy sounds of leaves in the breeze.  As kids, we played for hours amongst the fallen trees, the shadows of the creek bottom, and had countless caches of food and "supplies" we'd purloined from the store room in the basement. (Wonder if I could find some, still...) 

We had a wonderful treehouse...big, with a rope swing and boards nailed up for stairs and seats and everything.  It had been Dad and Rosie's when they were kids, so that made it even more special to us. It had little niches to sit in and read and really great branches to hang off of.  It was a magnificent fort...one could really pelt the enemy from its ancient turrets, with sticks and apple cores. 

You can't imagine how homesick I get for trees.  

Yesterday, when we popped over the hill to the ranch, I almost cried.  Well, I did have a couple tears, actually.  It was so beautiful, and I was 9 years old again. 

Here's where I grew up.  This is the setting of my childhood, the fabric of my memories....it hasn't changed much at all, really.  And here's my Dad, the way I'll always see him...

I'm not going to reveal the Christmas card pictures, but I am going to show you around a little...

Dad and Angus next to the new flagpole....isn't that flag beautiful?

I included this picture so you could see the country, all the buttes and hills beyond the house.

 The old red truck....you know how I love old trucks.  Looks exactly as it did when I was a kid. Probably runs the same, too.

The paddock that used to be white.  When we were kids, we got to paint on it every summer.  We didn't make much progress and really thought we were being abused by having to do it.  (Now that I'm a parent, I can only imagine how painful it must've been to watch us s-l-o-w-l-y pretending to paint the fence.)

I had a lot of empathy for Tom Sawyer.  And my brother and sister never fell for the "privilege of painting" trick, because they knew the story, too.

 This view is looking down from up by the house.  There's the shop, with the old John Deere in front, and Grandma's house sits behind those trees to the left.  I still sort of expect to see Gramps under the tree in his red down coat and felt cowboy hat, reading political papers. Only he'd be in the sun, because he was always cold.

 This is a crazy sort of tank that stored oats for the horses.  I remember scooping oats out of that little metal tube, into a bucket.  It was handy to be able to walk by and grab a handful, to lure my horse so I could catch him...

 And speaking of horses, here's Little Joe.  He's the grandkid horse that Grammy Karen graciously shares.

 Meet Tiggy Winkles, the kitty that came from our house.  She's such a beauty!  And a mousing machine.  She came strolling out after her barn patrol to greet us.

 He's in trouble.  When we were trying to take pictures, all he wanted to do was get to the barn....SO, when he finally did get to the barn, he got tied to the trailer for a few hours to think about it.  The equine equivilant of being sent to your room. Dad said maybe he won't think the barn is such a great place after this little session.  I think he's probably just as stubborn as Dad, and probably didn't think that at all... 

 The old sheep shed that's used for storage, and the loading chute.  See all the trees?

 Barry's basketball hoop on the grainary...

 You can't see it, but the old treehouse is down there.  And the creek will be filled with sweet smelling gold cottonwood leaves in about a week....I'd like to go back and swoosh through them.

 Cowboy PopPops and Grammy Karen, with their only grandson, walking back to the house to get a peanut butter cookie or three.

Sometimes, you CAN go home again.

 

Harvest Dinner

Every year, the Catholic church in Jordan has a harvest dinner on opening day of antelope season, which USED to always be on Sunday but in a mean trick of bureaucracy turned out to be Saturday this year.  They still had the supper on Sunday, and I'm glad they stuck to their guns.  Church harvest dinners SHOULD be on Sunday evenings!

Anyway...
It's really something to look forward to, if you like food, neighbors or have pie love.  Since I fit into all those categories (but not my jeans, anymore, after attending) I load up whomever will go and we partake.  Usually, it's just Maggie and me.  This year, however, the men joined us! 

It's held at the VFW hall, the only building with a kitchen that will accomodate very large crowds.  Long tables set up and festively decorated with autumn themed things...this year, to our great delight, they sprinkled candy corn on the tables! (As if there wasn't enough food.) 

We paid our paltry sum of eight dollars for grown-ups and kids for free and got in line. 

We had to walk past the pie tables to get to the real food. 

That's right, I said tables...plural.  They put two long tables together and they are both just covered in plates of pie.  I almost didn't make it past.  I asked one of the ladies if it would be possible to completely forgo the rest of the meal and just have three pieces of pie instead, and she didn't seem to think that would be a problem. Bless her heart! But that would be a bad example for the kids, so I kept moving....

....toward the tables groaning under big white roasters of roast beef and lamb, homemade mashed potatos and (I completely understand this) gravy from a mix, cheesy green beans, baked squash, no less than 12 different salads, relish tray, homemade rolls and real butter....and a drink, if you could manage.

This is before you have pie.

Then you find a spot at one of the decorated tables, near friends if you can, which is not hard, and start the job of eating. 

It's a happy job, and all around you, you hear the clink of silverware and a cheerful hum of conversation, occasionally the sound of little kids' voices as they escape the table and find someone to play with on the bandstand.

This year, we found my Dad and Karen and had a visit with them.  Or they visited with us, while we ate.  They had been through the line a bit earlier, so they were full...Dad was polishing off a piece of pecan pie when we sat down. 

I won't go on and on about the pie anymore....except to say that I met a caramel apple pie, there, and I may never fall in love with another.  I know who made it, and if she'll share the recipe, I'll do a special post with it. 

What a great way to spend a Sunday evening!  Especially if you're the cook. 
I have no idea if there are harvest dinners in your community, but if there are, you should try it sometime.
The Lutheran ladies are gearing up for theirs, in Jordan, in a couple weeks...

I have to go run, now. 
Even my fingers feel fat, this morning.

We flip for....

....pancakes!!!

And we really flip for pancakes at supper-time. Last night, the Cohagen school kids and their families put on a pancake supper at the community hall and we were enthusiastic participants!

If you Google Earth "Cohagen", you'll notice right away that there are only about 8 buildings; one is the school, one is the post office and one is the community hall/gym.  The community hall is used for plays, funerals, the occasional wedding, church on Sundays, bridal and baby showers, voting, P.E, usta-be-studs-basketball games, poker night, Bible studies, carnivals, Easter brunch, and pancake suppers, among other things.  The whole community (36 people and their kids/grandparents/out of town guests) fit there for a good time. There's a little tiny kitchen, two cold little bathrooms, stage, retractable basketball hoops and about 300 folding metal chairs that are older than my dad, I think, and slide under the stage on wheeled carts.  It's a great place and we're so grateful to have it.

The pancake supper was held in the community hall and there was careful planning and implementation, because two electric griddles and a coffee pot will overload the electrical circuits and blow breakers. It's a delicate operation that requires pre-cooking of bacon and alternating skillets with coffee pots.  The older school kids and teacher had tables set up, decorated with Mexican looking tissue paper flowers and white paper tablecovers handprinted in primary colors.  Very festive!

Each family brought a gift basket for a community drawing-giveaway.  Our community supports the school in so many ways, both with their taxes and involvement, and we wanted to show appreciation in some small way.  The gift baskets were hidden under boxes and numbered, and at odd intervals the kids drew names and numbers; the name drawn got the box with that number.  It was fun, and someone (I'm not naming names here) put an old toilet bowl in one of the boxes for a prize.  The kids were so delighted with it! Especially since their computer aide won that prize.

Here's the menu: (you know it's all about food...)

Scrambled eggs

Bacon

Beef sausage

Pancakes

Beverages...orange juice, apple juice, coffee, milk and water

It wasn't a really big crowd, but it was a fun evening.  People came and ate, then stayed and visited for two hours. The little kids played in the entry, the big kids roamed about refilling coffee and juice, taking pictures for the school paper. The mothers cooked, did dishes, giggled and clucked.  The dads ran kids around, drank coffee and served food. 

Sometimes its hard living far from town, and sometimes it's just a great blessing.  Last night reminded me of how much fun small rural communities are and how much I like this one. 

Bummed...

L to R: Festus, Annie Light, Daisy

Do you remember my bum calves? This picture was taken in July, I think, when the grass was beautiful and green. This is just after they got their bottles...you can see all their tongues sticking out and the milk foam.

Well, this is the rest of the story.  You know that Festus met with a sad end; he was just malformed from the beginning of his life and the summer heat and stress really took it's toll on him. So we had to say goodbye to Festus early.

We weaned Annie and Daisy with the two-year old bunch, the Sevens, and their calves.  It was funny to watch them try to integrate with that herd. They came back several times, for crumbles and Nutra-Lix Plus, and when I talked to them in the pasture, they knew me and came closer.  Daisy was the leader, and sort of the mother figure for Annie. They kept track of each other through everything, and looked for each other when we gathered the bunch. 

Today we sorted the heifer calves for keepers and shippers.  We sort off the obviously runty or large heifers, so we'll have a nice, even bunch; very uniform and all black, no baldies allowed! Vern and I have been going round about whether or not to keep one of my bums. It's going to be a real pain for him, because I have a different brand and we'll have to have a different color tag to track.

It has been several weeks since I saw all the heifer calves, and when I walked through them today, I knew right away that Annie was a shipper. She never did gain the height or muscle she needed, and she had to go. Daisy was tougher, because she didn't stand out as obviously. She fit in the lower end of the average, and all the while we were sorting, I was having an internal dialogue with myself.

 It went something like this:

"Really, she should go. She's just not as big as she should be. But we can't pick her out that easily, so she must not be THAT bad. No, she's a bum, and bums go down the road. But when we were kids, we raised a couple bums and put them back in the herd; they did alright. She's going to have to be fed all year, and she may never breed up. Or she may fill out and breed up very nicely and I'd regret having sold her. She's really a good little calf. She has a lot of heart, and she's smart. But I need to be an adult; Vern told me not to get that attached and I know this. I think she'll make it. Oh, look at her! She's got to go. No, I need to give her a chance...."

In the end, Daisy made the cut. Not because she's a spectacular specimen of a calf or because we see a lot of promise in her, but because Vern has a hard time watching me have a hard time. He said we could always sell her later, if she didn't work out. That was very generous of him because we'll have invested quite a bit of feed in her by then. But for now, the OC herd is still intact...it's miniscule, but intact. 

Annie called and called for Daisy, once they were sorted apart, and that was hard for me to watch. She'll adjust, though, and she's going to the sale barn on Monday. I can't think too much about it; I need to sell her to pay for the food that all of them consumed this spring and summer.

Next spring isn't far off, with new calves and bums, and we'll see how it plays out!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

I'm not going to report every moment that happened since last Thursday, even though I know you are poised at the edge of your seat, coffee cup in hand, hoping for each blessed detail of my weekend.  Buy a paper, honey, and get some real news!  (Of course, it may very well BE in the Jordan paper, by this time...) 

In no particular order, here are the five worst things that happened, on the furlough:

• Beth scared the dickens out of us in the motel, the first night, by telling true stories of home invasion and loonies coming to a Walmart near us.  It happened to be the only night we didn't have big, strong, law-enforcement trained men with us.  Yes, we were alone.  And tired, the next morning.
• Texas Tech lost to the Longhorns. EVEN after I hung the banner on gameday in the townhouse, wore Red Raider everything, painted my nails Guns Up Red, and prayed for the team.  It was not a blow-out, but it was sad. 
• The wedding that took place at the resort while we were there had a D.J. hired until 11 p.m. and he was very serious about making sure the entire resort heard the last song, "Another One Bites The Dust". 
• There was no cell service, so I couldn't call and check on my babies.  I felt like I was being held hostage.
• I had a headache from Friday afternoon until today! I think it was the massage, releasing toxins into my body. 

The five BEST things that happened during furlough, in no particular order:

• The afternoon at the spa, getting a manicure, pedicure and massage....it was heaven!  And I'm telling you all right here, right now; if I ever perchance win a 37 million dollar lottery, I'm buying every household of every person I know and love, a professional massage chair.  It's true.  You'd better hope I start buying lottery tickets, now, and that I like/and/or/love you.  Mmmmmhmmm.
• Breakfast buffet on Sunday at Old Piney Dell.  Those two words together, 'breakfast' and 'buffet', pretty much ensure it's going to be a good time.  We had mimosas, and obscene amounts of breakfast food. 
• Grown-up time to visit, without worrying about where the kids were or what they were up to.  They were safe, we were relaxed....it was a lot of fun!
• Finding crazy greeting cards and reading them out loud to each other, when we were downtown Red Lodge....the girls, that is.  You don't actually have to purchase them to enjoy them, and they were everywhere!
• Time with my husband, not worrying about what I should be doing or what he should be doing, or what the kids are doing.  It turns out, I really like that man, still.  He's alright. 

And those were the low and high lights.  Then I came home to a school board meeting, and a full day on Tuesday of preconditioning calves.  The manicure is looking a little chipped, and I think the effects of the massage have worn off, but the memories of the good time are still here!

Ultrasounding the Heifers, or "How Bossy Gets Her Big Girl Tag"...

I know some of you just read that, and are thinking, "Wait a minute.  Did she just say they ultrasound the heifers? Isn't that an OB procedure they do on pregnant women?"

Yes, it is.  And pregnant cows, too.  Which is part of the reason my dear husband acted like such a smarty pants when we had our doctor's appointments with each child.  He was positively blase' about the whole deal, because, frankly, if you've seen one ultrasound, you've seen them all, in his mind.  There was no choking up, no tears of wonder.  Nope.  He and the technician were pointing out things and talking about measurements, and I was squinting at a blurry black-n-white-n-grey screen, hoping to see something that looked like a hand...recognisable and distinct.  But I digress...

We ultrasound the heifers, the coming two-year olds, that have been bred for the first time, to get an approximate date of calving and the sex of the calf.  It's great, because we are able to sort off the heifers that are really early or really late calvers, so we only have to get up around the clock for 2 1/2 weeks in March, rather than 6 1/2 weeks.  It hasn't improved the morale in the calving barn, at all, but at least the intense crabbiness is a bit shorter lived. 

The vet that does the ultrasound is from Baker, and he's in such demand that you have to call a month in advance, bribe his secretary with chocolate and/or flowers, conduct covert investigations on when the neighbors are getting THEIR heifers ultrasounded, and then, finally, just beg to be put on the roster.  (It's not QUITE that involved, but it's starting to get close.)  We were told he'd ultrasound our heifers right before dark on Sunday night, or start right before daylight on Monday morning.  And he was NOT kidding.

We gathered the 113 unsuspecting little heifers yesterday morning and brought them to the pasture next to the house.  At 4 PM, we gathered them out of that pasture into the next stage of the holding operation, into the lower pen.  And then we waited until dark, Vern and I pacing a groove in the linoleum of Naomi's kitchen.  Wayland deals with it much differently, and retreats to the computer or behind a magazine.  Finally went home to put the kids to bed, and got the call that he'd be there and ready to go at 6 in the morning.  (He stayed at Vern and Naomi's that night.)

This morning, before the raccoons were out of the trashcans, we were back at the Boss's house, ready for action.  And action means ultrasounding 100 cows an hour! 

Vern brings the heifers down the alley and loads them, our neighbor Melvin coaxes them in the chute and gives them a shot once he hears the word (pregnant), Wayland catches the cow in the chute and rearranges tags (cuts out fly tags, puts in big girl tags).  The vet is coveralled and has a glove up to his armpit, holding a wand that gives the images.  He inserts his arm in the cow, up to his armpit, and tells me (the bookkeeper) whether the cow is bred (pregnant or open), how long she's been bred (# of days), and whether the calf will be a bull or heifer calf.  Then he puts the Ivomec on her back, OR marks her with a pretty pink grease mark if she's open, and we turn her out.  This all happens very quickly, as you might guess, if you think about 100 cows in 60 minutes. 

A good rate of bred versus open is about 90:10 percent, and this year we were 94:6 percent.  And one of those 7 open heifers was what is termed a "freemartin", a female twin to a bull calf.  They get too much testosterone in the womb, and are rendered sterile. In fact, as my father-in-law puts it, they have a "growth" or basically, testicles.  They are almost 99.9% sterile, our vet explained, except rarely they are bred.  He said he knew of one that was bred, and the ranchers named her "Blue Moon". 

After haircurling coffee, and a couple cookies, the vet loads up and heads off to the next ranch, and we sort the opens from the bred heifers.  The open heifers will be hauled to Miles City to be sold in the sale yards, and the bred heifers are returned to pasture with thier big girl tags, the number they will have as a cow for the rest of their Lang's Fork career. Later this fall, we will sort off the heifers that are very early calvers or very late, and sell them as bred heifers, and they will go on to calving careers on another ranch. The heifers this year are all tagged with numbers beginning with "8" because they were born in 2008; 800-8106.  When we look at the tag in the pasture, we can tell how old the cow is by the beginning number. 

I wish we had pictures, but there's no one to take them, because we all have jobs that require concentration and immediate action! The heifers look at us a lot differently, now, and they have acquired an air of maturity, in the last 6 hours.  Or perhaps that's just wariness.  Either way, they are on their way to the sale barn or to motherhood next spring.