July 1
Last Thursday the water tank on the hill pasture was nearly empty so Andrea, Lynn and I took the pump and hoses up there and pumped from the ditch across the road and filled it again for the six pairs grazing up there.
That afternoon I helped Andrea finish putting up electric fence to split the big pasture above the horse pasture in preparation for moving the main group of cows to that area. Then Lynn and I made a fast trip to town to record the deed to our upper place, transferring it to Michael and Carolyn. They’ve been making payments on it for 22 years and now it is officially their ranch.
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Monday was a sad day. When I did chores early that morning, I checked the cows and calves in the pasture above the house and saw one cow lying flat, with other cows gathered around her — an ominous sign that something was wrong.
As I hurried closer I saw it was China Doll (my favourite young cow). She was still alive, but I couldn’t get her up. I ran for help. Lynn and Andrea and I propped her up with saddle pads under one shoulder, and her head tied to the four-wheeler to keep it up. I took her temperature; it was only a little above normal.
I ran back to the house to call our vet, Dr. Cope, for advice. There’s no way he could come to the ranch to diagnose the problem — he’s been confined to a wheelchair for several months.There’s no other cattle vet in our valley — just some who only work on pets and horses. Cope thought from the description of the cow and the fact we’d recently moved them into new pasture that had grown quickly (after weather finally warmed up this spring) and heavily fertilized by manure from the cows being in there during calving season, that she might be suffering from “grass tetany” (magnesium deficiency that hinders muscle function). This can kill cows quickly if the condition is not reversed.
We tried to save China Doll with a large amount of IV fluid containing magnesium and dexamethasone but it was too late; she died before we finished. So the next step was to salvage the meat. It was a challenge in the extreme hot weather. Lynn got the tractor and we took the carcass out of the pasture to field dress and skin, and get into the meat room at Andrea’s house that we built a few years ago when we had to butcher Lida Rose, the heifer that broke her foot.
We got block ice in town to help chill the quarters since we couldn’t get the meat room cold enough to cool out the hanging carcass. Andrea worked all day for three days cutting up and packaging meat, salvaging as much and as quickly as she could and bringing it down in coolers to put in our freezers. She was able to salvage most of it, and the meat is excellent, but we were sad to lose that five-year old cow. She had a good bull calf (Kung Fu) who is now in a pen by the barn, getting a little grain twice a day, since he wasn’t quite three months old when he lost his mama.
August 1
The past two weeks have been hot, dry and windy — the air has been filled with smoke. Our fire season started with a bang a couple weeks ago on the weekend when a fire started along the river north of town. It was reported by our grandson Nick, from the top of Sal Mountain behind our ranch. He was hiking/running up our creek and went to the top of that mountain (elevation 9,564 feet), to the old lookout, which he usually does every year.
The fire was still very small when Nick saw the smoke along the river (near Highway 93) about 15 miles northwest of Salmon and called it in. With the heat and strong winds, it grew rapidly in spite of attempts to contain it, and within a few days had expanded upriver toward North Fork and down river into Moose Creek. People were evacuated from their homes along the river and creeks in that area, and many are still on notice that they might have to evacuate at short notice.
When Andrea got back on Saturday we moved the main group of cows out of the pasture below the lane, sorted off the heifers to put in a separate pasture, took the bull out (breeding season finished) and put the cows and calves in the pasture above the corrals.
This past week Andrea has tried to keep irrigating our fields with diminishing water. Friday morning she was changing water on heifer hill and bent down to pick up a rock to use on the dam she was about to put in the ditch, and realized there was a rattlesnake under that rock. She was inches away from being bitten. So she grabbed her shovel to flip over the rock and kill the snake. We don’t want anyone (including our cows and calves in that pasture) to be bitten. Last year a man in our county was bitten on the arm by a snake in his garden and died on his way to the hospital.
Yesterday we moved the heifers to the upper end of the stack yard to eat down that tall grass, and moved the cows to the upper swamp pasture. Christopher helped; he sat on the four-wheeler and headed them through the gate. He also rode Ed (the 30-year-old mare) for the first time this year. His legs still don’t quite reach the stirrups but he has good balance in the little saddle.
