Calf 2 - Mama's

The second calf is born.  Again it was not Panda's calf.  It was Mama's calf!  This is the third year in a row that the second calf born was from Mama.   Mama's calf was born the morning of March 30.  Again this was prior to the due date of the first calf expected, which was March 31.

The cattle had full access to the corral and all of the north pasture.  In the morning when I put out hay for the cattle I found Mama at the far end of the pasture - by the river.  She was the only cow not to come when I put out the hay.  Okay.... something is up.

Knowing how protective Mama is after her calves are born I stayed across the fence.  As I neared Mama she came over to the fence shaking her head at me and in an agitated mood.  Near a tree near the fence and towards the river was her calf.  All red like Mama.  Unlike Big Red, Mama has her calves take after her.

I knew I wouldn't safely be able to check the calf's sex.  I returned back to the corral.

Both Donna and Paul came a few hours later to help me with Mama and her calf.  Paul and I had sorting sticks in hand as Donna drove us in my pickup out to Mama.

Mama was laying in the pasture just outside the trees near the river.   She stood up as we approached.  Then Mama walked past us and towards the corral. What's going on?! Where is her calf?!

Mama continued on seemingly unconcerned with us. That's not like Mama.  We looked around and I looked to where I last seen the calf.  No calf.  Paul and I walked around and we checked the river in case the calf fell in and drowned.  No calf.  Donna drove around and then she honked the pickup's horn.  She found the calf laying in a dip on the north side of the pasture among the trees.

Why did Mama walk away and leave her calf?!

I checked and the calf was a boy.  Paul and I picked it up and carried it to the pickup bed.  I was worried Mama would turn around and come after us as we were banding the calf.  It was safer to band him in the pickup bed. And that is what we did.

By now Mama was entering the corral.  She was eating hay in the corral when we arrived with the calf in the pickup.  Once Mama saw her calf after Paul and I set it on the ground in the corral Mama got concerned and ran over to her calf.  By now we were safely near the pickup and were able to exit the corral.

Donna was disappointed. It was too easy.  She was expecting an epic challenge like we had last year.  I was surprised and happy it was so easy to band her calf.

After Paul has left Donna got the idea that it would be good to place Mama and her calf in the south side of the corral by herself.  Donna remembered last year Mama getting in our face or suddenly coming up behind us when we were working with other cow's calves.  Mama is protective of other calves too.

Mama is also protective of her calf from the other cattle.  Last year she got into fights with other cows who looked at her calf cross-eyed.

So we had a little sorting to do.  I opened and closed the corral gate to the pasture to let the other cattle out but not Mama and her calf.  Mama is smart and knew what I was doing and she tried to get out with her calf.

Eventually we were down to Mama and her calf and the first calf born the previous day.  This calf was confused and stayed close to Mama.  The first calf's mother - now outside the corral - heard the commotion and realized her calf was 'missing'.  She came to the corral gate and loudly mooed at me and also her calf.  The calf got more confused.

Eventually Donna and I lured Mama and her calf into the south corral.  Donna stood outside the corral fence of the south corral and Mama bummed rushed Donna.  We got the gate closed before the first calf could follow Mama through the gate.  Then I opened the main corral gate so the first calf and her mother could be reunited.

I plan on leaving Mama and her calf separated for about three weeks.  She seems to calm down after that.  Mama has calmed down around me now.  She no longer charges the fence when I am near it.  And I can safely put out bales of hay for her to eat.  Donna or other people?  Mama doesn't want them near.  Even with my newly built solid corral fence with railroad tie posts Donna still jumps back when Mama charges her.

Donna's friend, Wendy, named the calf.  His name is Clyde.

To prevent further calves from being born at the far end of the pasture I put up corral panels across the pasture nearer the corral.  I am not ready to lock all the cattle in the corral.  Two months of manure and left over hay is more than I want to be concentrated in the corral.  One month is enough.

The banded testicles.

All red except for the white highlights on her forehead.   Cute.

Here are photos of Mama's calf, the first calf, and Buddy before Donna and I got Mama and her calf separated into the south corral.  The calf sleeps through all the commotion.

Here is a 56 second video of Mama in the south corral.

https://youtu.be/QE2kTwgEdOo

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Calf 1

I saw Buddy get it on with Panda first of all the cows last year just hours after Buddy was let back in with the cows.  Based on that the charts said the first calf would be born on March 31.

The first calf born this year was born on March 29.  And not to Panda.   Big Red was the mother.   What?!  I found the calf with Big Red just outside the corral fence.  The calf was born earlier that morning.  When I found him he was cleaned off and dry and was able to stand when I approached.

Yes, the first calf was a little bull calf.  Donna came by a few hours later and we put a band on his testicles to turn him into a steer.

As you can see, no sign of his mother in him.  Not red - a little black bronco-faced calf.   Cute though.

You're gonna do what to my testicles?!  Nope.  I'm out of here!

Dang.  I need to run but I'm still learning how to.   I'm just hours old.

I'm still mad at you for what you did to my balls.

Stump 1 bonfire

My first bonfire of 2016.  (I didn't have any stump burnings last year.)

Sunday night was perfect.  No wind.  Not hot. Not cold.  A crescent moon sank low in the night sky as the bonfire went on.

I had plenty of tree branches piled up since my last bonfire in 2014.

Daisy came out with me and spent the entire time with me.  When we first came out it wasn't dark yet.  The birds were all atwitter at the presence of a cat in their pasture.  Once it got dark the birds got quiet.   As the stump burned Daisy circled the area sitting and looking out into the darkness.  Later, when the fire was dying down and I stopped moving around adding branches to the fire, Daisy came and laid on my lap.  She was still alert and looking out into the darkness at things I could not see or hear.

The next morning the large stump was completely gone.

Note the shovel indicating the depth of the hole.

Two ER visits

Hang on.... there weren't for me this time.  *whew*

The first ER visit was for Donna.  She called me Friday night at 7:20 pm.  She thought her shoulder was pulled out of its socket and she was outside in her pasture.  She was lucky she had her cell phone with her and lucky she was able to reach me as I had just come in the house for a few minutes.  Daisy was dawdling at eating her food so I waited and was there when Donna called.

I drove down and then out into her pasture to look for Donna.  The sun was setting and in my eyes so I had to be careful to not accidentally run her over.  I found her laying on the ground on the west end of her pasture.  Donna had been walking her colicky mare when Donna noticed a break in her electric fence. When she walked over to check it out her horse panicked.  The horse was fearful of the electric fence and pulled away.  Donna held on to the rope to control the horse but for whatever reason her shoulder was pulled out of its socket.  Or so she thought.  Her arm was dead to use and she couldn't move it.  She was in a lot of pain.

First I had to get the horse and lead it back across the pasture and then into the corral.  I didn't know about the electric fence and the horse's fear of it.  The electric fence came near the gate I chose to use.  As we neared the fence the horse started to act up.  I was able to control the horse and get it into the corral where it quickly calmed down.

Then I got Donna into my pickup and took her to the ER in Whitefish.  There were no other patients there so they got her in quickly.  The hospital workers couldn't hold a vein to administer an IV so they had to give her some shots for pain and to knock her out.  The medicine was called some big name I didn't know.  Apparently the street name is Vitamin K.   The drug worked.  The side effect is it took a long time to wear off and made Donna loopy.

Once Donna was out the ER scanned her and found her arm was indeed out of its socket.  The doctor reset her arm back into its socket.  Once she woke up her arm felt much better even though her hand and fingers felt really sore.  An annoying part is Donna is right handed  and this was her right hand.

I got Donna to the hospital sometime before 8 pm.   With only one magazine to quickly read, alone in the waiting area, I had nothing to do. Once a three year older girl stopped crying in the room next to where I was, I fell asleep.  The little girl started crying and whining after she arrived when the nurses tried to weigh her.  I don't know what she was in for but from her reaction this was not the first time.

Other than being woken up later by the girl starting to cry and whine again, I slept till midnight.  I can sleep about anywhere and in most positions.

Donna was awake by midnight.  Once the doctor checked the scan done after the arm was reset, Donna was free to go by 1 am.  But she was really loopy from the drug and was seeing double.  Since the hospital wasn't charging by the minute (unlike they did for me) Donna waited until she felt better.  I was starving.  Tim (or was it Bill?), the ER nurse, let me have some food from their snack room and that tided me over.

At 2:50 am Donna was still woozy but now felt good enough that she thought she could making it home without falling or getting sick.  I got her home a little after 3 am.  Once I filled my cattle's water trough and closed all the open house windows, I went to bed by 3:30 am.   Saturday morning, even though her hand was really sore, Donna felt better.


The second ER visit was for Jan's dad.  He is 102 years old and mainly lives alone in Arizona.  Apparently Friday night he fell and was injured.  He was flown to a trauma center in Phoenix.  He apparently hit his head and gashed it, broke two vertebrata in his neck, and injured his hip.  He flat-lined once or twice and recovered from it.  Jan's brother is in Arizona and is on his way to where their dad was flown.  The dad is a tough old North Dakotan.

Wood from a burn pile

I got several pickup loads of wood from the burn pile from the place down the road.  I got the wood in time as they were planning on burning their pile in the next few weeks before the open burn season is over for the Spring.

Why do I need the wood?   I plan to burn a few tree stumps this year to have less to drag the harrow around.

I have dug around one of the stumps and am working on the second stump.

Note the shovel indicating the depth of the hole.

Spring work

I guess an advantage of my time off blogging is that you get the annual Spring work posts in one fell swoop, and condensed.

Yes, I burnt the ditches again this year.  It went quick.  No photos.

Yes, I drug the harrow across the hayfield and all the pastures this year.  I also drug the harrow across the northern neighbor's field to break up the manure my cattle left last Fall.  By the time I was done harrowing four of the harrow sections were more pieces than harrow sections.  The tree roots in the middle pasture really did a number on these harrow sections.  Even beat to heck the harrow pieces do a very good job scraping the ground.

Now that I have a tractor with a bucket, after I finished the harrow work, I used the tractor to level a dozen large bumps in the middle pasture.  A few of them were tall enough that the step on the bottom of the pickup would rub on the bumps.  Afterwards I had to go out and use a rake to completely level the dirt and sod I had cut off the bumps.  This was more work than I expected.

Time to go to work with a rake to finish the job.

No, I did not prune the fruit trees.  It would have been too difficult to do with one arm.  I did do some trimming of branches on the box elder trees next to the pole shed.  I had to use my right arm to saw the branches.  Took a lot longer to do the work.  But I had to do something as sitting around was not sitting well with me.

Back to normal

It appears the Blogger send email function has finally been fixed after a month of it being broken.

So what's new with me?

My broken collarbone is healing well.  The doctor is pleased with my progress.  He said I can now lift up to 20 lbs with my arm.  Am I?  Well, I don't have a scale with me so I may go over that limit at times.  I also am supposed to be doing therapy.  Three times a week for 6 weeks.  I want therapy as I have movement limitations with my arm, but I'm not doing therapy on a regular basis.

First I had to find a therapist.  I asked around and a few days later settled on a therapist (actually the clinic).  Then the clinic wouldn't accept the therapy prescription from my orthopedic surgeon.  I am on Medicaid Expansion health plan and Medicaid's rules is that all health decisions go through my "passport" doctor.  So I had to get him to write a therapy prescription even though the orthopedic surgeon was most qualified to do so.

That took a few more days.

Then the therapy clinic is very busy.  I didn't have my first session until another 8 days.

The therapist was pleased/surprised at how well I was doing.  After the session he gave me a couple of exercises to do at home.  He wanted me to have once a week sessions.  I still haven't had my second therapy session.  Last week the therapist was booked solid and I was on a call list.  Monday morning the office called.  Could I be there in 25 minutes?

No.  I just got out of bed.

Tuesday the office called at noon and left a message asking if I could come on Wednesday.  I had a calf born that morning and didn't get to my phone until 2 pm.  Too late.  They already filled the opening.  I don't know if they ever called the rest of the week.  If they did, they didn't leave a message.

My therapy session for this week is Friday.  Instead of having therapy three times a week I seem to be having one session every other week.  Not a prescription for getting all my arm movement back.  I guess us poor people should be happy for the few crumbs we do get.


Donna, being a former nurse, thought that since my collarbone broke into five pieces it would be a good idea if I had a bone density scan.  The Passport doctor agreed when I asked him.

I was sent to the Women's health center to have a bone scan.  Apparently not many men have a bone scan.  Questions on my intake form:

1. Age of menopause
2. Are you pregnant?
3. Have you had a hysterectomy?
4. Have you had any ovaries removed?

Etc., etc.   Half the questions I marked "Not applicable".

Then the technicians had to scramble to find a loose pair of unisex pants that were long enough for me to wear.   I did just fit on their scanning machine.

The results?  I don't have osteoporosis but my bones are not as dense as they should be for a male.  Apparently the scale for men is based off a 20 year male.   A minus 2.5 is osteoporosis territory.   The four areas I was scanned for came to be:  -.02, -.04, -1.2 and -1.8.   Hmmmmm!   I now have to take calcium and Vitamin D supplements.

Speaking of medicine.... I have high blood pressure. Not too crazy as both parents had high blood pressure. I think all the bicycling I do and exercise delayed it in me.  The ER and orthopedic doctor office had dismissed my blood pressure high readings as due to pain.  The hospital where I had the surgury had said the high reading was due to anxiety over the surgery - though I don't think I was anxious about the surgery.

Now that I am on the medicine my blood pressure is lower.

Since I was at the doctor's office... I have a couple of thick toenails.  Now I am on medicine for that.

The medicines aren't giving strange dreams... it is just that I now daily remember the last dream I have when I wake up.

And remember the spindle cell proliferation growth on my hand from last year?  It grew back as the dermatologist didn't completely cut it out.  Well, I had my passport doctor remove it.  He cut a large divot in my hand to completely remove the growth then sewed my cut up with three stitches.  There is barely a scar now.

I'm getting old.  I'm not invincible any more.

Havre road trip

No post yesterday... I was on the road.   Donna's daughter had to return to work on Monday.  Her husband wanted to stay here and spend a few days fishing with friends.  So Donna and her daughter hatched a plan for Donna to drive her daughter home and leave the vehicle here for the husband to drive home later.  Otherwise he would have had to catch a train home.

But they needed one more thing to make their plan work.  Donna had a doctor appointment early Monday morning so she needed to be back home by then.   The distance was over 250 miles...  one way.  Over 500 miles round trip.  The trip would take over 4 hours each way.  And the time was after 5 pm.  So she asked if I would go with them and help drive back.  

A 500 mile 8 hour round trip over night.  Why not?

Besides I can talk.   And talk.  And that would make the time go faster.  For Donna's daughter I did make the time go faster.  I talked so much she fell asleep while I was talking. 

I'm not sure when we left.  After 6 pm I think.   We arrived at 10:37 pm.   After a quick tour of the daughter's house Donna and I left to return at 11:07 pm.   The "Highline" highway (U.S. 2) doesn't have much traffic, and certainly very little traffic in the Winter and Spring.  We saw very few cars on our drive.  The area is lightly populated so there weren't many lights visible during our drive other than when we passed through the occasional small town.  Surprisingly Browning, MT looks much bigger lit up at night than during the day.  Other structures lit up at night were the grain elevators along the railroad track.  And lastly I can not help mention the vast field of blinking red lights atop the numerous wind towers near Cutbank, MT.

The Highline highway mostly parallels the railroad.  While rail traffic is down we did met over a half dozen trains - almost as many cars on the highway that we met.

Donna can get car sick.  She first felt queasy when we dropped into Shelby, MT.   But the feeling passed on the straight stretch of road between Shelby and Cutbank.  Then the drop west of Cutbank brought it back again.   The mostly straight road between Cutbank and Browning made her feel better.

The problem is that west of Browning we entered the mountains.  The road rose and dropped and twisted and turned.   Usually when Donna drives she is fine.  Not this time.  At Marias Pass I had to take back over driving.

Donna had it bad.  She said it was the worst she ever felt.  I had to drive 40 mph and under.  We stopped numerous times so she could get out of the car and walk a bit and get fresh air.

It didn't help that we drove along a freight train for a while.  The sight of the locomotives lit up made Donna feel worse.  And not helping was the sound of the train car wheels screeching and squealing constantly as the brakes were applied as the train came off Marias Pass.

With little to no traffic on the straight sections of road prior to the mountains I had made really good time.  Then things slowed down.  I didn't get home until 3:50 am.  Donna was in rough shape.  I spoke with her today and she said after sleeping until the afternoon she felt much better.

I slept late, though I didn't get my full eight hours of sleep.  I woke up to find another calf born earlier Monday morning.

A few photos of Glacier Park mountains as we drove over to Havre.

Creston auction 2016

Spring must be here - it is time for the annual Creston Volunteer Firefighter auction.  This year was the 50th annual auction.   Donna, a Flathead native, has never been to the Creston auction.   Her daughter and son-in-law were here and going to the auction so Donna came along too.   So that meant I needed to be ready to go when the auction started and not my usual "whenever I roll out of bed" time.  9 am is early for me.

Lots of people go to the auction.  I saw a few people I know.  Donna saw lots of people she knows.

Lots of stuff... or junk.. or whatever you want to call it.  Neither Donna or I bought anything.  Her daughter and son-in-law had bought a few items by the time Donna and I left.

There were a few items of interest to me in the farm equipment and vehicle section that will be auctioned off on Sunday.  But I doubt I will go as I don't really need the items and they will probably sell for a bunch of money.

Here are a few interesting items from Saturday's stuff.

The auction started with a fly over by the Two Bear Air rescue helicopters.   They are underwritten by the multi-millionaire from Silicon Valley who spends part of the year in the Flathead Valley.

Hey, Uncle Curt.  Here is another rooster for you.

Where do people get this stuff?!!!

Wouldn't this look great in my from yard?!

Pipe on split corral fence

Here is the post I had written when Blogger quit sending emails.  I wrote this back on March 4 when I was still recovering from my collarbone surgury.


I finally finished my corral fence rebuild.   The last part to do was add a length of pipe on the part of the fence splitting the corral.  That should prevent a cow or Buddy the Bull from pushing hard against back of the fence and popping off the boards.

I tried to estimate the correct height.  Not too high and not too low.

I didn't have enough of one pipe so I had to use two different sizes.  The three sections making up the smaller diameter I was able to screw together.  Not the easiest to do as I needed to use two pipe wrenches and two arms.  I paid attention to not over stress my shoulder.  I expected my shoulder would ache later that evening, but it didn't.  Success.

It also was a challenge to get the pipes up and in place without lifting with one arm, but I did it.

Initially I planned to only hang the wider pipe and wait till another day to do the rest, but things went fairly well and I was able to finish in the same afternoon.

I decided to use screws instead of nails in order to attach the brackets.  This would avoid nails loosening over the years.  The only challenge was screwing screws into the railroad ties.  I used an electric drill to screw the screws but a quarter of the way into the tie the screw head would start to strip.  I had to use a vice-grip to completely screw in the screws.  Even then it was hard and the screws would snap off and I would have to move the bracket.  Then, dud, I realized I should drill a small hole first.  I still had to use a vice-grip to finish the screws - but no more breakage.

I think the cattle will also use the pipes to scratch their heads against.

Small pipe going into a larger pipe.

Small pipe going into a larger pipe.

I couldn't remove the t-connector because it was rusted on.  So I left it.

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It appears to work

My Blogger email workaround appears to work.  I've been told.

I just learned of another way for you to get my blog's posts.  On each of my blogs, on the right side (scroll down) and just above the Clustrmaps image, you will see a "Follow by email" section.  If you enter your email here Feedburner will send you an email with the posts I added that day to that blog.

If you do decide to use "Follow by email" let me know and I will remove you from the Google Groups email list.  I have no idea who has signed up to "Follow by email".

Work around for Blogger not emailing posts

Hi.   You haven't heard from me in almost a month as I haven't added posts. (Maybe you noticed - maybe you didn't.  )    And why haven't I added posts?      Because Blogger is broken and does not email my new posts - for my blogs and apparently - judging from the help forum - quite a few other blogs.   You'd think Blogger could fix this problem by now is it has been broken almost a month!

I learned of a workaround.  A web site called IFTTT.   And in desperation I am trying it.   The work around is even a bit more complicated since the IFTTT workaround will only send a blog post to a maximum of 5 email ids.  And I have more than 5 email ids I send posts to.   So I reactivated an old Google groups I used to use in order to send multiple emails out before Blogger upped their "email to" function some years ago.  Some of you may remember getting posts this way years ago.

So IFTTT will send to my Google Group which will then send the email to you.  If you don't want to receive emails of my posts, let me know, and I will remove your name from my list.

Hopefully this all works.  If you receive this - it has worked.  And maybe I can get back to blogging my news. 

Auction road trip

Donna has never been to the Missoula Livestock auction and was interested in attending some day.  She wanted to go on a road trip in her newer car.  Today the auction was having rancher appreciation day with multiple $50 drawings for sellers and buyers. And they were serving a free meal at lunch.  My collarbone is still healing and I needed a reason to not work.  So let's go to Missoula.

The bulls and dry cows were sold before lunch.  The cow/calf pairs and feeders were sold after lunch.

At the auction were two guys (Lonnie and Tim) Donna knew so we sat with them over lunch and talked.  They each had cattle, brought an empty stock trailer, and between the two of them bought 7 feeder cattle.  Lonnie even bought a large white heifer that both Donna and I admired.  If I had room in my pasture for another heifer I would have bid on her.

But, no, I did not buy any cattle.  I didn't win any of the $50 prizes.

We were at the auction from 11:30 am to 3 pm.

Cow/calf pair being auctioned.

Then we made the two hour trip back home.

Activities on a warm day

Another sunny warm calm day.  54 degrees for the high. A gorgeous day.  So much I could do except I have a shoulder stopping me.

Instead, now that the snow is gone from the ditches, I picked up all the garbage in the ditches along the ranch.  I filled two plastic grocery bags.

I fixed a barb wire the deer had broken.  Slow going to use a pliers with my right hand to twist the wire.  I am glad I have a wire stretcher to help me.

I cut up a dozen small branches for firewood.  Slow going using a saw with my right hand.

Pushed the remaining hay from the center to the outer part of the metal feeder.  Tomorrow I need to move another large hay bale out for the cattle.

Riding three different times, I rode a total of 21 miles on my bicycle today.  I only used one arm to ride the bicycle.

It is too hard to sit around doing nothing on such a nice day.

So far my shoulder is holding up this evening.  No more sore than usual in the evenings.  I only have one pain pill left.

What is a group of cows known as?

Recently I saw a trivia question of interest.

What is a group of 12 or more cows known as?

A. Bale
B. Flink
C. Clowder
D. Bed



Answer: Flink.

Flink?!    So... I have a flink of cows.    ...Doesn't sound that impressive.


Looking into it further, flink - while a real word from the 19th century - appears to have originated as 12 or more cows on the internet back in 2002 and is not a real word for 12 or more cattle.
http://www.word-detective.com/2011/03/flink/


The real answer....

Q: What is a group of cattle called?

A group of cattle is called a herd, mob, drift, drove or team. Historically, people who took cattle to market on the open range were known as drovers.


Also... bale is a group of turtles.  Clowder is a group of cats.   Bed is a group of Oysters.

More animal grouping definitions: https://sciencebasedlife.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/what-do-you-call-a-group-of/



Also...

Q: How many teeth do cows have?

A: Adult cows have 8 incisors on the bottom front of the mouth and 6 molars on the top and bottom on each side of the mouth, for a total of 32 teeth. The top front of the cow's mouth has a pad of skin and no teeth.

Calves have 20 deciduous teeth and no deciduous molars. The deciduous teeth of 75 percent of calves have all erupted at birth. The deciduous teeth of calves are replaced by permanent teeth as they grow. By 30 months of age, cows have lost all of their deciduous teeth and have their permanent teeth in place.


Q: Are bulls color blind?

A: Bulls are color blind. Like all cows, bulls have deuteranopia, meaning they cannot discern red and green colors and instead see shades of yellow or blue. When it comes to bullfighting, people are often under the impression that the red color of the matador's cape is what angers the bull in the arena, and, symbolically, red is a color that denotes anger or passion. In reality, the fluttering movement of the cape is what agitates the bull and causes it to charge the matador, not the color. The animals are more incited by white or blue capes, but the red serves a particular purpose in the arena: the color masks any blood that the creature may spray while injured.

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