Day 29 – Calving Season 2022 – Looking Back

Its Sunday morning and I’m hoping to get this all put together before Church. Russ and Morgan are out doing the morning check of the herd. We can’t help but compare how it is this morning to last Sunday when the storm had wreaked the worst of its havoc and we were breathlessly trying to figure out how bad things were. This morning there is some wind, the sky is cloudless, the birds are singing. Russ called to tell me, “do you know that things are just Ducky in the calving pasture?” I was a bit dense at the time, hardly awake, so I didn’t catch on that he was telling me that our cow named “Ducky” had calved. He is not yet done the morning check so this number could grow but in the last 48 hours we have had 52 calves (including a set of twins). Special cows that calved this weekend include Morgan, Tanya, Marion, Fudge and Cowabunga). We are deeply grateful that this is not how it was last weekend. This is as intense as it will get for us.

Earlier in the week, in a quiet few hours at the cottage, while keeping the home fires burning there I got started on this post. It is a glimpse of some of what we saw and experienced calving during a storm and power outage. The pictures span from Saturday until Tuesday and are different than the immediate storm update posts that were offered Saturday and Sunday. There is another couple of stories to tell yet. But this is plenty long.

There has been so much calf action, bottles fed, rubs done, mercy, I have no idea who this calf was now. However it was a quick warm up while the crew ate lunch on Saturday, Jill gave it a bit of milk or colostrum and then it was back to the barn to its Mama. Jill carried it, we giggled a lot because it felt like a bit of a circus as it would start to slip and I did what I could to make it right.

Saturday – I took Coffee dog for a walk about 6pm. When the stakes are high with the work getting done Coffee gets left behind because she is just not a good listener yet. So….a walk was in order. This was the view of our place, from the west, it doesn’t look that bad does it? Within the hour 7 power poles snapped in half 4 miles south of us. Not a quick fix.

When Coffee and I came across Ron outside he told us he was just going fencing. This struck us both funny, its not a typical blizzard job. The building snow in the calving yard was damaging fence and making it possible for cows to get over it.

Having endured a morning of heavy rain and getting soaked through, then an afternoon with sleet that turned to snow, having done everything they could, including plug in the truck in the hope the power would return by morning, these guys were calling it a day.

Russ stopped me and asked me to take a picture of this new jeep sticker, he brushed the snow away. A little mid blizzard humor. Russ is a fan of Sasquatch stuff.

Saturday night we set up and played a new game while eating cheese ball, crackers and chips for supper. I had pizza dough rolled out and bun dough ready to shape when the power went out. Clearly I was way too optimistic. Russell was so cold and so tired, this game was an act of love, Morgan could hardly wait to try out the game he found in the easter egg hunt. It was meant for Christmas but was in a box in the office that Morgan peeked into. Shute.

The snow on our bathroom window when we went to bed Saturday night. How is a person supposed to sleep picturing this coating your animals and they were wet to start off with?

When Russ and I got up Sunday morning we wondered how we would handle the sheer number of calves likely to need a warm up in the cottage. We were picturing six or more calves strewn about. In the end there was only one in that day. It took a long time to gather its strength and needed a lot of encouragement, however, when it came time for a bottle it happily gulped back the milk I made so I made more. Russ thinks it has fluid on its lungs, back with its Mom it has not thrived, despite the meds he gave it, he has decided to leave things to their course. Now four days later, at the time of posting this the calf, whom we called “Cottage”, is doing alright.

Last summer we added an outhouse to our cowboy cottage set-up. I was non-committal about the importance of this. Let me say how thankful I am for it and Russell, “you were dead right!” Next on the list….a big generator for the ranch.

Just as I was getting in the truck on Monday morning to go to the pasture and get the fire going in the cottage Russ asked me to come help him, we had a heifer calving and its calf was big, it needed to be pulled. Russ did not expect to find the calf alive but as its head emerged indeed it was breathing. As Russ started to work on the calf the Mom prolapsed. After a swear Russell’s first words to me were “call Marcel” and then he pushed that prolapse in as much as he could and using his arm kept the prolapse mostly within the cow. He remained that way until Marcel got there, which was as fast as he could, but it took a bit of course. The strain caused numbness and pain for Russ that lingered through the day. He is very tough.

When Marcel took over Russ went to the house to take off his goopy clothes. By this point Morgan was on the scene and he became Marcel’s assistant. The heifer named “Éclair” had got up just a minute before Marcel walked in and we used the rope I had placed on her like a halter to get her snubbed up to the side wall. She settled down there and was not willing to move again. In this less than ideal set-up Marcel persevered and got the surgery done that kept the heifer alive. He needed Morgan to position himself in a certain spot and with enough force to keep the heifer positioned well enough for the procedure. When it was done I overheard Marcel speaking to Morgan with all the coaching instinct that lives within him. He is Morgan’s volleyball coach, his instinct to be a coach is something I love experiencing. I have seen it many many times. Here I overheard him praising Morgan for the way he handled his job. He gave quite particular feedback and it warmed my heart.

Ron and I were in charge of anchoring the rope that snubbed the heifer to the wall. I stepped away for a minute and got the chance to grab a picture of Ron poised to tighten that rope at the least movement.

Russ – back with dry and clean clothes on, after all he had been through with this cow I caught him petting it, it touched me.

This is my sister and brother in law. Over the course of the storm they sent me three pictures of them doing their weekend with one of our Bar MW mugs in hand. It was such a vivid sign that they were thinking of us and holding us close. I learned something from this which I will say more about another day maybe. In the meantime I was very pleased with myself when I texted back a play on words, their last name is Sollid, and I said, “thanks for the Sollid-arity!” I meant it.

Just a nice moment. This calf needed a bottle when Russ was not able to locate its mother. The mothering up process was definitely impacted by the storm.

As a result of a really cold night the 2^nd night of outage we had a water line freeze to the cows watering bowls and it was not possible to get it thawed. So we ran hose and put a trough in and Jill spent hours yesterday afternoon supervising the filling of the trough. From that point she got many pictures.

Something very beautiful happened that Jill documented for our family. We have a heifer (a female cow who has never had a calf, yet) that we named Georgie. That is my Mom’s name. The previous cows we had named Georgie died. We love having a cow named Georgie in the herd so we assigned a heifer the name. While Jill was doing her water job yesterday Georgie began to calf. Jill caught the whole thing on video which I will share when data service is stronger. It is fascinating I think. The beauty here is that the birth went well, Georgie proved to be a great Mom and her calf is a little mini me. They are just gorgeous together.

One of our cowgirls and her daughter delivered hot casseroles to us for supper Monday night. This was really appreciated. The message that came with it touched our hearts so much. There was a big one for us and a little one I could drop over at Ron’s house. We all needed that warm food. They brought with them food from one of their relatives, who doesn’t know us, but once cattle ranched, and in sympathy sent us what we needed for a lunch we could reheat on the wood stove the next day. Great biscuits were part of that. How generous and kind.

Grandma Shirley hosted us for tea, cookies, device charging and showers late on Monday. It felt so good.

I snuck over to Shirley’s in the late afternoon to get things started charging and have my first cup of tea and shower. Russ and Morgan went in after supper. Therefore here I am at supper already feeling fresh and flowy.

Steaming coffee is a wonderful sight. We had filled our thermoses with boiling water at Shirley’s the night before and didn’t need to wait for the stove to heat water.

On Tuesday morning Russ and I were alone in the cowboy cottage for the first time since the storm started. It was noticeable to me, and I think Russ always notices, the subtle goodness that comes from a moment of rest, shared together.

If selfies required titles I think I would title this one, “thankful for a pause.”

If you made it this far, good job, it has not been an easy read perhaps. I have one more thing to share, a set of pictures which is just for fun really, but at the same time it is kind’ve interesting. There are 8 pictures of total porch chaos as the crew gets ready to head out for Saturday afternoon. At this point clothes soaked by rain had been almost dried in the dryer, rain had turned to sleet and the nastiest of the weather was approaching. There were serious layers being pulled on, physical and mental preparations being made for what was ahead I do believe. Four minutes pass during these 8 pictures while all that happens is people getting dressed and dogs getting excited.