Author Archives: kathyseeking

In blog posts for the next little while the reality of names and naming is going to be coming up again and again.  Calving season brings that to reality.  It doesn’t neccesarily have to be this way.  Many people get through their work as ranchers using numbered tags and everything goes well.  Many people go their whole lives without naming their bathroom and that also seems to work out just fine.  Here at the Bar MW Ranch we seem to have a thing for names.  Russell would say that it is partly because of his numerous head injuries, which he thinks have affected his ability to remember numbers well, making the use of cow names easier when wanting to make clear which cow needs attention of some kind or has become grouchy and needs to be watched out for extra carefully.  Lately our cow names have gone beyond common human names.  Some unexpected words will be part of the story as more gets shared about the cows and their babies.   

Now about that bathroom.  There has been an important shift in the Kyle-Bayliss household in the last few days.  For more than 7 years, since we moved into our house, our bathroom has had a name.  It was titled after the first visitor who really made use of the bathroom.   In those early days in our house we really made use of the bathroom name, Gina: “Mom, where is the mop?”  ……Me: “it’s in Barb’s Bathroom”, everyone knew what I meant.  In recent years Barb hasn’t been coming around and I would say we have really reverted to calling it “The Company Bathroom”.  But then along came Diane, the rabbit Morgan brought home.  After Diane’s passing happened, after she had taken up residence in the company bathroom for almost 3 days, Russell brought an idea to the family.  It wasn’t a motion or a suggestion really, it was more a matter of him making a switch that he hoped the rest of us would follow along with.  He started calling that bathroom “The Diane Mellencamp Memorial Bathroom”.    Morgan feels it should just be the “The Diane the Rabbit Memorial Bathroom.”   Russell feels the Mellencamp part of the name is important because it reminds us of the origin of her name.  John Cougar Mellencamp recorded the song “Jack and Diane” in the 80s.  Morgan says he knows this song because he is not a fan of current pop music.  When he determined the rabbit was female (mostly a huge guess) he figured he could bring some sense of her species (JACK rabbit) into her name by calling her Diane.  Would you agree this naming business is getting a bit silly?  I am totally open to the name change for our bathroom but I am a bit skeptical that over the years the name will hold up.  Picture it with me if you will…..Jillian home from University in 5 years, “Mom where do we keep the extra shampoo?”, me, “oh honey its still in the same place, check the closet in the Diane Mellencamp Memorial Bathroom.”  It might hold.  During the day today I did a bit of research about names and their significance.  I learned that the expression “Whats in a name?” came from the Shakespeare play “Romeo and Juliet”, I learned that names are very important for giving us identity and belonging.  I learned some other stuff too, but this is getting long.

And on another note, about names, yesterday I invited some ideas for the name for Kathy’s calf.  There were some really good ideas but my cousin Lisa was the most persuasive in presenting her thoughts and so the calf of Kathy the cow, 2021, will hereby be known as Lisa.  That makes me very happy too.  

As I start writing this its Saturday morning. If you read the blog a few days ago you will know that Morgan and Russell brought a rabbit home that they found hurt at the hay feeder. They named it Diane. We have spent the last few days caring for Diane as best as we could. The intention when they brought her home was just to give her a more comfortable death which they felt would happen within minutes or hours. We spent the last couple days giving her water, lettuce and cabbage and pondering if maybe she might get better. However, I saw signs of a head injury and with that as the scenario I was prepared for the event this morning when Morgan found her lifeless.

It was a very easy caregiving experience in a sense, there was nothing gross about it and Diane was very quiet. However it caused some hard questions to stir in me and some interesting things to get discussed. I pondered if we had in fact done Diane any favours, we kept her from a cold and possibly harsh end but certainly we had extended her time of suffering. Did she have a head ache? Just how scared was she by this unfamiliar setting? Could she feel that we intended no harm? With all of that stirring it was actually a relief when she passed.

There were some positive things that came out of the experience for sure. Morgan was very enthused by having her in the house and the work of taking care of her. He checked her often. That had me thinking of something I have never thought of before for Morgan, I asked him, “Morg, do you think you would ever want to be a vet?” He said he wasn’t sure. He didn’t say No. He has such a tender and caring heart and loves animals so much, seeing him so attentively watching over Diane it suddenly seemed like a possible fit.

The other piece of the story relates to my blog address a bit (“Iseeyouyouseeme.ca”). At one point Morgan said to me, “Mom, you think Diane has a head injury, so do you think I could cuddle her?” I think what was going on inside him was a thought that if her injury kept her from typical rabbit motion than he could actually hold her without struggle and it would be a terrific cuddle. I said, “No Morg…. you know that phrase I have talked about, “you see me I see you”, well in this case we have to see Diane, see seems stressed by us, I don’t feel that a cuddle with you would make her feel safe. I don’t know Morg. What is going to make her feel safe?” I am absolutely uncertain of whether that was the right call to make or not. I think touch could be comforting, but that comes from my point of view, life as a wild rabbit is not shaped by touch, I think.

The next day Morgan asked me, “how is Diane feeling?” and a moment later after seeing how Jill had herself set up to sit outside and study and had brought Diane out to be in the fresh air and out in the sun he said, “does Diane like it outside?” I find it amusing and sweet how it seemed he thought I would have the inside track on the answer to these questions. I was encouraged though. It seemed he was anxious to see about the situation through Diane’s eyes. Jill had perceived that familiar sights, sounds and smells might help Diane, I think that was a pretty good guess. Maybe when it comes to really seeing the ones around us and the needs they hold it comes down to some guessing, but luckily we do have the possibility to put our questions into words and check out what we are really seeing when we see one another. How those conversations go is another topic altogether, but in this case, I was encouraged by what I heard as we reckoned with our Diane and her needs.

We had had a great day of calving yesterday, many calves were born and all went smoothly. One of the fun ones to discover was the cow who was named after me. So without further ado……let me introduce Kathy and her baby. We have named cows Gina, Jillian and Morgan, so can I invite you to offer a name for this calf. It won’t get a personalized tag, its just that as we interact with the cows and calves over the next 9 months, as we see Kathy with her calf we can say hi to her calf, by name, and think of you. There is a chance we might keep this calf as a replacement heifer, if its a girl, but otherwise it moves on next December.

I hope your weekend is going well.

I am Kathy, and officially I am the writer of this blog. However, a lot of the action and the stories recorded here revolve around our ranch and my family. This introduction page will include a wee bit of info about all the characters you are likely to encounter regularly on the blog.

Kathy – I was born in Saskatoon, Sk., a city of around 200,000 people (when I was growing up.) Now I live on our ranch, near the town of Carnduff, with 1200 people. For the most part I love rural life, I kind’ve think I was wired for this. When I was growing up I didn’t really know what I wanted to be. However I can assure you I was not walking the sidewalks of Wiggins Ave. dreaming about horses, cows, calves, dogs, hay, hats, chaps and boots and all the beauty and mess of these things! But here I am. The path to get here started with being a house painter (a pretty bad one, God bless my brother who hired me), then a nurses aide, a student of home economics, a singer/traveller, a volunteer co-ordinator, a theology student, more nurses aide, more theology, chaplaincy work in a nursing home, more theology school and finally receiving the title Rev. Kyle and getting sent to serve two little towns just east of here with a combined population of 650 people. I met Russell Bayliss the first week I was here. It was not love at first sight but things unfolded in such a way that here we are, finding our way as a team of parents, ranchers and lovers. And with that, let me introduce Russell.

Russell – this guy is a really good friend to many people, but especially me. He just seems to get a lot of important things about what humans need. Russell is the head guy at our ranch. That translates to a lot of responsibility and hard work. I think you will enjoy getting to know him through the blog posts, seeing his various skills and his wisdom rise to the surface.

Gina – Russ and I were married only 9 months when I realized I was pregnant. We are so blessed this happened easily as I was already 34 by the time Gina was born. Gina taught me how to be a Mom and in the process illumined both strengths and weaknesses I didn’t realize I had. With a quiet external demeanour this kid has always been full of zest and passion and as her family we had the good fortune to be a part of this unfolding. She has taken her passion and moved to Victoria in the last year. She is studying musical theatre and really enjoying it. Her passion for music and performance goes hand in hand with great cowgirl skills, abilities to get up close and personal with the animals on the ranch and a keen mind for social justice.

Jillian – It seems there isn’t much that Jill can’t do when she puts her mind to it. As a grade 11 student she is very busy with her schooling. Amid the stress and time required for that she adds humour, amazing baking, lots of music and very genuine caring into the atmosphere of our home. Jill is skilled, that has helped her easily learn musical instruments but also become one who very effectively runs hydraulic gate controls, the cow computer database/scale, tools for giving our animals immunizations, tags, castration and more. I love observing Jill’s affection for our animals. She is not too interested in riding horses but enjoys them and has endless concern and care for our dogs, cats and the cow herd, especially as the calves arrive.

Morgan – Morgan is our youngest and a young man who brings a lot of zest and spice to the ranch and to our lives. He really really enjoys his Dad and the two of them are pretty inseparable when Morgan is not at school. He has been a tremendous help with the ranch. He makes us very proud because of the kindness and concern for others that he puts into most of his days. He has taken to the cowboy life very easily and has a great sense of humour, its quite the combination. Morgan has endless amounts of affection for our pets, they are lucky to have him.

Ron – Ron gets various titles “our hired man”, “lead hand”, “top hand”, the bottom line is that he is here every day working hard and applying various skills to keep our operation running as smoothly as possible. Ron has been with our ranch for most of 15 years and has watched our kids grow up. Russell’s Grandpa and Ron’s Dad were brothers so we count Ron as family for double sure.

Buster – As the eldest member of our pet family Buster has a certain authority in our home. The dogs try to taunt him but they just don’t get very far. Buster is beloved by all and spreads his affection around while keeping a certain cat aloofness. Russell, despite having the dogs total loyalty, calls himself a cat person, so Buster is never far from his mind. Buster came to us a very long time ago, (Jill was a baby), as a stray he wandered into our yard, somehow he wangled his way in for permanent residency. He has been an almost perfect house cat.

Bingo – This dog and I have a bond, forged through Bingo’s love of a scrap of table food and my status as boss of the kitchen. When clean up starts and she can hear the cutlery start to jangle she zips to the kitchen and sits staring at me, ensuring I know I can count on her for all manner of dish clean up support. As a cattle dog she is known for her loyalty to Russell and her determination to be working, even if it isn’t always in the right direction, or, even if she is burning energy needlessly with her infamous Bingo “run circles around the action” behaviour. Despite these things she has earned her place on the team because of her total devotion to Russ. Many a time an aggressive cow has had to deal with Bingo first, keeping Russell from a close call many times. I know we are not supposed to have favourites but Bingo is a dog that I adore. She was born in our house in the fall of 2014.

Maddie – generally known as a gentle dog Maddie has many sides to her. She works hard as a cattle dog and has smarts that help her be in the right place at the right time, however she doesn’t seem as persistent as other dogs we have had. She delights us with her rather dainty walk paired with a ferocious protective instinct that seems to unfold more as she ages. She is Bingo’s full sister and we get lots of sibling issues at times. Maddie is definitely our pretty dog, she really is gorgeous. She would rather sleep on the hard floor at my side of the bed then 8 feet away where a softer resting place is set up for her. I don’t really understand that, maybe it is her protective instinct.

Knightwing – A few years ago Russell decided we needed a guard dog. I was uneasy with this, I didn’t grow up with dogs and I was kinda fond of our very people oriented dogs we already had. I feared Knightwing would be hard to handle. I was wrong. She is a great yard dog. Russell notes that she keeps all the Sasquatch away, we have not seen even one since Knightwing came to us. She wants to be a part of our lives and she wants very much to keep our yard safe. This means we interact with her a lot and we hear a lot of barking at night as she responds to night life near the yard, mostly coyotes. This is not ideal but I do appreciate how hard she works. Although intended to be a guard dog she has bonded with the pack and if there is work being done with the cows she is often found in the middle of the action. Sometimes she herds cows quite well, sometimes. One of my favourite things about Knightwing is how her gentle giant spirit has been received by others. Our elder friend from Carnduff just loves Knightwing and the feeling is mutual.

Wolf – We have 5 barn cats, most who live very hidden lives, they are a bit wild and we respect that, they eat mice and we appreciate that. However, one cat, “Wolf” is unlike any barn cat we have ever had. I am certain that you will meet him on the blog because he just wants to be in the middle of the action as much as is possible. We received Wolf as a kitten. We feel lucky to have him.