9am Monday – A quick blog post about yesterday, again, little writing and mostly pictures. I didn’t think I would get to do this today but what I am needed for outside has been delayed. The guys have some calving troubles to deal with before we put a small group, 40 cows and calves thru the chute, maybe I can get this done.
If you read the post “horsing around” you will know that the cowboys brought 80 pairs down the road to home late on Saturday. Those 80 pairs were the focus of our attention on Sunday.
The morning got off to a really quick start, the animals we were treating were already home and Jill checked the cow and calf herds all day, a good break for her from the life of quarantine. This was terrific. It was a good boost of momentum to be started early and for Russ to be allowed to focus. Meanwhile, Jill found that “Tulip” had birthed twins. I took this picture in the morning, the rain falling off the roof of the pole shed created this impact, this clear image of water falling is the reason for the name of this post. As we worked Sunday morning everything went smoothly. After the chaos of the night before the cows were settled right down. They moved easily, everyone had a job and seemed comfortable, was doing great at it and in the background there was the sound of rain on a tin roof. We have had so little moisture in the last 9 months that we have a deep deep concern about hay, pasture and dugouts. With the music of the rain in the background I had a sense of peace and contentment come over me that I have not felt in such a long time. It was glorious.It was a trick for me to have something ready for lunch when we got started way earlier than usual but I got a batch of bread going and put it in the oven to rise and set the timer to start on its own. I came in and took it out when my alarm went on my phone. Having had my experience with Coffee dog, detailed in the “come for coffee” post a couple days ago, I put the bread in the microwave to cool. I learned that lesson.A picture that is mindful of my friends named Liz. Liz and I at the chute. At one point I went and did Laurie’s job while he was helping Morgan bring more cows up from outside. Skipper the cow was not happy about moving forward. I gave her a minute to collect her thoughts and grabbed this picture. Kind’ve a cool vantage point of the calves, waiting for their turn.In Jill’s checks of the heifers she found one having trouble calving. After an early lunch we brought “Talk” in and helped her get that calf out. Dawson took this picture. “Talk” is one of the heifers with names that equate to strength for our relationship, the name theme for this years new Mama cows. Just as the trouble with “pray” was a very true to life thing (referring to the “Praying Games” post) the fact that “Talk” had to be pulled is almost to the point of hilarious for me. When Russ and I got married we took a test to determine our strengths and our challenges. The test revealed that communication was one of our challenges. I was almost insulted by that. Couldn’t be right. I mean seriously. Well…………did that ever pan out to be true! Learning to talk well together has taken years and years. I think both of us had to figure out how to pull some important stuff from the other. Or maybe, what is more accurate, we discovered the importance of trying to understand each other which allowed “talk” to emerge quite naturally versus being pulled out. I am shaking my head while writing this!!!Here is the calf you might have read about in the “Whats in a Name?” blog post, this is Lisa. She is the calf of “Kathy”, she is sure a cutie.I had a tag marker nearby so I had the chance to personalize my calves tag. Morgan’s friend Jacob worked hard pushing calves through the chute up to the table.Shaylee also pushed calves, did a few odd jobs and learned a few tagging tricks from her Mom.Morgan was more at home than ever heading up the very physical job of getting these calves moving along up the chute. He gave us a big laugh when he popped his head out at one point and referring to the fact that we determine the sex of every calf while we work with it, said “hey, this is like the worlds biggest ever gender reveal party!” It seemed funnier to me when he said it.There are perhaps 2 “what the heck?!?” reactions that could emerge from this picture. 1. Are these not Covid times? 2. Russell why are you branding this sweet creature? Ouch. The fact is that both these guys are vaccinated and I am vaccinated. The rest of our team was constantly moving in an environment with a huge amount of air and 3 large openings and 1xxxl opening to the outdoors, on Laurie’s left is an industrial fan. We did our best. About branding…..people steal unbranded calves so we opt to brand. We would rather not. We cause pain, we hate that. Our team at work, friendship will help us survive these especially stressful days in this pandemic. This was a beautifully oiled machine about 5 calves into the process. A process we just need to tackle in order to get calves ready to go to their summer pastures. With Jill and Gina not available and Ron getting miles and miles of pasture fences repaired, Laurie, Dawson, Eliza, Jacob and Shaylee helped us practically which meant great things for our morale. A glorious sight which I do not take lightly. I almost hesitate to post this because I know how it feels when the life-giving rains fall for other people and not at your place. We were so blessed with a solid rain in the afternoon, again after the morning bit of glory falling down. This picture is from the door of our pole shed. We are feeling very thankful.
We had a long full day on the ranch yesterday. Some pictures will tell bits of the tale.
I took this photo while we were working at the chute. Morgan and Russell had shared a really scary moment with a cow outside the shed. When they came back in afterward they were laughing hard. Apparently after the danger had passed Morgan said to Russell, “do you want to trade underwear?”This is our cousin Dawson. He gave each animal an injectable dose of Vitamin A&D. He is fantastic help. Russ running the hydraulics to control the gates.Later on I joined the guys when they headed to the pasture. I got some pictures. Then I took the truck and trailer home, they came back with 80 pairs. Cousin Laurie saddling up.Laurie is ready to roll.Getting horses out of the trailer.Dawson is ready. Gates, tying and untying, a constant part of ranching.Russ and Bingo ready to roll.Morgan with the dogs. Knightwing in the back, Bingo in the middle, Maddie up front. Knightwing is meant to simply be our guard dog. However she has a desire to be working with Russ and has been improving as a cattle dog. This day she earned the “dog of the day” award. The trip home started off well for this herd but got frustrating. By this moment when the herd finally decided to turn off the road and into the yard we knew frustration. Animal behaviour is tough. Frustration was a theme yesterday, arising in casual conversation at lunch(which we ate in the garage), in connections I made in my own brain about my own behaviour, the experience of very vivid frustration for the whole crew together and then in a phone call with Gina in the evening she talked about it. I think it will be the subject of a future blog.Getting everyone into the corral took time.Here you can see Jill. She came out of quarantine to help in these moments and had been checking the cow and heifer herds all day for calving troubles. Its 6:59am now, on Sunday and she is out doing the morning check. Dawson shared this adorable photo of the barn cats with me.
Yesterday contained no big story to ponder, just a bunch of little things, like a lot of days are. I have found myself thinking, if you, the reader, were to come to our house for coffee (the time will come again I am sure!), what might I tell you about the day here at the ranch?
First I would offer you a drink, which would mean consulting what you want and then standing at my cupboard and carefully picking a mug for you that I think you would like.
My friend Suelynn asked for an update on Pray and Little Prayer, the bovine subjects of yesterday morning’s post. Before I offer that, Suelynn here is the cup I would select for you. Its “Chip” from Beauty and the Beast, I picked it because I thought you would appreciate how fun it is and it reminds me of your support of the kids when they acted in “Beauty and the Beast.”
Things are very well for Pray and her calf “Little Prayer”, it seems that they just needed a little settling down time to get their thoughts and emotions straight. When Russ checked the pasture early yesterday they were together and “Little Prayer” looked well, like she had been getting the milk she needed. By mid morning Russ was bringing several pairs up out of the heifer pasture into the corral so that he could truck them a little further away to our heifer pair pasture. From the kitchen I happened to see this process start and I was able to go out on the deck and get this picture.
I caught sight of Pray as she went by but didn’t get her in this picture, it was quite the transformation from the last time I had seen her.
If Lindsay were to come for coffee we might talk about this blog. She has been super supportive of it. Here is the mug for you Lindsay, with your sense of humor I think you would enjoy this! It was a gift from Jill to Russell.
Its been exciting to be a blogger, the stats page tells me that people are reading it and in the last few days even someone from Ecuador has been checking it out. Lindsay told me in a message that I could describe paint drying and make it captivating. I wonder if she was here with a mug in her hand whether I would tell her about my Sudoku habit and the fact that I finished a super difficult puzzle yesterday. Sudoku is not fun to talk about really, it’s a solitary game with lots of work to it but it is a regular part of my life, and if you drink 8 cups of water in 8 hours you get to visit your book pretty often if you know what I mean! How might I make Sudoku interesting? Maybe by talking about what makes it meaningful to me. Surely that is a big part of making any boring reality less boring. Find the meaning and find the humor. The thing about Sudoku is that there are rules that are always in place, numbers 1-9 in a 9 block square, and in a 9 block row both vertically and horizontally. Always. Nothing will change that. I grew up kind’ve like that, with always kind of rules. Always tell the truth. Never call people names. Be caring. When the world got kinda crazy, when these rules didn’t seem to matter anymore, I needed Sudoku, the rules always are in play and when you follow them everything falls into place eventually. And that ladies and gentlemen is what Sudoku means to me, very tangible order in a disorderly world and therefore stress relief.
If Keith came for coffee I for sure would have to tell him about an episode with Coffee that happened yesterday. I only know this should be visited about because he made an observant comment about that dog of ours sometime in the last week and it stuck in my head. I’m gonna assume he is interested. These moments with Coffee are what got this whole particular post rolling. I had the words “come for coffee” roll through my brain while in a state of amused disgust at what I had just dealt with. What I meant was, someone come and get this dog…….anyone…..anyone?!?!? Its not that bad really…..I made buns yesterday, I had 40 of them cooling on the counter after lunch. I was resting in our room when I heard a funny clatter. It was kindv’e an isolated noise, I thought something must have fallen off a shelf or something. Nope. I rounded the corner and found a cooling rack and 20 buns upside down on the floor. Coffee was backing into the living room and looking truly alarmed. I removed her to the dog room (I was brusk and I had a few words for her) and then assessed the situation. She had eaten a pretty good amount out of two buns. I think she must have hopped on a stool and started while they were still on the counter then accidentally pulled them onto the floor. You probably don’t want to know what I did with the rest of the buns. I can tell you I learned a lesson. Part of that lesson…..its not only humans that like my buns. (Insert sheepish grin at using the corniest and oldest dumb joke that exists in our family.)
Here is the cup I would choose for Keith.
Russ would like to point out Keith that the cow we have named after you is looking ready to calve but has a lingering aura of anger about her after the fight she had with Russ last calving season. He is staying on his toes! Stay tuned.
I need my friend Deb to come for coffee. The friend who has known me since I was 9 has walked with me through everything life has thrown at me. Last night, while just about to get supper on the table, a call from the school informed me that Jillian has been in close contact with a confirmed case of Covid 19. She is now self isolating in her room in the basement. My thoughts are all over the place. It sure makes me appreciate better what people much closer to the action for the whole course of this have been reckoning with. I am second guessing myself and my practices and doing lots of mental gymnastics …. why might she have it, why might she be okay? Based on what she knows she is concerned about where she was sitting in class on Wednesday. I am thankful she is good about wearing her mask. She is such a beauty of a girl, so wise. We found the news hard, it turns your life upside down. We finished supper late, had beer and chips for dessert and went straight to bed.
Liz Griffin took this picture on Oct 31. We had returned from Saskatoon the evening before after my Mom’s funeral on the 29th. We had planned our biggest cow chase of the year for this day. We carried on and with help and strategy we got our crew fed. Having been in many different city locales in the days prior Jill felt certain a mask during food prep was wise. Out in the fierce wind I took my mask off but Jill was insistent she use hers. This committment of hers is helping me now, giving hope that she will be fine.
My friend Deb has been part of a leadership team guiding a long term care home in Saskatoon through this pandemic. She has maintained a calm and reasonable presence through all that has happened. Deb and I used to drink wickedly strong coffee together but I think herbal tea seems to be more our beverage of choice as we do middle age. Here is a mug for Deb. She loves animals.
I am not sure who wants to hear about the cows. As I write this last bit it’s now May 1st, yesterday we had a humdinger of a day, 25 cows calved. Only two had really special names, Bea and Linda. Bea after my supervisor when I was a student minister and Linda after my sister and 3 other friends. With summer like weather it’s a good time for record setting calving days. We have a big 4 day stretch ahead of us. We are working with our yearlings today, giving them Vit A&D. Tomorrow we start putting cows and calves through to install tags, give vitamin and vaccine needles, castrate bull calves, and brand the calves. This is hard and time consuming work and we will be sorely missing Gina and Jill. Monday we will continue. Tuesday we are starting to truck pairs to their permanent summer pastures. Russ is using his incredible skills with strategy to manage alot of variables. Its dry, it’s been cold, grass is not growing yet, hay supply is getting low, dugouts are extremely low and new cow calf pairs are coming quickly and need a place to go when done in the calving pasture (like a maternity unit). We are hoping to have 120 pairs moved by bedtime Tuesday. I am not sure what will happen with the blog over these days.
Now regarding coming for coffee at our house. Russell would like you to know that if he is in charge in the kitchen when you come you can expect to be served instant coffee. That is his hot beverage passion. I serve pressed coffee from ground beans. We have at least 12 kinds of tea and hot chocolate. We do aim to please so don’t be scared to come if you hate instant coffee.
You have stories too. What are you seeing? How are you feeling? What are you grateful for? What is hard? What made you laugh lately? The best coffee dates go back and forth, I see you, you see me. Blogging means you basically hear my stories. Your stories matter alot and I promise that on that great day when we easily travel and gather again I will listen (once our mugs are full and in our hands).
We had a few more of the first calf heifers give birth today. This time it was Pray, Cuddle and Value. This post arises from the cow named Pray and how she shaped my day today.
First a bit about the name. Although I am a minister and Russell is a bible school graduate, we don’t prioritize time to pray together. We never have. We have tried at times, but it hasn’t stuck. Still we put the word “pray” in our list of words that reflect strength for our marriage. The bigger story is that prayer is a part of our life. On any given day either we do it silently and individually and/or we struggle with it and we talk about that struggle (more me than Russell) and we do it, out loud, gathered together, regularly and with heart, at the meal table. This seems to work for us. The truth is I am a minister and I have struggled for my whole adult faith life with prayer. Too many unanswered prayers is the crux of the problem for me and too much injustice for some in this world. This could get super serious and some day maybe it will be good to talk about all this, but for today, just know that we have a Heifer named Pray because we know that prayer is about relationship with God and we know we need that to carry out our lives and our marriage with wholehearted strength and purpose.
So what happened today? Pray had her calf at the far corner of the heifer pasture, in short grass with no bedding near. Russ found her licking off her calf. However by the time his heifer check was done it seemed as though Pray had abandoned her calf. What the heck?!?!? Surprisingly despite a cold early morning and neglect it was not too bad off. Russ got some hay from a nearby feeder, loaded it onto the hood of the jeep and took it over and made a bit of wind shelter/bedding with a good clump of it. Then his morning had challenges and he never got back to check the status of the calf and its relationship with its Mom. He called at 11:30, would I go and have a tour of the heifers and see what was up? Yes. I found that calf right where he told me he had first seen it. Pray was nowhere in sight.
As I checked the rest of the herd I kept a special eye out for Pray. I found her mingling in the midst of a whole group who were grazing and hanging out like teenagers at recess. She looked unconcerned. I said to her, with a sense of double entendre “Pray I expected more of you.” Unsurprisingly this rebuke did not phase her one bit.
After my tour I called Russ and reported in. He asked if I would make a bottle and return to the calf he would dub “little prayer”. I was a bit ticked by this, lunch would be late and I would get nothing else done for the morning, but of course I wasn’t going to say no. When I returned with the bottle I was fortunate to be able to get milk into her, with only a little resistance.
I had never fed a calf a bottle on the open range before, so I could chalk that up as a first. Ideally Pray would have caught wind that I was meddling with her baby and come stampeding over with motherly love flooding her, but nothing like that happened. What did happen is that after only about 1/8th of a bottle Little Prayer responded to the nourishment and worked at getting up. I witnessed her first faltering steps.
Once up she got tooling around. Her instincts were amazing. She nuzzled up to our Expedition as if it was her Mama. She nuzzled into me, I was sitting on the ground on my knees and my armpit seemed to her like something she should know about. From that vantage point I got more of that bottle into her. It was fun. Still no Pray in sight. I went home and lunch was served only 15 minutes late.
After lunch I was totally enjoying watching a youtube video about how to start seedling plants when Russ called. He needed my help. He was trying to sort out the issue with Pray. I won’t try and explain all the stages of this because honestly I am not totally clear on everything myself. What I do know best I understand after the fact, the initial hurried phone calls did little for me. When Russ called me he was on foot, playing a game with cow and calf which was a combination of tag and follow the leader. He was trying to get them together. I came along just about the time Pray had a change of heart and decided she owned that calf. She did not have a gentle touch. She bellered and danced around that calf and pushed at it, I feared she would hurt it. Russ sat in the jeep with me as this unfolded. I saw raw power in that Mama and it scared me. Pray definitely seemed to be scaring Little Prayer too. Meanwhile, the calf had maybe bonded with Russell and I. In Russell’s words, “I put her to bed for the first time and you fed her for the first time, she feels best with us.” It seemed to be the case.
Russ was using his shepherd hook here, to snag the calf before she hid herself within this group, he marked her back with a cattle marker.
In the dance around the pasture that took place over about 45 minutes, the calf went through the fence to the neighboring pasture 4 times working to escape its overwrought Mother. As Russ went through too, working to get it back in the proper pasture he said, “if that cow comes for me you drive through the fence and get me.” “Like…. drive throououough the fence Russell?” Yes, right through it was the prescription for salvation. That was the first of four times this happened at three difference fence lines and by the fourth I was definitely overwrought too. It was only in the post game analysis that I really understood that for the most part the calf was the one that Russ was trying to disappear from, it just wanted Russ. The cow seemed to mean no harm to him. But I didn’t know that so my stress levels were just crazy by the time I got the phone call with these words, “turn around and go hide behind that hill!” As I got in place the last I saw of Russ he was running through this rounded and somewhat deep large indent in the prairie, with dirt hills on the north side. I was hiding in the jeep behind those hills, Russ appeared, jumped in with me and said “back up, just back up”. He knew the game of tag and follow the leader had become hide and seek with the calf, I didn’t. When we stopped the jeep and watched from a distance there was a bit of hope in the air. I wasn’t doing so well though. I let myself acknowledge that I have post traumatic shock after the year of so many things going wrong and quite simply if Russ got hurt I would be wrecked. So after Russ said, “back up, just back up” and we had come to a stop, I said, “Russ, I am not doing so good,” not entirely holding back my tears. Russ offered to take me back to my truck, I could go home. I didn’t want to abandon him though. Mercifully that was when it seemed like we could let these two figure it out. We had drawn them out to the centre of the pasture, away from fence lines, maybe with some time for the brain to make some connections both of them would realize that they need each other.
I found it ironic that all this happened with our cow named Pray, because in the midst of all these shenanigans my best possibility for help was God. The thing is after seeing some of the big problems in my life not fixed by prayer I come to moments like this so confused, so needful but so confused. What I am working from right now is that prayer is about relationship with God, investing myself in my friendship with God, letting God in and drawing the strength that my friend has to share with me, its not about telling God what to do, but sharing myself. So observing the action at the third fence line, watching the dance with baited breath, I just repeated over and over again what I wanted, letting my friend know what my end goal was, what the need of my heart was, but trying not to be bossy about how it would happen. I want my husband to be safe. I want my animals to be safe. After repeating that several times I got a bit practical. If this circus was going to end it would be because that cow settled into her maternal identity and allowed her calf to feel safe. So I told God how I wanted that for her. This point in my prayer/conversation is about the time I got the call to go hide behind the hill. And then it seemed, that at least for then, things were moving in the right direction. I was so thankful. Sitting here now, its 5:45pm and I have no idea what has happened since. Perhaps no news is good news.
I didn’t mean for this to be so long. Thanks for sticking it out with me. Lets hope the rest of the heifers offer a slightly more straight forward experience. You probably don’t want to read this kind of a exposé arising from the names of some of the heifers yet to calve🙄😬😉.
My larger goal with my blog is to keep things very real. I can’t imagine what benefit there would be to projecting this message, “we sure have our sh*t together.” We don’t. Today that means nothing dark to report thankfully, just life.
Our dogs are a huge and constant source of joy, having said that they cost me. Last night around 2:30am I was wakened by our outside dog, she was defending our yard from coyotes (I think), her barks were quite ferocious and Coffee responded from the dog room and joined in. That’s a lot. I was awake. I could not go back to sleep for three hours. Now I am so whooped I am almost useless, so why not write a blog about it eh? Its 6:50pm, I think the guys will be working for another hour but I am tired so I am unusually hungry. I am generally trying to eat low carb but I just polished off a large bowl of leftover perogies. Its one of those days. Back to the dogs…….I was just rounding the counter when I started to trip over a noisy thing on the floor but ended up just kicking it. I thought it was a dogbone. No, not that pretty. Coffee had brought in a donkey hoof trimming from the ferrier’s recent visit. A couple friends with donkeys brought them over to meet with the ferrier. We had souvenirs. True confession here……..I have a regular appointment with a cleaning woman. Every second Tuesday she is here. I’ll be honest, I feel guilty about this. It’s a serious indulgence especially now that I am not working outside the home. It needs to be in place until I dig myself out from the pileup that happened when I was committed to too much. Maybe I will always give myself this treat. For one thing, it frees me up to have company without worrying about the state of the house, at least not as much as I used to. (I am operating under the belief that the day will return when once again our house holds regular company). Anyways, today was Joanna’s day to be here and two hours after her departure I have a horse hoof on my kitchen floor. If I used hashtags this would be the spot to place a #ranchwifelife.
This donkey hoof is not as gross as it looks.
As I write this Coffee is playing with the water dish. Its quite large and holds a lot of water and it can create a flood when she gets going, and I should be disciplining her, but here I sit. And this is the spot for a hashtag including these words…. if I ignore it will it go away? I always try hard to have the house clutter free before Joanna gets here, I can achieve that in places, but never in the 3 years I have had Tiki Cleaning coming here have I ever been truly ready in the whole house. Todays victory was slim, the kitchen was almost perfect by the time she got to it (better than it has looked in weeks and now even better after her handiwork).
The scene where, believe it or not, clutter has been reduced.
Back to the dogs…….this morning Coffee had another set of puppy vaccinations. She rolled into the vet clinic like a beast on fire. She was so excited by the bird in the lobby and being out and hearing other dogs and she made her presence known. As I was holding her for the early part of the exam I quietly urged her, “okay Coffee, now show these women your best self, you can do it Coffee!” Then I explained to Coffee that they were used to our old dog Foxy, a sweet and quiet Chihuahua, she needed to be like Foxy. There is nothing like negative comparisons to guide behaviour…..not my best moment, but really I was just trying to be funny. I was kind’ve embarrassed by her huge presence, her 15 kg was coming off as 50. The trip home was a bit outrageous. I had groceries in the back and Coffee was super reactive to vehicles we crossed paths with. Its like she thought she would chase them off so she would throw herself at the back window each time one went by. I thought she was going to give herself brain damage. After the third time it happened with no sign of it abating I roared. When I have mentioned my grouch factor before many people have said to me, “YOU….grouchy? I can’t imagine it.” I wish you could have been there. You would have believed it. She was driving me nuts and I was sleep deprived after all! Despite making myself hoarse after shouting her name only a few times, nothing changed. I pulled over onto the highway shoulder, got her on my lap and held on for dear life. She was perfect the whole rest of the way home, best pals, only damage was the wet mark on my pants from her slobbering on me. Earlier in the ride I had resigned myself to the thought that I had likely ruined 6 dollars worth of bread by letting Coffee near the groceries in the state she was in. It turned out the bread was perfect. It was the tortilla chips that died, I see a taco salad in our future.
In other news it has been a record setting day on the ranch. According to the names Russell is sending my way we have had 22 calves today and glory be, none of them needed me. There are some noteable ones for sure. We started the day relieved that Canada had safely calved and birthed herself almost a mini me. She is red and white so she earned her nametag. Later in the day another special red and white cow gave us a calf. Here she is…..
This is Mrs. Claus, she had just birthed her own mini me.
The heifers were really busy today too, emotion, fidelity and lust all calved. (Story behind these weird names in the blog post called “Love Me Tender”). One of the later ones today is “Abba.”
“ABBA” with her new calf. We love the music of ABBA at our house.
The sun is shining, the wind is low, the air is warm, it’s been an especially beautiful prairie spring day. A great day to have 22 calves. Now I am going to leave this and go work on supper. I am hoping for a super inspired finishing thought. Maybe it will happen. Maybe it won’t.
As I finish I am not super comfortable with this post. I am not really used to being so scattered and off the cuff, and maybe, like having a cleaning lady, feel a little guilty. Guilty for highlighting a bunch of passing details in a light hearted way. Life around us is serious, am I being irresponsible to turn my back on all the deep need in the world? Maybe its okay to appear to ignore the hard stuff for a bit. Maybe a day where the sun is shining and the air is still and the dogs are acting crazy and a cow named lust is calving, maybe that’s a good day to embrace that line in the 23rd Psalm I talked about a couple days ago…“He makes me to lie down in green pastures.” We are allowed to take a break and rest and let others help us and maybe try something different, something light and fun. Maybe despite being sleep deprived we can find ourselves saying, through all the craziness, “he restores my soul.” May that be so.
I thought I would share the story of how this blog came to be. A couple years ago a friend of mine (Deb) said “Kathy I think there’s a Blog in you dying to come out.” She might have been right at the time, I think she was, but there was no way I wanted to think about starting something at that point, I had a lot going on. Fast forward to this set of months we have been living. Its been hard and the writing and sharing I have usually done on Facebook just didn’t seem a good fit for me anymore. At the same time, maybe as part of my healing from grief and burnout, I started to have some dreams. They were slightly odd but they were helpful and I started to feel better. Then almost a month ago I had a dream about my grade 3 teacher. She was a good teacher and I had liked her very much. I was really pleased when at some point in the 1990s I came across her while she was doing some volunteer work in Saskatoon, she was retired, healthy and she remembered me. Now its 2021, and when I woke up from that dream that included her I thought to myself, “I need to see if she is still alive.” I picked up my phone and I put in her name. I was thankful not to have an obituary come up. Instead what came was a link to a blog. It was her nieces blog, the story I was directed to included a picture and a little bit about her, it was quite recent. I looked around at the blog and enjoyed it and I thought to myself “I need to ask this woman about blogging!” I found her email on her page and I sent her a message. I included the top two questions that I had. I also was able to get the address for her aunt and get a letter ready to send her, she is 98 years old now. It was awesome to receive Marylou’s reply. She said that one of the top benefits of blogging for her was the way it allowed her to connect with people from a variety of places. That gave me goosebumps. I decided to go for it, started getting set up and then did the launch a couple weeks ago. It has been a good experience for sure and different from Facebook which I seemed to need. As I think about what has unfolded I can’t help but think about the fact that my grade 3 teacher, who likely was among the first to work with me on things like sentence structure, has indirectly given me something at this late stage in the game. She is 98 and I am 52 and still her legacy, the impression she made on me, something, was stirring in me to make me dream about her. That led to contact with MaryLou and the courage/the push to consider doing this thing which i am really enjoying. I think that’s really neat. I wonder what it was about our connection that prompted that dream that night. Maybe the truth is, our teachers are never really done with us.
My school photo from the year I was in grade 3. The day this picture was taken I’m sure I spent hours with Miss Schmidt.This strikes me as especially true after the experiences with Miss Schmidt.Switching back to ranch life….A different kind of couple picture I caught yesterday. I was on duty to check the heifers a couple times today. There were more births among them today, one of them is pictured here. A few days ago I wrote about the tag theme for this group, they are all words that are part of a strong relationship, the heifers birthing today were “Romance” and “Warm.”“Cuddle” is holding on, but looking pretty rounded. 16 calves were born today, no big troubles, “Canada” is looking like she is ready to birth….maybe by tomorrow. She had trouble last year so we are watching especially closely.
Today was Good Shepherd Sunday at Church. Worship revolved around the image of God as a shepherd and the 23rd Psalm was a real focus text. That is the one that starts, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…..” I was the vocalist for three of the hymns and I read the Gospel lesson. A few things really jumped out at me through the service. The first came early on when Susan our minister used a Children’s Bible to explore the 23rd Psalm. The translation included the phrase, “I love being part of God’s flock.” I am not sure why that jumped out at me, except maybe that it resonated inside of me. I do love being part of God’s flock and if I wasn’t part of it I am not sure what flock I would want to be with. Where else would I be invited to see and know myself as beloved, where else would I be challenged to live for others as well as myself, where else could I wrestle with my demons and find new beginnings, all with a promise of living water which to me means that mercy and compassion and unconditional love is running through my veins, and I don’t have to whip it up, its simply offered by the Good Shepherd. I do love being part of this flock.
Another thing that jumped out at me was an observation Susan offered. It was that the 23rd Psalm is to the Christian what a paring knife is to a cook or a …..what was the other illustration…..hmmmm……I can’t remember but it was something like, a rope to a cowboy. You can do the job without it but why would you want to? To anyone who takes it in their toolkit this psalm can provide both comfort “he leads me beside still waters” and challenge “The Lord is my Shepherd….I shall not want”……but oh my do we ever want for many things in this life!!! …… when we already have so much. I really enjoyed the mental imagery of tucking a copy of the 23rd Psalm into the kit of favourite tools in this house, which includes many great cooking/baking tools and much cowboy paraphernalia.
One other major thing was just how much the contents of the service today match my own life. I found myself thinking, “of all the people who hear this text today, all over the world, how many are living it in their everyday experience?” (I don’t think this makes me better than others, its more like a “wow, today its my turn to really see myself in this story!” kind of moment). A picture popped into my head that Liz Griffin took, of Russell, with his shepherds crook, my husband the herdsman. Russell gave me an illustration of what it might mean that God is the Good Shepherd just about as soon as I got home. He was telling me about interacting with the cows and that he came up to a cow with certain markings and he said to himself, “Oh there’s Costco” (a few years ago we did a set of replacement tags with names of food brands we enjoy, like Dare, Co-op Gold, Kraft) (replacement tags are necessary because cows can rub their tags out if they scratch up against trees and bushes). When he drew near he read the tag and found out that it was “Gilligan” (we did some replacement tags with names from “Gilligan’s Island” and while we are talking about that group, currently the cow ‘Minnow” (remember their boat?) has mastitis and is causing Russ some extra work…..). Russ had not wrongly identified the cow, in fact Costco had lost her tag and Gilligan was her replacement. I said, “Wow Russ, you remembered Costco’s markings that well?” “Oh yeah” he said, like it was no big deal. I think one of the most remarkable things we are asked to have faith in and take comfort in is that God knows us through and through. Russell’s easygoing knowledge of our cows strengthens my faith that this just might be so.
I used the idea of keeping house in the title for a couple reasons. I wanted to do some “housekeeping” with you who read the blog. I had someone tell me today that they wanted to share a previous blog on social media but didn’t think they should. My feeling about that is that I have chosen a public venue for my writing, it is accessible to anyone who would look for it, if there are things I don’t want the general public to see I won’t share about them here. If you feel like sharing something that is fine. Having the chance to have writing more broadly shared is kind’ve cool actually. WordPress keeps detailed stats about numbers of visitors and views of each post, it is a really nice feature because even if comments or likes are not happening in a big way it is easy to see that readership is steady.
I hope you enjoy these pictures, they are really special to us. Thanks to Liz Griffin who took them all!
A picture we love because it is both artistic and reveals Russ’s comfort level with his cows.This almost identical picture is more of an action picture in the same set of moments. The Shepherds crook in action.The gospel text for today (John 10:11-18) makes reference to a hired man, and says that at the sight of a wolf the hired man abandons the sheep (but the good shepherd doesn’t because the sheep are his.) I didn’t like reading that aloud because “hired man” is part of my daily life and our hired man Ron puts himself into dangerous situations all the time. Here he is running the cow gate, Laurie is letting a steer in the gate behind Ron’s and it looks like I have a calf in front of me maybe destined for Laurie’s gate too. Its an action packed moment. I love this picture. It is on display on my desk. This is teamwork. I love teamwork. That Shepherd’s cane is handy for creating a visual block, signalling the calf in the back to stay back. It looks like I was moving a heifer forward and keeping a steer back.Walking the steer up to his gate. A great shot of Maddie on the move.There is a thoughtfulness to this picture, who knows what was on Russell’s mind but work days like this when we have the whole herd in, his family in the corral and many friends on horseback and at the gates involve a lot of worry and care for him. The fact that he was injured at this time led to more distraction and struggle. This modern day herdsman illumines some of God’s character for me. This was a summer work day, we had a group of cows with newer calves in. Time for tags and vitamins and vaccines. I love the feeling in this picture, for me it arises from what looks like a tender and guiding hand on that calves butt and a sense of relationship.Russ describes this as a moment when he had to get into the direct middle of the action to avoid a total mess. Cows were turning around on us getting into the gate. Maybe the take away here is that the Good Shepherd is willing to get into the middle of the mess. Sounds very faithful to me.Russ was up ahead at the trouble at the gate but he was not alone. His team had his back. This strikes me as such a solid picture of steadfast supporters standing at attention. Russ says, “we get by with ALOT of help from our friends.”
I had my Covid vaccine first injection on Thursday. I was asked to sit for fifteen minutes after the needle to ensure no big reaction. I was also asked to come for the vaccine holding nothing but my health card, so I didn’t have my phone with me. I have to say I loved that fifteen minutes and was sad when it was over. I loved being with other people in a setting where nothing was needed of me and my thoughts could wander freely, but, I wasn’t alone. Maybe it was in those quiet moments that something hatched that I haven’t been able to shake.
Going from the metaphor of hatching to that of seeding…. earlier in the day seeds of doubt had been planted in my mind about this vaccine, because of things I read on facebook. They were seeds only but they joined seeds planted by various conversations over the last while. I am a people pleaser which creates a lot of stress at times. So it was that I found myself pondering….. if I was to have resisted this vaccine that would put me on board with some people in my world, but what would it cost me? Its funny, my thoughts didn’t go to the future, my thoughts went to the past. This startled me in a way, it was unexpected, but it was serious, my guts were hot inside of me, so I knew I had stumbled on something. You see, I am a privileged person, I have never been let down by the medical system, I know that mistakes get made and people walk away dissapointed from the way their health needs are met, at times, but that has not been my experience in our Canadian setting where health care is a universal right, funded by taxation. For most of the last day I have used almost every free moment my brain had to think over all that I have seen, that my family has seen and the ways that our moments of deepest vulnerability have been responded to by the health care system in Canada.
I thought about 1983 for sure. That’s when I was 15 years old and I needed my jaw operated on to correct my bite, I was slowly grinding down my teeth. I remember the moment before the anaesthetic put me out, a gas had been administered and it made me loopy, it caused me to think that my doctor had green hair, I remember thinking to myself “oh no, my doctor has green hair, I hope he can do this.” In fact Dr. Lanigan became a legend in my early story, he walked with me through a process where I started to claim my inner strength. (Five weeks with your jaw wired shut is no cake walk.) In that pre-surgery moment though I had to let go. I had to trust him, no matter what color his hair was. I’d like to think that I based that trust on everything that grounds the medical system, like the Hippocratic oath which is a pledge to do no harm. But lets face it, at age 15 I trusted Dr. Lanigan because my Mom and Dad seemed to. This was a time when they were called to do a lot of trusting. Within a matter of months three big things had our family making heavy use of Canadian healthcare. My older brother was diagnosed with brain cancer for the first time, I had this situation with my jaw to fix and my younger sister was diagnosed with Scoliosis and fitted with a brace. I don’t remember much about life at home in that time, but I can only imagine the stress my parents were under and how important it was to them to feel comfortable with the care their children were being given. How did they decide that they could let my brother be submitted to the harsh reality of radiation therapy, how did they just know that they could trust the working of that burdensome brace my sister endured, how did they come to peace with the pain and struggle they witnessed me live with, for the sake of some promised end goal? I think the truth is, they just had to. They did.
1990 rolled around and a second bout of brain cancer took my brother’s life. While he was battling through some treatment options people in the health community in Saskatoon were thinking through how to better serve people who are dying. A Palliative Care Unit was opened and Bob spent his last week there, among the first patients to ever use it. We had cared for him at home as long as we could. When we couldn’t we opened our hands, it was with profound thanks that we could entrust these people to take everything they knew about end of life care and love my brother into his death.
Only a couple years later my Dad started the very early stages of a journey with dementia. I find myself thinking about a time in that where Dad still lived at home, I did too, I was studying theology and Mom and I were primary caregivers. Every weekday morning a taxi would come pick him up and take him to an adult day centre for people with dementia. How did we do that? How did we come to know that he would be okay there, that people would understand his limits, that he would be kept safe, that he would be treated with the dignity he deserved? We didn’t know for sure. But we had to trust. Our trust was well placed. He always came home content, with an aura of pride, he too had been away for the day and had a life beyond his family. The principles of practice that informed how that place ran meant contentment for Dad and peace for us. We were so profoundly needful of them. In the later stages when Dad was in long term care things were much more complicated in terms of what he needed. He lived in a place that was not always perfect. The sheer amount of human contact and care combined with what we all know, that no human is perfect, meant that it wasn’t always ideal. However, the standards of care were high and always seeking to do and be better and these standards were like a magnet that drew everything towards a more human, more dignified, and dynamic living environment. How many times did I give my Dad a kiss on the cheek and walk away with so much hope and need within me? Hope that he be seen for who he really was and treated with kindness. You don’t live those experiences as family members without being changed. Maybe a spiritual muscle is getting conditioned, a muscle that is about hoping and letting go, loving and letting go, trusting and letting go.
All this would come into play over and over again. When we checked ourselves into hospital to deliver a baby two weeks overdue, I was a 34 year old first time Mom, hopeful and trusting in the skill of my doctor. When I watched the orderly wheel my 7 year old son to surgery for a complicated wrist fracture. When we participated in many different stages of the health care needs of my mother in law and father in law. When I watched ambulance attendants inch/shift/lift my 12 year old son onto a stretcher when he was in excruciating pain from a broken leg. When I checked my husband into day surgery for knee repair years ago, and then recently dropped him off under the cloud of Covid life for lots and lots of tests and doctor visits for recent injury. When I myself had surgery last March that resulted in a probable cancer diagnosis, a diagnosis reversed after closer examination of the tissues. When I left my Mom at the Cancer Clinic for her first and only dose of chemotherapy. When my sister and I checked her into the Palliative Care Unit, into the room right beside what had been my brothers. All of that. How many diagnositic machines, interventions, lab and xray technicians, doctors, EMTs, anaesthesiologists, surgeons, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists and specialists of one kind or another have I put my trust in?
Why would I become suspicious and act from a place of distrust now? What has changed?
I can’t think of a single thing.
Well actually I can. I know that money has corrupted medical research in some cases. I am not naive. How that has played out in this case only time will tell, however the scientific evidence is in telling me that once again medical research has given me an option for addressing my area of vulnerability.
The scientific method that informed the process of developing tools, interventions, programs and education processes that I have relied on is the same method that informed the vaccine development. That method has made a huge difference in my life. Maybe that’s why when I think about all this together, it feels like my guts are heating up. I have felt so vulnerable, I have been so cared for, I must not forget that, in fact I feel I must honor that.
As I sat putting in my 15 minutes at the vaccine clinic, things were hatching, things that were long and took a lot of words, if you got this far, thanks for sticking it out with me.
(To illumine that I am not going on guts alone I can tell you that I have done some research, not very much, the fact is I am not very interested in science, I do understand the principles of the scientific method. I have been listening to ZDogg MD, I find him on Youtube, as best as I can tell he can be trusted. He explains things and hosts guests that can explain their info in a way that I can mostly understand. He has made clear just how extraordinarily safe and effective the vaccines are and he has a rebuttal for every critique levelled at them.)
Here is a link to a really interesting and read-able article introducing us to the long term research and the woman herself who laid the groundwork for the Covid 19 vaccine.
A case study in vulnerability that unfolded on the ranch yesterday…..Russ called asking me “can you mother a calf?” He meant it. The mother was a 1st calf heifer and she had a hard go. She couldn’t care for her calf and it was so cold at 6am when she calved. This was part way through, that’s an odd sock on my hand.This is how she looked when she was brought in. Her sac stuck to her in places. She was suffering. I had lots of time to think about vulnerability and trust as I worked on her. I called her “Sweetcheeks” in passing and the name stuck.Mostly dry, head up, perky, trying to stand, having welcomed some colostrum in a bottle, and getting welcomed to the family by Coffee dog. Better moments for sure.Here is Russ bringing the Mom in after she had some time to recover. This is our heifer named “Epic.”Russ carrying the calf to the barn to meet up with its Mom. Coffee is still enamored.
Yesterday I had the chance to tell you about how it came to be that we have heifers with names like Listen and Support. Today seems to be the day to tell you about how our herd of cows came to be so international.
What do I mean? Well we have a cow named “A”, that’s in honour of a woman from Thailand whose full name is Apiradee. We have “Fredy” in honour of a man from Switzerland. We have “Klaus” in honour of a man from Germany. We have “Louise” in honour of a woman from Denmark. We have “Antonio” in honour of a man from Mexico. We have “Tara” in honour of a woman from Colorado, “Liz” in honour of a woman from Maine, “Lisa” in honour of a woman from Sweden, “Sharon” in honour of a woman from Manitoba and about 40 more names that all arise from real people I know that live in so many different places. “Ernest” from the U.S A. really made us feel amused when we saw that he used a picture of the cow Ernest, with the the clearly visible, as his facebook profile picture!
You might think it weird that female cows get male names. I did too at first. But somehow the bond of friendship just rises above the particulars. Maybe its because of the source of all of these names. All of the people I referred to were a family of sorts, back in 1991, we were all part of a cast of young adults travelling the world and singing, there were more than 100 of us. We were part of “Up With People.” We came from different backgrounds, different religions, different politics. We had a purpose to build bridges of understanding. It was a really cool experience. I lived with 66 host families in 7 countries in one year.
A couple years ago we had a lot of cows whose tags had fallen out through the year and I needed to make them new tags. I put out a request on Facebook for ideas. Liz from Maine said, “how about these tags are all people from our cast?” We needed a lot, like 40 or so, her idea worked. I selected names that were easy to put on a tag, “A” and “Mo” made it for sure, I selected names that reminded me of shared experiences, so “Antonio” made it, even though his name was darn tricky to fit on that tag. Some of the names on the tags could represent many different people in our lives. Names like Lisa and Liz are common and invite us to think about a few special people in our world. Thats why todays post is about Up With People, because as the day wound down both Liz and Lisa had calves, at the same time. Although there is absolutely zero concrete connection to my friends, those names elicit feelings and memories that equal connection. As long as I am not overwhelmed by other stuff I really get excited when I see the Up With People cows and my family have learned their names and are sure to report back when they calve. It has built a lot of connection. So when Russell sent me texts with pictures today I was just so happy to see those calves and know that those cows had that shared experience. Its nothing. It is not connection to reality. But it touches me. Maybe I am weird. The Liz and Lisa connection goes deeper though. Besides representing my travel friends, I have a cousin named Lisa. Her Dad and my Mom were first cousins. Her Mom was named Liz, she lost her Mom quite recently too. It gave me a lot of joy to be able to send her texts and pictures saying “look what just happened!” It just seemed meaningful that Lisa and Liz calved at the same time. The Liz connection is bigger than that though, in a big way. We have had a photographer named Liz documenting the work of ranching for the last year or so. We are completely blessed by her talent and what she has captured of our lives. I have said it before and I will say it here, her photographs have illumined the meaning in the work we do. So our photographer friend Liz also got a text today, because that name Liz will always remind us with such a sense of gratitude what she has captured for us. I also think it is Queen Elizabeth’s birthday. So that is a nice connection to this birth story too.
Here are some pictures relevant to this day and to the story above.
Thats me holding the microphone, in the midst of our Up With People stage show in 1991, I am not sure where we were performing at this point.Liz Griffin captured this beautiful picture of Ursula and her baby last summer. Ursula is named after a friend from Germany.One of a few pictures I took of the UWP tags in production. Maren made a really great impression on Russell when they met at a wedding we all attended, I am sure that is why she got the extra heart, to make Russell smile.The words heard at our lunch table today…..”now I have seen everything.” For a random reason the highchair (my Dads old one, used only for antique type decor really)was at the table. Jill popped Buster in, put a few nibbles on the tray, Buster handled it like a pro.The cow “Liz” with her baby.Here is Lisa with her fresh calf.
We have been having some big days here, our calf numbers are rising by 10+ calves per day and its pretty exciting. We had a set of twins early this morning and the Mom, who is known as “no tag” abandoned one of the calves (she has that terrible name because her tag came out sometime during the year,it will be replaced when we do our spring work with the cows and calves). Russ brought her to the barn and I added her to my morning caseload. I have some pictures here describing how that unfolded.
Russ also texted from his early morning check that our Heifer named “Tender” calved. That is one of my favorite names we have on the place. It is part of a much bigger story, one that could fill a book perhaps. The start of that story goes back a few years now when we acquired all 11 seasons of MASH on DVD and were watching it a lot. In one episode Hot Lips and Pierce are assigned to go to a remote location and provide medical care, they are gone for a couple days. While they are away things get dangerous and as I recall they are holed up in a small space overnight. All the everything that led up to these days rises to the surface, the shared work, the loneliness, the stress, the danger, the friendship, and as they have this set apart time they share a very tender kiss. I was absolutely struck by it. I realized watching it, in a way that I had never realized before, just how much I am moved by tenderness. I think it is about, for me, what my blog address says, it takes some tenderness to see one another as we really are and to let ourselves be seen. It is in being truly seen that I feel safer than I did before. I knew I had to talk to Russell about this revelation I had about tenderness. But that’s hard. For some of us its so hard to say what we need. Its hard to craft these conversations so that the information is shared without hurting the feelings of the other, without giving the message that they are faulty. I really think it was about me stopping a bad habit I have. I work pretty hard to keep everyone happy and ignore what I need. I also needed to trust Russell with this insider info about me. I think of the conversations that followed as being the beginning of removing some bricks that were In the wall that existed between us. They were not long and life changing conversations. They were a beginning of dealing with some of my various crappy relationship habits. There is nothing like marriage to reveal what you really aren’t very good at that you thought you were. The wall was affected, a bit more light got through and over, a bit more shared air was available and some unrelated circumstances around us changed making life itself easier. Then a challenge came our way that had us both dealing with our issues and I give credit to Russell for taking the risk to be vulnerable with me, to trust me, to let me in. What followed was some damn hard work but as that work unfolded we also gained traction as a couple who are truly present to each other. In the summer of 2020 as we were becoming firmly rooted in a better way of being a couple together and coming up on our 20th wedding anniversary we had the job to do of getting tags made for our 1st calf heifers. Russell has become a real fan of having theme names for cows that all come into the herd at the same time. Last year we opted not to sell 62 of our heifer calves, we bred them last summer and switched their calf tags to cow tags. What would the theme for these heifers be? To mark the place we had come to in our marriage and what we had learned we decided to make tags using 62 words that relate to having a healthy relationship. This was a really fun list of names to brainstorm and create tags for. “Tender” who calved this morning, is, of course, part of this group. So that is a part of the origin story of the first calf heifers of 2021, my favorite cow “tender” (who is actually really grouchy today) and perhaps way more information than you asked for, but I don’t mind talking about/sharing the stuff that is about real life in real time. I have read this over with Russell and received his approval of what I offered as well.
Here are the 1st calf heifers that have given us calves so far…..Relish, Listen, Hot Tub, Share, Enchant, Favour, Approve, Zeal, and Support. Yearn is calving right now. In an episode of real drama, we had a pre-teen pregnancy when “Feel” found herself pregnant and birthed last fall. I’m not remembering where she found herself in contact with a bull, but her little body successfully carried that calf to term and birthed it all on her own. She has this year off.
A few pics…….
Coffee helped Russ bring this beautiful abandoned twin calf home from the pasture.The calf we have since named Clipper. She was my joy today(read between the lines… .it was not my best day). At first she didn’t want to take a bottle. Russ told me to nudge her sucking instinct by giving her my finger. She remained unconvinced at 9am, at that point she was about 3 hours old.To help her circulation and muscle tone I did lots of work on her, when I saw the residue on my hands I was a bit perplexed. That’s amniotic fluid I am pretty sure.I decided early on in life that there is no need to avoid getting dirty as long as warm water and soap is not far away. Look Ma! Clean hands again 😊.By 11am when I went back Clipper decided that bottle is a good thing. Russ worked his butt off today and pulled Yearn’s calf just as the sun was setting. Coming in to get a bottle for M.J. he took this picture of our house.We got new stools at our counter. They have no arms. It seems that makes it easier for a pet to get a spot at the counter. This site tonight tickled my fancy……oh Coffee dog! A very late supper for Russ.
As Far As The Eye Can See 