cold – As Far As The Eye Can See

The support we received after our fire through the blog posting on facebook was really heartwarming. Tonight after supper Russell asked me to read to him all the comments. He found it all very encouraging, we both did. He is still talking about the phone calls and offers of help that were a big part of Sunday. Thank you for all this support.

I have a few tidbits that are leftovers and also follow-up to share.

We really really value humor in our house. It has helped us cope with alot and Sunday was no different. Morgan has made us laugh many times with his imitation of me waking him up on the morning of the fire. Here is the way it really went down…….I thought I should go outside to the fire and hang out with Russell, be available, be seen, I don’t know what my real goal was, but at one point I had every intention of going out. Morgan was still sleeping. It struck me that it could be quite upsetting to wake and find the house empty and the world in chaos so I figured I better wake him up and give him the lowdown before going out. So that is what I did. Here is how he tells it, picture this with him speaking in a sweet toned kind’ve hushed falsetto voice, “good morning honey, are you awake, yeah, well, I just wanted to let you know that we like, uh, don’t have any water in the house and, also, like, the whole farm is on fire and I am going to go outside and I think you might want to get up and I can’t find Dad or Ron.” That is how he tells and retells it. After the crisis had passed it was pretty powerful how funny his imitation was. He had exaggerated, as comics often do, I knew where Russ and Ron were and it was just the shop not the whole farm, but perhaps Morgan’s imitation illumines a bit about what my words meant to his ears.

The follow-up after the fire has gone better than I could have hoped. Our insurance people have been good to work with and kind. Close to home that has been the story too. Our friend Shawn at the lumber yard went in on Sunday afternoon and opened up the shop for us to get supplies we needed. Through consulting with him we got the ball rolling with finding a contractor to repair the hole and by Monday at lunch one of the reccomended people was on site to assess. He returned this morning, a day so cold the school buses were canceled, and he set to work to close in the shop. Dalton gave me permission to use this picture I took of him here in the blog. He was unbelievably positive and capably addressed the first phase of the repairs. This is a blessing that brings us closer to feeling and functioning normally. There is a long way to go yet. There are some complicated aspects of the repair ahead.

One of the tricky parts about experiencing things like this is the after effects. It feels like we have had many difficult things to contend with over the last few years, fire and injuries and intense weather, it definitely leaves me feeling like, excuse the expression, “shit happens.” I am not able to write too much more about it right now, but I am naming it. Many many people have lived it, they know of this. I do find myself wondering, “how do I manage this so that going into the future I don’t let fear have its way with me.” Right now I think Russ and I both feel it is better if we don’t ever leave the ranch again so that we can be here for whatever arises. That is silly. We have to live. We have to contend with our utter vulnerability at all times, we have so many things that could go wrong and mostly go very right. Perhaps the prayer that flows from this is, “God, give me the strength to handle things when they go wrong and keep me ever mindful of the multitude of things that go right, very right every day.”

Today, on the coldest day of the year so far, the power was on, the house was warm, the well worked perfectly, we had one sick calf that Russ spotted and was able to treat, one of my friends got fantastic news and passed it on to us right away, Dalton was here for repairs and so easy going amid the cold, the machinery worked well enough that we got our cows fed, I tested negative for Covid again, Russell’s worst symptoms of Covid are loosening and Jill and Gina both worked today with no troubles to report with health or vehicles. If any one of those things had been different it would have been hard, quite hard in some cases. So…………I need to remind myself of all this.

When I sat down to write I had four things on my mind, three have stayed with me, and that is probably enough.

Four days until Christmas eve……

It has been a long time since I wrote anything on the blog. I have no way of explaining that except maybe I am a little more private than I thought I was.

Without a doubt life has been ticking along here at the ranch. Our crew and our cows have persevered through some devastatingly cold conditions. Having called them devastating conditions it seems important to affirm that in fact we had no losses from the cold, except that our cows had trouble keeping weight on. We believed that we were giving them good quality feed but still they were dropping pounds. We tested for worms. That wasn’t the problem. It was just the cold and as soon as the weather shifted upwards the cows started to bounce back. There is a significant amount of stress that goes with this. One of the worries is whether feed supplies will hold out. We budgeted our bale supply for a typical winter but this winter has required more food than average due to the cold. When its cold the cows eat more to keep their inner furnace producing heat.

We got into something new this week, in response to this worry about feed lasting through the winter. We got the chance to do a little alchemy. That is a word I connect to the Muppets. When the kids were little we had a VHS tape of the Muppets recreating classic fairytales. It was really memorable when Gonzo did his thing as Rumpelstiltskin and turned straw into gold to rescue Miss Piggy, for a fee. I really loved that VHS tape back when being Gina and Jill’s Mom gave me permission to be a kid again. Anyways, the alchemy we were a part of was turning straw bales into nourishing food. If you have not had time on a farm you might not know that straw is usually used for bedding and hay is used for food. Straw is the stalks that grain grows on and hay may be comprised of a variety of grasses. Straw has bulk and roughage but not much nutrition. However, we had the chance to have a man come with a fancy machine and inject a nutritious mixture into 100 straw bales. The mixture was mostly molasses and offers 14% protein content, making them edible and somewhat nourishing. We have started introducing these bales into our feed rotation. At this point they are not a favorite item on the menu but are getting eaten and allowing the feed to last just a little longer. Surprisingly this process was not that expensive, as farm expenses go. There are years when having feed for cows is like possessing gold, this year with our severe drought its one of them, so making straw viable as a food source is a little like the fairytale alchemy I remember.

Russ had the bales all set out ready for the injection. They lined the driveway north making quite a tidy road.

The injection paddle with nozzles to deliver the solution.

Some of the molasses mix spilled on the snow. Russ tried it. He decided it was kindv’e salty and he was glad he didn’t have to live on it. It definitely wasn’t the maple syrup on snow we know about.

Another way we have extended our feed supply is by purchasing grain pellets for the cows. We were able to find a source for these, which was not straightforward. The place that was reccomended to us flat out refused to talk to us because we are not already customers. We did get lined up with a good option though and the price was better than we thought it might be. A load cost us $12,500 and Monday a 2nd load is being delivered. Those kinds of figures amaze me. How does a ranch sustain these kinds of extra costs? Well……part of it is strategic decision making. Like this……..We usually buy oats for our calves and get them ready for market by supplementing their feed this way. This year the price per bushel of oats has about tripled. We made a strategic decision not to feed them oats, to do some leftover grain and some barley for supplemental feed and see how they would fare on that with hay. They were not as bulked up as usual but did okay. The term that goes with this is that it didn’t “pencil out” to feed them 9$/bushel oats. So perhaps we saved a bit there. The true saving grace when having extra feed expenses is that our provincial government offered ranchers drought relief. There is lots of talk about how terrible government is. I don’t negate anyone’s position, there is a reason for everything everyone says. However our experience is that in this terribly scary and hard time of maintaining a herd of cows we have felt seen by our government. Our work creating food feels valued and our need to have sustainability affirmed. There is support that will make it possible to carry on. We are incredibly grateful.

Russ took this picture of that first load of grain pellets being delivered.

We use a trip feeder to dispense the pellets. Small piles get dropped, Russ makes a big loop with the truck and trip feeder and everyone gets access to a pile.

One other big part of this season of ranch life is snow. Wow we have had snow and our entire province seems to have been blanketed with it. It has meant so much extra work but it has also translated to hope. The extra work comes from managing the snow, moving it to create paths to get feed to animals and keep yards clear. Then moving it again when the wind rearranges it. We seem to have had lots of wind. The hope comes from the knowledge that this spring there should be some run-off, we begin to envision dugouts with some water in them. This is so major. We need the hope as much as we need the water.

Russ has created lots of piles like this as he has worked to keep the yard clear and fully usable.

Russ has a secret weapon. It is his snow bucket. After the tremendous snow of 16-17 he commissioned a welder to create this 10 foot wide bucket. It makes him more efficient.

Nothing exciting here but gives a feel for the snow and dog action of Russell’s days.

Bingo oversees movement through the snow road that she and Russ created to get feed to the main herd. I say it like this because Russ rarely spends time in the skidsteer without Bingo, she insists on it, she witnessed most every bucket of this snow being moved.

A good old fashioned shovel is still our best option when getting close to the house. This day Jill was the boss of it.

The deep snow and deep cold have made life hard on the nature that surrounds us. We have found ourselves hosting some species that are having a hard time getting by. Prairie Chickens, partridges and pheasants are birds that have been taking food and shelter with us. Deer are everywhere. The picture below is typical lately, I counted 35 deer in this picture, Russ says there are 160 within a mile of home, all grazing where any food source remains accessible. The coyotes have been bedding down with the cows, using their bedding and eating their manure as a food source. It seems there are many species including our own that are doing their best to survive in trying times.

When the air is deadly cold, the worries real and big and we are surrounded by snow and tricky roads what sustains us? What sustains you?

I answer my question with the word love. I think about it, in one way or another, all the time. My experiences with it help me live these days. Here are some pictures.