If we had to do what we do all alone, we would perish. Our ranch would fail. We would fight more battles than we already do, among our animals, with each other, with our property. We are good at many things, masters of a few, I make bread and buns I am very proud of. When Russell rides a horse I say he is like “poetry in motion”, he wears his heart on his sleeve like none other. Morgan is a witty and courageous cowboy. Jillian has hands on animal and equipment skills, many skills. Ron is capable of so many kinds of repairs, although its fence repair at the top of his list these days. These are things we excel at. And we also struggle. There is so much we can’t do. We are so needful of others. I really suck at yardwork and paperwork. Russell is not naturally handy. Morgan has not had the chance to get past the beginner stage on lots of maintenance skills. Jill has her mind on things other than the ranch. Gina is more and more shifting away from the ranch which means we are one skilled person short. We do what we do well and behind the scenes there is also a bit of chaos, things left undone, ragged edges, things needing fixing and we look at all this and feel embarassment, feel overwhelm, wonder how to tackle what needs done and then make calls and texts inviting help. Its so humbling and at the same time kindv’e exciting and rewarding. The people coming together moments create good feelings. This past weekend was a vivid case of our need creating many, many memorable moments.
The setting for the weekend was that Jill and I were away in Victoria to see our girl Gina in Shrek the Musical.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch there were arrivals happening. Calves just kept being born but more importantly family from Saskatoon and Regina arrived to help Russ on the ranch, not because Jill and I were gone, but its just how things lined up. It was our Regina cousin Jen who supplied me with most of the pictures in this post.
After getting cows checked with the Saskatoon visitors, get calves up to suck and grab cookies for supper there was a mad rush to get to Carnduff to share in Gina’s debut with Shrek via the livestream, gathered in Laurie’s basement in Carnduff where the wi-fi is strong and Dawson could be the tech guru that got everything set. There was a big crew gathered at the Tiki Bar/Pool room/TV area, and it was a darn sad deal when the livestream didn’t transmit. That same performance will be streamed again this coming weekend so I will watch it with them and it best work.The next morning my brother in law Gary worked as lead and a crew, including Morgan and my nephew Seth replaced some siding on Ron’s house. The storm damage has been a problem for months now, and my weakness with following up on paperwork outside my comfort zone was part of the problem. In the end, we realized the effect on our premium of making an insurance claim made it not worth it. We would get it done outside of insurance coverage. We were blessed to be able to have Gary’s expertise and Seth’s woodworking skills on the job. Its all fixed!!!Meanwhile, cousin Jen and Emerson were down from Regina for the weekend. Jen is capable in so many ways, on horseback they helped Russ and Morgan with calving checks and getting cow calf pairs sorted out and into their spring pasture. (Russ was also especially grateful for Jen’s skill wiht drying dishes. With our dishwasher out of commission and six mouths to feed Russ spearheaded alot of dishpit time.)Russ had quite a group working with him. I have to commend my nephew Seth who is not a horse lover by nature but rises to the challenge at the ranch. I am not a horseback riding natural, I appreciate that its kindve a big deal to climb into that saddle. (With the siding on Ron’s house fixed the guys moved onto the next challenge. The ferocous wind in one of our April storms blew three 16 foot sections of wind block fencing down. With great team effort they got it reassembled and back in place.Meanwhile back in Victoria, there was a different kind of team work happening. We were “team Gina”, 9 of her family gathered to attend the 2nd evening performance, we were from Vancouver, Nanaimo, Saskatoon and Carnduff. Thanks to my sister Jan we had a team toque, we had so much fun and Gina wowed her aunties and cousins. This picture was grabbed after the show. Forty eight hours later Gina is still struggling to get the green tinge from her skin.
Russell’s sister Tammy knew that Jill and I were away and called to offer to make supper for Morgan and Russ. When she learned that there were six to feed she didn’t hesitate to generously provide a hot and nourishing meal. This charged up the crew for the night ahead which was an important project.
The day was long for the home crew. The cowboy cottage was in for repairs. We have special guests arriving soon and our leaking chimney is not conducive to good sleep. We needed Gary yet again. Meanwhile, it was evening and Laurie and Dawson were free to come out. It was a great roof repair crew. I think there are 4 different stories at once in this picture. Gary is face down working on the roof, there is beer drinking, bareback horse riding and Emerson is on the move.The view on the roof. Thats Russ who now feels really good about the leak proof status of the ceiling. By the time the evening was over we had a friend in using our shop for a tire repair and he and his daughter joined the shenanigans. Jen had made a late night batch of bannock and it looks like Russ was telling an amusing story in this picture. With minutes to go before midnight they sang Happy Birthday to Gary, it was almost his day.Our favorite breakfast restaurant recharged the crew the next morning. Fed like kings yet again by the wonderful people there.
For most of the weekend Russ and I were surrounded by others and didn’t have time to text anything other than the bare essentials. I have screenshots here of our texting. Cows who have freshly calved and talk of rain. Thats basically it.
Can you figure out what Russell’s last text translates to?My sisters and I got to be together on the eve of Mother’s Day. A special memory.
I am fiercely independent and have a real challenge to delegate and ask for help. I don’t like to bother people. It feels terrible to be needy. ( A whole blog post about this is almost ready for the Tenderlands series.) But the bottom line……
This post is to share what happened at the ranch on Monday. I have made “the cavalry” the theme because it was a day where several things went wrong and four times help arrived. It is unbelievable how much my feelings shift when we go from a place of struggling to cope with a moment or circumstance to tackling it together with someone who has the power to help.
The first part of our day involved the vet Marcel coming to do a c-section. He gave me permission to take pictures of his work and to use them in the blog. So this is a warning that about 15 of the pictures in this post are of this surgical process to get a too large calf removed from a cow. I had never seen it done before and wasn’t sure I wanted to stay and watch. I kind’ve made myself and I am glad I did. It was really interesting.
Russ had hoped to be on his horse by 8 and bringing a small herd of cows and calves home to put through the chute. But his morning check identified a couple problems. This cow is Owl, after Russ decided she needed help he went to get his horse. In the meantime she took off and played hide and seek with Russ. When she was finally into the holding area Morgan and Russell’s efforts to pull the calf were not working, they called me to come with “the puller” a more high intensity device. Russ was just getting that going when I took this picture. A foot has emerged but that’s it.It was my job to call the vet for help to pull the calf. We were blessed by the fact that he was just finishing an in clinic surgery, we would not wait long for him. The arrival of Marcel’s mobile unit definitely was a moment that felt cavalry like to me..Marcel quickly determined that this calf was very large and a pull would not be possible. He got set up to do a c-section. The first step was to shave the surgical area.The area was very thoroughly scrubbed clean, three or four times it seemed. Marcel administered a solution to freeze the area.The incision is begun here.Once the opening was created Marcel was able to investigate the positioning of the calf. It was not ideal, more to the other side, he had to flip it/reposition it to make it possible to extract it.It was incredible to watch Marcel’s confident movements.The beginning of the emergence of the calf.More of the calf emerging, its sac sure looks mighty to me.Morgan was recruited to help position the chains.Two feet through the opening and through the sack.Placing the chains.Morgan got to play an important part in delivering this baby.Russell had the job of removing the sac. Marcel saw signs through the last stage of his work that the calf was not alive. He was correct. It was not breathing. Just a bit too long without oxygen. This made Russ feel frustrated with Owl for the time spent playing hide and seek earlier.One of Marcel’s gifts is teaching. I have seen it many many times. Today was no different. Here, if I remember correctly, Marcel took the chance to show us the cow’s uterus. It will shrink considerably.He also showed us some of the intestines. I have forgotten some of the interesting information he gave us about these.This is the cows ovary. We discussed in this moment the reality that cows and humans share, that the egg that would go on to become a fertilized embryo, our beginning, that egg was present in our mothers when they were born. Jill was out checking cows and dropped in to watch the later part of the procedure.Marcel began the stitching up process which involved interior and exterior stitches, very strategically and quickly done. Isn’t that amazing? Marcel arrived at 11:00, just before 12 the procedure was done.Meanwhile……..back to the rest of the day…..Jill was checking heifers and found Agape and her new calf had been separated by a fence…the calf rolled under it likely. Jill faced her fear of that mother and got things made right. She found this vantage point once the calf was back with its Mom quite fun.
Things were made complicated at this point in the day by an equipment problem that emerged. It was not urgent exactly but Russ called his cousin at Fast Trucking for a consult. By the end of the day Fast Trucking had been out twice, to assess and then deal with the issue we had. With their expertise what we thought was a big deal turned out to be not too big at all. That was episode two of the Cavalry arrival in our day.
After a late lunch and urgent stuff getting done Morgan and Russ went and got the 40 pairs from the heifer pair pasture. I got recruited to guard the top of the low level crossing road, to keep those girls heading west and not turn south. This is when one of our neighbours appeared on his way to town. He stopped, helped me with my job then proceeded on. It was almost 4pm at this point.On his way back from town Tate was going by just as we were working the herd through the yard to get to the corral gate. He helped us keep the herd going in the right direction, not a small feat. We decided Tate’s arrival was the third time the cavalry arrived on this day. As we were finishing up this part Russ told me that Laurie had found out we were way off track with our day and he was coming out after work to help us out. I think my heart skipped a beat. I knew that Russ, Morgan and I could get this job done, but just how much energy to persevere would this require? Indeed the cavalry was on the horizon, for the fourth time in one day. Just after we got the cows and calves separated Ron got home from fencing, Laurie arrived, he brought Dawson, and suddenly our skeleton crew of 3, envisioning a whole night ahead of finishing working with this little herd, doubled in size. We were back to being a well oiled machine and zipped through it all in time to have pizza in the garage at about 7:30.Meanwhile, Jill was trying to get her school work done and check the herds. She definitely had her hands full. She sent us pictures throughout the day. This was a fun one.
It is now Wednesday morning and I am about to hit the publish button on this post that I have poked away at as time has permitted over the last 24 hours. As I sit here pondering this day we lived I cannot help but notice there are some seriously deep threads that could be looked at much more closely. One of those threads is about the instinct to help another, it is just so major. I see this as holy, as something God has put in the human heart. So when we are helped by another I see it as a sign, God is at work. To be in so much need and to have help come, even when it is help like Marcel’s which will have a bill attached to it, its still an experience of being provided for and deep gratitude seems the only fitting response (and paying the bill of course….lol). When the help comes as a gift, such as Laurie and Dawson’s hours and Tate’s moments with us, it just feels like love. God knows we all need that. One other deeper thread to notice is just how much suffering has resulted in the last year because we have not been free to be each others calvary arrival. There are so many that have had to struggle through all manner of difficult things with a bare minimum of help because of the need to distance. I hope the experiences of this pandemic can remind us just how very much we mean to one another and guide us in good directions going forward.
As Far As The Eye Can See 