Ruby Slippers and Georgia Peaches

It’s getting warmer! Sometimes the air temps are in the mid 50’s and low 60’s. Our heat has been off a few times and the windows have been opened.

They don’t stay open long though.

Snow…

…on Palm Sunday

(We had about 2 inches, but it was melting going into the evening and into the next day)

On the nice days we’ve still have some clouds…but not the kind you are thinking of.

It’s not fog…it is smoke. The windows aren’t open very long on those days either.

The ranch is busy doing some spring cleaning.

They are burning old patches of hay and straw that the cows have picked through and left to rot.

(view from one of the guest houses. You can see the burned areas.)

Along with calving the last 30-50 cows, they are also dragging the fields and running a rock picker.

Living this close to the Big Horns, our pastures can get a little rocky.

(Intern from California running the rock picker.)

There’s also some plowing going on.

(Wooster plowing down in a field near the campgrounds, along the Medicine Lodge creek. Campers have already started rolling in. They will re-seed this area for future hay.)

Now, instead of cleaning up melted snow, we have transitioned to sweeping up dirt and sand.

It feels good to do some spring cleaning.

Recently we traveled east, clear across the state of Wyoming, to get a load of hay.

We also viewed Devil’s Tower, America’s first national monument. For Ruby, the big rock coming out of the ground was the only reason she was on the trip.

The highlight of the 15 hour trip was meeting the hay man’s ranch kids.

Ruby had the grandest time running and playing with them and their new puppy.

They are homeschooled too. Their nearest school is 30 miles away and has three students. In their neck of the openness, they have mail delivery to their house three times a week. Those kids get up, Monday through Saturday, around 6am, do their chores, come in to eat breakfast around 6:45, go back and finish their chores, and come back to work on schoolwork around 7:30am. They finish up their school work by lunch, have some free time, then they to do ranch work until evening supper. They are in bed around 7 to 8pm in the evening. They were excited to have company and when we were leaving told us it was a “good visit”. They disappeared behind the hay to go gather up some horses over the nearby ridge.

We had another 8 ½ hour drive back over the mountains.

It takes a little longer with a fully loaded trailer. I think our top speed going over the mountains was 25mph. From what we can tell, the Big Horns still have about 3 feet of snow, we got more snow this weekend, so there’s more up there now.

All in all, it was a good visit.

We are located in a pretty nice spot.

Wyoming is known for windy areas. There are many jokes on the interwebs about it. Not to put Kansas to shame. After all, we had wind turbines on our lights in the Walmart parking lot…that’s serious wind right there.

(Walmart, Pratt, Kansas)

(Walmart Parking lot, Pratt, Kansas)

Now, our Walmart has this view in the parking lot:

(Walmart Parking lot, Cody, Wyoming. About 2 hrs away.)

In our little spot, we get some gusts of 20-25mph but we don’t really feel it as much as we did in Kansas.

Here’s a little view of where we are located.

(Brand House—were the interns live, old original ranch house. Camp Barn/Horse Stalls—two horses live there right now, is mucked in the morning and evening. Mineral Barn/Bunkhouse—Original shop with two bedroom 2 ½ bath attached to the end. Camp counselor cabins for the camp in the summers.)

(Arena/Shop/Office are the first buildings you encounter on our lane. Working corrals are always filled with horses or mama cows. Vet barn is for calving and doctoring. Guest House—one of the guest houses overlooks the ranch from the top of a hill/ridge.)

We are tucked back into a little spot between some hills and creek.

(The ranch. Picture is taken about five miles away)

To give a little more detail:

(The Big Horn Mountains. Paint Rock Canyon formed by the Paint Rock Creek from the top of the Big Horns. Main Ranch house where owners live. Guest House 1, Guest House 2 and our house.)

It’s a really good location. The archeological site, three miles north of the ranch, has about 34,000 visitors over the course of a year.

We can’t say it enough; it’s a nice little spot to be in. We get snow when no one else does (Mountain effect). We also get very little wind when everyone else is being blown away. Those hills, cliffs and canyons block a good bit of it. Better yet, the Paint Rock is right there. We are only a few steps away from some of the best trout fishing in the United States, or so we’ve heard.

Location, location, location!

We are finally getting some spring weather. Things are melting, then it will snow one morning and everything will melt by 4 or 5 in the afternoon.

It’s exciting and a bit muddy.

The grass is just beginning to green in spots. It’s exciting to see it get greener and greener by the day. We still don’t have anything blooming and the trees are still bare. The trees don’t even have little buds on them yet. They will be getting some soon though.

The ranch hired a night rider to do the calving and tagging at night. For two weeks, he would come in at 9:30pm and leave at 6 in the morning. He took care of all the checking, calving problems, etc. during that time. Since we live right on the ranch, he would call Wooster if he needed some help. They had a uterine prolapse one night, a stuck calf another night and one long night they had a mama that ended up needing a c-section. Wooster didn’t sleep for a full 42 hours those days. The night rider was a HUGE help for the ranch. His last night was on Sunday. We don’t have many more cows that need to calve, so the interns are taking some late night turns checking.

(Cows sometimes have to have c-sections too. Thank God for those.)

On days that they are caught up calving and tagging, Wooster has been busy in the shop.

He has been busy doing some maintenance on some equipment, fixing other broken things, problem shooting things that break during the day. We walk to the shop just about every day to see him and play a little.

(We usually put Clara down in a box. It’s easier and cleaner to keep up with her if she’s contained while visiting the shop.)

But we LOVE that our Papa Bear comes home for lunch.

All kinds of craziness ensue when he comes. There are wrestling matches, big hugs, pretend games, pretend horse rides, etc. Everyone is excited to see him and have him home for 30 minutes.

While we have a pretty good little schedule going, we do have some randomness.

For instance….this blurry photo of a turkey…

Really…a turkey. We girls were playing on the deck one evening near sunset. Ruby had said earlier that she had heard an owl. Nope. (Even though we do have a Hoot Owl that lives in the canyon and calls every evening.) She heard this turkey. We watched him for a while. He got about 20 yards from us. He was calling, cooing and semi strutting for a nearby hen. He was a very young Jake and had no care for us, or didn’t even care if the girls were crying or screaming. When Wooster came home around 8pm, we were still watching him. He mentioned something about the turkey’s beard and Ruby now talks about “that bird with a mustache”.

A cowboy…

A boot…

Randomness.

We have been calving since the first week of March. Since about that same time, Ruby has been a baby calf.

All.Day.Every.Day. She almost never breaks character. When she wakes up in the morning, the first thing that we do is put her calf ears in.

(After baby calves nurse, sometimes their tongue sticks out.)

(Calf Ears we put in every morning…sometimes they are straight, sometimes not.)

We joke around and say that she’s Clovis.

She hangs out in her “hay straw” most of the day.

(hay straw…sleeping bag, blanket and an old body pillow)

She “moos” at me or other people. We have many talks about how it’s not appropriate to “moo” at others, especially at the library. However, the librarian now remembers to say “Hello, Baby Calf” to her now.

(Mooing at the photographer while tagging real baby calves with Papa Bear)

She will say that her name is Baby Calf Number 6. All because an orphan calf, number six that week, was making a rukus while we visited the vet barn one day. Number Six was getting a new mama but wanted us to bottle feed it instead. He was pretty upset about it. Ruby then decided she would become number 6.

When Matt comes home from lunch, she usually meets him at the door with “Tag this baby calf, please.” Or she’ll ask to be put back in the “fence” of our living room.

(Papa Bear tagging, spraying our baby calf in the hay straw during lunch.)

Sometimes Mama Cow (Me) has to chase the coyotes (Wooster) or grizzly bears (Wooster) away from her baby calf. Mama Cows are good at that. Not that we have grizzlies around here, but just in case.

She will usually tell you that she is a Black Angus baby calf.

She will also be doing something then say “baby calves don’t really climb fences” or “baby calves don’t really eat spaghetti”.

(overlooking a group of mama and babies in a corral)

She’s a fun baby calf to have around. I’d rather have a baby calf all day than a log truck anyway. J

With all those baby calves being born, they have to have some way to identify them and to whom the baby belongs. With calving in full swing, there are new babies being born almost hourly during the mornings and day. We have about 800 mama cows that are calving this season. The ranch is averaging about 20 calves born per day. Some days it’s less and some days it’s more. The cows should be done with calving sometime in April.

(Just for clarification from the last post, they only bring in mamas/babies that seem to be struggling for some reason or they have to pull a calf. They were bringing in almost every mama when we had negative temperatures and really cold days. When the temperatures are above a certain degree, they leave all healthy and non-risk mamas/babies out in the pastures.)

Matt will take her in the evenings or during the day to help tag the calves. She’s a pretty good helper.

The process:

First, they look for any newborn calves. Mamas like to tuck them down in snow or hay out in the fields. Then you have a staring down contest with the mama to see how protective and crazy she is about the newborn.

When the mama’s attention is elsewhere, you quickly snatch the newborn by the tail.

If the mama isn’t too crazy, you can do all your work right near her. You just have to make sure you look over your shoulder.

Sometimes, you have to drive around and make the mama confused. Then you can park and do all your work.

The babies get a shot, iodine sprayed on their umbilical cord, banded if they are a boy, and get a tag in their ear. The number on the tag is the same as the mama. They also have a little letter up at the top telling what week they were born. A,B,C,D,E weeks. After all that, and the general health is looked over, the baby is released back to the mama. It takes about 5 minutes total for each baby calf to get tagged.

Thankfully, we are coming to the end of calving. It’s been super, super busy.

***WARNING: PICTURES OF BABY COWS BEING BORN. COW JUICES AND BLOOD. EXPLCIT PICTURES. STOP READING/LOOKING IF YOU HAVE A QUEASY STOMACH***

Some days I think that it would have been quite lovely to be an intern here at this ranch while I was in school. Funny thing, when we were working with World Changers and the NAMB, I thought the same thing.

But something happens here around the end of February and beginning of March that changes my mind a little more each day. It’s a little on the nasty side, smells (more about that later), super long hours, middle of the night happenings, mud, slush, hairdryers, laundry, crying, etc.

Nope, it’s not working with human babies and kids. I do that all day long and it’s been my profession for about 12 years now.

Calving. It’s calving that brings the excitement, long hours, concerns, quick decision making skills, more long hours, sitting with babies, bottle feeding/tubing, shots, IV’s, etc.

Right at the beginning of calving, the air temps were so low that as soon as the babies were born, the interns would swoop in, load the baby up, and bring it to the vet barn. It would be quickly rubbed down with towels, put under a heat lamp and begin using a hair dryer to dry it. As the baby showed signs of drying, one intern will go back out and bring the mama to the vet barn. Many hours later, when the mama and baby were doing well, they are released to a corral, the stall cleaned out, and the process starts over with other mamas and babies that need help. There are people working around the clock.

(inside the vet barn. About 12 stalls are in the barn. The room toward the back is heated, holds another head catch, medicine refrigerator, sinks, and where information is recorded.)

(interns drying off a baby when it was below freezing outside and with a foot of snow on the ground.)

(an orphan being graphed to a new mama who lost her calf. She is in a catch so she won’t hurt the orphan, and the orphan will nurse. She will eventually take the calf as her own.)

(an intern bringing a mama into the barn to pull her calf)

Growing up around animals and cows, I can handle just about anything that comes along with them. Hay. I like the smell of hay and straw. I even like the smell of hay, dust, and poop/urine mixed in together. It doesn’t assault my senses or send me into a nose plugging scramble.

Blood. It’s the blood smell specifically that I have a hard time with. I can see the blood, blood can even be on me. It’s the raw, coppery, wet, moist smell of the blood and other animalistic juices that get me every time.

*****WARNING*****

****COW JUICE/BLOOD AND GROSSNESS AHEAD****

(she’s stuck in a walk through gate, she was a tad crazy. Plus, she has a baby about to come out…but it’s stuck.)

(see that wet ground at her feet? Birthing juices….oozing and pouring out of her)

Cow juices…birthing juices….the blood smell….and the mama moaning while giving birth. I. CAN’T. HANDLE most of that part. It makes my bones hurt, my heart hurt, and almost makes me cry. It also makes me almost double over…and I’M NOT DOING ANYTHING! Those pictures above where taken from that weird angle, because a.)there were two kids right behind me, one of which refused to go out of the vet barn and would cry if I went out, b.) that particular mama cow was a tad on the crazy side and had gotten herself caught in a gate and only had to take one step backwards to get out.

On a completely side note, cowboys and ranchers were a Muck type boot—with the pants tucked in thankyouverymuch— during the winter months. Wooster has some really nice Elk Pack boots, but they are in the shop. He was a little rough on them, so he’s wearing some gaiters (DOUBLE THANKS TO AUNT DONNA AND STEWART!) and some other work boots to get him by until we can get back to town to pick up his pack boots. All those cow juices and mud get your clothes extremely dirty. I’m washing Wooster’s work clothes (three different sets) every day just to keep the juice covering to a minimum.

Back to calving….

The girls here work extremely hard. Yesterday, the girl interns worked a 16 hour day. There was no one standing around talking, texting, twitting, facebooking—ha! We don’t have cell service for all that! They were busy helping mamas birth, feeding hay, mucking stalls, taking care of horses, putting out mineral and tagging calves.

My girls are learning and observing many different things.

The circle of life.

(Ruby showing her best Dead Baby Calf face)

Hard Work.

(Nicole, intern from Minnesota, pitching straw to put back in the cleaned out stalls)

Smells….there’s the smells, can’t forget those.

(Clara tucked in a stroller, behind an alfalfa bale and under some saddles, when we were pinning up a mama in a stall.)

And the view of a hardworking, good looking Papa during calving is a great view, despite all the cow juices and smells.

That nice pretty snow, on those pretty mountains melts when the temps get above freezing. Imagine that. Science.

Funny thing about warm temperatures, it makes the frozen creeks and rivers melt too. When you get all the run off from the mountains, plus the frozen ice trying to break up on the rivers, it makes one big mess.

Our area is having some flooding because of all the ice jams on the Big Horn River. It flows to the north and is very curvy. Worland first experienced the ice jam. There was talk about using some explosives to break it up. But, it eventually moved. There were

about 80 evacuations because of the flooding in the town of Worland. There was a good bit of damage. The ice flowed downstream, north, to Manderson and to Greybull.

The ice is so thick and gets so jammed up, that water can’t get around it. The water eventually backs up, then the tributaries get backed up, and then you have some major flooding.

There are many teams around that are sandbagging and getting older people out of their homes. Also, there are many police out an about keeping people from the big jams very near the road. Also, some national guards have been dispatched to help with sandbagging efforts and evacuations.

Our creek (or crik) behind the house is doing just fine. It’s the Big Horn that’s having the most problems.

***all pictures were taken from a moving truck, through the windshield or truck door window.***

This kid is growing. It’s not like we didn’t expect it to happen. Babies grow. Puppies grow. Kids grow. It’s just that when you think about ten months, it seems so long. But it really isn’t.

Just like three years haven’t been that long, ten years married hasn’t been that long, 15 and 20 years out of high school haven’t been that long. You get the point.

This kid though (or “doe” for you modern readers)…she’s delightful.

In month seven, she was all about waving.

Month eight was all about pushing through the bottom two teeth (that had been coming through since six months). She also started getting a little more mobile.

She likes standing up in her walker and sitting up on the floor. She also started to really work on her pincer grasp with objects in her walker tray.

She also likes taking things out of baskets. She’s not so great putting them back though.

Month nine was all about scooting around (not crawling), turning pages in books, scooting backwards on her belly, and playing with Ruby.

Her nine month baby stats were:

Weight: 18.49lbs….54 percentile

Length: 28inches…61 percentile

She has a trend of gaining weight and going down in length or gaining length and going down in weight. She’s completely normal.

Still not crawling, but has many, many, many opportunities during the day on her stomach. She would rather sit up on her bottom and scoot around that way.

Month ten has brought on more scooting around on her bottom, getting in sticky situations, standing up and trying to pull up on objects.

She gets very excited and tickled at herself when she stands up.

She’s trying more and more to pull up and can stay longer and longer standing than she had previously.

She’s a pretty good clapper too. I haven’t gotten a good picture of it, or if I have, I can’t locate right now. Her favorite activity is trying to touch Ruby’s things, pulling Ruby’s hair and eating Cheerios. Those three things keep her pretty busy during the day. She usually hates wearing hats and bows. (totally opposite than first kid.)I usually have to tie her hat on her, or it doesn’t stay on for very long. She will wear little rubber bands to hold her hair back. If I’m super-fast and can distract her, I can attach a bow to the rubber banded hair. She only has two teeth on the bottom. She got those pretty quickly at 6 months, but nothing since then. She’s been working on the top two teeth for a good while now. They are almost ready to pop through. She can consistently wave “bye bye” and “hey” to people. There are times when she is eating that she will sign “all done”, but keep eating. J She loves pointing out Wooster’s deer head in the living room, the towel hanger with fish in the bathroom and trying to grab the walkie talkie. When she gets mad, she swipes her left hand back and forth trying to cause destruction to anything she can touch. She is working on pointing to her eye, nose and mouth. 90% of the time she can find the person holding her attributes when questioned. She’s a great sleeper. If out and about, she’ll nap in her carrier or car seat. She takes one big nap from 1pm-4pm in the afternoon. She is sleeping a solid 11 to 12 hours at night. When mad, hurt, and sad, she only cries for a very small amount of time. She is easily calmed. Clara has recently started having stranger anxiety (totally normal and developmental). At church, regular people stop by to talk to us during the greeting period. She will quietly tuck her head on mama or papa’s shoulders or shut her eyes.

She is a very delightful baby and is growing more and more each day.

No! Let’s not sing the “let it snow” song anymore. There’s actually a channel out of Billings, MT, that runs a local business commercial and the jingle is of people singing “Let it Snow”. And it still runs…today…I saw it today. We are in March, by the way. You are tired of the cold where you are, we are getting a little tired of it here too.

(No mama, you stay inside. She might be a little tired of me. She LOVES when Papa Bear picks her up to go “help” on the ranch. It’s a win/win for all. Ruby in a snow path on our deck/porch.)

(Sheet of ice and snow. You quickly learn how to walk and where to walk. Looking north up to the berm (pronounced like firm). Old barn and wash house on the right. Brand house and yard on the left.)

(Part of our little lane, snow scraped and more snow underneath.)

(Corrals and a side by side.)

(What our drive to Ten Sleep to pick up our bountiful basket looks like most of the time. 17 miles of dirt road packed with snow and ice.)

(My most favorite site at times. The tractor hooked up to a scraper. Mineral barn, with a two bedroom apartment on the side for ranch hands, in the background.)

(Scraping paths for the mamas and babies to walk through in the pasture. The snow was a little too deep for the newborns to walk through)

(Looking east at the Big Horns. The ranch is six miles further from Hyattville; about 13 miles east of this sign. We are so close to the base of the mountains, that we can’t see that top peak. It’s covered by clouds most of the time.)

So, let us all sing “Let It Be Spring” at the top of our lungs really loudly. But that means we’ll have mud, slush, and huge run offs. I did go outside earlier and heard chirping birds, dripping icicles, melting snow, and the creek. The creek! It’s been frozen for a good little while now. It’s a nice sound. I forgot how loud it is. It is hopeful as well. Hopeful for the warmer days, the beautiful green leaves, possible blooms. Isn’t it nice and wonderful that we celebrate Easter and the resurrection during this time of year? Hopeful! Hope! A new day!

We are looking forward to more lengthy walks, not suiting up in five layers, taking the five plus layers off, wet socks, wet boots, slushy snow in our laundry room, wet floors and a host of other things. Please, stop singing “let it snow” and let it be spring!