The Chronicles of Night Calving

I’m lying here in that stage between awake and asleep. I don’t want to wake up, but I know my alarm is going to go off any minute now. I want to stay right where I am, burrowed under my overstuffed down comforter in its reversible blue and green duvet that dad says should be in a boys room. I guess it should be pink or something frilly and lacy for a girl, but that wouldn’t be me. Asleep next to Moe, with his head on my pillow and his four little feet pushing against my back, pushing me out of my bed, as if it were his and I am the intruder, not the other way around.

Listening to Cara snore across the room, dreaming about chasing rabbits, counting sheep, or whatever it is that she so soundly dreams about at night when I throw pillows, slippers, or anything I can find at her to get her to roll on to her side so she will stop snoring. Then in the morning she wakes up cuddling my pink fluffy slipper that Moe chewed the eye off of as a puppy. The fur is all matted and the tail is missing from one too many tug of wars with Moe who insisted it was his and refused to give it back. She wonders how it got into bed with her. As I explain I threw it at her to get her to quit snoring, she swears I was the one snoring as she does not snore. On the other hand, the slipper explains the dream she was having about a snowball fight with our brother, except they were in Mexico and they weren’t really snow balls, but cotton balls that hurt when they hit her.

Click. Bee-beep. Bee-beep. Bee-beep. Snooze. Moe doesn’t even flinch as my alarm goes off for a second time. I turn it off and reset it for six. If I don’t do it now, I will forget by the time I come back in. Blindly I search through the dark for my jeans. First my right foot and leg, then my left foot and leg, standing up, my jeans are on and I need socks. I really want to turn on a light so I can tell if my socks match. I guess the cows won’t care, so I pull on a sweatshirt and head for the porch, where I put on my Schnee boots that cost me two weeks of tips at JR’s in December, and my feet still freeze when I wear them, my silk wild rag, bright red scotch cap which I hate, and my blue Carhartt coat. Never know who you might run into, so you must look your best.

Stepping outside, I’m met with a clarity and realization that can only be had at one o’clock on a January morning…its cold, and I am now fully awake! But the sky is so dark and clear, the moon so full and bright, the stars shine so brightly. I can see the big and little dippers and many other constellations that I recognize but cannot name. I start my trek to the calving barns to check cows for my dad.

Opening the green metal gate with the blue “Sure-Latch” by the granary I say aloud to myself, I should have made Moe come with me. It would be good for him, or maybe not. When we get back to the house, he would beat me back to my bed and run all over blankets with his wet snowy feet. I shine my light towards the horse corral and then back past the granary towards our old house. If it weren’t for the peeling paint, and broken screen door on the east end, it would appear still to be lived in most days since the curtains still hang in the windows waiting for someone to come home.

Rounder glares at me as if he’s saying “Get that light out of my eyes!” as the beam passes over him. The rest of the horses stomp their feet keeping thin blood circulating, and I can see their breath every time they exhale. Snip whines at me, nosing my hand, and then wagging his tail as I remember to scratch that spot behind his ears. I need to keep moving.

Through the next gate, I gently close the latch, dad’s reminder still ringing in my ears from chore time: “Don’t let it slam shut! That handle is about to break!” I hear the crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch of the frozen mud, muck, and dry snow beneath my feet with every step I take. How does Snip walk so quietly on 4 feet and I am so loud on only two?

Opening the door to the Tin Shed, I’m met with warmer air and the faint scent of dusty straw, cattle, ammonia, and manure. Both cows jump to their feet at my entrance and stare at me with their big, gentle, brown eyes and furry, black ears contentedly chewing their cud. Nothing is going on here and I feel guilty for stirring them.

It’s still cold outside when I enter the heavy cow lot. Cow #302 is standing off by herself. She is probably calving. I’ll have to watch her; she gets mean when she calves. Walking towards her, she shakes her head and blows snot at me. She is calving. I can see 2 feet as she walks away from me. The good news is everything is coming the right way, but the bad news is I will have to get her in a barn. It’s too cold for a baby to be born outside tonight. Nothing else is going on out here. I will have to see where I can find room for her. She’ll have to wait a few minutes until I can get the doors open and gates set in a barn.

Entering the Red Barn, I’m once again met with warmer air and the same scents as before. Cupcake is up and her twins Uno and Dos are up and sucking. That was Cara’s idea to name them that way. She’s been pretty proud of her B in Spanish class. They are quite the sight, wagging their little black tails all content, warm, with bellies full of milk. No room here for an extra cow. All for the better though, the Red Barn is kind of tight and narrow. Not much room for a cow to walk down the alley, or turn into a stall. The last time I put a cow in here by myself I managed to knock out a chunk of foundation from under the barn. I don’t want to do that again.

Flipping on the lights in the New Barn creates a false sense of warmth as six 100 watt bulbs send their glow into every dusty nook and crevice. Nothing to report here either, it’s almost a quiet night. Some quick rearranging, I move the cow in the camera stall across the alley to a different stall. I told dad she wasn’t going to calve tonight. Set the gates, grab a club and I’m off to get 302.

302 knows something is up and meets me just outside the barn door. She promptly trees me on a fence post and I wonder if anyone will hear me scream? I’m also impressed by how quickly I got to the top of the post. I could never have done that so quickly just playing. How long will I wait here before someone comes to check on me? But more importantly, if I can get her in the barn, how will I get the gate shut behind her?

I start to whistle like I do when I am nervous. Good Save the Queen is my favorite tune. One day I want to have a little Herford bull like Vindicator on the Rare Breed who comes when I whistle the tune. I don’t even realize I am whistling. There below me in the snow is Snip. How I love that dog! He starts to growl at 302 as she paws the ground and blows snot at both of us now. “Push her up!” Snip half pushes, half chums her through the gate, closer to the barn. I jump off the fence and get the gate shut just as she charges me. Take that! You think you are so tough on the other side of the fence! Snip distracts her again, giving me seconds to get in the pen with her. Once again I am treed. “Away to me!” Snip gets around her and gets her pushed into the barn and I down him in the gate. Quietly, slowly I edge down the alley, hugging the closed gates to individual stalls. Finally I get Snip out of the way and the gate shut. 302 turn's her back to me and ignores me. She can see the camera is on and if she is on her best behavior dad will never believe that she treed me twice. Good dog, I pat Snip on the head and we step out of the barn and start for the house.

It is still cold, feels colder now than when I first left the house 20 minutes earlier. My boots make that cool crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch noise that I find comforting as I catch my breath from our 302 excitement. I am ready to be back in bed.

Down towards the highway I hear it. Faint at first, but growing stronger and louder with each new breath, his mournful cry is soon joined by others and I am being serenaded by a heavy metal band of coyotes. The depressing, mournful, desolate feeling of their song makes all of the little hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention, and my feet can’t seem to carry me home quickly enough.

Glancing through the lot and the horse corral I see nothing happening. No cows calving here. Out the gate and I am in a dead run. Imaginary coyotes are fast at my heels nipping at me. I imagine one of them licking his chops, with an evil gleam in his eye. He thinks I will taste good for dinner. Running and running and running, arms pumping and reaching, suddenly I am in the floodlight. I stop and listen. It is quiet. The coyotes have stopped their song. Off in the distance I hear a “Yip!” The beginnings of an encore I think.

Not waiting to find out, I step inside and go about taking off all these winter clothes. Off comes my blue Carhartt, the bright red scotch cap I still hate, my newest wild rag, and my Schnee boots, yes, feet are cold. Tip-toeing through the house, avoiding all of the creaky floor boards like a thief, I steal into my room undetected by Moe and his super sonar. I remove my socks, jeans, sweatshirt, and carefully climb back into bed so I don’t disturb Moe and his slumber. Cara resumes her snoring, and I will soon be back to sleep.

Karma

There are days that just don't go right.  The boys are up at 5 and want breakfast now.  The colt your husband is riding for you dad pitches a fit, mashes a stirrup, and breaks the tree in his "good" saddle.  To top it off you spill boiling water on your bare foot trying to clean your cast iron skillet.  This all happens before 7 in the morning, and you think to yourself "I must have really been a jerk in a past life."  What else could explain how bad your day is already?

Today TR, QT, and I helped the Cowboss move some yearlings around.  Was it a good day?  Not especially.  Was it a bad day?  No, not really.  Did we rope and drag a yearling through the gate?  Yes.  On her side?  No.  It was hot and there was smoke in the air.  QT talked from the minute I got in the saddle until I got off at the house.

The highlight of my day was watching TR ride his horse.  Right off the bat, we had a yearling turn back on us.  I went to get around her and TR said "I got this mom."  Not quite sure I kept going.  He yelled at me "I SAID I've got this mom.  Don't you see me here?!!"  Point taken!  About 30 minutes later a different yearling turned back.  This time I was across the creek and couldn't get there fast enough with QT riding in front of me.  So I asked TR to bring her back.  He spurred old "Cowboy" up and got after her.  He had her too, until "Molly" and "Tip" (the Cowboss's cow dogs) saw  what was going on and turned her back on him again.  So he spurred "Cowboy" into a lope and took off after her a second time.  Dad called him off though.  We were both a little worried that "Cowboy" might turn out from under him chasing the yearling.  He rode up to me with a look that read WTH, I had her!  So I bragged him up quite a bit.  He really did awesome!

Riding home from the saddle shop tonight (have to get a new tree put in the Cowboss's saddle) and reflecting on the days events I decided that I must have been a really good person in a past life.  For what other reason could there be that I would be so blessed in this life?  I have a great husband who knows me better than I know myself most days.  Good horses that I can pack my baby on with me, turn my baby loose on, or rope and load a bull if I need to.  Most importantly though, I have 2 little boys who "are fearfully and wonderfully made," that I love all the way to the moon....and back!

The Truth

(Photo courtesy of Heidi Stevens)

I have some confessions to make.  I'm 33 years old and have not rode a lot of colts.  I can only really take credit for 2 colts, and in my opinion only 1 of them is anything spectacular.  It has taken me 10 years to get him there.

I lack patience.  I want the cream to rise now!  I'm riding a colt.  His name is "Maximus."  I call him "Max."  He is HUGE.  His size makes me forget he is still a baby.  I want him to do all kinds of wonderful things like stop, turn, and back up.  Which he does sometimes....  He will be 3 on Tuesday.

I don't like the round pen.  I get dizzy trotting in circles.  I'm not good at pleasure riding.  I need to be doing something productive like moving cows or looking for sick calves.

(Photo courtesy of Cara Small)

I don't like cats, but I do like dogs.  The best dog I've ever had was a "Border-Rat" named "Buck."  He was my best friend and went everywhere with me, even school.  When I took a shower in the morning, his little nose was inside the shower curtain so he could see me.  I knew my husband was "the one" when I came out of the kitchen and found Buck cuddled up next to him on my couch.

I don't mind farming.  I actually like dragging meadows and raking hay as long as I can do it by myself.  There is something relaxing and peaceful about being alone in a tractor with my thoughts.  My thoughts and my iPod.

(Photo courtesy of Cara Small)

My favorite place in the world is home.  The place I grew up, where we give directions, not by names of places, but by "remember where so and so shot that buck and it was snowing?"  Where a four-wheeler is for wrangling horses and irrigating, not for cow work, and branding time involves all our our family, friends, best horses, and good food!

My biggest fears include my boys growing up in a place where they can't walk a mile in any direction without seeing another person, feeling tall grass catching their spur rowels as they trot across a hay field late June, or having a green colt hump up with them on a cold morning.

Wickahoney

Wickahoney in it's heyday.

My great grandma Rosella Tindall Chambers was raised on a cattle ranch that doubled as a stage stop in southern Idaho.  She was married when she was 19, had my grandma when she was 20, and was divorced by the time she was 22.  She watched her older brother die from a bleeding ulcer one day while trailing their cattle to the rail station in Elko.  Not long after, her father hung himself when the bank turned him down for a loan to buy hay for his cattle at the start of a hard winter.  Her mother having nothing to live for without her son or husband took rat poison.

This all happened in the Early 1930's.  My great grandma found herself divorced and alone with a baby girl, and a cattle ranch to run in the great depression.  A very unheard of situation for a woman at that time.  Her cowboys wouldn't take orders from a woman, so she found a foreman who would.  She would give him her orders and he made sure they got done they way she wanted.  The bank wouldn't give her a loan, so she found someone who would.  She was out of underwear for her daughter, so she would take the cowboy's old, worn out clothes and made her some of whatever she needed out of that.  She worked all day doing cowboy stuff, then came home to take care of her baby and make a home.  She made do, she got by.

Wickahoney today.

From the time she could stand on a box, she was expected to work.  My great grandma could work just as hard as any cowboy, but at the end of the day she was always a lady.  After a hard days work, she came in and cooked dinner.  If she was going to town she wore her best clothes and did her hair.  My grandma and great aunt (her daughters) never learned to cowboy.  Grandma said that "If you can't milk a cow and you can't ride, you don't have to.  If you can, you do.  You have to do your work and real man's work too."

School Days

TR starts school this fall.  He is really excited to be going to "that garden place" (kindergarten).  Mom of course not so much.  It is going to be interesting to see how we all do when school starts. 

I am having a hard time believing that my baby is old enough to be in school.  It seems like just yesterday I brought him home from the hospital.  QT is so attached to his big brother, I'm not sure how he will make it with him gone a couple of hours a day.

I'm also really worried about how he is going to do in the classroom setting.  He is going to be one of the younger kids in his class, and being a mom, I worry that he is "ready" for school.  I asked him the other day if he would like to stay home with me just 1 more year and go to school next year because I will miss him.  He told me that he would "stay with mom until [he] is 45, then he will go to school. 

To make matters worse, other parents who have kids the same age as TR are doing all of these wonderful things.  They are reading, writing their names and all this great stuff.  TR doesn't do that.  He likes numbers, and can do some basic addition and subtraction, but does not write, and I have to bribe him just to say the alphabet.  But, he can spot thistle at 20 yards, and can recognise Leafy Spurge most days.  He knows all about a lot of animals, and a wonderful imagination.  He can identify several different types of animal tracks too.  Keep your fingers crossed he gets a teacher who can appreciate these qualities!

The Wild Boys Ride Again

We've had a pretty busy spring and summer. As you can see TR and QT have been busy helping as well. This is the first time I have really turned them loose on horses. We are very fortunate, my dad gave us a horse to use that he raised and I rode quite a bit when I came home from college. "Cowboy" is a great fit for TR. I am so proud and impressed by the confidence he has give TR. We moved some cows last week, and TR rode with the Cowboss while QT rode with me. At one point, the Cowboss heard some whooping and hollering behind him. He looked back to see TR hell bent for leather, over and under-ing his horse running up through the middle of the cows we were pushing. When he asked TR what he was doing, TR informed him "I had to open up a can of whoop ass on that cow. She wasn't going like I wanted her to." I'm so thankful we have a horse that he can "open up cans of whoop ass" on.

QT isn't quite ready to be completely turned loose yet, and lets face it. I am not ready to hand over my best horse to him yet either. He has been riding and showing my horse "Cricket," just not outside by himself yet. He is pretty entertaining horse back. For one thing, he talks nonstop, until he falls asleep. His favorite phrase is "Get up there you black hearted cow!"

I've titled this picture "Thing 1 and Thing 2." Where ever we go, whatever we do, the boys are together. I took this at the Silver State Stampede last week, just before the boys got on their sheep in the mutton busting.

I am so proud of TR for coming out of retirement to ride a sheep by himself. While I'm not sure of his technique, I am proud to say he placed third on Thursday night. It took some doing though to get him to ride by himself and not have dad pull him off.
Cowboss: You can win this TR if you let me turn you loose.
TR: No dad, I don't want to win.
Cowboss: You can win a buckle though!
TR: =/
Mom: We will buy you a snow cone.
TR: Fine, I will win this so I can get a buckle and a snow cone.

This is QT's ride. The Cowboss pulled him off just after this.

Wordless Wednesday