Magic Number 9

For the first time since starting out as newly hatched chicks, all nine of our hens have laid eggs within a 24 hour period.  John doesn't seem too excited, but I think it's quite an accomplishment for the girls.

We probably average 6 or 7 eggs each day, and we've been giving them away to friends and family in the immediate area.  We eat a respectable number as scrambled or fried eggs ourselves, but I also make custard about once a week.  And last night we both discovered how tasty "egg cakes" are.  (After John said he was hungering for some dessert, I found the Norwegian pancake recipe in a cookbook compiled by people who live in Roberts.)

Here are two pictures.  I particularly like the angles that show the spectrum of colors: the darker the chicken, the darker the egg.  My favorite are the darkest brown -- they almost resemble a bronze Crayola Crayon, complete with a metallic shimmer.

I sometimes wonder how many meals I could eat in a row that consist of only egg-based dishes -- think of the money we could save!  If you have any favorite egg recipes, please don't hesitate to send them our way.

Feeling a Bit More Settled

I know just about every Honda for sale in Billings and the surrounding area, and John even found a few for us to look at on Craig's List -- one of which was very sporty, very reasonably priced despite its low miles, and very fun to drive.  A combination of practicality and fun won out, however, and I am so glad to have made a decision and a purchase.  (I think John is glad, too,  because I've settled down emotionally quite a bit since finishing the deal yesterday.)  Here it is -- my new-to-me Honda CR-V:

For the first time ever, I own a car with more than two doors, so I can give a ride to more than two people without anyone having to crawl into the back.  :)  Maybe even more important is that I'll be able to get out of the driveway when we have a decent snowstorm, and it has "real time" 4WD that it slips into when necessary.    There's also a lot of room -- for a dog, bags of feed, school work, recycling, whatever.  So in the end, it all worked out well, and I'm even getting a free hat out of the deal, which is a story that I'll have to pass along sometime when I take you for a drive through the countryside.

My Car Has Died

First and foremost, I have to express completely and entirely that I am 100% okay.  But on Friday morning I left home as usual and while going 70 mph collided with a deer one mile from our house.  I never even saw him coming and had no time to react.  In hindsight, I think this was for the best: I hadn't tensed up, and I never even tried to swerve, let alone slam on the brakes.  The car handled it admirably, though it took the hit in the end, too.

I must admit that the loss of a car that I loved and the stress of trying to get life back to normal is a bit hard on me, though.  John is being very patient . . .  He tolerates all of my questions about what to consider when looking for a new(er) car and about how to handle the insurance company, and he reassures me that I could have done nothing different.  Even more trying for him, I'm sure, is my attachment to an inanimate object.  I have explained that I spent over an hour each day with that car -- that I'd driven it for 8 years -- that it has always been reliable and there for me.  I'm not sure that he understands how I can attach human elements to something so mechanical, but he does listen to me as I try to explain.  He even went with me to clean it out, which was actually pretty emotional.

He was still home Friday morning when it happened, so even though my call was very alarming for him, he was there immediately afterwards.  Someone had already stopped to help me (and we even knew him!), but John made sure the deer was dead and gave me a ride to school.

I've been obsessing about finding a car.  In the meantime, I'm driving a rental (that's why we have insurance, right?), but things won't feel much better until I've been able to move on.  I know that it's a part of living out here -- this is the third deer I've hit in five years -- but I'm not prepared to get used to it by any means.  And I do my best always to remember the advice John gave me not long after we met:  a deer won't kill you, but if you swerve to miss it, your car can kill you.

I'll keep you all posted as I go through the search, but it's another test for my patience.  A good used Honda is hard to find.

Patience

With a blog title like "Patience," you'll probably all think this is just a typical philosophy of life nugget.  But it is really so much more exciting.  I've always had a difficult time being patient with some things even though I "delay gratification," to the point of having an obsession, with other things.  To illustrate the latter, here's an example from my very, very early childhood:  when my Great Grandma Nellie Hall was still alive, she once sent me brownies.  I was so excited about them and wanted very badly to relish every last bite, so I hid them in my closet and saved them knowing that they would taste even better following the anticipation that comes with waiting.  The problem?  I waited too long and when I finally went to eat them, they had molded.

However, all-too-often, I want things NOW.  I want to know now, to see now, to get now.  The critters have taught me that I can be as impatient as I want, but that no matter how much emotional energy I put forth, I have no control over their biological clocks.  I've been waiting for months for our hens to lay eggs, for example, and I check every day with the hope that they will have started.  I knew it would be at least 16 weeks if not closer to 20.  However, it's been over 20 and still nothing.

When Daisy went to "summer camp," I knew that it would be weeks before we'd know that she'd been there long enough to get bred and we could bring her home.  And then if she was pregnant, it would be months (as many as 9!) before she would calve.  9 months!  And I kept asking John, "How long will it be until we KNOW if she's even bred so that I KNOW that I have more months to wait?!"  

One of those "waits" is over.  On Saturday I got to take Daisy back to where she attended "summer camp" because the Lewises had  hired the vet to come ultrasound their cows.  Dana, John's employee, and I loaded up Daisy and Maddie in a trailer and led them through the chutes so that they, too, could have an ultrasound performed.  While I was too busy watching when it was Daisy's turn, I did get a few photos when the vet was examining another cow.  While the photos really aren't at all graphic, I will forewarn you that the details of the descriptions that accompany them might surprise you a bit.

The cows walked down a shoot, and just as they poked their head through this last one, Hal Lewis would pull on the rope that closes it down on them.  It's not at all painful, and they don't even really react.  I do feel a little badly, however, because they're in such a catch-22 situation; to get out, they have to move forward, but as soon as they move forward, they can't get out.

The vet is wearing a full rubber/plastic outfit and a shoulder-length glove.  She keeps a very large bottle of lubricant handy because she has to insert her arm along with the ultrasound "wand" (my word) into the cows' rectums.  I'm sure it's not comfortable, but the cattle don't seem to be in any sort of pain.

She moves the wand as necessary to get the best image possible of the fetus.  And if the timing of the ultrasound is just right, she's even able to sex it.

You can see the ultrasound machine in the bottom, right corner of this photo, and the vet is looking at the screen while she works.






And here's a series of ultrasound images that I found online to show you the various forms of bovine fetal development:

I'll be honest, with the exception of the "50 Day Pregnancy" photo, I see very little that resembles anything bovine or otherwise.


When I looked at the screen while Daisy was being examined, the vet said, "See, right there.  It's still small, but there it is.  She's pregnant."

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 Were you thinking I'd forget to say one way or the other?  
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Now that I know, I'll be able to wait a little bit more easily.  6 months and counting.  180 days.

When the time comes, we'll be well into spring, and the anticipation is glorious!

Satisfying Sunday

Though we still had to put some time in for our "day jobs" today, John and I spent some quality time a week ago yesterday with the critters, too.  We went together that morning to do chores and to hang out for a bit with Daisy and Maddy. The morning was gorgeous:  a chilly, nearly-autumn morning with a floating fog.  Would it be such a bad thing to spend one's days enjoying such simplicity?

We've not been mowing the grass for weeks -- since school started actually.  Instead, we've decided to turn the responsibility over to Maddy and Daisy, especially since they had pretty much polished off all of the grass at "my place."  At the start of the Labor Day weekend, John and I set up an non-electrified hot wire across the back quarter of his lawn with the hopes that the girls would fall for the ploy and stay put.  My mom had come to stay with us Friday night, and when I went outside mid-evening Saturday to take her home, here were Maddy and Daisy in the driveway as though their escape were an everyday occurrence.  I couldn't believe they'd had the chutzpa to test the wire, but there they were nonetheless.  I ushered them back next door and shut up the fence between the yards figuring it wasn't worth trying to trick them.  John and I didn't allow them next door again until the next weekend.

This time, he set up the wire properly so it was fully electrified -- hot and ready for them.  I don't remember where we were headed, but we went outside and there Daisy was back in the driveway.  The only good news was that we quickly figured out that they hadn't been busting through the wire -- instead, Daisy had figured out that there was plenty of room for her to walk between John's garage and the fence between our properties.  Did we feel silly!  I wasn't sure what the solution would be, but John fixed up the gap and they've stayed put (knock on wood).

The only terrible thing is that my rose bushes had finally started to bloom all at once, and apparently freedom for Daisy meant a tasty snack.  Let's just say that I was guilty of uttering a few expletives when I saw the damage:

Since then, we've given them a little more room by moving the wire in John's yard.  If you look at the pictures below, you can see the line where the wire had previously been.

They even provide fertilizer!

Just Some Pictures

I've taken photos throughout the summer of what we've all been up to, so here are a few of them:

John with the chickens.  (When he saw this picture he commented about how he was the cock of the walk.)

Sydney, the chickens, and I are doing fly duty.  I spray Daisy with a stinky concoction that kills the flies; the chickens then eat them (which John says won't hurt the chickens); and Sydney soothes the pain by licking the spots where the heifers get bitten.  She pays particular attention to their poor teats and either side of their tail heads, which seem to be vulnerable spots.  The red heifer belongs to Dana, one of John's employees at the ranch supply store.  Maddy has been at our place since sometime in early August, and she and Daisy get along well and have become somewhat attached.  I'm guessing Maddy will head home soon, but it's been great to have her.

The Fence Company is working on a new project, now that they've finished with the wolves.  John's been in the process of hauling materials up to the job site in the Pryors.  Here is one of the four loads that he'll have run up the mountain once he's done.

And, finally, here is one of the spectacular views from the top of the Pryors.  I'll create a longer post later on about this fencing job because it is another interesting one.

We're also expecting a barrage of eggs from the hens any day as they are approaching the twenty-week-old mark.  Apparently there are hens born at the same time that John's customers have reported are already laying.  This is all so good for my inability to be patient!

Exciting Website Address

I forgot to mention this new development in my last post.  I have owned my own web address for a few years.  Until recently, however, I'd not discovered a way to use it.  And then it hit me!  If you go to www.katecordes.com, your browser will be redirected to my blog! 

I have to give a shout out to my friend Matthew Struck who was kind enough to set this up for me.  He has an amazing website himself.  Check it out at www.struckture.com. 

So long, Roosties!

Though their plumage was gorgeous and I would have loved to see it grow out all the way, I'm not terribly sad the Rhode Island Red roosters have moved farther south.  They are now living at the Ayre family's place, and I'm pretty certain that they'll be allowed to live a long, happy life.  And what if they don't?  I will have had nothing to do with their deaths, and I won't have to eat them.  I was getting a little nervous whenever John talked about how we should use them to make chicken soup.  My chicken butchering rules are that 1) I don't want to eat anything that we've raised, and 2) I don't want to set up any sort of chicken butchering operation at our place.

So the Brahma rooster rules the roost, but I'm pretty sure he's still not at the top of the pecking order.  I was never aware of how many idiomatic expressions we use that are related to chickens and their system of hierarchy.  I have a much better understanding now of how a mother hen might act and what it means to be hen-pecked.  And I am getting the sense that every chicken owner knows that look chickens give people when they are unhappy about something -- on the "backyard chicken" website that I've found, everyone talks about getting the stinkeye. 

I know it well already.

Death to Flies!

I really think one key to happiness is to recognize and even celebrate the best of any situation.  For a few years I've been trying to come up with more reasons to appreciate winter because it is increasingly my least favorite time of year.  I dislike it because of the cold, the lack of leaves on trees and color in the landscape, the short days, and the inconveniences of dealing with snow.  So far, I've come to appreciate it because snow is beautiful when it's fresh and spring (my favorite time of year) could neither happen nor be as amazing without winter.  The cold and the moisture cleanse everything so that life can begin anew (and additional cliched expressions).  However, I have one more discovery to add to the list: cold means death to flies and mosquitoes, and my word do we have flies and mosquitoes!

I'm sure there are millions of dollars spent every year on insect pest control in the United States.  Equestrian enthusiasts especially know about controlling flies -- there are masks for horses, sprays for horses, even neck and foot bands to keep flies off of horses.  People interact closely with horses, and we are very aware of the effects of flies on them.  Horses are sacred in our society, and we shudder at the thought of eating horse meat.

Cattle, on the other hand, spend most of their lives at a distance from people.  We don't ride them (with the exception of a 4-H kid I know and, or course, bull riders), and we leave them to fend for themselves much more than we do horses.  I know there are those who therefore think I'm silly for refusing to accept the inevitable fact that Daisy presents a feast for biting flies, but I couldn't stand it anymore.  There is some sort of biting, blood-sucking bug that particularly likes her ears, and the biting flies (mostly what are called horn flies) feast on all of the most exposed, tender parts of her hide including her belly, on the soft skin in the areas akin to our groins and arm pits, and on her teats.

I finally bought a bottle of fly spray for horses yesterday.  It's fairly potent stuff, but I was assured that anything safe for horses is safe for cattle.  The bottle warns not to apply any more than 2 oz. per application, so I sprayed the worst areas and then tried to spread it through her fur/coat with a brush.  We'll see how long it lasts, but the stuff appears to be working!

This year, I will have a reason to celebrate the first hard frost we get.  In the meantime, I wonder . . . could the chickens be trained to sit on Daisy's back and munch on the flies for her?  Similar to those birds who sit on the backs of rhinos?

Welcome home, Daisy Mae!

On June 24, 2010 Daisy went off to the Rock Creek Red Angus "Summer Camp," owned and managed by Charlie and Linda Lewis, and she just got back today.  While she was at camp, she met older cows and their calves as well as a few other heifers.

She had 80 acres of space over which to roam, and she feasted on a variety of grasses.  Though the focus of summer camp was not weight loss, she also slimmed down quite a bit since she had to walk much greater distances than at home and didn't get daily treats.  But the real reason she attended summer camp was Bull 176.  He's a native of Broadus, MT and just a yearling himself, and as far as we could tell, he and Daisy spent a fair amount of time together when she first arrived. 

In other words, Daisy went to the Lewis place to get bred.  We took her just as she was cycling and left her over the next two cycles with great hopes of her ending up pregnant.  We know the bull was particularly interested in her when she first arrived, and he didn't seem to pay much attention to her during what would have been subsequent cycles.  The cycles happen at 21 day intervals, and the gestation for cattle is 9 months, which means that if she "took" the first cycle at summer camp she should have a calf around the end of next March!  I won't know anything for sure for a number of months, but I'm hoping I will at least be able to tell that she's no longer cycling (and therefore pregnant).

I visited her at least once a week while she was gone and brushed and fed her while there.  The first two times I visited, she followed me all the way back to the gate, but by my third visit she was very content to stay with her new friends when I left.  Last week, though, she did come running when she saw me, and while I know she was really only interested in the treats I had brought, it still made me feel good.

She has grown a bit taller since she left, too.  The following pictures aren't the best, especially since in the second one I was avoiding the dive-bombing mosquitoes, but at least you can see how she's changed.

I'm very happy to have her home, and I really did miss her.  I'll keep you updated with any news.

The Royal Couple

I have a lot to catch up on suddenly, so I'm going to try to cover everything without taking too much time or space.

For the last four summers, we have gone to the Carbon County Fair.  It is a great opportunity for John, as a local business owner, to support the kids.  Every year, he's bought a variety of critters -- we've always bought at least one pig to butcher, and he's usually bought a steer, a lamb, and even additional pigs, all of which he then resells.  This year was a first, however.  At the end of the day, he'd bought the usual pig and steer, but the prize of the day was a Buff Brahma Cockerel.  Fortunately, the father of the girl who owned the chicken threw in a hen to make it a pair.  Meet our newest chickens:

These chickens are bantam-sized, so we're guessing they are full-grown and know they will end up smaller than any of the others.  Not only are they beautiful, but they are also older than our others, which means two things:

1.  Eggs - We got our first on Sunday and another yesterday!!

and

2.  A good morning rooster welcome:

I haven't named them yet, but I plan to.  (Don't tell John.  He once suggested that I not get too attached to any of the chickens in case they ended up living elsewhere or succumbed to any of the maladies or predators that endanger the lives of chickens.  I just assured him that I'd name them after characters in Shakespeare's tragedies so that I wouldn't have unrealistic expectations.  These two could be Hamlet and Ophelia . . . )

Brahma chickens are feather-footed, which ends up looking just like it sounds.  I cannot decide if they have ugly feet or if they are absolutely fabulous.  What do you think?

At first I wasn't thrilled that we'd ended up with a third rooster since we were already trying to get rid of the first two, but this one is really cool!  (Since then, we've also found a good home for the other two.)  And I love the sound of a rooster crowing in the morning, especially since he doesn't crow until he's let out . . . by me . . . after I'm already awake and ready for the day.

10 Amazing Things About Chickens

1.  When young, chicks are very difficult to sex, so it took about all of my patience to wait and see what we ended up with.

2.  Hens don't lay eggs until they're about 20 weeks old, and most breeds only lay eggs for 2-3 years.  They can live longer but often don't because a chicken that costs money to feed but that doesn't produce something of value usually gets eaten. Also, the amount of daylight affects how many eggs a hen will lay, which is especially important to keep in mind during those short days of winter.

3.  Chickens eat constantly, and if they consume feed at a quick place, they store it in their crop.  A chicken that has just gorged herself on pellets will have what looks like an enlarged right breast because she's storing the food for later digestion.

4.  Pullets lay small eggs.  The eggs will get bigger as the birds age, but they will then also produce fewer.

5.  The establishment of the pecking order is very obvious and fascinating to watch.

6.  Chickens can (and maybe even should eat) yogurt for better health.  Who knew?!

7.  In fact, chickens can and will eat just about everything.  We don't have a garbage disposal at our house, but once the chickens are fully grown, I'm sure they'll consume any scraps we give them.  That combined with their bug-eating prowess makes them extremely helpful pets.

8.  Hens sing an "egg song" when they're laying.  It's sounds the way the bunny does on Cadbury Creme Egg commercials.  I'm waiting to hear it from the hens because that will mean they're old enough to lay.  5 more weeks . . .  (Patience is something I'm always working on.)

9.  Some chickens have feathers on their feet!  And looking at a bird's feet always makes me wonder about the evolutionary connection between birds and dinosaurs.

10.  Chickens are stupendously fun to watch.  Seriously.  I wouldn't have believed it either, but I now find myself sitting in the lawn chairs we've placed outside the "barn" and having to talk myself into getting back to work because it is so fun and relaxing to just hang with them.  I also have to admit that John and I even catch grasshoppers (of which there are plenty!) to feed to the chickens.  Watching the chickens nab one feels like a small victory -- the chicken is happy and well-fed, and we have one less grasshopper running around the place!

The Big Chicken Post

This time I'm going to write about our amazing and very much alive flock of chickens.  Late last spring I had written a post about the broiler (meat) chickens that we were housing until John could sell them.  They were relatively ugly, but regardless of their looks, I had no interest in caring about them.  Not too long after, however, we brought home 10 chicks to keep for ourselves as egg layers, and they have been so much fun.

The chicks are mailed for overnight delivery from a Welp Hatchery in Iowa.  When they arrive, they look like these two:

Ours weren't this small when they first came to the house, but they grow quickly.  The 10 we have were born on May 1, and by the second week of June, they looked like this:

Another two months later, and they all look a like the chickens you are used to seeing.  The catch is that when John orders egg layers, the hatchery estimates that 90% of the chicks will be pullets, or female hens less than one year old, so there's always a small chance that a male will be hiding out amongst the females.  (One of the first things I learned is that it is very difficult to tell males from females until the chicks are many weeks old!)  Low and behold we ended up with two cockerels (young males) out of the ten!  So our original flock included 5 Rhode Island Reds (3 female pullets and 2 male cockerels), 3 Red Sexlinks, and 2 Buff Orpingtons.  We knew the Red Sexlinks were all female because their color is linked to their sex, hence Sexlinks.  With these, the males are one color and the females are another.  Here's a picture of what Red Sexlinks look like as chicks and adults:

Now, let me introduce you to some of the members of our original flock.  First, here is one of the Buff Orpingtons:

I like the Buffs okay, but they're not as social as the others.  They tend to wander off as loners, and they seem more nervous to me.  I might even go so far as to say that they seem ditsy, but for all I know they're the intelligent philosophical ones of the group, and they just like solitude . . .

Then there are the Rhode Island Reds.  These are the feistiest of the bunch, males and females alike.  The males are very pretty (as with all male bird species), and they are the leaders of the flock.  Here's the bigger of the two males:

The females will also grow a comb and waddle, so the appearance of both on the males was no guarantee they'd turn out to be cockerels/ roosters.  The giveaway, however, was the bit of metallic green on his tail.  Yes, it looks black for the most part, but in the right light, the green really shows up.

And finally, my favorites are the Red Sexlinks.  They are the most even-tempered and friendly, and they are always the first to eat out of our hands if we offer them food in such a way.  Of the three, John and I are a bit fond of the largest, which we call Mama.  At first her name was Crooked Toe because she had -- yup, a crooked toe.  As she's grown, it seems to have disappeared, and of the flock Mama is the wise old soul.  Here she is.

In the next post, I'll share the ten very interesting things I now know about chickens that I did not know before, and for the one after that, I'll introduce you to the new-just-today members of the flock! 

City Life

I made a quick trip to Seattle last week with my mom, and I couldn't help but notice the many things that are distinctly big city -- some of them I always enjoy and savor and others not so much.

There's something invigorating about watching a big city wake up, especially in the summer and even more so if it is a port city such as Seattle. On Thursday I left the hotel at about 6:45 a.m. to take a walk and find a bakery I had read about online. Store owners were out washing down the sidewalks in front of their stores; bakers were pulling the most amazing smelling items from their ovens, after having started hours earlier; joggers were out with their dogs; and in the market the stall owners were laying out their fresh fish and produce. Everything is relatively clean and quiet and the air feels full of energy.

I also love the dining options in big cities. My mom is unable to eat gluten (which is anything with wheat), and while many servers at restaurants in Billings are relatively unfamiliar with gluten, we ate at three different restaurants in Seattle that had alternative gluten-free menus.

But for all the great things about a big city and traveling in general, I was very happy to be back at home, too. And while the economy is driving more people in Billings to strategically place themselves on street corners asking for many, I don't think I've seen signs as, um, creative (?) as the ones in Seattle. One read, "I need money so I can poke smot." Another was slightly more offensive: "My girlfriend won't give me sex. Need money for 2 prostitutes." No kidding. The owner of the second seemed to think people would just give him a dollar because he had tried an original approach.

I don't love to travel because I live in Montana -- I live in Montana because I love to travel. (I also live here because doing so means that I get to see the rest of the world when I take a vacation; whereas when I was living in Minnesota, I spent my vacations in Montana.) This way, I always look forward to arriving at both destinations that bookend my excursions.

At the end of the day, however, one thing I really appreciate is space. Space between houses, space in the sky, and even "space" itself. I can't imagine growing up never getting to see the stars.

Okay, I'm off to mow some of that space. Everything has its trade offs.

John's Photos and My Movie

John took some amazing photos and video of the wolves last week, and his client, Mary Lynch, asked me to create a presentation of them for the Foundation's donors.

The Buffalo Wolves

Two years ago, John's fence company took on a fascinating fence job, and they were hired by the same customer this summer.  I went with him last week to unload some materials at the site, and I had not had a really good look at the project for a long time so asked if I could look around while he continued to work.  What I saw was so fun that I asked him if I could blog about it as long as I wasn't very specific about the customer or the project.  Normally the work his company does isn't as "sensitive," but when you're building 10 foot fences around enclosures of thousands of square feet, you know you're keeping in or keeping out something pretty special, and there are few things in this area that are more controversial than wolves.  Therefore, while the location of the job isn't necessarily a secret, we're pretty careful to be very discreet about it.  That said, everything about the organization that is responsible for the wolves (the E.H. McCleery Buffalo Wolf Foundation) is above board.  All of the pertinent entities are aware of the Foundation's work, and the wolves are in impressive enclosures.

The first time John's company built fence for the Foundation, they started from scratch because the wolves were to be moved from their previous home in the Gallatin Forest to their current home in Carbon County.   The preservation of these particular wolves was begun by Dr. E.H. McCleery about 100 years ago.  Originally an engineer, Dr. McCleery became a physician after traveling to the west and realizing that there was a need for medical doctors in this part of the country.  However, a horrific experience he had watching a "wolf bait" changed his life.  He returned to his native state of Pennsylvania and began paying trappers for live wolves they captured in the west so that he could save them.  As Dr. McCleery's health began to decline, the work he had begun was taken over by a man named Jack Lynch.  Jack moved the wolves to Washington where he continued to care for them, but he eventually left Washington (in part because the rainy weather was hard on the wolves) and moved them to Montana.  While in Washington he met, and eventually married, a woman named Mary Webber.  Once Jack died, Mary took over care of the wolves on her own, and Mary is the customer with whom John now works.

So, enough background.  I'm going to include some photos John and I took last week, a video shot by Mary's grandson that he's posted on Youtube, and another link to a really informative article about the work of Dr. McCleery and Jack Lynch that appeared in a 1979 Sports Illustrated article, of all places. 

Currently, the wolves live in 6 self-contained pens, and John's business partner Shane is building more this summer.  And what made my time watching the wolves the most fun was that the pen I was closest to contains 5 pups born this spring.  I believe these are the first to be born since the wolves were moved to their current location two years ago.

Here are photos John and I took:

This is the load of 10 foot wire John picked up in Billings and we delivered to the job site.

In addition to building the pens, Shane and his crew are also digging dens for the wolves.  This is one of the dens before they have built the top of it to create a dark, cool place for the wolves to escape to.

One of the adults -- I'm not sure if it's a male or female.

3 of the pups!

Here is Mary's grandson's video, which he filmed about a year ago.  The side of it gets cut off by the format of the blog, but you're still able to see everything.




Finally, here's a link to the Sports Illustrated article about the beginnings of the Foundation's work.  It's a lengthy article but very informative.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1126278/5/index.htm

Yikes!

I always make this crazy assumption that when school gets out for the summer I'll have more time and will get more things done.  That's true to some extent, but then again I'm always trying to do more things -- so it's been awhile and now I have a lot to catch up on.  I'll try my best to spread out the posts a little bit and to keep them relatively short.

So, where to start?  Every summer for the last three years, I have helped butcher chickens at our friends, the Matheses.  The first year I was somewhat volunteered by John because I'd told him I wanted to spend some time on their ranch helping out and learning.  I was thinking "helping out with and learning about cattle," but it ended up chickens.  Oh well.  I figured I could be a good sport.

I know a number of you grew up around chickens and may even have had to help butcher them, and while there's only so much that can be done to make such a task less unpleasant, George and MaryAnn have a great operation.  I must admit that I've never held the chicken or the knife at that most critical of moments, but I have carried chickens to the first staging area and then learned how to cut off their feet afterward.  And I won't get any more graphic than that.  Promise.

From what I hear, the thing that makes the job so much easier at the Mathes place is their magic finger chicken feather plucker (my name for it, not theirs).  My primary job is scrubbing the birds with hot, soapy water and removing the pin feathers; however, there are not many feathers at all once they get to me because of the magic fingers.  I wish I'd taken a picture of it, but I only have these:

I suppose it sounds odd, but there's something really satisfying about grabbing something small with a pair of tweezers and getting it out, whether it's a sliver, a feather, or a hair. 

I won't go into lecture mode because we eat a wide variety of processed foods at our house,  we eat fruits and veggies that have been shipped thousands of miles, and we buy a fair amount of chicken that I'm sure was once processed at a Tyson chicken plant, but I urge your to spend a little time thinking about where (and what) your food comes from.  The movie Food Inc. is one of my favorite documentaries because it explains some of the challenges facing us if we want to be eco-conscious about our food choices without terrorizing its audience with gratuitous images from kill plants and chicken farms.  (There are a few, but they're really not that bothersome.)

We do make a conscious effort to buy local products when possible: we eat a lot of pork, and John generously buys the pig we eat at the Carbon County Fair's 4-H and FFA sale; I buy tomatoes from the Special K Ranch, a local residency ranch for adults with developmental disabilities (http://www.specialkranch.org/); we drink milk and eat sour cream from a Montana dairy (http://www.countryclassic.com/); our flour comes from Wheat Montana (http://www.wheatmontana.com/).  We also buy almost all of our food from the IGA in Laurel and the little grocery in Joliet in order to support and sustain small, local businesses.  Sure, local products from local stores cost more, but every extra penny keeps such services available and supports our neighbors and friends.  And if you'd like a humanely butchered free range chicken that lived a pretty perfect life, I have one to give you that I scrubbed and plucked myself. 

Warm Wind

"Life is always a rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch," states the narrator of E.B. White's Charlotte's Web.  Indeed, this is my favorite time of year as spring begins to swell to its fullest.  Nearly everything has been born and has hatched at this point, but I'm still enjoying every moment.  School is not yet out for the summer, so I still have every last minute of that delectable freedom ahead of me.
For the importance of this "almost there" moment, I have to quote A.A. Milne who wrote, “'Well,' said Pooh, 'what I like best -- ' and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.”  I try always to be celebrating and savoring this "moment just before."

I'd spent the weekend planning what I would write about the chicks John brought home yesterday and promptly settled into my "barn," if a building smaller than my small living room can be called a barn.  (I plan for it to be the calving shed next spring when Daisy gives birth to her first little one.)  However, I've yet to take a picture of the chicks, and I'm not exactly besotted with smelly critters that look more like chickens than chicks and have very few redeeming qualities at the moment.  So that's how I find myself preparing to write about something that would make nearly everyone else squirm: Charlotte's babies.  (Okay, I just called her Charlotte all last summer.  She didn't do anything as valiant as save an adorable pig's life, but she did keep me company on the porch -- and she was impressive.  Small house spiders may earn their right to stay alive, but only the largest most unusual outdoor spiders earn the right to be called Charlotte.)  I spent a fair amount of time on the internet trying to identify the particular type of spider Charlotte was, but I never found anything that adequately fit her description.  Regardless, she produced an egg sac by summer's end, just like that of her namesake.  I kept an eye on it all winter, and was amazed to find it looking very different one day this spring.  However, there were still no babies.  The first picture is how the egg sac has looked since it changed for the first time.

I would guess nothing else changed for at least 4 weeks, and then last week, suddenly, hundreds of babies. 

"Charlotte's babies were here at least," White writes.  I remember very clearly that in the novel the babies floated away on a warm wind.  Today's wind wasn't warm since we're expecting a storm that is supposed to bring snow to higher elevations, but there has been a wind nonetheless.  After spending over seven hours working in the yard and doing chores, I settled on the porch earlier this evening to finish reading Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea.  As I have for the last few days, I glanced up to check on the babies.  Much of the group that had ventured the farthest away from the nest were descended from the porch roof on a long strand that floated in the breeze.  At one point I took a break from reading to look at the cat pen John has spent the day building, and when I returned, the long strand had disappeared.  The first of the babies had sailed away.

Only I would be sitting here with tears flowing down my cheeks as I read the final pages of Charlotte's Web.  I feel like Wilbur who felt "it was the best place to be [. . .] this warm delicious cellar, with the garrulous geese, the changing seasons, the heat of the sun, the passage of swallows, the nearness of rats, the sameness of sheep, the love of spiders, the smell of manure, and the glory of everything."

I recently read an article about the best first lines of novels.  One of the those included was from Charlotte's Web:

"'Where's Papa going with that ax?' said Fern to her mother as they were
setting the table for breakfast."

The last line is a great one, too:

"It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both."

As I finish this post, I could wax poetic about how Daisy, like Wilbur, was also saved from an "untimely death."  She probably doesn't have a Charlotte to thank, but I, like Fern, now have my own young one to care for as a result, and as Fern described Wilbur, I must also say that Daisy's "absolutely perfect."

Not again . . .

I had just finished my last post and decided to head outside to check on Daisy . . . 

See, we've been having a little problem with her getting out.  The first time was a couple of weeks ago.  I wasn't at home, but John was sitting on the couch watching TV and suddenly saw her running through the front of the other yard.  (We have two houses and two yards in case you're not familiar with the layout of our property.  Daisy lives in the back of the other yard.)  She'd pushed through the fence right where it ended at the far corner of the other house.  John solved the problem by rigging up a 6 foot steel post and some rope.  However, night before last I'd gone with him to deliver a ton of feed to some friends.  We were gone no more than an hour and a half and returned to find the front gate on "our" side chained shut, which it normally isn't.  Daisy had gotten out again and had made her way down our driveway to the open gate -- I know this because I could see her hoof prints!  Fortunately, some unknown but very kind stranger seems to have gotten her back in and then shut the gate.  This is one of the many ways people help each other out in the country, and while we would have done the some for others, I feel extremely indebted to whomever it was.

We escorted her back to her designated territory, and while I'm not 100% certain, I don't think we had any trouble with her getting out yesterday.  The reason I can't remember for certain, however, is that she's gotten out at least 4 times today.  The first time, I was laying in bed this morning when I heard a very distinct "Moo!" right outside the bedroom window.  I was prepared for what I'd find when I looked out, but she was a bit surprised that there I was hollering at her.  A bit perturbed, I got up to survey the damage (same fence, same spot) and put Daisy back on her side.  But first, when I got out to the driveway, she stood looking at me with an expression that said, "Well, it's about time!  Where have you been?"  I walked next door and she followed right behind.  After feeding her, I gathered up every last steel post stashed around both yards.  We had five posts on our side, and there were six more next door.  That should have been plenty to reinforce 30 feet of fence, right?  I left the posts for the time being and had a bit of a chat with my fence guy. 

Daisy stayed put until just after lunch.  John took a break from his work, and to reinforce the weaker garden posts in the area where she'd been knocking down and walking across the fence, we installed 6 of the heavy steel posts.

That lasted until mid-afternoon.  Because John has been working hard all day to get a gate built, the only thing I could do was put her back again and shut the front gate just in case.

He ran to Laurel at 4:45 for parts and some groceries.  When he got back, she'd gotten out again.  We installed the remaining five posts -- so that's 11 steel posts plus the weakling garden posts plus those on both ends of the 30 foot stretch.  By then, John was pretty pissed off, Daisy looked triumphant, and I was a little worried about both of them.

I came inside, wrote the last post, and walked out to check on her.  There she was, standing in the front, in the driveway, and in trouble.  She'd jumped a section about 4 feet wide and had to have cleared 3.5 feet of the fence to get over it. 

I'm quite certain that as of this time tomorrow, she will be very familiar with electricity as John is planning to put up electric fence to keep her in.   Hopefully he only has to install it in the one spot, but as I'm learning, fences are mere deterrents for cattle and not really barriers.  As long as Daisy doesn't figure that out about the rest of the yard, we might all continue to get along.  For her sake, however, she better start to believe that if she wants to continue to be a good neighbor she won't mess with good fences.

I Got Milk!

In terms of new experiences, last weekend was amazing because I learned how to milk a cow.  She was a mama whose calf had been born in the last 24-36 hours but had thus far been unable to suck.  I'm not sure which problem came first but she had particularly large teats that he was not able to fit into his baby mouth.  John made it sound as though her milk had dropped too suddenly and the calf hadn't been able to keep up with the amount she was producing.  We had to milk her by hand in order to relieve some of the swelling factor, and then we tried to get the baby to latch on but didn't have any luck.  In the end, we tube fed him some of the milk we had gotten from his mom so that at least she'd get some relief and he'd get some much needed food.

I've been thinking all week how to describe the sensation of milking a cow, and the closest thing I can compare it to working with a frosting/pastry bag.  I had to reach to the top of the teat and trap milk below the ring created by my thumb and and index finger and then squeeze it down as though moving icing to the tip of the pastry bag.  Once I got the hang of it, it was not that difficult to get milk; however, I got tired very quickly.  And while I couldn't get the correct angle with my right hand at all, the angle of my left hand meant the milk hit my hand on its way out and went everywhere.  Strange though it may sound, I do smile just thinking about the experience.  I think part of my sense of accomplishment goes back to a time I was at the fair in Billings and had the opportunity to milk a goat.  I was probably 8 or 9 and was too scared to try (and perhaps fail?), so I turned down the opportunity only to immediately regret it.  I don't know that I ever got over wanting to have a second chance.

Getting Shots

I've long heard the stories of how painful it is for parents to have to hold their babies while doctors and nurses poke them with needles, so I certainly can't really complain about what it was like to watch Daisy Mae get a shot of vaccine -- but I also had no idea it would be such an ordeal.  I naively assumed that cattle had tough, thick hides, and since Sydney (my dog) doesn't react much, if at all, to needles, that Daisy wouldn't notice either.  However, as John pointed out, Sydney's not that difficult to hold at 40 pounds.  I also realized that tough, thick skin doesn't necessarily mean less sensitive and may in fact mean more difficult to puncture.

Long story short, Daisy's fine, and she got the shot that will keep her healthy once she gets pregnant.  We should have tied her up before even trying the first time, but after John fed her halter through the bumper of one of his old pick-ups, it made everything a lot easier.  And with the exception of the oxidized auto paint she rubbed onto her face, Daisy survived without much of a mark.  She's now one step closer to being ready for motherhood.

10 Things I've Learned

10.  Cattle have an olfactory organ on the roofs of their mouths.  When they want to smell something, they use their noses, but they can also tip their heads in the air with their mouth slightly open.
9.  Black is the dominant gene color in Angus; red is recessive.
8.  The large flap of skin that starts at the lower neck is where brisket comes from.
7.  The estrus cycle of a cow is 21 days on average.  Gestation is 9 months.
6.  One cow produces an impressive amount of manure!
5.  A heifer needs to gain 1.5 pounds per day to weight enough to breed as a yearling.
4.  Cattle have no top incisors (front teeth), just a hard dental pad -- and it IS hard.
3.  You need to be choosy about your bulls because they can spread STDs.  Do you know whom your bull's been with?
2.  Bucket calves like Daisy have potbellies.
1.  As my Raising Beef Cattle book says, "It's bovine nature to be bossy and pushy, " and Daisy better learn that I'm "top cow."

Keeping Busy

I can't believe I've had Daisy for over a week and I've only posted once about her, especially since there have certainly been things I could write about.  The first week back to school with a new set of chores to do went fairly smoothly.  Most days, I waited to get dressed until right before leaving because I've discovered that I get very dirty very easily when I feed and water Daisy.  Sometimes it's the mud, but usually it's when she hopes I have more food hidden somewhere, and she apparently thinks that somewhere is on my person.  Cattle are slobbery creatures!

I feed her in the morning -- about 4 pounds of cake, creep, and corn -- and again when I get home from school.  The after school feedings are a little more varied.  One day I bought apples for myself at the store, but they were both really mealy and nasty -- so I fed them to Daisy.  As I wrote in an email to my mom, she acted as though I'd given her crack and she was hooked the first time.  In my reading I've also discovered that cattle will eat potatoes and if there's anything we have a lot of it's spuds, so I fed her a potato one day.  Mostly, however, I just give her about half the ration of feed that I give her in the morning.

I also check her water twice a day, which wouldn't be as necessary to do if she didn't dump it as often.  I don't know if she likes to play with the giant-sized blue bucket or if she tips it over when she scratches her head on the edge, but half the time I find it somewhere across the yard.  Eventually I think we'll be tying it down, but John's the one who knows what to do with that.  I'm just the student.

Welcome Daisy Mae!

We don't have a horse trailer, so when John pulled in with one tonight I wasn't sure what to think. There wasn't a horse in it, but there was a beautiful black critter. John bought me a heifer yearling for my birthday! I think her name is going to be Daisy Mae, but I'm still feeling it out. Regardless, I love her!

Long in the Tooth

I learned last night that horses have to have their teeth "floated." (I think I was picturing denture-like choppers floating in a tub of water when I first heard it.) Apparently, their teeth continue to grow, unlike our own, and they become sharp over years of chewing, and sharp teeth don't allow for a proper grinding motion. Instead, a horse will try to grab hay, for example, and will be unable to properly grasp and chew it. From the pictures I've seen, it appears as though their teeth may become a bit misaligned, too, and floating them balances everything out again. I'm assured that the horse doesn't exactly love the experience, but that while it may be unpleasant it isn't painful. (Those of us who grind our teeth probably have a pretty good sense of what it feels like.) Hopefully I will get the opportunity to observe the process at some point.

Patty

My last posting was about a calf whose defects at birth meant that he didn't live long. I've also "met" one who owes her life to a bit of luck and timing. Patty (as in hamburger patty I'm told) is a Holstein whose mom was on her way to a "kill plant," which is exactly what it sounds like. I have no idea of the details, but just before Patty's mom was loaded on the truck, she gave birth. Fortunately, the truck driver passed her along to our friends who are willing to raise her. I'm not sure what her ultimate destiny will be, but it's been fun to watch her in the meantime.

While Patty may have been on her own in the world, she seems to have a fair amount going for her. First of all, she's rather cute, and I love it when John calls her the "magpie," which I'm assuming is a little bit of slang for the black and white look of a Holstein. While our neighbors were doing their part to keep her fed, she's now got an adopted mom. Another calf had been born, but he had particularly debilitating defects, and I'm not even positive if he was born alive. His bad fortune led to an opportunity for Patty. Now, if ranchers need to make a mom accept a new calf, they have a couple of options. They can put a chemical smelling substance on the back of the calf that prevents the mom from determining that it's not her own. However, the preferred alternative is to be able to dress the calf in the dead calf's hide. I've asked John a few questions about the process, as I always do, and he patiently explained it to me. Usually, the dead calf is skinned immediately, and he says that if it is done correctly, it is virtually bloodless. I also asked how they keep the hide on the animal that inherits it -- because I can't imagine that it is a feeling it thoroughly enjoys. But I am fascinated to know that the rancher cuts holes in the hide, as necessary, and puts it on the new calf the way you'd put a sweater on a dog. (It can also be tied on with twine I guess.)

We saw Patty with her new mom this morning, and her mom seems to have no idea that the calf she gave birth to is not the magpie she's now protecting and feeding, so everyone's happy.

The Babies

I love this time of year because while it means that spring is on its way, it also means that the babies have started to arrive. And there's something incredibly rewarding for me when I see very young calves. I have seen one born, but only one. And as often as it happens all around me, it seems to be an elusive experience for me every year.

Last weekend, John and I stopped by our friends' place just down the way, and they've been in the midst of calving for a few weeks. While they have a number of healthy calves, they also had two who were in need of a little assistance. One has since died, and from what I saw and heard of him, he is better off now. They're not sure what was wrong with him, but when he was born he was unable to suck. As a result, our friends would hand milk his mom and tube feed him. He even spent two nights sleeping in their house because of particularly cold nights. For awhile he was doing better; however, he eventually started having seizures, and we learned this morning that he'd died. Like human babies, bovine babies don't always make it.

Dear Friends

Recently, friends of ours had to put down one of their horses. The good news is that Brandy had lived a long, happy life. I'm not sure exactly how old she was, but she was very close to 30 years in age. And it was one of those deals where she was loved so much that she may have lived a bit longer than she should have. But for those of us who know how difficult it is to make that decision, we can completely understand how a bit of selfishness creeps into the equation.

Thirty years allows for a lot of bonding. Brandy was just a bit younger than the two children she grew up with, and they're now in their late 30s. She was fortunate enough to know four generations worth of family, and the youngest is probably just old enough to understand why the horse he's grown up riding was ready to move on to a different existence.

There aren't really many options when it comes to putting down a horse. They're not like dogs and cats -- you can't take them to the vet and the privacy of an exam room. And they're a little more difficult to dispose of, for lack of a better way to put it. Horses weigh an average of 1,000 pounds, and while one could call a vet to euthanize an animal, that incurs expenses that to many would seem relatively unnecessary. The alternative, however, means that someone in the family has to be the one to end the animal's suffering. And this alternative also means that the family is left with the carcass. I have most often heard about families finding a backhoe to dig an appropriately sized hole, but that only works when the ground isn't frozen. If a horse needs to be put down in the winter, the animal is most likely left in the hands of nature. (And as hard as it is for me to think about it, such an ending isn't all that bad when I think about a final resting place in the peace of the hills.) That said, I've also heard about difficult decisions that need to be made if people are traveling with a horse that becomes critically injured in the backcountry, too. You're not allowed to leave a dead animal in a national forest, but as you can imagine, it's not exactly easy to haul it out either . . .

Either way, I can only imagine how agonizing it was to put Brandy down, but I can also say that she lived in a beautiful place all of her life and she was well-loved. And can any of us really ask for much more?

Sheering Sheep

Here it is -- Saturday morning. The neighbor called to see if I wanted to experience the sheering of his in-laws' sheep. While I should stay home correcting student assignments, I can't turn down an opportunity to learn more about the lives of those around me. And calving starts for them tomorrow, so hopefully the next few weekend will also be interrupted by the activities that are always happening around me but that have rarely been something I was conscious of. Do you know where the wool came from to make the sweater you're wearing?

Dead Deer

Thursday morning I headed out into the falling snow for my daily drive to work. The highway wasn't particularly icy, visibility was good, and I was ahead of schedule. I even reflected on how much I like my drive, how much I actually like snow -- for the most part, and how I appreciate when the counselor who works next door to my classroom checks on me whenever the roads are bad. Those exact thoughts, however, were definitely interrupted when I noticed that the vehicle in front of me had started to slow and shift onto the shoulder of the road. For a brief moment I assumed the driver was merely turning off the highway, though before the thought completed itself, the vehicle spun across the other line and ended up facing 180 degrees in the opposite direction as it came to rest in the borough pit. I hit my own brakes and felt the tires slide. I had plenty of room to stop and was able to slow way down without any trouble. As I approached the place where the vehicle had gone off the road, I watched the large ball of creamy-colored fluff blow under the front of my car. Then, I saw the cause of the accident. The driver hadn't been trying to turn; he had been trying to slow down before crashing into the deer. Neither had gotten lucky, and fortunately the deer had gotten the worse of the meeting.
By the time I was able to park, the driver had gotten out of his own car, and another traveler had stopped as well. The vehicle was apparently inoperable (since it was still there when I returned home that night), but the driver was fine -- he had a cell phone and it was warm enough that he could just wait in the car until someone arrived to help him.

I had glanced at the deer as I walked by it after parking. I think of it as a female, though I'm thinking it was a young male. She would have died instantly, and I as I inspected her more closely, I realized my surprise that the small intestine spilling out onto the highway was brown. Apparently I expected it to have been pink or red. The driver easily, and thoughtfully, dragged her off into the grass, which would keep other drivers safer and would also make it less deadly for birds of prey to turn the carcass into something useful.

Dead Coyote

I tease my neighbors that the coyotes who hang out on their property and get way too close to comfort are just figments of their imagination -- because I'd never seen one despite a number of early morning Sunday walks spent looking for them. Though in truth, I hear the coyotes calling to each other at night. I've seen the paw prints. And I definitely trust that coyotes are as conniving and bloodthirsty as I've been told. While not a violent person who definitely has no desire to hunt for her food anytime soon, the mere thought of a coyote threatening my dog or ripping into a helpless, still-wet-from-the-womb calf convinces me that even I could probably shoot to kill. So when John told me to stop by the neighbors' on my way home to peak in the bed of the pick-up, I had a pretty good idea of what I would see. And there she was -- gorgeous fluffy tail, long sharp canine teeth/fangs, and padded feet just like any neighborhood dog's. I noticed the blood and the pattern it made as it dripped onto the fresh snow below. I could clearly see the bullet hole where a nonfatal shot had shattered her ankle. She had a fairly gaping hold in her lower abdomen -- from a gun shot? a quick exploration to determine if she'd been pregnant? Her eyes were still glossy, but they were losing their luster. Her tongue was lolling towards the ground, though it was rigid. She'd been shot from one of the bedroom windows. Such was the price of getting too close for comfort.