It Must be March

It’s raining calves here on the ranch. Mark has a running tally and tags the newcomers when they are one day old. 

The cows expecting their first or second calf are in one field, the veteran mothers in another. Mark keeps a close watch on the heifers, the neophytes, but lets them all calve on their own for the most part. He walks a thin line, letting them do what nature has equipped them so well for, and also being around should they need assistance. If there’s a problem, it’s most likely a mal-presentation, a leg back, head down, etc. In these cases we fetch a horse and walk the cow into a nearby corral and haul her to the barn for help.

We have two sets of twins so far. They come at the front end of calving season, arriving early like human twins will. The cow is okay nursing two for a while until they get too big, then we’ll steal one to graft on another cow that loses a calf as the season progresses. We keep the twins and their moms in the corral so they get extra feed. In closer quarters away from the larger herd it’s also easier for them to keep track of each other.

Jesse and I arrived with two trucks to the feed ground today and found Mark with a grin on his face. He had been out checking cows on his 4-wheeler. “Guess what I saw this morning?” I thought he was going to tell us about a coyote or eagle scavenging on the calving ground. Instead he told us that while making his early rounds, and while the frost was settled all across the sagebrush to the east, and there wasn't a cow in sight . . . all of a sudden a shaft of steam burst upwards out of the brush. A new life! He had caught that cool moment from a totally different visual vantage point - when the calf slips from the birth canal surrounded with warm amniotic fluid and breathes its first breath.

It's happening on and off all day and night for a while. A mini-drama in a world of cows.

The mother of the twins, not so sure about entering the barn

getting used to two

this one is taking too long and might need help

The Capitol of Light

I was feeling discombobulated on Sunday morning. It was hard to come home from a weeklong visit to our state capitol and find myself on the back of a feed truck in a piercing wind. But now it’s Tuesday and I’m back in the swing of things.  

We’ve been to the capitol building several times over the years. When the kids were little they loved climbing up and down the great marble stairways and standing in the rotunda, looking down over the railing to the bottom floor and up, up, to the tip-top of the dome. But this visit was special. As a member of this year’s class of Leadership Idaho Agriculture I got to tour the capitol in a somewhat official capacity.

We attended meetings of both the House and the Senate Agriculture Committees and visited the offices of the State Controller and the Attorney General. We walked around the Senate Chambers and the floor of the House. Our guide, Dorita, is on a first name basis with all the dignitaries including the chairs of the most powerful committee in the legislature, the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee (JFAC). Our timing was perfect as we arrived just as JFAC was adjourning, so we were able to have some time with the co-chairs, Representative Bell and Senator Cameron, before they hurried to their next engagement. They explained the challenges of setting the state budget and said that since Idaho is a balanced budget state the legislators can’t go home until the debits and credits line up.

The capitol was constructed in 1905 and due for an update in 1998 when the legislature approved a massive renovation/restoration effort. The building was restored inside and out and two new wings were constructed underground to the east and west. This allowed the existing footprint to stay the same. The only above ground structures visible over the hidden wings are the string of skylights modeling those of the original building. Because of the many skylights, a favorite of architect John Tourtellotte who along with Charles Hummel created the original design, the capitol is filled with light. It bounces around the white marble and shows off the deep mahogany accents.

Tourtellotte’s skylights were intentional, not only to illuminate the inner beauty of the building, but as a template for governance. His words ring true today, a hundred years after his work was realized: ”the great white light of conscience must be allowed to shine and . . . make clear the path of duty. . .”

It Depends

I welcomed the red wing blackbirds back this week. I always think that “chortle” describes the sound they make, but I wondered if I had made that word up so I looked for it in a real old fashioned dictionary. Yup, it’s a word. It means “gleeful chuckling.” I took a photo of one of the newcomers sitting on a power line for this blog because one can appreciate only so many photos of cows eating hay. You can almost see the blackbird in the photo.

It was beautiful this morning. It has been in the 50’s and 60’s for days. Good grief. I want more winter. Our farm depends on in-flows to the river between the reservoir in the upper reaches and our valley home, so we need snowpack that feeds the soil profile throughout the spring. I look towards the mountains and see the snow receding before my eyes and I’m concerned. I can’t be like the town folk I see out rollerblading and celebrating the warm weather. It’s a burden sometimes to live off the land. 

I travel to my last week of Leadership Idaho Agriculture tomorrow. We spend time at the state capitol in Boise and meet our hard working legislators. I'm part of a panel doing a mock presentation in favor of labeling genetically modified organisms, GMO’s. I’ve been researching and the topic is huge.

So are you for or against them, GMO’s I mean? For me the answer is a resounding – it depends. It’s like home schooling, divorce, couples living together before marriage, and on and on - life actually. Tell me HOW you do it. Then I’ll tell you if I agree or not.

Of course the technology is here to stay. I think it holds vast potential to help this planet address what it faces in the future – drought, hunger, depleted soils, etc. Examples like the new Innate potato from Simplot, that through the addition of DNA from a wild potato makes it possible to turn off the tendency to bruise in transport or to go brown when cut, seem pretty benign to me.

But then we go to herbicide resistant crops which make up the bulk of genetically modified organisms and I become skeptical. Okay fine plant them, but good soil management practices and biodiversity should be our first priority, not year after year of spraying Round-up and now 2,4-D and Dicamba because our crops can now withstand it 

Then in my research I read about cloned holstein dairy cows in China and Argentina. Scientists have added human DNA and created cows that produce milk which is 80% the equivalent of human breast milk. That makes me squirm. Somewhere we need to stop, don’t we? Can anyone hear it but me? The screaming for common sense? You can’t replace mom with a GM cow? Ack!  

my gmo-free morning walk 

Wild about "Wild"

It was 63 degrees today - balmy for February. I have a certain dread about it. But hey, it’s wet right now so best not to buy trouble. On this date last year there was a bitter wind, snow cover, and it was 3 degrees below zero.

The meadowlarks are singing. Well, one anyway. Yesterday I couldn’t be sure of what I heard, but today on the feed ground the calls were unmistakable. We know these fine fellows can winter here, as we’ve seen groups of them flitting about the stackyard as we’re going back and forth feeding cows. But it is only when spring threatens that they go off by themselves and sing the melody we all know by heart.   

We had such fun last night watching public TV’s, Earth a New Wild. Wow, finally a show about the natural world that wasn’t a doomsday prediction. The show takes us from the Maasai in Kenya and a bat community in Austin, Texas, to black footed ferrets in South Dakota and the odd looking saiga antelope of Russia. The show celebrates man and his place within nature - as an active and caring participant.

We learned about the cherished cows of India, and that when they succumb to natural causes, their carcasses are moved to the outskirts of the city and left to decay. Their remains, once picked sanitizingly clean by hordes of vultures, are now rotting slowly, a putrid sight attracting feral dogs because the vultures are gone. Turns out they died from medicine given to the cows which left residuals in the meat. Once the medicine was banned, and with the help of man, the vultures are returning.

Another story profiled the reindeer of Norway and the hardy people that depend on them for their livelihood. Grazing keeps the tundra alive as the reindeer dig for lichen through the snow. Man assists by castrating some of the males. These males remain vigorous throughout the tough winters since they don’t expend energy on mating. They “break trail” through the ice to get at the lichen making way for the weaker animals of the herd to find food.

The second hour of the film concentrated on The Plains. And three (count’em three!) of the examples showed cows playing an important role in improving and maintaining landscapes that benefit wildlife. The host, Dr. M. Sanjayan, a conservation ecologist, admitted that he had been wrong in the past thinking that cattle and abundant wildlife could not exist in the same space.

I know of course that modern American ranching has its drawbacks. On our ranch we don’t herd cattle like the Maasai or keep our animals bunched like the Montana rancher profiled in the movie. Still, we keep learning, working on shortening the grazing period while lengthening the recovery period as much as we can within the constraints we find ourselves in.   

Our favorite story of the movie was about our hero, Allan Savory, from Zimbabwe, who founded the principles of Holistic Management and introduced the world to planned grazing whereby the needs of the “whole” are tended. Allan is shown in his homeland walking barefoot beside an elephant. He describes the need for more cattle, not less, if we want to reverse biodiversity loss and reinvigorate the brittle grasslands of the world. The key is managing those cattle.

It makes me happy to see an ecologist celebrate Savory’s work. Dr. Sanjayan, upon his visit to the Zimbabwean ranch which is populated with cows and wildlife, called the results, "spectacular.”

The show will continue on February 11. It and any repeat of the first episode should be required viewing, a place to start a conversation without arrows, but with hope.  

putting away some not so wild escapees

  

Visitors from Down Under

We’ve had fog every morning lately and the road has been super slick. I've been sneaking my way to ranch headquarters on foot until today when I thought to strap on the Yaktrax traction grabbers that Anna gave me for Christmas. Voilà! 

We’ve had an affinity for Australia since the Johnston family from New South Wales came to the ranch in 2006. They stayed for 9 months to let their property recover from a stubborn drought. We so enjoyed our time with them and have kept track of them over the years. Because of that, we were especially happy to meet visitors from Queensland that showed up on our doorstep last week.

We knew that Clyde, Anna’s border collie, had sired not one but two puppies who had found their way to Australia with a woman who showed agility dogs. What a long way for a cattle herding dog from Idaho! But we never expected to meet the owners, Brent and Francisca, who while traveling in the U.S. to pick up another dog, decided to come through Idaho to meet Clyde and visit the ranch. Mark's mom Anita, who breeds border collies and had given Anna her puppy Clyde, had been in contact with Francisca through Facebook and arranged for the meeting.

We met in town and had a lovely supper. While we visited, Francisca determined that feeding cows sounded fun. We assured her she was welcome to tag along and arranged to meet them at the ranch first thing next morning. When Francisca stepped out of their car dressed in a stylish head-to-toe black outfit, complete with leather, fur cuffed gloves, I was skeptical. She was a trooper though and cheerfully stepped into an old pair of coveralls and feeding-friendly gloves.

They met Clyde, who was awfully excited to meet someone who was awfully excited to meet him in return! They told us his offspring, Tessa and Boomer, were smaller but similar in several ways to our large, friendly Clyde.

We ferried two trucks over to the main cow herd and Francisca helped Jesse and I feed the large ton bales while Brent took photos. Quite a change from their home in the subtropics just 15 minutes from the beach.

We have visitors to the ranch from time to time and it’s always interesting to get their perspective on our way of life. Some folks aren't too keen on the whole dirty affair, but Francisca . . . well . . . as she put it as we were standing on the feed truck, “I'm in heaven!”

Continuing Ed

I feel very differently about this time of year than I did when I was a kid. In grade school we wore dresses every day and walking to the school bus up our long lane was a chilly affair. I wore knee socks because I hated tights and I refused to wear a hat. Brrrrrrrr! January and February drug by, the dates ever-so-slowly changing in the upper left hand corner of Mrs. Whitworth’s chalkboard. Spring seemed forever away.

Now I relish every day of January and February. It’s not that I don’t like calving and the start of a new production year; I’m just in no hurry. I like all these hours of darkness, cozied up with a book in front of the woodstove or tackling a project at the computer. It’s the only time of year we have that most precious of commodities – time.

As I write, Mark is cleaning another saddle, his fourth so far this winter. He set a wooden saddle rack on an old flannel sheet in front of the woodstove where he works. Tonight he’s listening to Buck Owens, Reba McEntire, Alan Jackson . . . I think he enjoys it – the results of it anyway, for sure. 

He and his new Border Collie, Nan, attended a two day dog training clinic with master handler Jack Knox, of Butler, Missouri, formerly of Scotland. I watched for a few hours marveling at the spectacle. Jack stands in a ring with three plump sheep. One by one the tentative owners lead their dogs into the ring, then Jack takes over. Attached to their owner they might be, but Jack is in immediate control. He alternately urges the dog on to pressure the sheep, and firmly gives his “lie down” to slow the dog’s pace. Within four lessons he has every dog much more focused, settled a bit, and willing to work.

He admonishes his students, “give your dog the freedom to make mistakes. Correct the wrong and the right will happen.”  He says dogs are just like children, they learn when they make mistakes and they need lots of room to make plenty of them.

We’ve been lucky to learn from some of the greats in the many varied fields that ranching encompasses, cattle handling, horsemanship, soil health, grass management, even economic analysis. I’m ever thankful for a partner in Mark that shares my love of lifelong education. Let’s see, what learning opportunity is next?  

Jack helping Anita's Rob get it right

a mild January morning

Wrapping up 2014

It’s been hovering around ten degrees below zero every morning for a few days. The cows need fed regardless of the weather and especially so in severe conditions. Mark is finding out the downside of the new used diesel truck we bought which is not wanting to start. The old '73 International and the '77 Ford fired up just fine though! I’ll even forgive the passenger door on the Ford that won’t open from the outside. Actually reaching across the seat to open the door for the feeder person is second nature. 

Callie made her way back to New York City, catching a plane at 5:40 am on New Year’s day. This followed a celebration the night before at her grandpa’s dance barn. I imagine she had quite a culture shock when she arrived back at La Guardia Airport. It was 48 degrees there on the east coast which only scratches the surface of the differences between the two places.

Gary’s dance barn, an old milking facility with a hardwood floor in the free stall area and a bar in the milking parlor, usually hosts a New Year’s Eve party. The dance was a good one this year because of all the young adults that showed up. Someone said dancing is a time honored “safe” way for males and females to come together. There wasn’t much mixing though until our kids got them involved in the Virginia Reel, an old folk dance where the boys line up on one side and the girls on the other. After much do-se-doing and sashaying and “swing your partner” they got mixed up right good.

There were lots of little kids too, young enough to dance freely without all those annoying insecurities that emerge at about 11 years old. We don’t dance enough in our world. Mark’s grandma and grandpa as young marrieds danced every week at one venue or another, changing partners throughout the evening. And you didn’t go home early just because you had little kids. Grandma Bonny says the kids would play until they fell asleep on benches along the edge of the dance floor. And if you ask me, that is much healthier than insisting they go home at 9:00 pm because “it’s their bedtime.”

My favorite part of any dance is watching my family out on the floor together. Seth is good to dance with his sisters and Mark can still cut a rug with Callie and Anna at the western swing. They don’t get dizzy like I do! 

a new year dawns