Karbon Kounty Moos

Times change. Things change. Life happens. Hopefully, we grow.

I am very much alive. I have not been here - on the blog. But I have been here, in Carbon County, Montana with Ty, Lucky, Sugar, Rocky and Tuffy. I haven’t taken the time to post. I haven’t found the time to sit here at the keyboard. I rarely keep up with my telephone correspondence. Ask my friends. Before I married Allan I worked at a desk, with a telephone and a computer. That company did not have internet service then. We took orders over the phone and by mail order. Ahhh, but they were still making their product in the US at that time, too. Sometimes I wish that I had the luxury of constantly being on-line. Then I come back to reality.

I still field the question at least once a week, “You don’t work outside the home?”

Come on in, you’ll see what I get done inside the home. Not much.

This grey morning was spent irrigating pasture. I hid Sugar’s frisbee so I could get some water set. She’s the only one I spoke with this morning. Sugar doesn’t answer me, really. I called her off the road a time or two. She listened. I implored her to quit eating cow pies. Sugar paid me no mind. I always say that it was a good thing I didn’t have children. I can’t even get the dogs to listen to me.

I have had time to think. We always do. What we do with all that thinking is what matters. Way back when - in August of 2004 - I started writing here. I was introduced to blogging shortly before that. Ed Kemmick’s blog, City Lights was the lively place I first encountered. Ed recently called it quits - at least for a while. Hopefully, it won’t be too long a while. I miss that place already. I began writing about day to day happenings here on the farm, or “in the neighborhood.” I’d post photographs, all scanned then. Some were mine, and some were old postcards that I’d collected. After I started taking digital photos, I began posting them to flickr, which quickly became a new addiction. Flickr can be a very real community. I should say communities. Karbon Kounty Moos and Flickr accurately depict much of my life. At least the parts that I chose to share.

I think that everyone who has blogged, or blog commented - and those who post to flickr have had these moments. You are in the middle of something, exciting or mundane - and you think, “I have to blog about this”. Or - “I have to shoot this and post it on flickr”. Remember “Kodak moments?” These are more intense. I never considered myself a journalist, I’m just a person who likes to read and write. And share. I never take myself serious. I was chided on flickr for my “snapshots”. I’m someone who enjoys taking photos, no delusions of grandeur here. I have been accused of being naive and uninterested about politics. Not true. I am very interested in politics. I also collect condom tins, and I know that this is the first time anyone has read that here. There are more than enough political bloggers out there. I am not interested in becoming yet another one. I don’t think there are any condom tin collector bloggers. I mean, other than me.

I have met some wonderful people through blogging and flickr. You know who you are. I met some crazies, too. You know who you are. I would not have met all these people without sitting at the keyboard. I am very thankful for that. I treated my blog visitors as if they were sitting in my kitchen. Some of them actually did. I discovered friends in the most incredible places. All because of my lousy hunt and peck skills. I like to talk, but I do know how to listen. I have a tendency to interrupt that I’ve been trying to break for forty something years. There is no 12 step program for it. I simply ask my friends to point it out to me, and if all else fails, tell me to “shut up.”

My blog readers have been great. You have seen me through the last four years of my life. And what a ride it’s been.

Postcards, fairy tales, and hangovers. Millionaire farmers, harvests and cemeteries. Recipes, bucket calves, and too many dog stories. Radio shows, memes and missing links. Ciphers, my hejira, and my mother’s death. Job descriptions, parts runs and strange encounters. Halfhearted HNT attempts, the Sugar Dog and Rascal Fairs. Gated pipe lessons, sugarbeets and corn. Beer drinking in parking lots, barley and Pioneer Days. Mosaics, bumper crops of eggplant and missing waffle irons. Getting kicked by cows. Allan getting sick. Allan finally diagnosed properly. Being reminded that there are people who take pleasure in other’s misfortunes. Trying not to turn this into a medical blog. Modems, calving and hospice. Losing Allan. Photographs and memories. My wonderings about black clouds and helicopters. Learning to irrigate and run the loader. Fences, rattlesnakes and raccoons. Flowers, cattle, and friends. Songs, silliness, and tractors. Feeder trucks, the romance of ranching, and switching to WordPress. On the radio - but on the cutting room floor, since I was not talking about politics - as usual. Trying my best to maintain these little places. Karbon Kounty Moos and my farm, by myself. It takes a lot of energy and a lot of time. I continued to post photos, work my butt off and laugh at myself.

Everyone gets fed here before me. Too much coffee in the morning isn’t a good idea when you’re wearing coveralls and out in the open. Once I know that everyone else is okay, then I can take care of my needs. Which involves copious amounts of coffee. I learned to do many things by myself these last two years. I have always believed that there’s always more to learn, so that’s been fine with me. I’ve learned a lot about myself and other people. Brucellosis has taught me more. I am tired of repeating myself. I have written (and linked) extensively on my experience, it’s all here. Click on brucellosis at the bottom of this post - you can find all my postings.

Last night when I heard one of the “B” words (the other one is “beets”) on TV, I knew what I had to do. It was time. I haven’t posted since April. Mostly light hearted posts with photos. Yes, I write about my bad luck. It’s excellent blog fodder. Much of it is unbelievable. Especially since it’s happening to me. Why has it been so quiet here? Because it hasn’t been. I may write about my misfortunes, but I don’t think that I am the “whining government farmer” that I’ve been accused of. I really don’t think that’s ever going to happen.

I sold last year’s calves a little earlier this spring than usual. It was probably a good decision. The market was so-so, but I was exhausted and tired of feeding at the lot and in the pasture. Once I did that I could devote myself to the cows and the new babies. Calving went pretty well. My shoulders, back and arms were killing me, but I kept pushing. There was sugarbeet drama, equipment to sell and property to buy. There were friends who needed me, and friends that I needed. There are people who enjoy being thorns in one’s side. I ended up with three bucket calves and hands that wouldn’t work. I was being beat up by baby bovines and my feet hurt so bad I considered the emergency room.

Yes, I had found the time to diagnose on-line. RA. Yes, I have seen a doctor and a rheumatologist. I have not seen a black helicopter in a while, though.

The last few weeks have been hectic. Everything that needs to get done is getting done. Maybe not as quick as it should, but it is getting done. I found happy homes for the bucket calves. My cows are doing well. I even kept some heifers back. I am on medication and keeping my fingers crossed.

What do I know? I know what I’ve read. I know what I’ve heard. But simply because you read or hear something does not make it so.

A bear passed through here last week. I didn’t see it, or hear it, but I know that it was here. No family of raccoons could have made that big a mess. The Raccoon Family Robinson did make a mess before that and has almost every day since, though. I haven’t fixed my (wince) traps.

I know that we had a wolverine here a few years ago for over a month. Research that. Wolverines do not live here, everyone knows that. This is not a pine forest. Well, I was not the only one who saw our wolverine several times in broad daylight.

I know who I am. I know who I’ve been. I know that they are the same person, even through the changes.

Times change. Things change. Life happens. Hopefully, we grow.

I know what I like. I know what I don’t like. I know better than to try to change people or their minds. I have changed. I have often changed my own mind. It is always something that I chose to do. I know who I love. I know that I am loved. I know that my life is good.

Times change. Things change. Life happens. Hopefully we continue to grow.

You were the sunshine, baby, whenever you smiled
But I call you Stormy today
All of a sudden that ole rain’s fallin’ down
And my world is cloudy and gray
You’ve gone away
Oh Stormy, oh Stormy
Bring back that sunny day

Yesterday’s love was like a warm summer breeze
But, like the weather you changed
Now things are dreary, baby
And it’s windy and cold
And I stand alone in the rain
Callin’ your name
Oh Stormy, oh Stormy
Bring back that sunny day

Oh Stormy, oh Stormy
Bring back that sunny day

Bring back that sunny day

Oh Stormy,

Oh Stormy. . .

(Perry “Buddy” C. Buien and James R. Cobb)

We did have some incredible winds yesterday afternoon, though. I watched that expensive real estate blow south, then east, then south. Anyone cutting hay yesterday will be raking it before baling.

I’m not sure where this branch would have ended up if it hadn’t hit the forsythia and the bottom of the deck.

Creek crossings - gone:

Bridge missing:

Located downstream:

Willow tree casualty:

Basement - yuck. But other than that, no use complaining. . .

Yesterday was stormy. Thunder, lightening and lots of rain. I had to drive to Billings for a few things, including a replacement for my camera that I lost on Sunday. When I got home, the driveway was a river and the rain was coming down in sheets. I handled most of the packages, three wet and excited dogs, two telephone messages and my heated up take out supper. I still need to finish unloading the car.

This morning it was pouring buckets when I let the dogs out. I noticed that there was mud on the east side of the place. It looked like it had come in a wave. Oh, no. . . the basement was flooded - with mud - the east and the south side. What a mess. The ditch must have washed across the driveway during the night.

Silvertip Creek looked high when I went to get the mail. It wasn’t finished.

Normally, it would look like this:

I braved the blizzard to go to Bridger yesterday. Picked up groceries and a tractor tube. When I stopped in Town & Country Supply, this caused me to pause and pull my camera out:

Apparently, they’re dyed in the egg. I’d never heard of such a thing, but of course I was able to google it. I’m sure that these birds aren’t from the farm in Alaska - but someone is using the same method. Very strange. I asked if I could bring Sugar in to see them, but they begged me not to.

An update:

Instructions to dye your own. Why you’d want to, I don’t know.

Oh, what a surprise. More snow and wind. If you click on the photo you can view the lovely sheet of ice beneath the snow. It has been like this everywhere on the place since before Christmas. I’m on osteoporosis medication, and have to tread gingerly. How cold is it? I have my earflaps down.

It shouldn’t be too long, though. I put the bulls in on the 20th of May. A cow’s gestation period is 283 days. There can be extremes either side of those days. I’m hoping that the girls start around the first week of March. According to the weather forecasts it should be warmer and drier then. We’ll see. . .

This little bull was born to one of Lynn’s first calf heifers.

Yesterday was unseasonably warm. We had our warnings, though. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in about forty minutes, just before dusk. By six o’clock it was snowing and blowing from the north. I know, it is winter and this is Montana. I had plugged in all of the equipment that I’d need for feeding.

This morning it was still snowing and blowing. It was just below zero Fahrenheit. The yard was full of drifts. I had to shovel out of the front door and into the garage. When I went to start the feeder truck, I noticed cattle huddled by the new barn. They had knocked down the electric wire. They could have walked right into the yard, but they hadn’t. I put Sugar in the truck, but I didn’t dare start it. I chased the cows into the pasture, and picked up the wire. I didn’t have enough slack to connect it, and I couldn’t find the insulator. I dragged a couple of Powder River panels out of the ice, across the non-existent gate, and wired them shut. Then I got into the truck, which would not start. I cranked the window down, so I could push the outside button to open the door. I let Sugar out first, instead of having her knock me out the door. I held tightly to the door as I got down and out, so the wind wouldn’t slam it into the already demolished windshield.

I went into the garage, started the pickup and left it idling. I went in the house and called Lynn. He said that he’d come down and give the International a jump. I told him that I’d go get the tractor started. The tractor is in a shed about a half mile away. The road was dry - but there were some incredible drifts. There was one right against the shed doors. I had brought the scoop shovel. I got the tractor started and let it idle. When Sugar and I got back to the yard, the feeder truck was running, and Lynn was getting the hot wire back up. Thanks Lynn!

Then I saw the drifts in the alley. There was no way I would be able to feed on the north side of the lot. I had gotten stuck twice on Christmas Day in smaller drifts. The bald duals on the driver’s side probably didn’t help, either. I was not going to do that again. Fortunately, there was still silage in the north bunk. The north side of the board wall - where I usually drive around the lot was even worse. I wouldn’t attempt taking the pickup back for a look. Lynn said to leave it for today, but that he’d clear it with the tractor tomorrow. I thanked him for getting things going. He told me that Jan wanted me to come up for lunch. Everyone wants to make sure that I’m eating. I am. I put the pickup back in the garage.

Next, Sugar and I brought the feeder truck to the silage pit. Then we walked across to get the tractor. I loaded silage for the cows and heifers, and left the tractor running at the pit. I fed the girls, sliding around the alley on the ice under the snow. Then I got the pickup and drove to the shed. Back in the tractor, I speared a bale of straw and hooked a bale of hay in the bucket. I took the tractor back to the lot. After struggling with panels and gates, I fed and bedded down the boys. We went back to the stacks to do it all over. The heifer pen was so badly drifted, I didn’t think I’d ever get in the gate. Where would I be without the scoop shovel? I called Jan on my cell phone and told her that there was no way I could be there by noon at the rate I was going. I did use some words that I won’t repeat. She told me not to worry, and just come up when I could. Thanks, Jan.

I finally got enough of the drift out of the way of the gate, and went into the heifer pen. Sugar was bored, but she stayed with me the whole time. I brought the tractor back to the shed. When I came home, I took off a few layers of clothes, cleaned up and drove to Lynn and Jan’s for lunch. Which was great - and was my breakfast, too. It was wonderful just to sit and visit for a while.

I went home and I put the layers back on. My canine assistant insisted on coming with me. Once again we went to the shed and I fired up the John Deere. We went across to the stack yard for bales for the cows and bred heifers. Up and down the lane a couple more times to feed and bed down. With some luck, tomorrow I may only have to feed silage.

and now we can.