Rats….

We have been keeping an eye on a cow for the past week who acts like she’s going to calve, but never gets anything done. Not springing or even bagging, but just hangs by herself and you could see something wasn’t right.. I had about decided she had calved and lost him in the creek… the other day she had some blood on her tail and I figured she had a dead calf in here, but nothing to do for it but wait.. when I checked this morning I could see just a nose starting to come out so I went and got Pilgrim and brought her in..Chance met me at the shed, and we roped her and tied her to a post and I roped a hind foot and tied her and Chance peeled down and went fishing.. he found a nose and one front foot, real close… he eventually found another foot way back and fished until he was wore out and I went fishing.. finally got a loop over that other foot and we went to pulling, she’d strain and we just weren’t making much headway… the calf was pulling hard and she seemed like she hadn’t even dilated… we eventually got the one leg and the head out and still couldn’t get that other foot up alongside where it ought to be, so said the heck with it as the calf was dead, hooked a loop over his neck and pulled on it and the one front foot.. when we got him out we discovered that the other foot was a hind foot! Man! No wonder things weren’t working… poor ol’ cow is down, but attempting to get up and I think she will make it.. we gave her a big shot of long acting pen and we are hoping for the best… rats…

Boys had no school so they rode with me and Chance into town to get new cylinders for the loader and some other stuff to build the windbreak we are putting up.. this evening we got the holes all dug and we need to go set I beams now.. the windbreak will be 96 foot on each leg, in the shape of a vee and almost 10 foot high. Sure ought to stop a lot of wind and help them cows in a blizzard like we had last fall.. supposed to build another also and we have about 600 cedar trees to plant that hopefully someday will be tall enough to also help break the wind… wind is a constant around this country and it can blow the snow off the side hill so cattle can graze, but it can also really pile up snow and cattle when it combines with the snow in a blizzard.. those who’ve never experienced a blizzard, just have no idea how tuff it can be… 2 feet of snow and 70 mph winds ain’t fun, I don’t care who you are, so we do all we can to grow and build these protections for the cattle…