Preparing the cattle for heat

We have a heat wave anticipated this weekend. The temp on Sunday is projected to be 105F.

We had the cattle in the treeless, shadeless pasture for the past week. We thought about moving them back to the wooded side of the property for the duration of the heatwave, but there is simply no grazing on that side. We have been bone-dry for weeks, and no grass has regenerated.

So, with the permission of the owner, we decided to put the cattle on the "pond property," as the adjacent parcel is called. This is a lovely parcel with a stock pond, trees, and grazing. Normally we move the cattle in mid-August or so; but this summer's weird freaky hot weather is stressing everything early.

Before moving the beasties, though, Don and I needed to walk the fence lines and make sure everything was tight. We went in the morning when the temperature was still cool.

The moment they saw us walking down to the gate, the cattle immediately fell in line, thinking they were in for a treat.

The orderly column soon disintegrated into chaos. Wheeee!

The critters were very disappointed when we didn't let them through the gate.

The pond property hasn't been grazed, so there is much more feed available.

Don and I walked the entire perimeter, mending and tightening as necessary.

It's a good thing we did, too. One whole corner had been cut out of the fencing (possibly by hunters wanting easy access). Don had to go back later with the truck, some sections of field fencing, and more tools.

Here's the view across our pasture toward the pond property, where the trees are.

Yesterday mid-morning, I walked down to open the gate. The animals weren't expecting it, so when I gave my universal cattle call ("Bossy bossy bossy bossy BOSSY!!"), the entire herd literally came galloping in a thundering mass.

When I opened the gate, they poured through.

The grazing on this parcel isn't great this year either. The white-ish grass is called cheatgrass (sometimes wind grass) and is largely inedible, and there's a lot of it. But there's also enough decent stuff to keep the animals happy for several weeks. Once the heat breaks next week, we'll bring them back onto our side and "save" the remaining grazing on the pond property until, hopefully, late July. But no matter what, we're going to have to start feeding much, much earlier this year.

While most of the herd made it through the gate, a few of the babies got lost. They've never been on the pond property before and kinda got turned around. Little Hector was on the other side of the subdividing fence as well.

Jerky and Dina were totally bewildered as to where their mamas went.

The first thing to do was get Hector on the right side of the fence.

So I slipped through the barbed wire and started scooting him along the fence line to where the gate is.

Here he joined the others, but they still couldn't figure out how to get onto the pond property. Don calls this stage in life "puppy-stupid."

I left the calves alone, figuring they'd either figure out where the right gate was, or they wouldn't. A couple hours later, they were reunited with their mamas and all was well.

The combination of shade, water, and fresh grazing will keep the cattle as comfortable as is possible during the heat wave. I'm grateful we can rent the pond property while we can (since it's for sale).

A daughter departing

Our older daughter is going to nanny school. She and I fly out tomorrow (Friday).

It's been painful for Don and I to watch her get ready to go. We will we miss her bitterly. I also worry about her. Not because of her -- she's sensible, moral, grounded, and intelligent -- but I worry about all the unavoidable circumstances she'll be facing in the big wide world. I know, I know -- I'm just being a mama grizzly bear about it, but still....

On Monday she packed a box with bedding, personal affects, and some of the odds and ends the nanny school requires her to bring (including a favorite children's book). That box has arrived at the school and is waiting for us.

On Tuesday, Don took his oldest girl out on a date. They went canoeing, and he gave her a small gift he had made for her (which I promised not to show on the blog).

They saw many lovely sights on the lake, including this beaver lodge...

...calm water through the marshes...

...and endless lily pads.

On Tuesday I took her to a self-defense class for a little weapon called a Kubotan. Here she learned various techniques to defend herself with this lethal little stick.

We've spent the rest of the week tying up loose ends, doing laundry, packing the single carry-on suitcase we're permitted, making goodbyes, and freaking out. (Okay, maybe I'm projecting.)

Despite the emotional repercussions, in all other respects we couldn't be more pleased with the life into which Older Daughter is launching herself. As a certified credentialed nanny, she has many job opportunities before her. As part of the school-required contract, she will receive all live-in expenses as well as a minimum guaranteed yearly salary, will have full medical/dental coverage, and start her adult life with no debt. Her future positions may also include domestic or international travel. All in all it's not a bad position for a 19-year-old to be in.

Still, it's tough saying goodbye...

Moving day for chicks

Our Jersey Giant chicks were getting way too crowded in their box.

Besides, they were getting to the smelly hysterical stage that makes for tiresome house guests. Time to move them into the coop.

We have an interior cage in the chicken coop designed for chicks (or for separating roosters or for any other reason we need to isolate some birds). I gave everything a good cleaning, then we installed some hardware cloth over the existing chicken wire so wily babies couldn't slip through.

Then Don and I carried the box of chicks from the house to the coop and installed the babies. As chicks will do, they immediately huddled in one corner, terrified of their new environment.

It didn't matter that they had a zillion times more room in their new digs. They weren't budging from that wall.

Hearing the peeping, one of the adult hens wandered into the coop and stared at the birds as if she'd never seen a baby before.

Which, come to think of it, she hadn't. (She's only a year old.)

I left the chicks alone to let them settle in. Within an hour they were scattered about, luxuriating under the heat lamp, eating and drinking, and otherwise acting normally.

But of course the moment I stepped into the coop, the chicks would give the alarm and flee back to their corner. Such is the nature of chicks.

We'll swap the heat lamp bulb for a regular bulb during the upcoming heat wave so as not to bake them. Also, as the summer progresses, we plan to build a new coop for the chickens inside our yard so the chickens will be protected from coyotes. After losing our dear Snap, we don't want to risk losing any more of the chickens.

Heat wave's a-comin'

I tell ya, this is the weirdest darn June we've seen since moving to Idaho. We're having temperatures not normally seen until August. In fact, as the weather forecast below illustrates, we're experiencing temperatures almost 25F higher than normal.

On Sunday, the projected temperature is supposed to be 99-102F. The historical average is 76F. Oh, have I mentioned before how much I hate heat?

Since there's no shade in the pasture, we'll be moving the beasties back into the woods on Friday. Back and forth, back and forth -- the critters are doubtless wondering what the heck is going on...

There's hardly any grazing left in the woods (no grass is regenerating since we've had no rain) so we'll have to feed. But it's better than letting the poor animals bake in cruel and unrelenting heat.

Yuck.

A love story: "We are a team."

In response to this past weekend's WND column on Father's Day, I received an email from a reader named Richard who told me about his marriage. Folks, if you ever want to know what a real marriage through better or worse looks like, look no further. Richard kindly gave me permission to post his email here. Get a tissue.

_______________________________

Good morning,

I have been married 37 years to the same woman and over those 37 years I’ve gone from a very healthy and active male to a 58 year old man facing his 12th spine surgery to fix an old Army injury who also has bleeding ulcers that flare up too much, just found out he has PTSD, again, from the service, walks with a cane, walker or wheelchair depending on how the spine/legs are acting and has been told he likely won’t make it far into his 60’s.

How does my wife treat me? Like I am the man she married.

In all those intervening years we have stood side by side during it all and in all the time we had our kids with us (1 girl, 1 boy) they heard us raise our voices once and that was when my wife got mad at me for overdoing it after a surgery.

I was hurt when I was 19 and told her EXACTLY what might happen in the years to come yet she still married me and I truly believe she still respects me. I don’t know what I did to deserve God giving me the courage to walk into that little record shop and talk to her but believe me, I will be on my knees thanking Him when my time comes.

We were married while I was at university and all I had was one pair of jeans, a frying pan, a couple of plates and a stereo system. Listening to music has always helped me when the pain comes. I never let the VA treat me after I finally got out of the hospital that last time. I went in at my normal, very fit weight (6 pack and all) of around 190 and came out at 142. Now you see what she had to look through to see the real me. And yes, the day I walked in, I was using my cane.

I spent over 40 years working as a programmer, analyst and manager and various combinations and believe me, with the influx of foreign labor into that field, it was really hard to keep a job those last 15 years or so when they could offer themselves for $25 an hour, benefits included and we had to get at least a living wage; besides, I PROVED I could outwork 5 of them and 99% of the time wound up training them because they simply did not have the advertised skills on their resumes.

Yes, I am leading up to something else she saw me through. By 2011 I had been working from home for over 6 years, my weight was up, my health was deteriorating and someone other than God put me in the path of a so-called pain physician who had me taking the same level of drugs they give to end-stage cancer patients just so they can go in peace. I was working anywhere from 60-80 hours a week (on record) non stop in 2011 because they kept getting rid of American workers, adding cheap offshore labor who did not know their jobs and telling us either to get the work done or they would simply replace us. I really wanted to work until I was 62. Let’s see, I was what, 54 in 2011? I am a mathematician also but I cannot ever remember whether to add or subtract one to get the right age.

I could have gone 100% disabled decades ago but both of us were raised up in dirt poor but proud families where you were taught to give it 100%. When she decided to stay home with our little girl after a terrible incident with a so called “grandmotherly” sitter, we simply shifted our savings a bit and never blinked. We are a team. When the kids came, they became part of the team and we tried so hard to pass on what we knew to them, especially how it can be between a man and a woman in a marriage. They also had great examples from my wife’s 10 other brothers and sisters and their marriages and their kids’ marriages. I am sure you get the picture. And at the center of it all is Mom. My wife’s mother who took me in as one of her own and I will never be able to repay her for that.

I did not mean for this to be so long but your column echoed what my wife and I have been talking about on trips to and from the various doctors that keep me moving; what in the world has happened to the American male and in particular, fathers. Let’s be honest as you do in your column, there is plenty of blame to heap on the male side. I often think that perhaps since we have moved so very fast technologically that we ignored many of the impacts on society in general, not just from technology but from things permitted by technology such as mass migrations of peoples and let’s face it, cultures. I just don’t think we were ready for all this change when there is so little education in so many places but I digress.

Now look at what technology has wrought in our own society. I simply cannot believe that just a bit over 40 years ago I stood toe to toe with a professor who essentially went insane on me when I pointed out the basic fallacies behind Marx’s work. Instead of arguing against my points, he tried to use volume and in a way that is what has happened to males in almost everything you see them doing in television shows or even movies. I am sitting here trying to think of a feel good movie where the guy was the “hero” in the past 5 years. Captain America maybe comes close but it is a comic come to the big screen and therefore not real so it is to be ignored.

Even my wife’s Hallmark Channel movies have taken a turn where it seems to always be the woman who toughs it out on her own, no man needed and everything turns out fine in the end. Yes, it can happen but it is so much easier when you have that extra pair of loving hands to help with the kids or whatever. Besides all that, we are at heart a social animal. If you are a Believer, which I confess I am and I hope that does not offend but I simply state it, I will not preach to people, then we were made from the Beginning to be a pair. I know that section about the man leading the household gives many women and all Feminists stomach problems an to be honest, I don’t fully understand it myself but I read the New Testament and I pretty much stay there. I keep the Commandments, yes but the bulk of my reading is New, not Old. Besides, we split it up about who is going to be boss. I have a math degree so guess who got to teach the kids math? She can keep a checkbook which mystifies me though I can write applications that have literally hundreds of thousands of lines of code in them and keep the majority in my head so guess who does our family bookkeeping? The thing is that you share and you trust each other enough to be able to open up and ask for help when needed. That’s a real partnership.

Unfortunately for us, our partnership may come to a real test and possible end this coming Friday. If they have issues or if I stroke out on them or have a heart attack and there is a lot of brain damage it means a respirator and I have made sure that my wife, with her understanding and blessing, my surgeon and our kids understand that I will not live on a respirator. I have given it a good fight. I deserve the right to die with some dignity. All I want is that one last kiss and goodbye then they can give me some pain killers and let her turn off the machine. That is the ultimate in teamwork as it shows just how much we trust and believe and love each other.

Thanks for an important column,

Richard

_______________________________

In a subsequent email, Richard added: "If only you knew her or her Mother you’d understand why my words pale when trying to describe the real people. You know, I had always heard that there is a soul mate out there for you. I know it to be the absolute truth now."

Why Father's Day is really about mothers

Here's my WND column for this weekend entitled Why Father's Day is Really About Mothers.

Happy Father's Day to all you dads!

UPDATE: Reader Dave posted a beautiful column at this link. Well worth reading.

Friday Roundup

Once again it's time for our Friday Roundup, where we all pitch in the things we did during the week -- big or small -- that contributed toward self-sufficiency.

I'll probably routinely start posting these Friday Roundups on Saturday morning since Fridays seem to be very busy days. Here's what we did this week:

• I cleaned the chicken coop in preparation of moving our Jersey Giant chicks out of the house (they're getting too cramped in their box).

We haven't gotten around to moving them yet, but that will be today's chore.

• We're just beginning to freeze strawberries. The berries are starting to peak, so the girls have been picking frequently; but up to this point we've all been eating them as we pick them. This time we had enough of a surplus that I froze six pounds. Hopefully we'll have ten times that amount in the freezer by the end of strawberry season.

• We moved the cattle from the wooded side of our property back to the pasture (no photos, sorry). We're beginning to develop contingency plans for the cattle. Things have been so dry that they're eating down the forage far faster than it can regenerate. Our contingencies so far are: we're putting three cow/calf pairs up for sale; we made arrangements with a neighbor to run the cattle on his adjacent twenty acres in a couple of weeks; and we may have located a source of inexpensive hay from a farmer who wants to get rid of last year's surplus before getting in this year's crop. Right now it looks as it we'll have to start feeding the cattle much, much earlier than we normally do.

• We trapped Victoria and hew new bull calf Jerky in the corral for a few days until the baby was old enough to castrate, which we did before releasing them with the rest of the herd (again no photos, sorry). Jerky is more meat-on-the-hoof in about two years.

• We checked on the bees. They're extremely active and doing fine. At the recommendation of an experienced beekeeper, we shuffled a couple frames around, putting some emptier frames closer in where most of the activity is taking place.

One of the hives had active comb-building on the underside of the roof.

Although it was fascinating to get a glimpse of the inside of the comb (you can see the pupa)...

...we're pretty sure comb-building on the roof is something we're not "supposed" to encourage. Suited up as we were with the hive open, it's not like we could call our beekeeeping mentor right then and there; so, in the absence of knowing what better to do, I scraped the combs off and removed them. I realize it's just a temporary measure and they'll probably rebuild. This hive still has frames that aren't full (meaning, it's too early to put on the supers), so I shuffled one of the emptier frames toward the front where most of the activity is.

I welcome thoughts from more experienced beekeepers to know if scraping that extra comb from the roof was the right thing to do.

• I finally -- finally! -- got the corn beds weeded and turned over with compost. We hauled out the drip irrigation stuff...

...and got hoses on all the tires.

I brought out a few of last year's dried cobs...

...and Don and I rubbed the seed off.

I planted 22 tires' worth of corn (which included a couple of extra tires where I had nothing else planted), then let the drip system give everything a good watering.

• Meanwhile, Don began the task of converting this little shed -- which was originally used as a greenhouse except we couldn't keep the mice out of it, who kept eating seeds and seedlings -- into a chicken coop. We plan to move the shed into the yard and use it as the base of an expanded coop.

Right now we just have garden-related stuff (mostly junk) in it, so we'll clean it out and move it into the yard.

Since no one had been inside the shed in quite some time, we weren't surprised by this little bonus:

Don zapped it with wasp spray.

Then he started removing the windows, but that's as far as we got. We're doing some rush orders for tankards and can't divert our attention too much from our income-producing work.

That's what we accomplished this week. What have you done?