All the Seasons

So, you want to visit Montana or southern Alberta but you just can't decide which season you prefer? Come in late August or early September, you can have them all.

August 22 at our ranch (NOT in the mountains), 32 degrees.....

August 23rd, Whoop-Up Days, Lethbridge, Alberta, mid sixties...

September 5th, Claresholm, Alberta, forty-five degrees and three inches of cold rain....

September 12th, Brooks, Alberta, eighty-degrees....

And today, forty and foggy with fall color starting to show....

This is why we have a very large porch. We have to have coats/gloves/boots on hand for every kind of weather, every day.

A Little Icing on Top

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We've had two days of miserable, foggy weather with a cold south wind. But this morning the sun came out and we got our reward. My trees are all decorated for the holidays, I can just kick back with a hot chocolate and enjoy the view. Until it warms up and the wind blows all that ice down like buckets of marbles on the metal roof of my bedroom, usually at around 3 a.m.

Ranch Wife Workout #73

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"Take this hammer and bucket of staples and walk the fence down to the end to see where the wires are down."

Yes, this picture was taken today. And sadly, no, it's really not that unusual to have this much snow here in November. Or October. Or September. 

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Pop Quiz

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Guess which of the days in the forecast below is the one we're scheduled to spend all day at the corrals, pregnancy testing cows?

Looks like it's time to dig out the long underwear and the Muck boots. 

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Reports of Spring May Have Been Premature

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This morning:

And more of the same predicted for next weekend. At this point, you just have to tell yourself it's really good for the hay crop. 

While we're slogging around in the snow and the muck, here's a post I wrote a while back for another blog, all about communication out here on the ranch...and lack thereof:  Communicate This . 

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Hello, Beautiful

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I gotta be honest. This has been one of my favorite springs ever. Not because life has been all sunshine and singing birds, either. Mostly, I've been thoroughly enjoying the fact that unlike most years, I'm not the only one complaining about snow in April. In fact, about 75% percent of the country has been chiming in on that refrain.

Of course I laughed. What can I say, sometimes I'm not as pure of heart as I should be.

Spring here at mile high altitude and northern latitudes is more of a concept than a reality. And when it does come, it rarely stays for more than a few days. Come to think of it, Spring would make an excellent house guest. Take this week, for example. On Sunday, it was sunny and almost sixty degrees. On Wednesday, we got eight inches of snow. Today, sunny and sixty again. By Friday, more snow. And so on. And so on.

Deciding when Spring has actually arrived to stay is not easy. My personal measuring stick has two markers. First, I have to hear a meadowlark sing, which I did down by the willows last weekend. And second....

Yes! Finally, the ground is warm enough for the first crocuses to bloom. So hello, Spring. Hope you'll stick around awhile. 

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Magical Disappearing Mountains

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The view from our living room on an average day:

The view today:

This is how Meriweather Lewis managed to miss Marias Pass and take the long way around to the Pacific. Well, this and the Blackfeet. 

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Headed Downhill

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We've had a week of warm weather, which means for once it's not the wind moving our snow around. It's all headed downhill:



When I was a kid, spring thaw was my favorite time of year. I'd start at the top of the driveway with little wooden boats, set them in these fast moving streams, then race them to the bottom. What can I say? I was easily amused.

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Chinook Arch

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This one's for my friend Stan, who asked if we had this particular weather phenomenon today. And of course he guessed correctly. With the dramatic warming trend of the past two days (as in, the temperature is sixty degrees higher today than it was last Saturday) we had a near perfect Chinook Arch, which is the arc of blue sky over the mountains that often heralds a warm front.

Unfortunately, it almost always comes with a Chinook Wind, but we'll take it anyway.

(For orientation, the video starts out looking due south, swings west, and ends looking due north)



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Squeaky Snow

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We've got a high of five below today, which means it's way too cold for snowmen. I had to explain that to a friend from Alabama last winter, who has never experienced snow that's too cold to pack into a ball.

Whenever there's an ice or snow storm in the south, the southerners tend to freak out and the northerners tend to mock them. I used to be one of those northerners, until I got to experience an ice storm in Texas. I drove two blocks to the grocery store, got stuck in a dead level parking lot, had to go back in the store and buy cat litter to get moving. Then I drove the two blocks home, parked my pickup and didn't leave again until it thawed.

Southern ice and snow isn't like the stuff we get up here. It's slushy and wet, slicker than ours. Miserable stuff, basically. So for all you southerners, I wish just once you could experience squeaky snow. Believe me, it's a lot more polite.



After kid's wrestling practice. Ambient temperature- -15 Fahrenheit. 

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One Cool Puppy

The only way Max could be any cooler is if I took this picture in the morning, when it was sixteen below, instead of in the afternoon heat (aka, two above).

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Survival of the Most Fitted

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Our cold snap has broken for the moment, last time I looked it was 12 degrees ABOVE zero. Doesn't sound like much, but since it was -22 F yesterday morning, it feels downright balmy by comparison. During the past week of whining here and on Twitter about the extreme temperatures (lowest recorded hereabouts was -30 F down by the Del Bonita Port of Entry), the question I was asked most often is, "How can you even go outside in that?" So I decided we should get dressed for morning chores together, figuratively speaking.

First off is the socks. Well, after my underwear, but we're not getting quite that personal, although I will say it involves red and black animal print. Hey, it's what's on the clearance rack, and it's not like anybody's gonna see it under all these layers.

When the temperature dips below zero, I go with two pairs of socks. The first are light cotton, to absorb moisture and yes, sweat, because feet will do that when you're working hard regardless of temperature. Then I add a pair of wool socks over top.

Next is long underwear. For the extreme temperatures, I break out the UnderArmour. Yes, it really is worth the price, warmer than anything else I've tried, although the consensus is it seems to have been designed for people who don't have butts. If you do happened to come equipped with baggage in the rear compartment, you'll find they have a tendency to creep down in the back, so you want to have a shirt that's long enough to tuck in or you might end up with a cold draft down your butt crack. And yes, the long underwear goes on after the socks. It holds them up, so they don't slide down and leave that annoying strip of bare skin, or get sucked down around your ankles by your boots, which drives me nuts.

Over the UnderArmour I'll either add jeans or thick cotton sweatpants. Jeans tend to bind up under coveralls, so it's easier to move if you wear sweatpants. How much you can layer on depends on whether you need to get on a horse. Too much bulk and you can't lift your foot high enough to get it in the stirrup. Or even the four wheel drive pickup. Around here, we don't use the horses much in this kind of weather because our frequent freeze/thaw cycles make the ground really icy. Add a layer of snow and the footing is downright treacherous, so we manage with the four-wheeler, pickups, tractors, and a really good dog.

For the top half, I start with a turtleneck, then add either a fleece pullover or a hooded sweatshirt. Then comes a silk scarf wound twice around my neck, tied in front, the loose ends tucked into my shirt. Yep, just like the old buckaroos, and there's a reason we're still using them. Absolutely nothing can replace a good silk scarf for warmth and functionality, we've got a whole basket full of fancy neck warmers that tried and failed.

So, here's the inner layers:

For the outer layers, it's Carhartt all the way, or something similar. Canvas outer shell, quilted thermal lining, and always a hood to keep the cold wind from whipping down the back of my neck. 

I've tried every kind of snow boots imaginable, my current favorites are Muck boots. They are warm, come up to your knees to keep the snow out, and are waterproof for slogging through muddy corrals and falling into snow-covered creeks, not that I'm prone to such a thing. The inner layer--sweatpants or jeans--is tucked into the top of the boots and the coveralls pulled down on the outside. Combined, it keeps the snow out of the tops of your boots no matter how deep it gets. 

The final layer is head and hand gear. First off, you've gotta have a cap with ear flaps. My husband and dad usually go with the old style woolen Scotch caps. I prefer this fleece-lined model because the flaps come all the way around and under my chin. If the wind chill is really kicking butt, I'll add a fleece neck warmer over top of everything so I can pull it up over my mouth and lower face. The goggles are a new thing. My brother-in-law is a ski patrolman and gave us a couple of good pairs. I started out just wearing them when it was snowing, because wind-driven snow is like having your eyeballs sandblasted. Then I realized these goggles cover most of my face, all the way down below my cheekbones, which adds a ton to the warmth factor. Now I wear them whenever it's really bitter out there. 

For my hands, I start with a pair of light knitted gloves. Then I put a pair of my husband's insulated work gloves over top, a couple of sizes too big for me. Oversized is key, because it creates a nice layer of air between the two pairs of gloves, which is vital to keeping hands warm. Plus, if I need to do something that requires fine motor skills, I can pull off the outside glove and my fingers aren't completely exposed. If I'm going to be out on the four-wheeler or a horse for an extended period of time, I'll swap those outside gloves for a pair of fleece-lined leather mittens for even more warmth. 

When I'm finally ready to go outside, it looks something like this:

Just for the fun of it, after I was all fitted up today I stepped on the bathroom scale. My full winter gear weighs fifteen pounds. I figure I've already burned a hundred calories just getting dressed, and who knows how many more lugging all that around? So that means I get to eat this extra piece of Christmas fudge, right? 

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It's Always Big Fun Until Someone Puts an Eye Out

Honestly. I leave for two days to go to a writer's conference, and I come home to this:

And this:

The first is thanks to our blankety-blank fall wind. The second is a rope tattoo. See what happens when the women go gallivanting off for the weekend?  

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And So On, And So On....

Still snowing, and even colder this morning. This bunch of cows got pushed south by yesterday's wind and snow. Dad and Greg spent the whole afternoon getting them back to the south shelter. This morning, I saddled up Nico and pushed them on to the house, while Greg led the way and broke a trail with the tractor, packing a big round bale of hay for incentive.

Then it was on to doctoring calves that are starting to get sick from all the cold and stress. Mostly in the form of what we call 'scours', which is the bovine version of diarrhea. Since it's bacterial, we can treat it with antibiotics. But if they get too dehydrated, we also have to 'tube' them with an electrolyte solution, the calf version of a Pedialyte popsicle. Or cherry Gatorade. Since calves won't voluntarily swallow the stuff, we have to get it into them via a long plastic tube with a large catheter-type thing on the end that is slid down their throat and directly into their stomach.

This one will stay in the barn warm and dry for the rest of the day, get another electrolyte treatment tonight, then we'll decide whether to take him back out to his mother, or bring her in to him. In the meantime, I'm wondering if we can sue Al Gore for deceptive practices or something, because if this is global warming, I don't want to see what happens when we cool off.

Mass Chaos

Imagine you're in a huge city park. In this park there are hundreds of families picnicking, when suddenly a storm rolls in, with fierce winds and hail. Everyone runs for cover. In the confusion and panic, children are separated from their parents. Some latch onto the first adult they see and follow them in hopes of being led to safety. Some just run in whatever direction will keep the wind at their backs and the hail from stinging their faces. Fences are trampled in the rush to escape the brutal weather. Children and adults are driven beyond the boundaries of the park and into the surrounding area.

When the storm passes, children are scattered for blocks in every direction. Some sit or lie down and wait to be found. Others begin wandering in search of their parents, but with no idea which direction they came from or which direction their parents went, they end up even more lost. Parents are running around yelling for their children. Kids are so exhausted they don't answer.

That pretty much sums up what happens when a blizzard hits a herd of cows. Ninety percent of the time our shelters are sufficient to keep the cattle from wandering. The blizzard we had two days ago was in that top ten percent. Records were set for wind speeds and snowfall amounts. The drifts piled up so fast and so high they filled the calf shelters and pushed the herd out into the storm. The wind pushed them through creeks and fences, over hills and into coulees. Cows and calves from the west field ended up clear out south, along with cows and calves from our registered herd in the east field. Cattle from the west field were pushed up and over the ridge and down the road into our neighbors' pastures.

Once the storm ended, calves either hunkered down where they'd ended up, or began wandering in whichever direction they thought seemed likely to take them home. For two days, my view of the world has looked pretty much like this:

We've been attempting to locate all of the missing cows and calves, return them to a central location, and reunite them with their mothers. Today we found a calf trotting down the main gravel road, three miles from home, headed in the wrong direction. Sadly, I do not have video of my husband roping him out of the back of the pickup. You're also not going to get to see me trying to chase down and rope a calf on foot while leading a horse, with a quart bottle of milk tucked under one arm.

By late Saturday evening we had most of the cattle back where they belonged, or at least mothered up. There are still half a dozen of the neighbors cows in our south field but their calves are with them, so they'll stay until more urgent matters are attended to. Sunday morning we'll be back at it, looking for motherless calves, childless cows, and the inevitable sick calves that always follow a major storm.

What we haven't found so far are any dead calves, which is an outright miracle given the severity and duration of the storm. So even though we're exhausted and saddle sore, the day still came to a beautiful end.

Diggin' It

So it snowed again. As usual, we got a little more of the white stuff than pretty much anybody, with the possible exception of the top of the mountains. 

That's one of my house cows as seen out my front door on Friday morning. She and two others plus their calves showed up as the storm started Wednesday night and spent the duration hunkered in the trees in my front yard. Those three were the only ones we were able to feed on Thursday. We couldn't even get hay up to the expectant mothers in the indoor arena, because of near zero visibility and drifts like these:

Friday morning it was time to dig out. First, we had to get the cows out of the arena, which meant getting the fifteen foot tall front doors open. Greg dug out the biggest part of the drift with the tractor, then I had to clear out the rest with a shovel. To add to the fun, the storm started with rain, making huge sheets and chunks of ice on the wall, the doors, and the track the door runs on. As I tried to push it open, the ice broke loose and pelted me on the head and arms. Meanwhile, forty cows were piled up just inside the door, waiting for me to get it open far enough to trample me on the way out. 


Then it was on to the bulls. All of the yearlings were trapped in the upper lot by a huge snowdrift. The only way to get them out was to shovel a trail, which ended up looking more like a tunnel. For reference, that fence you can see behind the drift is five feet tall. 

Whew. Done. Well, except for the horses. They were in that barn in the top picture. The geldings were no problem, just open the back door and let them break their own trail out through the back corral. But the mares had to come out the front door. The one beside that pickup that's just barely visible under that big honkin' drift. Yeah, that one:

Once all the horses had been freed, all I had to do was shovel out the back of the pickup to find the hay bales, load them one at a time on the four wheeler, and drag them out to wherever I could find a spot that was less than belly deep. 


Then it was back to the house and the most important job of the day. The power had finally come back on. Time to clear the snow away from the satellite dish so the kid could watch his cartoons. 

So much for the morning. Now all we had to do was find the rest of the cows and calves. 

Storm Breaks and Chain Cows

Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, the snow and wind let up. So far it looks like everything survived, but the drifts are so deep in spots it's possible a cow could be buried and we won't find her until spring. The storm was pushed out by an Artic air mass, which means it's fifteen degrees below zero, but we were able to get out and feed all the cows so they're happier than in the midst of the storm.

It also meant I finally had time to show the Chain Cow around the ranch. (If you don't know the story of the cow, check it out here). She was wishing she'd haired up for winter before making the trip. Here she is, catching a wave--Montana style.

After taking my photos I stuck her in my pocket and went on doing chores, which in my case meant packing hay to horses. I forgot all about the cow until I was headed back to the house. I'm afraid she won't be quite as spiffy when she reaches her next destination.

So, who's next on the Chain Cow blog tour? First to raise their hand gets her, although she did mention she was hoping for someplace quite a bit farther south.

Still Hunkered

Twenty four hours after the snow started falling and it's showing no sign of letting up. The wind is blowing so hard we can't tell if the snow is still falling or it's just blowing around. The drifts between my house and my mother's are above my waist. I piggy-backed my son across the yard and the wind-driven snow stung his face so bad he started to cry.

Looking out our front door this morning. It's deeper now.

My husband, heading out to do the chores.

Looking out the same window as in the picture from last night. There's cabin only thirty yards over there, unless it blew away during the night.

We were going to grill steaks for lunch, but...

Visibility is only a few yards and it's impossible to see the big drifts. My husband got the four wheel drive stuck halfway to the barn. Times like this you pray no one gets injured or sick. There's no way we could get to the hospital. I doubt a helicopter could navigate it, either. Of course, this is when someone always does something dumb. Like when I got an infection in a blister on my hand and a red line started creeping up my arm. Or the time my brother stuck a bobby pin in the electric outlet. Luckily, both turned out okay. Didn't even need a doctor by the time the roads were cleared.

Hunkerin' In

Back in the pioneer days, before radio and television or even telephones, the first warning a rancher had of an approaching storm was the front rolling over the Milk River ridge. One look at a cloud like this sends everyone in our area scurrying around, feeding and sheltering and tying down anything that can blow away or get buried. Once the cloud gets this close, you know you've got, at best, an hour or two before the snow starts. I took this picture at lunch time.

Ember, Julie and Roo must have seen the cloud rolling in too. They were hanging around the gate all day, waiting for someone to let them in. They're under the lean to now, nibbling hay.

By three o'clock, it looked like this.

Now it looks like this out my living room window. As the snow piles up, the visibility gets worse with the wind gusting up to forty miles an hour. They're telling us it's going to last most of the day tomorrow, and the temperatures are going to drop well below zero before it's all done.

Looks like we're getting a White Christmas this year.

Storm Warning

The tension begins to mount as soon as the forecasts are released. Winter weather advisory. Storm warning. Blizzard. Bad enough in January and February, when temperatures drop into double digits below zero, and the wind chills are murderous. But spring storms--March, April, May--have a special brand of cruelty. Calves are days, hours or minutes old. Cows have been lured from the shelter of corrals and haystacks by the first flush of green grass.

All have been lulled by a few bright, warm days.

You prepare as best you can. Shelters are strategically placed, bedded with straw. Hay is rolled out to tempt the cows to bring their babies to safe haven. You have to honk your horn to push through the herd, scatter the calves that buck and play. A bull calf stands his ground, shaking his head, ready to show you who's boss. Will that sturdy little body be strong enough to weather what is to come?

 The youngest and the weakest and the most likely to give birth are gathered into the barn. You want to take them all, but there isn't room. Overcrowding is as dangerous as the storm. Babies could be trampled. Too many warm bodies in the enclosed space turns the air into an incubator for pneumonia. Killing them with kindness.

 So you do what you can to protect them in the pasture. But what if the wind changes? Your shelters are designed to protect against prevailing northwesterly winds. An east wind could drive them away to bunch against fences, the little ones mashed in the herd, separated from their mothers. If the fence gives way, they will drift with the wind, scattering over miles of countryside.

You wonder what it must have been like all those years ago, when your grandparents were a young married couple. Life without twenty-four hour radar maps on TV and Internet. When you got only an hour, maybe two at best, as the wall of grim, gray clouds rolled over the Hudson Bay divide from the north and bore down on your unsuspecting herd. When you risked your life to lay out feed with a team of horses and a hay sled before the storm hit and you could no longer find your way home.

 Even now, the weather reports are unreliable. The two nearest reporting stations are fifty miles away, one north and one south. Both are over a thousand feet lower in altitude, and a world away in microclimate. The last storm barely dusted them with snow, but dumped over a foot in your yard. You listen to reports from both towns, extrapolate the difference, then calculate the effect of increased altitude and proximity to the mountains.

 In other words, you guess.

 The wind sharpens to a bitter edge, cutting through your thickest coat. The first flurries sting your face as you break and scatter the last straw bale. The horses are last. They stand hunched against wind, watching the barn door. When it opens, they come at a trot, snorting and blowing puffs of steam into the frigid dusk. 

Finally, you retreat to the house, physically exhausted by the scramble to prepare, keeping a leery eye to the north and west as darkness falls. You lie in bed, listening as the front rolls in. A slow roar builds in the trees behind the house. Snow pelts the windows. The landscape dissolves into a swirl of white. Then there is nothing left to do but wait. To watch the mercury plummet, and remind yourself of the times that the wind blew harder, the temperature dropped lower, the snow piled deeper.

Incredibly, miraculously, for the most part the cattle survived. Their capacity to endure is staggering. Through the endless, brittle night you remind yourself of those past miracles. Try to forget the times when nature won the battle. And you pray.

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