Everything Is Fine
Last Wednesday I awoke with a start, my heart racing. Automatically I checked my phone for the time. It was 3:00 AM. I lay there listening. Kerry was gently breathing beside me. The dog’s downstairs in their kennels were quiet. Everything seemed normal, so what woke me? I was never going back to sleep until I did a quick tour around the perimeter to check for the boogeyman. Between the electronic glow of various machines in the house and some moonlight shining through the shaded windows it was easy to reconnoiter without flipping on any lights. I got out to the kitchen and checked to see if the front and back doors were locked and then looked at the weather station. There was the answer. At 21 below zero our house’s rafters and framing studs had popped from the cold, waking me up. I crept back to our bedroom and slid under the covers staying away from Kerry so my “coldness” wouldn’t wake her. I lay there warming up and noticed slivers of moon light shining around our blackout shades. The light looked cold. The roof popped again, and Kerry murmured in her sleep while turning over. I pulled some covers up to tuck her in some more and I lay back smiling. The whole thing reminded me of a night just like this years ago on the ranch.
We were in the middle of a two-week stretch where the daytime high temperature never rose above -15. At night it dropped to -30. Vehicles, including school buses, didn’t want to start so we had to drive the kids into school and back again. Anything metal seemed to want to break. During a very cold week a few years before I snapped off two studs on one of Kerry’s wheels while trying to change the tire. I had to use a propane torch to heat up the metal on the remaining studs to get them off and Kerry drove carefully on the changed tire into the tire shop to get the studs replaced. Vehicles, especially diesels, needed to be plugged in to keep the block heaters running. The John Deere tractor, essential for loading big square bales on the feed truck, wouldn’t start without the heaters. Don’t ask me how I know. That’s another story about another cold snap. And yes, for all you ranch folks, I know we wouldn’t need the tractor to load Round bales. Again, another story for another time!
Cattle waterers froze despite the internal heaters. I chopped holes in the ice at the creek morning, noon, and night so the cows could drink. It was so cold it hurt to breath and your nostril hairs froze together. I wore my neck gaiter over my nose the entire time I was outside, and it turned to ice from my breath. The cows would huddle together for warmth, but their breath would condense on each other’s bodies to form icicles. They would clink together when they walked anywhere so the kids started calling them cowsicles. To make matters worse, we were calving.
Cows and their calves are tough animals. Cold doesn’t seem to bother them too much. Being wet and cold however can be deadly. Of course, when we mammals are born, we are very wet. The ranch raised Red Angus for brood stock. No one was going to turn these animals into steaks. Each calf, bull or heifer were far too valuable to eat because of their future value in breeding. It may seem strange to the uninitiated but calves whose tails or ears get frozen are less valuable as breeding animals. It never made sense to me, and no one could explain it. After all, a frozen tail won’t affect the size of the ribeye that animal will pass on to its progeny, but you are not changing ranchers’ minds so with weather like we were experiencing we needed to get newborns inside and dried off pronto.
Under normal circumstances, meaning temps above ten degrees or so, we had little hats we could slide over the calves’ nose and pin their ears back to keep them from freezing. Then you put them on a sled and drag them to the barn. Hopefully mom was following you and you could plop them in a stall full of straw. Mom licks them dry which also gets their circulation going in their extremities. Then they learn to stand and suck colostrum from their mother and everyone is happy. But the barn wasn’t heated or insulated and most of the walls had cracks you could see through. If it was -30 outside, it was -30 inside.
When the cold snap struck calves were getting frost on them as they were being born! It was two in the morning and the only place I could think of that would be warm was the house. Many ranch families have put a new calf in the bathtub. They couldn’t get out of the tub to get in trouble, and they weren’t going to freeze to death. I was very sure Kerry, who normally is a good sport, would not like that very much and neither would I. What the hell do I do I thought as a big bull calf plopped onto the frozen ground in a pool of amniotic fluid. Then it hit me. The cellar! I could put calves down there, bottle feed powdered colostrum mixed in warm water which would hold them until daylight. Then they would be dry and warm, and I would take them out and pair them with their mothers. All the cows calving now were experienced mothers and I wasn’t concerned about the confusion that happens with first calf heifers.
The rest of the night I pulled the calf sled back and forth five times from the calving pasture behind the house up the hill to our backdoor. Of course, the mothers were not happy about me stealing their babies and chased me to the gate. One huge cow looked like she was going to take the wire gate out to follow me to the house, but she backed off when I got in her face and gave her a whack on the nose with my cattle stick. One at a time I carried the bundles of joy downstairs and bundled them up in old blankets the ranch had for that purpose. Carrying 90 lbs. worth of wiggling, squirming, wet and slippery calf down a flight of concrete steps is not much fun. I don’t know how I did it five times without tumbling butt over teakettle. Once each calf was settled, I went upstairs to the kitchen and mixed up a calf bottle with the colostrum. I lucked out that night and every calf but one sucked immediately. The one hold-out I tube fed which was interesting because I had never done that before. I watched it being done a bunch of times and it seemed simple enough. The confused look on that poor creature’s face as I slid the tube down its throat into its stomach was priceless. I also had a good idea and used a grease pencil to write each calf’s mother’s ear tag number on them so I could keep track of who was who.
Finally, about 5:00 in the morning everyone was curled up warm and asleep. I went out for one more tour of the calving pasture and barn. All was quiet except for my calving companions, the Long-Eared Owls who followed me around hoping I would kick up a mouse. They would screech and hoot most nights especially when it was terribly cold like now. Going inside, I got all my layers of clothing off and hung up on hooks and fell asleep on the couch. I was beat and in a few hours, we would feed hay to the cows and get all our boarders in the cellar matched up with their moms. Sometime later Kerry woke up. She would get the kids ready for school and head into town for work but first she wanted to get a load of laundry going.
I bolted upright on the couch. The damn cows must have busted the gate and got loose! Calves were bawling, Boomer the Border Collie was barking, and I could hear Kerry’s voice but not what she was saying. The kids came out of their room asking what was going on. I stumbled to the kitchen and looked out the picture window where I had a view of the corrals and calving pasture gate. There was nothing going on out there. More bawling! The noise sounded like it was in the same room as me.
Oh my God, I forgot about the newborns.
I ran downstairs past Boomer, who was standing sentry on the stairs. Then I heard peals of laughter along with the bawling. I opened the cellar door and there was my blushing bride wearing her sweatshirt and jeans with fuzzy slippers on her feet surrounded by wobbly legged calves who were convinced she must be their mother. The calves were jostling for position to suck on her fingers hoping for milk.
“Take it easy guys. I’ll go get you a bottle or something.” She looked up at me with a wry smile.
“Is there something you would like to tell me about last night?”
The ceiling popped again and one of the dogs started yipping in a dream downstairs. It sounded like Maggie. Probably chasing a bunny. Kerry touched my hand.
“Are you awake?” she asked in a half-asleep voice.
“Yeah, its cold out and the house popping woke me up. Go back to sleep. Everything is fine.”
“OK.” she whispered, “I’m glad we don’t have to check cows.” And turned over.
That’s a family joke we tell each other when the weather turns bad. I was glad too but sometimes I miss those incredibly cold, tree-popping nights with the owls talking to me and the moon and stars lighting my way as I walked among sleeping cows and calves. Every once in a while, a cow would open her eyes, raise her head and sniff at me. Then satisfied as to who I was, she would close her eyes again and go back to sleep.
Everything was fine.
Our neighbor's cows birthed steaming piles of wobbly legs on the sub-zero frozen ground with no cute hats or sled rides to warm cellars in the middle of the night! What a life! I often complained about the challenge of keeping my horses fed and watered in those harsh temperatures. At least they foaled in the spring when it was warm! I enjoy hearing words like reconnoiter and imagining the high-pitched, long-eared owls hoping to scavenge a feast. The images of you avoiding tumbling butt over teakettle while carrying a 90-pound calf in your arms are vivid. Great storytelling!! Once again, your story brought smiles to my day.