Winter weather and Survival

Well, we're all battening down the hatches again. We're under a blizzard warning for tonight and all of tomorrow. No one seems to be taking it lightly after the last storm. We're all praying we're going to be terribly over prepared for what is supposed to be coming. They're not predicting a lot of snow (5 inches) but they were only predicting about 6-8 last time and we got 2 feet. The part that's bad about this one is how much colder it's supposed to be. We're supposed to maybe reach 3 degrees on Sunday with windchills down to -30. So we have all the livestock fed down in the draws and I'm going to move sheep close to the house before it gets dark tonight. They'll have the big, machine shop to get hunkered down next to and if it gets to bad they'll just have to go in it. Mike hates that thought! We have the generator close by in case we lose power and the garage is full of firewood. So, I think we're about as prepared as we can be anyway.

Now, for my survival story from the last blizzard in November. A friend of mine lives north of me about 2.5 hours. She got hit pretty hard as well but thankfully didn't lose a lot of sheep. Unfortunately 2 of them could never be found. She was out feeding shortly after Thanksgiving and noticed the top of a sheep's head where a snow drift was melting. She knew she was dead but glad to know for sure now. Except, the head moved a bit! She and her husband went to digging and sure enough she was alive. This was now 24 days after the storm. She was extremely thin and soaked because of the melting snow but was able to stand in there. So when they got her dug out she walked to the barn and went right to eating hay and drinking. She's needed a lot of TLC and is still pretty thin but looks like she's going to make. It's just another reminder of how strong the will to survive can be! Simply amazing to me.

My main "men"

Well it's official, Zac has been retired from cattlework and most of the hard work on the place. He hasn't done the bulk of it in over a year now but we've finally decided he just can't do the tough jobs anymore. He still gets to do plenty of work around the place and some of the smaller trials but his body just doesn't keep up with his heart anymore.

Heart. It is the one word that describes him the best. I have worked a number of dogs now and have had and still do have ones that are more talented but if I ever have one that has as much heart as Zac has I will truly be blessed. I have never "lacked for dog" in any situation I've put him in. It's not that he's always the toughest (although I'd put him up against most I've seen) it's simply that his heart will carry him through whatever is asked of him.

I made to many mistakes in his training to even know where to begin. I started using him on the place to moves cows and calves at 6 months old. I put him in way to many situations that have aged his body way to rapidly. If given the chance to go back and do it again I'm not sure if he or I would know how to do it any differently though. We've always just been a team and no matter what needed done we figured out a way to do it. Probably not always the correct way and darn sure not with a lot of finesse but we always managed to "get 'er done"!

One of my favorite memories of Zac is during a huge fire in a neighboring pasture in August of 2003. In the mayhem a bunch of lambs got pushed into a tank and couldn't reach the bottom. They couldn't get any footing to be able to get out. I grabbed the ones closest to the edge and started pulling them out. Zac watched me for a minute and I was just taking my boots off to go in after the others, he jumped in without me asking. He started grabbing them by the base of their tails and pushing them to the edge for me to grab. He would then let go and go after another one. You just can't train that in a dog!

Zac just turned 9 on Thanksgiving day and besides my family there isn't one thing I'm more thankful for than to have this dog in my life. He has officially moved into the house. Some days he acts older than his age. Other days you'd think he's a pup again. He loves to set out sheep for the young dogs and back them up if something challenges them. One of his other favorite pastimes is watching TV with us in the evenings. And I DO mean WATCH. Not just sit there, he totally gets in to it. His favorites are anything on Animal Planet and Football. I don't think he'll ever see another tough job or really hard trial course again but I plan on enjoying every day I get with him.

So this brings me to my other "man", Jag. He wasn't as fast maturing as Zac but I also had an old reliable to fall back on while training him so didn't put him in the situations I just threw Zac into either. He was a challenge to start as he pushed on me and when I pushed back we often met with an explosion.

I have been amazed at his natural talent. He's the best outrunning dog I've ever owned and stellar at reading stock. My hubby always says he's got more finesse than most but doesn't always choose to use it! His sheer determination is what kept me going with him when he was young and I was getting frustrated. Nothing was going to get by him. I'm pretty sure he would have died trying rather than not get it stopped. Didn't matter what species it was.

Jag is now the dog that does the bulk of the tough work around the place. Dustin's dog, Kat, helps quite a bit as well but she won't work for me anymore. During the blizzard he was the dog who helped us find all the weaned calves and move them out of the draws. He was the one who worked for 10 hours the one day helping move neighbors cows around. I'm not sure I've seen a dog lose weight as quickly as he did during that 2 week time span. I fed him like crazy but he just put in way to many miles. Always ready for more whenever I asked.

One of my favorite memories of him is when I sent him after the ewes and lambs right at dusk. The coyotes had been giving us trouble and I wanted to move them closer to the house. He's always great at gathering everthing so I just went about my business and figured he'd show up soon enough. Well the sheep quit trickling in but no Jag. So I went looking. I called but no Jag. It took me quite awhile but I finally spotted him on a side hill just laying there. I hollered but he wouldn't come. I was getting a bit torked then so ran up there to give him a piece of my mind. When I got there he was laying next to a big hole that was very deep. I really couldn't see anything down there but just then I heard a faint little bawl. It was a lamb and I had to reach in well up to my shoulder to reach the little bugger. His mom had left him but Jag wasn't about to!

Jag just turned 6 and I'm hopeful that he has many years left of ranch work as well as on the trial field. I hope to spread the work out to my younger dogs more quickly now so I don't age him as quickly as I did Zac. It really is nice to know I have an old reliable again though!

Snow pictures

It's hard to tell in this picture but there are 5 1/2 foot tall fences buried in there. The rams were in that pen and the snow banks were hard enough to walk them across it and put them in a different lot.

I'm standing on the snow bank taking this picture. That tree broke off onto the chicken house. The chicken house with all but one chicken it was completely buried. There wasn't anything but a bit of the roof showing.

The dogs could walk across the fence in the high spot there and it's over 6 foot high.

Once it settled down around here my boys had a blast digging a huge tunnel in this bank. They had a great time naming all the different "peaks", "mountain ranges" and "passes".

The barn towards the back is 14 foot tall at the back. The snow drift actually gets much higher to the left of the picture. That one went to almost 20 feet tall. The drift towards the front went into the building. To get in there I had to dig a little hole and then I could shimmy in on my stomach up against the ceiling. Thankfully the rams weren't in there. Just one stray chicken.

Blizzard!

Well, the first weekend of November was almost summer like weather. Dustin and I spent it at a dog trial in t-shirts enjoying the 70 degree days. The second weekend was a totally different story.

It started to snow Wednesday afternoon (the 5th I believe) and we lost electricity by 3 pm. It snowed pretty good all night and woke up to close to 8 inches. Thursday the wind blew hard all day with gusts close to 80 mph. Add another 10-12 inches of snow coming with it all day and it made for a disastrous blizzard.

Not to be dramatic but everyone is pretty much in agreement that it's the worst one we've had here in at least 30 years. It's the worst one I can ever remember. The worst part was that it wasn't predicted to be even close to this bad so we didn't have time to put the sheep anywhere different. They were down in a good draw but after almost 2 days of the wind and snow blowing that hard, it blew them out of there and through the fences.

By the time we were able to see enough to get to them on Friday (we tried on Thursday but you literally couldn't see 2 feet in front of you) it was a horrid sight. The majority of the snow drifts were six feet tall but many were between 12 and 20 feet. The rams and feeder lambs had a barn but it had literally filled to the roof with snow in all but about a 2' x 10' area. Two of the feeder lambs had been trampled and died as a result.

We started finding the ewes scattered out all over the pasture. It was a pretty horrible sight honestly. It was hard to tell that they were even sheep. They looked more like snow drifts as they were SO covered in snow and ice. Mike started putting hay out for the ones that were fairly grouped up. Zac and I started gently easing the others up to the hay. We got a count and realized we were about 40 head short. So we went looking and found about 20 up against the fence in the pasture. There was a huge snow drift on the other side. Mike found a couple of air holes and we started digging. We found 20 head of ewes buried in there. It was amazing to me how many of those were still alive. It took us 4 hours to dig them all out but all but 6 of them survived. We never could find 4 of them and still don't have a clue as to where they might be but we're assuming they didn't make it. There are 3 that are still down that were buried in the snow bank but they seem to be getting stronger every day. Who is it that says sheep are weak? Ha!

We had just weaned calves about a week prior to the storm hitting. The snow buried a good portion of the fences around the country including the pasture our calves are in. We found all but 50 head on Friday. We found the remainder by Sunday. We lost 3 of them in the storm and we're dealing with a fair amount of sickness in them now. We had about 40 head of neighbor cows that had made it to our house on Friday so we finally got those all moved back to their rightful places on Tuesday. The boys and I have had our fill of riding in deep snow to last for awhile!

We still don't have electricity and they're telling us that it might be Thanksgiving before we have it. There are over 1000 poles down in our local area. The National Guard is in here now helping the Electric Company get through the snow and now mud to get to the poles. So, it looks like there may be light at the end of the tunnel!

We are very blessed and things like this have a way of reminding us of that. We know how much worse it could have been for our livestock. We know how many other people around the area only have electrical heat and have had to leave their homes until the power comes back. We know that all of our family and friends stayed in during the storm and weren't stranded in vehicles all over the state. We are so thankful for a great generator that we can run some of the household appliances on from time to time. Most of all we're so grateful to live in a "community" that all works together to help each other out whenever it's needed!

Out to pasture!

Well, the bunch of cows that we just weaned calves off of got moved out of the corrals today and to a new pasture. We didn't have any extra rider's come over today. It was Mike, Dustin, Brady, myself, Jag and Kat. Dustin hasn't taken Kat with us to move cattle very often lately. I forgot how nice she is for that kind of work! She has so much stamina and just does her job without a lot of commands needed. I think Dustin decided moving cows with her might even be better than trialing. We decided that we (people) were basically there to open/close gates and get the dogs started in the right direction with the bunch. Other than that we just rode along and visited. I love having neighbors over to help us but I can't help but think how much simpler it is with the dogs to do the work instead. They don't drink as much beer either!

Good horses and great dogs!

(I think he found a little mud!)

We've been pretty busy with fall cattle work lately. Helping neighbor's ship yearlings, preg checking cows and weaning calves. I really think fall and spring have to be my favorite times of year simply because of the loads of riding and helping neighbor's work cattle. It's a big part of what our area still takes great pride in, helping your neighbor's. It doesn't hurt that being horseback with a good dog and working cattle is right up there with heaven on earth for me!

I've been riding a young horse since last spring. We're still figuring each other out but I really like him. He's a typical young horse without a lot of miles under his saddle yet though. Every time I ride him he learns something new and advances in my opinion. Today was the first day though where I really felt like he went from a "young horse" to "I've got a horse now". He's always handled cattle work okay but the way he stepped up in every situation today was just great!

We gathered the cows and calves into a portable panel corral in the pasture. They were gathered about a month ago to precondition the calves and then again to preg check recently. They came to the corrals out in the pasture great. They sorted just fine. We left the calves in the corral and started to move the cows back to the house. This is never an easy job and it was pretty tricky for the first 5 minutes with cows breaking back to their calves like crazy.

We had Jag with us as he handles all the different rider's there whooping and hollering without letting it effect him at all. Zac had been officially retired from this type of work as well. When the cows started cutting back he was stopping them and riders would bring them back. One cow got back and got on the fight though. She tried her best to just rub him into the ground. He kept stopping her but she finally got him down pretty good. He never quit trying though. I was up there trying to help him at that point. The cow tried pushing over my horse. He laid his shoulder into her head and kept pushing. That must have done the trick as she just completely gave up and marched to the house like an old milk cow.

So the cows are all in the corral now and the bawling is already starting to quiet down a bit. Jag is a bit sore from the one cow rubbing him into the ground. Amigo, my horse, is back out to pasture grazing and enjoying the sunshine. The boys have still managed to get all their schoolwork done despite having to ride all morning. I'd say it was a GREAT day.

(Brady and his horse Spades)

A Goat Trial

I've been meaning to post a write up about a goat trial we went to at the end of September for awhile now. I may get it done today!

The Griffith Ranch down in Nebraska hosted a field trial that was points and time working Boer/Spanish cross goats. JoEllen and John Wiese manage the goats for Griffith's and put together the trial. They're such great people and bend over backwards to make this an outstanding event.

I love doing things out of the norm with my dogs to see how we do and what we need to work on. This was a perfect opporunity and fun to boot! It was two days and the first day the goats were about like what I imagine antelope are like to work. Wild as the wind! The fetch was only about 200 yds but keeping them all on the field at any distance was a huge challenge! The goal was to get all 5 goats brought through the fetch panels, around you for a left hand drive and then once they cleared the drive panels you were free to help at the rest of the obstacles.

Well, these goats aren't to sure about people as they run in a group of about 1200 out in cedar filled draws all their life. So I'm not sure how much help the "people" were at most of the obstacles. We had a maltese cross, then a pen where you were supposed to have your dog hold them in the open pen while you went around the other side to let them out. Ha! That wasn't happening. Then on to a horse trailer where the goal was to load them, have the dog hold them in the trailer while you went around to open the side door to let them out. Again, that wasn't happening the first day. Then on to a Y chute which wasn't that difficult and a finish with a shed. If you could get that far (no one did that day) the goats were pretty darn easy to get apart. Holding them together had been the challenge! BTW, the second day the goats changed dramatically and they were all fresh again. Not sure what changed in them but the difference was HUGE!

Zac was 3rd the first day and Uno won the PN both days. (WTG Uno!) The first day Jag did setout to get us started for about 2 straight hours in the heat on goats that were hell to hold. I didn't have a dog left when it came time to run. I ended up retiring him that day. The second day we had a dream run going and had it won going into the shedding ring. One nanny tried to jump over Jag and that was all she wrote. Big fat DQ!

I also decided to give Cash a go since I figured it was a smaller course. So, I ran him in nursery. The first day he started to come in tight on his outrun but took his blowout really well. He handled the goats well but was getting in over his head before it was over so I retired. The second day was much better. He worked so well. We didn't place but I think I was more happy about his run that day than anyone of my other dogs! He handles stock so well and trys SO hard to please me. A great combination. I can't wait to see how he handles this next season. I really need to put the finer mechanics on him now. :-)

Thanks again to JoEllen, John, their whole family and the Griffith's for giving us handlers such a great opportunity!