Another New Baby

Momma and new baby.  If you look carefully, you can see Mom is giving the baby a short lick.  I saw the cow earlier in the day and figured she'd have a calf by nightfall.  She did.

This morning when I was feeding Old Momma her morning grain, I noticed this cow standing very near the patio gate.  She was acting restless, her bag was strutted out, and her organs were a bit puffy.  All sure signs of an impending birth.

I went out and saw her baby, but didn't get a good face shot.  Will have to try to do that tomorrow.

You can't see because the back two teats are behind her leg, but the calf has nursed on those two.  The two front ones are still badly engorged, but my guess is the baby will get after it by tomorrow.

Sharon got on the quad with me and we rode out to see this new baby.  What a delightful pre-dinner event.  We are so very fortunate.

Mr. Boo is Getting Around

I wrote in my column about Mr. Boo, my herd sire.  I came out of the house on Monday morning to find him limping.  No signs of trauma, snake bite, foot rot, or anything visible.  Makes me of the opinion that it may be a rather severe sprain.

This morning (Friday) he had made his way to the house again, so I took him another pan of grain, then brought him a flake of hay from the barn.  I know he's going to water, so he does get around, but whatever it is hurts.

Think it will probably get better, but for the moment he's doing so-so.

More here when I know it.

"Fire on Black Mountain" Nearing Completion

Several years ago I started writing a novel about a twelve-year-old boy, raised on a cattle ranch, who is a competent horseman. (Gee - I wonder who that might be patterned after?)  The working title is "Fire on Black Mountain." The story is inspired by an actual event which has always captured my imagination and has been the foundation for this book.

My father woke me at 12:30 AM one August morning, telling he needed me to go with him up the side of Black Mountain near our home. A snag tree hit by lightning was smoldering near the peak. We took horses for the firefighters, then led them up a dark mountain, to find the snag before sunlight dried the dew. In my fictionalized tale, Dad has broken his leg and can't ride, so my character has to lead the fire crew up the mountain.

The book was taken to my writers group in Porterville, chapter at a time, until I had finished it. Even though it was complete, I was not satisfied with the content, and never did anything with it.  The file sat in my computer for four years, "gathering ether dust" and going nowhere.  I always had in the back of my mind to return to the book and improve it. But reality got in the way of dreams, and it never happened.

This past December I attended our Writers Group annual Christmas Dinner.  We meet at a nearby restaurant, and bring our spouses to enjoy a fun evening, visiting and chatting with no obligation to critique someones work.

One of our members, a pediatrician, has commented several times how much he enjoys being able to read my weekly column to his grandchildren. The tales in the column often include happenings around my small herd of cattle, most especially my "kissing bull" Mr. Boo.

As we enjoyed our dinner, Doc looked up at me, and in an effort to make conversation asked, "Have you ever thought of writing a book?"

Feeling a bit guilty because the book sat languishing on my hard drive, I took a deep breath, and told him I had, but it didn't turn out to be very good.

The other writers down the table entered the conversation, and within moments I was being encouraged - well let's be honest ... strongly urged - to get busy and get started.  It sounded as if maybe this might be a good idea, so I started going back through the early chapters preparing to take them, chapter at a time, to the group for their critique.

The night I brought Chapter 3, I could tell one lady, actually my Freshman (in high school) speech teacher, had something important to tell me.  She dropped a bomb in my lap when she said, "I think you should take Chapter 1, 2, and 3 and make it Chapter 1.  You've got to get this guy moving sooner."

Holy cow.  Combine three chapters into one? That's a whole lot of chopping and whacking.  And, it took me a week or more before I braved the task of serious editing needed to make it work.

Much to my surprise, and pleasure, I discovered the things that needed to be dropped almost literally jumped off the page at me.  I could see now, what I needed to chop, and what I needed to keep.

I am much more pleased with the content and structure now. Ultimately, I think it is going to be a reasonable piece of literature. It will probably never sell a million copies, but it is going to be fun to see it in print. The sequel to this tale is already rattling around in my head, waiting to be put down.

The final chapter will go to Writers in a week. Then I have to get busy formatting it and getting it ready to publish. I've asked a friend familiar with horses to read it when I finish, and look for "horse errors." I want him to look for things with or around the horses involved the tale that should be changed.

A final careful reading and editing of the entire book should put it in shape to publish. I must admit to a certain impatience to see this as a book i can hold in my hand.

The Consummate Stockman

I was raised on a working, cow/calf cattle ranch in the eastern Tulare County foothills.  We always watched for the rain, and celebrated it's arrival. When it rained my dad would often joke, "Let's go in the house and let it all fall on the ground."

If the rains come in sufficient quantity, the grass grows on the hills, and the cows will have sufficient food to eat to keep their body conditions, and raise their calf.  If the rains don't come, either we had to buy hay to feed, or we had to sell cows to reduce the size of the herd so the range would support the herd.

One year, our hills had not gotten hardly any rain by the middle of January.  My dad was the consummate stockman,having been in the business all his life. One day, after we finished feeding hay to the cows in the hills, he announced that he had gotten a call from a man over in the cost range.  They had not had any rain at all, and he had to sell a number of cows.

We thought Dad had lost his marbles.  Why were you buying another two hundred cows, when we were already feeding hay to everything we owned. And now you are adding more?  That'll be another twenty bales of hay every day.

But Dad wasn't phased.  He bought the cows, and had them delivered.  Of course they had to arrive in the early afternoon, after we'd finished feeding hay to the cows we already owned.

When we went to feed hay that morning, we were a little surprised to see a solid wall of clouds off to the west.  By noon, we could see a lot of dark clouds, but no rain.  We knew better than to ignore the obvious signs that it might rain, so we all took our slickers tied on our saddles.

The first truck rolled in, and unloading began about 2:00 PM.  By 3:00 we had all 200 cows in the corral milling around.  Before the last truck rolled out the gate, somebody yelled, "Hey, I just got hit by a big drop."

We all scrambled off our horses, untied our slicker and put it on, before mounting.  We opened the gate and started driving our new cows up the road roughly a mile, as the sky opened up and soaked everything.

Not only did my dad get a good buy on the cows, but most of them were bred and due to calve in the next few weeks.  When we sold the calves that next summer, we got enough money to entirely pay off the cows. His risky purchase turned out to be an excellent business decision.

I learned not to doubt the Old Stockman, even if he seemed to have a crazy idea.  His instinct was that it would rain pretty soon. Even if we fed a little hay, it would still pay off, because he'd negotiated an excellent price for the cows,