A Busy Week

Whew—I think it’s time for another vacation!  Tuesday we helped Lonn work calves.  Working calves entails rounding up the cows and calves, separating the calves from their moms which as you can guess is a very noisy operation and running each calf into a chute which catches their heads.  Two injections each, tick and lice medicine poured over their backs and some kind of anti-viral stuff squirted up their nose—sure was glad Lonn was doing the nose thing—some of those calves got just a touch irate at that! I like helping when we aren’t branding—injections and a squirt up the nose—I can live with that!

You might ask why the chute system is so large—it is a very well designed system of sliding doors creating small pens inside steel walls which the cow or calf cannot see over.  The actual squeeze chute is hydraulically operated and Lonn has the moves down to a science.  In the past the owners of the ranch Lonn manages and the adjoining ranch owned by a famous neighbor ran a buffalo herd—sorting and working buffalo requires some stout equipment—thus this chute operation.

Wednesday we were up and at’em early—my hair appointment in Billings was at 9am!  But the early arrival time allowed us an early departure time and we were home by 3pm after a great lunch at CJ’s plus some heavy duty grocery shopping. 

Wednesday evening it began to snow and Thursday morning we had about 4 inches.  Snow in early September—wow!!  My geraniums which Nancy cared for while we were in Alaska are just beautiful, sure am glad I brought them inside!!

Thursday saw me leaving the house again, not quite so early but early enough—Nat had an eye doctor appointment in Livingston.  It was with relief we heard the news his prescription had not changed in 18 months and he can still drive.  Doesn’t even need new glasses.

Yesterday morning while playing ball with Emmi she ran to get the ball and suddenly froze.  She would not move nor get the ball.  I said, “let’s go in the house” and she slowly followed me in.  I lifted her up into the recliner where she sleeps and she was just rigid, not wanting to lie down right away.  Michael came in for lunch and she just wanted him to hold her. 

When I got home you could tell she was in pain.  This morning she seemed better but as the day progressed it was apparent something was wrong and I called getting an appointment with our veterinarian  for 4pm.  In the meantime Emmi cried out in pain a couple times, once when she tried to change positions and once when I picked her up.  Jim, our veterinarian thinks she has sprained her back somehow and gave us some prednisone to give her.  It’s so hard when your pets can’t tell you what’s wrong!

Can you believe we had a temp of 22 degrees this morning—BRRR—it was dang cold for September!!