Storm Brings Opportunity

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In Montana storms can roll in fast and cause a lot of destruction, particularly in the spring when the animals are being born.   And sometimes everything seems to go wrong at once.  Those storms can provide some great life lessons.

We had one of those memorable storms on the ranch when my kids were little.  It was early April, and we had the first-calf heifers penned near the house in case any of them needed help calving.  Several of them were due any day.  My in-laws were visiting, so they watched the kids while I helped outside. 

Clouds built all afternoon and the heifers  bucked and ran around their small pasture, feeling the change in the weather.  After one particularly boisterous display of energy, we saw one of the heifers sail over the fence and disappear at a gallop up the coulee beyond.  There were only a few hours of daylight left, the storm was coming and that heifer, naturally, was one of those who could calve at any time.  We searched on foot and with the pickup, but as dark came and the wind and snow forced us to call off the search, we still had not found that heifer.   

When morning came the snow was still falling, and my husband was sick in bed.  He’s a big guy and can do most anything, but when he gets sick he goes down hard. I knew from past experience that he would barely be able to lift his head til the bug had passed.  I have to admit that I felt overwhelmed, and maybe more than a little angry.  How would I cope with a sick husband, in-laws, 2 little kids, heifers about to calve, and get the main cow herd fed?  The kids and in-laws were easy.  My father-in-law was an amputee and would take care of the kids and cook, while my mother-in-law tried to help me.

I did the chores, and checked the heifers, all the while fretting about what I would do about feeding the  cows.  They expected the tractor to bring them hay bales from the hay yard every morning, and would be waiting impatiently for their breakfast.  They certainly wouldn’t starve before my husband was well enough to feed them - they had plenty of hay left over from past feedings.  But they were Angus cows, prone to taking matters into their own hands (or hooves as the case may be) and were likely to break into the hay yard and go on a rampage through the bales if the feed didn’t come as expected.  If that happened, they would destroy hay that would be needed for later in the spring which would be a real hardship.

I was raised on a ranch and was a ranch wife, and had driven most of the tractors and machinery on the place…..except for the one used to feed the cows.   I got mumbled instructions from my sick husband, bundled myself and my mother-in-law (who was scared of all animals bigger than a cat) in snow suits and headed off.

We got the cows fed.  A job that would normally take my husband a half hour took us three times as long.  I was slow moving the bales, having to think through every movement as I drove up to the bale, grabbed it with the grapple fork and carried it to the cattle.  And the only power steering in that tractor was coming from me!  My mother-in-law stood in the gate and waved her arms to keep the cows out of the hay yard as I came through with each bale.  We were both soaked to the skin from the wet snow and worn out by the time we finished the job, but proud that we had been able to get the feeding done.

That night,  of course one of the heifers calved and needed help.   Another first…it was my first time “pulling” a calf and as the heifer and I both strained to get the calf born, I screamed at her for being so stupid as to have the calf at that particular time, and screamed at my husband for being sick at the most inopportune time, and screamed at the storm for causing all this trouble.  Being alone in the barn in the middle of the night is a good place for screaming out your frustration.  And then I cried.   I had gotten the calf most of the way out, but it was hung up on the ribs and try as I might I just couldn’t get it any further.  If I couldn’t get the calf out, I would lose them both.  I tried again, twisting the heavy calf as I pulled harder than I thought possible, and it started to move.  Minutes later the calf was out and the cow was licking it dry.

This storm happened more than twenty years ago, but it is an experience that is still fresh in my mind.  Why?  Because I was pushed out of my comfort zone by circumstances totally beyond my control, and managed to work through fears and frustrations as I did things I didn’t think I could do.  If I had had any options I know I would not have been able to do it - I would have gladly let someone else do it, or not done it at all if there had been any choice.  Sometimes we need those situations to show us what we are capable of …..I think our current economic crisis may be just such an opportunity.  You don’t have to be happy about it, it’s ok to be scared, but dig deep and you will find that you have the resources to come out ok.

The next day the storm ended and the sun came out, my husband got out of bed, and as we looked out at the beautiful snowy landscape, we saw the heifer that had jumped the fence come out of the coulee with her new baby calf.  True story!

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November 14th, 2008 in Ranch Life Lessons, The Economy

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