April 2011

April 2011 came in like a lion and went out with a roar!!  What a storm we had April 29th & 30th!!  Given the circumstances, we should consider ourselves lucky, as we were just on the edge of the storm.  My friends 15 miles away thought I was full of @#$% when I was describing what I was seeing as I looked out my one window I could see out of!  We lost several calves, and a cow which always hurts, but producers to the west and south of us suffered bigger losses than we did.  

The wind and driving snow in the storm pushed cattle through fences, into damns, miles away from home and into coulees where they piled up and died.  Early Saturday morning we got a phone call from my uncle telling us his big herd had pushed threw his fence and were scattered along the county road.

We had several calves that we lost during the storm.  Dana had found one alive, and we brought him into the garage, and I warmed him up and worked on him for quite some time but he didn't survive.  We figured he must have gotten trampled and was hurt inside.

Tally, who is 4, received quite the education during this storm.  Her first lesson was learning how the storm had broken the power lines, and therefore her t.v. and the lights wouldn't turn on.  She also learned how to be quiet while mommy and daddy were busy discussing and weighing our option on what the best plan would be to take care of the cattle.  But probably the biggest lesson was learning that now matter how warm we make sick baby calves, and how much we pray they live, and how sad mom gets when she can't save the baby calf, baby calves can die.

Like I said above, we have to consider ourselves lucky.  We lost very few of our herd.  We had power back within a day.  And most importantly our family was safe through the whole wicked storm.  My one wish is that Mother Nature back off and send us and the rest of the country some nice weather.