Wednesday, May 29, 2013

The circle of life

I was reminded on memorial weekend just how precious life truly is. It was our branding and I will be posting on that but I wanted to write about this first because it is on my heart. Things really hit home when you take care of animals and your whole existence is to make sure that these animals are taken care of. And then you have one die.

We have cattle. We give birth to hundreds of babies a year and this year I can still count on one hand how many calves we have lost. I consider myself blessed and lucky all at the same time. But each death...is hard for me. I know the mother cow, we have a relationship. If that mother has a calf and the calf is born dead then they lick it off and stay by it for hours waiting for it to move and get their milk. Then when reality sets in they just move on but I honestly can see that for a day or so after they are lost. They wonder around and cry out looking for their baby and everytime you drive by they just seem broke. I know animals are suppose to be um..less intelligent than humans... and this and that and esp cows...yada yada. But when we lost one calf in a storm, the whole herd seemed to mourn that one calf. They moved to the spot where I took it away and they all mooed and seemed to cry. They did this the same way for two days straight. I know elephants mourn their dead ones but I honestly am starting to believe that cows do too.

Over memorial day weekend we found a calf suffering from scours. The sign is yellow poo that is very watery. It can melt the hair right off of their butt. It's caused by a virus or bacteria infection and is deadly. You can see a calf with yellow poo and if they are running around and their ears are up, most scours can go untreated and the calf will survive. You don't need to doctor those that are running around all happy. My husband rode through the herd and discovered a little calf, hidden from him the previous ride throughs.

First thing we did was give it a shot of 8 way. Nate had to drench the calf for the first feeding since he would not drink. The second round of solution I gave to the little heifer (girl calf) before I went to bed. This was repeated for three days. The calf didn't make a fast comeback. It continued to not want to get up. We separated the baby and it's mother from the herd and put them in a pen hoping that the baby would be ok. I continued to clean the baby by spraying down it's bottom with a hose to loosen off the yellow matter. It was a very gross job.

I then gave the baby it's first taste of milk replacer. When feeding electrolyte solutions you don't feed milk replacer. The baby sucked eagerly...It drank a half bottle. I was so happy thinking I would come back to a happy calf.

Two hours later...

The baby had blood coming out of it's stool. It was shaking, trembling, twitching. It's jaw was locked.

We put the mother in the squeeze chute and tried to milk the cow and put the baby to the mother's tit. My husband held the calf and I massaged it's bum (yes you read right-I massaged it's yellow butt, under the tail, because it mimics a mother calf stimulating her baby to suck). If you are an animal activist by all means come out to our ranch and help massage a calf's yellow dripping butt...You'll appreciate us a bunch more. Esp the guy who tweeted me that I kill baby calves since I wrote I am a rancher on my profile. ((You have a front row seat buddy)).

Sorry went off on a tangent.

My husband had to shoot it because of the pain it was going through. It wasn't getting better at that point.

Just cause it happened doesn't mean that I have to like it. It sucks. It hurts when you lose an animal. Not because it's a loss of money. But because that calf, the same one that had long, black eyelashes and brown eyes....is no longer a part of our herd. The black calf can no longer go skipping across the field and buck and play.... The calf fought it's hardest fight and didn't make it.

But...as a rancher. This is expected. It's the circle of life. Everyone will die. Everything will die. We don't have to like it. In fact we can be mad, sad, or just want to be alone. I take death silently and think about multiple ways of how I could of changed the scenario. Could I have fed it less or more? Did the shot work? Was it the milk replacer? Should I have sang to it more? (yes I sing to my calves).

That's human nature to want to think we could have changed the outcome. But we are all on our paths that was chosen long before we thought of it. So it's our decision to just go with it or fight it kicking and screaming.

I think I will accept that everything does die, including myself. But it's what you do with every single day that matters. It's if you turn off the computer and read to your children. It is in the moments that you make a picnic rather than go out to eat. Choose to spend your time with those that you love, don't just be a passenger to your own life. Drive.

That was on Sunday.

Then yesterday (Tuesday) my husband called me while I was mowing. I couldn't hear my phone so he came back to the house and said get the kids, "We need to take them to the horses." I beamed and said which one...he said "Lassie".

I got the kids in the rtv. My boy was naturally asking questions, "What's wrong, is everything ok?" I just said, "We have a birth we have to get to."

My son smiled and looked all over the field hoping to catch a calf falling to the ground.
This is what he saw instead.






This is our herd of horses and this was Lassie's first birth. She had just gave birth moments before (my husband watched it's first steps). We have two others that will be giving birth this year (so in less than 30 days). 

This is why we are ranchers. Because we get to teach our kids the circle of life. They watched the death and they get to experience the joys of birth. I wouldn't change my life with a high profile celebrity making millions. I don't want fakeness in my life. I want the real deal. I want....this circle of life that I respect because it makes me a stronger person. It makes me a more caring person. It makes me a better mom and wife and daughter and sister. 

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Jayce Tangler FOUND in Denver, CO

UPDATE AS OF THURSDAY MAY 23, 2013 8:30AM FROM HIS FATHERS FACEBOOK:

"I wanted to let everyone who helped look for Jayce that he was found by Denver Police early this morning by the state capitol building and returned home. He is in good shape and was not harmed in any way.

Thanks for everyones help and support, the kindness and generosity that has been put forth to our family was amazing.

Thank you all,

Kyle"


I honestly started to cry since I tweeted about 100 tweets and was so freaked out....I want to thank everyone who looked and who rt and who shared his picture! THANK YOU SO MUCH for helping find my husband's best friend's son! 
-Autumn


I PREVIOUSLY WROTE:



Hi fellow readers. My husband's best friend's son is missing. Please repost this. He was last seen in the Denver, Colorado area. I took this from their facebook page in hopes to get it to the G+ community! Please repost this ...share it....and be aware! 
-Autumn




Hi friends, as some of you already know, My nephew has been missing since Tuesday May 14. His name is Jayce Tangler and he is a freshman at Ralston Valley High School. He is 15 years old, about 5'5" tall with blonde hair and blue eyes. He was wearing a navy sweatshirt. He was last seen at 7am. Tuesday morning and has not been seen or heard from since. Please call, message or text if you have any information. Thank you so much!!! My email Htangler78@gmail.com
You can also contact my Brother(his Father) Kyle Tangler 
please feel free to share this post

Tornadoes and Oklahoma

My heart goes out to my fellow Okies from the recent tornadoes in Oklahoma. My cousin was in Moore, OK and is safe with her family but her home has been damaged. We still don't know the extent of the damage but thankfully her husband was home and took her and the newborn baby, Hope, away from harm.

We are located in SE OK and was in a tornado warning last night but it was north of our home. Today is suppose to be more bad weather and we are in moderate to severe risk.

I just wanted to let my readers know that if you are in an area that has a potential for tornadoes, get a plan. Locate your nearest storm shelter. Make sure it has water, diapers, wipes, and/or things to get you through the first critical days. We personally have not had time to install a storm shelter since we moved here but it has taken priority in the aftermath of what happened in the last couple of weeks in Texas and Oklahoma.

Thankfully all the people in Oklahoma that I've met so far are resilient people. We will get through this and get through another season of tornadoes. God speed for healing to those in the battered areas. Our thoughts are with you and your loved ones.



Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Pasture wanted

We are looking for pasture for lease. Long term or short term. Doesn't matter what state but if it's far from home we'll probably need to get care with that. 

We haven't had rain for a while and we both are getting nervous. We don't want to sell out our herd and all the leased ground around here is tied up. 

So I'm askin all of my farm/ag/ranch folks in cyberland to let me know what's available. We have mama calf pairs. Call me at (580) 380-2166. 

We would prefer a larger parcel of land but if it's close (aka in OK) we would consider anything. 


Friday, May 10, 2013

Our field of Dreams

I was saving pictures in my external hard drive when I realized there were tons of potential postings that I had completely forgotten about. So...I will hopefully get to post them this month (if I don't get busy-we have a branding ..and my projects are endless right now)

As I've said before this is our field of bulbs (mainly three different varieties of daffodils: Dark yellow, light yellow, and white). My husband told me that he was going to mow them down...(Gasp). So I set out to saving them earlier this spring. But I honestly didn't get far because we ended up needing to fix a bunch of fence that took priority! It's all about what takes priority at a ranch. Daffodils unfortunately are at the bottom of my husbands priority list! 

My two biggest helpers are digging them up.

Pretty healthy looking bulbs. Usually you wait for the green to die off. But honestly when they are going to get unearthed with the blade, it don't matter when you save em!

With the help of my son...we planted them along my garden. They probably won't do well this year since the transplant probably zapped them but next year I should have some awesome flowers in the spring.


This is my son loading the back end with more daffodils. We didn't even make a dent in them...as you can see...But luckily as I write today my husband has not unearthed them and I will wait for them to die off a bit more before working on these more. (fall?)-I think so! 

To me these flowers represent a field of dreams...the reason why is we have worked so darn hard to get to Oklahoma and when I looked at all the blooms out in the middle of this barren field, at the start of spring, in a way it kinda represents us this first year. We did everything we could to get here and sometimes it looked like our fields were bare with nothing growing in them. But when we got here suddenly things are so much easier so we can actually bloom instead of just barely survive. We can pollinate (not reproduce!) and give others some goodness along the way to our community and to our neighbors. And so far it's been such an amazing place to call home. I'm proud to say I'm an okie!

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Cleaning your flower pots

I had found out on twitter that Bar Keepers friend works wonders on pots for all of my garden readers. I thought...well it works awesome on my countertop so why not try it and blog my progress. 
Here is the bottom of the pot, one years worth of hard water stain and junk. 

The first thing I did was take a paper towel and wipe out all of the excess dirt to try to get all the gunk off it before we actually poured on water and Bar Keepers Friend. 

I added a little water.

Added the powder. 

This is the one I was using today. It's a cleaner and polish. I only used a non-metal scrub. One that you would see in the kitchen. 

Here is the result (and my pad I used). There were some other spots that needed additional elbow grease but I was ultimately happy. 

Here is the bottom of the pot, I sometimes water through the bottom instead of the top. If you have water standing in your pots then you will develop this ring.

The Bar Keepers Friend took it right off. It was amazing! 

The result is my two happy pots in their partial shade! :) I have Francis Purple Shamrock and Peppermint in the small container. Make sure if you plant peppermint, you do it in a container, they tend to take over everything. Reese picked out the Francis Purple Shamrock plant because it reminded him of butterflies. I'll take more pics in the future when it starts cascading over the pot. :)