The Best Mother

The only surviving picture of Andrew

Ranching is wonderful.
Most of the time.
You get to spend your days outdoors, working in the pure, sage-stuffed air.
See the heat shimmer on the tops of hills.
Watch the prairie grass bend in the breeze.
You witness births and new life. See groups of calves, and sometimes their mothers, cavort and snort and play.
And see the milk cow try to run with the deer.
You can bury your face in your pony's thick, warm winter coat and just breathe in his 'horsey' smell.
You have long, wonderful talks with family members as you ride to or from.
And while you're working.
Together.
It's a peaceful and serene existence.
And the scenery breath-taking.
But occasionally, it gets pretty gritty.
There are disasters.
Pain.
Death.
But even these can result in something beautiful.
Let me explain . . .
As occasionally happens, a young heifer (cow that hasn't yet produced a calf) got 'exposed' to a bull.
She caught. (Became pregnant)
But something went wrong.
Perhaps because she was so young. Perhaps because she had some physical and undetected abnormality.
Whatever the reason, she was dying and there was nothing that could be done to save her.
And her calf was just days away from being born.
My Dad had to make a quick decision.
He decided to take the calf early and then put the suffering mother out of her misery.
Fortunately, in times like these, a trained veterinarian can work very, very quickly.
One life saved.
Another let go.
And we had a new little bull calf.
An extremely healthy and active little bull calf.
I called him Andrew.
Because.
But Andrew didn't have a mama.
Normally, this doesn't present too much of a problem.
You simply adopt the calf onto another mama.
It isn't easy, but it's worth the effort.
Unfortunately, there were no 'mamas' available.
Bottle feeding was indicated.
Now any of you who have bottle fed a puppy or kitten or other young animal know that it's a time-consuming and constant thing.
Not so with calves.
They only need to be fed three or four times a day.
Fairly simple to work around.
And fun for the kids.
So we dug out our bottle and formula and gave our little man his first feeding.
He sucked strongly. A good sign.
On to the next hurdle.
Finding him a place to bunk.
Firmly rejecting our son's offer of his room, we decided on the corral.
There was only one problem.
The corral already had an occupant.
Old Bluey.
Bluey was an older appaloosa mare, gentle and slow.
Her mottled black and grey hair gave her a distinct 'blue' colour.
Thus the name.
Okay, so creative, we weren't.
Back to the problem . . .
We decided that Bluey probably didn't propose much of a threat to our little Andrew.
We carried the calf into the pen and set him down.
He stood there for a moment.
Blinking.
Then he spied Bluey.
Bawling loudly, he headed towards her.
She stared at this little apparition.
And moved away.
He kept on coming.
Again she moved.
This went on for some time.
Finally, deciding that Andrew would be all right, we left them together.
A few hours later, I took a new bottle of formula to our little orphan.
And received the surprise of my life.
There stood Bluey, with the calf beside her nursing loudly.
Nursing?
I should point out here that a horse is generally considerably taller than a cow.
Certainly, Bluey was taller than Andrew's mother had been.
In fact, to simply reach the mare's udder Andrew had to stretch as far as he possibly could.
But he was doing it.
And Bluey was letting him.
It was a miracle.
Another thing I should mention is that a calf is a lot rougher while nursing than a colt. Calves get very 'enthusiastic'. And if the milk slows down, they butt their head into the cow's udder.
Not so with colts. They are quite gentle. Even mannerly about their feeding.
I probably needn't point out that Andrew was a calf.
And an extremely enthusiastic one.
I watched as he butted his head into Bluey's udder. I could almost feel her wince.
She raised her leg and closed her eyes for a moment.
Then she lowered her leg and let him nurse again.
It truly was an amazing sight.
Throughout the summer, Bluey nursed Andrew.
Once, we left the calf in the corral and took Bluey out to bring in the herd, intending to capture them in that same corral.
As we drew close with the herd, someone opened the gate.
Little Andrew came running out, searching for his 'mother'.
And bawling loudly.
Bluey nickered back at him anxiously and he quickly found her and took up a position at her side, following along happily.
Eventually, in the fall, all the calves were weaned, taken from their mothers and put into the feedlot together.
For a day or two, there was a lot of bawling and angst.
Then they discovered the feed troughs.
And discovered, too that they had very short memories.
Peace was restored.
Bluey, too, resumed her peaceful life as though it had never been interrupted.

There is an addendum . . .
I checked Bluey's udder once while she was with her little adopted boy.
She had no milk.
None.
She had done all of that 'Mothering' with an empty udder.
The pain must have been exquisite.
But she did it.
Cheerfully.
What a mother!
And what an example she is to me.

4-H An Alternative to Delinquincy

Me and my first 4-H calf. I'm the nerd in the cowboy hat.

Twelve was an important age in the Stringam family.

It was when one finally got to join 4-H.

With the grown-ups.

No end of excitement.

First, there was the all-important choosing of the calf.

Then there was the twice daily ritual of feeding said calf.

Accomplished for the first day by me, and thereafter by George.

For the entire six years I was in 4-H.

Ahem . . .

There were the monthly meetings.

Where we were expected to hand in our record books - a concise documentation of our calf's daily diet, inevitable weight gain, and any other pertinent information.

Frantically scribbled half an hour before the meeting started.

Or during the meeting.

Moving on . . .

Twice a year, we were loaded into cars and taken on a 'calf tour'.

Where we exclaimed, more or less knowledgably, over each other's calves. And then, more importantly, had a wonderful dinner at one of the homes.

Usually one of the family's of Hungarian descent.

The best cooks in the entire world.

Mmmmm.

At the end of the year, we loaded our now-enormous darlings into trucks and headed into Lethbridge for the final show and sale.

Beyond exciting.

Three days of meeting new people (i.e. boys).

Flirting.

Walking along the midway and eating 'fair' food. (Foot-long hot dogs. Hamburgers. Corn on the cob. Doughnuts. Cotton Candy. Chocolate. Popcorn.)

Attending the dance.

Sleeping in the dorms.

Oh, yes. And grooming and showing and selling our calves.

And then, more exciting still, the club trip.

Where the club members, with their families, would embark, together, on a journey to . . . somewhere wonderful.

We toured all over Alberta and into Montana and Washington.

And saw . . . stuff.

One trip, in particular, stands out.

We had travelled into Washington and planned to camp at a brand-new and ultra modern campground.

Which, according to the pamphlet, was home to an enormous swimming pool and other amazing features.

It was the hottest day of the year.

And air conditioning hadn't been invented yet.

Our caravan pulled into the campsite and ground to a halt.

There were trees.

And water hydrants.

And little else.

Apparently, the pictures in the brightly-colored pamphlet had been artist's renderings.

Of amenities that would 'some day' be part of the campground.

Us kids gathered around the giant hole that would one day be a swimming pool.

And sighed.

Our parents started to set up camp.

It was hot.

One of the dad's hooked a garden hose up to a hydrant and started to clean off a table.

Another Dad filled a pitcher to add to the radiator of his over-heated truck.

They looked at each other.

Hose, squirting cool water.

Pitcher, filled with equally cool water.

Hottest day of the year. (I know. I already said that. But it really was.)

Pool that only existed on paper.

It was a no brainer.

The fight was on.

By the time it ended, every single person in the campsite was soaked.

More than soaked.

If you were moving. You were a target.

Let me rephrase that.

If you were breathing, you were a target.

A group of moms were sitting in a safe (i.e. dry) place, watching the fun and laughing uproariously (real word - I looked it up).

My brother, George, spotted them.

They were dry.

This was unacceptable.

He filled a bucket with water and . . . waited.

They saw him standing there and, staring in disbelief, slowly got to their feet.

"George?!"

"George!"

"No, George!"

Begging availed them nothing.

In a moment, they were as soaked as the rest of us.

The fight lasted most of the afternoon, and, by the time it was finished, everyone was wet, cool, and happily exhausted.

Much the same condition we would have been in if the pool really had existed.

I don't remember much else about that particular trip.

Everything else paled when compared to "The Water Fight'.

4-H.

Six years of experiences.

Of growing up.

I miss those times.

I suppose they still have it.

4-H, I mean.

And fun.

I wish I was still part of it.

Ring Around the Collar

Me and GollyGee

Not using a saddle really did pose certain challenges. Being unable to use a rope being the most notable. Unfortunately, I had to learn that particular fact by experience.

I had been Dad’s official herdsman for . . . about two weeks. A job that had hitherto been the responsibility of one or more hired men.

Our operation had shrunk in size until we no longer needed hired men. We kids could do most of the work. And did. 24 hours a day. Seven days . . . but that is another story.

I was checking the herd for prospective, or recent, mothers. My horse stumbled, literally, over a small, newborn calf lying in the tall grass. Abandoned. At that early point in my new career, I didn’t know that the calf certainly wasn’t in any danger. Mama was nearby.

All I could see was a small, defenceless little creature that needed my help. I picked it up. And somehow got it across the riding pad on my horse. And then managed to get up behind it. No mean feat for someone without stirrups.

Or a brain.

I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures of the cowboy bringing home the small, half-frozen calf. The tiny creature lying helplessly across his saddle. I had always pictured myself doing just that. It seemed . . . romantic somehow. And was. Until the calf peed. All down my new riding pad. You never saw that in the pictures.

I managed to make it to the corrals in the corner of the pasture. I set the little cretin down in a corner and went off in search of Mama. There. The cow running around and bawling. Now all I had to do was reunite them. Simple. Not. She didn’t want to vacate the area where she had last seen her baby. He must be here. If she ran back and forth a few . . . thousand . . . more times, she was sure to stumble over him.

I had an idea. I would rope her. She certainly wouldn’t be able to argue with that. Genius! I rode back to the corral and returned with my Dad’s brand new lariat.

Getting the loop over the head of the frantic cow was easy. Then I would just . . . dally . . . I looked down in consternation at the place where the saddle horn should be.

Where it . . . wasn’t.

The rope slid through my hands, along with the cow.

I managed to reunite cow and calf. Finally. By bringing the calf and putting him back where I had found him originally. The cow wore Dad’s expensive new lariat for several months. I called her ‘Ring Around the Collar’. I though it was funny.

Dad didn’t.