Easter in Cohagen

Every year, our family goes to the sunrise service on the big butte, west of Cohagen. In fact, Wayland and I went when we were dating! (It was the acid test....if he was willing to get up at 5:30 AM to go to church on a hill, he was a keeper. ) Here's the information, if anyone is interested in going. It's really beautiful, but really cold! The breakfast is just magnificent, and it's fun to visit with everyone.

Easter Sunrise Service

6:00 AM, April 12, 2009

On top of the rocky hill, four miles west of Cohagen on the West Little Dry Road

A potluck breakfast will be held at the Cohagen gym, following the service.

For more information, email me at [email protected] or leave a comment here, and I'll get back to you!

Scotcheroos

When I was a little girl, one of my favorite things to eat in the whole wide world was my Aunt Arlene's Scotcheroos. My mom made rice krispie bars, but Aunt Arlene's rice krispie bars had peanut butter and chocolate! How decadent! And when I was pregnant, I craved Scotcheroos like you wouldn't believe. When I make them, I can't stay away from them, so I quickly package them up and ship them to far off destinations, like the shop. One of my friends just requested the recipe, so I thought I'd post it. If you are inclined to wallow in anything chocolate and peanut butter, here is fair warning: these will be the death of you!

Without further ado,

Scotcheroo!

Spray 9x13 pan with non-stick spray.

In a large saucepan, combine 1 cup granulated sugar and 1 cup white corn syrup;

bring barely to a boil, stirring constantly over medium heat.

Remove from heat; add 1 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter and stir until smooth.

To the peanut butter mixture, stir in 6 cups rice krispies until well-combined,

then pat into the prepared 9x13 pan.

(There will be residual peanut butter mixture left in your saucepan. Take the time to thoroughly scrape this out with a table spoon and dispose of properly, trying not to drool noticably...)

In a large microwavable glass bowl, combine 1 package dark chocolate chips & 1 package butterscotch chips.Microwave 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between times until smooth and combined.Spread THIS mixture like frosting over your peanut butter krispies,and refrigerate the whole works for about 1 hour, until the topping is set up.

These will be quite firm, to cut, so take them out of the fridge about 15 minutes before you want to cut them into bars. These don't have to be refrigerated, after you cut them, but you want to keep them cool-ish, or the chocolate gets quite soft.

Enjoy!

Bummer

I'm starting my herd!

Today, the majority of the Board of Directors of Lang's Fork, Inc. had an unofficial meeting by the corrals to discuss the future of Daisy, the sorta-bum calf that we've had in the barn for about 5 days. The unspoken rule of the ranch is this: We Don't Mess With Bums. (And I'm assuming that just applies to calves, but we've never actually put it to the test.) Usually, if there's a bum calf, the President calls a neighbor; she's my ranching heroine, and I believe she may be reading this, so I'll call her Montana Calamity. She raises them, tenderly, and adds them to her herd.

I've been jealously watching this for a couple of years, coveting the calves. "How," I ask myself, " am I to start my own herd when the only opportunity keeps getting shipped out from under me?" And I have a brand and everything. I've had it since I was 4 years old. It hasn't touched the hide of many animals. Not that I'm bitter...

Anyway, Daisy is a unique bum in that her mother is still alive, but too ill to parent. She has an undetermined illness that is mystifying the President and Senior V.P. They've given her all sorts of shots, to try to get her going, but so far, nothing is working. I suggested that it might be a case of Bovine Post-Partum Depression. (Well, it seemed possible...she's listless, not interested in eating, lays around all the time, uninterested in her calf....See? She's disillusioned with this whole calf notion and her hormones are out of whack.) This idea was met with polite snorts, so I guess they aren't going with that diagnosis. Pity. I think it has merit.

So, in an unprecedented decision, Daisy was bestowed on the Junior V.P.! As soon as we can get a shelter and pen, here, she's moving to the South Fork of Lang's Fork Inc. (I'm not sure that's geographically correct, but it sounds impressive.) I need to call Montana Calamity and interview her as to her feeding regimen, if she's not too upset at the loss of the bum. The kids are excited, I'm excited...the Senior V.P. is less than excited, but resigned to the idea.

Now, to find that branding iron....

On Monday, after the flurry of calf gathering and warming was over, the glamorous job of cleaning the corrals and calving pens was on the agenda. The guys got busy with the tractor and Bobcat, cleaning the corrals and moving snow, so the barn work fell to me.

In true management style, my husband, the Senior Vice-President of Lang's Fork Inc, gave me a 25 lb. pitchfork, told me to get the "big" piles of poop and all the afterbirth, and where I was to toss it. It was pretty complicated. (I'm the Junior Vice-President, and it was transparently clear THAT title is for paperwork purposes only.)

I got busy and after about 3 trips to the dump pile, I started feeling like the maid at the Bovine Inn. Because, you know, the cows are put in a pen, have their calf, stay for about 6 hours, then leave. Kind of like an overnight stay at a motel. They leave the beds unmade, the towels on the floor and trash everywhere. And let me tell you, when I got done cleaning the pen, I didn't leave a mint on the pillow.

It's snowing here, again, this morning. Big, fat, sloppy, gloppy, wet flakes are hitting the window and the ground is completely white. The calendar says April, but spring sure seems a long time coming this year.

Trusty 4 wheelers...in lieu of horses, we have another type of horsepower. MUCH to Maggie's dismay.

Vern feeding the "late" cows chopped hay and cake pellets.

This is a decal on our bale handler, and for some reason, I like how the red, white and blue stand out under all the grime of the ranch.

Scenes from paradise...

Yes, I AM alive, still! I've been trying for two days to download pictures of the aftermath of the storm that hit here, but every time I would attempt the download, the internet would disconnect. We have Wild Blue satellite internet, and it will be the death of me.

Wayland and I borrowed Naomi's camera to take with us, to document the glamorous life of a rancher. I know she thinks we're nuts, taking pictures of cows and tractor tires, but at least there's two nuts!

I never know how these posts are going to come out, with the pictures, so I'll try to explain each photo. But it may make no sense at all. In which case, you abandon the explanation and just look at the details in the picture....

Cow 183, who calved in the night, and agreed amicably to pose for this documentary.

We didn't give her any time to freshen up, but I think she looks pretty good.

These are the cows in "the maternity ward" who we have sorted out as being closer to calve.

They have no regard for our opinion, whatsoever, and aren't calving any faster than the ones we sorted off as late. Here they are enjoying shredded hay, breakfast of champions.

The sideways freezing icicles, next to the old shed. The wind was blowing THAT hard.

This is the dash of the feed pickup, filled with various essential components to the operation.

You see the strap of the binoculars to the left, for looking for cows and their numbers. Then there are gloves, a plastic bag of eartags and marking pen, shotgun shells, half-eaten chocolate chip cookies and the book we record numbers and notes about the cows and calves.

The Farmer, before the stress of the day had strained our relations. He didn't have a chance to freshen up, either. Notice the bushy sideburns. You can tell all the ranchers who are calving and lambing, because they don't get to town to get thier hair cut, and they start cultivating a sort of 1974 kind of look. AND they get a little defensive about it, if you hold up your fingers in the "peace" sign.

Here's #183, again, checking to see if this is her calf. They make funny little moo-coos at their babies; it's hard to describe. You know how women talk to tiny babies? That's how cows talk to calves, sometimes. I think it's so beautiful, to hear them murmuring back and forth.

Vern, putting chopped hay into the hay wagon to take out to the cows.

This is one of the calves we found that was chilled down. He'd just been born, and his mama cleaned him off good, but he was wet and cold, and his ears were starting to freeze.

So we put him in the pickup, with the heater blowing full blast, to transport him to....

...the hotbox in the shop, where he stays for an hour or two, depending on how frozen he was. This is a calf who is ready to get out. He's looking perky and dry.

Wayland with one of the calves that had been born in the barn, the night before.

So that's what we've been doing the past couple of days. Today was warmer, and the sun came out...hooray! Traci and I took the kids to preschool, but CUPS was a pretty quiet affair, since Anne was sick, so we had tea in the church basement and just caught our breath!

I hear babies stirring, awake from naps, so I'd better get off the computer. Hope you enjoy the pictures!

I don't see the tulips, Margaret...

Since I couldn't get pictures off my camera, my mother-in-law sent some from her house.

March, in Montana, ain't for sissies.

The icicles are freezing sideways!

The barn is on the far left; you can't see all the cows, but they're right next to it, and on the hill.

(Okay, you'll just have to take my word for it, but there IS a hill there!)




Pictures of Naomi's yard, toward the south. There are a lot of mad geese, I'm sure, wishing they'd stayed south a week longer...
I know a ranch wife who's probably looking at property in Arizona, right now, wishing she'd stayed south a little longer, too!

Not exactly the look I was going for...

Well, I was going to post my pictures and write about this evil spring storm that's blowing through, but I got a CF error message on my camera. The camera was quite insistant that I change the card, and even though I took it out and put it back in several times ( mistakenly thinking I could trick the camera), it still won't work. It's a pretty smart camera. I'm not getting anything by the EOS, I can tell you that.

So, I decided I'd try to find an image for "blizzard", and lo and behold, this is what I got! I'm 82 miles from the nearest DQ, mind you, so sitting here typing, looking at the picture is almost painful. Angus would say, "Hice cream? ummm...OKAY!", which means, "I'd like somma that, and it doesn't matter what you think, I already okayed it!"

Wayland, Vern and I spent all afternoon yesterday bringing cows in closer to the barns and shelter, and sorting the ones we thought might calve to keep in the pens by the barn. It's that time of year when they ALL look 6 hours away from dropping their calf, so our "In" pen was markedly larger than the "Bye" pen. And one of the "In" cows did, indeed, calve about 20 minutes after sorting. The cows hate all this nonsense, but there's not much cover on the prairie, and with the 3-6 inches of predicted snow, there's 30-40 mph wind! (In one of the pictures on the stubborn camera, you can see the snow blowing completely sideways. ) That's no good for wet baby calves.

Maggie and I fed the bum calf in the barn. Well, not exactly a bum, since her mother is laying there, too. But the cow is so sick she can't feed the calf, so it's been getting bottle fed. It was so much fun to share that experience with my daughter, since that was my favorite thing when I was a kid. When we got done, I asked her what she thought about it and she offhandedly said, "It was alright. But I REALLY like feeding bum lambs better." AND when queried as to her preference of cows, instead of black Angus, she chose purple cows. I'm afraid her ranching career may be a shaky proposition, and we should look into other vocations when the time comes to choose.

And today, the cows are calving with all their might. Wayland and I have talked about how they seem to be more likely to calve when the barometric pressure drops, and there's weather. It appears to be true, to the grief of ranchers everywhere.

I'm going to get busy, here, washing everything I can, because I don't think we'll have power much longer. I'm completely astounded it has stayed on this long!

(And despite being completely technologically impaired, I do know what to do with the CF card, I just don't have the means to fix it right now. I'm just saying that so I won't have a whole lot of helpful tech comments on the fridge door. Just tell me what's going on in your igloo, today.)