Is this unending winter getting to me? Am I daunted? Sagging? Squashed flat? Should I assume a literary posture and lay low like my daffodils until sunshine returns? 

"Hell no!", I bluster. "Today calls for thinking positively, seizing the moment, stiffening your spine, using the day productively—painting, baking, reading, blogging—and not succumbing to worry." 

We've done what we can to prepare for and cope with this latest blast of cold, violent wind, horizontal snow, and drifting. With the weather forecast in mind, we boosted and branded calves and boosted, docked, and castrated lambs mid-week, allowing all of them several days of gentle weather in which to recuperate and regain their sauce and sass. All but one of the calves, that is, a steer that suffered what, for us, was a first-ever glitch at branding. We use a calf table to head-catch, squeeze, and tilt calves onto their side for branding. After we finished with this particular calf and hoisted him back into standing position, the "claw" tips of his left front foot wedged in the gap between the floor and the vertical front panel of the calf table. In pulling his foot free, he left the outer horn of one "toe" behind as he leaped out of the head catch on three legs spurting blood. Each day since then has brought improvement, but he remains too sore to move about with the rest of the group.  

Late yesterday afternoon, visualizing that calf as an isolated, drifted-over lump in the maw of our predicted blizzard, we moved him and his mother into a corral, the driest one that we had. I re-bedded the old barn, yet again. Surely it must have two feet of accumulated bedding, fresh, then soiled, then added to, then soiled, then refreshed, then. . . (Ultimately, the mucking-out of these layers could be a qualifying test for a world-class weight lifting competition.) At dark, I pushed ewes and lambs into a corral with access to that barn.

This morning, I gave quiet thanks to the Fleming family for the extensive shelter belt of cottonwoods, willows, and even apple trees that they nurtured through homestead years. Now mature, those Fleming trees provide much protection for our barns, corrals, and small nearby pastures, allowing ewes and lambs to be fed outside their corral and cows and calves to be fed in a sheltered area. I added an electric floor heater to the greenhouse to augment the heat lamps that have, thus far, maintained survivable temperatures for our tender tomato and pepper seedlings. Today, I'm testing our fuses during daylight hours, nudging the temperature setting on the heater ever-warmer, hoping to use a high setting to push back against the 18 degrees that NOAH is predicting for the night. 

In a further effort to think positively and be productive, I'm thawing frozen grated zucchini from summer 2018 in readiness for transformation into zucchini bread loaded with chopped pecans and the candied citrus peel that I make at my sister's annual December Bake-Off festivity. Likewise, a painting is calling to me, a graduation present commissioned by a former teaching colleague for her daughter, who is one of my former students. Of course, I have a pile of books waiting to be read, and this blog is almost ready to post.

Yet worries linger, despite my productive distractions and lay-low daffodil similes. Worry compels me to add more straw to the old barn late this afternoon; it pushes me to set an alarm and check the temperature in the greenhouse throughout the night. 

Later - Forget the alarm. We hustled all 70 pots of seedlings into the house for safe keeping until nighttime temperatures creep above wintry.          

Tomato seedlings in their tiny peat pots are showing rudimentary 3rd and 4th leaves; sweet pepper seedlings, though slower than tomatoes, are emerging; gopher trapping has commenced, and at least one meadowlark has returned. It's solo trill—liquid notes of pure gold—overwhelmed whatever urgent task had my attention yesterday.  Burbling sand hill cranes also pause my compulsive, chore-driven agenda. At last, spring is busting its buttons, and we are oh-so-ready. 

In my rear view mirror is Western Art Week, and I'm bidding it, "Good riddance." The MT Watercolor Society (MTWS) room had lots of traffic but few sales, and I achieved a personal low in having NO sales. In my imagination, I replay the moment when former Intel CEO sent his scouts into the MTWS room to ask about young, up & coming artists, and then selected a piece from one of those youthful, up-and-comers. I visualize myself saying to said former executive, "Hey, I remember you from International Science and Engineering Fair 2008 in Atlanta, when Intel was the premier sponsor. You swept down the atrium of the giant, convention-center venue with Montana's high school competitors in tow. My daughter was among that group, back in the day when you were THE CEO and I was a proud parent and chaperone. Well, now you are the Ex-CEO and I am up and coming, despite my wrinkles and sags. Hey you, take a look at my work." Needless to say, that scene exists only in my mind. In reality, I have licked my wounds, paid my framing bill with proceeds from retirement, and moved on. 

Of the five mini-paintings I've completed since Western Art Week, intended for the annual May MTWS Member Show in Lewistown, I think one is a bit weak, one is a bit trite, and three are totally ME. They are too small for me to photograph well, but one—based on evening highlights and shadows on drifts building around our lower pond—called me to attempt a larger version. Here it is, as yet unnamed. I welcome your suggestions.  (Few would understand if I titled it, "Martha Who?" for the name of the knob that we know as "Martha's Nipple" on the east slope of Shaw Butte (above and to the left of the barn roof in my painting)   

Further back in my rear view of March, are lambing scenes that remain indelible. One features a Columbia ewe, R-76, who raised triplets last year. As her 2019 belly grew ever larger, she became ever more slow and fragile. On March 7, in the rush of leaving the barn for feed, she went down, a victim of icy footing and pushy yearlings. Because she was slow to get up, I was able to get ahead of her and send her back into the barn. She spent the day restfully, with easy access to feed and a heat lamp-warmed, deeply bedded jug. Late in the afternoon, we dosed her with a high energy drench and gave her a shot of dexamethazone to induce dilation and labor. At 1:00 and 3:00 AM she was cudding and seemed comfortable. Had I checked at 4:30 AM, her quads would have lived. At 5:00 I found her first born in the lane, laying in a sack full of fluid, but with head up and blatting loudly. Surely R-76 had mustered the energy and time to stand up, break open his sack and lick his head. Lambs # 2 and 3 must have arrived shortly after and in quick succession. Mom had plopped them out, one after another, as she moved into the jug. I found each one sealed in its sack and drowned. By the time I arrived, R-76 was up and licking lamb #4, too late to keep it from drowning, but giving it all she had. I am haunted by my tardiness and humbled by the grace of that ewe's maternal strength. Her story epitomizes the glory and agony of lambing.