Tax payments have been mailed. In most years, I trust that our contributions to MT Department of Revenue and IRS will be used judiciously and pay for that which contributes to the greater good. This year, however, I wish that I could direct my taxes to those causes I think are worthy and cut off any flow to the poison that seems to be overwhelming our traditional goodwill, submerging our sense of fair play, and drowning us in a toxic brew of meanness, selfishness, and fear of the “other.” I think that Covid-19 is merely the tip of the tidal wave curling over us and darker forces lurk at greater depth.
     I feel tainted by the surge despite the fact that each day offers reasons for optimism. Those daily offerings are plentiful: the veggie garden is thriving and early volunteer spinach and lettuce were luxuriant; flower beds have been particularly lovely; wild asparagus was abundant; so, too, was moisture that carried us to first cutting without having to irrigate; all three dogs follow me like I’m a messiah, and they buoy my ego with their eagerness to be always close at hand, no matter how sweaty or grouchy I am; so far, the demon virus has not impacted my health or my family’s. For that last, I am particularly grateful. Masking when in public spaces and using sanitizer before and after are trivial and respectful accommodations when weighed against alternatives. I am grateful, too, for daily chores and routines that offer purpose and distract me from descent into sinkhole feelings of oppression and pessimism.  
     Lambs are weaned and eagerly consuming daily feedings of grain—peas and barley—plus hay. A few of them, averaging 93 pounds, have been marketed, along with a deep cut of ewes culled for their antiquity, bad udders, lack of milk, tendency to prolapse, etc. Before the next sale, I must determine which ewe lambs to retain as replacements, and identify another group of market-ready 90 pounders. I will probably keep more single ewe lambs than usual; in previous years I retained only twin or triplet-born lambs, but depressed prices encourage me to hold rather than market a few singles born to yearling ewes or old ewes with a long history of productivity.
     I am kicking myself for an earlier decision to use fuchsia eartags on all of the lambs. Yes, fuchsia is the color for identifying sheep born in 2020, but I usually differentiate wether lambs with a differently colored tag. That simple management step makes wethers easy to distinguish in a crowded sorting pen. This year, however, with all lambs sporting the same tag color and style, I must wear my bifocals in order to read their eartag numbers, refer to my lamb record list, and then mark all replacement ewe lambs with a bit of spray paint in order to identify them prior to sorting them out of our cattle-sized pens and chutes. Needless to say, I won’t make this one-color-fits-all mistake again! Alternatively, maybe someday I’ll spring for a sheep-sized set-up that includes a sorting gate.  
     And then there are snakes. For the past several years we have sighted numerous bull snakes sunning on the grassy edges of our driveway, undulating into gopher holes, and even getting caught in our gopher traps, from which Jim releases them seemingly unharmed. All spring, we saw them as usual—big, slow-moving, and beautifully colored. Recently, however, rattlers have dominated. All three dogs, aversion trained a year ago, have backed off and avoided several that we spotted in the dryland pastures, but in mid-June, big dog Dozer received a strike to his snout while exploring an irrigated pasture just north of the house. Perhaps he did not smell the snake; the wind was against him. He certainly did not hear a warning for the snake rattled only after it struck. I drove Dozer to the 24/7 vet clinic in Great Falls where he received anti-venom and spent the night on IV fluids, pain meds, and anti-inflammatories. I believe he may now be addicted, not to the thrice-daily pain pills and antibiotics, but rather to the generous gobs of butter with which his large capsules slide down the hatch. Not only is Dozer pleased with his buttered meds, he is also very valuable, if his vet bill is any indicator. No matter, I am Dozer’s person and he is my bestie beast.
     Shortly after Dozer’s adventure, we watched another snattler disappear into a hole near the haystack. Without a weapon at hand, Jim dashed to the shop for a shovel and then filled the hole with dirt and tamped it like a corner post.
     A day later, Jim was surprised by a big rattler under the swather that he was trying to grease prior to hay cutting. That snake, pictured, received bird shot, followed by a ceremonial shovel decapitation. Perhaps you wonder why we kill them. Well, we don’t unless they are close to the house. Bull snakes, that eat more gophers than snattlers, are welcome anywhere, and we don’t bother any snakes on the dryland, but we draw a red line near our working spaces—shop, garage, barns, corrals, and the stackyard. Rattlers are not welcome. 

​     In between such daily routines, I continue to pound along on a project for the Columbia Sheep Breeders Association, a PowerPoint presentation based on wool terminology that is used in the breed standards and judging scorecard. It has been an all-consuming effort that entailed months of research, beginning in October. My project partner took most of the still pictures and video clips, and I did most of the narrative writing and slide creation. For the past weeks, I have incorporated narrative audio into the slide show, an on-going, time-consuming endeavor that goes like this: record using PowerPoint audio and delete all because of unacceptable background static; start over using other audio software; record, delete, and re-record paying more attention to enunciation; record, delete, reorganize sentences to avoid words that begin with puffing sounds like B and P that I evidently do not pronounce correctly and/or my audio software does not like, and re-record. (My daughter informs me that these are labial sounds. I choose to think of them as puffing sounds and avoid alternative anatomical associations.) For every saved segment, dozens of re-re-re-recordings have been rejected, surely numbering in the thousands over the course of the entire presentation. At last armed with files full of satisfactory audio segments, I insert each one onto its slide, listen to it carefully, and then direct the audio to play automatically with its slide. Lastly, I time each slide to advance automatically. As of today, I have auto-timed two segments, about half of the slide total, tweaked the timings, and submitted those portions to the Columbia sheep website contact person. Whew!
     The project has taught me a lot about both wool and PowerPoint. I make no claim to being an expert in either, but I’m proud of the content-dense presentation and the proficiency that I have gained. The slide show is plain-Jane. Had file size not been an issue, it could have been fancy-fied with schnazzy transitions between or within slides, background music, trumpet fanfares announcing each new topic, scantily shorn sheep popping out of party cakes—well maybe not quite that fancy—but all such touches add weight to files, and the files have more than enough bytes of plain information without nude sheep thrills.
     In more ordinary times, watercolors tempt me to escape from humdrum, and the juried Watermedia show motivates me to tackle something new and challenging. For the past months, however, I’ve been devoid of both compelling ideas and creative energy. I stirred up enough juice to submit three 2019 paintings to Watermedia; I like all of them and am glad that one got accepted—one of a series that I’ve done of our pond in winter, looking west toward Shaw Butte with our old barn and shelter belt in the middle distance—and I’m glad that it got accepted, but I’d rather have entered a recent piece exuding in-the-moment freshness. Perhaps autumn will re-energize me.

     In the meantime, I need to haul some hay bales, irrigate some pasture, and pickle some cucs, cuz fall is just around the corner, and I have much to do before it arrives.        

​As many chafe at the isolation and boredom of stay-at-home restrictions imposed by our rampaging demon-virus, we feel remote from the fray. We trundle from house to haystack to hydrant, and back as though we are immune. The bum lambs’ bucket of milk gets replenished; round bales get unrolled; small square bales get distributed; pens get cleaned and straw gets spread. A pre-Easter blizzard had more impact on us than viral fears. And yet, the grim statistics on nightly news infect us with a vague anxiety that grips many. We mostly override it and focus on demands of the moment. We should be counting our blessings. We feel neither bored nor isolated. Our pantry is bulging and our freezers are full. Our routines are purposeful, if exhausting, and occasionally daunting, when weather tests our resilience, plans, and facilities.  

Of course, most of our routines are just that . . . routine: feeding ewes morning and night, locking ewes with younger lambs in the barn at night, filling water buckets and troughs and draining hoses, mucking, liming, and strawing jugs and pens.  

​There is the bum lamb routine that brings both annoyance and joy. Every eight hours, I replenish their two gallon suck-bucket with fresh formula that I’ve pre-mixed and chilled in the refrigerator to discourage gluttonous over-consumption. There are more than enough nipples for each lamb to claim one, but they have favorites and at each re-fill they jockey to latch onto their preferred lifeline and hang on against all competitors. When the level of milk gets low they sometimes come in low from underneath the bucket in order to dislodge a persistent pen-mate that might be sucking the well dry. That strategy can knock the bucket out of its keeper, in which case I find it upside down in their pen. You’d think I would get creative and solve the problem, but there are too many other more pressing demands on my time. Anyway, it’s about time for them to drink less and eat pellets more, so the problem will eventually take care of itself. I look forward to the day when they are weaned from milk replacer, when my soup-kettle-become-milk-kettle is available for cooking, and when the fridge has a bit more room, but I will miss my thrice-daily bum time and their enthusiasm for me and for the full buckets that are exciting daily highlights.   

      





​                                                           Here they are to greet me.
                                                           (One needing extraction from
                                                           a bit of a predicament. 

​Then there are the non-routine routines. At the moment, we have one named “Stumper,” a lamb born with mal-formed, crab-like front legs. He tried to enter the world head first. I pushed his noggin back inside and got his front legs positioned correctly for delivery. After seeing what those fronts looked like, I was glad I had intervened in his delivery. Because his mother is built low to the ground and has an equally low slung udder, Stumps managed to nurse. He scuttled around on knees bent 90 degrees to the front for a couple of days, because I did not have time to deal with his deformity. Eventually, we fitted him with splints of split PVC pipe, padded with puppy wee-wee pads and strapped onto his legs with neon-colored vet wrap secured with duct tape. I’m not sure we will win this battle and “fix” his deformity, but for the moment he is a going concern stumping along on his now-straight and very stiff pins. He can run and buck, if a bit awkwardly, and has a wry personality that has won our hearts.

​Late Breaking News: Moments ago, Stumps flew free of his splints. We were prepared with Plan B—shorter, softer splints made from a split open plastic container of Old Orchard frozen orange juice concentrate—but after cutting off his PVC splints, he seemed ready for launch. Although his knees still tend to buckle, for the moment he is able to straighten them, hold them rigid, and control them as he moves. He’s had two weeks of forced rigidity; I hope we can all move on with no need to wrap him into Plan B OJ splints.   

​Night checks of the lambing barn are usually routine, especially when no ewes are lambing. Calm prevails; jugged families are quiet; in mixing pens lambs are clustered under a heat lamp and resting peacefully.

​But occasionally lambs that have graduated into mixing pens cut loose with their funniest maneuvers in the dark hours, and I catch them crow-hopping, and racing at top speed around their tight quarters, leaping atop and diving off sleepy ewes, and silhouetted against the dim lights like dancers possessed. Of course, their crabby old wool bag mothers disapprove of such high jinks and try to quash the antics, but to no avail, for their offspring have become too fast, too nimble, and very able to dodge any attempts to quell exuberance. I’ve tried to capture those moments on video, but for now, my efforts have been inadequate. At other more calm times, I find lambs nested atop their mothers—singles, twins, or even triplets—on board and riding waves of respirations like boats docked in a protected harbor.

               Here, two of the three lambs being raised by our
               old and only Border Leicester ewe, use her as a
               step stool to get a better look-see at me.

               I love these moments. Although a jangling
               alarm clock rudely intrudes on slumber,
​               the rewards in the barn are rich indeed.        

​Also routine and welcome in this time
of anxiety are dozens of tomatoes
and peppers that have sprouted in our
sun room. Within a week, they will
need transplantation into larger pots
in our makeshift greenhouse.
Lambing barn heat lamps will be
re-purposed for greenhouse duty.
Toots will be called upon to
transition from her night bed in
the garage to night shift in the greenhouse, our best effort to thwart mice and packrats that have
​clear-cut our crop in previous years. 

With thoughts of juicy ripe tomatoes in the months ahead, so goes our stay-at-home time during spring 2020. Although the Covid-19 pandemic seems surreal, our Prairie Island routines offer respite and reassurance. 

​     Surely these past five months are not what I anticipated for retirement. I envisioned leisurely evening strolls along our south lane—with stops here and there to marvel at a glorious sunset or sip chilled chardonnay, or possibly a weekend junket to that quaint candy shop in Phillipsburg, or even a river cruise on the Danube to picturesque Old World villages. How naïve of me! I swapped out those silly notions for pedal-to-the-metal alternatives that have consumed all of my time and nearly all of my energy . . . and I’m learning a lot and enjoying the journey.
     As a member of the BoD for the national Columbia Sheep Breeders Association, I chair a committee devoted to supporting the traditional role of Columbias in the broader sheep industry. My committee has accomplished a fair bit: we updated the Columbia breed standards and scorecard that were established in the early years of the breed’s existence, and we had them printed on nifty rack cards for distribution; we revised preliminary criteria for a brand new Certified Columbia Ram program and spread the word about the first-ever Columbia rams to be certified by the program; we are getting producer stories and production-related facts published in various sheep-related publications and livestock newsletters. One of our current goals is to produce a video of the wool terms that are part of the breed standards. That last item has been my full-time job since October 2019, leaving no time to draw, paint, blog, or read.
     The initial plan was for two of us to videotape experts: wool judges evaluating fleeces, coaches teaching 4-H, FFA, and college wool judging teams, state extension sheep specialists discussing fiber characteristics and heritabilities at wool pool meetings and wool grower symposiums. That plan got buried under drifts of early-season blizzards and chores. Google rescued us by providing nearly infinite access to information, although some of it was contradictory, much was of questionable sourcing, and still more was frustratingly out of reach because of restricted access to full-text research papers. Despite such limitations, we found most of the information that we sought through perseverance—seeking just the right combo of words to direct our searches and comparison shopping among our sources.
     Now, months later, I freely admit that screen time on this project revealed my ignorance about nearly everything, and certainly most things wool-related. Who knew that Harris Tweeds are defined by an Act of Parliament? Did you know that ubiquitous polypropylene—used for baler twine, net wrap, tarps, and bulk seed bags—shreds during wool manufacturing and must be picked out of fabric by hand--that is by hand using magnification and tweezers? Or that halo hairs on newborn lambs are thought to be a vestige of the dual coats that sheep wore centuries ago? Yes, indeed, this project boosted my knowledge; it also confirmed my long-held admiration for wool as a fabulous, multi-faceted, and fascinating fiber.
     After weeks of research and writing, in early January it was time to begin creating the presentation. I learned quickly that the video software installed on my laptop would be hopelessly inadequate. Having used PowerPoint years ago and liking its versatility and creative formatting possibilities, I returned to it for this project. Now, the slides, rich in spare-but-explanatory text, multiple charts, and illustrative photographs, plus an accompanying narrative document, are close to being done. Along the way, my partner and I decorated cooperative ewes with burrs and briars and photographed them in order to illustrate the hazards of wooly faces; we plucked a face hair or two from less cooperative ewes to get pictures that clarify the difference between hair and wool.   

We sampled and re-sampled, photographed and re-photographed, and wrote, revised, and tweaked with nearly obsessive dedication. Other members of the committee have made suggestions and checked for facts or awkward wording and sequencing. Our MT Extension Sheep Specialist has offered to provide the next level of fact checking expertise. 
     Yet to do: confront the thousand pound gorilla in the room. I lack both techie intuition and training to proceed with the next challenges. The file is large, even now, and I have no idea how to compress it or what happens when files are compressed. Adding narrative will make the file larger yet. Timing the slideshow, adding links from the table of contents to different segments of the presentation, converting it to a video format . . . all are out there lurking, eager to destroy my confidence and blow my laptop to smithereens. The fact that I have two flash drives dedicated to backup suggests my level of insecurity.
     Then there is the question of who will narrate. Who has a deep and resonant voice and reads script expressively? Charlton Heston? Paul Harvey? Who has days to devote to takes, re-takes, and yet more re-takes? Since the PowerPoint audio on my laptop has dull static in the background, who has access to audio gear that can be plugged into a PowerPoint slide show? Who has expertise to run such equipment?
     I tell myself, “One step at a time, Margaret. All these sources of anxiety can be dealt with. Breathe.” For now, it’s time to step back, give the presentation some space, and devote myself to lambing. According to gestation tables, newborns should start arriving today. Additionally, a fresh blog is long overdue.   
     However, my lengthy explanation for blog silence shall not be posted without inclusion of proud bragging about my big and loyal friend, Dozer. He’s a rugged galoot with a good heart and all the refinement of—I’m at a loss for words here—a warthog, perhaps? Yes, I think that a warthog may epitomize total lack of refinement. That said, just last week Dozer graduated with highest honors from a six-week series of polishing classes. For me, that word—polish—conjures images of debutantes, coming-out balls, and finishing schools. Well, Dozer displayed canine high polish in rollicking high style with a crowd-pleasing off-leash recall during our final class session.
     The exercise—done individually—called for each dog in the class to sit and stay at one end of the gym. Each handler was to leave their dog with a firm command to “Stay ” and then walk to the opposite end of the gym, stopping midway to point out a deliberately planted trap—an aromatic bacon treat—and warn their dog to ignore it after being given the command to come. 

     It should be abundantly clear from Dozer’s picture that he is highly food motivated, making this a serious test for him. While all of the other participants went awry, some diverting to grab the treat, some not staying when told to, others not coming when called, Dozer stole the show.  When it was his turn, I stopped at the planted treat, pointed at it, looked at him, and gave a firm “No!” before walking on. What I did not notice was a tiny shred of soft chicken treat on the floor, a leftover from the previous puppy obedience class. At the instructor’s signal, I called, “Come, Dozie!” and he came barreling, tongue a-lolling. He ignored the forbidden treat, but caught a whiff of the chicken treat. He nearly fell down trying to pivot at top speed and claim that tidbit. I called “No” and Dozer snapped back on course and resumed his recall with all that he had. He stopped in front of me, sat down, and then obeyed my “Finish, Dozer,” stepping around behind me, and sitting down beside me in heel position. Surely the applause from on-lookers rang in his ears. He busted out with a grin from ear to ear, as did I. Back on leash, he heeled beside me to retrieve that delayed chicken tidbit of gratification.
     Of course, in his heart of hearts, Dozer is a free-range farm dog, not a polished obedience contender, but surely he showed impressive strength of character. What a guy! And the apple of my eye!          
          

Being a cock-eyed optimist, I am looking forward to autumn blue skies, sunshine, warm days, and crisp nights during January and February. Surely we deserve such compensation for enduring winter from late September through November. Here’s Dozer gobsmacked by one of several trees that came down during our first blizzard in September, this one atop our loading alley. 

​

​To date we’ve received record amounts of snowfall, all of which blasted in horizontally. The mud in our corrals and lanes is sucky awful. Every rut is full of water or ice, depending on the temperature. Our soils are saturated, so rut ponds are neither soaking in nor evaporating, just accumulating. Unless my optimistic dream about October in February becomes reality, we will not be able to get into corrals to clean them before lambing starts. Likewise, my plan to haul in loads of coarse gravel has dead-ended.

Numerous of our neighbors swathed 2nd cutting alfalfa just ahead of blizzard warnings. Two storms later and after a couple of dry windy days most of them managed to bale. Surely winter-baled hay will be nicely leafy if it got wrapped up in rounds. Small squares are still sitting out, squishy-full of rain water, sleet, and snow melt. Thankfully, we round baled before winter arrived but I ask myself what I would do with 80 acres of sopping wet square bales in mid-November. Could I background calves for someone? Cut twines five acres at a time, erect quick-to-move electric fencing around each five acre plot, and turn calves in to make use of the bales before they molder into small lumps of compost? Would intense swarm-feeding of cows make efficient use of the bales if I cut twines on the entire 80? Could such tactics bring in enough income to cover the cost of buying hay for later use, after calendar winter arrives? None of the options seem as good as reverse time travel and a reset on autumn.          

On more positive notes:

In September, my sisters hosted a belated 70th birthday party for me, a celebration worth waiting for. It included family and friends, wonderful food and drink, plus essential gifts for geriatocracy. (My laptop doesn’t like that word, but I’m sticking with it. Yes indeed, I think we could thrive under beneficent rule by mature adults who embrace gray hair.) Their gifts to me: a bejeweled shower cap worthy of royalty, capacious undies that could accommodate diapers in case of incontinence, "Old Bag" balm, various potions, lotions, and preparations for posterior misbehaviors, plus a saucy limerick from my poetic sister. How we laughed! I have stashed the gifts for reuse at my younger brother’s 70th party.

The past months also included time and motivation to paint. Landscapes, lovely old homes, and barn scenes have offered escape from the grim, grey, grumpy gruel outside our windows. In between blizzards I indulged in a four-day workshop in Kalispell with Eric Wiegardt. The supply list included numerous full sheets of watercolor paper. A full sheet measures 22” X 30”, and I thought there was no way I would use that much paper in four days. After completing one of Wiegardt’s exercises—a half sheet painting completed in fewer than 50 strokes—it was clear that paper was for using . . . extravagantly. Pigment, too, got squeezed out generously and used by the dollop. And water? Holy moley! Holding our brushes like spoons, we scooped it onto our palettes and swooped it onto our paintings. My extensive inventory of brushes with synthetic bristles all lacked the necessary water-loading uumph. That inadequacy called for a new pointed round, flat, and squirrel mop, all of which drink water and pigment with joyous abandon.

We dewormed and sorted ewes into breeding groups and turned bucks out with them on a day when fleeces were dry. We timed calf weaning and seasonal vaccinations and pour-on for both cows and calves to coincide with a brief window of friendly weather. We got a truckload of barley and peas into the grain bin during an equally brief interlude between precipitations. I did not miss a single dog obedience class—Dozer at 6:30 and Toots at 7:30—although on two occasions, the return trip home from Great Falls in the dark was white-knuckle, white-out terrifying.

The 8-week Basic Obedience series was a repeat for Dozer. Though he may look like a big dumb galloot in need of repetitive drills, he is not. He is smart, quick to understand and obey the various commands, and utterly devoted to me. However, he needs every bit of remedial inter-canine socialization that I can provide. He is a powerhouse when he gets his dander up about dogs that wag and smile innocuously or small dogs that bark sharply or German Shepherds whose aggression is close to the surface. Handling him in close proximity to other dogs requires total vigilance. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the time in class with him and with Toots.
 
At home, Dozer is the underdog, constantly pecked at by his sister and disciplined by his mother. Around livestock, however, he finds glory. Despite evidence to the contrary, Dozer thinks that he is quite a stock dog. He is undaunted by glancing kicks from cows; he marches officiously, if ineffectively, in the middle of the parade of replacement ewe lambs as they move out in the morning. The traffic jams when lambs stop, press close, and tip their heads toward him to have their ears licked. And at dark, he bellies up to the feeders with the lambs to lick ears and share grain. Here he is partaking, happy as a clam beside a tolerant lamb.    
   

​As I keyboard, the low clouds that brought rain, sleet, and snow are lifting while the mercury is descending. I’m ready to admit winter and press on toward autumn.    

An unwelcome word fills our weather forecast for the weekend: Blizzard. 

Although I'm not ready to let go of summer, we've been preparing for cold for the past month. That dreaded B word has merely quickened our pace. 

Thankfully, our 2nd cutting of hay is baled, if a bit prematurely. We have had frequent showers since wrapping it up, and lots of folks still have windrows down and wet. If we had not baled when we did, we would be turning the cows in to snoodle hay from under the incoming snow. Some of the 2nd cutting bales generated a bit of heat, but they are off the field and stacked individually with lots of space between them. With any luck, those few warm bales will ferment into much-loved "tobacco" hay, rather than mold. In any case, I'd rather have the hay baled than blackening in the field. 

We have a truckload of grain—a combination of peas and barley—tucked into the bin. I prefer to feed oats, despite the fact that they lack nutritional punch, but few farmers raise them, so I am grateful to have a high-punch alternative available for ewes raising triplets and weaned lambs. I owe warm chocolate cookies to the farm boss of our neighboring Hutterite colony who helped me make it happen. A different neighbor grew the peas and delivered several truckloads to the colony for their use as hog feed. The colony held back 300 bushels of the peas for me, added 500 bushels of their own barley, mixed them, delivered them, and loaned an auger to us to elevate the load into our bin. Of course, it was a big operation for us but merely a trivial, labor-intensive, pain in the patoot by colony standards. Yes, I plan to bake today and take a loaf of my favorite zucchini bread, enhanced with chopped pecans and a tad of candied orange peel to George. The cookies will come later.     

Our irrigation mainline and pivot are pumped out and drained. 

Just yesterday, we worked ewes, de-worming, trimming dingleberries, and clipping wool samples from replacement ewe lambs to send to MSU's Wool Lab for analysis. Katrina had planned to help us over the weekend with those sheep chores (minus dingleberry duty, of course), but the weather forecast conjured up visions of sodden sheep, mud, cold fingers, and dangerous road conditions,  spurring us to get it done ahead of the onslaught and allowing Katrina to stay put.

The garden is harvested, all but the beets that will be safe in the ground for awhile. Our garage is now full of produce. The calf sled is loaded with acorn squash; the garden cart has zucchinis and peppers; numerous boxes are loaded with tomatoes—greens on the bottom, ripes on top, with each layer separated by newspapers. Parsley is drying on a towel atop the dining table. My favorite garden delight, cherry tomatoes, fill every colander. Thousands of them remain on plants in the garden. That breaks my heart, for I love to eat them by the handful, straight off the vine, warmed by the sun, plus I don't like to waste hard-earned produce. 

Thankfully, our three dogs continue to forage eagerly in the harvest aftermath, assuaging my guilt in leaving so many tomatoes unharvested. Dozer prefers the particularly sweet orange cherry tomatoes, bellying up to the sprawling plants and plucking them like grapes. His face is dyed green by pervasive tomato vine stain. Toots and Dot are a bit more hesitant to dig in. They prefer to steal already-picked produce from our buckets.

For the moment, only tomatoes are available for gleaning, and a blizzard and mid-teen temperatures will curtail even that singular fare. It should be noted, however, that our rollicking 3-pack harvested with us all summer, enjoying cucumbers and competing for fresh corn with blackbirds during the day and raccoons at night. Our yard accumulated abundant evidence of their frequent forays into the corn patch, where they broke off entire stalks and hauled them to the yard to gnaw sweet stems, peel ears, strip off kernels, and suck the bare cobs dry. I snapped a shot of our yard mess at the height of the season. Note the grotesque yellowed cucumber and tomato among the scattered bones of our corn patch. ​        

Bounteous ‘sparagus, fresh-picked and wild,
O’erwhelms my recall of winter drifts piled.
I welcome June’s change in our late evening fare:
From stews & roasts hearty to greens oh-so-spare,  
To spinach and ‘spar’gus in stir fries and quiche,
To delicate soups, light and deleesh,
To rhubarb in cobblers or crunchy-topped crumbles,
Perfect at bedtime and late breakfast scrumbles.  
 
To quote Aunt Eller of Broadway’s Oklahoma fame—and no relative of mine—“June is bustin’ out all over.” We eat wild asparagus with nearly every meal: steamed, sautéed, creamed on toasted bagels, in vats of soup, some for freezing and lots for eating. Our volunteer spinach—rototilled last fall from bolted 2018 plantings—has liberated us from grocery store romaine and E. coli concerns, It’s crinkly and muscular, ample for neighborly sharing, and underpins our nightly salads. Recently planted garden rows are emerging: spinach, lettuce, corn, beets, cucs, and both summer and winter squashes. The green house is emptied of its peppers and tomatoes that were protected from nocturnal rodent raiders throughout April and May by resident guard dog, Toot, and are now transplanted outside. Ewes, with lambs at side, are on grass, and bulls, at last, are earning their keep.
 
As part of my spring ritual, I attended high school graduations of students that I love and that I taught as middle schoolers. I am proud of them for their achievements and goals. Among them are valedictorians and salutatorians headed to MSU as state FFA officers, to prestigious private colleges, and to military academies. I completed a commissioned painting for one of these students. As evidence of my insecurity, I was nearly sick with worry that she would not like it. Thankfully, it connected with her. I submitted three additional paintings to the national juried Watermedia show. The verdict on those entries is yet out. Yesterday, I finished a pencil drawing of our night drop pen in which ewes are clustered close together, sharing heat from each other and from heat lamps suspended over them, a scene of communal grace on a brutal night in early March that dropped to -32 degrees. I plan to donate it to the national Columbia Sheep Show and Sale banquet fundraiser upcoming in mid-June. 
 
The yearling ewe destined for that same show and sale has been weaned from her lamb, de-wormed, halter broken, taught to lead, and is now getting a bit of grain to encourage weight gain. None of her competitors will have raised a lamb. Whether that test of her productivity will count in the judge’s opinion remains to be seen; if she does not sell, I will be embarrassed but happy to bring her home to rejoin our flock.
 
Dot and Dozer, one month shy of their first birthday, continue to make us laugh often, even as they excavate where they ought not, eat feed intended for triplet lambs, and chew on deck railings, flowers, and each other. They and Toot were undaunted by winter 2019, but they wilt in our current heat. We walk often to the canal where all three swim with the grace and joy of otters and emerge refreshed and ready to chase birds and dig for gophers.   

​Life is good.      
 
      

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.    

Surely these lambs express our hopes better than words.  

May sunshine continue to bless us, for the sake of lambs, calves, and our plans to get to a grocery store, restock our diesel tank, buy dog food and lamb pellets, and exhibit paintings during the Western Art extravaganza next week in Great Falls. Jim has skidsteered our monumental driveway drifts into a passable state for at least the thousandth time. We have dozed, shoveled, and carted away by calf sled tons of snow avalanched off roofs.  We've pry-barred panels entrapped by ice and snow to free them for use in barn pens. We've shoveled and pry bar bashed to free every gate and door that must swing open or closed. Cockeyed optimists we are, ever hopeful that sunshine will thwart our demon drift-winds and that our earnest efforts will prevail. Yup, they will! 

The lambing barn is full, with mixing pens at maximum capacity and only two small lambing jugs available for newborns. With only six ewes yet to lamb, I feel reasonably confident that accommodations are adequate for the night.  By next week, I hope to have shuffled the mixing pen ewes and their lambs into the old barn and be ready for those last newbies.

My paintings are framed, entitled, and ready to hang, though I have not yet made labels or priced them. I plan to display three from my Cock-a-Doodler series: "Two-Steppin' Doodler", "Doodler After Curfew", and "Last Tango at Dawn Doodler  

Also on board are a triad of horse paintings. I think I've loved horses since birth, all sorts of horses—dressage horses, draft horses, cow horses, hot bloods, warm bloods, cold bloods, fine-pedigreed blue-bloods and non-pedigreed, red-blooded working stiffs. Here they are: "Dressed for Work I", "Dressed for Work II", and "Niarada Cowboy". (The latter is really about the horse, a nondescript gelding that I admired for his quiet, hand-in-glove partnership with his cowboy.)     

Of course, there are sheep paintings. I love sheep, those uncomplaining, unsung heroes who provide amazing fiber and fabulous meat. who survive nights of -32 degrees after being sheared, and then deliver twins, triplets, and even quadruplets, and mother each one of them like special favorites. "Savoring Summer's Bouquet" features a weanling, one of a dozen ewe lambs that plundered our sunflowers before the seeds had a chance to ripen. "Yearling Ewe" looks like a keeper to me, feminine, clean-faced, and stylish.      

I'm not sure whether my landscape paintings fit the display I've visualized. I hope they work; I like each of them, but . . .

Should you be able to visit our Montana Watercolor room, this poster gives the scoop. 

Last night we bombed to -32 degrees. Checks every two hours got us through. I was quietly grateful for family at nearly every moment.

With each buzz of the alarm clock, I slipped into an incongruously fancy pair of chartreuse velour lounging pajamas. Mind you, velour lounging is NOT me, but this Christmas gift from my sister Carolyn is my comfy cozy version of long johns. Atop my fashionable velour, I don a pair of sweatpants worn by my late brother, Philip. That, plus a vest, hoodie, scarf, gloves, and muck-boots, is night-check garb. The ewes approve of my style; they groan, burp, and cud, and the friendlies come over to share their cud-breath. Sweet! 

I also inherited from Philip a collection of pocket knives, Old Timers. I carry one of his always-sharp knives in my snow pants, in my regular work pants, and in my night-check sweatpants. (I'm resisting the urge to call them "night sweats".) Of course, I use one during the day to cut hay bale twines, open bags of dog food, and shave ice out of frozen hose attachments. Additionally, I use them In the lambing barn to puncture ewes' water bags. Yup. At -30, that matters because dry straw matters. Better to leave the fluid somewhere other than the jug and give those newborns every chance to be comfy. 

Because of the extreme cold, I am "wrapping" jugs, blockading them from drafts and trying to maintain the warmth from heat lamps. Two canvas pup tents, from my earliest memories of family camping trips, are my first line of defense. They have sturdy loops that hook over the jug uprights. Then there is the sparkly gold, foam-insulated couch cover from my parents. It is nicely long because it accommodated the extra-long couch on which my Dad, a tall man, napped. Also pressed into service are three patchwork wool blankets from Nana, my maternal grandmother. Although oddly sized—like blankets for single beds or sleeping bags—they work just fine and add a party touch with their festive sateen edging, two in green and one a rosy pink. Lastly, there is the quilted sleeping bag that I made for daughter Katrina for our earliest camping trips. It's small, but, unzipped, works as a cozy lateral.

Beyond creature comfort, our own matters, too. A vat of lentil soup, made several days ago, is so welcome—hot, hearty, healthy, and ample. The recipe calls for numerous bay leaves. An old Christmas herb bowl from my sister Katherine supplied that good-luck flavor. 

How grateful I am for such family treasures. I am confident that Nana, Mom, Dad, and Philip, all deceased, would approve of my unconventional use of their former possessions. Surely, my sister Carolyn knows that her lambie loungers are ewe-phorically comforting, and of course my sister Katherine realizes that there is no expiration date on bay leaves. Hint: my inventory needs replenishment.