​As I walked out the mudroom door last Friday morning, heading toward the cattle working facility to get things ready to pregnancy test cows and precondition the fall calves, the scent that normally greeted me this time of year-the smoke from our wood burning stove, had been replaced by the sweet scent of the silage pile. The guys were already feeding cattle, and breaking into that stockpile yields the most fragrant smell of my childhood. (I must mention here that a very close second would be the smell of my sweaty Welsh pony “Trixie” after a wild ride on our 160-acre homestead.) My thoughts went directly to my dad, tucked in behind that “comfort cover,” which was a contraption of olive green army-type tarp wrapped around a metal pipe frame that encompassed the seating area, complete with a swinging door to crawl up into the tractor seat. There was also a clear, hard plastic “windshield” attached to the frame, which was directly in front of the steering wheel. Dad didn’t own a cab tractor yet, so fastening that weather-protectant piece onto the tractor in the late fall provided his only protection against the winter elements. I have the denim chore coat that he wore in his last years on the farm in the 1980’s. It wraps me in his loving arms every time I put it on. Except this morning, I didn’t have it on. Instead, there were two layers of clothes, my coveralls, wool socks and muck boots, my K-State purple silk neck scarf-a gift from my baby sis up in Montana, my heaviest winter coat, two pair of gloves and a head wrap. “Real funny, God,” I thought to myself as the outdoor thermometer reading of 25 degrees felt even more frigid as the northwest wind, that same wind that delivered the fragrant scent of the silage pile into my olfactory senses and prompting all those wonderful memories and visions of my dad, cut right through all my layers and I was cold to the bone almost immediately after stepping outside. I looked up and said, “It is the first full day of spring, ya know, what’s with this crap?”
 
And so it was, on that first full day of spring. Our embryo transfer veterinarian arrived about 9AM and unpacked the ultrasound machine that would show us all the babies inside of the cows that had been gathered up for the final day of this particular ranch work. It’s always an exciting time for me, as the fruits of my labor (the artificial inseminating of these bovine beauties back in mid December) is laid out for success or failure. After 38 years of AIing, I have come to know that Mother Nature is ultimately in charge, and she will only allow so much manipulation before she steps in. She has granted me much success over all the years in my trade, and for that I am grateful. Our ET vet, Dr. Gray, has been an integral part of our genetic progress since he collected our first Simmental cow back in May 1991. She was a smaller framed (compared to the giant Simmental cows of that era), red and white spotted lady, sweet disposition, big red goggles around her brown eyes that were set deep in her white face. I don’t recall her number, but I can picture her like that first collection was yesterday. It was an abysmal failure. Three unfertilized ovum were all that the lab tech found at the bottom of the petri dish. Any normal cattleman would have given up…but then, we weren’t normal. We were going to make ET work, and we have.
 
Back to Friday morning. Dr. Gray’s left arm and hand should be insured for millions. From 40-95 days of pregnancy, he can tell how old a baby calf is by the distance between its eyes, (to within 5 days) once he has their little body in his grasp. He has palpated nearly a million cows during his years. These little creations were made from mid-December through early February. I got one chance in mid-December; clean up bulls finished the breeding project from late December through February 13, which was the day they were pulled away from their cow groups…😊 A 95-day baby calf in utero is about the size of large rat, for your imagining pleasure. He uses the ultrasound machine, but he really doesn’t need it. It is a joy to see those little ones bouncing around inside…we find out who’s carrying bull calves and who’s carrying heifer calves. It’s quite a deal. And I love it when the grandkids get to see the process. Ranch life has to be the best possible environment for teaching young minds about conception, birth, life, maturity and death. It’s all part of a natural process here in our world.
 
Some of the open (not pregnant) cows were no surprise…some were 10 and 11  years old and tired and they have big ole’ calves nursing on them. Some of them had been difficult to AI, as I noted on my December breeding sheets-lots of uterine adhesions, abnormal ovary palpation, cervical issues, whatever the case might be. As we never see any births, (unless they calve while we are tagging new babies in the fall) we don’t know what kind of difficulty they might have. Difficult birthing processes affect subsequent pregnancy rates, that is a fact. And for some, there is no rhyme or reason that we can find for this cow or that cow to be open. They are in good rig, calved early in the season last fall…some things are not for us to ever really know. Again, Mother Nature has the final call. We defer to her for everything. For whatever the reasons, we ran 8% open this year. Not bad. On another positive note…the bull we bought out of Canada last spring did a fine job settling the cows he was charged with breeding. We affectionately named him “Panda.” Close your eyes and imagine what he looks like, except one hint, only his face and legs are white, none of his body…there, you got it. He’ll have 25 sons and daughters hit the ground in late August/early September. We are excited to see how his genomic merit will improve our herd. Marbling…those little white flecks of fat in the steaks you buy that make them juicy and delicious when grilled, is his genetic forte, and since ultimately putting a superior protein source on your table is what we’re all about, that’s why we bought him-to help us, with that. Our cows use resources humans can’t, (grass) to truly make the most delicious and nutritious food in all the world. Of course, I might be a bit biased, but the filet Harry grilled for me the evening of my birthday last Tuesday, was the best steak I have ever eaten…right here in our own dining room.  
 
With cows checked and their year’s production preconditioned, we’ll wean calves in April. There will be a couple of days of incessant bawling, then the lots will be silent once again, as the calves figure out the feed bunk. As their milk supply dries up, the cows forgive and forget, and soon they’ll be out on spring grass, regaining body condition that might have been lost due to nursing those 500 to 800 pound “babies.” It takes a lot out of a cow to do her job. Most do it in stride.
 
This post started out with memories of my dad, and all those times I was tucked in beside him on that feeding tractor, and the sweet smell of the silage pile. It ends on the diagnostics of determining pregnancy status in our herd, and the mention of steaks. My dad. Moser Ranch cows. My life. I am lucky indeed. 

​I loved her the first moment I saw her. In my perception, she was one of God’s masterpieces in the animal world. It was May 1988. We’d been in Kansas a bit over two years. Every time I went to town, there she was, running beside her sorrel mama in our banker’s front pasture right along the highway. A huge white blaze on her face, black mane and tail, three white stockings and one black one. Dark bay. I could only dream of owning a horse like her someday. My little sorrel, “Bob”, that we’d bought just before we left North Dakota, had proven to be a nervous wreck, spooking at everything that moved, and having about as much cow sense as a salt block. We were on a shoestring budget, and there was certainly no room to replace a horse. So, with every saddling, I’d keep hoping maybe Bob would exhibit some of the brains that the prior owner promised us that he had.
 
The summer passed. One morning while we were at the bank, our loan officer came out of his office and said he’d like to talk with us. Once inside his glass-fronted workspace, he asked a question that resulted in my mind immediately fast forwarding to the crazy possibility that I could one day own that little filly that ran in his pasture. He had a big (and I mean big) two-year-old sorrel gelding that needed to be broke to ride, and he knew Harry was the man for the job…if he had the time. Telling him we’d need to talk about it first, we left the bank, and on the way home, I was already hatching a plan to convince my husband to take that filly instead of a cash payment for the horse breaking job. I’d talked about her all summer; he knew I was mad about her.
 
Of course Harry agreed to break the gelding. He loved working with horses, and he was especially good at it, if I do say so myself. We talked again with Leander (not his real name), and found out that “Lea May Doc,” born on May 1, 1988, was not at all the offspring he wanted out of his mare. He had been breeding her for years to get a sorrel stallion with four white sox, and her 1988 foal was a filly, and a bay to boot. He didn’t have much to say about her at all, except that it seemed it was a lost year for his mare in his adventure to have her bear him the perfect colt. “Score one for me,” I thought to myself at the end of that conversation.
 
Fast forward to the end of the breaking session, and we returned the gelding to Leander, taking in exchange for Harry’s work the weanling filly I’d watched since birth and had only dreamt about ever owning. I can still see her hopping into our stock trailer after much coaxing. She’d never been in one before, and it seemed like it took forever to get up and in. I could not believe it. She was mine.
 
The next year and a half passed quickly. She stayed in a little trap pasture not 50 yards to the south of our house. She broke easily and was chock full of cow sense. Her pedigree read like a cowman’s dream: Dr. Cutter Bill x Doc O’Lena x Doc Bar on the top side; Leo Too x Leo’s Question on the mare side. I had my “once in a lifetime” horse. Her mature size ended up a bit tall for this 5’ 3” lady, but that was okay. I took advantage of every possible time I could saddle up in those early years.
 
The spring May Doc turned five years old, we discussed breeding her, to add to our remuda. Harry had “40”, a Blackburn bred gelding we’d brought from North Dakota. He was three years old when we came to Kansas in 1986. We had purchased a smaller made, black gelding we named “Chance” from the Kansas State University horse unit in 1989; he was two at the time. There was also “Buck,” another buckskin ranch horse that had more gas than most. He was fun to ride when things “got Western,” a term our son likes to use these days. Our three children all learned to ride on any and all of these mounts. Two rode because they had to when we needed them to help, one rode to help and for the love of riding. She started young, speaking loudly in her three-year-old voice, “Me ride, me ride,” every time her father got on his horse. 😊
 
One of our friends had a stout bay stallion with cow in his pedigree whose services we employed. We were all anxious for the new arrival in the spring of 1994. February 6, 1994; we moved to the ranch where we now reside, approximately 35 miles northwest of where we originally landed when we relocated to Kansas on March 1, 1986. It had been a tumultuous second half of 1993, and this opportunity to move to a new place was a step we felt we needed to take. Next to making the decision to move to Kansas, moving to the Wheaton area was the second most important decision we’d made in our married life. It turned out to be the absolute best thing we could have done for ourselves. It was the absolute worst thing we could have done for May Doc.
 
In anticipation of her arriving foal, we had been keeping May Doc on a lush green fescue pasture near our house at this new place. We’d contacted our local vet several times, wondering what might have been going on as she was at the three-week overdue mark. Nothing was ever figured out as to why she did not foal when she should have. The day all hell broke loose, Harry had gone down to check on her just like we’d been doing bright and early every day. May Doc had gotten her big bay stud colt halfway out and was paralyzed. With the aid of two other guys and a skid loader, he was able to get her into the stock trailer for the 35-mile trip to the Kansas State University vet school that disastrous morning.
 
I was at work at a part-time job the day she foaled, helping Dr. Kirk Gray collect and freeze bovine embryos at Cross Country Genetics just west of Manhattan. Harry called me after the initial prognosis, which was pretty desperate, and as soon as I finished for the day, I went to see her. I will never forget that moment when I first laid eyes on her. I bawled my eyes out as I cradled her head and talked to her as she lay there motionless in that cement stall at the vet school. It was determined that her failure to foal was due to the fact that she’d been on a fescue grass diet, which inhibited the production of oxytocin, the hormone necessary to allow milk let down, which in turn triggers the birthing process to begin. We had no idea that fescue would have that effect on a pregnant mare. Harry had been raised with mares and foals in North Dakota and there was no fescue grass in that country; I had never been around a pregnant mare situation in my life. We were totally unaware of the hell we’d put her through the last weeks of her pregnancy…Harry told me her bay colt was beautiful. I never did see him as he went straight to necropsy that day for vet students to cut open and learn on. He was already dead when Harry found him that morning. On the way home from the vet school that evening, I nearly wrecked the car as the tears were just streaming down my face. I still honestly only remember hearing the incessant horn honking. Thank God the other driver was paying attention.
 
Long story short, May Doc was there for about three weeks I believe. I visited her often. The students loved her. She was one intelligent horse. All the IV fluids, antibiotics, vasodilators, use of a sling to help her stand, urinary catheterization, uterine lavage and antibiotic infusions, hydrotherapy and ointment for her pressure sores used to treat her were successful. I remember the initials DMSO-something that was used in her treatment process. I believe that was an anti-inflammatory treatment. At one of my last visits before we took her home, one of her caregivers, I believe the veterinarian who was the lead on her case, looked at me as I held her halter and she stood before me and said, “I swear this horse understands English! She is so smart!”
 
Summer was in full swing. The stress of searching out a different environment to continue our ranching operation in 1993, and then May Doc’s foaling catastrophe had me on the ropes. I was down to 110 pounds, and simply going through the motions of chores, childcare, and trying to be a wife. Our children were 10, 7 and our baby had just turned 2. I don’t know how Harry survived that time period…he carried the weight of our move on his shoulders, took care of all of our animals every day, calved our heifers and cows that first spring at Wheaton in an old red decrepit barn with no electricity, held down the fort when I went to my lab tech duties at the embryo transfer company, kept the financial books, and kept his faith. As he was at nearly his wits end with me, he contacted my brother, a family practice MD. We arranged to meet, and it took no time at all for my brother to look me in the eye and say, “Sis, you are living with depression.” That started years of various dosages of varying medications, intermittent counseling, lots of times when I tried to work on it, and lots of times when I just got angry at God and could not understand why my brain was wired so differently from the “normal” person. It’s impossible to get the journey into this entry…not gonna happen. But now you know how it all started. An animal triggered it, and that same animal is still in my life today…
 
In the few years that followed May Doc’s foaling wreck, additional surgeries were needed to fix tears that occurred during parturition. We opted to take May Doc to a horse specialist veterinarian over at Valley Falls. He did a tremendous job, and my mare was truly back to her old self.
 
Years passed. I had my May Doc back; a faithful mount, cow savvy, and yet a gentle soul when it came time to give rides to the little ones in our family, as nieces and nephews were being added by both sides at a pretty good clip. We had friends in Iowa who had twins, and they wanted a “bomb-proof” horse for their children so they could learn to ride. At that time in my life, I had another younger horse that my husband had broke and finished for me, and our children either had horses of their own or were seasoned riders, so May Doc, at age 19, spent the next several years teaching Sam and Sally (not their real names) about “everything equine.”
 
And this spring, on May 1, my May Doc will turn 32 years old. Pretty unbelievable for a horse. She will be coming back to Kansas to our ranch, so she can teach yet another generation of little ones the beauty of God’s most amazing animal. My husband and I have been blessed with nine grandchildren, (a tenth is on the way in August) and the younger seven of them need a “bomb-proof” horse. I am beyond excited to have her back in our lives. God used her to bring my depression to bear twenty-six years ago. It’s been quite a ride. Literally.

I was 10 years old in the top photo with my brother Mike and Dad. Those were the good old days. Below are the bull and owl banks from the Hoof 'N Horn cafe. 

​   Two years ago this morning, my Mom died at a care home, surrounded by me and one other brother and one other sister. I could tell she had taken her last breath, and I whispered to my siblings, "I think she's gone." The last thing I did (or I thought it was the last thing I would do. The undertaker had other ideas the morning of her funeral.) was to help the funeral home personnel move her body from her care home bed onto the gurney for the 5-minute ride to the funeral home. I was happy to do it. Once we had her strapped on, (Yes, bodies are strapped on, to protect them from falling off during loading and transport.), I watched them roll her down the long narrow hallway and out the door. Tears of joy fell from my eyes, as mom was now back with the love of her life.
   Her and dad were married in 1950; dad passed away from complications of Parkinson’s disease on May 23, 2003. She missed him everyday of her life after that. I could write for days about them; but want to keep this entry short. Mom lived with anxiety and depression her entire life. It ran in her father’s family. But now, it was gone for her. Forever gone.
   Mom and Dad both died on a Friday morning, in fact, within minutes of each other when I think back to where those Fridays were in their non-stop progression. We set Dad’s pocket watch to 7:19 and had it peek slightly out of his striped overall pocket there in his casket. I think Mom died about 7:10 or around then. I’d gotten a call from the care home much earlier that morning; mom was exhibiting changes that are telltale signs that death is near. I had told the care home staff that I wanted to know when those signs showed up, so I got a call. On my drive up to see her this one last time, I got stopped by a county deputy for speeding. After checking the validity of my Kansas driver’s license, I got off without even a warning, and I remember the officer telling me to please drive careful. I don’t know how fast I was going; it had to have been over 70, but nothing crazy like 95 or above.
   We buried them both on a Monday morning. Dad’s was beautiful sunshine, it was Memorial Day, as six grandchildren carried him to his final resting place. Two of those six kids were mine. Mom’s morning was beautiful sunshine and cold, as we seven children carried her to her spot there by dad to join him in the cold, hard ground. We kids had again chosen grandchildren to do that final task, but the undertaker said it was the last thing we children could do for our mother was to carry her to her final resting place. My three brothers were on the head end of the casket, while the four girls carried mom “from the waist down.” My baby sister and I carried her feet and led the procession from the hearse to the grave site. We were instructed to keep our eyes up and faced toward the rising sun, a task that proved quite difficult as we made our way along the uneven, snow-packed ground. I was glad my career had included years and years of hauling 5-gallon buckets of feed to various bunks, catching and holding baby calves for tagging, throwing small square bales, driving steel posts, moving panels for portable pens, hanging on for dear life to a 4-H steer that decided to get ornery, and numerous other chores that require a bit of strength in the daily ranch routine. My physical ability came in handy that cold, crisp morning.
   Again, any tears shed were only of happiness for the eternal reunion of my folks that I cannot even imagine. Hopefully one day I’ll join them, for all eternity. Won’t that be something… 

   So at age six or thereabouts, I was too little to physically help pick out the cattle to go to St. Joe, but three or four of us always got to go out into the feedlot to bring the cattle in for sorting. We had to be quiet as we moved about the sometimes-curious animals that once in a while walked right up to us as we ushered them into the catch pen. Of course, at other times, they would all make a lap around the feedlot before gathering was accomplished. Dad’s main objective was to keep them as calm as possible, so when that “lap” happened, we’d all usually get instructions on exactly where to be so they would move into the pen during the second attempt.
   Once they were safe in catch pen, my younger brother and I would climb up on top of the hog barn that was near the sorting alley, so we’d have a birds eye view (literally!) of the selection process as it unfolded. We’d carve in the old wooden shingles and laugh and play (quietly…there were times when we were reminded of such!). The hog shed was very old, beyond any repair, and it only housed pigs occasionally, so dad never got after us for carving in the shingles. I’d make a mark for each one he sorted off to go to market. Dad would nod and say “In” or “Bye” depending on the market readiness of each animal as they passed by him. The “Byes” got more time on feed before they would head to the stockyard. Dad used a whip to move each calf down the alley. He could make it pop and you could hear it clear as day, though I never saw the end of the whip ever touch an animal. The “crack” of the whip alone was enough to make them go where he wanted them to go. To this day, I have never accomplished the wrist action necessary to pop a whip. Today we use paddles to sort; the end is a plastic piece 11 inches long by 5 inches wide and 1 inch thick, attached to a three-foot sturdy plastic pole. It’s like tapping a calf with a padded mitten.
   Back to that vignette of time in my life. The stock racks on the Chevy truck hung down along the outside of the bed. Bolts and wingnuts were used to hold them together once we got them hoisted up off the sides and held at the edges for fastening together. Again, at age six, I probably didn’t hold the racks, but the bolts and nuts were more in my department to hang on to until he needed them.
   Those trips are etched in my mind, and I cannot put a price on those memories. Once we’d unload the cattle, we’d walk over to the Hoof ‘N’ Horn café for breakfast. The door opened at a 45-degree angle to the street, don’t ask me why I remember that. A “shortstack” (two little pancakes) and orange juice was my staple. There was a full “Old West” bar along the north wall, and ceramic piggy banks of bulls, owls, you name it, available for sale. Over the years dad bought me an owl bank (It says, “Be Wise, Save” on it), and I have a collection of bull banks. We’d sit in a booth along the south wall opposite each other, close to the door, just me and my dad.
Back at the cattle pen, I’d sometimes get to ride with one of the cowboys, moving cattle up and down the alley. I’m guessing I was never too far out of dad’s sight, even though back then was nothing like it is today with young children leaving their parents’ side. I’d yell “Doobisnhonstwhorst” at the cattle, and the cowboys would laugh. My Grandma Bokern used to call us grandkids that name in a playful way when she was joshing around with us. I’m sure it’s not spelled right (it might have been a phrase, who knows!), and not sure what it ever meant, but it was a fun German word/phrase to shoo the cattle on down the alley.
There was a cattle buyer named Joe Wood who represented the Cecil Baker Livestock Commission Company, who would come to our farm and talk with dad about our offering. I remember him the most of all the men dad ever dealt with when selling fat cattle. He had coal black hair and a deep voice and had a suntanned complexion. I liked him, and I think he liked me. He was usually the man who bought our cattle at the yards. Between the cowboys, the horses, looking at other pens of cattle, and visiting with Joe, the morning always passed too quickly in my little mind.
   After the sale handshake and our cattle were heading down the alley to the packinghouse, (The packinghouse always intrigued me as a young girl. Yet another blog post subject.), we'd make our way into the magnificent (from a child's perspective!) Livestock Exchange Building to collect the check and then be on our way home, which was about 80 miles west into Kansas. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are gray, you’ll never know dear, how much I love you, please don’t take my sunshine away,” was sung over and over and over, every trip. I can still see the smile on dad’s face.
Harry and I spent some time on January 30, 2015, exploring what we could of the old yards and the Exchange Building. It was still magnificent, though badly in need of repair, if that was even possible. I did a quick Google search a few days ago, and it seems renovation is happening. I intend to study the subject more as time allows.
   So there you have it. My first real memories of life with cattle.

Disclaimer: I have failed miserably twice before in my attempt at a day-to-day ranch blog. I also started one back in 2017 or thereabouts and eventually removed the “Blog” button off of our website! Yesterday late afternoon, when I saw so much interest via personal texts and on Facebook encouraging me to continue, my perfectionist brain went into overdrive with thoughts including: 1. How will I organize this? 2. Should it stay in chronological order? 3. Should every post include a mental health message? 4. I’m not a writer. What if I get bogged down and worry about “needing to write something and nothing is happening??” Am I kidding myself to even attempt this? 5. I have hundreds of subjects I can touch on. They were churning in my mind and the more I tried to organize them so I would remember what to write about someday, the more of a jumbled-up mess they became. I took a deep breath - “STOP,” said my heart to my brain-and I walked away from my phone and the computer. Then later last evening, I picked up a little blue book that I occasionally read daily meditations in, and the entry for yesterday included the following:
 
   ‘If I do what I should, I will be at peace with myself. If I feel what I am doing is right, I will not be dependent on the admiration or applause of others. It is gratifying, but not essential to my contentment.’
“Labor not as one who is wretched, nor yet as one who would be pitied or admired. Direct yourself to one thing only, to put yourself in motion and to check yourself at all times.” -Marcus Aurelius: Meditations

   There is something inside of me urging this blog onward. This attempt at blogging might be different than my previous efforts. We shall see where it leads. The only rule I have is that there are no rules. Posts will be from the past, present, or about the future. Some may be short; some may be long. There will not be something every day, and yet there may be consecutive days when the Spirit moves me. Faith and family have kept me alive, and I intend to tell that story. Communication is the key to faith and to family. (Another subject for a future blog.) I am not doing this for kudos, although I sincerely thank each of you for the initial support of this endeavor. My heart was touched by the outpouring of encouragement! It is my hope that my story of living with depression and anxiety while ranching side-by-side with my husband and family might make it easier, if even for only one person, to share their inner struggles with someone else and to know they are not alone.

I was only 3 years old when this picture was taken of me and dad at the stockyards by the local farm reporter there in St. Joe. The old wooden pencil hidden in the bullet-looking end of this pencil entered many check-in tickets when we would unload. These were gifts of the commission companies seeking to buy stock at the yards. More pics to come later...