New Website

Hi Everyone

It has been a very long time since we’ve blogged and we apologize for that. Life got a little crazy the last few years and our blog dropped off the radar. One of the crazy life events is that my family and I (Erika Strande (now Stewart) sold our ranch in BC and bought a ranch in Saskatchewan and moved all our cows and family there. My family and I just launched a new website www.pineranch.ca

I would love for you to come and check it out. It has a lot of advocacy information and videos about life on the ranch. Maybe Erika Fossen will even join me for a guest video appearance!

Thanks for supporting our blog!

Erika Stewart

Last Nights Incident

A severe wind storm woke us in the wee hours last night! We ran around shutting windows as the thunder, lightning and rain started. Thankfully only one branch off our big tree came down in our yard, but the range land east of our ranch did not fair so well! Many many trees were blown over, their roots ripped out of the ground. Here are some photos.

This range’s pasture was just starting to look good as a few years ago we had a Ecosystem Restoration done on it! Hopefully a salvage will be done on these downed trees as it is very good timber and it would be a shame to leave it. A salvage is where a individual or company can apply to buy fallen timber off the government land for a reasonable price. This helps the government to clean up these small areas where something like this happens.

This evening we checked out the wreckage on horseback.

On the positive side, we’ve had a ton of rain and everything is bright green and beautiful! The crops are off to a fantastic start and should yield really good!

~Erika Fossen~

Today’s Newborns

Today, March 1st, we had 14 births!  Here they are in order of birth.  (Each write-up is directly below the picture.)

Doug and his dad headed out to the snowy, winter-wonderland at 5:00 am. At 5:45 am, I crawled out of bed and joined in the fun, to bring the pairs into the shelter of the barn. There were six calves already born by now and with the six inches that it had snowed overnight, they needed to be brought in.

S61X with her baby finally standing.

Who knows which of the six were born first, but this calf seemed like it had spent the most time laying in the snow. He did not want to stand up and after we got everybody else in, we milked her into a bottle and tubed him. This means we used an Esophageal Feeder to put the colostrum right into his stomach. It took him nearly all day in the barn to recover, but finally at 2:00 pm he was walking around and nursing on his own. The sire is black angus.

This red white face bull was born in the early morning. We did not have to transport this guy because late the night before we had noticed she was thinking about calving and we brought her in. The sire is Hereford. He was unassisted birth and he nursed unassisted.

75X

This heifer was also born sometime early this morning.  Unassisted birth and she nursed unassisted. The sire is Hereford.

S554U

This heifer was one of the six brought in in the morning.  Unassisted birth but we had to help her nurse. The sire is black angus.  This is the mothers ninth baby.

U6D and her black heifer.

This heifer was born early in the morning and her mommy is a first time calver.  Unassisted birth and she nursed unassisted.  The sire is black angus.

V32B and her bull.

This is the third calf for this black brockle face mama. After being transported into the barn, he nursed unassisted.

It snowed all day long!

536C moving to a different pen.

At 5:00am, the guys noticed this girl was calving. At 6:50 am, after all the calves were tucked away, we walked her in. We were concerned she was taking too long so we wanted to check the presentation of the calf. So we checked her out and found the the baby was full breach and was trying to come out bum first. Its never good when you get gloved up and ‘go in’, and the first thing you feel is a tail! Doug was able to carefully bring the calves back legs up, without hurting the cows insides’. Once it’s back legs were up then it could come out backwards. The calf came out nice and easy but it was dead. My husband says when it is full breach like that, sometimes in the stress of the birth the calves legs can sever its umbilical cord from the placenta. So that was sad. The mom licked the baby for a while to see that it was not going to come to life. It was a bull and it’s sire was Hereford.

MFCZ and her baby in the sled.

 

MFCZ super very-not-ideal udder.

This is an ideal udder.

Short for ‘Mom’s Favourite Cow’ was born at 10:00 this morning.  It was an unassisted birth. Because she has such poor teat conformation, we had to bring this pair in to make sure the calf nursed.  The sire is black angus.

S17Z and her big baby coming out.

When we were out bringing in MFCZ, we saw that S17Z was calving. After coffee break, she still hadn’t calved so we brought her in to check it out. Turns out it was a very, very big calf that we had to help her have. (This means we pull on his front feet and pull him out.) This calf probably weighed somewhere around 125 pounds. This is big for our herd. Most of our babies are around 95 pounds, with the heifers calves being smaller. This bull calf was sired by one of the neighbouring ranch bulls, either a Simmental or Shorthorn. He was born at noon.

581U

At 2:20 pm, 581U had this black bull calf. It was an unassisted birth and an unassisted nurse. The sire is black angus.

T600B with her big black brockle face bull.

T600BWe had noticed this cow off by herself at around coffee break. Later in the afternoon, she was still stomping around so we decided to bring her to the barn. She did not have a waterbag yet but was definitely working on calving. Finally at 5:30 pm, our oldest daughter went out and she had the front feet and head out. Our daughter broke the bag so the calf could breath when needed, then she gave it a little pull. When I checked the baby bull an hour later, he still had not nursed but I got him standing again and hopefully he’ll get in there.

R8B with her 3rd calf, a baby bull who looks just like her.

When I went out to check the herd at 6:30 pm, there were two new babies. This bull calf was doing very well and had already nursed. I think his sire is a Hereford, but it is hard to tell.

39P and her super tiny little heifer calf.

The second one I found out there was this little heifer. Emphasis on the word: little! This calf must only weight 50-60 pounds, she is tiny!!! She could be tiny because her mom is pretty old! This is her moms thirteenth baby. Maybe she’s just running out of the ingredients needed to make a calf. I don’t know. But it is alive and it was standing ready to get in and have a nurse. The sire is Black Angus.

It has been snowing ALL day! Well, it did let off a tiny bit when we went in for lunch, but the second we were done and outside again, it started back up with a vengeance!  There is still 60 cm of snow on the lawn!  Toooooo much!

I’m so happy that the day has almost come to a close!  It is 10:01 pm and Doug and our oldest are getting their winter garb on, to go do the last check of the night.  We’ll see if I there are anymore babies to report.

It’s 10:52 pm and they are back in.  There was one more new baby out there.  P127A had a red bull calf.  Again we are not sure what the sire is because it is not our Hereford or Black Angus.

P127A and her new arrival.

The two have been brought in and are snuggled into the straw in the barn.  Here’s hoping we don’t have too many at 5:00 am cuz the barn is full! Good night!

~Erika Fossen~

You Never Know What To Expect When Expecting!

February’s weather can be very unpredictable from year to year!  We usually start calving around February 10th, but each years weather can be drastically different.

Feb. 23, 2015. As you can see all of the snow is gone!

 

Back in 2015, on February 21st.

This is a picture looking in the same direction as above and as you can see we have a touch more snow!

One might ask, “Why do you bother calving in February then?”  This is a question we ask ourselves too when we have to haul newborns out of the snow and into the barn!  This week we had tremendously cold weather for our area.  On the morning these calves were born it was -27!

This is our ‘Hot Box’.  The quickest way for newborn calves to warm up is to breath in warm air.  This box has a vented plastic floor and under the floor is a heater and fan.  When running, the box circulates warm air around the calf.

How many calves can you see?  On the morning check, at five am, Doug found these newly born.  He quickly went around gathering them up, and put them all in the hotbox.  Then we raced back out and walked all their mommies in.  After they were warmer and dryer and we defrosted their ears, we put them in the barn pens with their moms. (There are four babies in the box in this picture.)

So why do we calve in February?  We need the calves to be big enough to go onto the government range by May; which is our spring/summer/fall pasture.  Usually by the middle of March, our snow is melted and we are calving on dry ground.  It takes about two months to calve out the herd.  By middle of May we are getting very busy with getting our crops seeded, so if we were in the heat of calving we’d have too much on the go.  It is natural to ‘breed’ when the weather is spring-like with the fresh green grass.  If we pushed calving back, and bred closer to the summer, it may be between 30 and 40 degrees which can cause bulls to be slower and less fertile.  Our range pastures usually get larger in size as they move, so later in June or July the cows can be very spread out in the pastures. The spring pastures are a bit smaller and it keeps the cows and bulls in closer proximity to each other.

Cows and their traveling calves this spring, gathering up to head out on range.

The gestation period of a cow is 283 days.  We put our bulls out with the cows on May 3rd.  This means our start date for calving was February 10th.  We start checking the cows for calving usually around February 1st.  But this year our first baby came on January 21st!  We do not know why she calved so early, but thankfully the baby was not premature and they did great.

One of the challenges of ranching is the weather.  We have to be set up to deal with the unpredictability of it.  We will look forward to the new arrivals and be confident that warmer weather is on it’s way!

~Erika Fossen~

A Mothers Touch!

It is amazing the effect a mother has on her young!

The bull getting loved while his sister nurses.

About an hour ago, a second time momma had a heifer calf.  It was very small and we had thoughts that it might be a twin.  Sure enough, after she was moved into the barn, she developed another water bag.  We helped her have the second, as it was backwards and we wanted to get it out quick.  It was a little bull who looked exactly like his older sister.  He took a long time to get breathing.  We rubbed him with straw to stimulate him, however that could not compare to his mothers touch.  It was amazing to see how he ‘came alive’ when his mom started to lick him.  I just marvel at the intricacies of life!

When we walked out of the barn we saw that two more were calving!

We look forward to see what the rest of the afternoon and evening hold!

~Erika Fossen~

The Need For Feed

The winter of 1886 was the inspiration for Charley Russels painting:  ‘The Last of the Five Thousand.’  It is a picture of a starving steer, who is about to be eaten by coyotes.  The picture was sent to answer the investors question asking how the cattle herd had faired the winter on the ranch in Montana.

Every year I think about how we can extend our grazing season.  This would entail planting corn to graze or stockpiling loads of grass. We dream of grazing year round.

Then, every year without fail, winter hits and there I am feeding cows again!

Cows out grazing when the first snow fall hits.

Bringing cows home from the last of the grass to the standing corn grazing.

This was a week ago, now we have over 2 feet.

A question we are often asked is, “Is this grass fed beef?”  We have to chuckle at this question.  For 9 months of the year we can answer, “Yes it is!”  But for 3 months of the year, when we have 2 feet of snow covering the ground, we feed hay, silage and grain, as well as salt and mineral to balance their diet. Our definition of grass is something that the cow pulls with her own mouth from the ground.  As soon as it is harvested it changes into hay or silage or grain.  We are too stubborn to call something ‘grass fed’ just to join in with the latest catch phrase or marketing ploy.  I am happy to feed out silage on top of the snow, and my cows seem to agree.

We rarely lose animals and they usually come through winter fat and healthy, with a big calf at side, ready to hit the grass again in the spring.

In the meantime, we will enjoy the winter scenery as we feed our cows, hoping the silage pit lasts til spring.

~Doug & Erika Fossen~

Where Did The Time Go??

Sorry we have been so slow to blog this year!  The seasons changed quickly and left us only with time to survive and get our work done!  We have put together a smattering of pictures to share with you.  Thank you Sabrina (from Georgia, USA) for inquiring to ‘where we had gone!’ and the encouragement to write again.

Everyone in my family is now taller than me!  We went to where I grew up near Grande Prairie in late August for my nieces wedding.

We started the spring with tones of water around, flooding, and then it stopped.  We have not gotten precipitation since June.  It made for a tremendous hay season. We would love for some rain to charge up the soil.

Our Kelpie cattle female had seven puppies on April 4th.  They were a big joy to our family and our girls enjoyed them immensely.  We kept this little guy here.  His name is ‘Dee’.

Here he is much bigger sleeping in the tractor.

Here we are dragging/pulling our irrigation pump out of the canyon where we draw water from.  It wasn’t too bad the first time we had to haul it up and bring it into town to put on a new motor.  When we arrived the guy told us it was 400 pounds when we thought it was only 250.  The new motor failed a week later and then AGAIN!  So by the 5th time up and down, our crew was starting to loose vim and vigor!!

Thankfully the rest of our pumps kept purring along and we were able to get some good feed put up.  This was a cover crop of peas, oats and triticale over seedling alfalfa.

Doug was standing in the feed store one day and saw that horse shoes were $2.69, so to add to our workload, he decided he would be our new farrier and shoe our horses.  He had to dig deep back to our class in our college days, but he has done excellent and saved us some money.

We did our annual ‘4H CampOut’ again this summer.  This is the group of us on our horses.  Thankfully the only one to get bucked off was the leader Doug, haha.

We have been rolling up fence and cleaning up on our new property.

Most nights when we would get home, this owl would be hanging out on our driveway.  He was beautiful.

Our girls were all riding green horses this year.  They did an excellent job learning what it takes to break-in a new horse.  Doug loves that he does not have to ride all the young ones now.

To add to the fun, we decided to trash our kitchen and bathroom.  It has been 6 months now, but we are starting to finally see the finish line!!

It took some major searching but we finally found our friends and blogging partner in SASKATCHEWAN!  Here is Erika on one of their horses and their family.  We did a puppy run (delivering pups across the prairies) and checked out their new ranch.

Thank you to our readers.  We appreciate you.  Hope you all had a safe, productive summer.  Looking forward to blogging this fall 🙂

~Erika Fossen~

Fossen Ranch Guest Lodge

This beautiful log home on our ranch is now going to be available for rent, by the week, starting in June of 2017.

Sit by the fire with a good book and enjoy the view.

Our lodge accommodates up to ten people.  Please email fossenranch@telus.net for more information on rates and availability.

We invite you to come, relax and enjoy all that the area has to offer.

Whether it is enjoying all the wildlife or the quiet peace of this secluded oasis.

Only a forty minute drive to the Okanagan and Osoyoos Wine Country.

Ten minutes from the beautiful Kettle River and the Kettle River Golf Course.

We are located within two hours of both the Penticton and Kelowna International Airport.

Tired of traffic jams where you’re from?  This is as bad as it gets in Rock Creek, BC.

Don’t worry, we are quite confident the snow will be gone by June!

~Erika & Doug Fossen~

Night Check Fun

Before I left for Ottawa I offered to do my husband and dad’s night checks. I was trying to be a real team player because when I was gone to Ottawa they would have to pick up my slack. Boy did I regret that!

Sunday night I did my dad’s check and at 8pm it was uneventful, but I went out at 11 to do mine and one of our meanest cows had calved right near a big puddle. I needed to bring the calf into the barn because he was born in the snow, but also because he was so close to this puddle I was worried when he tried to get up and walk to nurse he might fall into the puddle, but there was no way I could get close to the calf with out her chasing me off. I had to call Cyle to come and play bullfighter for me. We got that calf in and then I found another calf, so we drug him in as well.

I offered to do Cyle’s check at 3 because I woke him up, but he declined.

Monday night I did dad’s check and it was a gong show I had a heifer calve at 7pm, a cow calve at 8pm and another cow calve at 9pm. All was well with all the calves so I went back in the house to sleep for a few hours before my 11 pm check. When I went out I noticed that the calf s20 was not doing very well, so I put him in the “hot box” and just thought he was cold, it was bout -10 out, but he was born in the barn on dry ground and just figured he needed a bit of a warm up.

That night I did do my husband’s check and when I went out at 3 s20 was really going down hill, so I ran plugged the heat gun in and blow dried him off, but it seemed like he was dying. So I unfortunately called my dad o get him to come and give me a hand. We carried the calf into our calving shack it’s a little one room building we built with a wood stove and fridge (its more of us where medicine and tags are stored, but in times like this we can bring a really cold or sick calf in here. Thats what we did.

We dried the calf off and tubed him have some milk and electrolytes to see if that would help. We thought we were making progress, but unfortunately he died. We are not sure why. There must have been something else wrong because I watched his birth and nothing went wrong there and it wasn’t that cold and he was born in the dry barn. This is so frustrating I hate losing a calf, but that is mother nature and part of our job, unfortunately. So that night dad and I went to sleep at 5:30.

Tuesday night also known as the night/morning of my flight to Ottawa. I did my check at 11 and found 2 calves born out in the snow, so I gave them their free toboggan ride into the barn. Came back out at 3 to do Cyle’s check, this one had to go off without a hitch because I had to leave by 3:30 to catch my plane to Ottawa. Things were looking good until I saw a cow with a backwards foot sticking out. Then panic hit. I ran the cow in and ran back up to the calving shack to grab the calving chains. I decided to call my husband because I was getting pressed for time. Once again trying to do a favour and having to wake him up anyways!

It was a tough pull, but I managed to pull it by myself and by the time my husband got down to the barn I had just pulled the calf.

This cow calved backwards a few years ago and I pulled it and she ended up pooping all over me. All I could think while I was pulling this calf is please please don’t poop on me I don’t have time to shower!!! She didn’t thankfully and I made my plane just in the nick of time.

I have had quite a few sleepless nights and didn’t really end up giving my dad or husband much more sleep if they had just done their own checks:(

Here is the backwards calf and his mama R37

YCC at CCA AGM

Whoa! Theres a whole lot of acronyms for you!

YCC= Young Cattlemen’s Council

CCA= Canadian Cattlemen’s Association

AGM= Annual General Meeting

Last week was the CCA’s AGM in Ottawa. I was lucky enough to be able to attend as a council member for the Young Cattlemen’s Council. The Young Cattlemen’s Council is a new council started in 2013 and is a subsidiary of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association. The council is made up of 9 council members. The provinces BC, AB, Sask, Manitoba, Ontario, and the Maritimes (which is compromised of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and PEI) send a representative for their province that they have chosen and the remaining 3 positions are Members At Large positions and are elected from our general membership at our AGM.

Interested in becoming a member and possibly a position on the council. Check out our website.

http://www.youngcattlemenscouncil.com 

It is the vision of the Young Cattlemen’s Council to cultivate youthful leadership by exposure to industry policy development while allowing for the opportunity to gain experience and bring fresh insight to the table. We also strive to be a conduit of information between industry organizations and the youth of the beef industry.

• YCC welcomes individuals aged 18-35 who are members of their designated provincial organization, or whose parents are members. The YCC board may also approve membership applications from persons within the age range, who may not meet the other specified requirements. [apply here]
• The YCC board is comprised of 6 provincial representatives and 3 elected directors at large.
• YCC board members have the opportunity to serve on CCA committees, to gain experience and provide youthful perspective on current issues.

A really important part of being on the Council is the opportunity to sit on a CCA committee in an ex-officio position. That means we get to sit at the table of committee meetings and remain in the room during in camera sessions, but we do not have a vote. Still we are at the table to experience first hand what it takes to make decisions in the cattle industry at a national level. The hope is youth gain experience and skills to take home to their provinces and become actively involved in their provincial associations.

Our fearless leader President Brett McRae sitting at the table during the CCA board meeting on Friday. 

During our time in Ottawa we are involved in our committee meetings. I am on the Animal Health committee and we met on Wednesday morning from 8am- 12pm. We are also welcome to sit in on other committee meetings as well as the board meeting. There are so many great opportunities to learn at these events and meet and talk with other cattle producers. It is always so interesting to me how we are all in the cattle industry, but depending on our location do things so differently. The council was also able to attend CCA’s MP reception and partook in a parliamentary tour.

I am so thankful for the opportunities I have be afforded because of the YCC and the amount  I have learned about politics and governance.

The 2016/ 2017 council at the MP reception. Just missing our President.

YCC with MP Mike Bossio

 

International Women’s Day

Today March 8, 2017 the world celebrates International Women’s Day. McDonald’s Canada has created a video highlighting  women in the Canadian Beef industry. In addition, McDonalds has pledged $1 for every share of their video on their Facebook and Twitter page, to go toward the Canadian Cattlemen’s Young Leaders program.

I personally cannot say enough great things about this program. This program is how the 2 Erika’s met and started this blog. I (Erika Strande-Stewart) was a mentee in the program in 2012 and Erika Fossen was my mentor.

16 successful applicants are selected from all across Canada each year and are paired with a mentor in their specific area of interest within the beef industry. I have had so many memorable experiences and met so many smart people who lead this industry and I am forever grateful to the CYL program for those experiences. Especially for the friendship and Erika and I and our families have developed over the years.

Here is the link to the Cattlemen’s Young Leaders Page if you are interested about ore information about the program! http://cattlemensyoungleaders.com 

It would be great if everyone could share this video tomorrow and help to raise money for this amazing program, so more people can have these experiences.

 

 

Todays Newborns

Today, March 1st, we had 12 new babies.  Here they are in order of birth (info below picture).

Mother 219T – Baby T219E

Last night during the 8 pm check, my daughter and I found that the pregnant cows had rubbed a gate open and some had escaped into the pen where the cows and their calves go.  We got one cow back where she was supposed to be, but because it was already dark, we decided to sort it out in the morning.  So this morning when we headed out there to move the pairs around (older ones get moved to the next pen), we found good ole 219T.  219T likes to get out of the pen that she is in and head out to unclaimed territory when she’s in labour.  Two years ago she calved in the silage pit.  Last year she headed up into the neighbours 300 acres to calve.  Thankfully she always seems to be able to have her baby’s unassisted, which is sure good because it would be a real pain to walk her however far back to the barn!  This bull was born sometime early this morning.  Unassisted birth and he nursed unassisted.  The sire is hereford.

Mother 11S – Baby S11E

This bull was also born sometime this morning, probably around 6:00 am.  Unassisted birth and he nursed unassisted.  The sire is black angus.  By the way she was looking at me I decided not to head in any closer.

Mother 57X – Baby X57E

This bull was also born at around 7:00 am.  Unassisted birth and he nursed unassisted.  The sire is hereford.

Mother U280X – Baby X280E

This bull was born at 9:00 this morning.  Unassisted birth and he nursed unassisted.  The sire is hereford.

Mother S6Z – Baby S6E

This bull (the fifth bull of the day) was born at 9:30 this morning, right after the above.  Unassisted birth and he nursed unassisted.  The sire is black angus.

S17A with her water bag and front feet showing.

Mother S17A – Baby A17E

At 12:15 pm, when I checked the cows, this girl had her waterbag showing.  I went back to the yard, moved a cow to the correct pen and when I looked out twenty five minutes later she had given birth to this heifer.   She nursed unassisted.  The sire is hereford.  S17A’s mother had calved a week prior and her grandmother a few day ago.  *Note: at 5:30 pm Doug brought this pair in and ‘hooked’ the heifer calf up (helped it nurse again) because he wasn’t happy with how it looked.

S552B stewing around.

At coffee time (10:45am), from the dining room window, I watched this second time calver stomp up to the sawdust pile and proceed to kick every other cow off.  She slammed them in the ribs with her head until they all left.  I kept an eye on her, but then got busy writing this blog.  At 1:50 pm Doug came in and asked how long I was going to let that cow with the one backwards foot go?  That explained why she had been taking so long!  So I got the water and we brought her into the barn, to help her have her backwards baby.  (For more information on baby’s that come backwards, read this blog:  https://lifeonabccattleranch.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/hows-it-going-out-there/  )

S552B with the back foot out.  You know you have to help them when you see this:  the foot with the dewclaws up.

 

Starting to help S552B have her backwards baby.

Pulling the baby, here it is half out. From when its hips pass through, it is very fast, to make sure it can breathe.

Getting loved.

We went in for lunch and a half an hour later, looking out the window, we noticed a cow had started to calve.  Our ranchhand went out to walk her in and called, reporting that it also was backwards!  So repeat of above!

K30W with her backwards presentation!

K30W was the proud mother of a black brokel face heifer, which nursed unassisted. Sire was black angus.

Mother P39U – Baby U39E

After all this had gone down and we were feeding everyone, we noticed this cow P39U had had her baby sometime during the backwards episode!  She had an all black heifer calf and it nursed unassisted.

Mother T31W – Baby W31E

This cow confused us!  While Doug was feeding he texted me to come out, saying T31W was having twins.  When we got out there, she definitely had a calf beside her that she had claimed as her own but also had a waterbag and front feet sticking out of her.  I was VERY surpirised that she had gotten by me in having her calf, especially being the day where I was writing this and keeping such close track.  After Tristen nearly got flattened lifting the calf into the gator, the REAL mom came running up from the feed pile she was enjoying.  Then my memory was tweaked and I realized what was going down.  So then we proceeded to walk all three of them, X57E and his two mommies into the barnyard.  Once in, we separated them and at 5:10 pm T31W gave birth to a black neck baby girl.  Thank goodness she LOVES her real baby!  The heifer nursed on her own.

Mother S146Y – Baby Y146E

Somewhere between 6:30 and 7:00 pm this bull was born.  He was born unassisted and he nursed without help as well. His sire is black angus.

Mother R15A – Baby A15E

This baby was born at 9:00pm.  I am not sure the sex and could not muster up the energy to crawl in there so that I could inform y’all.  I’ll check tomorrow.  It’s sire is hereford because it has white patches on it’s face.  It is a fairly small calf so I imagine it is a heifer.  I’m sure she will nurse on her own.

It was a very nice day and quite warm, approximately 0 degrees.  We’re in now at 10:37 pm, with the last check done. Yaaa, I’m so happy we did not find anyone else calving so now I can go to bed!  Good night!

~Erika Fossen~