by Carissa
Republic County WIFE

September 1, 2000
Horse Creek Ranch

Today promised to be another hot, dry one. Summer temperatures have hovered more than 15 degrees above normal. Greg and I could not remember when it had last rained.

The ground is very dry with cracks opening up. Soybeans don’t have enough moisture to mature. We won’t try baling the beans for cattle feed. With more stems than leaves, it is unlikely to make good feed. Pasture grass is brown and brittle. Without rain, the grass won’t grow. We are already feeding winter hay in some pastures, about a month earlier than usual. We hope to have enough feed for the winter. We lost about 15 acres of hay meadow and 7 large bales to a fire. Although we carry insurance, we need the hay more. The lack of grass now and limited supplies for over the winter mean we will have to recalculate the number of cattle we can keep.

One of today’s duties is to check all the springs and ponds to make sure there is water enough for the cattle. It is necessary to have enough water for cattle to drink and to cool down in during intensive heat.

Fortunately, there is enough good water. We have 12 ponds, 3 springs, and 2 wells for livestock. There are many small streambeds through the land but they never flow year round. Up in the north pasture, I encounter a snake. Yipes! The snake coils, then strikes to catch a frog. Fascinating! But I no longer want to slosh around in the spring’s pool.

Greg will have to move hay bales from the meadows to the shed while I check on animals. It’s hard to be active when it is so hot, but chores must be completed. There have been a number of calves born recently. The young calves jump around following their herd. We raise Scottish Highland cattle. Because of the very hot weather, the animals have lost most of their heavy hair. Usually, they are quite shaggy. The breed comes from Scotland where the climate is cooler than in Kansas.

We also have to check the fences. With blowing winds, tree limbs sometimes fall on fence wire, letting cattle escape. Because the stream is nearly dry, we also must make sure cattle do not walk under the bridge to the neighbors. We have one bull out so we’ll get the cowboys to separate him from the neighbor’s Black Angus cattle. Cattle often learn to push themselves through old barbed wire fences.

Having already walked a great deal today checking on land and animals, I drove the car to the mailbox, located ¼ mile from the house. We are the last house on the mail route. Our post office is 18 miles north. If we had put a mailbox on the east edge of our property, we would have been the last house on the mail route for another (different) town. Phone service is similar. A man drove out today to install a wireless phone service because our mailing address is on the list of places served by this new phone system. Our phone exchange comes from a town 20 miles south of us so we have the 316 area code but live in the half of Kansas with the 785 area code. Hopefully, the new service, which works by radio wave via towers and satellites, will save us money. There are 8 towns we can now call (with the new service) without a charge. Previously, these calls cost us 75 cents a minute (all calls were considered long distance!).

While sorting through bills, we hear a "Hey, neighbor" shout from outside. Friends have driven down from Pell, Iowa, an old Dutch community.

Our friends have town jobs but raise a few animals on a small farm. They won’t spend much time away from home since they worry about the well-being of their animals, even though they have been entrusted to the care of a thoughtful neighbor.

Carl used to attend the same college as Greg and I. Even after moving away, we keep in touch. He and Pam have been looking forward to seeing our new machine shed. Because of the heat, we don’t hike around the ranch but, instead, sit a bit and catch up on what everyone has been doing.

The four of us head to town for dinner. We eat at the Hays House, reportedly the oldest continuously operated restaurant west of the Mississippi River. It’s nice to relax with friends over a good meal. Usually, I would cook but we have just finished drilling a new well and don’t have our water system back up and running at the house. We stay up late since we won’t get to see these friends for another few years.

This is how Greg and Carissa spent September 1, 2000.