Cooking in the West

There is a health care crisis in America that has nothing to do with Covid. My personal health care crisis involves trying not to put myself in the position of requiring health care despite my husband's ideas. I have health insurance, but I hate to use it--especially for a case of chronic stupidity. Chronic stupidity is a malady that many people who work around cattle and horses suffer--especially during calving season.

As I have grown older, I have grown more cautious. If we are driving on bad roads, I will dig my medical insurance card and my driver's license out and clutch them in my sweaty hand in an effort to avoid mistaken identity and save emergency medical personnel a few minutes of digging through my purse. My father-in-law was also concerned about mistaken identity in case of an accident. When his brother-in-law passed away with drawers full of new underwear and t-shirts, Roy decided to wear them despite the fact that Larry had marked everything he owned with his name and/or brand in permanent marker. It caused Roy great concern that emergency personnel might mistake him for the deceased Larry Hoell, which was plainly labeled on his underwear.

Despite my attempts to be more cautious in my advanced years, I still occasionally accidentally experience a brush with chronic stupidity when my husband recruits me to help tag calves. After almost forty years of marriage, I fully comprehend that my companionship is not highly desired; but rather it is my usefulness as a decoy. We don't have many wild cows, but 203 Orange was a pretty snuffy cow. She had calved the day before, but apparently her hormones were still boiling inside her like a Satanic cauldron.

Now, first of all if there is an untagged calf in a field full of tagged calves, there is always a good reason, and that is that its mother is demon possessed and just a skosh overly protective as in she sees you headed towards her calf from a half mile away and arrives snorting, pawing, and generally protesting human intervention.

Remi has an old sheep hook that he has modified into a calf hook, since it is easier to manipulate than a rope while riding a four wheeler. The premise is that he drives up beside the calf, snares it, and coasts to a halt. This is where I come in. Despite high diesel prices, I have started giving chase in the pickup, because it is much warmer and safer than when I used to ride on the rumble seat of the four wheeler and suffer severe bruises from the flailing rear portion of the calf hook.

Number 203 Orange was on red alert. She started towards a brushy coulee as soon as the four wheeler came into sight. Catching the wobbly calf in the coulee on foot with the calf hook was not too challenging, which may have contributed to Number 203's furor. By the time I arrived on the scene with the tagging bucket, she was expressing her emotions by shaking her head, pawing divots of wet sod over her back, and emitting warning bellows at Remi.

He said, "You hold the calf with the calf hook, and I'll tag it."

Before I could answer, she lunged at me. In my graceful retreat, I spilled the bucket. Tags, taggers, vaccine bottles, and syringes were strewn on the ground, but all I could think of was that this had all the earmarks of ending in an emergency room visit. Bravely I said, "Let's let this one wait till Bret can help you." This year we are calving in two different places, and poor Bret has to tag calves in both places--especially the calves of wild cows.

Of course, that was a waste of much needed breath, because I knew he was not going to let a psychotic 1,400 pound cow suffering severe postpartum depression trot away with an untagged calf. In answer, he handed me the handle of the calf hook. Dragging the calf away from the spilled bucket, I lured the cow down the coulee until Remi could retrieve the right tag and the filled syringe. In my silent prayer for protection, I included, "It's a heifer; thank you, Lord!" (Bull calves also have to be banded, and that was not an inviting prospect with this overly protective mother blowing snot everywhere.)

I maintained eye contact with her, but that seemed to irritate her even more. Then, I decided to try conversation, so I noted, "This would be over by now if you would just chill." She shook her long skinny black nose at me in retort, so I added, "Now I know where I have seen you before. I loved your performance in The Wizard of Oz." She was not amused by my feeble attempt at comic relief, but by this time Remi had managed to give the calf a shot. Tagging it would take more resourcefulness.

I had been dragging the calf slowly down the coulee by its heels, with the cow following on the head or tagging end. Now we had to lure her away from the calf's head. The tagger's impulse of swatting her with a chokecherry branch seemed like a bad idea to me, but in the terrible ruckus that followed, she did end up on my end of the calf. Somehow in the midst of the wild circling and bawling, Remi managed to tag the calf, and for some unknown reason she decided to spare my life. I chalked it up to Divine intervention, but the tagger maintained that he knew she was bluffing all along.

All's well that ends well following outbreaks of chronic stupidity, but this brush with trampling did start me to thinking about an invention I have seen on Facebook. You can buy a little corral that you attach to a four wheeler so it serves as a mobile catch pen. Perhaps if I cancel my health insurance I could afford a corral on wheels so that next year we can just drive by, scoop up the calves, and tag them inside the safety of the mobile corral. I hope they can modify it enough to traverse brushy coulees and irrigation ditches by next calving season, and I hope that pen is tall enough so that cows can't climb into the pen with the tagger and engineered heavy enough that she can't tip it over trying to get to her calf.

Calving time is a great time for crockpot meals, because there is no exact dinner time as it depends on what is going on in the heifer pen. Here are a few of my favorite crockpot recipes that make calving season tastier and easier!

Crockpot Roast Beef with A Kick:

3 lbs. chuck roast

12 ounce jar pepperoncini with juice

1 packet au jus gravy mix or onion soup mix

1 package Hidden Valley Ranch buttermilk ranch dressing

Alpine Touch or seasoning to taste Combine pepperoncini (do not drain) with au jus and dressing mix and pour over seasoned roast in a crock pot. Cook on low all day or for at least 8 hours. Serve with mashed potatoes or on a crusty roll as a hot sandwich.

Creamy Chicken and Mushrooms:

6 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 C. sour cream

1/2 C. dry white wine or chicken broth

1/2 pound fresh mushrooms

1/4 C. water

2 T. cornstarch

Salt, pepper, paprika, and lemon pepper seasoning

Combine salt, pepper, paprika, and lemon pepper seasoning (to taste) in a small dish and rub on chicken breasts. Place in a slow cooker. In a large bowl, combine the soup, sour cream and wine; stir in mushrooms. Pour over chicken. Cover and cook on low for 4 hours or until meat is tender. Before serving, thicken the sauce by mixing 1/4 C. water and 2 T. cornstarch until smooth; stir in sauce from crockpot and bring to a boil in a saucepan, stirring constantly; cook and stir sauce until thickened before adding back to the meat in the crockpot. Serve over a bed of rice.

Molten Crockpot Cake:

4 large eggs

11/2 C. sugar

1/2 C. butter, melted

1 T. vanilla

1 C. flour

1/2 C. baking cocoa

1 T. instant coffee granules (optional)

1/4 t. salt

Whisk together the first 4 ingredients. In another bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, coffee granules if used, and salt; gradually beat into egg mixture. Transfer to a greased 1-1/2-qt. slow cooker. Cook, covered, on low until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs, 2-1/2 to 3 hours. Serve warm. If desired, serve with whipped cream or ice cream and raspberries.