CAPITOLETTER

April 22, 2024

Our countryside at Capitol and on Tie Creek is greening up. The snow showers, and the few misty rains, have helped settle the dirt, but we could use a nice long slow shower, now. It seems to be windy and cold on track meet days, so the track season has lagged behind this year.

Dick and Erma Albert didn’t even leave town this week. They didn’t really need to go shopping in the Hills. Erma is back to two physical therapy sessions per week, and that is helping her lots. They both went to the Senior Citizen dinner, on Friday, and had a good time. Erma stayed to play cards, and also learned to play a domino game that Lila Teigen had brought. It was lots of fun. On Sunday, they both went to church at the Catholic Church, and then had lunch at Saloon Number Three. There were not as many people eating out for lunch this week.

Junior and Shirley Melum are enjoying the little calves. They keep busy every day, but didn’t have any company this week. Things were pretty quiet.

Doug and Julia Davis have had a quiet week, too. Calving is coming along. Morgan Buck has helped out during the week, but will take off a few days to help his dad do some projects in Camp Crook, over the weekend.

At Ronda Cordell’s, the heifers’ due date was March 27th , and the older cows’ due date was April 7th. But of course, to be on the safe side, they have the heifers close-by a couple weeks ahead of the due date. There was only a dribbling of calves prior to the due date, but when that date came, they were busy. They are on the last fourth, now. The weather has been fairly good, but they are in dire need of moisture. The temperature dropped to 20 degrees, a couple of nights ago. That isn’t very cold, but with the wind, it made the chill factor not good for new babies born without shelter from the wind. Her cows are pretty spoiled, and some of the aged cows actually come looking to get in the barn.

Diane Wear has had some time off work at the Dahl in Ekalaka. She and her big St. Bernard, Auria, have been visiting some. It’s nice to have several of them taking turns watching the camera, especially at night. When Ronda gets in at night from chores, it’s a treat not to have to worry about supper. Gene Secrest is staying with the Zolnoski’s through calving, to help Clint. Ronda did make a trip to Belle Fourche and Spearfish last Friday, to get groceries and supplies. When she got home, Joey Douglas had brought his brother, Ryker down from Bowman to spend the weekend with Grandma Diane. They both spent a night at Ronda’s. On Saturday, Joey headed home. Ryker and Diane, who had to work at Dahl, headed to Ekalaka.

One afternoon last week, Diane came in wanting Ronda to look at a three-year old heifer that was acting strange. She was flopping down, kicking and actually rolling onto her back. She’d get up, walk a little ways and then continue with this antic all the way to the barn. They got her into the head catch. She wasn’t calving, but she hadn’t eaten for a day or so, as her ponch was empty, but the stomach compartments were packed full. They gave mineral oil and water plus pain meds. The pain med relieved her some, but was not the cure. The following day more mineral oil and five gallons of water and electrolytes were pumped into her, and a shot to make her calve. Ronda figured she was probably going to die, but maybe they could save the calf. Ronda went out at midnight, 30 hours after the shot, and the cow had delivered a 90 lb. calf, and was being a good mama. Ronda gave the new baby colostrum because the heifer’s milk had nearly dried up with her ailment. At daybreak, Ronda went to check again. The Mama was drinking and eating. Their conclusion, for this ordeal, was that that big calf was laying against something so hard, that he’d shut the digestive system down. They are doing great after a few days of bottle feeding, and the mama regaining her appetite.

Ronda’s cows have had four sets of twins and only one has required assistance. That was a heifer that had been ultra-sounded showing the twins. Twins always require more work. The last set caused a little ruckus. Ronda had seen that a cow had twins when she went out at daybreak. When the guys came to tag them, their count turned out one calf for each cow. Ronda knew that there was a chocolate-colored calf belonging to a certain cow, and it was nowhere to be found. Several calves had run through a fence to the west, and they later thought a coyote may have chased them. After several hours of searching around for the chocolate-colored calf, low and behold, this calf got hungry, and came back searching for its mama, who had been taken to the barn and put in a pen with one of the other twins from that morning. All turned out good. The twins are with their mama, and the chocolate-colored calf with his mama, too.

Coyle Electric from Bowman has been wiring the new barn. Colin and Callean Smith from western Montana stopped by. Colin works for the Turkey Federation. Toney and Linda Hannah came for supper that same evening.

The most exciting event in our area, was the recognition award that Bryce Padden received at the Black Hills Nationals AAU Wrestling Tournament. Bryce has helped coach beginning and advanced AAU wrestlers for many years, and this year he helped to start a youth AAU wrestling team in Ekalaka. He has helped many kids, and we are proud to have him as a neighbor. His family had a difficult time keeping the surprise of the award from him, especially when they needed an excuse to go to town during calving season, so Brandon insisted he would stay home to check cows. BJ and Kelly were there for the award and pictures, and Kanyn stood in for Brandon to have a picture with her Grandpa. It was a fun day. This week, Kevin and Lisa Olmsted came from Billings to spend a few days at Dorothy’s. Then Dorothy went back to Billings with them. Then next week they all will travel to Colorado Springs to see Easton’s new son. The new baby is Dorothy’s great-great-grandson, and she will get a few days to sit and rock the new little boy. He already has a distant cousin, and the two babys were born only a day apart. Wayne Lee’ daughter has a new baby, too.

Karen Odell still has a cough that is hanging on from some kind of flu, but she has pretty much recovered. There seem to be lots of kinds of flu going around. Wayne Yost came on Monday to check out the water rights for her. It was good to drive out in the nice calm sunshine. Karen’s ONU college friend, Jeanne, kept in touch with lots of stories and interesting events, this week. Jeanne had been head majorette for ONU’s marching band, and that’s how Karen, who was an ONU cheerleader, was the designated fire baton lighter at half-time. Both ends of two of Jeanne’s fire batons had to be soaked in Kerosene, and Karen had to light them in the dark after the stadium lights went out. At every home game, Jeanne twirled two fire batons at the same time as the band played a song in the dark, and she only singed her hair a couple of times. We both survived college, and still are best friends, even though we live far apart. Karen got to see her grandson, Kellan Odell and his date, being announced at the Mitchell High School prom. She looked on YouTube and found the new prom video. She will be able to see the grand march, too, at a later time.

A person with one watch knows what time it is. A person with two watches is never sure what time it is. Greed works on your mind in the same way.