Wintery weather has finally arrived in Montana after a prolonged, glorious autumn. Throughout September and October I often started my days on the porch with a warm mug of coffee and one of the cats purring softly on my lap. Jack and Jill would come running down the hill in anticipation of a can of oats for breakfast while Scooter napped contentedly after scarfing down his kibble. These simple joys make the world a brighter place.

We weaned the calves and are hauling hay home for them while the cows are back out grazing the pasture across the creek. Jack is partnering up with Beth to help her learn the ropes and get back in shape after a summer off. Her foal Luna has also been weaned – she grew so big that at just 4.5 months she could nurse while lying down beneath her mom.

The garden harvest continued rolling into the kitchen well into October. Short on time for canning, I instead placed the jewel-skinned roma tomatoes in quart bags stacked neatly in our chest freezer, ready to enrich our stews and chilis in the coming months. I made a thick puree with another 20+ pounds of tomatoes and will turn that into spaghetti sauce and soup bases. The gift of the garden will keep on giving for months!

Among the harvest were about a dozen buttercup squash and sugar pumpkins that are now nestled in straw in the shop. My summer plunge pool conveniently becomes a vegetable storage bin in the off months. The garden also produced two large Musque d’Provence pumpkins, but neither one ripened to the desired golden hue. Instead when Halloween arrived, I had a perfect jack o’lantern!

It was such a pleasure to host my cousin Josh and his family for another summer of Ranch Camp. We spent a morning hunting for fossils tucked into the sandstone layers that tower above the creek, and uncovered various bivalve impressions in the rock. Later we cooled down with an old-fashioned sprinkler party on the lush green grass in the backyard. What a treat it is to share this place with others!

My new raised bed jungle-garden was thriving with rich compost and abundant rain. I tried my hand at square foot gardening this year, with one plant per square foot. My two beds accommodated 18 tomato plants, 12 pepper plants, 4 cucumbers, 3 winter squash, and beds of beets, lettuce, basil and cilantro. Easy watering, weeding, and harvesting was possible right outside our bedroom door. It was a dream!

The cool, wet month of June didn’t encourage my garden to grow very quickly. But by early August, the black cherry tomatoes and Abe Lincoln slicers were ripe, along with an epically large, fleshy sweet pepper! Little lemon cucumbers seemed to grow and ripen overnight as the temperatures rose. Wait until you see what September brought….

Ample rains meant that native grasses and wildflowers were thriving this summer (so was knapweed, but I didn’t take pictures of that). This field of little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) sparkled in the morning sun, it’s deep maroon-colored stems leading to the perpetual question “why little BLUEstem?”

I saw my first short-horned lizard (aka horny toad) in July! I was camping near Winnett while helping a friend with the Montana Moth Project. As we gathered our traps in the morning, I spotted this guy scurrying across some rocks. This cool creature is a denizen of sagebrush and grassland habitats. There is anecdotal evidence of significant declines in short-horned lizard populations. If you’ve spotted one too, let MT Fish, Wildlife and Parks know by submitting observations on their website.

It’s hard to focus on reading my book when Maverick is peering into my soul. Those eyes of his speak volumes.

Gifts from the garden! We had SO many raspberries this year. Every couple of days I would gather a pint or two to munch throughout the day. Even so I overlooked several ripe, heavy berries that fell to the earth for other critters to enjoy. The mint also grew prolifically. I gathered and dried about 12 cups of leaves. When the cooler days of fall arrive, I’ll turn some of the mint leaves into a salve and make tea with the rest. A BIG thank you to my mom for taking all the dried leaves off the stems and putting them into jars for storage!

Dung beetles at work! The industrious male beetles create balls out of fresh dung, and if a female likes the look of his ball, the pair rolls the ball away and buries it. They then mate and she lays an egg in the ball so that the hatchling will have plenty of food. In this article from the San Diego Zoo I learned that “Some dung beetle mothers stay with the ball for two months, cleaning the larvae (called grubs) that hatch and removing their feces.” This is a great example of an invertebrate parenting strategy, which are more common than one might expect. Dung beetles employ a very effective method of manure dispersal that helps incorporate and recycle nutrients into the soil across the prairie. I’m always excited to see a manure pile covered in beetles!

June brought our sweet Belgian baby Luna into the world. Born just days before the full moon, and with a wide white blaze down her face, the name Luna immediately suited her. Looking back at this photo from just two months ago, it amazes me how much she has grown already.

Ample spring rains brought forth loads of wildflowers across the prairie. The milkweed in particular is having quite a heyday! Its blossoms are tessellated with star-shaped mauve flowers whose arms reach skyward to welcome in their pollinators. And what a complex process that is! Milkweed make waxy packets of pollen in pairs called pollinia that are tucked inside special pouches at the base of the stigma (the center of the star). While sipping on nectar from the base of each star-arm petal, the pollinators (bees, wasps, butterflies, moths, et al) accidentally step on slits next to the pouches that hold the pollinia. With luck, the insect successfully retracts its leg from the slit and pulls the pollinia out along with it. Then it takes its sticky cargo to another milkweed plant, and with a little more luck it inserts that same leg accidentally into another slit and deposits the pollinia, thereby fertilizing the flower. What a magical and elaborate process which requires quite a bit of luck! For some great photos and detailed description, head over to this NRCS article.

A rare close-up of Oliver, our wildest barn cat. Having shown up out of thin air one spring, he remains skittish around people. The loft of the barn is his safe spot where he lounges comfortably beneath the rafters. If I sit down on a bale of hay quietly for awhile, he’ll make his way over to my lap for some lovin’.

I spy with my little eye a Great Plains Toad! This toad immediately caught my eye with its unique pattern of dark green blotches. We have oodles of Woodhouse’s toads on the patio around our house, but this is the first Great Plains Toad I’ve seen. On summer evenings the Woodhouse’s toads come out from the garden to feast on insects and keep us entertained. Their unusual nasally screeching mating call punctuates the prairie air at dusk – if you haven’t heard it before, I highly suggest you check it out. Oh, the marvels of nature!

The first weekend of May brought gorgeous weather for our annual branding. We had a great crew of friends and neighbors help us again this year, which made for a smooth and easy day of work. We celebrated afterwards with a feast that included fresh rocky mountain oysters prepared by our friend Ken. A surprisingly tasty delicacy!

Our new mare, Indie, and her foal arrived in May from the midwest. Indie is a four-year-old Belgian that has helped mow a few acres in the past, but is still a little bit green. She’ll be paired with Beth after their foals are old enough to spend time away from them. We are so lucky to have found another horse to team with Beth, and what a bonus that she came with a healthy two-week old foal, Lily.

This is the first year that my lilac bush has bloomed! I swear it also grew two feet taller with all the rain we got this spring. The scent of the flowers is truly intoxicating, and brings me back to my roots in Rochester where they celebrate spring with an annual Lilac Festival.

Susie likes to follow me around the yard and garden while I do chores. Lest I get too serious about my work, her playful antics keep me laughing.

It is with a heavy heart that I share this photo, the last one we took of Betty, one of the Belgian mares we brought home from Iowa last fall. In the first week of April, Betty suffered from a complicated case of colic, and we lost her and her unborn foal. We are frequently witness to the thin line between life and death here on the ranch. Yet it doesn’t ever get easier. Each life lost hurts my heart anew as I try to reconcile myself to the cycles of nature that hold us all. At just nine years old, Betty was far too young to leave this world. She and her partner Beth helped us feed the cows over the winter. Together they made a steady-working, calm and solid team. Spring was to bring new life and new opportunities for hitching Betty and Beth up with Jack and Jill to mow the hay for next winter. Betty is already very much missed.

One can rely on spiny phlox to be the first blooms on the prairie every spring. With its low-growing habit and tiny, hairy leaves, it can flourish in the colder, harsher weather of late March and early April. Following on its heels will be the delicate yellow blooms of Nuttall’s violets, five-petaled star lilies, and the prairie golden beans of late April.

I had the pleasure of learning the art of dovetail carpentry with the Red Ants Pants Foundation. Over the course of a weekend in early April, I built a beautiful shadow box frame using chisels and saws. It was a delight to work alongside a diverse group of amicable women while crafting something with my hands.

Following the deep, persistent snow of February, I’ve discovered many of these large piles of woody scat out on the prairie. Grouse burrow under the snow during cold spells in order to take advantage of the relative warmth offered by the subnivean space. In Nevada, sage grouse have been documented making caves under snow-covered sagebrush so they have shelter AND food close at hand… correction… close at wing. These piles are evidence of where they may have sheltered for awhile when the temperatures dipped below zero.

First calf of the year! On the heels of a fantastically cold February, March brought much-needed warmer weather and the start of calving. It is an exhausting yet delightful time of year. One month later and we’re back to sleeping through the night. It is magical to walk through the barnyard in the wee hours of the night… until it becomes a nightly routine for a few weeks and it loses its charm!

Little bodies are tucked among mama cows as they contentedly munch hay. After they’re a few days old, the calves begin frolicking together on the prairie while a babysitter cow or two try to corral them. Watching their antics brings me much joy!

The beavers of Coulee Creek have been busy. Rocky Mountain Juniper is a very dense wood – great for keeping the teeth worn to an appropriate length. All rodents, including beaver, need to munch on woody food to whittle their ever-growing teeth down. The beavers’ primary food source here is the fibrous roots of bullrushes, but they still feed on the ponderosa pines and junipers occasionally.

Coulee Creek was swollen with meltwater after February’s deep snow rapidly vanished. As the waters subsided, a gift rock became visible on the banks.

February brought a sustained blast of winter with endless snowstorms and single digit temps.

Over two feet of snow covered the prairie and our plow piles reached toward the sky. Despite the cold, I bundled up head to toe and strapped on my cross-country skis for daily adventures with the dogs. Scooter pushed through the deep snow like a plow truck while Maverick preferred to leap over it like a dolphin. By the second half of our ski tours, they were usually both following in my tracks, happy to let me break trail.

A chuck roast slowly simmering in a cast iron pot fills our home with the warm scent of hearty meal to come. Paired with some mashed potatoes and home-made sourdough bread = solid comfort.

In the last week of February, we trailed the cows down to the pasture by our barn in anticipation of calving to start in March. They eagerly followed the bale of hay that Jack and Jill helped Bart haul down the county road. Maverick and I followed along in case anyone got out of line. Much to Maverick’s disappointment, the cows stayed focused on the trail ahead and didn’t dare wander into the deep snow off the road.

A sudden shift to 40 degree weather at the end of February meant a quick melt-off. Coulee Creek ran swift and muddy for a few days! Luckily, the beaver pond and extensive wetlands upstream helped slow the flow significantly and much of the moisture was retained.

The end of 2024 sure passed by quickly! We kept ourselves busy preparing for winter, selling meat and soaps at holiday markets, and enjoying quality time at Thanksgiving and Christmas with family and friends. Winter hibernation season is now in full effect. January brought time to slow down and get grounded in our daily routines: feeding cows, chopping/stacking firewood, and baking bread among others.

Big thanks to our friend Tom who helped Bart stack and bring home more firewood! He seems to love working with the horses as much as Bart does.

The early snows of the month lingered long enough for several cross-country ski excursions across the prairie with the dogs. What a treat after last year’s dry winter!

These Devon Yeast Cakes from Small Farmers Journal have been a big hit in our house. Enriched with milk and stuffed with sultanas, they are very easy to make and are hearty enough to keep Bart going all afternoon.