Letter to the Editor

40 years of tales, from canyon dangers to cow rescues

Friday, March 22, 2024

Dear Editor,

I've had so many people tell me they miss my adventures, I thought I might describe two episodes that happened to us in a forty-year span.

The youngest daughter and I were checking cows on horseback years ago when we crossed a narrow path that we had done many times before but this day there were some open holes beside the path and as we walked single file we and each of our horses saw movement underground.

The horses bolted slightly and as we got them under control we dismounted and carefully made our way back to see what was down underground. Turns out a cow and calf had fallen about fifteen feet into a sort of huge washout.

This was before we owned cell phones so we had to load up and drive home to inform the "Chief"! He had to physically spade through a dirt wall in a deep crevice to get them out. We didn't own a skid steer or any thing fancy and the location required careful removal so it wouldn't cave in on them. We then hired a Cat operator to excavate a huge area so that this type of thing wouldn't happen again.

Fast forward to last Saturday, Farmer Tom had checked cows north of McCook and came up short, so we took a ranger over to recount.

We had the calf but not the heifer. We spent the rest of the day looking in every crook and cranny and still couldn't find her, which is weird because a cow will normally always come back for it's baby. We called several of the neighbors to report her missing but no one had any cows bordering ours yet. Since it was getting late we decided to resume our search after church on Sunday.

Naturally. the wind was blowing 100 mph and the weeds in some places were eight feet tall so I walked through them thinking she's either dead or she had fallen in a deep hole somewhere. I had checked much the same areas the day before but just knew she had to be close by. At one point I thought I heard a faint bawl, so I kept looking up and down a steep canyon. I saw a hole by a fallen tree that I hadn't noticed before so stuck my head down in there and contemplated crawling down in it, but after my eyes had adjusted to the dark I saw two hooves and then a cow face and was glad I hadn't hopped down there.

We drove home and Farmer Tom brought the loader tractor over which took another hour, then he slowly removed loads of dirt away from the cave entrance. At some point we used spades to level off the area so she could step right out of the embankment. After she finally emerged I walked in to see a huge cave big enough for ten cows to fit. I'm certain at some point it will collapse and hopefully nothing will be in it when that happens.

These types of things only happen to us I'm thinking but St. Patrick's Day was lucky for us this year!