‘This isn’t a 9-to-5 job’: Calving season winds down in the Bitterroot

JESSICA ABELL

HAMILTON — Drew and Kaci Lewis have learned not to make plans during calving season in the Bitterroot Valley.

Kaci was bringing her kids to a choir concert one cold night, when she decided to swing by the ranch and check some of the calves. With her 9- and 4-year-old daughters in tow dressed up for the event, Kaci wasn’t expecting what would happen next.

“You know, you come across a calf laid flat out, you do your best to get them,” Kaci said. She called Drew, grabbed the calf, and ran.

“Me and the girls are running,” Kaci said. “I run to the vet room and put it in the sink … My daughter is holding his head, but we didn’t have water. So I was running to the nearby shop to get hot water in to dump in there, and she’s in her choir dress just holding the head of this calf up so it doesn’t drown. It’s just the three of us and I’m like, ‘I think it’s alive.’ And it ended up dying. But you’re still just on the verge of tears after that … just all that trying and then the kids are there, you

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