Sorry about the loss, NR. It sure seems to go with the ranching business. Just a couple days ago, I found a nice black baldy ten-year-old cow over on her back. She leaves to mourn, a month-old son, who we are now attempting to graft onto a three-year-old cow whose calf died from scours.
Back in 1997, we had a blizzard on April 7th. We got through that storm without any loss, but then it got cold again and all our lakes and water holes froze over. They had all been open. On April 9th, we got another nine inches of snow, which lay smoothly on top of the thin ice that covered the ponds. A gentle northeast breeze pushed all of our yearling heifers to the southwest corner of a pasture, and thirteen head wandered out into the snow covered ice, broke through, and didn't have enough sense to return to shore. All thirteen stood there and eventually drowned in less than two feet of water. We were very fortunate that the other 275 head didn't meet the same fate, as the pond was certainly large enough to hold them all. Very soon thereafter, we fenced completely around that body of water.
Anyway, sorry about your loss. It always hurts.