Smooth Operators

          Branding this year was another smooth operation.  A major contributor to this event was my old Wilsall Ranch Rodeo partner Darin Veltkamp – and his older three progeny.

          I bonded with the Veltkamp boys nearly 25 years ago when I had reason to sort some cattle with Darin’s twin brother Phil.  We share the same style of cattle-handling – which is what led to our teamwork in the Ranch Rodeo competition among 40 of the top cowboys in Park and Meagher counties.  Darin and his kids have been working cows with me for 20 years, and the four of them are now a major component of the branding roster.

          Gathering the cattle for the branding is usually a non-event, as the cattle are still near the corrals.  The next step is far more important – that of sorting the cows away from the calves.

          Darin heads up the contingent sorting cows out of the “bridge trap”.  They throw open the gate into the bull pen and cut back the calves - allowing only the cows to leave the trap – ending up with a big bunch of mostly calves.  I generally take half of the cows into the corrals to sort up the alley.  I have the option of letting a group of cows out through another gate into the bull pen, or turning a sort of calves into the branding corral. 

It’s a competition to see who can sort their bunch faster.  The slower group is subject to the hoots, hollers, and helpful advice of all the members of the group that finishes first.

All of this, of course, is done ahorseback.

With the calves corralled, the next operation is to run the cows through the chute for their annual vaccinations.  Darin usually heads up the operations at the chute, while I work the back end, keeping his chute full of cows.

Then the branding.

We believe that the fastest, easiest, and least stressful on both man and beast is to heel the calves out to the fire.  Three or four ropers ride into a pen of some 50 feet square, flick a loop around the hind legs of a calf, and drag them to the waiting crews of wrestlers.

As the title of this essay implies, this operation went smoothly.  We branded and vaccinated some 150 calves in about an hour and 50 minutes.  Then we went to the house for lunch.

We’d already branded Darin’s bunch, and then Craig’s bunch, a few weeks past.  We had much the same crew – and much the same fun.  This was in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, when much of the world was on lockdown.  Yet we all worked together, ate together, drank together, and told stories together - without the benefit of facemasks or hand sanitizer.

The operation a few weeks later was not so smooth.  There were about ten calves that were born too late for the main branding.  We called a neighbor, and set up again to get this last little bunch.  I was the designated roper for this event.

The last ten head at any branding are caught at a much slower rate than the bulk of the calves.  The assumption has always been that it is because these are all the ones who have jumped and kicked and evaded all of the previous loops thrown at them.  But this little exercise proved to me that it is simply harder to get an effective shot at some heels when 1) there are fewer heels from which to choose, and 2) the remaining calves have far more latitude to jump and run. 

One always prefers to catch a calf by “two hocks” – both hind feet.  It’s easier on the calf, the horse, and the wrestlers.  In fact in some neighborhoods now, a roper is expected to drop his loop if he picks up only one hock.  Of these ten calves I caught four by the traditional two-hock method.

I caught two more by throwing a head-loop, then waiting until the loop fell back onto the hind legs before I dallied. 

On three calves I jerked my slack on just one hind leg, and let my wrestlers deal with it.

Rather than chase the last calf round and round until he presented his hind legs, I simply dropped on a head-loop.  He sprang away too quickly to finesse the loop down to his ankles, so I pulled my slack and went to the fire.

He jumped and ran and circled my horse until I had to tie off to my horn and go down the rope to help the wrestlers throw him.  It took as long to brand these ten as it had taken to brand 100 a few weeks before.

It didn’t go any better after this mini-branding when we went out to catch a neighbor’s bull.

We don’t turn in our bulls until mid-June, so that we begin calving in mid-March.  This bull would be throwing calves in February – and he wasn’t the sort of bull with the genetics we desire.

But when we went after him, he threw up his head, pushed past the horses, and ran the other way.  We tried to hold him together with a few cows, but failed at that also.  Had I some backup, I’d have roped him and taught him some respect!!

I called my sons – who are both proficient with bull-whips.  They couldn’t make it up to the ranch.

I called my neighbor Lonn, who is a proficient roper.  He wasn’t home.

I called my granddaughter. She had more pressing projects.

Eric and I went out a few days later.  Our first mission was to move the yearlings to fresh grass.  That didn’t take much longer to accomplish than it takes to tell about it.  Then we went hunting for the bull.

That field is only some 300 acres, but it’s rough, rocky, and steep.  We had, however, picked our two best horses for open country cow-work.

We found the bull in the far southeast corner.  We were able to throw a dozen cow/calf pairs together with him, and took the works right down the east fence.

We’d left the gates open, and the group traveled nicely the whole mile or so back to the river, with the bull in the middle of the pack.  They all crossed the bridge; the bull went into the corral with one pair; the pair cut back nicely; and he was caught!

There were two escaped yearlings in this little bunch of cows, and we headed them all back from whence we’d just come.  When we reached the gate where we left the yearlings an hour or so before, it was easy enough to cut the yearlings back and push them through the gate to join their peers.  We returned to the barn with smug smiles.

Saturday had gone anything but smoothly for us.  Yes, we’d gotten the job of branding the tail-enders done, but we weren’t proud of way we’d accomplished it. 

Today, however, we’d made one big efficient circle:  We’d picked up the yearlings and put them on fresh grass;  We’d continued the circle to ride through the cows and find the bull;  We’d come up the far side of the circle with the bull, and captured him in the corral;  We’d returned to the field with the cows we’d used to accompany the bull; We’d gathered some escaped yearlings and threw them back with their bunch. 

We’d accomplished a smooth operation – and we’d recovered our pride.

Irons in the Fire

          I have too many irons in the fire – both literally and figuratively.  But most people don’t understand from whence came that saying.  I literally had too many irons in the fire at branding this year.  

Every cow owner in the West has a brand registered in his name with the state.  I don’t know how many thousands there are in Montana.  The brands are registered in a specific pattern, in a specific location on the animal, and in the specific county where these cattle will run.  At our branding we had calves from three different owners besides the ranch.  So we began the branding with four different irons in the fire.

Our branding pot is propane-fired, and has only so much room.  Those four different irons were too many for the available space: too many irons in the fire.

That saying also applies to the rest of my life.  Because our ranch is “too big for a hobby and too small for a living”, I do a lot of work off the ranch.  I write, I take interim jobs as a healthcare administrator, we have a formalwear business, some commercial buildings, and a small place in the Shields River Valley.  I have figuratively too many “irons in the fire”.

“And now – as Paul Harvey used to say – you know the rest of the story”.

Winter Storm Warning

Here’s the forecast for Memorial Day 2019:

Rain and snow showers, becoming all snow after noon. Patchy fog. Temperature rising to near 39 by 8am, then falling to around 32 during the remainder of the day. East northeast wind 8 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Total daytime snow accumulation of around 2 inches.

         My last blog-post from one month ago declared it to be spring.  A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then – literally.  It’s been a cold wet spring.

          We don’t have much farming to do – only about 40 acres of hay renovation.  But it isn’t done yet.  There has only been a day or two in the last month when it was dry enough to get in the field with a plow.  Another job is weed-spraying.  But that, too, requires some dry weather.

          I had set Sunday the 19^th as our date for branding, but the rains came.  One can’t brand wet calves.  The moisture in the hair cools the irons too quickly, and it causes steam, which scalds the skin a blotches the brand.

          Yesterday, however, we tried again.

          There had actually been a bit of dust on the very surface of the county road. There were breaks in the overcast sky.  I sent a group text to the help I had lined up, and we began gathering early.

          We had the cows in the trap when stock trailers began to roll in.  Several people went to work sorting cows out one gate while holding back the calves.  Another group was at work on the other end of the trap sorting calves into the corral.  We were soon running cows through the chute for their annual vaccinations for some respiratory and reproductive diseases.

          Two of us were ahorseback pushing cows up the alley.  Two more were feeding cows into the chute.  One was running the headcatch, one was mixing vaccine, two were vaccinating, two were keeping the cows moving up the chute.

          The last of the cows were still in the chute when I lit the propane burner and ropers tightened their cinches.  As soon as the irons were hot, I gave the signal and the calves began to be heeled to the fire.

          I was kept busy slapping on brands and hurrying back to the pot for a fresh hot iron; Eric was vaccinating; dark clouds were closing in.

   
       We were about half way through the bunch when Darin rode up and told me to go to roping – he’d take over the branding.

          Thunder began rumbling in the distance as we worked steadily through the calves.  The last calf was drug in just as the first raindrops fell.

          We quickly closed up the tool boxes that held our vaccinating guns.  I’d forgotten on which post I’d hung my vest. I swung onto my horse and grabbed the reins of Eric’s horse as the rain increased.  We loped the half mile to the barn, where I found my coat.  Raindrops stung my face as I sped to the house on my four-wheeler.

          Rain pounded on the roof as the crew lined up in the kitchen to load their plates with sloppy joes, potato salad, and baked beans.

          I produced a jug of Wild Turkey to help lubricate the bantering and story-telling that followed.  We were all in a magnanimous mood. A disparate crew of friends and neighbors, town folk and cattlemen, old hands and uninitiated, had come together like a well-oiled machine to accomplish an essential task; we had done it in record time; and we had beat the rain!

Read here about another day of Branding on the West Boulder.

Grand and Glorious Life

The cowboy life is a Grand and Glorious life for sure: ahorseback in the foothills of the Absaroka mountains of Montana.  Or so it seemed the other day.

            The last Friday of March found me at the first branding of the year at the ranch of my old partner, Darin.  He raises purebred Angus bulls, and calves in January – so must get them branded before they get too big. 

            It was the typical old-style branding: a bunch of neighbors, horses, and aspiring cowboys.  The cattle were corralled, the cows sorted out the gate, and several ropers began heeling out the calves to the fire. (Read more about branding in my post Branding 2012.)

            The day was windy but reasonably warm, and we were pleased to get the job accomplished in the respite between bouts of foul weather.  None of us foresaw what the morrow would bring.

            By morning there was a good 8” of snow, and the downfall continued for most of the day – to make over 10”.

            A calf can stand an incredible amount of cold – IF he has been licked off by his mother, and he gets a full belly of milk.  But there were three calves born in the early morning that had been overcome by the cold.  Eric threw a couple of them in the back of the side-by-side ATV, and I went out on the four-wheeler to gather horses.

            The “Kentucky Colt” was my pick for the morning.  Our first task was to dally up to the sled to pluck the last calf out of the snow. 

            Eric made a run up to the house to load up the generator, which we connected to the calf-warmer in the calving shed.  This plastic hut has a 220-volt heater that directs warm air up through the floor-grate to quickly stabilize a hypothermic calf.  Then I went back out on my horse to bring the mothers of all three calves into the shed.

            A full belly is essential for a newborn calf.  He has been getting his nourishment for the last nine months through his umbilical cord.  Now he is suddenly thrust out into the cold where he must not only find a new source of sustenance, but also generate his own heat.  We elected to give a tube-feeding to two of these calves to sustain them until they were strong enough to nurse.

            When the cold calves were taken care of, it was time to feed all of the older cattle.  That required two tons of hay for the morning ration.  By afternoon the snow was still coming down, and the temperature was dropping as well.  It was time for a ton of straw to be scattered to give the cattle some protection from the cold.

            Ah, yes.  Ain’t This Romantic!?!