Old Man

 

          It is 2021 and my “Kentucky Colt” is 21 years old – getting on in age for a horse.  (Of course I am 71 myself, and some folks think that is elderly for a human.)

 

          I have written much about “The Colt”, as he is such a remarkable animal and we have had such remarkable adventures together.  As my past writings have recounted, he was bred in Kentucky by my daughter Wendy out of a running Quarter Horse mare by her Thoroughbred stallion.  He was born and raised here on the West Boulder, and has long been the incarnation of a Harley Davidson: pure, raw, power.

          Our ranch is steep and rough.  ATVs are not an option over much of this country,  so the “Colt” has been my main ride for the past 18 years - over, under, around, and through the rocks, coulees, brush, creeks, trees, and ridges.  Our default gait for years was a long trot, only slowing occasionally to a walk, or extending to a full out run.  It was only a few years ago, at age 17, that “The Colt” would walk voluntarily.  I could sense that my time on “The Colt” was coming to an end, and I bought another horse to succeed him.

          It took a couple of years to develop that new blaze-faced horse into a cowpony, but there was a lot lacking.  I was never comfortable just giving that Blaze his head racing after a cow; he required repeated urgings to maintain a trot; and he just never had the eager, long swinging gait of “The Colt”.  I traded him off to my granddaughter to use at her dad’s feedlot.  “The Colt” remained my first pick for a tough job.

          I have a couple more excellent horses in my string, but mostly I let Eric or Ted ride them.  Occasionally a few select people have taken “The Colt” for a tough job if I was not available to ride.  But I can only describe my relationship with “The Colt” as “simpatico”.

          Most of our rides here turn out to be long and hard.  Every field on the ranch has some steep, rocky, and brushy terrain.  I always lay a bead of hard-surface weld on their shoes before nailing them on.  Going “over north” requires a quick climb of 1000 feet in elevation in addition to the steep, rocky, and brushy terrain.  There was a time when “The Colt” took it all in his long trotting stride.  For the last couple of years, however, he has settled to a walk until more effort is required.  I could feel him slowing down.  In fact, it was 4 years ago that I wrote a post entitled Slowing Down.

          This week we made a circle downriver, in anticipation of working the calves on Sunday.  There were some 5 pairs down on the river that we took up Sick’Em Creek and put in the gate near “Ted’s Camp”.  There were another handful on up the mountain side that required us to climb a thousand feet in elevation to put in the gate on the “pine ridge”.  Then we had to drop over into Alkire’s to dump another handful down into Mendenhall Creek.  And last were two pair that we brought back up to put in the Sick’Em Creek field with everyone else. 

          It was a pretty good ride.  We’d been moving for a couple of hours on some steep terrain.  We’d zigged and zagged through the trees and brush, climbed through a gulch, across some rocky side-hills, and busted out a couple of times to turn the cattle toward the gates.  I was tired.

          But now the job was finished and we turned toward home.  “The Colt” knows this country as well as I do, and I was curious which path he’d choose. 

Most often we’d head past the Pothole Lake and down Mike’s Coulee.  But that would require us to circumnavigate the Sick’Em Creek meadow and climb another couple of hundred feet.  Down the east fork of Sick’Em seemed easier.  But it’s hard on a horse to go downhill as well, and it was a long way to the bottom.  I gave “The Colt” his head.

“The Colt” and I had often come up the east fork gathering cattle in the Sick’Em Creek field.  It had been a few years since we had taken cows down the creek – and that had been a battle.  But that’s the route he chose.

Again, that trail is steep and rough.  But “The Colt” took it at a trot. We crossed the east fork a couple of times, and quickly doubled back.  We crossed the main fork, and I grabbed the horn as “The Colt” lunged up the steep bank on the other side, past Ted’s Camp.  Then I grabbed the horn again as the colt lunged up the couple of hundred yards on up to the main trail.

“The Colt” dropped back to a trot up the trail to the gate into “The Desert” field, and stopped for me to open and shut it behind us.  A long trot again as we crossed the flats of the desert claim, and down into the brushy draw.

It seemed to me that the easiest way home from there was down the road and into the hayfield – but “The Colt” had another idea.  Rather than continuing downward, he elected to cross the draw and up the ridge on the other side.  Over the ridge, he picked up the cow-trail that side-hilled straight westward toward the barn.

Through the next draw we were still following that contour trail when he seemed to realize that this was the one that the cows followed through that next finger of thornbrush where the opening was too low for a horse and rider.  “The Colt” abruptly turned right, and I grabbed the horn again has he lunged straight up the mountainside until he reached the upper trail, which led around the top of the brush. 

Over the saddle he trotted, across another rocky side-hill, over the home gulch, and down to the orchard and the gate toward the barn.

 

I’d felt a little guilty taking this old man for a ride that I had known could have turned rough.  That “Sassy” mare was fresh shod, and would have been just as eager.  I would need “The Colt” again for gathering and working calves in just a few days. 

But while “The Colt” hadn’t started this ride exhibiting all the power he had in his younger days, he had still jumped out anytime the situation required.  And it was obvious on the ride home that he still had plenty in reserve.

Why would I need to go to all the work of training a new horse?

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.

Too Cold for CoronaVirus

            In fact, it’s too cold for my old bones.  But the work goes on. 

            Calving is just taking off on our ranch, with three calves born yesterday. It’s 20^o today, with a cold wind blowing snow out of the northeast.  Too cold for a horseback ride – yet we did it anyway.

            Our two-year-old heifers are out in a field across the river, and these girls are the high-risk group for calving.  We needed to sort through them to bring in the ones approaching calving – a job we try to accomplish every five days or so.

            My first stop ahorseback was back to the house - where I traded my felt hat for a wool ear-lap cap, and my insulated gloves for mitts with knitted wool liners.  Then it is a mile ride out across the bridge and upriver into that wind.  (A long trot is 11 MPH; the wind at 11 MPH; total “wind chill” at 22 MPH. 

            The heifers followed the main trail down across the gulch, but pulled up short at a deep snow drift on the brow of the gulch on the other side.  The flow was disrupted as we followed them up the gulch to the road crossing. 

            We held them up in the “bridge trap”, where we cut out the ones showing “heavy” – that are likely to calve in the next week.  There were 8 in today’s cut.

            As we sorted, I noted that although most of my toes were numb, I could still feel my big toes.  I remember rides where everything below my knees was numb.  And today the ride was all within sight of the house!

            My little dog Niña abhors the cold.  She has the short-haired blue coat of her Blue Heeler father.  But she remained right behind my horse until each time I sent her out after a laggard.

           

            On the return trip to their pasture, the heifers piled on down through that snowdrift on the brow.  And the horses picked up a lope after we dropped the heifers home and turned back toward the barn.  They chose to climb back up through that snowdrift - rather than take the longer, easier way home – and we let them.

            I read in my newsfeed that most of the US is shut down.  The governor of Montana has closed the schools, restaurants, and bars.  My wife reports the shelves of the local grocery stores to be scant.

            Looking out my window, however, I see none of this.  There is food in my refrigerator, freezer, and pantry.  There are still two rolls of TP in the closet, with a roll and a spare in each bathroom.  My discard pile has enough newsprint for months more.

            The price of live cattle is down $20 per hundred-weight – but the price of “boxed” retail-ready beef is UP $20!  People are suddenly buying less from the restaurant trade and more from the grocery stores – just as they did in my childhood.

Plan 'A'

            I’m not a big planner.  I’m a strategist.

            Strategy may be defined as a “course of action”.  It’s a framework within which plans are made.  My strategy is to harvest the grass on our ranch, using cattle, in an effective manner which has recently been given the title “sustainable”.

            Part of our ranch strategy is to harvest the over-abundance of grass which grows in June and early July – to preserve its nutrients, and to feed in the winter when forage quality is poor, and often covered by snow.

            We could plan to begin cutting on June 20.  But what if its raining?  What if its been a cold spring and the hay is not yet ripening?  What if there’s a funeral that day? What if the granddaughter has only that day free to help move cows?

            As part of that “sustainable” strategy, we move cattle often in the early summer to protect those growing grasses from the damage caused by frequent repeated grazing.  We aim for a 7-day rotation.  But maybe an irrigation ditch blew out.  Maybe we could only get an excavator on Tuesday.  Maybe the swather broke down.  Maybe we got the horses in and found one with a thrown shoe.  Maybe there is lightening.

            My strategy is simple when we do go into a field to gather cows: get them all from here and put them there.  But I’ve had a number of people ask for a plan.

           

            For me, a plan is too much work.  We don’t know where the cows are in the field – how many are here and how many are over there.  We don’t know what the weather is going to be like, and we don’t know toward which gate they are going to line out.  We don’t know if the fence got down and some of our cows out or the neighbor’s in; we don’t know if one is sick or lame.

            Sure, we could crowd them in whatever direction we chose – but it would be hard on the cows and hard on the horses.  It’s better to start them moving and bend them toward whichever gate accomplishes our objective with the least amount of effort.

            I once had my son-in-law lined up to help with some cow-work on Thursday.  He called the evening before to check on the plan.

            “So far as I know it’s still Plan ‘A’”, I told him.

           

            “Hey Amy”, he shouted over top of the phone!  “Listen to this: Your dad’s still on plan ‘A’”!

            It was years later that I finally received some positive affirmation for my “flexible” style.  “Improvise; Adapt; Overcome”, I was told, is a slogan of the U.S. Marines.

            Yes!  That’s me!  After 20 years as a cowboy I was able to improvise, adapt, and overcome a broken back by going back to school and entering the health care profession.  I was able to improvise, adapt, and overcome when called to manage a hospital, three ranches, a dozen nursing homes, and hundreds of emergency ambulance calls.

            And I was able to improvise, adapt, and overcome my wife’s broken printer as I tell in this blogpost: mellinniumcowboy.blogspot.com/2019/06/we-fix-things.html

           

Smooth Move

            We’ve had plenty of moisture, and June in Montana brings long days - the grass is growing quickly.  We try to get the cows out of a field before the grass has grown tall enough for them to take a “second bite” from any plant, so that there is time for it to grow new leaves and replenish its root reserves.  That’s only a week or ten days in June.

It was time to move the cows to the next pasture further up the mountain, and also time to put in the bulls.  We had a lot of country to cover, and I’d invited several people to help, but it ended up to be just Eric and me.  We saddled two of our best horses and we each went a different direction

            We’d just received a new yearling bull who was still in the corral. The yearling heifers were west of the barn.  I set the gates to run him through, and headed to the corrals for the new bull.  Eric headed a mile up west to gather the older bulls.

            I ran my one yearling bull out into the pasture where the yearling heifers were awaiting his services, and changed the gates so that Eric could bring his bulls past the east side of the barn, out through the orchard, and take them up the hill and into the “desert” where the main cowherd was camped.

            Circling back around, I came up on the outside of the fence along which Eric and his dog were bringing his bunch of bulls.  He’d already ridden out a mile and a half to gather those bulls, and was now halfway back.  I told him that the gates were set for him to pass through the yard and out into the south-west corner of the desert.  I had seen cows out in the hayfield, and would pick them up and head up through the south-east corner.

            So while Eric pushed his bulls up the hill on the far left of this picture, I gathered some fence-crawlers in the hayfield and pushed them up through a gate at the far right of the picture.

            I was just breaking out of the coulee on the far right, when Eric's bulls joined us from the hillside on the far left.  So eager were they to resume their duties in breeding all those beautiful brown-eyed girls, that they had quickly climbed up the hill on the far left, and followed the contour trail around to meet us on the bench at the far right.

            The bulk of the cows were on that bench.  I and my dogs gathered them, and started them up the fence which follows the ridgeline at the top of this picture.

            In the meantime, Eric was gathering the basin to the left of center in this picture.  I was about halfway up the fence with some 125 pairs, when Eric’s gather from the basin joined them from the left.

            Just over the top of the ridge is a gate into “the pothole”.  We dropped the cows through, then set off at a long trot on to the west and south, following the trail back down the mountain. 

            Returning through the Elges Creek field, we picked up the yearling heifers and started them back to the east.  With Eric behind the first bunch we gathered, I circled the east side of the field, checking all the timber and blind pockets on the way down, opening the east gate as I passed by.  Then I headed west up Elges Creek on the north side.

            From my eastward circle, I could see that Eric had about half the yearlings in a bunch, and that he had them headed toward another bunch further down.  He would throw them all together and push them on down the road on the south side of the creek, and on toward the gate on the east.

            But as I neared the northwest corner of the field, from my position on the north side of the creek, I could hear bawling - and watched helplessly as Eric’s bunch split up and headed back to the south.

            Then four yearling heifers came toward me on a steep, rock-strewn hillside high on my right.  I waited them out. 

            When they had passed, I got behind them and shoved them on east toward the gate.  More bawling to the south of me – but all of us emerged from the brush and timber simultaneously. We counted the entire bunch of 30 yearlings strung out toward the gate.

            I had to make one run to head off the few that hadn’t found the opening, but we had them quickly shoved out the gate and into a new pasture.

           

            It hadn’t been that big a ride.  We’d been only a mile and a half, at most, from the barn.  The route covered maybe 8 miles.

            But we’d been up and down and back and forth over steep, rocky, and brushy terrain.  We’d done some trotting, a lot of walking, with a few short bursts to turn various bunch-quitters.  We’d handled the cattle gently, we’d passed our gathers back and forth seamlessly, and we’d covered some 1000 acres without missing a single head. 

            It was a smooth move.

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.

These Boots AIN'T Made for Walking

Every time I ride into a pen full of cattle I am reminded of the 1966 song by Nancy Sinatra: “These boots are made for walking”.

But the boots I wear when ahorseback aren’t made for walking.  In fact – according to George Leonard Herter – they were designed for dancing.

My first real “riding boots” were purchased many years ago - made by Tony Llama – and they cost a lot of money.  But they fit my oxbow stirrups and gave me a sense of security while riding.

The style has changed in recent years, and I can no longer find a pair of off-the-shelf boots to suit me – so I buy custom boots from a local maker.  And they are expensive.

But my legs have become even more valuable to me over the years, and so the value of boots that protect those legs is even higher.

Many “cowboys” tie up their horses when the cattle are safely in the corral, and enter the pen armed only with a sorting stick.  Not us.

It takes a few years to develop a good sorting horse – but that horse is quicker, the view is better from four feet up, and These Boots Ain’t Made for Walking!

There is cow “poop” everywhere in the corral!  A man afoot is going to step in it!  Cow “poop” eats up leather!

It has taken a few years, but I have developed a string of good horses.  Our gates all have “cowboy latches”, and our horses can each work those gates.  We can sort those cows quicker and easier ahorseback than we can afoot.

And “These boots (Ain’t) Made for Walking”.

Yellowstone - the series

            Apparently this series just premiered in the last week – and I’ve already had a couple of emails.

            I rarely watch TV, and I won’t dignify this show by adding myself to the Nielsen Ratings.

            Wikipedia says this series “follows the conflicts along the shared borders of an Indian reservation, land developers, and Yellowstone National Park”.

            Well, this show is ostensibly about cows – but it is pure bullshit!  The only conflict that could exist along those shared borders are those generated by a greedy landholder.  Neither did I ever watch the show “Dallas”, but it sounds like the same kind of drama.

            One of my followers said that everyone in the show has on clean shirts, clean gloves, rides in a clean pickup, and never has to stop to open a wire gate – something he has never seen in Montana.

            Wasn’t it Costner who “danced with wolves”?  I’ve never met the guy, but it seems like he’d do anything for a dollar.

            I’ve met my neighbor Michael Keaton, on the other hand, and he has proven to me to be a genuine guy.

            Of course no one asked me - but I give the series "Yellowstone" two thumbs down.

            If you have a REAL interest in the REAL West, you can read about it in this blog.  I've lately been a slacker, but you can scroll down and find out what happens on a real ranch in the real west.

            And you can buy my book - Ain't This Romantic - on Amazon, and learn about the REAL drama in the modern, and REAL West.