When you take cattle on a new trail… they usually don’t like it. It’s new. They don’t know if there’s a mountain lion around that rock, or they get the whoops!-where’d -my-calf-go-to-now? syndrome, and the ever popular whine of BUTHOMEISTHATWAY! But the alternative was to trail through two other pastures full of cows, so we…
Tag: trailing cattle
Cowgirl Happiness
The darkness swirled around us, a few clouds reflected the half moon’s light. The horses shuffled and grazed, dogs wagged and panted, and people talked in quiet tones, matching their words to the early morning. Baby blue appeared in the east, lightening the sky tones and beginning to wash out the visible stars. Expecting the…
Same Country
We did trail our heifers up to the Mesa Pasture today. The heifers have been north of here on a place we lease. They have been grazing around the hay fields in the sloughs and tree patches. Between the heat (today was 90*) and the mosquitoes and flies, I’m sure they’re happy to be off…
Good Morning Ride
Like most Wyoming ranches this time of year, we spend a large amount of our time moving cattle to higher elevation pastures for the summer. Yesterday another bunch of our cattle made it to the mesa… This time all five of us rode since we had about twice as many head as last time. It…
Morning Project
We took our first bunch of cows up to our Mesa Pasture this week. There were supposed to be only 55 pairs and two bulls… this was gonna be a piece of cake! The weather has turned from soggy, overcast, and chilly a little while ago to hot, dry wind and 90 degrees. Black cows…
Sore
OK. Sore. Sore. <groan> I am so ready for a soak in a hot tub… but I don’t own one. It’s not that we traveled a lot of distance as the crow flies… it was like six or seven miles total crow distance… or that we kicked hundreds of pairs out… it was more like…
O.1538753 Seconds
First of all, here’s the photo of the young golden eagle from yesterday. My camera was left in the car and I was too lazy to walk out in the cold and retrieve it last night. I just hope he remains intimidated by all my dogs and the puppies don’t resemble fat little bunnies… ***************************************************************************…
Extreme Lifestyle
Today was a day of extremes… First thing in the morning I was on horseback riding to the top of our Mesa pasture… The eastern sky was socked in… A depressing cloudbank of snow and wind… The western sky held the promise of sunshine and warmth… The mountains across the Basin were glaringly white in…
Mountain Trail
I need to put off my other Kids’ Rodeo pictures for a bit and share the ones from yesterday. My sister was official photographer… The focus (pun intended) of her pictures is a bit different from mine… First, she takes more photos of people… (Like me visiting with my mother as we take a break)…
Old Vs. New OOPE
Moving cattle the other day… down the highway… on a big curve… this appears… EEEEEK! It’s a SEMI!!! Nah… no, worries, mate… we have signs on the road warning of CATTLE ON ROAD, and around here, truckers know to believe the signs… and they come slow. But this shows the differences between the “old” ways…
They’re gone!
We have turned out virtually all of our cows! Yay! This is our crew that helped Johnny, Vernon, and I push the last big bunch out Wednesday. I had had a big trip to the dentist the day before… a root canal, temporary crown, and a tooth pulled…yeccchhh! So I helped move cows for just…
Spring trail
It is time FINALLY to turn the cows out to graze…and we’ve been doing exactly that the past three days. It is a time-consuming process. Step One is gathering the pasture they are in and often keeping them in a corner to work them where Step Two takes place. Pairing the cows and baby calves. If…