This was first posted October 31, 2009.
Today, again, was filled with cow work…The cows we brought down yesterday were scattered far and wide this morning. They didn’t like where we put them… Not enough grass… Not where they wanted to be… So they left… Well, some left…
These were up on the hill…trying to take the shortcut to the badlands… This remains one of my favorite views… Though I prefer it in the spring with green trees and grass! Daniel came home this weekend…. I love it when the kids are here…. They open the gates! Then I don’t have to haul myself back up on my horse…I just watch!
We had to get those cows stranded at the bottom of this fence…DUMB cows…
Believe me when I say that phrase was spoken more than once today… I often added colorful metaphors in the mix as well… We went around and around again today… Then Lucas and Boomer kept things stirred up…They’d do just enough where I’d praise them for a good save… Then they’d turn around and screw things up and chase cows back the wrong way and I’d cuss at them again… I know it is my fault for bad training…but how can one time Lucas SAVE THE WORLD and the next minute I want to shoot him?What makes the difference? He got sent back into a LAY DOWN and DON’T WORK multiple times today…. After this gather we had lunch…. Toria and M. arrived…. We did corral work…. Toria and M. left…. Daniel and I took the cows to the Ritchie pasture before the big trail tomorrow…
We fought the cows out of the field…. Up the hills…and through Bruner Draw…I was more than ready to head home…
It was a gorgeous day…I didn’t freeze until going home at the end of the day…I left my jacket at the corral…uh…duh! It was nice to have extra helping hands…. And I’ll try my best to remember the GOOD things today!
Find me here!
So much to do, awesome country, cows , dogs , cowboys & girls doing their thing, but where did that red cow come from? yours or a stray, I like her-
Sometimes you can get a red from two blacks. I suppose it’s two recessive genes. Obviously it doesn’t happen often. We had her quite a while… she was a good cow.
Thanks Carol, she must be camera shy,
Curious……how old do you think some of those fence posts have been there? Are they from when the ranch was established? 1800s? Did you install?
The ranch began in the late 1800’s, we bought it in 1909. Strangely enough, there weren’t a lot of fences even when Johnny was young and riding for miles and miles. The BLM came in in the 1950’s and started parsing up land into pastures. “Open Range” was the standard up til then. This is called the “drift fence”, keeping cows from drifting too far looking for better range in the spring and fall. I have no idea when it was built.