This was first posted October 12, 2014.
My favorite trail drive of the year… bringing the cows off the top of the Big Horn Mountains.
It looks like they’ll fall off the top of the world…
Never fear, there *is* a hillside to run down. Well, I don’t run, but some cows do! The rest of us pick our way down the rocky slope carefully!
When you trail cattle, you prefer a long string of them, quietly plodding along, rather than a large wad of them, like a band of sheep. I’d say we met that! The back of the herd and I are not quite to the bottom of the steep hill and the front is already stopped at this neighbor’s gate! We travel through 8 different pastures on our way to our Mesa Pasture.
Daniel and Brandon get a small break as they watch the back of the bunch ease through a gate on yet another steep slope.
At the bottom of this hill, we take a lunch break… a rarity thanks to Victoria and the twins. Lunch always tastes Very Good when you’ve worked up an appetite! To have sandwiches, potato salad, chips, drinks, and brownies??? YUM.
We’re now on the level of the edge of Otter Creek Canyon…
We trail along its edge for the next couple of miles and the 500′ drop always begs to be captured, but no photo can really convey its depth and beauty.
I had traded with Victoria at lunchtime, letting her ride Panama, and I jumped in the pickup. My two little cowboys soon passed out in the seat and floorboard. We continued to follow, I tried to avoid the biggest rocks and holes, of course, not much bothers two sleeping (almost) 3 year olds!
Another trail completed. Another year has passed. The seasons go round and we with them, working with Mother Nature when she lets us. How lucky we are!
Find me here!
Now you’ve done it! Your description of lunch has made me hungry!
Do the cows all walk along nicely or do you have to worry about some deciding to stop and investigate other pastures along the way? So do you need lots of helpers?
Some years they pile off the mountain like they can’t get down fast enough, some years they act like they’re starving and have to stop and eat all the way down.
Just wondering if you have lost any cows to a mountain lion, when your
cows are so far from home? Thanks.
No, up on the mountain we seem to lose cattle to poison and pneumonia. The majority of mountain lions eat deer.