We left the barn bright and early this morning on two grumpy mares to move cattle in Rock Creek. Lately our goal has been to keep the main herd from using the creek bottom too hard. With this in mind, Joe and I move 400 head or so into Swamp Creek every few days. Once we got there, we gathered everything along Rock Creek starting at the patch of willows. It was a pretty uneventful morning trailing up the hill and over into our destination. As we rode, we watched for anything that needed to be doctored and the consensus was one calf and one yearling. The yearling was obviously lame, so we decided to catch the droopy eared calf first so we didn't lose her. My mare Nevada knew the drill, so once I reined her towards the calf the chase began. I threw my first loop and it landed right in front of the calf, then my rope hit a tree as the draw narrowed around us. I kept tracking her across the creek and onto a sketchy sidehill. I don't care to disclose the amount of loops I threw to no avail. Naturally, Joe steps in and catches the calf first throw. However, she managed to weasel throw the loop and Joe ended up with one hind leg instead of a head catch. I thought to myself this is your chance to redeem yourself. I circled my target on the hill and threw yet another embarrassing montage of loops to catch a now almost stationary calf. As choice words were said, I finally managed to snag the calf and lay her down in the sagebrush at the bottom of the draw. I stepped off and grabbed Nuflor, a syringe, and a bright green paint stick, range doctoring essentials, out of my saddle bags. As I was finishing up artfully drawing a chalk line down the calf's back, my mare decided to take an unexpected break from her duties. She kept walking up the rope and grazing instead of keeping it tight like she should. Annoyed by her slacking off, I asked Joe what to do to break her newfound bad habit. He replied, "Just throw a rock at her, that should get her attention." I didn't want to leave the calf yet because I still needed to take our ropes off, so I figured I might as well go for it. My first rock was spot on and grazed her nose, that ought to get her attention! I even had Joe's approval of my grand rock chucking ability. Nevada stepped forward, looked at me, and immediately went back to her shenanigans. Rock number two, same result. Rock three was not in fact a charm. She looked up at me with spite in her eyes and began walking away still tied to the calf. Then, she picked up the pace to brisk power walk. Meanwhile, I'm scurrying trying to grab the end of my rope and pop my dallies. She then decides to entangle Joe and his horse in my rope. I finally hurdle enough sagebrush to grab my rope and pop my dallies as I wonder how a simple calf doctoring went so wrong. The next one will certainly go better I thought. Soon I was in hot pursuit of a big soggy (fat in cowboy terms) yearling with bad feet. Mid swing my horse tripped on sagebrush and my rope went around her neck. Wrong critter.... As she started running up a big hill, Joe and I were on each side of her. He caught her right at the top, but cows can run faster downhill so she beat him to the bottom and he lost his rope. I helped herd her so Joe could reach down and grab his rope. I finally redeemed myself as I trapped her hind legs in my rope. My mare behaved and held the yearling like the seasoned ranch horse she is. It was hard to focus on much else as our patient was mooing in loud protest. I popped my dallies once we were ready to let her go and watched as my old friend the sagebrush bush snagged my rope. It was loosely hanging off her left hind foot. I scurried after her trying to keep it loose as she drug my rope with her. My luck soon ran out as it caught another bush and tightened around her foot instead of falling off. I sighed, shortened my slack, and we laid her down again to get my rope off. We rode down the creek checking on a few small bunches that were already there before we brought our group over that morning, The sky was growing dark so we booked it to the trailer, racing our two grumpy mares. Joe and I doubled up on the four wheeler to go fencing in the Sawtooth pasture this morning. It's the furthest pasture from the cabin, around over 10 miles. We left the dogs at home because of the heat and long distance. It started out as a nice cool morning but as we turned the corner on the road going into the Blacktail Game Range our spirits depleted. We had cows in two pastures they weren't supposed to be. We quickly drove through the Sawtooth pasture on the road in hopes of finding any that had made it into the campground. We picked up about 15 head out of there before they disappeared into Honeymoon Park. With the campground gate shut, Joe went to see where the cows got out. He found a spot where they had knocked down the Rock Creek fence, then walked through the Taylor Creek pasture, and found themselves in the Sawtooth pasture four days early. As he was figuring this out, I started up the east end of the fence. I hiked along the hill fixing fence at a decent pace until I realized I dropped my fence stretcher at some point. Basking in the 90 degree heat, I swallowed hard as I knew I would have to walk back down the steep hill I worked so hard to climb. I found it laying neatly in the sagebrush about 100 yards from where I began. Round two of the ascent went the same as before except my lungs burned even more this time. I thought I would sit a moment to catch my breath at the top before I tightened my splice in the fence, but it was short lived. I found out I had sat on a hidden ant hill. I kept hiking along the fence fixing elk wipeouts and was just about halfway up the tallest ridge when I heard thunder. I figured it would blow over soon as it sounded far away and not too ominous. As it grew louder I realized quickly that I as on my way to being at the highest, barest point of the pasture. I panicked because I had no idea where Joe was and knew I couldn't count on him rescuing me on the four-wheeler anytime soon. From previous experience, I know how fast lightning, hail, rain, and any other form of weather can appear in the mountains. I ran as fast I could down through the trees, swamp, and draws to lower ground with my fencing backpack flopping with tools. I was on a hill right above the road when Joe spotted me. I was out of breath and sweating profusely as he calmly drove up. I explained how I had sprinted down the hill as the storm was blowing in, to which he replies, "Oh I've been watching it, it's ok." I inhaled some water from the jug and sat with my legs still burning from my journey on the four wheeler. We both agreed I did not have to run this evening after my impromptu downhill steeplechase. Thankfully, we called it a day to avoid any more storms as my legs and pride were spent. We left the house right at daylight this morning to go fix the mess in the Sawtooth pasture before the ranch rodeo tonight. First we attempted to clear Taylor Creek and I brought everything over into the East end while Joe hopped over into the Blacktail side to gather it. I was pushing everything out of the corner to the gate and snapped my fingers to get Wylie's attention. Murphy spooked, so I kept snapping my fingers thinking he'd realize it was nothing and would calm down. Instead, he cracked in two and reared up. I thought he would go over backwards honestly. I tried to keep my reins loose and balance with him to keep him from doing just that. Then, he hogged over towards the barbed wire fence. I felt myself slide to the right and grabbed as hard as I could with my legs and left spur. After a few more jumps he settled down. I'm not much of a bronc stomper by any means, so I was pretty happy I rode him out. Soon after this episode, I saw Joe again and helped him gather the rest of the what he had. We pushed everything into the Sawtooth and trailed them along the campground fence to Indian Creek. Naturally, there were still cows coming out of the willows in the wrong pasture behind us as we rode by. With time of the essence, we did what we could and sorted bulls to go back where they belong in Rock Creek. We took a small group of yearlings and pairs back with them so they'd trail better. We were just clearing the last stand of willows when the lame bull quit us and headed into the brush. I hunted him with my dog for half an hour or so but he was on the fight so we left him for another day. Our small group made it back into Rock Creek and we trotted to the trailer to head for home. We just swapped our saddles to Nevada and Dooley, packed up and headed into Twin Bridges. Joe's brother Seth and his family were visiting from Texas, so they met us for a quick dinner along with his parents and sister, Rachel. I'm not sure if it was the heat or the knot in my stomach over it being my first ranch rodeo but I didn't eat much. We were entered up in a Wyldman Ranch Rodeo which is a scramble format with few rules. I swallowed hard as I saw how big the steers were. Joe, myself, and two of the Three Forks Cow Camp guys galloped in as they opened the gate. I threw a few good loops, but they weren't getting around their enormous left horns. Josh and Joe got one roped so I hopped off and went to tail her over. Unfortunately, he did not have a tail so I used all of my 120 pounds to lay him over. I grabbed the branding iron coated in paint out of the bucket and got the brand on. We went on to doctor two steers after that. I had a great heel loop on the second one, but he was hopping fast enough my rope got to running really hot. Good thing I had a 45ft rope because it took me longer than I wanted to stop him. Next up was trailer loading as Josh caught the steer and the rest of us hopped off to get him pushed in the trailer. He plowed through Ray who had ahold of his head and got hung up on the right side of the trailer. We picked the wrong steer to rope for that event... We wasted a ton of time on that ornery steer. As soon as the gate slammed, I went over to find the last one to sort out and pen. I got him lined out and he ran within inches of the pen three times. Joe got him roped and we pushed him in and grabbed his rope. We then sprinted to a last place finish. Despite our placing, I had so much fun! Joe and I headed to the Wolf Creek Ranch Rodeo this morning at the Rocking Z Guest Ranch. There were 14 open teams and 5-6 teams in both the women's and kid's divisions. It started at 10 with the first round of pasture roping. They let two teams go at once to rope a steer in a 100 acre alfalfa field and for this round they had to cut a string of twine off after they roped it. I sat through the branding events and when the scramble event came around I was miserably hot. I had to quit drinking and switch to water it was so hot. It was a long day of being a ranch rodeo groupie. Finally, they started the last event, the second pasture roping, at 5:30. Joe and his team roped their steers, grabbed the horn wrap, and sprinted back to the judges. By the time he unsaddled it was already 7, so we didn't stay for awards. They got a no time in the branding and scramble, but a lot of other teams struggled so we guessed his team was in the middle of the pack. We got KFC on the way home and I fell asleep from a long weekend on ranch rodeos once we hit the gravel. The cows are starting to get restless as fall moves in. Joe and I went down to Snowcrest and gathered 24 head of yearlings and a pair. I trailed them down the road into the Battleplace pasture while Joe followed in the pickup and trailer to open gates. The yearlings are pretty well fed this time of year so it was slow going. I rode over to Joe and had him give me my coffee cup. He teased me that I had it pretty posh and I didn't argue with him. Riding one of my favorite horses and drinking coffee with the perfect amount of creamer trailing cows on a sunny morning... posh indeed.
Once we got to the Battleplace the group decided my leisurely morning was over. I had two naughty yearlings in the front hunting any willow or brush they could find. Then, of course the rest of group would follow suite. Every time I got them rounded up and herded towards our destination, the old cow would quit the bunch and try to take her calf with her too. Thankfully, Joe parked the pickup and trailer at the gate of the Ridge Field where we were I was taking them and rode over to help. On a normal day I can move a large bunch with no issue, but these escapees were all bunch quitters aka jerks to move any distance. Once we got them into their correct pasture, we saw about 200 head in the corner. We knew if we didn't move them out to the upper water gap they'd tear through the fence. This time of year is tough because the cows know they'll keep getting moved down and sometimes they try to take that upon themselves. We still have about a week left so we needed to change their minds about it. We trailed a bunch up to the lower water gap and let them graze while we rode back to grab our rig and some lunch at the cabin. For reference, the far side of the field is a 45 minute drive with the pickup and 25 minutes via horse. The lower water gap where we left them is only minutes by horse from the cabin. After lunch, we rode out to grab everything at the lower water gap and trailer them to the upper one where there is more grass. Once we started them up the draw, we realized we now had over 500 head. Things went alright until we hit the top of the draw where they need to follow a trail down a rock face and then along the fence. They were not having any of that, and were not happy. My poor horse ran out of steam running up hills after renegades trying to get them back. I finally got off and ground tied her next to the trail and started walking behind the stubborn buggers. Two and a half hours later we finally got them to go down the trail. Normally, that should take less than thirty minutes, Our dogs, horses, and ourselves included were spent. So it goes in the cattle business. The best plans are always amended when they don't want to do something. Darkness fell in the process so we didn't get them pushed all the way to the upper water gap but we hoped they would keep trailing the fence and make it. Nevada let me know she was less than impressed as she pinned her ears at me as I opened the gate into the yard. I gave her extra oats in hopes she would not hold today against me. Joe and I headed up the trail to pick up anything left from yesterday and to make sure they made it. Only a small group was waiting in the draw where our fiasco happened, so we grabbed them to take to the upper water gap again. We noticed some foot rot yearlings once we arrived. I got lucky and landed a nice head shot on my first throw and Joe got two feet right away so we laid her down and doctored her quickly. We kept riding up the fence to check health after that. I chased one yearling through the brush for twenty minutes or so, until I finally had to give up and hope that I would spot her again the next time we rode through. We doctored another foot rot right after that. I heeled one back leg instead of two, so I popped my dallies to let her walk forward so Joe could trip her. Unfortunately, she took off mock chicken and my brain did not tell my body to move timely. She sprinted across the creek and I lost my heel loop. It wasn't all bad though because i got two feet on my second attempt so it would be easier for us that way after all. I couldn't help but laugh because when she took off Joe kept hollering "Dally!!!!!" to which I replied "I'm trying", even though my hands were refusing to move. We doctored one more lame yearling and attempted a fifth but she out ran me through a swamp and I lost her through the trees to my dismay. We kept riding up the ridge, hence it's name Ridge Field. As we rode, I looked for moose sheds on the way back to the cabin since Joe found a set the other day. Once we got back, I decided I needed to amp up my fly control, log cabins breed the nastiest form of bug colonies... I'm sure of it.
1 Comment
|
AuthorThis is a blog to share many stories, laughs, adventures and lessons learned by yours truly, Haley Potter. Archives
July 2023
|