Somebody Close The Gate

Catching Up

2011-06-14T14:26:00.000-07:00

Oh my golly, it's been so long since I posted to this blog, there is so much to catch up on. I guess I did close the gate, but now I'm opening it again. First, I'll give a brief review of everything that has gone on in the past two years while I've been neglecting my writing bent.

Firstly, I almost starved out here on the ranch. When I last wrote much, I had gone back to work part-time in the oil pipeline business, traveling from the ranch to work at locations from 60 to 170 miles far flung from the ranch. The money worked out ok, but there were times when I had to be away from the ranch four or five days at a time, causing me much stress.

I again rented space for a horse or two in Cheyenne when I was there and would have them in-tow when I had to be there for work. There is a little stable in the heart of Cheyenne with round pens, indoor and outdoor arenas where I have been welcomed by the owner, Doug Terlizzi, for many years. He and I have become great friends and I know I can count on him to always be helpful and he knows he can count on me to pay my bill on time. I made many good friends at Singletree. I always thought I could write a sit-com about that place. Horse people are very peculiar, including myself, I suppose.

However, the miles were racking up on my vehicles and I wasn't making enough from this enterprise to make payments on a new one, so something had to give. The pipeline work slowed to a crawl in December of 2010, and I had time to get serious about looking for local employment. I applied to be a law-enforcement dispatcher and made the final cut for interviews, but ultimately was passed over for a newcomer to the county who had 20 years of military communications experience. When I got my rejection letter, the manager mentioned there were positions open in detention at the county jail, however. I swallowed my pride and asked to be interviewed for one of those. I was hired after proving to them I would likely be able to pass the physical standards.

Turns out, it is a much better job and a better fit for my personality. I am now a sworn deputy for the County Sheriff's Department. My supervisor told me I was a "born natural" at the job after only a couple weeks of training.

Calamity soon followed, however. On my first day in early January, before I was ever in the building, I slipped on ice in the gutter and fell while stepping up on the curb and my right knee hit the edge of the curb. I looked around to see if anyone was watching, although it was still dark, dusted the snow off and went on. A month or so later, my knee became quite inflamed. After several months of dealing with doctors and physical therapists, surgery became an option.

Because I had not been on the force for the six months required to receive sick pay, I told my supervisor I would take the time off without pay to get my knee fixed. She just nodded and smiled and told me to get it done. About a week later she came back to tell me my sick leave would be donated by my co-workers. I was a bit overwhelmed, to say the least, still am. It was so totally unexpected and serendipitous, I am still blown away.

On the horse front, I am down to ten now. I finally got two sold the end of 2010. Chexy is pretty much broke, but not by me, as I had hoped. I just haven't had the time. I did most of the ground work with her and then found a bullrider from LCCC who was wanting to pick up some extra cash riding horses at the stable in Cheyenne. He put a fantastic handle on her in only 30 days of training.

Sugar is also broke and ready for me to ride. I also did much ground work with her last fall and put the first few rides on her. I could tell she was not going to be a problem, but my knee problem kept me from going on with her this spring. I found a young cowboy who works on a 35,000 acre ranch that also wanted to supplement his income by riding colts for other folks. He did a super job with Sugar, as pictured in this post.

Horse Sale Hell

2009-05-15T18:50:00.000-07:00

The weekend of the horse sale neared accompanied by rain, rain and more rain. I took Jana to Cheyenne with me two weeks ahead of the sale so that I could maybe get in some riding in an indoor arena or in Fort Collins where it had not rained as much. My neice and I participated in a team sorting clinic east of Wellington on a very cold and windy Saturday morning. Although we got cold to the bone, we had a lot of fun. Then we rode together at Singletree Stables in Cheyenne the following week. It was cold and rainy that day, also, but we were able to ride indoors until the sun came out, then we did some riding in the outdoor arena.
My niece bought a young gelding from me last fall and he is coming along splendidly in his training, which she has done herself, and she is so rightly proud of him. He is a beautiful horse. She loves to ride and I asked her to do me the favor of riding Jana through the sale ring on sale day.
The horse sale didn't go so well, however. It was raining the day before the sale, but I loaded Jana and took her to work with me, then on to Torrington, where the sale was to be the next day. I wanted to get her settled in and used to the place so she wouldn't exhibit spookiness the next day due to unfamiliar surroundings when potential buyers began to look her over. They were having a wedding in the sale pavillion that evening, though, so I wasn't able to get her in there. I camped out at the fairgrounds that night, just keeping an eye on her, wishing for morning and praying for a good price the next day.
I was the first one in the arena when it opened about 8:30 that morning. Jana was just a little snorty, being in new surroundings, but she took everything in stride like she always does. I rode her around the arena until she was used to things, but I don't like to do my own riding through the sale ring. I get so nervous, I can't even keep track of where the bid is. I would sit in the stands to yell "No sale," if need be. Need was. What a disaster. I procrastinated about getting my paperwork in for the sale, because I had been at the head of the sale last year, with poor results, so I wanted to be a little later on, but I wound up about tenth from the end--87th of about 97 horses. Apparently everyone who wanted a horse already bought one. So Jana got to come back home with me.
So it's back to trying to sell her on the internet, and taking her around to horse events where someone might see her and want her. She's a very nice horse and would make a good kid's horse right now if the kid knows anything about riding. She just wants to do whatever you ask her to do. Jana has a nice, fast little walk and should be a fast runner, although I haven't had her at full speed yet, as I've only ridden her about 50 times. There are some speedy horses on her pedigree, such as Easy Jet, Royal Charger,Three Bars and Pa Jones. She also has a favorable attitude toward working cattle, which is also in her background with Doc O'Lena and King P234 breeding. Due to her size, 15 hands, some kid or light rider would be very lucky to get her. She is the kind that stays broke. I didn't ride her from about Thanksgiving last year until I got back on her in late February this year, and she was right where I left her--no cold back, no buck. Not the kind you have to lunge for 15 minutes before you get on, just hop on and go.

Week Without Water and Another Blizzard

2009-04-05T11:59:00.000-07:00

I think we're having another '49er. It is snowing again. Snow on top of snowdrifts. I might need a snowcat to get out of here soon. The last time I blogged, a blizzard was setting in and my water pump had quit. I called the man who installed the pump about thirteen years ago when I bought the place. He agreed it was probably the pump that had gone out, because when I opened the well house and stuck my ear down there, it sounded like the pump was trying to cycle. He's my neighbor about 20 miles away and a friend, but he has since gone out of the water well repair business. He did recommend the young man who bought his truck and equipment.
I called that guy, but we both knew he would be unable to come until after the weather cleared. I had a small amount of drinking water stored for just such an emergency, but to flush the toilet, I had to carry five-gallon buckets of water from the barn where I had a stock tank filled with a heater in it. I built up the muscles in my arms carrying water around the snowdrifts for the remainder of the week. On Sunday, I had to return to the city for my job for the week. I was actually glad to be going, for once. Running hot and cold water is truly a blessing to be cherished.
My work week was cut short, however, so I could be home on Friday to meet the well-service technician. I returned to the ranch to find snow drifts still pretty much as I had left them. They had receeded some, but not much. The weather report said there was another front coming Friday about noon. I called the well guy to confirm he was coming on Friday. He said he would and asked what time he should be here. I told him to plan it for morning because of the weather. He said he'd be here about 9 a.m.
When I got up on Friday, the sky was cloudy and ominous. I watched the clock and prayed for the storm to hold off. About 8 a.m., it began raining and as rain turned to big wet flakes of snow, the well guy got here. He was looking for a way to back his well-pulling rig up to my well, which is right beside the house, but there were snowdrifts blocking every avenue.
He climbed down into the well house and began doing some electrical checks. Within minutes, he asked his wife to get him some pliers and emerged from the well with a paper cartridge fuse in pieces and so corroded, he couldn't read the amperage. He changed the fuse, the control box, which was also very corroded, and put on a new pressure gauge so he could see what his results were, then asked me to turn on a hydrant. Sweet SUCCESS! Praise God. I wanted to kiss the man and his wife, too.
I didn't think to check the fuse because of the humming sound coming from the vicinity of the pump. I thought the pump was trying to cycle. After the fix was in, I remembered my friend telling me to lay in a stock of those fuses, which I remember doing, but now I don't have a clue where they went, following two moves and a few years of renters in the house.
However, I think there will be some preventive maintenance done on the well pump this summer sometime. You don't miss something until you don't have it.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the snow has come down steadily for two days now. I was floundering through drifts up to my thighs this morning (April 5) getting out to feed horses. I was rewarded by their appreciation for being fed, though. They were very grateful.

Easter Blizzard (a little early)

2009-03-24T16:52:00.000-07:00

This was the view from my kitchen window almost all day Monday and Tuesday this week, as a big storm system blanketed the state. Wyoming nearly always has a bad spring blizzard around Easter time, and it hit a little early this year. Or, at least I hope this is it and we don't have another. Sunday was calm and the temperature was about 70 degrees when I got home from church, but all the weather reports said we had a bad storm coming. So I hurried up to ride the horse I am getting ready to sell in the early afternoon, and then I split up enough wood to last a few days. By the time I got all that done, the sky in the southwest was becoming darker and it looked and smelled like rain coming.
Before I went to bed, I could hear the rain on the windows. I slept well, knowing I was ready this time, and grateful to God for the moisture, which I knew would make the grass start to pop. The rain turned to sleet in the night and it awakened me to hear it pinging against the window above my head. I could hear the wind beginning to whine around the house. Sleet turned to snow about 7 a.m. After chores I settled in the house to work on laundry and other domestics for the day. The washer filled once as I built a fire in the stove. I went to fill the stovetop teakettle to put some moisture into the air. As I did so, the water flowing from the tap just slowed down and stopped!
So here I am, snowed in and not much water to do those domestic chores. I did have some drinking water stored up in various forms and the hot water heater is full. It's times like these that make me glad I live alone. I can get by. A country girl can survive. House cleaning can wait.
The blizzard only got worse as the day wore on. The wind came up to a steady 40 mph or so and the snow just kept coming sideways with drifts forming off the corners of the garage, house and any other sheltered place on the southeast sides of things. I worried about the mare herd that had not come in from the upper pasture, but I was not about to try to check on them. I went out to check on the youngsters in the corral and feed my old guy and I could hardly see. It was a white-out. When I went out again just before dark, the mares had come in to find shelter and were hoping for food, also. I gave them some and shut them in to keep them safe.
The wind died down at times throughout the night, but the snow kept falling until we had drifts of up to four feet deep. Here is a picture of my flat-bed trailer with one remaining big round bale of hay on it. The snow is level with the deck of the trailer. I checked the internet as soon as I got up and it showed the storm was almost to blow by, so I waited to go out to do chores, knowing all the horses were ok. Soon the sun was trying to peek through and the wind was settling down. The first time I went out, it was very cold, however, and the wind was still whipping snow in my face. The temperature had been hovering around +20 deg. since the storm got here. By nine thirty a.m., it had risen to nearly +30.
My water pump seems to be shelled out, so I guess I will be going to the creek for water, or melting snow! There is a large snowdrift blocking the driveway. I am certainly glad I was not scheduled to work until Friday when it is supposed to be sunny and mild again. I heard on the Casper radio the storm was accompanied by nearly an inch of moisture, praise God. We needed it. Maybe I should go buy some haying equipment, then I can quit my day job. Better get the well fixed first!

Furnace Follies

2009-02-15T08:11:00.000-08:00

I've been having fun with furnaces and tractors. I think God played a trick on me. I always wanted to be like the boys and do whatever I saw them doing. Well now I have to. My furnace started acting up in December, right before the kids were due to come home for Christmas.
I have two 500 gallon propane tanks tied together for increased storage, so I can take advantage of seasonally low prices on heating fuel. I had them filled in August when the price per gallon was $2.00. Not a very seasonal low, I must say. At any rate, the first tank was getting low after an extreme cold snap the first part of December, so I switched into the second tank. My furnace immediately became a fire-breathing dragon in the basement. It would huff so hard upon ignition sometimes it would blow out the standing pilot light. I thought at first it was the wind blowing out the pilot, so I climbed up on the roof and put a five-gallon bucket over the furnace vent. That didn't seem to help. I would come home from being at my male-dominated workplace (yes, another trick God played on me) and the furnace would be out; not a good situation with outside temperatures hovering around -20 degrees F.
So I started through my troubleshooting list. Thinking because the problem began when I switched tanks, it must be the high pressure regulator on the tank itself, I change that regulator. Problem continues. I order a new control valve for the furnace and change that, problem continues. After some Internet research, I deduct the burners might be dirty, so I pull the whole furnace apart and clean said burners and the firebox on the furnace. Problem continues, so I call the propane man to come fill the other tank from which I was pulling before the problem began. He made me put the old regulator back on the tank and told me it "had" to be a problem with the low pressure regulator on the outside of the house. I change that. Problem continues. I am at my wit's end.
I finally call my brother-in-law who owns a heating and cooling business 100 miles away. After describing the problem to him, his first reaction is that the furnace has a cracked firebox. Since I had examined the firebox pretty closely while cleaning it, I go on telling him the symptoms. He and I together deduct that I had a bad control valve and I got a bad control valve. He orders me another one.
In the meantime, I am home mostly just monitoring the fire-breathing dragon in the basement, as it is getting worse and worse, and keeping the wood stove and electric heaters I had placed around the house going. Sometimes the furnace would huff so hard upon ignition, it would shoot flames out of the furnace and kind of shake the house!
The new control valve finally gets here two days before I am due to return to my job away from the ranch. I drive round-trip 120 miles to get it and I get it installed about 24 hours before I have to leave. What a relief, though, to have the furnace functioning normally again. I could hardly believe, when I got home after being away at work for a few days, the pilot was still aflame. The beast in the basement is tamed. At first, I had to check to make sure it was still working because it was operating so much more quietly.
About the tractor next time...still a work in progress or regress, whichever.

Warrior Dolly and Warrior JD

2008-12-20T19:37:00.000-08:00

Sorry I've been gone from the blogosphere for so long. It's just that my new part-time job is taking up a lot of my time. I am working every other week away from the ranch, so it seems I spend most of the weeks in between getting stuff done so I will be ready to go back to work the next week. It's a vicious circle, as the work-a-day world just is.
But, I like my new job. It's pretty much the same old job I did for 23 years, only for a new company. The new guys are all great to work with, and even some of the old ones I worked with before seem glad that I am back, so it's pretty pleasant so far. The only things I worry about are my horses and if everything is ok back at the ranch. I fill up the feeders and waterers before I leave, and leave Nacho, the dog, with my sister. Everything has been fine, so far.
But Jana and Chexy's breaking in is on the back-burner for now, at least through the holidays. I might get in a ride or two while my son is here visiting. I retrieved his mount from some dear friends of mine from Cheyenne Cowboy Church, who had boarded her in return for being able to use her for about four years. They took great care of her. Here's Dolly as a foal. She's a nine year-old registered Quarter Horse whose registered name is Warrior Dolly. Her lineage traces through Hot Warrior back to Seneca Warrior and Hot Foot Bar on her top side with Zan Parr Bar and Hancock Twist on her bottom.
She's a sweet mare and a joy to ride. Anyone can ride her. She loves to work cattle. I told my friend when I left her with him she didn't know much. He had some neighbors who asked him to come help gather and work off calves for weaning, and he told them he would, but that the horse didn't know much. He said he rode her out amongst them, and she just put her head down and went to work, almost doing it all herself. He said the neighbor's mouths fell open and they said, "Thought you said that horse didn't know much!"
So I'm looking forward to a reunion of a soldier with his horse. My son has been in the US Army for a little over eight years. He has just separated from the service this fall, as a Staff Sargeant wearing a Green Beret. Dolly was only a year old when he inducted, and my son owned a half-brother to her that was killed a few months after he left for basic training, so I gave him Dolly to replace the gelding that he loved. Dolly has many of the same characteristics that Shy had, so I know he's going to love her, too, he already does.
Merry Christmas.

Hi Ho, It's Back to Work I Go

2008-11-24T20:13:00.000-08:00

Old pipe liners never die; they just keep monkeying with their wrenches! My Thoreauian experiment living in the wilderness lasted about as long as Henry's. I loved being retired, living and working on my little ranch with the horses. I knew the money was going to be tight when I moved home, but I hadn't counted on prices for propane, electricity, insurance, gasoline and groceries all increasing at a phenomenal pace. I also hadn't anticipated the stock market crash and losing over 100K from my little retirement fund. When a former colleague called offering me a part-time job back on the pipelines, I jumped at it.
I had been looking for work here in the smallest county in the USA almost since I moved home, but opportunities are few and jumped on by many. The great thing about my new job is that they offered to pay mileage from the ranch, so I can base here, and per-diem when I have to stay elsewhere, so that made it workable. I thought I had erased all that data from my memory bank, but it all started coming back. I guess after 23 years, it's kind of etched in the old hard drive. All the old crew seemed happy to have me back, and the new guys were all friendly and helpful. I guess they are happy not to have to spend a lot of time training someone.
I will be working ten days a month, so that means I will still have twenty days a month at the ranch.
The weather has been fantastic this fall. I rode Jana again today, and I am so pleased with the way she is progressing. She stands still for saddling and mounting. She now knows what "whoa" means, backs when asked, and is starting to neck rein a little. Today I started working on side passing some. She doesn't like that, but I can reach out, open a gate while on her back, and ride through it. She's going to make some lucky kid a wonderful riding friend.
The fillies are growing like crazy. They are all getting gentler every day as I feed them and brush and mess around with them.

Chexy's Breaking In

2008-11-08T16:39:00.001-08:00

Chexy is a three year-old Quarter Horse filly that I acquired in a trade deal with my horse tradin' friend. I have just begun to work with her to get her used to the idea of having a rider on her back and doing as she is told. At left is a picture of her wearing the saddle for the first time. She wasn't too keen on the idea of wearing a saddle. She pitched it off a couple of times when I started to saddle her. Eventually I got it on her and strapped down with the cinch, and then she acted like it was no big deal.
The second time I went to saddle her, she was having no part of that, so I decided I'd best go to the basics, square one, and pretend that she had never been handled before. I put her in the round pen and started wiggling a Walmart plastic bag tied to the end of a buggy whip at her. She nearly went into orbit. I thought she'd calm down after a short time, but 20 minutes later, she was still doing laps around the round pen at a gallop. I confined her a little tighter and went at her with the dreaded horse getter bag. She tried to knock the pen down when she found she couldn't get away from it. She thought about trying to climb out a time or two, but I would just raise the bag in front of her face, and she would think otherwise. After about ten minutes of this treatment, she finally stood there and let me touch her with the bag. I guess I would call this part, "sacking out." In the old days we used to do it with a burlap bag or the saddle blanket.
Today, I caught her again and led her to the round pen. She balked at the gate, knowing something dreadful was going to happen in there. I led her over to the saddle and blanket lying near the center of the pen. When I picked up the blanket, I showed it to her and let her sniff it, then placed it on her back. She tossed up her head and bolted. I just let her. Then I got the horse-eating whip with the Walmart bag still tied to it and gave her all the more reason to run. She ran for about 20 minutes before she finally decided to let me get near with the bag/whip. Pretty soon, she was standing still while I rubbed her all over with the Walmart bag. It had become more tolerable than the running.
Then I led her back over to the saddle and blanket. I placed the blanket on her back again and rubbed it up and down her neck to just behind her ears and let her wear it there for a few minutes. She didn't flinch. I slid it back into place on her back, then picked up the saddle. I let her sniff the saddle, then went calmly up to her left side and set it on her back. She just decided to quit resisting and stood quietly as I cinched it loosely on her back. I led her off--nothing, not a jump, not a hump. Again, she acted like it was not a big deal.
I trimmed all four of her feet, since we'd had some moisture to soften them. She stood for that pretty well, although whenever she took a foot away from me, I would make her do a few laps around the round pen. When I finished up with her feet, I got the bag/whip again and flicked it all around her body. Chexy just stood there, hardly even flinching. It was like she was saying, "You can't make me run!"
I rewarded her by turning her loose and giving her some hay. I think this mare is going to do just fine, she's just going to take a bit longer than the ones out of my old stallion, because she has a little "hotter" disposition. She has a lot of cutting horse blood in her, which, according to my daughter, makes them fighters. But in the end, she will make a fine cow horse. I am looking forward to her being the first horse I have trained from start to finish in about seven years now.
Speaking of which, my fun retirement is about to come to an end. I was offered a part-time job on the pipe line filling in for the guys I used to work with when they need a day off. Since the horse market has been in the basement for a couple years and my retirement fund taking a licking in the stock market, I decided I'd best jump at the chance to work for wages once again. I am grateful it is only part-time, though and I will be able to spend time with Chexy...and Jana...and King...and Dixie...and, and, and!

Riding Weather

2008-10-31T13:35:00.000-07:00

I rode Jana Jet Jones for the first time today.
I have had this six-year-old red dun mare for about three years. She was abused as a youngster and then her owner bred her as a three year old, so her growth is stunted. I bought her shortly after he bred her at age three, basically to rescue her. She had a nice little sorrel filly foal about nine months after I bought her and Dixie is another story for another post.
When I weaned her filly, I sent her to a trainer to start her under saddle because I still had a full time job and two homes 150 miles apart to care for. She was with this trainer for several months, but I don't think she was ridden much, if any.
She has a funny personality for a horse. She is a touch-me-not until you get her caught, then she immensely likes attention such as brushing and petting. She fought me tooth and nail a couple times before when I was attempting to trim her hooves, but we worked through that trauma and now she is pretty good about her feet--once you get her caught.
So I bridled and saddled her today. I used a ring snaffle on her because that is the most forgiving bit there is. She resisted the bit for a while, and I just let her stand and get used to carrying it. Then I mounted her in a very small pen just in case she might want to pitch. They know they can't do much in a small enclosure, so they usually don't do much. She didn't offer to buck at all, but she was not giving to the bit and there really wasn't room to turn around well.
I took her to the 50' round pen and put some driving lines on her. I worked with her for about 20 minutes on moving out, stopping, and giving her head. She was pretty sweated up and her head had lowered to show she was receptive. I mounted up in the round pen. She still wasn't appreciating having to give her head to the direction of the piece of metal in her mouth, but she never tried to pitch. I rode her around the pen for about another ten minutes.
She's a small little mare, about 14.2 hands, with a very pretty head. She has Easy Jet, Smart Little Lena, and Pa Jones in her background, so she should have some speed and I think she will make a wonderful little pony for some lucky kid...maybe my grandson! She's a little stubborn, but usually those make the best mounts because they have a lot of try. Plus, she is a proven producer, having delivered another fine filly foal this spring to go with the one she was carrying when I bought her.

Weaning Fillies

2008-10-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

I took the fillies away from their mamas a little over a week ago. I shut them in one corral with their dams just across the fence in another for a couple of days. They were about five and a half months old, so it was time, and time to get the mares dried up so they could gain a little fat on their ribs before winter sets in.
The foals didn't fuss much the first couple days with the mares right across the fence. They just wandered around trying to stick their heads through the fence so they could nurse, to no avail. After I let the mares back out on pasture, the put up a small fuss, though. They ran up and down the fence and whinnied for their moms. The moms didn't really care, they were ready to get out and eat some grass down on the creek, and ready to be free of their little charges, I think.
I had started feeding them a little grain along with their dams a couple months back, so they made the transition in feed just fine. It's amazing how much they settle down after being taken away from mama. Right before weaning, they were all full of themselves and would run by and kick up their heels at me on the way. I had spanked a couple of them for kicking, and I thought that might be a problem after I confined them to the corral, but there has been no such bad behavior. I guess they lose their bravado somewhat when their security force (mom) is removed. I put my 25 year-old gelding in with them to babysit. He needs the supplemental feeds they will be getting, also, and I figured he would make the fillies feel more secure. He has. The weaning has gone very smoothly so far.
After a week, I started letting the babies and old Gremlin back out on pasture during the day, then shutting them in at night, for fear of Mountain Lions. Whenever I have colts, the big cats seem to wander through. They can kill a colt and drag it up in a tree where they will return to feast for days, I have been told.
Two of the fillies have really settled down and become very approachable and even coveting my attention when I go to the corral, so I scratch, brush and pet them and pick up their feet to get them used to that. The littlest one, which I call Tiny, is a little stand-offish. She comes by that naturally, though. Her dam exhibits the same trait, besides Tiny was the one that knocked herself silly during halter breaking. I'm sure she remembers having had a headache as a result of contact with humans. Horses don't forget easily, especially a very frightening experience. But Tiny will come around just like all these excellent Permalight offspring.
Poor old Gremlin is having trouble maintaining his weight, and I'm afraid he is not going to survive the winter if it gets bad, like I think it is going to by reading the signs. I surely am dreading the day of his inevitable passing, somebody close the gate!

Hunting Season

2008-10-08T19:33:00.001-07:00

I dread hunting season more and more each year. This year, Wyoming lengthened the season an extra week, so bowhunting started the last week in August. I had three antelope hunters here from Ohio hunting with bows and arrows. They each got a nice buck without too much trouble and they were fun to have here. I enjoyed cooking for them and visiting with them.
Then gun season started and that's when the fun ended. The state went around and put up signs designating all the state lands as walk-in areas. There is quite a bit of state land around here, and some of it is fenced in with the ranches, making it hard to tell where it starts and ends. Quite a few hunters found the state land that is right over my west boundary fence and it got a lot of pressure.
Historically, I haven't allowed much hunting to take place on my small ranch, simply because it is so small. As a result, the game feels pretty safe hanging out on my property. The deer had gotten into my expensive hay last winter and ate over a ton of it, so I decided maybe I should allow a little hunting. Some guys hunting the state land noted the game was hanging out on my property, so they came and asked to hunt. I agreed since they were considerate enough to come ask, and the guy had two small boys with him, so I figured it would be a good family time for them if they could be successful. They were.
Last Sunday a guest and I were out riding. While we were opening the wire gate to ride onto the state land, a black S.U.V. with Arkansas plates pulled up and a bearded man got out with landowner coupon in hand.
"This your ranch?' he asked.
"No," I answered, "this is public land. It goes in the box," motioning toward a wooden box on the fence, which he already knew was there.
My guest began visiting with the man a little as another man climbed out of the car to take pictures of us on the horses. The Arkansawyer said he had gotten a nice buck and my friend rode over to look at it in the back of the car.
"Where did you get it?" he asked.
The Arkie pointed and said, "Down over that fence yonder," which meant he had shot the buck on my land! I started to get my dander up, but my horse was dancing around in the road ditch because, unlike her sibling which my guest was riding, she didn't like the smell of the dead animal in the S.U.V., so I just moved off a ways. My friend said the man had gut-shot the antelope and hadn't field dressed it, so the guts were still in it! No wonder my horse didn't like the smell.
I decided he was too stupid to even upbraid about hunting on private land without permission. He wouldn't have comprehended. If he took the game to a locker plant, I bet he got a thorough chewing out. That meat will not be fit to eat. It rather made me mad that he had already put his landowner coupon in the state's box, though. I made a mental note to post more signs on the fence before hunting season starts next year.

Where's the Farrier?

2008-09-28T05:12:00.000-07:00

Trimming and shoeing horses' hooves is hard work. I guess that's why there are very few people who are willing to do it these days. The muscles of the back, arms and legs get a workout while doing this. My nearest farrier is 72 miles yonder, so when I get him to come, we usually try to do ten to twelve horses in a day and that day's work costs me from $300-400, depending on how many are trimmed and shod, plus lunch. I don't usually keep them shod, though, so I have been trying to do all my farrier work myself to save money.
When you have 15 horses, though, that is a lot of feet to keep trimmed. When I first quit my cushy town job and moved back to the ranch, I could only manage to trim one or two hooves a day, at most. A while back, I trimmed six feet in one day! I am getting tougher.
I usually try to wait until after a rain or other moisture to soften up their hooves before I attempt to trim. It makes the job a lot easier. We had a long dry spell after all the rain that fell in May. It just shut off and there has only been about an inch or two that has fallen since. So after a rain, I have my work cut out for me. They all need trimmed three or four times a year.
It is better to have someone hold the horse while trimming, rather than tying them up, but that is usually not an option for me. I did have some hunters staying at the ranch the first part of September, and I had one of them hold a couple for me while I trimmed. He had filled his tag on the way in, so he had a lot of idle time while waiting for the other two to get their game.
I learned a little trick from my trainer that helps a bunch when they don't want to stand still and keep trying to take their feet away. You just lunge them (make them run around in circles) until they decide it is easier to stand and let you work on their feet than it is to do otherwise. Works like a charm and it also is good for their minds and training. Usually only 15 to 20 minutes of lunging is all it takes, but the more stubborn ones take a little longer, some up to 45 minutes.
A friend asked me if I was not afraid of getting kicked while trimming the back feet. The back ones are actually easier to trim than the fronts. You just sort of bend your knees and balance the foot on one knee with an arm over the crook of their leg, while standing slightly to the side of them. That way, if they try to kick, you can hold their leg steady if you are strong enough, and if not, it will toss you back and out of their line of fire. The front feet are more of a problem because you have to brace them between your legs so that you can use both hands to trim. You have to lean in slightly under their bellies, and if they try to jerk one away, you have to be quick to get out from under them. I have had their feet get tangled in my pants leg a little and have ripped more than one pair of pants, plus their feet can come down on the top of your foot if you are not quick enough.
I have a pair of very large palomino paint horses and one of them did a number on the top of my foot while I was trimming her last summer. She jerked her foot away, and it came down right on the arch of my left foot. It is still a little tender in that spot. Lady is almost 17 hands and probably weighs around 1,200 pounds. At right is her offspring, King, and he is slightly larger than Lady, but he's a teddy bear and never tries to take a foot away.
You have to be careful not to trim their hooves too short. They can be crippled that way. First you take your hoof pick and clean out the bottom of the foot. There is usually a little rim where the hoof wall meets the sole. It is best to try to trim the hoof wall even with the sole, then trim up the frog (the rubbery, v-shaped thing in the center of their foot) so that they are not putting too much pressure on it after you have trimmed the hoof wall. Then file down the freshly trimmed hoof with the rasp to make it all smooth and avoid cracks later.
Simple, but hard work, and I recommend you hire a farrier if there is one closer than 72 miles! Oh my, it looks like rain, where are my farrier tools?

Fall Work

2008-09-11T20:27:00.000-07:00

The temperature has fallen abruptly and that reminded me I have several tasks that need to be done. First on the list was to get some wood cut and split when I seriously thought I would awaken to a blanket of snow the next morning. I lit the furnace and promised myself I would cut some wood the next day.
I began the woodcutting by working over my old chainsaw. I sharpened the chain, but it didn't want to run after being stored all spring and summer. I put fresh gas in, then pulled the spark plug. It was fouled, so I cleaned it and put it back in, not having a new one. The saw then ran for about an hour; enough time for me to cut about three days' wood. The wood was a little damp from the rain that fell the night before, so I decided to wait another day until the wood dried out a little.
The saw still didn't want to run when I went back after the job, so I decided it will have to wait until I get a new spark plug and also a new chain. I have sharpened the one I have so many times, there isn't much left of it. But these items probably can't be found in the nearest town, which is 30 miles away. I will probably have to travel at least 60 miles and maybe 100, or more, to get them.
Abandoning the wood cutting, I turned to roofing. The wind has taken most of the roofing off the west sides of my barn and a couple of sheds. It is a job I have put off as long as I can. The snow and rainstorms of this spring certainly pinpointed all the trouble spots with a vengeance.
I have quite a collection of galvanized steel that has collected here through the years from buildings torn down in the oilfield and used mobile home skirting, so I decided to put it to use in covering the holes in the roofs. I don't particularly like getting up on a very steep roof anymore. I used to like climbing around on roofs as a youngster, and would even leap off a low-hanging edge to the ground. My agility level has gone down dramatically as I age, however, and I no longer relish the thought. Yesterday as I teetered around on the steep roof of one shed, I almost knocked my ladder to the ground. "Don't do that, you dummy," I told myself, thinking that poor Nacho wouldn't know what to do to help me get down.
Today I made blisters on my hand using tin snips to cut the metal, and where the hammer rubbed against my forefinger as I hammered many, many nails through steel. Although the outside Farenheight temperature was only 65 degrees, it got hot up there on the roof in the afternoon, so I came down. I will go riding for awhile, then try to finish the first shed before dark.
Well, I went riding, but I didn't quite finish the roof. I got sidetracked by going after the mail, then unloading the wood I cut yesterday. That's the beauty of being self-employed. There's always tomorrow, and you don't have to explain to anyone why you didn't finish the job.

Watching Mustangs

2008-09-02T20:21:00.001-07:00

I attended the Wyoming Mustang Challenge at the State Fair this year. I have never been a big fan of mustangs, but I gained a whole new appreciation for them at this contest. I had two friends in the competition, so my butt was glued to the bleachers for the duration of the two-day affair.
Area horse trainers were given the opportunity to test their horse training skills against others on a young horse that had never before been handled by humans. They were assigned a mustang through a draw pot and had about a hundred days to work with the animal and teach it as much as possible. The nice young man who starts colts for me was in the competition and I was asked to write a recommendation for him to be included. Another fine young man from the ranch I grew up on was also involved. They didn't win the competition, but their horses were some of the best trained and actually some of the high sellers in the adoption "sale" that followed. I kind of felt like the folks who voted with their dollars maybe saw some things the judges missed.
The horses were all three and four year-old geldings that had probably only been touched once before at the time they were castrated. This, of course, would not have been a positive experience with humans for them. So the trainers started with a large animal that not only had a disturst of humans, but probably also a fear.
It was simply amazing what they were able to accomplish with some of these animals in 100 days. Several of them had their mustangs jumping and nearly all of them could work cattle and even rope and stop a cow from their horse. One girl actually had hers jumping rope. Several of them could stand up on their mount's backs and one guy would do a back flip to get in the saddle and then do a front flip on his dismount.
I only saw one mustang buck with his trainer. He bucked so hard the rider's boot flew off. The guy was one of the older trainers out there, and he stayed astride. He was laughing as he rode out of the arena after retrieving his boot and getting back on. He tipped his hat. The next day he explained the mustang's behavior somewhat, saying he had neglected to warm him up properly, then gave him a "rude spur." The bucking exhibition rather hurt the horses price in the adoption, however. It brought nine hundred dollars, which was more than I thought it might.
The high-selling mustang brought $5,000. He was a large, high stepping bay ridden in a tight tie-down, and I didn't think he was one of the better trained horses. They had noted that he could be registered with the Pinto Association due to some white spots he had, and I think that is what caused his price to go up. The one I thought was the best trained brought $4,100 in the sale. He was doing high jumps while his owner shot a pistol and would drag a kid around the arena on a plastic tarp at a full gallop. His trainer said he started riding him the first day he had him home. He was the overall reserve champion in the competition.
Some of these "Mustangs" didn't fit the typical body and bone structure type of a feral horse. Many of them looked like typical Quarter Horses, and I suspect some are closely related to domestic horses that have been turned out on the range to run with the wild ones. At any rate, the Mustang Challenge Competition was a stroke of genius by someone to promote the training and adoption of these animals which are too plenteous and posing problems on the public range.
For more information, see http://mustangheritagefoundation.org/.

Busy Signal Going Off

2008-08-17T21:57:00.000-07:00

Yikes! I didn't realize I had gone so long without blogging. I've been very busy. I finally got out of the hay field, and then I had a fourteen year-old girl wanting to stay with me to help halter-break the foals. She was with me all last week, and she kept me BUSY! I forgot how active young teenagers could be, since moving home and away from my South Cheyenne redneck kids. Besides, I had to cook regular meals again, which I am out of the habit of doing.
We played with the foals, and she jumped aboard and rode any of the grown horses that would stand still for her to get on. She's a pretty good rider for no more than she gets to practice, and she actually has her own horse. She just doesn't live near where her horse does, so she doesn't get to spend much time with it.
We worked with the two larger foals the first day she was here, and they did pretty well, considering they were haltered only once before this. Here are some pictures of Marissa with those two.

However, we had a wreck with the smallest foal, Tiny, on the second day. She was being a little pill, and resisting the halter. Marissa was handling her as I led Tiny's dam, Jana, around the enclosure to try to get her to follow mama. Suddenly, Tiny sat back on the rope, and then reared up on her hind legs. Marissa let the rope go, and the foal lost her balance, falling over backwards and bonking her head on the ground. She floundered there, having involuntary muscle spasms and her head and neck were all out of control, so I ran to try to aright her. I thought she had broken her neck or back at the worst, and maybe put her eye out, too, as it instantly swelled shut. Her tongue was lolling around and she was having trouble breathing. I grabbed her tongue and held it so she wouldn't swallow it.
Marissa kept her cool throughout and I had her hold the filly's head up while I ran to get the vet box. By the time I got back, Tiny had come to, jumped to her feet, and was whinnying for her mama. Jana, who is not a very good mother, just continued munching on weeds in the corral through the whole episode.
I gave Tiny some Bantamine for her headache and she walked around very slowly for a couple of days with a lump on her head and her eye almost swollen shut. She's very cute, but she's a little fighter. I guess it's that cutting horse blood in her. My daughter has worked with cutting horses a lot and she says fighting is bred into them because they have to have that instinct to cut out and hold a cow. Tiny finally started paying attention to the lead rope after knocking herself silly and scaring me into a fit.
Here's a picture of Marissa goofing around on JR, my five year-old stallion. She was riding him around bareback with a halter. She rode into the barn and as she was coming out, she reached up, grabbed one of the exposed pipe rafters, and let JR go out from under her. Well, almost. He stopped as soon as he felt her lift off him and looked back as if to say, "What's going on back there?" He stood very still and she slid back down onto his back, and then did the whole thing again so I could get a picture. He did exactly the same thing the second time. When he felt her come off his back, he stood still as a statue, probably not wanting to step on her if she fell under him. That's the kind of horses you want!

Holy Cow, It's Hot!

2008-08-01T17:11:00.000-07:00

Summer is here with a vengeance. It's not quite as hot this summer as it was last, but it is hotter than I like it to be. We've had a few near 100 degree days and this coming Saturday is supposed to be over 100. At least it is cooling off at night this summer, unlike last summer. Last summer there were lots of nights that didn't go below 80. This summer it is going down around 60. Another argument against global warning.
I finally made it out of the hay field. We put up over 1000 big round bales of hay, each weighing around 1,300 pounds. Hay! Tons and tons of hay. It is the stuff Wyoming winters are made of.
I missed the 4th of July and Rawhide Days in Lusk because of being in the hayfield.
When I first came to Niobrara County, there were no Rawhide Days. A long time ago, Lusk had a writer in it's midst who came up with this romantic tale about cowboys and Indians, settlers, soldiers and bloodshed. It became a large outdoor play that was re-enacted every year before an audience, complete with horses, wagons, tipis, gunfire, milk cows and chickens. After many years of production, it was discontinued when interest flagged.
A few years after I moved here, it was resurrected. My friends and coworkers were all talking about it and signing up to be in it. Having never seen it, I didn't know exactly what it was, but they talked me into going to a rehearsal with them. I was just breaking Gremlin (black and white pony referred to in many other articles) who was about three at the time. My ex advised me I didn't have a horse that would "do the pageant," as he had seen it in it's earlier years. But I took Gremlin in to the rehearsal anyway, because it would be good for his training. I thought I would maybe sign up to be in the Cavalry, because I had a great big part-thoroughbred bay gelding I could use for that part. When I rode up to the grandstands on Gremlin, they asked me what part I wanted to play and I said, "I want to be in the Cavalry."
They said, "But you're an Indian!"
"No," I said, "I have another horse."
"You're an INDIAN," they stated emphatically, so I was an Indian for about ten years on Gremlin. He was great the first year as a three year old and everything was new to him, but the second and third years, he bucked me off. Then after a few years, he got so he knew the cues better than most of the Indians. He carried my son as an Indian for a couple years, and then carried my daughter one year as Mother Featherleggs and was a little confused by the change in roles.
The Pageant is amazing to me in two respects, one being that it continues to fill the grandstands after all these years, and that it involves a cast of hundreds, counting both people and animals, and it goes off without a hitch usually, and now with minimal rehearsals. I have never personally witnessed any fights or arguing about the Pageant itself, although I have witnessed a few "drunken Indians."

Here's a picture I took of my favorite Indian. Teresa plays the part of the Indian maiden who gets shot by a hot head from the wagon train, then doubles back to ride as an Indian warrior, then jumps off her horse and onto the travois to be carried out to the funeral pyre. She does get her revenge! She's an expert horsewoman.

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

2008-07-14T20:51:00.000-07:00

There is nothing like the smell of new-mown clover and alfalfa. It is heavenly. There's an old saying that goes, "Make hay while the sun shines." Well, that's what I've been doing--making hay. I got the opportunity to replace some of the truckload of hay ruined by the late spring rain as I help a neighbor put up his hay.
I've been running his swing tongue swather, which is a very large, complex machine that cuts the forage, rolls it through a crimper, and then throws it into a pile behind called a windrow. I absolutely love running the thing. I used to own one of my own, so I am an old hand at it, although I hadn‘t done it for so long, it took a short time to get back in the “swing“ of things. I thought I may never get to do it again, but by the grace of God, here I am.
When I get rolling with that machine, I just lose all track of time and I don't even care if I eat, which is unusual for me. I sit up there watching the hay pile up behind the swather as I listen for unusual noises, which tell me there is a problem either occurring, or about to occur. I spend time praying and just thinking. Sometimes I get to daydreaming and that's usually when I veer off my path or pick up a rock, which sometimes wreaks havoc with the cutter mechanism.
The breakdowns are as onerous as the operation is sweet. Everything on these machines is huge, except the little sickle sections and bolts that are usually damaged by the rocks. I have to get off the tractor, block the hydraulic cylinders that raise and lower the header, then crawl under the machine to replace the section and sometimes a rock guard, which is the second half of the cutting equation. It is hot, dirty and hard work.
When I took the job, I didn't know how my body would react to the long hours in the heat and dust. I really don't think I could have done it a year ago, just after my retirement from my "town job." Although I was active on my job, it was still a cushy job, usually in an air-conditioned office or company pickup truck. I was tired after the first twelve-hour day, but it was a good kind of tired, not the brain boggling stressful tired I used to be when I came home from a long day on the pipeline.
ConocoPhillips and all other DOT regulated pipeline operators insisted on so much emphasis on safety, that we hardly had time to get our work done. Right before I retired, we did a half-hour job and it took me three hours to round up and fill out all the required paperwork beforehand, then do a little bit more when the job was done! Today as I roaded the swather down the highway to a new location, I was thinking how we do need to be very aware of our own and other's safety, but not so much that we don't get our work done. The sun is shining and it's time to make hay!

Dog Days

2008-07-02T20:12:00.001-07:00

My daughter was home for a few days last week and this for her tenth class reunion. I can hardly believe she has been out of school that long. She brought her dog and I served as the dog sitter as she ran back and forth to town. I didn't know how my dog, Nacho, and hers, Cinch, would get along because they are both males. They never had a problem and even shared food with one another, which is quite remarkable. Nacho has a very easy-going nature, but Cinch can be rather territorial. He lived here as a puppy, but I guess he knows this is no longer his home. He's been in Texas for more than six years. Here's a shot of Cinch relaxing on Nacho's couch. He is very camera shy, though, because he's been shot at with guns before and he can't seem to differentiate the two.

Both boys are red-heeler crosses, but Cinch is quite a bit larger than Nacho. They were hoodlums when they got outside together. Cinch thinks he can chase anything that will run from him, and Nacho would take off behind Cinch when he was chasing something, although Nacho normally never chases anything. The cats were thoroughly terrified of Cinch.
One day as my daughter was leaving to go to town, she encountered a very mad rattlesnake in the driveway. She came back to the house wanting to know where a shovel was so she could kill the snake. We had to scramble the dogs back in the house so they wouldn't be bitten. This was the first rattler I have ever seen in my yard in the twelve years I have owned the place. I saw a bull snake puttering around the yard a couple days before that, and I left it alone because they are harmless and they catch mice, and I heard an old wives' tale once that says bull snakes will chase the rattlers away. I had an old aunt who once said, "You kind of quit believing in those old wives' tales, if you live long enough."
I surely didn't want my baby horses to get snake bitten. They are so curious about everything. The first thing they do is stick their noses down there to investigate a snake or porcupine, another creature I hate, and wind up getting bitten or a nose full of porcupine quills. I pray that doesn't happen.
Summer has arrived in full-force. We’ve had some ninety degree days. Last night we had a thunder-shower that bestowed six tenths of an inch of rain on us. The thunder and lightening was rocking the house again and Cinch was scared out of his wits. My daughter and her dog are gone again, and Nacho is moping around, missing his buddy. I'm moping around missing my daughter. Here she is with both dogs.

First Haltering

2008-06-26T19:13:00.000-07:00

I had some friends out Sunday after church and we haltered the foals for the first time. The foals didn't like it very much, but settled down after only a short time. Here's a picture of these friends leading a mom and baby and one of Doug holding and talking to the wee one.

This is what I love about raising horses. The foals are almost addictive. The disposition that my stallion puts on them just causes them to love people, and they are so smart. They learn quickly what you want them to do and they just want to please.
I feel like it's the death of a dream, however, when I remember just a couple months back when I was fighting for all I was worth to keep them alive, and I wonder if I want to ever go through that again, so I haven't turned the stallion out with any mares yet. Besides the horse market is so oversaturated, I wonder if it is responsible to breed any mares at all.
Maybe my accountant is right. I should get some cows. I have one, but she is going to the sale tomorrow. She's slightly over a year old and she weighed in at 930 pounds on my neighbor's certified scales last week. You want that kind. She started out small, and then really packed on the pounds. She has been strictly grass and hay fed--no grains of any sort and coming off a severe winter, so that rate of gain is almost unheard of under those conditions. I wish I had a whole truckload of them to sell.
I don't get nearly so emotionally invested in the cattle as I do the horses, and I just happen to have a whole truckload of what the rain has turned into cow hay, so perhaps I will get some cows.
Gremlin got to haul some kids around at the horse camp last week. He did well and the kids loved him. He was the only paint horse there, so they gravitated toward him and asked if they could ride the "pretty one." Here's a picture of him doing his thing with the kids.

The camp was a lot of work, but it all became worth it when I heard one little boy telling his friend that the horses were "the best part of the whole camp." I was shocked because they had many other fun activities for them, such as floating the river, picnics, games, crafts and "big toys," whatever that was.

Summer has arrived right on time. Temperatures are getting close to ninety during the day. At least it is cooling off at night, unlike last year at this time.

Kids and Horses all Week

2008-06-17T21:03:00.000-07:00

This week I'm helping with a kids camp horse riding activity. I took good old Gremlin since he is my best kid's horse. I surely do wish I could clone that old bugger. He was the only paint horse there and several times, I had more than one kid wanting to ride him. Several people made comments on the shape he is in for his age. He's 24, and is beginning to show his age a little, but they didn't know what he looked like before. He still has a surprising amount of spunk for his age, and the kids like that. Gremlin likes the kids also, but he was too tired to even lie down and roll when we were done with him today. That is usually the first thing he does after being turned loose, especially if he's sweaty. He was sweaty today. The temperature was 85 when the last bunch of kids stopped riding. Summer is finally here.
Yesterday as I was gathering things to take to camp, I heard my big palomino paint gelding whinnying at me. He was at the gate all by himself, and I thought something was amiss, because the rest of the herd was not in sight. Horses are very social creatures and it's very unusual for them to leave the herd on their own. At first, I thought he was just fighting flies and wanting in the barn for that reason, but he just kept hollering at me, so I went to see. My heart sank when I saw his bloody front foot.
He had gotten into some wire apparently, cut his pastern and didn’t even want to put any weight on it, so I opened the gate and he hopped through it. I let him in the barn and put some fly repellant on him, for which he seemed grateful. Since I was heading for town with Gremlin for the camp, I called the veterinarian and asked if I could bring him in. I wasn't sure how deep the cut was.
King even seemed grateful to hop onto the trailer. He is so smart. He knew he was in trouble, needed help, and he knew where to go to find it. He behaved perfectly at the vet clinic, even when the vet gave him a huge shot of penicillin.
So now, I've got one in the sick bay and Murphy continues to hang out at my place. I have to administer more penicillin for several days and re-bandage every day for a while. Fortunately, it wasn't very deep, but it's in an area that flexes at every step, so it will take some time to heal. I listed him for sale a couple weeks ago, but now that will have to be postponed.
He loves attention and now he's getting some, but he hates being penned by himself. That's good for him, though, because it helps break the herding instinct and they go out alone under saddle more readily.

Murphy Moved In

2008-06-11T19:05:00.000-07:00

Murphy has come to live at my ranch this spring. I keep trying to kick him out but he doesn't want to go, so whatever can go wrong, has gone wrong. Today I attended the funeral of a friend who served as my spiritual mentor these many years since I made my decision about 20 years ago. She was only 69. That's not old enough. This community still needs her. Carolyn had the red phone to God. When she called on Him in prayer, she never got the "busy" signal. God heard and answered her prayers. I don't know who will take up her mantle now.
Carolyn always had a sweet smile and an encouraging word. She was a 4-H horse leader for many years and I never saw her be critical. She coached the kids by praising what they did well.
Tommorrow I have to attend another funeral for a friend with whom I worked in the oil field. He was 70, and, like Carolyn, a great prayer warrior. Seems like God is mustering His army.
Right after the big rainstorm that caused me to struggle with my foals and cost me a truckload of hay for the lack of $100 worth of tarps, I went to flush out my swamp cooler and get it ready for summer use. The motor is seized. I replaced the motor about 12 years ago, and could replace it again, but the rest of the cooler is almost shot. I think it is as old as the house, probably. Besides, I don't like the humidity it puts into the house. Then my washing machine quit. What else can go wrong? Murphy, you've got to GO. Somebody close the gate behind Murphy as he leaves.

Going Home

2008-06-04T20:22:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of returning to a piece of my past this past weekend. Some friends who own the ranch I grew up on invited me to their cattle branding. I took Turkey, the horse, to ride, and my niece with her gray and white paint horse, Jack, to ride along with us. Here's a picture of Wendy on Jack.

As we drove past the house I grew up in, I couldn't help but slow down to gawk as memories flooded my mind. Then I remembered my niece was behind me with her truck and trailer, so I sped up. She said she had been doing the exact same thing. As we rode by on horseback, she remarked that she almost expected to see her grandmother, my Mom, come out on the porch and wave her apron. I could visualize that, also, and almost heard her voice. I should have taken a picture of the old place, but I didn't.
The creek that runs by had flooded, as did the creeks almost everywhere in Wyoming during the recent rainstorms. I remembered the floods we used to have almost yearly there on Middle Bear Creek when I was a kid. We could go out and play in the water if the current was not too rapid, but sometimes one couldn't cross in a vehicle for a day or two, because the water would drown out the engine, or there were big washouts you couldn't see under the surface of the water. This year's flood was substantial, like the ones I remember from my childhood.
The creek was still running and we had to cross it several times in the course of following the cattle back up the pasture to the branding corrals. Although Turkey has to put his feet in Lance Creek every day to get a drink, he thought he had to leap Middle Bear each time we crossed it. That was making me upset, but it was too beautiful a day to be upset. The sky was blue, the creek was running, the sagebrush and the pine trees smelled heavenly, I was back in my element, amongst people I know and love, and I was happy.
Gathering went off without a hitch and we didn't even spill them while trying to get them into the corrals, although the owner said he thought we might have missed a few down in the trees. There weren't as many riders as there usually are. It is getting harder and harder to find help to do the annual spring and fall cattle work on the ranches. High school and college kids no longer want, nor do most of them know how, to do it.
There was plenty of help this day, however everyone had a job. I'm not sure how many we branded, but we finished up just as the Boss Lady and her helpers brought in lunch. (The Boss Lady reads this blog because she was my high school English and Journalism teacher and now a publisher, and close as a sister, Hi Nancy!) Lunch was out of this world delicious. It always is. Nancy and her daughter knock themselves out cooking. They spread the feast out on the 20-foot bed of a gooseneck trailer. There was barbeque beef, bean salad, coleslaw, lettuce salad, scalloped corn, several jello salads, potato salad, carrot cake, chocolate pie, and peach cobbler with lots of iced tea.
Another highlight of the day was when two other of my nieces and their families showed up. I didn't know they were coming, and it was a great surprise. I gave a weanling filly to one of the niece's sons about five years ago, he started and trained her himself, and he had her there. Here's a picture of Layne on May. Layne has done a nice job with her and is, justifiably, very proud of her. That's the way I was hoping it would work out. There's nothing as good for the inside of a boy (or girl) as the outside of a horse.

Here are some general pictures of the branding activities, mostly the ropers who are the stars of the show.

Ode to Chester

2008-05-26T20:07:00.000-07:00

I have to tell a story about my friend who raises horses and is wheelchair-bound. It was his colt I struggled to save during the rainstorm. The colt died, by the way, but that's another story. This friend (I won't mention his name) lives in Texas, but maintains mares, foals and stallions on some land that is only about 40 miles from my ranch.
He planned to drive from his home in Texas to Wyoming, arriving late Friday. He had bought airplane tickets for a woman horse trainer to come help him load and haul a mare he wanted to take back to Texas. This college-aged woman, went out on the town with friends on Friday night and wound up spending the night in jail, thus missing her flight to Denver and leaving my friend with no help on the return trip.
Don't you think most people confined to a wheelchair would have abandoned the plan? Not my friend. I hardly believe he did this myself, but he hooked up his trailer, loaded the mare and headed back to Texas, driving non-stop except to fuel his van. He said he found some nice people at a gas station that helped him water his mare partway through the trip.
The alternator went out of his van about 30 miles from his destination!
I tried to drive straight through to Mineral Wells, Texas, when my daughter lived there, but was unable to make it. I had to pull over and sleep a while. My friend continues to be an inspiration.
Now, about the dead colt--the little guy had problems from the start. His mama didn't want him, and he started following another mare that had lost her foal, but had already stolen another foal from another mare. Now the "robber" mare had two foals following her. We corralled them and paired the colt back up with his dam. She still really didn't want him, and had to be haltered and made to stand while he nursed as she tried to bite and kick him. My friend thought they would mother up in a few hours, but that wasn't happening. I needed to get home, so I offered to take them both back to my place and continue the process there.
The mare did start accepting the foal more and more, but something just didn't seem right with this foal from the start. He was not jittery as most are, and was not aggressive about nursing, either. Then he was straining to eliminate. I thought he was compacted, so I gave him some mineral oil by mouth. Nothing happened. I called my daughter, who has a Master's Degree in Equine Reproduction, and she said to give him an enema. This was a new one for me. I had never given anything an enema before, but here I was giving a colt an enema! Still nothing passed.
He got a little stronger for a few days, and then the rain hit in. Over half our annual average precipitation fell from the sky in two days and three nights. My corrals turned to soup, so I had to shut him and his dam in my tiny little barn so he would have a dry place to lie down. After I confined him to the small area, I noticed he was eliminating, however, his urine was dribbling out in a strange way, so I looked under his belly, and there were no male parts, to speak of. He had a little nodule with a couple little holes in it where the urine was coming out. I called my daughter and my friend in alarm. My friend asked me to inspect his apparatus to help pinpoint the problem. It felt like he had a penis, but it was turned inward and encased.
He was becoming weaker and lying down a lot of the time, only standing to nurse occasionally. Then his hind leg swelled. I thought the mare had stepped on him. By now, there was no possible way to get him to a vet because the creek was flooding and my road was so muddy, I could not have gotten to the county road with my trailer. My friend asked if I had any Bantamine and I gave him some of that. That seemed to help a little, as the swelling subsided and he was able to stand better. My daughter said the swelling in the leg and joint was probably rather related to the waste material going throughout his body than to his being stepped on by the mare. I'm sure she is correct. My friend thought that since he did have some urine coming out and it seemed clear and not cloudy, the situation might solve itself.
"Chester," as I had begun calling him, gave up his fight for life on Saturday night. I fully expected to find him dead that morning, but it still hit me like a ton of bricks. I cried as if he had been my own colt. I couldn't go to church Sunday because I knew I would be crying like a baby during services and everyone would think I was a lunatic. All this just makes me know I should not try to run a horse breeding operation.
Chester was nobody's fault, just a freak of nature. His dam knew all along and that is why she tried to reject him. Horses just know. Yet it tore me up to lose him after I had fought so hard to save his life. RIP, Chester. You were a good little colt, and I know I will see you in heaven. Somebody close the gate while I wipe my eyes again.

Oh Lord, I think I want my drought back!

2008-05-24T17:08:00.000-07:00

I now officially declare the seven-year drought over. Five or six inches of rain, one flooded creek, water in the basement, and mud everywhere testifies to that fact. What wild weather. I haven't seen anything like this since I was a kid. That's a long time ago. My friend from Texas just asked me if I ever had to worry about the creek getting up to the house. I told him only every 50 years or so do we have a flood that would threaten the house. This must be the year.
The weather service predicted it, as it was coming in almost a straight line down the center of Wyoming starting on Wednesday, May 21. As I drifted off to sleep, I watched a phenomenal light show going on outside my window, and the thunder literally rocked me to sleep. Unbeknownst to me, the lightening was as close as to strike a tree down on the creek about a quarter mile from the house. It knocked a big chunk of the tree to the ground and set it on fire. Fortunately, the rain put the fire out. Two or more inches fell that first night.
I went out the next morning to check my babies and see if they weathered the storm. They did; luckily, we didn't get the hail along with it that other areas got. The corrals had turned to soup, and there was not a dry place for them to lie down, as I had a colt belonging to a friend in the sick bay, my barn. The storm continued all day Thursday, Thursday night, and Friday. I hovered over the sick baby in the barn and prayed for the storm to end and the baby to live. The rain finally stopped early Saturday morning. Everyone is still alive, including me, but just barely. This seems like a never-ending nightmare. My fence washed out in only one place where the creek crosses it, so I'll have fencing to do when the water recedes.
If I live to be 100, I will remember the winter and spring of 2007-2008. Here are some photos of the creek flooding.

Sick Babies and Me

2008-05-16T19:11:00.000-07:00

After my marathon foaling, I jumped on a plane to head to North Carolina to visit my other baby, my six-month old grandson. I had to scramble to get thing arranged so I could be at my son's for Mother's Day. Friends from church volunteered to keep my stallion at their place to keep him out of trouble. A neighbor would check the rest of my livestock on his way by every day. I had to build some fence to be sure there would be no wrecks. The storm and the foaling, along with getting ready for the trip had so stressed me, I came down with a terrible cold.
It was horrible on the flight. I was coughing and sneezing and blowing my nose until I thought my seatmates would ask for a particle mask. My grandson already had a cold, so I didn't worry about infecting him. He was all smiles. What a good baby. The only time he fusses is when he is hungry. He watches TV already, and not just glances. He watches intently for up to 20 minutes at a time and he actually giggles when something funny happens on TV. One of the children's DVDs his parents have for him has a duck puppet that reaches out with its beak to grab a dog puppet's nose and then there is a honking noise, and that baby giggles every time he sees that. Here's a picture of him watching TV from his "office," a little place for him to sit that has a swivel seat with stimulating toys surrounding him.

He's not crawling yet, but did learn to flip from his back to his stomach while I was there, then his first tooth erupted a day after I left. I knew he was teething, not because he was cranky, because he wasn't, but he was slobbering and chewing on everything in sight, including his toes after his bath, as in this picture. So I was there, basically, for two "firsts" in his life.

My cold got a little better on Saturday and Mother's day. My daughter-in-law took me for two "firsts" in my life on Saturday--a professional manicure and pedicure. This was quite different, because my feet are so ticklish, but the results were great. Not sure I would ever do that again, however. Too urbane for this country chick.
The cold came roaring back on Monday just in time for the flight home. I was very ill when the plane touched down in Cheyenne. My friend insisted I stay the night with her, and I was grateful, because I didn't think I could drive the three hours home with every part of my body aching--even my teeth.
When I did get home, I had sick babies here, of the equine variety. I had turned the mares and new foals out on the meadow and two of them had foal-heat diarrhea. The palomino paint baby was the worst. She had it so badly she should have died. I corralled the mares and foals and went to doctoring them, even though I should probably have been seeing a doctor myself. I poked some large doses of Pepto Bismol down them and cleaned the paint filly's behind so I could put some ointment on it. The acid from the diarrhea had already eaten a lot of her hair coat off and the skin below her tail dock was just raw.
I went and retrieved my stallion then fell into bed, seriously thinking I might die in my sleep. Although I'm not afraid to die, I didn't know how long it might be before someone missed me, so I said some prayers for both my fillies and me. The good news is that all of us are better, although the cold is still with me. Palomino paint was feeling so much better today, she even struggled a little when I gave her more Pepto. I followed that with some plain yogurt, as recommended by my daughter, to replace the good flora in her stomach. She rather liked the yogurt, I think. She swished it around in her mouth awhile before swallowing, probably to get rid of that bad Pepto taste. I don't blame her, I don't like Pepto Bismol, either, but it works.

A 72 Hour Blizzard and Foal-a-thon

2008-05-07T06:06:00.000-07:00

I just survived seventy two hours of hell and I feel like I've run a marathon. I know I worked harder than I've ever worked in my life. I had three more mares to foal, all of them due last week. The National Weather Service began posting a winter storm watch for our area on Weds. One mare foaled mid-morning on Wednesday. That was Peggy. I was a little concerned about her, since I hadn't owned her when she foaled previously. She did fine, but now I had this little baby to worry about keeping warm and dry.
The storm began closing in. I got as ready as I could. I had all three mares in the corral due to the wreck I had with the first one foaling early and not surviving it (see earlier post). My barns are pretty drafty, though, and the corrals turn to soup whenever they get moisture of any kind. I worried how I would keep the new babies warm and dry.
I set up camp in the truck parked out by the barn. It was just easier than running in and out of the house, removing overboots, coats and hats, and getting in and out of a warm bed every hour. I have trouble making myself get out of a warm bed once or twice a night to go check, let alone every hour. Nacho and I dozed in the truck. I prayed to God to make the storm miss us. Listening to the radio in the truck, it sounded like it was going to do just that. The winter storm warning went back to a "watch." About 8:30 p.m. they said maybe just some flurries with high winds. About 9:30 the flurries and the wind began. Soon it looked like a scene from "Battlestar Galactica" and there were big snow flakes coming down sideways driven by about a 50 mph. wind. I got soaking wet when I got out to do the 10:30 check.
Each time I got out all three mares were in the barns, just blinking at me. The storm worsened. I went to the house at daybreak and napped a little. When I went back out, the wind had kicked up to about 60 mph and Peggy's poor little baby was cold, wet and shivering as the snow swirled around her in the barn. I fashioned a foal blanket for her out of a wool saddleblanket and strapped it around her middle with two small halters. I had to cinch them rather tight to keep the blanket on her. I held her ears and nose in my hands to melt the ice cicles out of them. When I turned her loose in the corral, she acted like a rodeo bronc because she didn't like the halter chinched tightly in her flanks. She squalled and bucked twice around the corral, slipping and falling in the mud. All the other horses came running to see what was happening. I was laughing very hard. The blanket served the purpose, and she remained warm enough.

The wind was just howling and driving the snow. It was the worst blizzard we'd had here in about nine years. By eleven a.m. when I went out to check mares, I couldn't see to get to the barn. The snow was swirling around in my face so hard I couldn't keep my eyes open. I prayed and waited for the wind to go down. The weather service said it would clear out about noon. It was 2:30 when the wind began to die down. Thankfully, neither of the other two mares foaled during all that.
I knew the one was getting very close, though, as she had started pushing a lot of wax out her teats. That's a sure sign they are going to foal soon. I also knew the temperature would drop like a rock when the storm cleared out. I prayed hard and cleaned the snow out of the barn so she would have a dry place to foal. Then I hunkered down for another night in the truck.
About midnight-thirty Friday night, the stallion, who was up in the stock trailer next to the truck for safe-keeping, and because I needed his stall, became very agitated. I went to check. I heard Lady grunting before I got to the barn. I shined the flashlight and could see the head and both front feet of the foal, so I knew things were going well. She gave another small push, then a great big one, and out came a large foal. Lady sighed and wanted to rest a minute. I could see the foal had the placenta over it's head, so I stepped in to tear it open so she could breathe. Then Lady jumped up and went to cleaning her foal. I went to the house to call my best friend who was awaiting news and get some towels to help dry the foal.

I looked at the thermometer. It was 18 degrees above zero. I didn't want a crop-eared horse, which would result if her ears froze. Lady had the foal pretty much cleaned off when I got back to the barn and she was floundering around, trying to stand. I dried her ears carefully, then rubbed the rest of her body as I tried to help her stand. Lady put up with me for a short time, then she started just sort of tapping a front foot on the ground in front of the foal, as if to say, "Enough already, I can take it from here." I went back to the truck for another half-hour. When I checked back in, the foal was standing and trying to nurse. It was a palomino paint filly-- just what I'd prayed for. I breathed a sigh of relief and went to a warm bed for some sleep.
Saturday dawned bright and beautiful, so I went back out and moved the other mare into the "birthing place" about eleven a.m. She foaled at noon that day all by herself. I think I was as relieved as the mares to be done foaling. It seemed like a nightmare that was never going to end. I called my friend and screamed for joy.

Live Foal, Finally!

2008-04-30T11:39:00.000-07:00

This morning when I did the 5:30 a.m. check, I could tell my bay mare was very close to foaling. I moved her into a corral by herself, fed her and the rest of the horses, then went back in to make coffee and breakfast. When I went back out in about an hour, she had foaled, passed the placenta, cleaned the little filly off and Pooh was trying to stand up. I was more than thrilled. This is Permalight Junior's first live offspring. She already shows his great disposition. I just did the noon feeding, and she "talked" to me. She was near the fence when I went to throw the hay over, and she faced me and nickered! She's sorrel with a big, even white blaze and hind stockings, plus maybe a short sock on at least one front. It's hard to tell sometimes when they are first born, because their legs are kind of grey and the white is not very distinct. Here's a picture of Pooh and her dam.

This mare is wonderful. Anyone can ride her and she is very responsive and soft-mouthed. She also has a great disposition. Prescription Check is her registered name, but her common name is Peggy. She is AQHA Incentive Fund registered and goes back to Doc Bar, Dash for Cash and Poco Bueno. Here's another pic that shows her maternal side. She's nuzzling Pooh's behind as she nurses.

Call me Calamity Jane

2008-04-29T20:08:00.000-07:00

I am so discouraged. It feels like my prayers have been hitting the ceiling, bouncing off and not getting to God for a whole year now. I thought He was leading me to retire from my job and move back here, and that all worked out beautifully, but almost nothing has worked as I planned since then. I heard an interview with Art Linkletter on the radio the other day and he said, "If you want to make God laugh, just tell Him your plans." I must be a continual source of amusement for God.
I knew the finances were going to be a little tight until I either get my newest truck paid off or sold. I tried selling it and that didn't work. Nobody wants to buy used vehicles anymore, or if they do, they want a bargain basement price. I tried selling some horses and that didn't work, either. I even tried to give one away and she came up lame, so no one wanted her. I just took one to a sale, but had to pass him out and bring him home. I thought God had given me a good position in the sale line-up, but it turned out to be a bad one. My horse was number nine, but several ahead of him just didn't show up, so everyone was reluctant to bid, because the market was not yet established. Several lesser quality horses sold later in the sale for more money than my bid. With all commodities for living and ranching going sky high, I am considering looking for another job.
Disaster struck again when one of my best mares died trying to foal. It was her first attempt, but she was nearly five years old, so she should have been able to foal on her own. The foal looked completely healthy, but had a front foot folded back. She was the last mare to breed, so I wasn't expecting her to be the first to foal and I wasn't paying as close attention as I could have been. I have three more pregnant mares and I have been arising out of bed two or three times each night to check for trouble. They have all foaled before, so hopefully, there won't be any further problems. Does lightening ever strike twice in the same place? I hope not. I've had enough setbacks.

Do you Boycott Roedos?

2008-04-15T19:53:00.000-07:00

Well another band pulled their magic carpet out from under Cheyenne Frontier Days and what few fans may have attended their scheduled concert. This time it's Matchbox Twenty, of whom I had never before heard. They cited potential animal abuse that may or may not occur at rodeos. Carrie Underwood did the same a couple of years ago.
I've really had to search my heart about this subject since my younger sister, who has lived in New York for over 20 years, told me her family boycotts rodeo. I, on the other hand, have been not only a fan, but a participant at times. Frankly, I think the livestock that is supplied to the rodeo circuit has a better life than a lot of "pet" animals, especially horses. I have seen far more horses abused by their riders in the English Equestrian type sports, such as jumping and eventing, than I have at rodeos.
The bucking horse has an advantage in that there is no bit in its mouth and it is expected to buck. Some horses are just renegades, and not good for anything except being in a bucking string. They love to buck. They revel in it. If not for rodeo, they would be otherwise dispatched in a hurry.
I had the pleasure of seeing Khadafy Skoal being paraded around the Thomas and Mack Arena in Las Vegas the year he was voted the top bucking horse in the world. He was the picture of health and didn't look abused to me--but then I was two seats from outside and way up in the nosebleed section! I did have a good pair of binoculars, though. His perfect blue roan flesh rippled as he came through the arch of roses they prepared just for him. He pranced and arched his neck in enjoyment as he gazed at all the spectators, then went on to drill another cowboy's head into the arena sand that evening. Hank Franzen retired him a couple of years later to their ranch in Wyoming.
My sister seemed to object mostly to the use of spurs on the animals. Professional rodeo regulations call for blunt tips on the rowels (little wheelie things) and that they roll freely so that they are just more of an irritation than anything. Horses and cattle have much thicker skin than we do, usually with a thick hair coat, and normally don't feel pain from the spurs, just an irritation, same as the mild shock from a cattle prod. Rodeo is a part of our western heritage, and spurs are part of that tradition.
There are over 60 rules in place and enforced by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association and others governing the care and handling of rodeo stock. Also, statistics are kept on the rate of injury to the animals and according to the National Animal Interest Alliance that rate is somewhere around five hundredths of one percent per animal exposure. I think that compares favorably with the rate at which my domesticated livestock gets injured as it lives life out in the pastures on my ranch.
The comments in the Casper Star Tribune online concerning the cancellation by Matchbox Twenty, were running about 50 percent more in favor of the sport of rodeo than those opposed the last I checked. But this is Wyoming, not Long Island. That would probably be reversed out there.

Riding a Turkey

2008-04-10T12:58:00.000-07:00

I have been getting a gelding ready to sell, so I have been riding nearly every day. I love to ride, but riding by yourself is definitely not fun. Turkey has never bucked, but he is a little herd-bound. He doesn't like to go out by himself, either. However, I've been making him do it. I worry about getting bucked off, hurt, and nobody would know for a week or more. Here's a picture of me on Turkey.

Turkey got his barn name when he was a weanling. He picked up a nail in his front hoof and became lame. My daughter and her boyfriend had the task of dislodging the nail and disinfecting the wound. Turkey really didn't appreciate what they were doing and he acted like a real "turkey." They got the job done and Robin Boy Blue (his registered name) got his common name.
Turkey has a unique personality. He can't keep his lips off anything, especially anything plastic or rubber. He would turn the hydrant on, so I put a splitter on and covered the hydrant with a plastic bucket, which I wired to the fence. Well, it took him a few days, but somehow Turkey was able to wiggle the bucket up and managed to turn the little flipper on the hose splitter. The hydrant was gushing water when I got home from work that day. Between Turkey and me, we are not very good conservators of water.
I got so mad at myself yesterday. I needed to fill the stock tanks with water. I started the first one, which was almost empty. I figured it would take about 20 minutes to fill, so I went in the house to have coffee. Guess what, I forgot. I goofed around for over an hour before I remembered the water was running. I even went back outside, unloaded some hay, and moved some equipment around without remembering the overflowing tank. I cursed myself and went to fill the next tank. Guess what? I forgot again. That one was in the barn, so now I have a wet barn, and it's not due to the five to six inches of snow that has fallen in the past 12 hours. I think old age has come and lit. Somebody close the gate.

Cutter Bill

2008-04-08T09:49:00.000-07:00

Cutter Bill was a palomino stallion bred by R.L. Underwood of Wichita Falls, Texas, and foaled in 1955. Bill was a great grandson of the foundation stallion Golden Chief, owned by Underwood. Cutter Bill was owned by Rex Cauble of Houston, Texas.
Bill was started in cutting as a three year old and proved very capable at it, thus the name Cutter was added to Bill. In 1962, he carried his owner to a world championship in the National Cutting Horse Association, then came back for a reserve world championship in 1963. His lifetime earnings in the NCHA amounted to $35,964, which was a lot of money in those days. Cauble built a showplace for Cutter Bill outside Denton, Texas, and there was also a western wear line named for Cutter Bill.
Permalight Junior displays a throwback to the temperament of Cutter Bill in that neither had a buck in them. Rex Cauble relates that when he first saddled Cutter Bill and got on, there was no funny business. Cutter Bill just walked out. My trainer related the same routine with Permalight Junior.
Cutter bill was a very beautiful horse, with a pretty head and outstanding conformation. He also won American Quarter Horse Show points at halter. He was inducted into the AQHA Hall of Fame in 2003, as he had been to the Palomino Horse Breed Association in 1982, which was also the year he died.

JR's Ancestors

2008-04-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

This will be the first in a series about Permalight Junior's Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred ancestors. Here's our stallion, JR under trainer, Tim Millikin.

One of Permalight Junior's foundation ancestors was Peter McCue. Peter McCue was foaled around the turn of the century; records indicate 1895, by the stallion Dan Tucker and out of a mare known as Nora M. Peter McCue was foaled on Samuel Watkins' farm outside of Petersburg, Illinois, and was registered as a Thoroughbred so that he could be raced at that time..
Known for his blazing speed, he ran the quarter-mile in 21 seconds flat, a time that wasn't beaten for decades. A Peter McCue son, Badger, sired Midnight, in 1916 and Midnight became even more of a racing sensation, winning so many matches that eventually, no one would race against him.
Peter McCue sired Hickory Bill in 1907, the horse through which Permalight Junior traces his lineage to Peter McCue. Among Peter McCue's other famous offspring are Joe Hancock, Sheik, Harmon Baker, John Wilkins, Buck Thomas, Harry D. Duck Hunter, Carrie Nation, Chief, Squaw (won 49 out of 50 starts) and Jack McCue. Harmon Baker sired Sancho, Harmon Baker, Jr., Seal Skin, Dodger, Big Nigger, and Little Joe (New Mexico), John Wilkins sired Joe Hancock. About a third of all Quarter Horses trace their lineage back to Peter McCue.
Although there was not an American Quarter Horse Registry during Peter McCue's active life, such foundation Quarter Horse sires as Old Sorrel, Wimpy P-1, Peppy, Bert, Ding Bob, Midnight Jr, Grey Badger II, Pretty Boy, Pretty Buck, Blackburn, Nowata Star, Poco Bueno, King Fritz, Cowboy P-12, Plaudit, Nick S, Skipper W, Jessie James, King's Pistol, and a host of others, in addition to those noted above, are all descendants of Peter McCue.
Coy's Bonanza, Blondy's Dude, Two Eyed Jack, Zan Parr Bar, and Rugged Lark and other prominent current Quarter Horse sires trace to Peter McCue. Here at Harveys Horses, we also have mares that trace to Two Eyed Jack and Zan Parr Bar.
To be continued.....next installment--Cutter Bill.

Winter of our Discontent

2008-03-29T10:40:00.000-07:00

I heard a Meadowlark yesterday, can spring be far behind? I hope not. I am tired of winter and so is everybody else that I talk to.
I am trying to think of ways to make this little farm pay. My accountant has asked me in the past, "Is your objective to make money?" I guess she is required by law to ask that since I have never turned a profit here on the ranching operation.
My answer is, "I'd love to, I just can't figure out how." I have a 60 acre unirrigated hay meadow that needs to be torn up and replanted. With hay at an all-time high of around $150 a ton, and no end in sight, I am considering this option. Of course, if the drought is over, then hay will become more abundant and prices should come back down a little. I really wish now I had not sold all my machinery at auction for bargain-basement prices when I knew I was getting transferred out on my job.
Another option is to plant some sort of oil seed for biodiesel, or oats or sunflowers. I heard a program on the radio yesterday saying sunflower seeds are in such high demand, they are not feasible to use for bird feeding anymore. Sunflowers will grow anywhere, I believe, in any kind of soil. The soil up on the hay meadow is pretty much clay, like the rest of the soil in the area, but does tend to be a bit more sandy than in some places. I was told a former owner, my old friend, Sturdy, to be exact, planted an oat crop there many years ago and reaped a bumper crop.
So, if anyone out there has any farming advice for me, I would welcome it. I am considering processing my own biodiesel here at the ranch if I go that route. I have a few old farm fuel tanks that aren't being used, and I think it possible.

Easter Blizzard

2008-03-26T17:33:00.000-07:00

I am sure the seven-year drought is over because we had our Easter blizzard. It came in with an undeclared vengeance on Saturday morning. Before noon, we had six inches of heavy, wet snow on the ground. The weather service had only been predicting a gray, chilly day, no white stuff. Well, we got it. The electricity flickered on and off as the ice played on the lines. Just like the Easters of my college days. I remember trying to get home from Laramie on several Easters when the roads were closed. Seemed like it never failed.
We have just a tinge of green starting to color the hills. The mares and cattle are out chasing down every blade of green grass they can find. Today the wind is blowing about 60 miles per hour. The wind speed seems to correspond with the temperature. Sixty degrees - sixty mile per hour wind.
The four mares that are carrying foals are getting, well, as big as horses. Lady is still packing, and I am so thrilled. I may get another foal out of her after all. Poor Whitney, this is her first, and she is so uncomfortable. She is moving around like a slug and she actually grunts when she walks. Only about a month to go. I gave them their last Pneumabort shot a few days ago. Here's

Whitney.
My phone has been out again for about a week. Last month it was out for two weeks and the phone company had a very hard time finding the problem. Finally, they found where a tree had fallen down by the creek and there were rabbits living in the tree and burrowing down under it. The tree happened to fall right over where the phone line was buried. The rabbits encountered the cable in their burrow, so they chewed it in two. I guess they didn't see a need for a phone line in their house. I have an idea the process repeated itself this past week.
Although I don't like talking on the phone, it does make the isolation more acute when it goes out. My family and friends get worried, so I try to email most of them to let them know when the phone is out. One friend was about to call the Sheriff to have them come out and check on me last month when it was out for so long.
My phone used to dial 911 automatically, when it went out due to inclement weather. The dispatcher would try to call back, but with the phone out, they couldn't, so a deputy had to respond. They'd come flying out here usually on bad roads, to see if there was a problem. Then they would cause me to have a small heart attack when I looked out to see a deputy knocking on my door on a cold, dark night. I finally isolated the problem to a single phone jack in my house. Since I quit using that jack, there have been no more midnight rides to the Harvey Ranch.

Another Sturdy Story

2008-03-16T19:41:00.000-07:00

Sturdy and I were riding over by Lost Springs one fall, helping Ted Pennington gather cattle in order to wean the calves. I was riding Gremlin. This was after he had quit trying to unload me every chance he got.
It was a great big, rough pasture with a lot of hills and draws, so we all spread out to scour the gulleys for critters. I was riding along at the top of a soft, steep bank when Gremlin began to side down it sideways. I was probably leaning toward the bank, trying to keep Gremlin from sliding, when my saddle turned sideways. I bailed out of it before it went under Gremlin's belly and he ran off down the draw bucking and kicking at the saddle that had, by now, gone up side down. He was headed back in the direction where we had last seen Sturdy.
I took off running down the draw after him, because I knew old Sturdy would have a heart attack if he saw a rider-less Gremlin coming over the hill. I had to keep stopping and picking up pieces of my tack and finally, the whole saddle came into view lying on the trail. He had kicked it off. I threw it up over my shoulder, grateful it was not my heavy roping saddle.
Sure enough, here came Sturdy whipping and spurring up over the hill. He had caught sight of Gremlin rider-less and saddle-less and immediately loped off in the direction the old black and white son-of-a-gun had come from in order to look for me. He sure was relieved to see me stomping down the trail.
Ted came over the hill on his four-wheeler, so I threw my saddle in the carrier and hopped on behind him. We followed the herd on into the house, but Gremlin wouldn't come along. He just stayed up in the pasture; in fact, he went to the far side of the pasture. He was trying to go home.
Another of Gremlin's bad habits is that he is almost impossible to catch outside of a corral. We stewed and worried about how we were going to catch him. I allowed that someone would probably have to run him down on another horse and rope him.
Sturdy said he bet if we just took my trailer up there with another horse in it and opened the gate, Gremlin would jump right in there. I almost bet him he wouldn't.
So we loaded up the best rope horse and the best roper of the bunch and went back to the far end of the pasture. Sure enough, I couldn't believe my eyes, but it happened just as Sturdy said. Old Sturdy was puffed up so big after that, he almost burst his buttons. He sure did like to tell that story. All's well that ends well.
I've been trying to find a picture of Sturdy to include, but my pictures are in a jumbled mess right now. Somebody close the gate.

Stompin Broncs with Sturdy

2008-03-12T17:26:00.000-07:00

I sure do miss old Sturdy. He and I used to ride together and break colts together. He had a lot of knowledge about horses, although he did things the old-fashioned way. When they didn't behave in the ways he wanted them to, he took to them.
He would always train his saddle horses to jump up in the back of the pickup through the open tailgate and stock rack, flat footed off the ground. No backing up to bank for this old cowboy. He'd give them a few passes at it and if they balked, he'd get out his buggy whip. Pretty soon, they were down right glad to bail in the back of that truck, and would do it anywhere.
I was having trouble with Gremlin after the infamous elk-hunting incident I wrote about in an earlier blog. He had managed to buck me off twice in the space of an hour one day because I got dumb and put the wrong size hackamore on him. I had been working with another horse that had a larger head than Gremlin using the same hackamore. I had let it out for her, and then forgot to take it back up for him. The bosal went way down on the end of his nose, where it didn't cause him any discomfort, so he put his head down and bucked me off. Still not realizing the headstall was too large, I gathered him up and got right back on. He immediately bogged his head and tossed me off again. That time, I was mad when I got up and I went over and grabbed the reins of the hackamore and jerked on them to tell him how mad I was. When I did that, the bosal flipped up from under his jaw and I saw what was causing the problem. Well, by then he thought he was pretty hot stuff and when I went to get back on, after I'd shortened the headstall, he wouldn't let me. He just kept circling and trying to buck as I got on. Being the hardheaded person that I am, I did manage to get back on to ride him back to the barn and put him up.
I went down to the Pronghorn to nurse my wounds and try to figure out what to do. Sturdy was there, so I told him my troubles. He was already three sheets to the wind, and he said, "Well, bring him out. We'll show him, if he wants to buck, what happens."
I don't think Sturdy even remembered telling me to bring him out, but I took him up on it bright and early the next morning. Sturdy had a slightly younger man staying with him at the time, but he had gotten up and gone to work already. Sturdy was nursing some coffee when I got there. He invited me in. "I brought that horse," I said.
He stuttered a little and then said, "Well, John's not here. He had to go to work."
"I know," I said, "but you told me to bring him out and you'd straighten him out for me."
"Oh, well," Sturdy nodded, "we'll see about that."
So we went to the corral and I unloaded Gremlin. Sturdy had some four-way hobbles that he went to get. He put them on Gremlin, who proceeded to have a little fit about them. We let him go around in the hobbles for a while until he decided he could, then Sturdy gathered him up and motioned me to get on.
"Are you going to scrape me up out of this corral when he bucks me off?" I asked.
"Well, if you think he's gonna do that," Sturdy said boldly, "I'LL ride him." So he got on. Gremlin didn't like it much, but he didn't try to buck with Sturdy, who rode him around the corral a while with the hobbles on. When he was going around there pretty good, Sturdy had me very carefully take the hobbles off, then continued to trot and lope him around the corral. When he had a little sweat breaking, Sturdy got off and told me, "Now you get on."
I walked up to Gremlin and took the reins in one hand and the stirrup in the other, but when I went to put my foot in the stirrup, he gave a little mean squeal and struck out with a front foot. He was warning me not to get on him. Sturdy stepped up, yelled at Gremlin, and held him while I got on. I rode him around the corral just like Sturdy had, until he kind of settled down. Then I dismounted and mounted several times.
Sturdy was a storyteller. We used to call them Sturdy stories. Well, he sure liked to tell that story. He was so proud that he'd helped me tame my renegade, and I was too. But the story got bigger every time he told it. Pretty soon word got around that Gremlin was cow-kicking the stirrup right out of my hand when I went to get on, and Sturdy stepped in there and kicked him a good one right in the belly. Oh well, it was his story, I let him tell it however he wanted to. I was just glad to have his help to get a handle on my little renegade again.
All the guys up here kept telling me I'd better sell Gremlin--that he was going to hurt me. Well, he did hurt me a few times, but I'm still here and so is he, 24 years and counting.

My Old Friend, Sturdy

2008-03-08T12:04:00.000-08:00

Sturdy was one of the first people I met when I moved to Lance Creek. His sister owned the local tavern, where I soon became a regular. He was probably nearly 75 years old at that time. He had lived most of his life in Niobrara County. A hard drinkin' old cowboy, he would put away about a fifth of whiskey a week. He was still raising and starting colts when he was 83 or so. He died when he was 85.
In the course of a normal day, Sturdy would load a horse up in his pickup stockrack, go help someone ride to gather or work cattle, wind up back at the Pronghorn Tavern by two or three in the afternoon, then drink until his sister, Esther, who owned the place, had to pour him out the door. They fought like siblings, or worse. Esther would mix Sturdy a drink, and he'd look at it disapprovingly, and say, "I thought you might put a little whiskey in that." She'd get mad and pour him a straight shot with only three tiny ice cubes, and that would make him happy.
Esther and her husband, Jim, fought like cats and dogs. A lot of people in the community only went to the bar to see what they were fighting about that day. One fine Saturday morning, Sturdy and his stepson came in all dressed up and wanted Esther to cash a check for them, because they were going to a horse sale. Esther took their check, and said, "Oh, kid," she called everyone kid, "Jim just went up to the pasture and if you just wait a few minutes he'll be back, and I know he'll want to go with you." She fetched their liquid refreshments they'd ordered, and then just figeted with their check in her hands. After about twenty minutes, Pat, Sturdy's stepson, said, "Esther, we're in a hell of a hurry, would you just cash the check, or we're going to be late for the horse sale." Esther acted like she hadn't heard him.
Presently, Jim came tottering in the back door, and Esther lit into him like ugly on an ape. "Alright you old s.o.b. These guys are going to the horse sale, and I suppose you're going with them and leave me here to pack this beer all by myself!" She was using some reverse psychology, I think.
Jim covered his head and ran for his stool, "No, no, I'm not going anywhere," he said as he began reading his newspaper.
So Esther reluctantly fetched some cash from the drawer, handed it to Pat, and he and Sturdy went on to the horse sale.

Twins Should Have Ponies

2008-03-01T20:17:00.000-08:00

Growing up in a family of 14, counting parents, sure was fun. Challenging at times, to be sure, but fun. My twin brother and I had Shetland ponies from the time we were about age six, and we had more darn fun with those things.
I got the first one. My dad just knew I had to have a horse or I would die. He managed to get me my very own horse when I was young. Only thing was, he never managed to pay for her. The man she belonged to, Doug Lay, came and repossessed her after we had kept her about a year, and dad hadn't made a payment. Dad had good intentions, but raising 12 kids took every penny he could earn working as a ranch hand. We were so poor we couldn't pay attention.
As you can imagine, dad was nowhere in sight when the man came to get the pony. I caught her for him and handed him the lead rope. Between sobs, I told Mr. Lay that I had broken her to ride while she was there, and I hoped that was ok with him. He said it was quietly, and then backed his pickup up to a bank, from which Bell jumped into the stock rack and rode away, as I stood dying.
I don't remember how long I cried, but I tried to take it in stride, because I knew horses had to cost money, and I didn't have any. I think it was only about six weeks later, and Mr. Lay came driving back in our yard in that same old pickup with the stock rack and the same black and white pony in it. This time, he jumped her off and handed me the lead rope.
"I want you to know," he said, "this is your horse, and you have access to any horse in my herd." I was so excited. I just couldn't believe it. The man probably had 50 horses in his herd, but there was only one I cared about, and I was holding her. I guess he couldn't get the thought of my pitiful little face out of his mind. Anyway, during the six weeks Bell was back at his place, she had managed to find a boyfriend, because about a year later, she delivered a sweet little filly foal. I gave her to my twin brother, so we could each have a horse. Of course, it took another two years before he could ride his, but I shared with him while we waited.
Bell was half Shetland and half thoroughbred. She was mean and she could run. She loved to jump sideways just to see if she could unseat you. She never did know how to buck very hard, but she would crow-hop to show her disgust sometimes. In addition, she would bite. One day she reached out, quick as a flash, and bit a button right off the front of my shirt. Made quite a bruise on my chest, too. Good thing I was still flat chested!
Dale's pony never got as big as Bell, but she could keep up. In fact, she had most of her dam's bad habits. Dale named her Cherry, I guess because she was somewhat red.
We would always water the ponies on the way back to the barn, because if we didn't, then we'd have to carry water to them. They got in the habit of stopping at the creek to get a drink when we crossed it. Cherry's favorite trick became trying to run back to the barn, but suddenly turning and ducking her head in the creek. Sometimes Dale would go flying off into the creek if she did it too suddenly. I would laugh because it was funny, but that would make my brother furious. I learned to stifle that laugh, because if I didn't, he'd always find a way to pay me back. Like when giving me a leg up bareback, he'd give a bug push at the last, and I'd go tumbling over the other side.
I was trimming hooves on a five-year-old mare today and she was giving me a tussle, and I sure was wishing my twin brother was here to hold her for me--or, better yet, do the
trimming. She pulled back and broke three lead ropes, so I finally had to give her the belly-rope treatment. That's where you take a lariat rope and circle it around their bodies just behind their front legs, then run the rope up between the front legs, through the halter and tie it off just a little shorter than the lead rope. When they set back, the rope tightens around their girth. They don't do that too many times, although she did it about six times before she finally realized she was not going to escape again. Then the pedicure could proceed.
True to form, just as I finished that big project, my horse friend from Cheyenne came driving in the yard! I think he sat up on the hill and watched until I was done. Naw, he's a truck driver who had just gotten in from a long haul, and he was pretty bleary-eyed. If he'd have stopped very long, he'd have been asleep.

Batmitton

2008-02-27T19:27:00.000-08:00

It's almost spring. The snowdrifts are melting, and there is green grass underneath! Yaaaay, I can hardly wait. I must get out the ladder, though, and climb up to block a hole in the eaves of my house. It lets the bats enter my attic, then they sometimes make their way into the house.
I hate those things. I know they are good for the environment, but they're not good for my heartrate. The place was totally infested with them when we moved here. They migrate south in winter, but always return to their same hangout in summer up here in the north. Our house had rough pine lap-board siding on in, which provided an inviting roost for the vermin. It sounded like they were having a convention in there. Smelling worse than rats, they were making a big stink.
One of the first things I had the kids do after we got settled in, was to get up there and remove that siding. We have a walk-out basement on the east side of the house, so my son was up in the tractor bucket and my daughter was running the bucket controls from the seat of the tractor. JD would pull a board off the side of the house and the bats would pour out and swoop down on Jesi, as she swatted at them with her hat. What a fright.
I used to keep a ball cap and a badmitton racket by my bed. Often at night, after the lights went out, I'd hear swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, then I'd grab my hat and racket and take in after the bat. We had found a racket was the best way to get them. One little whack, and down they came. My son said we had invented a new game, Batmitton.
I was glad when we finally got them pretty much flushed out and I sealed up the attic. I killed two of them in the house last summer, however, so I was looking to see where they were getting in and I noticed one little board off the eaves. It doesn't have to be very big. Those darn things can flatten themselves out and go through a hole about a half-inch wide.
They'll be back around about April, so I've got a few weeks.

Crazy Coyote

2008-02-21T19:07:00.000-08:00

I think I saw the strangest sight ever. A coyote must have tried to jump the right-of-way fence where my county road intersects the highway. Somehow, he got caught with his front and back leg on one side between the brace post and a tightly stretched wire. It was draped there, on top of the brace post, and you could see where it had rubbed hide off the side where the wire was holding it as it struggled to free itself. It was dead, of course, when I first saw it. It was a grizzly sight then. It was even more grizzly a few days later after the raptors had begun to peck on it. I would have thought someone had put it there, if not for the signs that it had struggled to free itself.

Coyotes don't bother me much, except they do sound eerie sometimes at night. I am, however, frightened of Mountain Lions, which have been spotted in the area. I haven't ever actually seen one, but I have seen tracks, and one of my mares came in all scratched up high on her back one time. I went around the fence to see if she had somehow gotten underneath it, but the scratch marks were pretty unmistakable. At the same time, the old stallion came in all stiff in his back end, like he had probably stood on his hind legs and fought the cat off her.

Sometimes I can just sense the nearness of a Puma by the way the horses are acting. They get all snorty and whirl and run at the slightest provocation, then turn and look with wild eyes.

One of my friends who lives about ten miles away said one night he kept hearing strange noises, so he would go out on the porch and look around, but saw nothing. It had snowed that night and when he went out the next morning, he saw big kitty tracks in the snow right in his front yard. He followed them and saw where the lion had been up on the low overhanging roof of his porch. Probably just waiting to pounce. Gives me chills just to think of it.

Recently, there have been some pictures circulating on the Internet of some mighty big Mountain Lions. One was taken by someone's motion sensor camera and shows a Puma stalking a deer right in the guy's yard. That cat is almost as big as the deer. The title of the email said, "Dead Deer Walking." Here it is.

I felt like I was being stalked by a lion once, which was probably only my imagination. I was putting up hay along the highway right-of-way one evening when my tractor broke down about four miles from home. Being the most sparsely populated area of the least populated county in the least populated state in the nation, the Lance Creek Highway doesn't have much traffic on it anymore, especially right at suppertime. So I started walking home. I decided it would be quicker to just follow the creek bed back to my house, so I hopped the fence. As darkness fell and I was strolling under the banks of Lance Creek, I began to think of the Mountain Lion that had been seen in the area. I began to get real uneasy as I hiked. You can bet I moved out from under that bank. In fact, I moved out from under the trees that grow along the creek, too. Afraid of the dark, no. Afraid of what's in it, maybe!

Solitude

2008-02-18T21:03:00.000-08:00

My phone has been out since yesterday sometime. Being in the least populated county of the least populated state in the US, we are not high on the phone company’s list of priorities. Unfortunately, a land-line phone is the only thing that works out here. We are down in a little bowl that the cell phone signals seem to shoot right over. Which is kind of nice if you, like I, hate cell phones. When the land-line goes out, however, I am communications-challenged. That is why I signed up for Satellite Internet. It was the only way to go, especially after living in Cheyenne for five years with high-speed Internet access. I’d go mad if I had to revert to that old slow as a snail dial-up. As my neighbor said when he was checking the weather forecast on dial-up, “The weather could change before this comes up!”
Before I moved to Cheyenne six years ago, the phone company had been out to do a repair. They had to dig up a connection down by the creek and string some wire out on top of the ground for a temporary fix. Well, that “temporary” fix is still there, exposed connections and all. The cows and horses run through it. I reminded the nice phone man who came out to reconnect me when I moved home. “Yeah, we know about it,” he said, “we just haven’t had time to get back out and fix it.” Everytime we get a little moisture, the phone goes out, go figure.
So this is solitude. I just did an article on How to be Happy Despite Solitude for eHow. I thought I was a good candidate to be the expert on that one. I like my solitude most of the time. One of my brothers was teasing me about being afraid of the dark a while back. I told him if I was afraid of the dark, I sure wouldn’t be living out here.
When I was a kid, I was afraid of the dark. Growing up with eleven brothers and sisters would make you afraid of the dark. We had an out-house for a toilet until I was age 12. There were bushes, sheds, and a small irrigation ditch that we had to pass by to get to the out-house. Someone was continually hiding behind these in the dark, or lying down in the ditch, then popping out as us younger kids with a "boo" or a roar, when we were on the way. Lots of times, that made you not have to finish the trip! Just go back to the house and get dry clothes on.
My older sister often got stuck babysitting us younger ones, and she had a knack for telling ghost stories. She’d take us into a dark room and start in. Before you knew it, you were actually seeing the strange lights and hearing the noises she was describing. Sure kept us quiet, though it wasn’t too conductive to sleep. So, Linda, here’s to you, if you’re reading this. I can’t call you. I’m sure not going back outside to check the phone!

Waiting for Spring

2008-02-16T19:01:00.000-08:00

I’m getting in trouble with my fans because I haven’t been blogging lately. That’s how some of my family know I’m still alive up here in the frozen north—if there’s a blog entry. I’ve been working on my other Internet writing projects this week. I was offered a 50% raise with my Thompson Gale Writers Project to write articles for Work.com, but the learning curve is steep. I have to adjust to a whole new style. And I get a by-line there, so go to Work.com and look for my articles when you have a minute.
This crazy weather. Today there was rain on top of the snow. I’m thinking our drought is nearly over. That’s very convenient with me moving back to the ranch with my herd of horses. It will be nice to have some grass for a change. I’ve been pitching TONS of hay. I had a truckload, that’s about 20 tons, hauled in after Thanksgiving, and I’m down to about five tons left. That grass can’t come too soon.
An old timer who had lived most of his life in the area told me not to expect to have grass until May. I guess it’s a good idea not to plan on it, but I have a feeling it’s going to be early this year.
A lot of the ranches are getting ready to start calving. I have one cow that is going to calve within a month or so. Then there are the four mares due to begin foaling in May. I can hardly wait. I just love the baby horses. They are addictive.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m being responsible by breeding any horses, the way the market is so overloaded right now. But I’ve waited all these years to begin my breeding program. And I have the best stallion. This will be his first crop of foals, but I have high hopes for them.
PJ (Permalight Junior) is a 16 hand sorrel stallion with the keenest
blaze down his face. It is a perfect diamond at the top, then tapers
between his eyes, then bulges out into another little diamond, then
tapers again to end in another small diamond on his nose. It’s very symmetrical and centered in his head. He has two tall white stockings on his hind legs and none on his front, which draws your eye to his perfect hind quarters. He has a super disposition which he inherited from his sire, and I expect he will also pass it on to his offspring. We shall see about that this spring. Here’s a picture of PJ with my favorite cowboy aboard.

Snake Boots

2008-02-10T14:26:00.000-08:00

Speaking of boots and snakes. Another purpose for the high leather of the boot shaft covering the lower leg is probably to prevent snake bites to that area of the person. I remember my dad coming home from irrigating one day with the fangs of a rattlesnake hanging from the folded down top of his boots.
A little old snakebite would not have killed my dad. As a matter of fact, he lived through one once without even going to the doctor. I played a part in this scenario, although unwittingly. As my kids always say, "There was never a dull moment with you around!" I was out riding one afternoon. I used to range the hills and valleys around our place at will, and usually alone. Sometimes my twin brother would ride with me. But that day I had been gone for many hours and my dad got worried about me. He struck out in his very old, dilapidated two-wheel drive pickup looking for me. When I got back home it was nearing dusk, and dad was still gone. My sister and her husband had begun to worry about him. So we jumped in their truck and started to follow his tracks. It was nearly dark when we found him.
His old pickup had quit him not even a mile from home and he was just sitting there by the truck. We gathered him up and went back home because it was too dark to do anything about his pickup by then. Dad was limping and his foot was starting to swell, but he told us he had started to walk home and stepped off in a gopher hole. Sounded plausible, because there were lots of holes in the area where he was.
His ankle swelled up like a football in a matter of hours, but he wouldn't even talk about going to a doctor. He wrapped it with an ace bandage, got a bigger lace-up shoe and went to work the next day. A couple nights later, he asked me to re-wrap it for him, probably because his leg was so swollen, he couldn't bend over! As I was wrapping it, I noticed two neat little puncture wounds just below his ankle bone, spaced about as far apart as those fangs I had seen hanging from his boot a few years earlier.
“You didn't fall in a hole, did you?” I accused.
“No, but shhhh. I don't want to go to the doctor!”
I knew he had been bitten by a rattlesnake. His leg was all purple and yellow by then, but I figured he had lived that long, there was no point in telling on him. He was a tough old bird.
I guess his fear and loathing of doctors supassed his fear of dying from a rattlesnake bite. His phobia went way back to his US Army days when he had to have hernia surgery. They did it with only a local anesthetic, so he was awake and he could see the blood hitting the sheet they had over him.
My dad was a cowboy. He was a good hand with a horse. As a child, he rode a horse to and from school. He had several brothers and they would all ride to school together, playing tricks on each other to see if they could get someone bucked off. He said they had to stop and open a gate and close it, so they all took turns getting off for the gate. Many times, he said, someone would ride over and place a short stick under the tail of the gate person's horse as he was getting back on. That would make the horse buck, and they all thought that was great fun.
My dad liked school so much, and he wanted to go to high school, but there was not one close enough for him to ride his horse to, so he went through the eighth grade twice, to learn all he could. Then he went to breaking horses for the US Cavalry. He lived near Fort Laramie, Wyoming, and they would ride over to Fort Robinson in Nebraska and get unbroken colts from the Regiment there, trail them back to Fort Laramie, break them to ride, then trail them back to Fort Robinson. I think he told me they got $25.00 a horse, but that would buy a lot more back then. Sounds like fun to me.

This Cowboy's Hat

2008-02-07T07:09:00.000-08:00

I finally figured out why cowboys wear that scarf around their necks. I had thought it was to keep their necks warm, or just for decoration, like a woman wears a necklace. But most cowboys I know don't care about being warm. They're cold all the time. And they don't care about adorning their bodies. It's to keep the hay from blowing down their shirts!
I've come to realize every part of the cowboy's gear has a very definite purpose. Some serve two or three purposes at once. Like the cowboy hat. It not only keeps the head warm in winter and cool in summer, it serves as an umbrella, keeping rain and sun from beating down on a bare head.
Chaps are to keep the legs warm and to keep the brush from tearing holes in the pants as the cowboy rides through. Cowboy boots not only protect the feet, they also protect most of the lower leg. The heel on the boot keeps the foot from sliding on through the stirrup and remaining there in a wreck, resulting in a man being dragged by a horse.
Lariat ropes are not only for catching things, they can be used for encouraging or discouraging, as the case may be. They can be used to shoo a bull or horse along, and come in handy for killing rattlesnakes, if you know how to use one for that purpose. There is a trick to that.
I learned that trick when we lived in Goshen County, near the river and Old Fort Laramie. The snakes would come down out of their dens in the hills on our ranch in the spring, heading toward the river, so our yard would be full of them. Then, in the fall, they'd make another pass through.
There's two good ways to kill a rattler. The best is with a rifle--a .22 will do. If you hold the barrel of the rifle as far away from you as you can, and as near to the snake's head as you can, they follow the nose of the barrel. All you have to do is pull the trigger, and blam; it takes their heads right off nearly every time. If you're out on a horse without a rifle, but you do have a rope, you can take the knot end of your lariat and play out about ten feet, then whip it up over your shoulder and nearly always land a blow to the snake's head, again because the snake follows the rope with his head, trying to strike at it. The trick is not to jerk the rope back at you in an instant, because the snake may have attached itself to the rope. I've even seen the fangs of a rattler come back on the knot of the rope. Yep, they got caught when the snake struck and it yanked them right out.
And, be careful. If you happen to hit some other part of the snake's body, then you've got a real mad snake on the loose.

Horses or Mules?

2008-02-04T18:53:00.000-08:00

My daughter broke a few mules to ride while she was an undergraduate student at Texas A&M. She needed to make some extra money, and this guy had some mules he needed ridden. One of them almost killed her. I have never ridden a mule, but my dad used to have one. That was before my time. He used to swear they were the smoothest riding things one could climb on. Here's a mule story for you.
One day a farmer's donkey fell down a well. The animal brayed piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed shovels and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkeystepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!
Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles is a stepping stone. We can get out of the deepest holes just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.
Remember the five simple rules to be happy:
Free your heart from hatred - Forgive. Free your mind from worries - Most never happen. Live simply and appreciate what you have. Give more. Expect less. NOW ............Enough of that stuff. The donkey later came back and bit the farmer who had tried to bury him. The gash from the bite got infected and the farmer eventually died in agony from septic shock.
MORAL FROM TODAY'S LESSON: When you do something wrong, and try to cover your ass, it always comes back to bite you.
Boy, is that one ever true. Somebody close the gate.

Daughters and Horses

2008-02-01T18:17:00.000-08:00

My daughter used to show horses in 4-H. She showed the grand champion mare at the Wyoming State Fair in 1996, after which, her feet never touched the ground for at least two weeks. A lot of my friends asked me why I worked so hard so that she could have horses. They said she’d get interested in boys and turn her back on the horses. Well, she’s 27 now, still single, and still working with horses. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Texas A&M with a Bachelors in Animal Science with an Equine Emphasis, then went on to get a Master’s degree in Equine Reproduction.

She worked as the brood mare manager for the richest woman in the world, the heiress to the Wal-Mart fortune, but now she’s decided she wants to be a veterinarian, to make the big bucks, so it’s looking like it’s back to school for another three years.

I actually got to meet Miss Walton while my daughter worked for her. I drove to Texas on a Memorial Day Weekend at her invitation. She took us to a fund-raiser for the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in Fort Worth. Oh my, did I feel like a fish out of water pulling up to the Cowgirl Hall of Fame in my flatbed Chevy truck to be greeted by a valet and walk up the red carpet they had laid out everywhere we were supposed to go. I’d never done valet parking before.

Miss Alice had bought a table for ten for $10,000 for dinner and Martina McBride in concert, then we got to see the premier screening of “Ride Around the World” in the adjacent Imax theater. It was great. They had a benefit auction and there was a horse there from the 6666 Ranch in Texas, where my daughter had worked one summer. She knew the cowboy riding the horse, and he even brought the horse into the dinner tent where he rode through the crowds and in around the dinner tables. That was one tame horse.

I made the richest woman in the world cry at that dinner. Miss Alice is very nice, and very down-to-earth. I was sitting between her and my daughter as we listened to Martina, who did a few happy songs, then launched into those tear jerkers that she does. I managed to hold my composure while she sang, "Concrete Angel," which usually makes me cry just hearing it on radio, then she broke out with a new one called, "In My Daughter's Eyes." I looked over at Jesi, then I lost it. Then I turned my head and looked at Alice, and she started crying, too! But she had recently lost a dear brother in a plane crash here in Wyoming, and I think that's what made her emotional, not me blubbering about my daughter's eyes.

Alice sold a weanling filly that was born while my daughter was her broodmare manager for the highest price ever fetched by a weanling quarter horse, $750,000. The filly was a daughter of Peptoboonsmal, a well-known cutting horse stallion. I actually got to pet that filly while I was there. (Should not have washed my hand.) I’d be grateful to sell one for $7,500. Actually, the red roan mare my daughter won Wyoming Grand Champion with is a better looking horse, in my biased opinion. Here's the link to Miss Alice's website http://www.waltonsrockingwranch.com/category/home/

Here's a picture of my daughter and her red roan mare.

The Wind is Too Much With Us

2008-01-29T17:36:00.000-08:00

The wind is too much with us; late and soon,
Grabbing and spinning, it lays waste our hay:
Little we see in nature that the wind doesn't blow away!
It would blow even our hearts away, if we wore them on our sleeve
This wind that bares our bosom to any who can see;
The winds that are howling at all hours,
And we are up-gathered by it like dead flowers;
For this we are out of sorts.
It moves us plenty.--Great God! I'd rather be
Out standing in a quiet lea,
Than have glimpses of tumbleweeds going by;
At the rate of four to the seventh power.

Well, that's a poor imitation of William Wordsworth, "The World is Too Much With Us," but it sure fits. That wind has just been brutal the past two weeks. I guess it wouldn't be Wyoming without the wind.

I can't believe I've been early retired more than a year now. Where has the time gone? I think of Henry David Thoreau and his WALDEN: "Where I Lived and What I Lived For." I keep asking myself what I am doing this for. I feel like I'm just putting one foot in front of the other. I guess such is life, but I surely thought I'd have accomplished a lot more by now. Oh well, there's another year. Thoreau lived at Walden for two years.
My son should be home this fall, so I won't be out here alone anymore. I thank God for my little church in Lance Creek. I don't know what I'd do without the fellowship of the believers. I think I'd go mad.
It's a boring little church. We go, we all sit in the same place every week, we sing songs of praise to God, listen to a sermon, then dash out the door, unless we happen to be having pot luck. I guess it's easy to get in a rut, and I know God wants us to sing His praises, plus just being there is a witness to unbelievers in the community, of which there aren't many. Lance Creek is not even an incorporated town in the least populated county in the least populated state in the U.S. Many people are surprised we even have a church. Ranchers come in from about a 70 mile radius and there are normally 25 or more people in the pews on any given Sunday.
Some of the ladies that live way out started bringing baked goodies and someone puts a pot of coffee on before we get there. Ranchers bring eggs and milk to swap with their neighbors. I said that gives a whole new meaning to coming to church to get "fed."
Pastor is just an old cowboy who preaches in jeans and boots. He's a good preacher and you sure don't go to sleep in his sermons. You never know what he's going to say next. We've seen many hardened old ranchers come to Jesus since he came, because he makes the rounds with his horse, helping with gathering, branding and weaning. Next thing you know, some crusty, formerly hard-drinkin, old rancher that no one ever thought would come, takes their place in the pew. So I guess habits are good when it comes to passing yourself by the Lord's house on Sunday.

Horse Sale Weekend

2008-01-27T21:38:00.000-08:00

It was horse sale weekend in Colorado. I hustled around Saturday morning to get all the ones I should have been taking to the sale fed before going. I had really planned on having at least one ready to go, but my knee and the weather has prevented me from doing much riding since I got back from visiting my grandson.
A friend of mine had two horses cataloged in the sale, so I wanted to go see what they brought. Well, I could have found that out later, but it was a HORSE sale. I had to go. It's business-deductible. Besides my horse lovin' niece and her horsey friends were going to be there. No matter that it's 450 miles round-trip in a day.
I got there just as the last horse was showing on the preview. A little late, as usual. There were horses of every size, color and gender. Big horses, little horses, paint horses, speckled horses, grulla horses, black horses, blue horses, gray horses, palominos, duns and lots of plain sorrels and bays. There were pregnant mares, stallions, geldings and fillys. Whatever you could want in a horse, you could have found it there. There was an own grandson of Peptoboonsmal and a son of Shining Spark. These are horses that command $10,000 stud fees. The Peptoboonsmal horse sold for much less than his stud fee, I'm sure. He was a beauty, a blue roan, very correct, two years old and still a stallion. If I did not already have a stallion, I would have been bidding. I couldn't believe they let him go for the $3900 they were bid.
The Shining Spark son was no-saled through the ring, but the auctioneer was interested in him, so there might have been a deal made out back. He was a seasoned show horse that had won championships at some shows, although he did have some age on him at 13. He only garnered a bid of $2,000 in the ring.
The sales were all over the board with not much rhyme or reason that I could see, although I was busy visiting with all my friends and not paying attention like I should have been. Gray seemed to be the in-demand color. Should have taken Gracie! Maybe next time, if her foot gets well.
My friend's horses didn't sell very well. We were all sad. One of them was a very nice own grandson of Two Eyed Jack, and those are getting scarce. He was well, well broke by the kid that trains some for me. The horse brought $2000, which is about half what he should have brought. Mark, the guy that owned him, is a paraplegic who raises horses. He just hooks his bumper-pull trailer to his van, loads them up and takes off with them.
"That chair doesn't slow you down much," I told him.
"If I let it, I'd never do anything," was his reply.
Great attitude.

Amazing Grace

2008-01-24T19:43:00.000-08:00

Ok, where’s that global warming Al Gore’s been talking about. I’ll take a little of that. I swear, if this keeps up, I’m going to have to buy some more long underwear. I only have two pair and I’ve had one or the other of them on for the better part of two months now. At least, the wind stayed down today, and I was grateful because I had to go cut more firewood.
I have a cute little Quarter Horse filly that has been in the doctoring bay for a while now. Her everyday name is Gracie and she is gray in color. She turned up lame last spring. When the farrier came to trim hooves, he noticed a lump about the size of a hen’s egg on her forepastern. I made an appointment at the vet for her, but before I could get her in, it had grown to the size of a goose egg and she was lame.
They did an x-ray and found she had a bone spur growing in there amidst all those ligaments. The vet said there was nothing they could do. There is little besides bone and ligament in that area, so surgery was out of the question. Even if they could do surgery, he said the bone spur would probably just grow back, because a bone spur is a response to a trauma sometines.
I had a bone spur on my heel once. It was very painful, so I went to several doctors, trying to get some relief. My Orthopedic Dr. gave me a shot of cortisone and that helped--for about two weeks. He said he couldn’t give me another one for six months. So I went to a chiropractor because one of my friends said she’d had one cured by this same chiropractor. The chiropractor told me I’d have to sign up for at least twelve treatments, so I did. Each time she’d massage my foot, it would feel better for about an hour. Finally, I figured a Podiatrist was what I needed. The Podiatrist thought I needed wedges for my shoes at a cost of $1,200. I wasn’t thinking, or I would have rolled up dollar bills to make wedges and saved myself some money.
Nothing worked. I was starting to get a spur on my other heel, too. Desperate, I decided to try those magnetic insoles, because my Orthopedic Dr. had told me the bone spur was an arthritic condition caused by a shortening of the Achillies Tendon. I had heard those magnets were supposed to be good for arthritis, so I figured it was worth a shot. They worked. Within two months, I went for another x-ray and the largest spur had decreased by half and within four months, it was just a little bump.
So I decided to try magnetic therapy on Gracie. I put a magnetic wrap on her leg in August and she wore it until November. The bump had receded to the size of a hen’s egg again, but the wrap was rubbing sores on the front of her pastern. She is still a little lame on it, but I just got a different kind of wrap that I hope will not cause sores. Here’s a recent picture of Gracie. She’s coming three years old and has excellent bloodlines, so would make a good broodmare someday. Gracie’s for sale (cheap) with, or without, the bump. I hope it goes away soon.

Stuck!

2008-01-21T20:06:00.000-08:00

Today I got stuck for the first time this winter. Well, the second time if you count the tractor incident. I should take my own advice in my eHow on how to drive in snow. You can always break out a drift going uphill, but don't try to break one out going downhill, especially in reverse. Going uphill, you can always back out and get another run at the drift. Not so going downhill.
I had loaded up the mares' daily ration of hay and headed out to feed. Here's a recent picture of the mare herd after feeding.

I've been trying to feed down in the draws so the wind doesn't blow too much of the hay away. Today I decided to be tricky and just drive into the corral to put the hay in bunks. Whipped up the bank with no trouble, but then the truck wouldn't quite fit through the gate, so I began to back out. Didn't quite get in my tracks on the way back down and, whump, I was stuck and already in 4 wheel drive.
I'm grateful I wasn't far from the house, because the outside temp was -5 degrees with a little wind. It was probably -15 with the wind chill factor. My feet got cold walking from the barn to the house to get the chain. It was either chain up, shovel snow, or get the other 4X4 to pull the stuck one out. I was also grateful that 2003 Chevy had not sold when I advertised it for sale last summer! It's good to have two.
I put the big V-10 Ford into neutral. It has an automatic transmission, which makes pulling a little dicy, and you don't want to do too much of it. I had to yank on it pretty hard several times, then it popped out, and rolled back down the bank until it contacted the Chevy! It whanged pretty good, and I said, "Oh, dear!" But with that steel flatbed on the Chevy, there wasn't any damage that I could discern. Thank You, Lord.
So I finished feeding, then walked back to get the other truck. When I had everything all straightened out and got back in the house to warm my toes up, my friend that owns five of the horses I'm feeding showed up. I was kind of glad the mess was all straightened out. He would have teased me, and told everybody, which is what I just did, come to think of it. Somebody close the gate.

More Snow

2008-01-20T17:51:00.000-08:00

I love being retired. I am able to do all kinds of things that I have always wanted to do, but never had time, like making big bead tapioca pudding. You have to soak the beads overnight, and I would always forget to do that when I was working. Some people call it frog eye pudding, and it does kinda look like frog eyes, but it is yummy. I can't wait for my grandson to move closer and I will make him chocolate chip cookies and frog eye pudding.
Also, I have time to go to family gatherings that I could not when I had a job. Today I went to Crawford, NE, to my cousin's 50th wedding anniversary. When I got up this morning, it was about 15 degrees and no wind, so I didn't hurry around too much to go feed. When I went out to feed, it was snowing and the temperature had dropped to about 5 above zero, but still no wind, so it didn't feel too bad. Got things fed, then almost changed my mind about going to Nebraska, but I really did want to go. I waited until the last minute and it quit snowing. Still no wind, so off I went.
My cousin about fainted when I came in. Even some of the family that lived in Crawford had not come because of the weather. My cousin's grandson was shot by a policeman last fall, and I wanted to be there to continue to show my support for them. The policeman has been indicted by a Grand Jury for the shooting, and has been removed from his job. But emotions are still running high in little old Crawford.
It was snowing in Nebraska and the wind came up while I was there, so I decided I'd best get headed for home, or I might be caught in a ground blizzard. The roads weren't much worse coming home and there was still no wind here, but it had started snowing again, and everything was covered with about a four-inch blanket of snow. Beautiful, and still not any colder, still no wind, thank God. It's pretty treacherous underfoot out there now, though, because we had a layer of ice where we had packed the snow from before down, and now fresh snow on top of it. A person could fall and bust their.....well, you know.
I’m glad I went and cut more wood last week, I was almost out. Looks like I’m going to be needing it. We heated our house with wood when I was a kid, and I hated it, the constant cutting, splitting and fetching of wood, plus the mess from the ash and soot, but now I know. There's nothing like the warmth you get from burning wood, or the feeling you get when your wood shed is full.

A Lady and a Baby

2008-01-17T08:20:00.000-08:00

Great God in heaven, it's cold out there. I just got in from feeding and trying to keep my digits from freezing and breaking off. The radio said it's -30 degrees with the wind chill factor. It actually warmed up in the night. Yesterday outdoor temps hovered around ten above zero all day. This morning the thermometer said plus 15.
The animals all seemed grateful for the hay. Digestion of forage helps them keep warm. Many people feed too much grain. Digestive systems in horses and cattle weren't designed with grain supplements in mind. They do much better on a diet of just vegetation if it's good quality grass or hay.
I have four mares that are due to foal this spring. This is my flagship mare. Her name is A Painted Lady. She is twelve years old and 16 hands tall.

I bought Lady at a sale in 2002. She was raised by the people who were my surrogate parents when I was growing up. I was impressed, not only by her color and conformation the day of the sale, but the rider was able to do just anything he wanted with her--even throw a rope. Since I knew the couple that raised her, I knew she had been handled correctly. She had four colts for them prior to the sale, and they said all of them had been paints.
Lady has only produced one colt for me, also a paint. He is almost her double--same coloring, same coat pattern, about the same size. Even I get them confused if I'm not paying close attention. Here is King Sweet Bee, her offspring.

King is for sale. I actually traded him off as a weanling in return for having the ranch house and garage painted (a paint for a paint) then wound up getting him back when he was a three year-old. The kids had kept him and fed him for two and a half years, had him gelded, paid a professional trainer to start him under saddle. He's very gentle, but I haven't had time to ride much since I moved back to the ranch, plus he's even taller than his dam--about 16.2 hands--and a bum knee has prevented me from desiring to climb to those heights. King is advertised on Horsetopia.com.

Lady is one of my mares that is carrying a foal. I have been watching her carefully due to a mishap I had with her a few years ago when she aborted her foal just a month from her due date. She was boarded out at that time, during my hiatus from the ranch while working in Cheyenne, so I wasn't able to check her every day.
She's due around May 1, so about March 15, I plan to bring her in to the barn where I can monitor her very closely. I'll let you know how that goes. Somebody close the gate.

Writing and Dreaming of Little Cowboys

2008-01-14T13:28:00.000-08:00

Ok, it’s a new year, and I’m back to my writing activities. I am working on the eHow project with Writers Research Group, which is working under the auspices of Thompson-Gale. I write short how-to articles on a variety of topics. I have written over a hundred of these since August. Many of them have been on the subject of horses, which are very easy for me to write, having been raising, training and showing horses for most of my life. WRG considers me a subject matter expert on the subject of horses. So I snap up any titles I can with horses as the subject.
Only thing is, I don’t get credit for these articles, only paid, which is an ok trade-off. I can come up with my own subjects if I want, but these have to be approved by eHow, and I get paid a little extra for originating the title. Since my creativity level gets less and less with age, I like this arrangement, because WRG feeds me titles. I just have to be fast and on the ball when the titles come out, and claim all the good ones I can. I have written articles that run the gamut from throwing a branding party to playing with a salamander to home improvement to how to be born again.
It doesn’t pay very much, but it’s probably as good as I could command by driving 60 miles a day to a job in town, and I get to stay home and “surf the web.” Plus, I can be on the ranch to respond to whatever circumstances arise. It keeps my mind working and my hands busy, so maybe the old-timers disease won’t set in too soon, and you can just leave the gate open.

Speaking of old-timers, I am a new grandma. My grandson is on the right coast, though, and much too far away from the ranch for me to make him a little cowboy. Here’s a recent picture of the adorable little guy.

I got to spend a week with him when he was about four days old, but I feel I am missing out, as he is growing and changing with every picture his dad sends my way. He’s the spittin’ image of his dad when he was that age, so I know what his parents are in for the day he turns 2! You’ll be a payin’ for your rasin,’ son. I hear he already rules the household from a mole I planted, but I expected as much. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
Hopefully, his dad will be leaving the service and moving closer to Wyoming this fall, then I can begin his cowboy training. Must get those chaps and cowboy hat bought.

My Friend, the Pitchfork

2008-01-11T19:58:00.000-08:00

My new "favorite" tool has become my pitchfork. I have been pitching tons and tons of hay, because my tractor is still basically disabled. I never thought I would covet a pitchfork. It fell out of the pickup box the other day and I had to backtrack a couple miles to find it before I could go on with my day.
There is a difference in pitchforks. I had been using manure forks to try to pitch hay, and it made the job even more onerous. I finally bit the bullet and spent the $35 for a hay fork. I now guard it with my life.
The handles kept falling off those old manure forks I was using, and even off the new one a friend had given me. I would jamb the handle back down on the tongue of the fork and struggle with it for some time. Then I tried duct tape. That worked for a time, too, but soon the fork was flying off into the hay again with every forkfull.
Mr. Dent had a drill press in his garage, so I took fork and handle over to him one afternoon. I asked him to drill a hole through the handle and into the fork tongue so I could bolt the handle to the fork, which he was happy to do.
When he finished, I exclaimed, "Oh boy, now I have a good pitchfork again!"
Clark shook his head and smiled a wry smile. "I'll bet those words haven't crossed a woman's lips in a hundred years," he said.
Clark always trys to act gruff and grumpy, but he sure has a heart.
Being the country bumpkin that I was when I moved to Cheyenne, I knew outdoor burning was allowed, because we were in the county, but I didn't know there were laws that said you had to call in and inform dispatch when you were going to burn. One Saturday, I had a yard full of neighborhood kids, and was trying to keep them entertained and out of trouble. I had a pile of old, moldy hay out by the shop that needed disposed of, so I decided a bon-fire would be fun for the kids. I stretched a hose out there and set the hay on fire. It wasn't long, and the dad of some of the kids came screeching into my driveway in his mini van. He jumped out and grabbed the hose and started dousing the fire.
I didn't know him from Adam, and was yelling at him not to put my fire out, and he said excitedly, "They're coming. Someone called the fire in and they'll give you a ticket!" The guy had a police scanner, heard the dispatch, and he knew his kids were in my yard.
Right then, I could hear sirens. Most of the kids had bikes and they bailed on them and flew out into the street. Some of them jumped into my stock trailer to hide. These kids were from the wrong side of the tracks, and they knew what policemen meant--someone was going to jail!
There were so many kids on bikes out in the street, the fire trucks had to stop and the Deputy Sheriff's vehicle in front of them slowed down. I went out to meet the nice deputy. When I explained to him that I was new in the neighborhood, he just told me I was supposed to call the emergency center about a controlled burn next time before striking the match. I said, "OK."
The emergency vehicles left and the kids began filtering back into the yard.
"Did you get a ticket?" they asked with eyes wide.
"Nope," I said, "I told them you were all my kids, and they felt sorry for me, so they didn't give me a ticket."
When I told Clark that somebody in the neighborhood had called in my fire, because they didn't like the horses, he guffawed and said, "Why, you're the best thing that's happened around here in years," then he realized he'd just said something very nice, and continued, "well, you know what I mean."
"Well, I know what I heard you say," I replied, "and thanks!"
The day I told Clark I was moving back to the ranch, he said, "You can't move," and then quickly added, "you have a tractor," to save his reputation.

Mr. Dent

2008-01-08T19:37:00.000-08:00

I had great neighbors in Cheyenne during the five years I lived there, after being transferred there on my job in 2002. I chose a corner lot on the edge of Cheyenne next to a big vacant lot, for the precise reason that I am a country girl, and I didn't want neighbors that close. The first six months I was there, no one in the neighborhood spoke to me or even waved. Then one day the lady across the street waved to me as she went from her house to her workshop.
I can imagine what they must have thought, because most of them disclosed to me what they were thinking after I got to know them a little. I pulled in with trucks, tractors, trailers, and went to work cleaning up the place. The previous owners had operated a welding shop on the premises, and someone told me the whole back acre had been a junk yard at one time. I hauled tons of junk out the first year I was there, and after I put horses on it, their hooves kept churning up various car parts like springs, brake shoes, mufflers, air cleaners, hub caps, etc. I think I dug up a whole car out there. That's when I decided to call my little place the "Redneck Ranch."
I got to know the waving neighbor, and she was a fun lady. She'd lived in Cheyenne most of her life, except for a few years following her first husband around in the military lifestyle. Then she married Mr. Dent, from Dent County, Missouri. Yes, the county was named after his family. I call him the original hippie. He is definitely a redneck. A retired Consolidated Freightways truck driver, he drives a jacked up 1970 Chevy Van, 4 X 4, and has an original C.H.I.P.S. motorcycle. He was jealous of my tractor.
Said tractor had a low front tire when I went out to do a job one Saturday morning. I knew Mr. Dent had a portable air tank, so I walked over and asked if I could borrow it to air up my tractor tire. He said he'd bring it over. After loading the five-pound apparatus in his 4 X 4 van, he drove the 100 or so feet over to where my tractor was. I had to open a gate and take down a fence to get him and his big, honkin' van in there.
He puffed up the front tire and said, "Any more of 'em need it, there's a few more pounds left in here."
I looked and one rear tire was a little soft, so he came around with the air tank while I pulled the valve stem cover off. He squashed the air chuck up against the stem and fluid began squirting from it.
"That's gonna have to be fixed," he stated.
I stuck my finger up against the stem to keep all the air and fluid from escaping, while he walked back over to his garage to get his valve stem tool. Large tractor tires are sometimes filled with calcium chloride, a corrosive substance, and it had rusted the valve stem away. Clark came back and inserted his valve stem remover, and promptly got it stuck. He worked and worked, but couldn't extract either the tool or the valve stem. He finally stepped back and I reached in there, grabbed the tool, gave a sharp tug, and out it popped. I stuffed the valve stem cap back on and stopped the leak.
Mr. Dent's mouth dropped open and he scratched his head as he looked at me. "No wonder you don't have a man living over here with you," he said. "A man would just be in your way." Amen to that.

Gremlin and Cushings

2008-01-06T13:57:00.000-08:00

Gremlin grass foundered at an early age, but not badly. There was no rotation of the coffin bone, so I was able to keep the problem under control by limiting his green grass consumption and frequent trimming and shoeing. In his old age, however, I noticed he was growing very long hair and not shedding it readily in the spring. He looked like a Chia Pet.
My daughter, by this time, had finished her Bachelors Degree with honors in Animal Science at Texas A&M, and also a Masters Degree in Equine Reproduction. She told me to suspect Cushings when I began telling her of Gremlin's hairy problem. So, off we went to the vet for a blood test. Jesi was right, and Gremlin was diagnosed with Cushings. The vet told me the founder was probably an early symptom of the disease, although we didn't know it at the time. He was also losing muscle tone along his top line, like so many older horses do.
The vet first prescribed a tiny capsule to be given with his grain once a day. Well, Gremlin soon realized his grain was being spiked, and he would eat everything except that tiny pill. I watched him one day and he had it in his mouth with a mouthfull of grain and he managed to spit that pill out and swallow most of the grain. I had already seen some results from the medication--Pergolide--so we went to a liquid form for top-dressing his grain. He also figured out how to eat all the way around that little lump of grain that was infused with the tincture.
I was at my wit's end, but the other day I was doing some research on the Internet about Cushings in horses, and I read an article by a lady who had been treating an older horse with a natural remedy, Chasteberry, for a year with great results. It not only reversed the symptoms, a follow-up blood test showed no signs of the disease. So yesterday I was in Casper for Jason Miller's victory celebration and I paid a visit to the natural foods store on the off chance they would have this herb. They did. It costs $1.00 an ounce, but it only takes two teaspoons of ground up Chasteberry a day, so it is going to cost much less than the Pergolide, also. If it clears up Germlin's Cushings, that will be a win-win situation. I'll let you know how this works out.
Already, I'm dreading the day I have to say goodbye to my old friend. He's the first horse that I've been with his whole life. I had a Red Heeler for fourteen years, and didn't even think I liked her that much, but when the day came that the vet said all her bodily functions were shutting down and it would be kinder to let her go...well, he went from worrying about the dog to worrying about me.
He kept asking, "Are you sure you're going to be able to drive home?"
It was pretty hard to see to drive through the wall of teardrops falling all the way home. So I know, 24+ years with a buddy that has been my best cow pony, I'll be running and bawling the fences, pining for him. Somebody close the gate!

Good Old Gremlin

2008-01-04T12:33:00.001-08:00

After Gremlin was past age 10, I started letting my kids ride him, as he had finally settled down enough. He actually likes kids better than he does me, and has never tried to pitch a kid off. My daughter showed him as her first 4-H horse. He placed a blue at county fair one year and then took third place in the halter paint division at the Wyoming State Fair, and we were both pleased with that outcome.
He became quite a cow pony. Chasing cows was his thing and there weren't very many that got by him. Never could use a rope off him, though, due to a bad experience involving an elk and ropes when Gremlin was four. My ex decided to take Gremlin elk hunting that year, although he had a good, older rope horse. He said it would be "good" for Gremlin, so I consented. It was to be a family outing, our first (and last) hunting camping trip.
We went to the mountains in the area where my ex had his elk permit and set up camp. He went out the first morning and shot his elk up over a mountain from where we were camped. So he took my son and Gremlin back to the woods to retrieve the elk. My daughter and I were out gathering up some firewood around camp late that afternoon when we saw Gremlin flying down out of the hills on the dead run with ropes flapping in the breeze behind him. He ran on about a quarter mile past camp where he became entangled in some willows. We girls went to catch him. I asked the ex what had happened, and he said he had tied the elk to the saddle with the ropes, and Gremlin was supposed to drag it. The dead elk was not upsetting to him, but when he started to pull and the ropes began flapping around his hind legs, Gremlin went into orbit. He charged up the mountain until he wrapped the elk around a tree, breaking the ropes, freeing Gremlin from his burden, but not his fright, as the ropes continued to flap against his hindquarters.
Since it was too late that day to go back after the elk, and my ex was not in any frame of mind to do so, I talked him into waiting until the next day when we would all go. He started out the next day with his rifle, and I asked him why he was taking that, as he had already filled his tag, so he left it at camp and it's a good thing, or Gremlin would not have lived to be a geriatric horse. We led Gremlin back and forth across the dead elk and that didn't phase him. I suggested my ex get on Gremlin and let me hand him the rope, then he could dally the rope while having control over the horse and make him pull the elk.
Gremlin got a little nervous as I approached him with the rope, but I quickly handed it to the ex, he dallied, then it began to get western. My son and ex had pulled the elk carcass down the mountain into a little creek-bed. Gremlin began to pitch, and the ex flew off right into the creek, face down! Boy was he mad when he came up. He was talking through gritted teeth when he said, "That horse is going to pull this elk if it's the last thing he does!" (Good thing I made him leave off the gun.) So we earred Gremlin down while he hooked the elk back to the empty saddle, then let him go. He took off like a rocket again and would run for all he was worth until the elk got snagged on something, then he would stand and blow until we caught up with him to unhook the elk, and the process would start all over. He ran on past camp until he got caught in the willow thicket again. By that time, the elk was flapping in the breeze behind him. Only got about 50 pounds of meat off that elk, hamburger, already ground, and it was rancid.
I tried everything I knew to get that pony over the trauma of that day, but to this day, if you take down a rope on Gremlin, you'd better be hanging on. Anything else involving being a cow horse, though, he's the greatest. Several of the Cheyenne neighbor kids learned to ride on him after I moved to Cheyenne, and they all loved him.

Geriatric Horse

2008-01-03T15:17:00.000-08:00

I have a geriatric horse. His name is Gremlin, so if you are a movie buff, his name would date him. He's named after those little creatures in the 1980's movie, "Gremlins." He has lived up to that name for almost 24 years. I haven't been his owner that whole time, but Gremlin has lived with me since birth. His dam, Boots, was about 24 years old when she was given to my nieces. They were instructed to share her until she could have a foal, then one of them could claim the foal and they'd each have a horse. I remember thinking, "If she lives long enough..." Well, Boots did live long enough to produce a foal, and that was Gremlin, born in May, 1984. But the winter of 83-84 was a hard one, and it took a toll on her, along with being old and pregnant. Boots lay down and died in the fall right after weaning Gremlin. Pictured above is Gremlin in the recent past with Allyissa up.
That was the same year I moved to Lance Creek, and my nieces had already left the ranch, so Gremlin came with me to Lance Creek in the spring of 1985. The niece that he belonged to was able to come help me start his riding program when he was two, then she left for the Army. Planning to make her career there, she decided to sell Gremlin to me. It was a good fit. Turns out, the very first horse I owned as a youngster was closely related to Gremlin. So I kind of knew what to expect from him as far as temperament and mannerisms. He was a handful! Half Quarter Horse, 1/4 Thoroughbred, and 1/4 Shetland Pony is a dangerous combination in a horse. He used to unload me at least once a year, usually in a very unkind manner, until he got to be almost ten years old.
I rode him as a three-year-old in a local outdoor pageant where there are cowboys and Indians, teams and wagons, fires, waterfalls, crowds and gunfire, among other scary things. That's how he went from green broke to sorta broke. The first year, he did great. Everything was new and held his interest, except for those Longhorn Cattle hitched up and pulling a wagon. He just tried to quit the country every time they came near. Guess he knew that wasn't natural--cows pulling a wagon. The second year, he was a little harder to handle. He knew what was going to happen and he didn't really want to take part. The third year, he piled me up at the beginning of the show the first night. The second night he also unloaded me and kicked my leg as he shot past me on his way out of the arena. Some spectators in the bleachers said they heard my leg pop like a rifle. Didn't break it, but the bruise went clear from one side of my knee to the other.
But we kept going back, and Gremlin eventually came to know the cues for the pageant as well, or better, than most of the Indians.
Gremlin finally gave up trying to pitch me off, when he decided it hurt him more than it did me, because I kept climbing back on.

My Favorite Lifestyle

2008-01-02T11:27:00.000-08:00

I think God meant for us all to be ranchers. Abraham was a big rancher, so was Job, Isaac and Jacob. What an idyllic lifestyle, even when the temperature outside is +15 degrees. Plus 15 doesn't feel that bad if there's no wind. It gives me great satisfaction to see my little herd of horses standing there dozing in the sun after filling their bellies on the good grass hay I feed them every morning.
Even solving a problem with their watering gave me great satisfaction, although I couldn't help thinking when I was in the thick of it, "Why did you ever want to do this?" Yesterday I went to fill up their tank with water from the hydrant that is over 100 feet away. The temperature never got above +25 yesterday, and I had left a couple pockets of ice in the hose from the previous watering, apparently. I had pulled it over the fence twice, just to make sure, but one little ice block is all it takes.
I fiddled with the hose for about an hour yesterday, trying to work the little ice cube to the end. I had a small trickle of water coming through the entire length of the hose, so I thought surely the friction from the moving water would melt the cube and soon, the hose would be running a full stream. I left it and went to do other chores as the sun was going down. When I came back, the trickle had ceased, and I had a hundred feet of hose that was now full of ice; a very bad turn of events. That ended my watering ambitions yesterday. I knew all the livestock had watered at least once for the day, and they would be alright until today.
This morning I went out and began hunting up hoses that had been drained out good before the cold weather hit. I found a few short ones that I could couple together, that is, if they had couplers that weren't mangled or mashed. Had to do a couple of quick repairs, then finally had enough hose to reach from the hydrant to the tank. I held my breath, lifted the handle on the hydrant, and listened for water splashing in the tank. Sweet success!
The daytime temperature is supposed to reach +35 today and +50 by Saturday, but it's going to have to hurry to get where it's supposed to be today. I laid the long hose that I froze stiff yesterday out where the sun will hit it, just in case. When the thermometer says +45, I'm going to try to drain it...good this time.

Happy New Year

2008-01-01T06:14:00.000-08:00

'Twas the night before New Year
and all through the house,
nothing was stirring except my cats
and maybe a mouse.
I had just settled in
all snug in my bed
for a New Year's Eve nap,
and my prayers were said.
When, what to my scared ears should sound
like the clanging of a gong
and a crash to the ground!
I didn't spring from my bed
I didn't want to know what was the matter.

Well that's bad poetry, but it sort of describes what happened last night. I guess the powers just wanted me to ring in the new year, because about midnight, this crashing sound awakened me. It sounded like someone had fallen off the roof outside. I thought for a minute the Lance Creek youngsters might be playing tricks on me. My curiosity finally got the best of me and I got up to go see what had crashed. At least one of my cats had been on the foot of my bed when the crash happened, because she leaped up, and I thought the other one was there, too, but apparently not. When I got upstairs, there were pots and pans all over the kitchen floor. I have a pot rack hanging from the ceiling by the range, and one of those darn cats must have made a leap up there, knocking pots everywhere. Darn nocturnal creatures. Between the cats and racoons, it's hard to get any sleep around here.
I spent some time yesterday assessing 2007 and where I want to be at this time in 2008. My only real goal for the year is to finish the addition to the ranch house. Of course, that was a goal at the beginning of 2007, when I took early retirement from my job and moved home. Oh well, I'm retired, I have all the time in the world, right? Sure would like to get that done so I can get some time in on some horses. I'm sure my accountant has a goal for me to get some horses sold in 2008.

Of Turkeys and Heelers

2007-12-31T13:07:00.000-08:00

All the turkeys hanging around now seem to be gobblers. I guess that's why they appeared so huge and I wonder if the hens chase the gobblers away when mating season is over, like the female antelope and deer do the bucks. I'd think they'd freeze to death roosting in the trees with the nighttime temperatures hovering around zero. My cats and dog, Nacho, don't seem to know what to think of the turkeys. A cat was stalking a turkey, then thought better of that idea as it got closer to the turkey and saw how big it was.

Nacho just follows them at a distance and looks at them questioningly. I'm sure he'd have fun chasing them if I just gave him the go-ahead. Nacho is a red heeler mix dog that I got from a dog rescue facility. He's a very good dog and doesn't chase anything unless I tell him it's ok. He does get very worried about me if he thinks the horses or cattle are giving me a hard time. He loves going with me in the truck when I'm feeding, but he got very nervous the first few times I just turned the truck loose in 4-wheel low with him in the cab so I could pitch hay off as it went forward. I guess he thought I expected him to steer or something. He's very smart. I think he must have belonged to a truck driver in his previous life, because he gets downright mad when I don't take him with me. He pouts and sulks and won't let me out of his sight for days. Twice he's torn up window curtains just trying to watch out the window for my return. Makes me feel needed, but I wish he'd quit tearing up things. Here's Nacho.

Red Heelers are also known as Australian Cattle Dogs and have an inbred instinct for chasing cows and other livestock. Nacho's prior owner must have taught him from an early age not to chase things, because he very seldom exhibits this behavior. I'm glad, because this behavior can be very undesirable around horses. Horses are mostly what I raise here, although I do have a few cattle. My accountant keeps telling me I have lost enough money on horses now, and that I need to get more cattle. I just tell her the horses may lose money, but cattle do too, and horses are way more fun to ride.

Turkeys Too

2007-12-29T16:04:00.000-08:00

The wild turkey are back tonight, though fewer in number. Wile E. Coyote must have had a meal or two. A few months ago, there was a flock of about 30 roosting in the cottonwoods around the house, then they went away. Tonight I counted only 12. They had either grown or had their feathers fluffed out against the cold--only plus 25 with a slight breeze. They looked huge as they flew up into the trees.
It's against the law to feed wild animals in Wyoming, but everyone in Lance Creek does it, everyone except me. I learned why it's not a good idea to feed wild turkeys. When my children were in school, we had a flock hanging around the place, so I began throwing them out some corn as I would feed the livestock in the mornings before I went to work. I went to work before the school bus came to pick up the neighborhood kids. When my son and daughter came out of the house, the turkeys had usually finished their snack and were looking for more, and soon became aggressive in their search. They would actually chase the kids to the bus door, then attack the bus tires as it was leaving the driveway. Wild turkeys have big talons and sharp claws and spurs.
My son and I drove into the yard one day to find two gobblers locked in bloody battle. Their necks were twisted together and one had hold of the other's wattle (that piece of bluish-red skin above their beaks that swells when they strut for the females) in his beak. My son jumped out and tried to break them up, but they just ran off all locked together and still going at each other.

Big Bucks

2007-12-28T17:33:00.000-08:00

When I go out to feed in the mornings, I am never quite sure what I'm going to find in my yard. Sometimes there are racoons, skunks or stray cats, but always there are deer. They come right in by my corral to feast on the hay I have stacked there for my livestock. Yesterday I saw this big guy. He has been hanging around here since about Thanksgiving. He is smart enough not to show his rack during hunting season, but immediately afterward, he began coming to my yard with his little herd of does and fawns. I like seeing them and I don't mind sharing my livestock feed with them, as long as they don't eat too much.

I have an animosity for those darn racoons, though. They get into everything and make such a mess, besides they are little thieves. They cabbage onto anything shiny and take off toward the creek with it. They get into my grains no matter where I store them. I finally foiled them, though, and put the sacks of feed in the cab of an old pickup truck. Then they got up on top of the cab above the windows, and I found where they were trying to pry open the windows to get to the feed. Really. They even do team-work. I used to store my dog food in the garage in those large plastic garbage containes that have lids that have to be turned and lifted at the same time. Those little terrorists figured out how to open them. That's why they have masks over their eyes. They are robbers.

Recently, I sat out in the truck all one night with a gun and my dog, Nacho. I was determined to shoot some coons. They came in about two a.m. and I was dozing, but Nacho sat up and growled. I looked and saw one shinny up into the front of the livestock trailer where I had some feed stored, so I jumped out with my gun and Nacho took off after another racoon. By the time I got to the trailer, the little bugger knew he was in trouble and was hunkered down behind the feed. I didn't want to shoot a hole in the front of my trailer, so I got a rake and raked him down. He sprinted for the trailer door and I jumped out after him, but he smacked himself up against the house and ran along the perimeter. I got one clear shot at him as he scurried from the house to the garage, and I missed. Oh well, I really don't have the heart to shoot the little furry critters, anyway, so I just put the feed in metal barrels and placed big rocks on the lids. The next day I noticed the robbers had come back and were scratching on the lids and the rocks trying to get into the feed. All in a night's work for them and me.

It's Still Cold

2007-12-27T13:01:00.000-08:00

I think our seven year drought might be coming to an end. We have had snow on the ground for almost a month now. That hasn't happened in my recent memory. There is over a foot if it had stayed in one place, but since it didn't, there are drifts almost knee-deep in places. Temperatures have been hovering around zero at night and +20 during the days. I do hope we get a January thaw, though. I am finding it hard to stay upright as I go about feeding the horses and cows.
It was nice to have a white Christmas for a change. I spent Christmas Eve about 40 miles away with my niece and her family. The kids got sleds for Christmas, so they were sledding. My niece has a Brown Swiss milk cow that she milks. That cow is so tame, she would follow Mandy in the house, if allowed. I told her to let her in and call the entryway a "milking parlor." That way, she wouldn't have to milk out in the cold.
I made the pies for the celebration, pecan, pumpkin, and apple-blueberry, and Glimmer, the cow, provided cream for real whipped cream on the pies. Yumm. Thank you Glimmer.
Glimmer is a very special cow and a gift from God. My niece, who has three young children, and loves everything about country life, wanted a milk cow to provide milk for her family and several sheep, goats, and pigs. There were lots of other things she could have spent $1,200 on other than a milk cow, but she figured the cow would pay her back in the long run, so she went to Colorado, bought a milk cow and brought it home. The cow promptly went off her feed. Simply refused to eat, so no milk was to be had. Mandy called the dairy where she had bought the cow. They said the cow was probably just lonesome, but they offered to replace the cow, since it had dried up. Mandy went back to choose another cow. This time they chose one that had been penned alone before. All went well for some months, and Mandy was getting used to having fresh milk, cream and butter, when suddenly this cow became ill. Mandy works at a vet clinic, so she rushed the cow to her vet. The cow died in the vet clinic. The vets told her it had died of a broken heart, because these cows are very social and don't like being alone. Mandy and her husband were just sick over the loss of this cow and the money they had spent. Unbeknownst to them, their vet friends took up a collection at the clinic and went back to the same place and purchased another cow for them, only this time, it was a $1,700 cow instead. This was Glimmer. They surprised Mandy when they drove in their yard with a stock trailer with Glimmer inside. There were happy tears. Glimmer was actually the cow's registered name, and Mandy decided it was appropriate, as she was her "glimmer of hope" for having a milk cow.
Glimmer calved soon after she came to live at my niece's, and in fact, had twins. She seems to be quite happy now and adjusted to living with goats and sheep instead of cows. She was even letting the goats nurse, but Mandy had to put a stop to that. Glimmer doesn't even have to be tied or hobbled to be milked, she just stands there.

Tractor Unstuck

2007-12-23T17:30:00.000-08:00

Ok, today I got the tractor out of the stack yard. I finally had presence of mind to unload the 800 pound bale of hay, then the tractor came right out. Plus the outside temperature was only about negative 15 degrees with the wind chill factor, so the ground was really firm and the tires were able to get some traction. So now at least I can back the pickup in and load hay by hand without having to manuver around the tractor taking up half the stack yard.
Lance Creek was placed back on the map recently when our local rodeo hero, Jason Miller, was named Steer Wrestling World Champion at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, NV. I told Jason what he did was nothing, I have jumped off my horse many times like that without even a nice, soft steer to land on! Jason is a prince of a guy. I have known him since he was about ten years old. He was just learning to drive when I came to Lance Creek and you'd see their pickup coming at you with two little heads just above the dash. Either he or his brother must have been running the pedals while the other ran the steering wheel! Scary. Jason also won first place at Cheyenne Frontier Days this past July. He had long been wanting to win the gold buckle there, so Jason has had a very good year. You can read more about Cheyenne Frontier Days and view some pictures I took of the action at my how to article on ehow.com. Just go to http://www.ehow.com/how_2149629_enjoy-cheyenne-frontier-days-rodeo.html. Be sure to rate the article or leave a comment. You can also view my article about Lance Creek at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/296554/dinosaurs_and_drilling_rigs_lance_creek.html

Somebody Close The Gate

2007-12-22T17:34:00.000-08:00

"There's never a dull moment around you, mom," my son and daughter have said. Yesterday my sister-in-law was saying the same thing. She had come to stay with me on my tiny ranch where I am early-retired but now working harder than ever. There was a snow storm coming in and I wanted to get some large bales of hay transferred out of the stack yard onto my trailer in case I was unable to access the stack yard due to snow drifts. I had blown a head-gasket on my little tractor a few weeks back. It was still moving, but had lost over half it's power. Since I can't afford to get it fixed, I'll just have to work with it. I took it to the stack yard and speared an 800 pound bale of hay, then discovered I could not back out of the stack yard. There was just enough snow that the drive wheels would just spin. Luckily, there was still room in the stack yard to get in with a pickup to load hay with a pitch fork. That's what we did. I told Connie we could leave it until the next day when my brother was supposed to be coming. He could help me retrieve it, or maybe the ground would be frozen enough to give the tires enough traction to move it. Freezing drizzle had already started when we emerged from the house the next morning. We went straight to the stack yard but the tractor still wouldn't move. Load hay by hand, feed all critters quickly as it starts to snow. Brother Bill decides not to come because of the weather, and we decide Connie had better get going or she would be spending Christmas with me. Connie headed out, got 20 miles away, but was having trouble driving with limited visibility, would have come back, but they closed the road behind her. Never a dull moment...