Catching Up

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.

Chexy's Breaking In

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!

Kids and Horses all Week

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.

Going Home

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.

Twins Should Have Ponies

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.