August

August 6-12 Summer Ranch Week

Friday, August 11, 2000
It's been a few weeks since my last writing so a quick catch up. The last week of July and first of August were dry. It seemed that the rainy season had ended. Thunderstorms drifted around putting down nothing but lightning, starting small scattered fires all around. One day I counted seven within ten miles of the ranch. Those weeks were spent riding Bearwallow and Negrito pastures rounding up the strays which were missed when we gathered. Four days were spent doing that collecting everything that was found into the south holding pasture till Friday when the long push out to Pitchfork pasture was made usually moving 50 to 80 head. Everyone got in some good weeks of cowboying. A bit of branding was done out at the Fence Tank corral. I rode one day, a good little horse named Doolin who I've had for several years. I chose him because he is smooth gaited, easy to get on with one hand, and never does anything wrong. I appreciated my choice where several hours into the ride I felt him take a funny step then stop. I urged him forward, he took a few steps and stopped again. I looked at his rear hooves and saw he had a big bundle of old barbed wire wrapped around both. I got off and he lifted his feet one at a time while I unwrapped it. Most other horses would have gone into a fit, but he took care of me. After just half a day the weight of my cast wore my shoulder out and I headed home. So I have only ridden once in over 8 weeks.

This last week we had a great week. The rains started with a vengeance and we got over two inches in some long soaking rains. Now all we need is some good gully washers to fill the tanks, ponds and streams. The crew was energetic, handy, and well muscled this week as we started riding Pitchfork getting our branding going again. They found and branded 97 calves, withstood some fearsome thunderstorms at the Fence tank corral and had a good time doing it. We spent three nights at the 7HL line camp and they all looked forward to dropping down into the canyon camp sites in to the sight of the chuck wagon and Tanya and Amy busy with a big meal. Other than the closeness of howling coyotes they all said they had the best nights sleep ever as the rain pattered on the canvas teepees.

As they headed for the main H.Q. Friday afternoon there were comments that they wished they had branded three more to make it an even hundred. I drove one of the trucks back from camp and about two hours after I had been home I heard thundering hooves and looked out the window to see three 2 Y.O. bulls run past the house and five riders hot on their heels. I went to the porch to watch the show as they attempted to get the wild critters in the corrals. After a pretty good rodeo, lots of fast riding they finally got them in. I went down to see what all they had and they were smiling big with the news that all three were unbranded. They were all three nice bulls and my smile equaled theirs. We quickly had a fire going and ran them into the squeeze chute, they were soon wearing my brand. They got to the 100 goal they wanted and I got three free bulls. A great way to end the week!

August 13-19 Summer Ranch Week

Monday, August 14, 2000
The day started out great! Sunny with a few scattered thunderheads the temp. about 70. We have no guests this week as we are getting ready to take some of our yearlings and older saddle horses to a sale at the end of the week. Tanya, Curtis and I got the yearlings in the barn where we were doing the usual handling with them, grooming, picking feet, saddling and leading them. They are all excellent kids having done this preschool stuff a lot. I got into a bit of a fight with a cute sorrel gelding named Early. So named because he was premature by a few weeks and couldn't walk for the first few days due to contracted tendons. He was kinda knuckled over till we weaned at which time we turned all the weanlings out into one of the big pastures for the winter to run and roam over hills and rocks. When we gathered them in this spring he was as straight and strong as any of the others. When I first started to work with him this morning he didn't like my cast. All the horses check it out, they can some how sense or smell injury. Some back away kinda looking side long at it, others really smell it all over and often will then sniff my face and blow in my nose as if to tell their sympathy. My big gelding Gambler stops every day on the way to his grain and checks it out all over, nice to know his concern is stronger than the lure of grain. Since my wreck he has just been raging on the horse I was riding and who took me for my wild ride. I mean just all over him every chance he gets. Ok, so I got a bit side tracked. Any way Early did not like it but got over it as he did everything I asked him till it came to saddle him. I was a bit awkward one handed and he jumped from under it and set back breaking his lead. I should have stopped then but I caught him back up and tried again. He ducked from under the saddle again but didn't break the lead this time. I knew it was me and not him so I left him tied and told Tanya she should work with him after he settled down awhile.

We all went on working with the others and she finally got to him after a half hour or so. She had to take a long slow time getting the pads and saddle on but did with no eruptions. As she was leading him out to walk him I had a flash of telling her to work him in the pen but saw Curtis was in there with a filly who was less along and doing well so I thought not to disrupt her. They were out of sight about two min. when we heard thundering hooves and saw early running for his life across the front pasture with the lead chasing him and stirrups swinging. He was headed toward a barb wire fence that makes up an alley between two pastures with another wire fence 12 feet beyond it. I told Curtis he wasn't going to stop and sure enough he didn't. He hit it as fast as a yearling can go and flipped head over heels then plowed into the fence beyond getting wrapped up in it as two posts broke. I hollered to Curtis to get the wire cutters as I ran the few hundred yards to him with my stomach cold as ice. He tried to get up and staggered thirty feet and that's when I saw his hock was broken as he fell into the fence again. Tanya was running to him as well and got to him a moment ahead of me and dropped to her knees. She saw as I did his shoulder was laid open to the bone and all the muscle to his knee was hanging in a huge flap. She looked up at me with her eyes filling "he needs a vet" she said. I turned away to the house to get my gun saying "he's dead sweety" Within a minute I put him out of his pain. Tanya was sobbing how sorry she was as I took her in my arms and told her it wasn't her fault. I told her to go take a break so Curtis and I could bury him. She caught up her horse, swung up bareback and loped off down the lane. She was back in an hour composed and went back to work. It was just one of those hind sight being 20/20 situations and regretting not following my first instinct.

August 20-26 Summer Ranch Week

Monday, August 21, 2000
Horse sales are nothing but a huge amount of work. Ours was a bit easier this week than it could have been. A fellow came by the day before we left and bought 6 of the seven geldings we were going to take leaving us with just four yearlings and one 10 yr old gelding to take. We were out of here by 8:00 am but I made a big mistake while loading the trailer. Normally I put the heaviest horse to the front so most of the weight is on the truck and not on the trailer axle. This time I put the yearlings on the front and the 16.1 1,450 lb gelding on the back. My thinking was that I didn't want to take a chance of the bigger horse smashing any of the yearlings or kicking. Well in the first 60 miles I had two blowouts on the trailer. After the second we switched the horses to where they should have been and had no further problems on the ten hour drive to the sale. It was hot there on the Texas border. Tanya and Lyndsey were up at 4:30 am washing, grooming and prepping. They were done by the time I got there with breakfast. Tanya spent most of the day out in the bright sun and 100 degree heat getting the horses around and seen. It was her first time showing horses in a sales ring and she did a great job. But it was a buyers market. No one was happy with the prices good horses were bringing. I let a couple yearlings go too cheap, brought one home and traded another to a saddle maker for a bunch of hand made cowboy tack. The girls loved that, spending an hour picking out what we needed. I was proud of them as they passed up the glittery stuff for the using stuff. I also brought home the gelding getting a bid of only $6,200 for a $10,000 horse. As usual I bought, got three nice 2 yo geldings. One roan, and two gray and white overo paints. The paints are both Poco Bueno bred and the roan is a Hancock. We named one Frio, due thin coat on a Texas horse, the other paint is The Doctor, and the roan is Vaquero. The Doctor is a son of a champion cutting horse so I hope to train him to go into working cow horse competitions. We decided not to stay for the second day of the sale as we were all exhausted.

Sunday we cleaned camp and kinda recuperated from the long weekend.

Monday I was back in the truck to Silver City to pick up horses at the vets, one was a pre-purchase exam on a high dollar horse, he didn't pass. The other was Chile my pride and joy three y.o. who had been kicked in the Achilles tendon. The news was not good, he is to have six months in a small pen and hopefully will come back usable. I feel so bad for him as he stands and watches all his pasture pals out and he's stuck in the corral.

Curtis left, got called back to the R.R., we were sorry to see him go. He sold us his young paint horse much to all of our surprise. But he was thinking of it as what was best for the horse and could easily see how happy he was here and knew that if he took him back to Kansas that he would have no time for him and he would just be lonely and bored.

This week we have nine guests, Paul, Issac, Cindy, Robin, Rudy, Susan, Kathy, Miriam and Betty. We will be spending a few nights out at camp as we are back to branding again. A bit of rain every afternoon, days in the upper 70's, this morning was right at 40 with a taste of fall in the air.

Saturday, August 26, 2000
A very productive week, a great group of guests. Tuesday we rode out into Pitchfork, gathered and branded 23 calves, ending the day at the 7HL camp. Wednesday we did the same, more gathering and branding. Saw at least 300 elk in the course of our riding in 4 different groups. I rode The Doctor out, he did great for his first time in the big country. At first I didn't ask much of him as we rode through looking for unbranded calves, he has a great walk on him. As we got more comfortable with each other we eased away from the others who were moving the small bunch of unbrandeds we had found. We went moseying through cattle checking them all, he did not mind going away from the others. When we found a couple "slick" pairs (unbranded) he was really interested and did a great job getting them over to the moving bunch. One cow broke and he was all over her and stopped her dead in her tracks and with ears back moved her to the others. We have what's called rabbitt brush or Chamisa it grows in bunches in the flats about 2 foot high. I started reining him around those as we went along using leg cues. Within minutes he was totally working off my leg. I am just tickled to death with him, tho Maggie is mad at me for riding a 2 y.o. out I felt safe with him. We branded 27 on wed. spent the night back at the line camp. Thursday they went back out and did it again! Branding 24 that day. I went to Albq. dropped off a horse I had sold a few days before who is headed to Ohio, for those of you who have been here it was Levi. We had only had him a few weeks. A very handsome golden Palomino. Friday the group headed back to the Headquarters taking the 8 hr. scenic route via Snow Lake.

I spent the day at the Dr. getting worked over a bit but leaving not having to have any more surgery and getting put finally into a short cast for the next 8 weeks. When it is all done I will have been in one for over four months, the best of the summer having slipped by.

Betty and Miriam from S.C. have decided to forget the trip they had planned to the Grand Canyon and stay with us an extra week. They are lots of fun and easy keepers. My thanks to all the rest of the crew this week in getting right into it and getting so much done. We had the best fire and iron crew ever!

It was a week of scattered showers in the afternoons, highs in the low 80's nights were in the upper 40's. At this writing it has been raining steady for over two hours and have gotten almost an inch. Tanya tried to ride the other new 2 y.o.'s today but got hailed out when it came down so hard and covered the ground with 1/2 in. within 5 min. looked a lot like Christmas.

August 27-September 2 Summer Ranch Week

Monday, August 28, 2000
We have 8 guests. They include Norm from St. Louis and his adult son Tim from the Chicago area, Jerry from Cal., Christina from Ont. Canada, Michael and Estell from Manhattan, Le Anne and Judy many time repeats from Dallas, and of course Miriam and Betty from S.C. who stayed over from last week. Today was the usual shake down ride to the fire tower for an overview of the country getting a taste of a hot thunderstorm along the way.

Tuesday, August 29, 2000
We trailered out to Canyon Creek pasture to move out cattle that had leaked in, as we are resting that pasture this year. Just getting out there was an adventure, it had rained the night before and the roads were slick. The trailer tires were gummed up so thick at times they were not even rolling. We had two four wheel drives but one truck that Lyndsey was driving wasn't nor does it have turbo on the diesel. I was behind her and a few times she was almost dead in her tracks but she keep it moving and we finally made it. It's a huge pasture, about 16,000 acres. and my favorite. It borders the wilderness area about 7 miles and has Canyon Creek Mountains on one side and Loco Mountain on the other covered with Aspen, Spruce And Fir, sitting in the middle is S.S. Basin a 6,000 acres high country grass land. We split up into three groups, I went into pine canyon with Maggie, Judy And Leanne. Its a beautiful loop thru the tight canyon, the Chmisa and Apache Plume at full bloom. We found only a few head and met the others at Juniper tank, they had about 40 head. After a short break my group went to check some gates while Alan, and Lyndsey and all the rest took the herd up S.S. basin and then up the steep side of T Bar Ridge. From what I hear I'm glad I missed it, a long push with cattle who didn't want to go. Lots of hollering and yelling and an hour later they got over the top and pushed them into T Bar Valley where they were allowed to drift. The day ended at the 7HL. cowcamp. A quick storm blew in about nine p.m. making for good sleeping.

Wednesday, August 30, 2000
It was a perfect fall day big puffy clouds just warm enough, about 70. We rode the east end of Pitchfork pasture in small groups looking for unbranded calves. Saw a lot of cattle but only ended up with 8 to brand in the afternoon. All the groups made it back to camp between four and five, everyone kinda liking the shorter day after the previous one. Amy has been doing some awesome meals out at the chuck wagon, I must say she is the best cook who has ever rubbed the N Bar stove.

Thursday, August 31, 2000
Today was the first bit of frost in the low areas, looking out from camp the bottoms were filled with fog and the cold dew was heavy. It made for some slow risers. We rode almost all of Pitchfork in three groups. Some trailered out to fence tank and rode the valley. I took a group along the north perimeter fence. It’s beautiful out there just along where the pines meet the meadows, up one ridge down into a canyon and then up another for miles. Not too many cattle up there and no unbrandeds till we saw the other groups headed back down in the valley with about 70 pairs. We joined up with them and reorganized leaving most of the riders to move the herd and five of us went up on T Bar ridge to look over some along the slope. I went highest and looked over a lot but none were unbranded. I really didn't care, I was enjoying myself to much. I was alone on a great horse in awesome country I had not been able to ride in months. Antelope roamed all around me, the herd of cattle stretched out looking like ants two miles below me, hundred mile views in ever direction. I never wanted to come down but finally I did. We met up at Fence tank with a corral full to brand working till after seven. Jerry and Tim were the only guests working in the corral, they really were a bunch of help! With Miriam and Betty tending irons and getting a good system going, it all went well. They really pitched in and when it was all done we had 25 more calves branded some were over 400 pounds! It was a long trip back to the H.Q. for tired riders but hot showers and Amy's good food had everyone belly rolling around the campfire later.

Friday, September 1, 2000
We had a heavy frost Thursday night. Today we laid off the cattle work as everyone wanted to get in a lot of miles the last day. So Tanya and Lyndsey took them out across the South Trap meadows showing them a couple old homesites then dropped into Snow Canyon. It's an awesome canyon, at the north end the bottom is a few hundred yards wide with a stream and walls up about five hundred feet with great formations and hawk nests. It narrows up to less than 50 feet with an old beaver pond and damn. It gets a bit technical in there and at a bad spot crossing the damn Billy with Jerry aboard broke through the damn and got a stirrup hung on a small log. It was pretty exciting but Tanya got Billie calmed and free from his wreck. He came out of it with some cuts and a pulled muscle. Jerry being the horseman he is elected to walk Billie out and Lyndsey walked with him. They went down to Snow Lake where we have a corral while Tanya finished the canyon and looped home. She got back here about 6:00 and told me about the other two needing a ride so I trailered out and got them. It was a late night at the campfire as everyone was reluctant to see the week end.