8/1/05 Monday We have a ten folks from South Carolina with us this week, nine guys and one wife. They are: Jackie and his wife Belinda, Randy, Doug, T Bone, Lee, Keith, James, Jim and Jimmy. Obviously a few of these guys got range names so I could keep them all straight. Today they headed out in two groups hunting up a dozen head in Negrito pasture that I had seen over the weekend. They rode about six hours, getting more and more frustrated as the afternoon went along. Complaining that it was a trail ride and they didn’t believe we had any cattle on this place. Finally late in the day one group found the cattle. Like I always say, half of cowboyin’ is finding out where the cattle aren’t. On their way home Jimmy “Two Hats” fell off his horse. He fell in a good rock free spot but still banged his head pretty good so Lyndsey took him to town for an over night stay at the clinic. He was sent home in the morning with a clean bill of health. While all this was going on I headed to Snow Lake to fix some fence. While I was working on it Lia radioed that the wolf people had stopped by and thought that the wolves were eating on a cow. I drove out to Harleyville and found them along the main road right next to the campground. When I got out the head wolf guy saw my pistol and asked what was up with the gun. I told him I just have it. “No really why are you wearing a gun?” “So when I get tired of hearing your B.S. I can shoot myself” I responded. He has no sense of humor. Just off the road right next to the campground there was a beautiful homebred four-year-old cow dead. They had seen five wolves eating on it. It was just a couple hours old, the wolves had only gotten the hide peeled back and just a bit of hind quarter eaten. We skinned it out and found no kill bite marks but most of the hide and meat in the rear leg area, the drag down area, was gone so it was impossible to tell anything. But there was a fight trail extending over half a mile thru the grass and sage. All this meant nothing to the wolf people and once again it was decided that there was no “conclusive” evidence that wolves had killed it. Oh come on now! A fight trail, five wolves eating on it, but still the sweet wolves must have just come across her dead and started feeding. I know the cow had a calf last week and there was no sign of the calf at all. While standing there I muttered that it was a three thousand dollar loss and one of the young wolf girl volunteers giggled. I asked if she thought it was funny. She said it was funny that it was just about money. I explained that it wasn’t just about the money, that we had raised that calf from a baby, feeding it all winter, getting it through a bout of pink eye, and that it was a lot more than just money. She was like a part of the family. She again chuckled and said how could you think of a big dumb cow as a part of your family. I was fuming but held my temper better than I should and said “Laura you will never understand”. The head wolf guy told me I needed to find a way to defend my cattle. He suggested I bring them all in the 80 acre meadow there so I could watch them better. Yes I’ll put 300 head on 80 acres and ride circles around them. Frigging idiot. I told them I wanted to have the wolves hazed out of that area but they said they wouldn’t do that. It took too much time and they were understaffed. They did say they were going to bring their camper out and keep an eye on the carcass for the night and try to scare the wolves off if they came back. I went home and after dinner I went back with a couple hundred pounds of lime. As I was covering the carcass with lime little Laura came over and asked what I was doing. I told her making the meat unpalatable. She said “Why?” I told her I didn’t want to feed the wolves and have them get more of an appetite for beef. She again laughed and said “ Oh they already have that”. I went home and collected my guns and headed back out to the site about 11pm. The wolf folks had moved their camp trailer out there but as far as keeping an eye out for wolves… they weren’t. They were snug in their dark camper with the heater running. I pulled up across the road from their camp and parked. I cranked up the radio, built a huge campfire and got out my guns. Until the sun camp up I shot over a hundred rounds, hooted and hollered and had myself a one-man redneck campfire party. There was never a peep out of their camper until about 6am when Laura came out and stomped over, as I was packing up. “ That was so inconsiderate!” she spat out. “K.M.A Laura” I told her. “K.M.A.? What does that mean?” She asked. “ You have a college education you can figure it out.” I said as I got in my truck and drove away. Hi was 74 low was 40. 8/2/05 Tuesday We headed out into 7HL today. Half the crew trailered out with Nate to the north end while the rest rode out from H.Q. with Lyndsey and me. Our plan was to gather unbranded pairs and work them while staying a couple nights at Fence Tank and keep working from there. We got about fifteen head in the pens late in the day as thunderheads were building. We started roping and time slipped by as the crew got the roping figured out. It started raining before were half done so we turned the calves over trying to keep the side we brand dry. But the rain got harder and harder turning the corral to a slick mud mess. Just about the time the last one was roped I decided it wasn’t going to work. I told them to turn them lose. A few of the crew were pissed off. They couldn’t figure why we would go through all that just to turn them lose. They wanted to brand. I explained that you can’t brand wet calves but it didn’t go over real well. The rain fell pretty hard for a while, some close lightning. The summer rains sure were late in arriving but have come on well. The east side has gotten more than here on the west where the H.Q. is located. Which is just fine. Last couple years the east side has gotten the least. Everyone stayed in camp with Nate and Lyndsey along with Leasha who cooked up a good meal of fried chicken. While we were doing evening chores we found Saint, our stud had cut his pastern really deep on barbwire. Probably striking out at Ben the mule who is always hassling him over the fence. Lia helped as I cleaned and wrapped it. That horse is so well behaved for a stud. He’s a better patient than most of our geldings. Maggie and I headed out about 11pm for some more late night shooting. I have decided that the only way to get rid of these wolves is to make this country so loud, busy and inhospitable that they finally decide to leave. We were out till about 3am, I finally got so tired after almost 40 hours of no sleep we headed home. Hi 72 lo 40 8/3/05 Wednesday After last nights rain it was pretty humid and sticky…well for around here. The humidity level was right at 50%. I headed out with Lia who wanted to come watch the branding and learn a bit. The day came together really well. We saddled up and rode a total of about an hour after which time we had 19 calves to brand. All of us just stayed back and let the crew do all the roping and flanking. It took pretty much the rest of the day but by God they stuck to it and got all the calves down. Doug “Big City” ended up being a natural at the roping and Jim “Talk Show” was an animal on the flanking with Lee “Slick” being right there as well to get the big ones down. We hadn’t branded in almost two months due to the fire danger so there were a half dozen in there that ran over 400 pounds. Nate got them all lined out on the branding while Lyndsey and I took care of the castrating and Leasha did the tagging. Lia put on the grand finale of the day by riding a big steer for everyone. It was her first time and as with all our new wranglers was fired up to ride him. Before we let him up we put a bucking rope on him, got her settled over top and untied him. She rode it better than any one in the past. A good solid six-second ride before coming off a high buck and hitting the ground hard almost getting stepped on. The ground in that branding pen is about like a parking lot and she was hurting having landed on her hip giving it a deep bone bruise and tearing her shirt off her shoulder. But she cowboy’d up and limped away as the crew shoved money at her. First time I’ve seen a pay off for a short ride. I later asked her if she would ever ride a bovine again. She shook her head no. Lesson learned and mission accomplished. It was about 3pm before we were all done. The crew had worn themselves out so we called it a good job and good day done. Lia and I headed home soon after that and to give her a nod she was right there at chore time ready to work. Maggie and I headed out again to make more noise about 10pm. That gal of mine is pretty cool. After ripping off a full clip on the .223 she got back in the truck and announced, “This is really fun!” We were not out that late as it started a pretty good rain about 1am making the roads too slick to drive much. Hi was 69 lo was 41 8/4/05 Thursday Lia and I got back out to camp about 8am. The crew had about enough camping so the plan was to hunt up some more calves to brand and then they all would head home in the trucks while the horses and Nate stayed out for another night. We saddled up and headed out going as far west as T Bar tank. As we rode along I watched clouds build up. It was pretty early for such a build up. We found nothing down the valley, all the cattle were up on T Bar Ridge so Lyndsey and Nate each took a crew up there while I stayed down low. Hell I wasn’t going up there. Thunder began to rumble and soon lightning was flashing. I called them all off the ridge and announced it was a better safe than sorry decision and we headed back to camp. Along the way I think every one of the riders slipped by to thank me for calling them down. Just as we got to camp and were unsaddling the rain started pretty hard. Soaking us as we unsaddled and turned the horses into the night corral. Just about the time we were done the rain stopped. We were a bit short on seats going back to H.Q. so half the crew rode in the horse trailer. They were convinced I was driving 60 mph when it was actually not even 40 mph. I think they gained a bit of appreciation for what horses go through when trailering. Heck we were home by 2pm. I made a couple calls that were over due then went to round up some volunteers to ride around for three hours in the truck and put out salt. It didn’t sound like much fun to most of the crew but T Bone, Talk Show, and Keith joined up. We loaded the salt and headed out. It was a beautiful drive out to Loco and Canyon Creek. The fresh rain, the thunderstorms all around and the late day light, it was awesome. It was a pleasure having these guys along as they were enthralled by the sights and let it be known. We bounced our way all around, dropping salt here and there. As we came over T Bar Ridge about 6pm there in front of us about 60 yards away were the two alpha wolves of the Saddle Pack. They were standing there just looking at us not even worried about a big truck rumbling their way. I stopped and took my gun out of the scabbard, loaded a clip and they were still right there, one actually moving our way. I fired around one; it took two shots before it moved but only to run another 20 yards then stop and look back. A few more shots got it running. The second had run a bit but stopped as well. I shot a few at him and got him going. Then I looked to my right and 40 yards away sat a half grown pup. I dusted him five times and it never moved. I reloaded and fired more finally getting it to run off. They were headed right down to a big bunch of our cattle when we came across them. Damn they piss me off. A coyote would have run at the first sight of a truck. These wolves being handled so much just stand there expecting maybe a steak tossed to them. They have no fear. We lucked out our whole drive. The rain was all around and could have mired us good if it had caught us on any of those two track roads. We saw a nice double rainbow and just as we were getting close to H.Q. a herd of over a hundred Elk ran across the road and stopped so the guys could get some pictures. Hi was 66 lo was 42 8/5/05 Friday We drove out to Fence tank where our horses were waiting, getting saddled and on the trail in good time. It was Lindsey's birthday so she got the day off. Nate and Lia hauled home camp stuff. I took the crew up onto T Bar Ridge and we started gathering cattle. We weren’t looking to brand today, just gather all we could and get them back into Loco pasture where they belong. We swept the whole ridge and by the time we got to T Bar Tank we had right at a hundred head. We pushed down T Bar Canyon as we have done so many times the past month or so. Each time it’s a pleasure with the creek flowing strong and the rocks rising high. So green it almost hurts your eyes. The drive went well. Just as were got through the gate Nate caught up with us having ridden out from H.Q. We took a vote and half the crew wanted to head home while the others wanted to see more country. I headed back with the short riders, tho it was still over two hours back. Nate took the rest down the canyon to Snow Lake then back up Snow Ridge and on home, about four hours. Hi was 70 low was 50 light rain over night. I wish I could have been keeping count on our rainfall but my gauge broke. This was one fun crew! They laughed all the time and had some dang good jokes to boot. I sure hope we see them back at our gate again.
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