Saturday 9/24/05

After the crew left for Albq. with Lyndsey, Nate and I went back out to camp and picked up the rest of the horses getting them home about noon. He then loaded up his mares and went back out to camp where he will stay the next week. Lyndsey and I will swap days out there helping him gather and haul yearling while the other is here tending chores.

After he left I sat down to world of work here in the office. Bills piled up, messages to return, e-mail to answer and to start catching up on the log here.

Much of this is written from memory. I stopped taking my laptop to camp worried about weather and dirt. So there may be a few things out of order or forgotten about. Those of you who were here are welcome to post any extra memories or what ever on the message board. As all of you long time readers are aware my prompt writing took a trail south this summer. Many of you wrote wondering if we were all right, asking what was going on, and a few complaining they were missing their fix of ranch reading.

When I was in High School Stephen King was my English teacher for a year in a creative writing class. He told us a writer writes best either when happy or when depressed but can’t write well at both. I write best when I’m feeling good.

Most of the summer I have not been a happy honcho.

As you know the wolves have devastated our calf crop this year. I have been spending most of the summer camping out. Sleeping little and working a lot. Just doing what must be done to keep things going but knowing in the back of my mind it was all going down the drain. You have read all about it.

What you haven’t read about is that I was accused of rustling back in June. As I have mentioned before all my neighbors except the ones to the west are the best there could be. The three to the west are sure hard to get along with. I try to avoid contact all I can. Back in June I was called to meet the brand inspector at one of the neighbors corrals. I went and there was presented with three different pieces of rustling evidence against me. The first was a 5 – {Five Bar} cow with a calf wearing my ear mark.no brand or tag. The next was a TTT cow with my ear tag in her ear. The third and most damaging was a 5 – cow with a calf next to her and the calf had my brand, my ear tag, and my earmark on it.

They asked me to explain. I had no explanation. We never just ear mark a calf with out branding it. I had no idea how my tag got in the cows ear. Last year while retagging, the last thing we do in October it was dark when we were finishing up and may have missed the TTT cow but we are careful to sort any neighbor cattle out early in the fall works. And besides she was wearing an “04 calf tag. Suspicious. The pair, now that was a quandary. Both were black with white faces, both pretty wild and sure enough looked like a pair. But I couldn’t believe we would make that kind of mistake after all the precautions we take not to. As those of you who have been here in the last few years know when we are branding we always pen our cattle and let them settle and pair up for an hour after bringing them in. Then ride through checking all the brands, all to avoid any mistakes and later complications.

The way New Mexico brand laws are written it was enough evidence to without trail convict me of a 4 th degree felony. Which would have been $15,000 fine, 5 years in prison and loss of the right to own cattle or any other livestock in the state of New Mexico. As well as the usual felony things like not being able to vote or own a firearm. They told me they would pull D.N.A. on the pair and when it came back would then decide if they would arrest me and press charges. So for the last three months I woke every day wondering if this was the day I would be arrested and lose everything I have worked for, all for something I knew in my heart I didn’t do.

Friday morning I was told that the D.N.A. came back negative.

It wasn’t a pair; it was my calf after all. There was enough suspicion of tampering or underhanded dealing that the other two pieces of evidence were being left alone. I got my cattle card and hauling permit back and am in the clear.

Oh my Lord what a relief!

I feel like I have just been released from prison.

But you know if this had been a hundred years ago I probably would have swung and even ten years ago would have been convicted. High tech and science showed the truth.

Another notable thing that drove my spirits down was Jack passing away.

He’d been here since he was 3 months old. We referred to him as “the dog that never does anything wrong” We never really trained him, he just knew right from wrong. He was Head of Ranch Security for 13 years. Protecting us, cats, chickens, horses and calves from any prowler in the night. He was kind and compassionate often being found sleeping in the orphan calf pen. He was hell on four legs in a fight, many a coyote was shredded by his inch and a half teeth and his never quit determination. He had a great sense of humor and loved his life. His bark every hour throughout the night was reassuring.

We had seen the end coming the last month or two. The last few weeks he was fading fast. I was dreading having to put him down. I’ve done too much of that this year.

Jack made it easy on us. He just disappeared.

Word has been getting around that the N Bar is closing.

It is true.

The N Bar Ranch as many of you have known it will be no longer.

It is directly related to the reintroduction of the Mexican Grey Wolf and the management practices and procedures of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

This business was started on a shoestring and had been that way ever since. Our budget is set up that the cattle pay 75% of the mortgage and Maggie's business pays the rest. The guest business pays all the other bills.

Over the last three years we have been seeing a steady drop in our calf numbers, 2003 we had a 79% calf crop meaning almost 8 out of ten cows had calves. In 2004 we had a 68 % calf crop. This year it is coming in at 39%. It is obvious at this point that the calves will not be able to come close to covering their share of the mortgage.

The guest business was good this year. Better than it has been. And as you know we raised our rates last year to try and cover more expenses. But as you all know the cost of everything else went up too. Especially fuel which living way out here we use close to 10,000 gallons a year. Our insurance went up dramatically this year though we have never had a claim. Advertising rates also saw a big increase.

So we have to sell some assets to cover the difference. The only assets we have are our horses. We will be selling almost all of our great horses. First privately on the Internet then any that don’t sell there will be sold at the Phoenix sale in the spring.

With no horses you can’t have a guest business.

Some folks have said to just buy more in the spring. I started this place with junk horses due to tight budget. It took years to get a great string of working horses. We have a 78% return rate of guests. The industry average is 11%. The reason is our horses. Most of our guests, are horse owners or previous owners. They know a good horse, they want a good horse.

Also building a herd can be agonizing. So many horses have come and gone through our corrals. Many where nice horses but for one reason or another didn’t fit. But it still wasn’t easy to sell them.

I just don’t want to go through it again.

We are also splitting the ranch and selling the half that has this Headquarters. We have realized it is like that beautiful place you pass every day on the way to work. You’d love to have it but the plain and simple truth is you just can’t afford it. We are a million dollars in debt and going deeper every year.

By selling the west half of the ranch we hope to end up with the cattle and the east half of the ranch and be living and operating within our means.

We are rethinking our guest operation and are going to do a lot of things differently. You know we started taking guest with the idea that we wanted people who had done the dude ranch or never would. The people who knew how to ride and wanted to have more experience than a guest ranch could offer. We were one of the first hands on Working Ranch Vacations.

We are taking it a step further. It will not be a vacation; it will be an experience, an adventure and an education.

We will be keeping about eight of our best cow horses. We will be only taking four people a week. We will be open only two weeks a month but will be open more in the winter months.

Starting this winter you are one of the crew.

Doing what ever a modern cowboy would be doing.

To start you are getting up early to feed your own horse, catching it and tending to it and all your gear. You will be in the pens roping from horseback or sorting. Doing all the things you wished you could help out with in the past but we couldn’t allow because of different guest skill levels. We couldn’t say yes YOU can rope but no You can’t. It wouldn’t have been right.

It will be as real as being hired on.

So real that some days we may be mending fence getting ready to put cows in a pasture. Or driving around setting out salt. We are not going to guarantee all day in the saddle, most of the time yes but there are other things that need doing on a ranch. But on the whole we will be riding farther and longer than ever before. I’m just saying we are not going to not do jobs just because someone wants to be riding. We are going to be spending more time with the cattle. Checking them all the time, staying out with them more at night. Some times we have had to cut days short or not do something extra or go a few miles farther because some folks were wore out. We will be riding till the job is done.

We will be camping more, out on the range and out at line camps. Everyone has to become a crew and pitch in with everything including cooking and washing dishes. There will no longer be a cook or camp help so grab an axe and split some wood.

I know that this will not appeal to many people. Even many of our regulars will not be up for it. Those we will miss for sure. But I know there are many of you who are up for it, who will love it.

We will be putting some information on the website before the holidays describing in more details what we are doing and when.

There are a dozen or so of you who have rain checks with us. Many I know will have no problem with our changes. Some I don’t know and we will refund your money as soon as we can if you feel this is not your cup of tea. Just remember the more you bug me for your refund the longer it will take.

I’d like to say I will keep better logs in the next month but don’t count on it. We have another couple weeks in camp and then shipping season.

10/2/05 Sunday

A week of no guests but the work goes on. Our mission this week was to find the rest of our steers, about 50. We already have 21 in the north trap waiting for the bus that’s coming next week.

We hauled almost all of our horses home, the shoers are coming on Wednesday.

Maggie is still out of town trying to earn a little money. From the reports her shows are going really well.

There’s nothing very exciting to write about this week. We all rode alone each day checking and working different areas of the pasture. The first couple days were pretty rewarding. Getting a trailer load between us each day. Lyndsey or I would haul them back to the H.Q. do chores and drive back out to camp in the morning. Nate stayed at camp all week. I think he’s been out there five or six weeks now.

We rode at least 10 hours every day. We were feeding as the sky turned pink in the mornings and it was always well after dark before the day was done.

Wednesday I was coming down Pine Canyon as the sunset. The breeze of the day had calmed. A few birds still sang, the elk were coming off the mountain, turkeys ran by headed towards a good roost. It was just a beautiful evening. It reaffirmed that I have the best job in the world.

Thursday none of us found yearlings. We rode hard, changing horses at noon and wearing them both out as well as ourselves. It was frustrating. A semi trailer holds 60 yearling steers, we had 55 back at the H.Q. all we needed was five more.

Friday we got an even earlier start than the long days before. We were eating oatmeal at 5am and feeding 45 minutes later before we could really see, filling feedbags by flashlight.

It was chilly but not as cold as a few weeks ago. We have been having Indian Summer this week.

I went to Little Loco tank where we had been several times every day all week. It took me about an hour to get there so the sun light was just getting into the draw it sits in. Mist was rising off the water and the world was coming alive. There were no cattle there, it was too early in the day for them to be at water.

I rode about five hours then went back to camp and changed Dakota my morning horse for Gambler my afternoon mount.

Throughout the morning Nate, Lyndsey and I spoke off and on as distance would allow and they reported the same…nothing.

The afternoon wore on, the miles went by. I know there are 20 yearling steers in that pasture somewhere. The pasture is half open, half timbered, just over 13,000 acres of it. All of Canyon Creek Mtn is in it as well as S.S. Basin, both Pine canyon and Canyon Creek canyon run through it. There’s a lot of country there but we sure have been over every acre.

About 2pm I was back at Little Loco tank again. Now 85 head of cattle lounged around it. I eased through them and saw nothing till I went over the dam and there side by side were four steers.

Yeeehaaa!

Over the week Nate had taken to calling these yearling steers “Dopies”. They are like drunken sailors plodding along wandering here and there. They are fat and after being in our corrals and traps all last winter getting hay fed they are kinda too gentle. These four were just like the rest. They got out of the herd easily and headed down Loco Draw with no problems. It was constant work for Gambler tho. The steers just each went their own way here and there. About half way to the corrals Gambler and I were getting worn thin when Lyndsey showed up and took some of the pressure off. About 5pm we got them penned slick as you please and were pretty damn happy. About that time Nate called on the radio and said he was in S.S. Basin. He could see with his binoculars a paint steer on the ridge between Pine canyon and Canyon Creek canyon. But he had the canyon between them and there was no way he could get to it before dark.

This steer had broken out of the corrals a few weeks ago by jumping the fence and smashing boards, we really wanted him.

I told Lyndsey if we got him we call the job done and go home.

I heard her say “Another epic Friday” referring to the fact that for the last four weeks Fridays have not been ending till hours after dark.

So Lyndsey and I headed up Pine canyon. It’s great riding in there, a good soft bottom two track road that winds up the canyon bottom that’s full of Apache Plume. A tall bushy plant that this time of year is covered in feathery pink flowers. We put our horses into a trot and really covered some ground. The shadows were getting long, what had been a pretty hot day was cooling off. You could feel the cold air off the mountain settling into the canyon. We got to the ridge road and took that out of the canyon having to slow to a walk due to the rocks. Way off on the edge of Canyon Creek canyon we could see cattle. We headed down there but I knew that we were fast running out of daylight and now five miles from camp. We got into the bunch and sure enough there was the paint steer. We cut about half of the 20 cows to go along with him but right from the start I knew that it wasn’t going to work. He was all over the place. The cows were no better. The sun was setting behind White Water Baldy in a blaze of red and orange when we had to quit the plan.

It was too rocky, our horses were too tired, and was getting to dark.

We cut off and headed back to Pine Canyon. Just before dropping off Nate called to say one of the penned steers had jumped out. We put or horses into a trot down the canyon with two miles to go. I had to trust Gambler. We had been down this trail so many times in the last week but still I could see nothing it was so dark down in there. It was still and silent. Just the sound of our horses echoing off the canyon walls.

When we came out of the canyon above camp we were able to reach Nate on the radio again. He told us the other two steers broke out as well and he was holding them on the road about a half mile from camp. I trotted thru camp and saw the corral. One whole side was laid flat and the posts busted off at the ground. I told him to let the steers go. It was too dark, we couldn’t hold them even if we did get them back in.

We silently unsaddled. I was mad at myself for being too greedy. I should have taken what we had and called it good rather than go for that one last steer.

Hi was 73 lo was 30