May 7 - 13, 2006: Spring Gather and Branding

5/8/06 Monday

A new crew, just three this week. Alan from England is here again for his yearly visit. Then we have two first timers. Jim and Karen from Ct. Two married cops. We get a lot of police officers here.

We were eating about 6:30am and loading gear soon afterwards. We trucked out to camp where Nate having left the H.Q. early had horses waiting for us. It wasn’t long before we were saddled and headed down T Bar Valley. It was easy pickings again today, we only had to go to the mouth of T Bar Canyon before we had about 50 head. Most of the cows hadn’t calved yet, we only had four to brand when we got done with the sorting. The sorting was the easiest we have ever had I think. Nate and I did a couple cow demonstration and then I had Alan go in the corral with him. I had planned on him taking turns with Jim and Karen but within a minute after seeing Alan all the cows ran out leaving the calves standing in a corner. I guess they heard his accent and got scared.

We fired up the branding irons and got the folks started roping. It was a bit slow but in a couple hours everyone had roped one and we had them all lined out on mugging and throwing the calf and the new holding method we are using. Alan as usual was as if he was in a rugby game and jumped right in on those calves. There’s no hold back in him.

We got done about 3:30pm. It was too late to start another job so we unsaddled and then Jim and Karen rode out and set salt with Nate while Alan and I hung around camp with Blue who showed up about then.

Maggie had sent a great meal out with him. Baked ham, sweet potatoes, spinach salad, fresh bread and for desert we had fresh lemon cake with strawberries and whipped cream. Yep, lifes pretty rough out here in camp.

Hi was about 65, pretty good wind in the afternoon. A dust devil came in us as we were branding which is always fun.

5/9/06 Tuesday

We were up early, Alan had a fire going about 5am. The rest of us were a half hour or so later.

Jim fixed eggs and ham then after cleaning camp we caught horses and headed out getting on the trail a bit after 8am.

We rode to Elladeane tank, a bit over five miles. The wind cranked up about 10am. On the way over we saw four wolves right above T Bar tank. Once we got to Elladeane we quickly gathered up about fifty head and started them over the saddle to T Bar valley. I wondered how the push up the steep hill would be with so few riders but it went easy as could be. Once in the valley we picked up another 30 head from along the creek. We held them at the salt a mile later and took some time to pair up one calf. He has a neglectful mom. Once in the corrals at camp it was a simple thing to sort off the cows from calves. We had 88 adults and just four calves to brand. Karen went in the corral to sort and the cows just ran out. She was done in about two minuets.

The wind howled all afternoon, blowing dust along with a couple dust devils that swept through the branding pen. Jim and Karen roped while Alan did all the mugging. We had big calf, running about 375 pounds who put up a big fight but Alan managed to win the battle.

After branding they all wanted to ride more but I wanted to be out of the wind so they all went out with Nate for about three more hours while I stayed at camp and did paper work. Blue showed up with a couple coolers and boxes of food from Maggie. She had been cooking all day. Two kinds of cookies, two kinds of bread, corn bread, rice krispie treats, potato salad, green salad, bean and corn salad, Jumbalya, BBQ chicken, and chili. We’re eating well!

Hi was 65 after a low of 31.

5/10/06 Wednesday

Maggie had sent a note out with Blue yesterday telling that the Forest Service had called about bulls at the Snow Lake campground and that there were some biz things I had to take care of. So early I headed home while Nate took everyone on a long commute to the lake.

Along the way they found a neighbors bull and they pushed him to the lake and then up Quaking Aspen canyon on towards his home range. They then got to the lake and found three cows along with the bulls. They gathered them all and pushed them all the way back to Loco Flats. There they split the bulls into Canyon Creek pasture then continued on with the cows getting them into T Bar Valley.

They were in the saddle eight and a half hours getting home about 6:30pm.

I had gotten done with my chores about 12 noon and ran out the door before the phone rang again. When I got to camp I saddled up Gambler and we headed into Pitchfork pasture to look over all the cattle and the new branded calves. Everything looked good but in the middle of the valley I came across a pair belonging to my neighbor Jim to the east. I didn’t want them to get mixed up with mine and have the wrong brand laid so I pushed them three miles to the gate onto his range. It was the smallest slowest cattle drive ever. The cow wanted to go home, there was no problem with that. But she was lame and walked so slow I thought we might have been going backwards. It took two hours to go three miles. I finally got them through the gate and headed home. I got in a half hour or so after the others.

The wind was nothing like yesterday, a bit of a breeze came up in the evening bit it was a pretty nice damn day. Hi was 65 low was 32.

5/11/06 Thursday

Yesterday while I was out on the east side of the pasture I checked a couple tanks. Both White tank and Doubtful are pretty low but the grass is amazing out there. Knowing the water won’t last thru the end of next month I decided to move the cattle over there and use the water and grass before the water runs out. When it does we will move them back to the west side. So today we set out to get as many to the east side as we could.

To save wear and tear on the horses we waited till noon before saddling, with the plan to catch them at water in the afternoon and not have to go climb around on T Bar Ridge getting them down when they will come down on their own later and in about the same amount of time.

We spent a lazy morning around camp. Alan and Jim drove out with me to put salt on the east side, seeing a couple wolves along the way at Pit tank. Nate gathered horses while we were gone and Karen hung out at camp.

When we did go everything worked according to plan. We gathered about 115 head out of the valley and off Pit tank. We pushed them along with the help of Banjo. We rode thru the twenty or so horses we have here at camp on our way out and he fell in line with us. When we started gathering he was pretty good help on drag but later got bored with it and grazed along and every once in a while he’d stampede the herd for a little excitement. Tom, Preacher and W.C. also followed along but pretty much stayed out of trouble.

It took a couple hours to get the cattle to White tank where we let them drift and took a break.

An hour later we were back at Pit tank where we found about 40 more cattle. We moved these along the trail we had just done but not getting all the way to White tank, we left them at the salt about a short mile away from it. It was getting late and I wanted to have light for feeding and cooking dinner. We trotted most of the three miles back to camp. T Bar Valley makes for some nice traveling. We got in at about 7pm and our timing was perfect. We sorted horses for the morning, fed all 27, got dinner heated up and eaten before complete dark. But of course with the nearly full moon it stayed pretty bright. Jim and Karen cleaned dishes by lantern then we all headed to bed not long after.

Hi was 65, sunfactor was 80 a bit of wind started up as soon as we hit the saddle. It was what I call a moderate wind day. Enough so you wished it would stop but not enough to make ya mad.

5/12/06 Friday

We got out a bit later than usual, not in the saddle till about 9am.

We headed up T bar ridge and started pushing cattle down. There weren’t that many up there but enough to make the climb worthwhile, hell the view from the top makes the climb worth while.

We rode in a couple groups, Karen and I started out together but we split up on the slope as we each worked a bunch down to Nate and the guys who were starting a big bunch up the valley. We joined up with them just west of Point of Rocks. From there we went on to Doubtful tank and then to the salt lick. Where we gathered a few more before moving on to Dead Horse and White tank. When we got there a cow was just getting up from calving.

It was getting late and we still had to get packed up for the terrible truck ride home so we headed back to camp.

We got home about 6pm. Friends Ike and Margie were there to join us for dinner.

It was a good crew, The first timers Jim and Karen were good help and our kinda folk. And Alan, well he’s always a pleasure to have along with a good sense of humor and great attitude. I need to mention that he figures over the past years he’s traveled 70,000 miles to come here every May. I’m glad he does and hope he continues to.