July 2 - 8, 2006: No Guests

7/2/05 Sunday

Rain, RAin, RAIN!!!! Blessed manna from heaven!

Almost every day this past week we have had some rain, a couple days some hard down pours. It has rained all around as well with the heaviest being right on top of the fire which is pretty much out now.

All the reports are talking about what a great job the Forest Service did putting it out with very little mention of Mother Nature. She is the one who put the fire out. Good rains, some areas getting over an inch at a time, cloudy days, and high humidity did more than all the aircraft and bulldozers.

Starting last weekend our main job was rebuilding the fences around the H.Q. so we could get our horses turned back out in the pastures. It was a big job getting everything back in order. The guys worked hard on it till Thursday when we had it tight enough. There is still plenty more to rebuild but we had to change our priorities.

It was time to get the rest of the bulls in with the cows so Jay, Nate and I trailered out to Canyon Creek and began hunting them up. Blue and Dustin stayed back to finish up some odd and end fence work.

We rode all over and found more cows than we did bulls. How they got in there I don’t know. We all rode different areas and finally met up about 3pm at Incognito. We had about 30 cows and four bulls. It was decided that I’d push them the five miles to Pit tank and they would keep riding and see if they could find the 9 bulls we were still missing.

They rode the south side of the pasture and went all through Loco pasture as well. They got one bull from Snow Lake and just about dark they found four more near Little Loco tank. They pushed the bulls six miles in the dark with the way being illuminated by constant bursts of lightning from a close storm, but they did stay dry the whole way. They got home about 11:30 pm, a hell of a long day.

My push went well, I picked up a few more head and finally got to Pit tank with 53 head plus calves at about 8pm.

I was riding Gambler of course and after we left the cattle he set out at a fast walk towards home. As we came around the corner at the Intersection feeders there were two wolves there. One on top of a feeder. Gambler and I charged in yelling and hollering and all those wolves did was run around in a circle. I’d chase one and the other would chase me. It was like the scene from dances with wolves.

After several minutes of this I gave up and continued on my way with both wolves following me. After about a mile one stopped off in T Bar valley and the other stayed with me. I’d stop and holler at it but it acted like a misbehaving dog who wouldn’t stay home. When I stopped it stopped, when I yelled it would just lie down and look at me. Once I started moving again it would get up and follow. It stayed about 30 yards behind me all the way past T Bar tank, over T Bar saddle, past Elladeane tank until three miles later just below the T gates it finally sat down and watched me ride off.

Pretty wild they are.

The rest of the week it was back to fence work and repair work around the H.Q. With fire trucks driving all over we had a couple smashed sewer lines and one broken water line. I’m not complaining at all tho.