the last weekend of autumn

Lucy works a lame bull from the 10,000-acre highway pasture into the lower meadow pasture. It was good for her to work him, as he wasn't wild and she gained some confidence in actually heeling cattle instead of just threatening them. She's had problems with some cows calling her bluff.

scott and i left town friday afternoon and headed to the ranch, where we stayed for the next few days. on our way out we picked up my mares, and saturday morning we left the ranch yard to gather one of the association member's cattle and move them down onto a meadow pasture, in preparation for weaning and shipping the calves.

i took my older mare, april, to ride that morning, and one of our tasks was also to pick up a cow/calf pair from the neighboring pasture that scott and i had missed the weekend before. it was good for lucy to work just that single pair, as she practiced where she needed to be in relation to the cow's flight zone, or how close she needed to get to the cow to get her to move.

we put that cow two pastures over where she belonged, and then helped finish gathering the big bunch of cows. by the end of trotting around over the big country out there, both april and puppy foxy were pretty beat. april is starting to show her age.

we stopped for lunch, then headed back out for a shorter job of gathering the rogue bunch of cows from several pastures, grouping them back together, and stuffing them in the same pasture the others just left. last i had heard, they were still there and hadn't run over any fences or gates. i used my other mare, jazz, for that.

sunday morning we headed back out to the meadow pasture where scott and bob's cows were. we brought them into the corral to sort the steer pairs off - the cows with male calves on them. the steers will head to the sale barn tomorrow. the heifer pairs will stick around for a little while, until the heifers get their trip to the feedlot in the big horn basin for the winter. they'll get fed a good diet up there, and come back ready to breed in the spring.

i used jazz to sort in the corral, and was very pleased with how she did. plus, she benefits from that sort of fine tuning every once in a while. she's very smart, but gets a little rough and undisciplined if she's not consistently worked.

so that was the weekend. the weather was beautiful both days - warm, sunny, and calm. i hear that's about to changes, as the forecasts are predicting snow over the next couple days. it was fun while it lasted!

the weekend

this last weekend was another busy/relaxing one spent at the ranch, helping with fall work.

saturday we gathered cow/calf pairs off the meadow near the ranch headquarters and took them to the corrals to sort the calves off the cows. the calves were weaned and shipped off in two trucks, and the cows were pregnancy-tested for next spring's calves. the non-pregnant cows, or 'open' cows, will be sold, and the bred cows will be taken back to the owner's place for the winter.

this photo is scott and a guy named willy from cody. the work in the corrals is a combination of on horseback and afoot.

after we finished that, saturday afternoon i watched the university of wyoming football game with sister-in-law becky and took a nap on the couch! it was wonderful, until the men started coming in the house and kept waking me up... scott and i went to bed early, and i was actually ready to wake up and able to make it to the house for breakfast fully awake the next morning.

saturday morning breakfast was at 5, and we had to wait forever for the cloudy morning to brighten up enough to get to work. at least it seemed like forever. i helped becky do the dishes and clean up the kitchen, and it was still a while before we left the house. even though they're early, and i put off getting out of bed as long as possible, i do enjoy ranch breakfasts. becky always does a good job, and the whole crew sits around and drinks black coffee and eats eggs, bacon, biscuits and gravy, cinnamon rolls or whatever else she's prepared for the morning.

sunday morning we saddled again and loaded the horses to go gather a pasture and kick the pairs through the gate to the next pasture over. in a few days that pasture will be gathered, and the pairs trailed all the way to the house, in preparation for shipping their calves. the association is a busy place this time of year, with all the members and those running on leased shares shipping their calves and gathering their cows up to take to their various wintering grounds, to return again the next spring.

after arriving down at the pasture sunday morning we unloaded and scattered across the landscape to collect the cows, which were pretty much equally scattered to all corners. and we were trying to push them upcountry, and of course all the spoiled girls only wanted to head downcountry. and there was some *ahem* less-then-skilled help that came along with the guy leasing shares this summer, so that made for more work but great stories to recount afterward!

 my girls were very excited to be gathered up to work over the weekend. it's been a long time since i've got them from their pasture and put them to good use. i left them and all my tack up at the ranch for the week, as i have to leave town for three days this week. that way they'll be there when i need them next saturday.

 scott's little foxy waits safely under the fence at the horse corrals.

 i think lucy had just come through the creek when i was gathering the colts in so the one could be gelded.

 all four pups got their rabies shots while the vet was there.

 meg is lucy's sister, and a very big girl.

 scott and jamie sunday morning.

piling out to unload the horses and gather cows on sunday.

 following bulls down the bottom, pushing them west to join the rest of the bunch. lucy loves to help.

 more bulls. it was a gorgeous day to be out riding.

 lucy knows to take advantage of rest breaks when they're available.

this is about half of the cows, right before we kicked them through the gate.

first hunting success

well, friday evening scott and i went out to look for an antelope, and found that one, and we went back out to look for him yesterday. we didn't really ever see him again for sure, but found another nice one after driving around looking at all the goats in the highway pasture for several hours. in the process of trying to get him, we crawled on hands and knees, bounced across sage brush, hopped out and took a shot, went careening down a two-track and bounced over more sagebrush. to no avail, and by that time all the antelope in that area were so stirred up we headed for the house.

after a quick snack we headed out again, this time north of the ranch house, in the north fish creek pasture. we saw one that was ok, but he and his does were pretty skittish and left the country, so then we drove back around by a place called eagle's gap, where there's a reservoir, and there was a whole herd back there, mostly does. (eagle's gap is the same area we went through the evening scott proposed to me out at the ranch several weeks ago).

so we got out our field glasses and looked them over, and this guy i've got here in the photo was the best of the lot, so i decided i might as well take a shot at him. after the blantant miss on the first one at 10 yards - practically - i had taken a few shots at a rock and hit it consistently, so i figured i'd try another shot at a buck.

i hit him with my first shot, but he didn't go down. the next went to high, and the third too low. :-) thankfully i had hit him well enough that he didn't run off in that process. and the process of a bullet getting jammed in the gun and scott saying from inside the pickup 'calm down. don't break my gun!' he came out and helped me get it straightened out, i loaded it again, and took my time with the last shot and he went down.

and, i might add, this was all from a lot farther away than the one at the water tank!

i shot him up on a side hill, so we put scott's new little white mazda 'snowflake' through is paces and got up to him for the cleaning process. it was pretty hot out, esp for the end of september, so scott was anxious to get him cleaned as soon as possible.

this is the side view of him. antelope are scored for their size based on how tall their horns are, and how long the cutters are - the smaller hooks that stick out the front. mine measures 13.5 inches tall, with four inch cutters, which is pretty average. what makes them pretty, i think, is if the horns curve clear out in a wide arc, and if they curl over a lot at the top. mine isn't very wide, but he does curl over pretty nicely.

back in the ranch yard bob and becky came out to look him over, and becky took this photo of me and my wonderful guide. the goat looks like he's not feeling too well, with his mouth hanging open and tongue out. foxy and lucy were very curious as to what we had brought back for them.

then we backed the truck in the shed so we could hanging him from the rafters to finish the cleaning process. i did save the head to be mounted as my first success in hunting, and we took the meat to friend jamie's, who has a friend that wants it. scott absolutely refuses to eat antelope. i've never tasted it, but judging from the smell of them, i don't really want to. a buck antelope smells worse than a buck barnyard goat.

so that was pretty much my sunday, now back to work as usual in the office today.

friday night

if i knew where my little red camera was right about now. i'd share the gorgeous autumn sunset that i shared with scott tonight up at the ranch. we were out hunting antelope, and found one just as it was too dark to shoot him. hopefully friend marvin from cody doesn't get him before i get back up there sunday! i told marvin i'd tied a red ribbon on him, so he was clearly market.

it has been very busy around here. too busy. i'm headed to greybull tomorrow - four hours' drive - with publisher dennis for jody's mother's funeral. it means a lot to be there, i just wish it wasn't so far. the day will be over by the time we get back to town. i told scott i might not make it back to the ranch tomorrow night. they're all gathering cattle and preconditioning calves tomorrow, and were sitting around visiting when i left to head back to town. i wish i could have stayed. the association is one of my favorite places to be these days. a good place to get out into the darkness and quiet and just relax.

i'm going to try to not to worry about working on any more fall cattlemen's edition until monday. it's hard for me to not worry about the paper, even on weekends. and there are several other dramas going on that i'm also concerned about. i've had a nagging headache for two days.

here's hoping for a little relaxation before hitting it hard again on monday. cattlemen's deadline coming up october 1!

early summer mornings

sorry, it's been a while again since i've had time to post anything. the last few days have been full, with many different activities last weekend. friday night included a trip to the beacon with friends jake, heather and dylan. (i don't know if that's the right variation of spelling on his name.) from the beacon dylan thought it would be great to go to casper's karaoke joint, and that was an experience. the consensus was it was like walking into a circus... i knew there was a reason i'd never gone in there!

saturday morning i had to head to douglas for the last time of the 2010 wyoming state fair, to cover the centennial farms and ranches recognition ceremony. if i'd remembered to bring that memory card to the office i'd show you some of the families, but, it's at the house.

saturday afternoon i had to take a little nap after cleaning the office, as i'm getting too old to close the bars down, i guess. then i headed to jake's to pick up scott's trailer, which i needed to swap out for my own up at the association, and april, who i used on sunday to gather and trail cows.

that leads to the photo posted above, in the wee hours of sunday morning, when jamie knocked on my door and woke me up about 4 a.m. when it was still completely dark. you know its bad when you get to sleep later on weekdays before going to work than on the weekends!

although it was very early, i'd slept well and was ready to get up, and it is kind of pretty watching the whole sunrise, and it was warm out, which was nice then, but bad later because the day quickly heated up. becky made us all breakfast - i counted 13 horses in the barn later that day that'd been ridden - which was bacon, pancakes, eggs and plenty of black coffee, and we headed out to saddle and load horses, arriving at the pasture to gather just before 6.

once at the pasture, we all unload, bridle, tighten girths, and do all that good last-minute stuff before heading out our separate directions to find all the pairs and gather the cattle. we start riding in one bunch, and are gradually split off with different orders by bob, who runs the whole operation.

i ended up heading around a corner and up this meadow with a small bunch, who moved very easily. jamie was with me, before heading off to the north to gather up some more out of a big, boggy draw.

there's jamie off to my right, headed up on her circle.

while the country was pretty green most of the summer, it's really starting to burn up, and it's dusty, and we could use a few good rain clouds. it's been a while.

i took lucy to work with me for the first time, and up to this point she'd dutifully trailed behind my horse, as i'd taught her the weekend before on our pack trip. when we got up close to these pairs she decided to try her hand at herding them, and she thought it was great fun. in this photo she'd just got after that one pair running away - the cow with her tail up and the calf kicking. she was smart about it, and didn't mess anything up the whole day, and would get after calves, chasing them back into the bunch, but coming right back out and not stirring things up. and she already knows to dodge kicking hooves, esp from the cows.

"look, i've got them on the run!" you can see the lead trailing over the hill across the meadow, headed over to the gate. they were ready to move on to a new pasture.

this photo was taken when the whole bunch was gathered and headed to the gate, trailed by the riders. this was also after april and i found a 'soaphole,' or an isolated, bottomless bog only about five feet across. it looked no different than all the dry, dusty tan dirt around it, and we walked right in. i think april pulled something getting out. it sure woke us up. just over the next hill after clambering out we came upon another soaphole with a dead cow in it. thankfully we didn't have to just give up and die in ours!

the morning quickly warmed up, and there was a water spot in a marshy area about halfway to the new pasture, which i was glad of for lucy's sake. this is her in the reservoir we took the cows to. it's low, and late in the season, so pretty dirty, but lucy was grateful it was wet.

the other dogs were swimming, but lucy's still uneasy when her feet can't touch the bottom, and she turned around and kept close to shore.

she slept the whole rest of the afternoon, and in the truck ride back to town, and that evening. she's a workin' dog now. :-)

talk about service

this mother duck and her ducklings stole the 'most photogenic' title when i was at the association stock pond a few days ago, but these others were also very interesting, and the parents of these two ducklings were working very hard:

i didn't realize what they were doing until i watched them more closely. the two adults were diving to the bottom of the pond and picking up worms? grass? bugs? i'm not sure what they had in their beaks when they came back up, but time and again they surfaced and dutifully fed their ducklings.

and they'd hand off the food and down they went again, while the ducklings just sat there like they were entitled.

see?

do you suppose each adult had an assigned duckling to make sure they both got the same amount?

do they do this all day long? or do the adults finally say enough? do the ducklings ever refuse the food?

after sitting there several minutes snapping pictures, they showed no signs of stopping. and i bet if i went out there again this morning, they'd probably still be there in the same routine! it's a curious world, that world of ducks.

three-day weekend, part 2

on saturday while bob, scott and others sorted off the dry cows, trav, dorothy, dallas and i went and gathered up these 16 pairs and put them in the corrals. not really sure why we did... because bob, scott and i turned right around and kicked them back out sunday morning:

this is why i just do what i'm told up there, when i'm told to do it. it's the easier thing. :-)

but they did all look very pretty kicked out on the green meadow just above the house. we've had another wet spring here in wyoming, with quite a bit of rain, really, so everything's all green and growing and the pastures look great.

lucy got to spend the whole weekend with her sisters, except for when we went back to town sunday to mow the yard and trim the grass around the house. this is her with meg, the short, broad puppy with an attitude and ears like a bear.

the fishing reservoir up at the association got a hole in it somewhere this spring, and it's quickly losing water, and it's a shame because it was a really nice reservoir, with quite a few fish. various family members and friends have been trying to fish out of it and catch as many as they can before it runs completely dry.

as soon as we were finished riding sunday morning i headed back into town to look after my yard. lucy and i mowed and went and got some grass clippers and trimmed around everything, and we finished potting flowers and cleaned the roundup office before heading back up to the ranch and getting there about an hour before dark.

monday morning wasn't very busy, and that's when we all piled in the truck for a driving tour of the nearby reservoirs.

we drove over to look at pathfinder dam, which is closer to spilling over than it has been in a long time. i'd never seen it, or the reservoir, so it was kinda neat to walk over the dam, which was built in 1909.

scott walked over it with me and patiently carried the camera bag while i took pictures. along the way we encountered this sign, which scott is reminding me of in the photo below as i walked off the trail to get a better photo angle on the dam.

but how else was i supposed to get this picture, without leaving the trail? right now reclamation is letting water through the tunnel at 1,000 cubic feet per second. it was really gushing. and i didn't fall into the canyon, and it wasn't fatal.

this is the view looking downcountry from pathfinder. the water makes its way through fremont canyon before getting caught again in alcova reservoir, then being let out into the north platte river and flowing southeast through wyoming before getting to the nebraska border.

this is pathfinder reservoir, with ferris mountain in the background. it'd be a pretty lake on which to boat, but i have no boat, and scott is scared to death of water.

we took all three puppies with us on the driving tour. this is meg and sugar.

when we got back to headquarters scott and i grabbed our guns and some shells and took off again, stopping first to have another look at my heifer. you can't see the brand very well in this photo because the zoom on my little red camera isn't that good, but she's got a 'lazy v' on her shoulder and an 'open A' on her hip. and my earmark in her right ear.

on our way out to the pickapin hunting grounds scott kept stopping when he saw one and shooting out the window, until i finally said, should i get my gun out too or what?

turns out there weren't too many out to shoot. although it was sunny it was a little breezy and chilly, so i think most of them were in their burrows. i did get a few, and a few prairie dogs. lucy helped me find them. ok not really - although she wasn't scared of the guns, she was bored and thought they were too loud and stayed in the truck most of the time.

i was using the rifle that my dad gave me last christmas in exchange for the colt pistol i'd had. i haven't really used it a whole lot, so it was nice to get it out and mess around with it.

the first pictures we took made scott look really short, so this is the second try. :-) he's got his earplugs in because he was shooting a couple of his pistols, which are really quite loud.

so after spending an hour or so hunting down small rodents, we had to head back to headquarters so i could load up my mares and get them back to town by 4 to meet my horseshoer, who made a special exception for me and came to trim them at the fairgrounds even though it was memorial day. scott and friend jamie are convinced he's got a thing for me, but come on, he's like 65 years old.

following the hoof trimming i put the horses back at jake's, visited with him for a few and then headed over to trav and dorothy's for a rib dinner, accompanied by grilled asparagus, mushroom scalloped potatoes and all kinds of good stuff.

i got back to my house about 9:30, and that was pretty much the end of memorial day weekend. it was very busy, with not much relaxing, but it was a lot of fun.