Cattle – Back Country Thoughts

Hard times…

My mom told me often as a lazy teen: “…just because it hard doesn’t make it bad.” Now that l am the one with a lot of life experiences in my past, I see the issue from the other side of life. But relating that to the next generation is often a reality learned over time

Still I am confident that it needs to be said often, for there more to this motto “than just pushing through… and getten er done”. Of course there is a feeling of satisfaction in getting a hard job done right.

Once several years back whilst ranching in the southwest, I headed out a horseback on a warm late fall day, to gather the last of the strays out of a pasture along a sometimes little river. I know some winter weather was fixing to come in the next day and this could be the last day to get them out.

That big piece of country was rimed by steep rock walls and small rocky trails and cattle can get snowed and iced in down there. They got a fifty/fifty chance of making it through without looking after.

Or even worse, being looked after by someone else. In the big country someone may finding your lost stock and will just push them up a cannon pasture and start raisen calves off of you cows. I’d hunted for the runaways a few time with no luck,and had a feeling this could be my last chance for a while.

I was lightly dressed, just flees lined denim jacket, a neck rag… (which I alway put on the first of October and don’t take of till the last of April. If l got that silks neck rag on l can stay reasonably comfortable in most weather, but if not it doesn’t matter how many layers l got on.) …my regular high top leather riding boots, and of course my black wide brim hat. (A good black hat is good cool weather riding gear, cause it catches the sun and warms your head and keeps that same sun out of your eyes, kinda a win win piece of equipment. Honestly I have no idea how anyone can walk around bareheaded outside. Even with a ball cap it doesn’t keep the sun off your neck and ears in the summer and dang sure don’t help at all in the cold. And my leather leggings to keep perfectly good jeans from being tore up.

Well that’s enough of being stuck in a conversational gopher hole. In any case things didn’t go well, like they often don’t, and l found myself in a bit of a jackpot. I got to tracking those cows, that lead me through a down water gap (fence going over the river) and into an abandoned bit of range that went up river for about ten miles of no fences, covered in tall push narrow cannons and quick sand on the boggy place. You can trust me on this one cause it cost a good bit of blood and sweet a time or two.

Fortunately for me, my stud horse Drifty (awesome horse) and border collie Daisy (greatest dog in southwest), those cows hadn’t gone to far up river. But they had found themselves a bit of a honey hole, to wait out the pending weather. Wasn’t that cold yet, but thick dark clouds were rolling in and you could smell a hint of moisture. It became clear those cows weren’t much interested in going anywhere and we had several miles of tough country to get through.

We went to work and got them pushed through that down water gap and that’s when we started working up a sweet. Those dang cows (and I was calling them worse names than that at this point. ) would go up the river some distance cross over the river, back to the down to the other side into the river, through missing water gap, and travel back toward their honey hole. There was no way to cut them off and they just ran right over the top of Daisy getting to the river.

It was mid afternoon, and I had no desire to fixing that water gap till spring. But unless I did fixed it and put them through a wire gate half mile up the fence line, (which would add another half hour to getting these cows home) this little game of theirs would go on to eternity.

I did my best to get those wires pull across a horseback against a pretty strong current, and Drifty did his best to keep me dry, but there were some deeper spots that he needed to skirt around and it made for a tough pull. Let me just add that there are not a lot of horses in this world that will drag four strands of barbed wire across running water and hold it tight on a saddle rope, while I work at getting it tied off.

Getting it tied off to a big post set in behind a even bigger flat rock was hard hard work. And in the process of pulling the last two wires out of the current, I slide off the rock and went waist deep in real cold water. And that made me made .

I dang sure wasn’t given in now. In another 10 minutes I had that gap tight and out of the water. I loosened the cinch a couple holes on the best horse, God put life into, swung in the saddle and headed for where my dog had got them four leged demon stopped, few hundred yards off.

I slipped in behind, hissed to the dog, gave out yelp, and we hit them hard and set them running to the river. They came to that water gap, looked back knowing they been beat and head up the fence line at a fast trot, stopped at the gate, and waited for me to open it. Daisy worked the back, whilst I turned them toward shortest trail to winter camp.

Now as you can imagine, the “mad was ware off”, and I was starting to feel the influence of that little swim I’d took. So I began take stock as to the situation l was in.

It was less than an hour till dark, best l could figure. The wind had shifted to the northeast, and pushing straight against us, I was soaked to the shirt pockets, and sweat through my hat. Which was now starting to freeze up, and felt like a metal helmets, rattled cold in the wind, on my head. My thin leather cloves were freezing to my hands, and my boots were frozen solid to my nume feet. I’dthought of getting down and walking to warm up but sure if I could walk any more.

I had to smile to myself a bit, because I didn’t know to many cowboys that had got themselves in a pickle like this and lived.I had heard a real story or two about cowboys that died of hypothermia, while trying to build a fire, and l didn’t even have any matches. I wasn’t really thinking about dying, I was thinking about how great of a story this was going to be when I made it through.

Normally it doesn’t take longer than an hour to break out on top, but luck was against us, and it started sleeting hard, and making the rocks icey,. About halfway up it was rough going. Where the rocky trail got narrow cattle were slipping and stopping. And the higher up the trail we went the harder that northeast wind pushed on all of us. The warmer air that was trapped in the valley, was far behind us.

Did l mention that l was getting pretty cold, and the only thing that kept any feeling in my bare hands, was that stinging icey sleet, my soggy leather gloves had frozen to my jacket pocket some time back, and all I could do was put one hand at a time between my saddle pad and my horse. I sure was glad my neck rag was dry, if it had not been for warm silk, I would have just fallen off my horse and died.

We were kinda at the “all in or done” spot on the trail, with those poor cattle slipping and crawling their way. We couldn’t stay there and wait it out. We all just keep moving forward. Every now then when thing got to slow, I’d give a whistle or daisy a bark, and off we’d go another hundred yards.

By the time we topped out, it was snowing so much, it seemed to be one huge snowflake going sideways. Normally when those cattle get out on the flat, they tend to just trail on out to the pens. But with hard snow and wind in our faces, those cattle just wanted to spread out and find a place to hide. It was like pushing rope and herding chickens, all at the same. And about now a desperate frustration set in me.

I didn’t blame much and thought about leaving them, knowing I was getting to cold, but with no real shelter for these wayward words of the ranch, that had wasted good time, and energy trying to stay ungathered. And now they were trying to kill me. I know l couldn’t leave them, they would need better shelter and water and rest from the days activities.

There is something a bit different about us cowboys that have truly chosen this life. For whatever reason we tend not have any “give up” in us. There is a weird sense of confidence about ourselves that gets us in some pretty tough places, but it’s that same confidence that gets us through too.

What is amazing, is that it becomes a part of those who work with us. Because that young stud and dog of mine, just keep work those “suldup” old cows, like it was a warm summer day.

So with the reality that it could be done, I let out a whistle and a howell, we hit them hard for a final push. Swinging the knotted end of my saddle rope to put a little sting in their cold hides. Drifty with ears back went to biting tales, Daisy hit another gear working the flanks.

As you can tell from the fact that I am writing this, we all did live, though it did take two days to get back to normal.

I wondered often about that time and many others when it was hard. It seems sometimes the harder you try, the harder it get, and when you’re sure it can’t get worse… it does. Sometimes life just seems to be against you, and it stays that way for a long long time.

I’m sure we all heard the phase “when life knocks you down…”,and in some of my darkest hours of depression, I’ve had some of the most well educated professionals say that to me. And I would just think, “you have no idea what has knocked me down”.

After much thought on why that phase makes me unsettled, I’ve found this bit of insight over the years.

Life doesn’t knock anything down, Life is the one thing that raises us up. We tend to blame the very thing that well get us back up. We have been created by divine design, with His life breathed into our spiritual humanity. Losing the influence of this reality, exchanges our best to become our worst.

What knocks us down is simply the rhythm of our existence, it is a designed resistance that brings great worth to Life. We are often influenced by social and physical notions of speculations. We habitually label a circumstance with a moral value.

Hard is not bad or wrong. We are created to be in hard and tough places. One of the greatest trip ups for me was a notion, that pushed me to the edge, was thinking: “at my age it should be easier now! “At some many years of marriage l shouldn’t be having a divorce.” “after all my hard work and experience, I shouldn’t lose my business, and be in debt”. And this was the greatest one of all, “l don’t belong here”! “I dont deserve this!”

Almost all of our religious and professional council is directed at a superficial concept of choice. If you choose to change the physical action, the “bad” feeling will go away. And that somehow you responsible for the for the spiritual realm of influence.

We avoid sadness, and loneliness, those dark and anxious places, but they are The reality of true life. Our greatest troubles comes from trying to escape, it is my personal adherence that all addiction are rooted in the effort of escaping something. Instead of feeling the reality of life, we run faster and faster for a peace that can only come when we are overwhelmed by that which is unwelcome to the superficial view of life.

We in the realm of being human, think we need to choose our feeling, if it doesn’t feel right, it is wrong and I must choose to change it. We can change what emotions we have, but the feelings are a part of our created spiritual nature. They are not meant to be changed, they are designed to be lived in.

There isn’t always someone there for us, or the one that always was, is gone. And as I’ve experienced there isn’t all a reason or answer. But as I sat on the porch of a little cabin as a stay in the journey, in a place of great saddness, loneliness and sorrow. I once heard in still small voice, “if I left you just as you are now, would you love. If this were all I had give, would want me”. I said no at time…

The peace of life is not for getting through or above the sorrows that surrounds our existence, but realize that our created spiritual nature is our first reality, when we feel the experience of our existence as we where created to. We are alive.

…Bob’s ghost, the rest of the story

Now with the first part of this adventure still your mind, you can understand the reality of the of our situation, as this cow is hooking at this, what appears to be a small piece of white plastic, my dog comes around to a juniper, clearly annoyed at the straggler and gave her a hard nip in the heel.

This cow jerked her head up, takes off in a panic, brings this huge bellowing white, twenty foot sheet of constitution plastic, completely draped over her face and horns, blindly racing straight at me and Bob. I figure the wind was just right to make float and flutter some ten feet in the air

The cattle I was holding at the water tank sensed the coming apocalypse, throw their tails in the air and stampeded over a nearby ridge and into the brush. Even the dogs ran off and left me and Bob and the giant ghost to work it out.

I had a few different things going in my mind as time slowed way down. I sure set down in the saddle thinking if Bob blows up or out I was going to go with him, or stepping off and manageing the situation from the ground, all the time wondering how much either choice was going to hurt.

I could feel Bob’s muscles getting as tight as a banjo string, and hear the air rolling in his flared nostrils, looking at a ten foot ghost wildly gliding through the trees and brush bellering bloody murder.

One of the last thoughts going through my head was that nobody would really know how I died, or it they would even find my body, because in a second the wreckage would be scattered from hell to breakfast.

Now I’ll never know if it was because I was just sitting there on Bob’s back, deep in my own thoughts, waiting for the inevitable, and he got the notion that I wasn’t concerned, but without a thought or motivation from me, this big young colt started to back up.

He just naturally started to create his comfort zone, and he kept going back at a deliberate pace. His ears where perked and head was high, and still blowing air like a steamboat, but he put himself in a stead reverse, turning slowly in semi circle, always facing the ghost at hand, until she had passed on by at a safe distance.

This poor crazed creature crashed into a big cholla cactus which really got her on the fight, before she was able to get free of that sheet of cow eating plastic. With great relief she shook her head one more time in disgust and embarrassment, and trotted off in the direction of the rest of the herd.

I was astonished at the out come of impending doom and felt myself relax, and as I did, Bob began to step forward right toward that now limp and lifeless shell of ghost material. In about a minute he put his nose on it, push it around a bit and then looked off after the cattle now appearing way down ridge headed away from whatever had been going on up there. Kinda like a bunch of kids that had just broke someone’s living room window.

Some folks my say I was just lucky, (which i was) and others that I’m a hell of a horse trainer (which I am) But I can’t really explain the feeling of connection it creates, its just changes life as a whole, to know that someone’s got your back. In the plainold times we spent experiencing life together, something happened to us both. We started to care about and care for each other.

This big red sorrel horse is one of the most brave and confident horses I’ve ever swung my leg over. We’ve been in the thick of it a time or two with wild cattle and the like, but we always have come out with a job well done, and all the important pieces still attached.

If we get in a situation and he doesn’t like. I don’t force it cause he’s looking after me, and if he’s after something and I pull back, he knows we’ll still get it. I’m just looking for a better way.

He has also been a wonderful part of sharing the passion and joy of horsemanship with the next generation. There aren’t any spokes big enough to change the relationship anymore.

I’ve come away recognizing that there is a natural response to relationships, we are all created to care and be care for. It is in our spiritual DNA. It is unnatural to have contention with other living creatures. We were not created to fight, struggle, scratch our way through the greatest gift of relationship life and living.

I’ve observed that there is a big difference between what is normal and what is natural. Our human nature live in a shallow reality of repatriation that gives us a precipitation of normal, if it happens a lot it is the normal reality of life and we come up with ways to cope with it.

It was normal for Bob to blow up when he felt unsafe. It maybe normal for human beings to fight, struggle and scratch for what we need emotionally and physically, but it not natural. It is not created in us to live this way.

Bob naturally didn’t want to blow up when he was scared. He wanted to be relax and be confident, it just became a normal reaction. My normal reaction was to get made and a fight for our individual survival could have ruined any hope of creating a great partnership of experiences.

Perhaps the saddest thing of all this is that we are encouraged to except this existence as truth from the very instructions that should know better. When a horse can respond to the nature of comfort and security in another living being, why can’t we?

Maybe it’s just that we have never been told. I have bought this realization up in relationship to the christian faith. If the nature of God is love, then it is natural for God to love and be loveable. The is not struggle within God’s thoughts and feelings as whether to love or not, He can love with ease because His nature in love so it is natural for love to come from Him.

Therefore if He has breathed His life nature and character into our spiritual created humanity, it is natural for us to love and be loveable. Therefore it is easy to love and be loveable.

Yet there is great resistance to this revelation, because it is normal to believe that that we are by nature hateful, and we must fight against hate with the choice of love.

The cowboy philosopher in my came only say that we are looking at this horse from the wrong end. We will never appreciate the whole horse by simply looking under the tail.

We are loved, loveable and loving by nature. we don’t choose it, we naturally respond to the reality of creation.

Bob and my boy. — This my horse Bob and my boy helping me take a first ride out side on a young horse I was starting for him.

Bob’s ghost…

Bob’s ghost was about as real as ghosts get. The only thing missing was that wasn’t dark. In fact it was in the middle of a sunny morning. I don’t worry much about ghosts, but Bob does and what was coming at us had mighty scarred also.

Bob and have been partners now coming twenty years. We still are although we’ve both slowed some. Back in our prime we were something the team on both sides of the Pecos. There wasn’t often when we did bring home what we went after. He is by far the best partner and friend to work with and play with.

(We used to go fishing and hunting all time. But what we enjoyed doing the was most is roping wild cattle, and training horses).

If you haven’t guessed yet Bob is a horse. I picked him out of a pen of two year old of from a ranch that owed me money on a training deal. He was just a tail skinny colt that some want-a-be farm hand had tried to put a start, but seems Bob was to much for him.

He had a name that was made up of three long Spanish words I couldn’t make much sense of. So with not much thought I just started calling him Bob. He was a bit of a hot mess for the first few months, and had some serious truth issues.

His most extreme characteristic was the super prower to spoke. This tall young athletic colt could jump twenty feet to either side of anything that caught his eye wrong. He was so quick and unpredictable about the whole thing, that I thought about selling him.

I was a bit of a saddle hand back then, and always stayed with him, but it felt like he was going to jerk my my bones out of my skin and it hurts. We could be riding along in a pasture just relaxed and pleasant, and a rock or stump would appear to attack him, and he would blow to the side some twenty feet at the speed of light.

After a few months of this, it seemed that it was becoming a game to him. He started to ride around looking for things to blow up about. So being l like to play games too I made some rules so it could be fun for us both.

The game goes like this: Bob can be scared of anything he wants, but instead of blowing out sideways at speed of sound, he can back up until he feels safe again. Then we can look at the horse eating monster far as comfortable distance. When he feels more confident we can walk forward until its scary again and then back up. Little by little we turn fear into curiosity. We win when he can put his nose on it. It doesn’t take long to turn spooks into rocks, stumps and logs.

It was mostly half hidden things in tall grass. But the last and most challenging things to get past was flapping plastic. Anything from a kmart bag to a feed sack, any color or size wasn’t to be trusted. If l had it in my hand it was of no account, but if I we were riding out, and it was with in eyesight, it was scary to the extreme.

Still with time, patience and consistency we made wonderful progress in being partners and companions. This simple foundation of: back to escape, relax, and investigate, made us an awesome team in some extremely dangerous situations.

At the time of this ghost sighting, l was managing a ranch that had a pasture that pushed up against a country highway. As I drove from town one hot Sunday afternoon, l saw some younger cows on that fence line. I had no need for cattle to be up there this time of the year. It was clear that they were lost and would require some assistance to find there was back where they belonged.

As human beings we like to plan our lives. The power to control the whens and wheres of life gives us sense of a accomplishment, and frustration until we realize that each day plans the next. Each day is a gift from our Creator and with that creativity come purpose for tomorrow.

As it was, I grudgingly changed my plan for Monday, knowing that it would be a full days work to get them gathered, moved back where they belong. Find where they got out, and fix the fence. In this rough country of old fences, it was often a two day job, seeing that you might need to haul new fencing material in to do the job right.

The next morning l saddled up young Bob, who was about three or so at the time, and trotted couple of miles, with a couple of border collies trailing along behind. Bob was becoming a steady get er done kinda horse after a year of ranch work. He stretched his nose out a bit and jogged along with the exception of making cow move.

When we got to pasture where I’d seen those cattle, we found them still handing on the wire fence. I sent the dogs down the fence line to turn them off the fence while I pushed some chubby calves to a water tank, where l would hold them and let them pair up, before starting them to where they came from. The dogs knew their job and Bob knew his. Everything was going as planned.

Now to paint the picture for you all, I’d like to mention that on highways where folks haul all kinds of stuff, thing have a tendency to plow off from time to time. As I set there watching cattle drift in looking for their babies, I noticed some white plastic hanging on juniper tree some seventy yards off and a young horned cow was stiffing at it like they have a tendency to do. If it smell ok they will try to eat it.

I once had a cow find a purse and was carrying it by the handle in her mouth. She carried that purse along like it was hers, for over two miles. Looken like she was going shopping for that calf trailing along behind her. She finally spit out when I rode up thinking it was hung up on her lower jaw and she couldn’t get it out. Funny things happen in the back lonesome country.

In any case Bob had seen it and was paying it no mind. He was working cattle and had better things to do than to worry on old spooks. Apparently that plastic didn’t smell right to that horned cow because instead for chewing on it, she decided to fight it. She went to shaking her horn at it and gave a little hook to see if it was going to fight back.

I’ve come learn that the very character of trouble, is that it appears very quickly and accelerates even faster. So powerful is the speed of trouble, that in order for the human mind to see it coming , we must perceive time to stand still

Science will tell you the the speed of light is the fastest thing in the universe, but I know for a fact that the speed of trouble makes light look like a snail parade.

So with that in your mind, you can understand the reality of the of our situation, as this cow is hooking at this, what appears to be a small piece of white plastic, and my dog come around to a juniper, clearly annoyed at the straggler and snaps at her heels.

This cow jerked her head up, think that whit thing had bit her, and takes off in a panic, brings this huge bellowing white, twenty foot sheet of constitution plastic, completely draped over her face and horns, blindly racing straight at me and Bob. I figure the wind was just right to make it float and flutter 10 ft in the air.

The cattle that I was holding at water tank sensed the coming apocalypse, throw their tails in the air and stampeded over a nearby ridge and into the brush. Even the dogs ran off at the sight of it all, and left me and Bob and the giant ghost to work it out.

Thanks joining me. Stay tuned for the rest for the story …