Toward fall, I had to go move my folks’ sheep to a different pasture. I didn’t take Colin as I had quite a ride ahead and one never knew how those wild range ewes would handle. Lily and I gathered them and had a little bunch that were on the wrong side of the creek. I knew where there was a crossing so trailed them to it and all but one ewe crossed without hesitation. Why that one old bat wouldn’t cross is beyond me, but sheep logic is not something well understood. We went up and down that creek, turning back hard and back to the crossing we’d go, but old sheepy wouldn’t cross. I was very imp ..read more

My husband, small son and I were trailing a bunch of cows to winter pasture for a woman who had us do all of her cow work for her. We’d gathered them from a sizeable pasture and had trailed them for four or five miles along a remote county road. When we got to a big, grassy area where another road intersected, we thought it would be a good place to let the fat cows rest a bit and get a drink out of a little pond in a low spot. There was another six or so miles to go before we got to their winter grounds. The cows watered and started grazing. We had watered our horses and gotten back on, as som ..read more

It’s been several years now since I added to my ongoing account of Lily’s journey as a saddle horse. The Racehorse To Ranch Horse series has four other segments here on Cavvy Savvy. So, I will continue on with segment #5. I encourage you to go back and read the others so you’ll know her story from the beginning when I bought her in southern California and brought her to the snow and cold of Wyoming. At the end of the last segment, my obstetrician had threatened to take my saddle away from me if I didn’t quit riding, so my training on my ex-racehorse was put on hold until well after my son was ..read more

When my two oldest grandboys were little, around six and five years old, they spent hours on end riding the two mares I had for them. Josie, the sorrel, was Carson’s, and was a roly poly old type Quarter Horse mare with a lack of burning ambition but enough patience to make up for it. Taygen’s horse, Stardust, was a small black mare of Quarter type, who was ancient but in good shape and who challenged her boy just enough to make him sit up and pay attention. She was also patient to a point, but would occasionally unload a boy. But those boys loved those mares dearly, as did I, and had so much ..read more

Years ago, we had some neighbors that were hard working people that struggled daily to get ahead. Their four kids were working from the time they were walking well. The kids were all in grade school with the oldest maybe in the 5th grade. The county road we took to town went by their place, so it was easy to see some of what went on and everyone was always busy. They raised milk pen calves, bum lambs, and had a handful of mares and raised some colts, rode them and sold them. The parents both worked various jobs off the place too. The irrigation district had put miles of canals underground in p ..read more

Back in my day working years, there was a guy who would wait until the coldest day of winter, or so it seemed, to gather his cows off of several big pastures, hayfields and breaks, and trail them home several miles for the winter. We always joked, sort of, that once we had his cows moved home, it would warm back up again. It usually was the coldest day of the winter at that point. Gathering the cows kind of kept a person moving and part of the time one’s back would be to the wind. One could stand up in their stirrups and trot a little between bunches, so it would pump a little blood to the ext ..read more

We had spent the summer and fall occasionally day working for a woman who had some registered Angus cows. The cows were spoiled, no-handling wretches that weighed about 1700-1800 lbs and weaned 400 lb calves. They aggravated us every time we had to handle them, but she paid well and her check was always good, so, we persisted. The woman herself was at least a half bubble off plumb too, so that added interest to the jobs. The cows were on winter pasture that she’d leased about four miles east of our place. It was on the irrigation project, and didn’t have the best fences in the world, but the p ..read more

It was about 1997 when this little deal occurred. I was part of a group of women who gathered together every year to camp, ride and visit. My sisters and sister-in-law were part of the group too. I had taken our good old ranch gelding, Chigger, to ride. He was a rock solid ranch horse but hadn’t been off the ranch much in his life. I had also taken Sailor, another really good ranch horse, for my sister-in-law to ride. I had sympathy for my horses as I wasn’t much on crowds or trail riding, having made a living with my horses always, so with that in mind, I’d parked on the outside of the whole ..read more

We had gotten the call to come and help sort out a bunch of cattle about 40 miles from home. A big summer thunderstorm had dropped hail and rain in copious amounts and had washed out watergaps for miles and had cattle mixed up all over the region. This particular bunch we had to get sorted out involved yearling steers, which belonged to the guy who called us, and a big bunch of high headed, snorty dark red Saler cows and calves that had come from west of the steers about five miles. They had traveled along the path of the flood and were mixed in with the steers on a chunk of gumbo creek bottom ..read more

It was a nasty, cold, snowy, windy winter day and seeing as how it was too awful outside to do anything, that’s the day the boss decided we needed to put the brisket tags in the heifers. The working chute was set up in a barn, which would have helped the wind situation, except that the adjoining lean to shed’s roof was mostly gone, and it absolutely scooped up that keen northwest wind and funneled it through the area we were working, blowing snow in our faces all the while. The roof was fine in that part of the barn, ensuring that the sun, weak as it was in January on the northern plains, coul ..read more