Something in the Air

There was something in the air this morning.  With Richard in the hospital for knee surgery, I took on the added task of feeding the cat, dogs and chickens.  As I approached the chicken coop, the rooster took on an aggressive posture on the other side of the gate.  I had to wait for him to back away before I could enter so he wouldn’t get out.

This is him

After I entered his area, he attacked and I had to fend him off with the large stick I carry with me whenever I go into his pen.  I pushed him back several times with the stick and then I lost my patience and kicked him about three feet in the air.  Nothing deterred him and he came back at me and I had to fend him off with the stick for the entire time I was feeding them and collecting the eggs.  He distracted me so much that when I finally departed, I left the eggs sitting on the ledge and had to return for them later.

I have never understood why a small animal with no arms and very short legs would attack something as large as a human.  I could have squashed him at any moment and we would be eating chicken and dumplings tonight!  To get even, I tormented him with the water hose for 15 minutes or so and reduced him from “King of the roost” to a minor Duke.  When I left, he was crowing about every 30 seconds trying to reestablish his dominance and regain his throne.  I can’t wait for tomorrow.

Even the calves, who are usually very docile and timid, stood their ground when the two dogs tried to chase them off.  Normally they run as soon as they see the dogs coming, but this morning one of them stood face to face with the dog for a few seconds.  I’ve never seen them do that before.  One of them actually came back and confronted the dog after the dog had given up the chase!  Eventually the dogs won out, as they always do, but that show of aggression by the calves was unusual.  I was actually proud of them!

Darrel, Ben Johnson, and Steer Roping

I met an interesting chap for the second time today.  I was first introduced to Darrel H. a couple of years ago during one of my visits to Oklahoma.  At that time he was presented to me as a preacher for a local congregation.  He is a likeable chap, tall, strong, and good looking albeit a bit brusque in his manner.  Like most of the preachers around here, he is very loud spoken.  Anyway, we chatted for a while and I learned that he had grown up on a large spread in northern Oklahoma near the town of Burbank.  One of his neighbors, he said, was none other than Ben Johnson, of Hollywood fame, but Darrel said he did not know he was a movie star and only knew him as Mr. Johnson.

Ben Johnson went to Hollywood in the 1940’s when Howard Hughs hired him to deliver a herd of horses for a movie he was making.  Ben had been a rodeo star up to then and was a world champion roper.  When he got to Hollywood he decided to stay and worked as a stunt man, horse trainer, and taught many of the big stars how to ride western style.  He doubled for the Duke (John Wayne) on many occasions and had roles in many of his movies.  I saw Ben in one of the Duke’s films where he rode tandem horses, standing on their backs, at a full gallop!  It was an amazing stunt and helped Ben to become known as the best rider in Hollywood.

My new friend Darrel H. grew up in this atmosphere and was an accomplished rider himself.  He was telling me about rodeos and how the “steer tripping” (also known as steer roping) event had been eliminated because so many cows were being harmed.  Darrel went on to explain “steer tripping” to me in a way that could only come from someone who had done it many times.  He described every detail as if he were painting a masterpiece, telling me how it was necessary to rope the steer around the horns and then deftly lay the rope along side the cow as you galloped past on the opposite side from the rope, thereby looping the rope behind the cow being careful to catch the back legs in the flank area and not below the hock (a cow’s rear legs flex in reverse of a human’s but the hock would be comparable to the knee).

I know this is not a steer and does not have horns, but its a good enough graphic for this story

Galloping ahead of the steer at this point would pull the hind legs under the steer toward its head, causing it to fall to the ground undamaged.  The problem, he said, is that many of the inexperienced riders have gotten into the habit of turning sharply away from the cow pulling its back legs to the side and this is what causes all the injuries.  They do this to effect a quicker trip, trying to shorten the time and win the event.  Darrel called this method “steer jerking” and obviously held those who practiced this method in contempt.

The right way

The wrong way

Apparently, in the old days when it was not convenient to corral range cattle and haul them to a veterinarian for treatments or branding, “steer tripping” was a necessary talent.  The range riders often carried medications in their saddlebags and when they spotted a sickly steer, it only took a few seconds to drop the steer and administer whatever first aid was available and then release it unharmed.

Raising Calves

The following photo shows our John Deere 4230 tractor with a John Deere 435 Baler attached.  The Baler will produce round bales 4 feet wide and six feet high and automatically spits them out the back as you roll along.  That’s Gail you see in the driver’s seat.  Very soon we will have to mow and bale our 80 acre meadow and if all goes well and we get more rain, it will produce between 250 and 300 bales.

Gail at the controls

When Richard and I rounded up the calves for marketing the other day, we were backslapping, high fiving, and generally congratulating ourselves on how smoothly the operation went.  Deftly manipulating a myriad of gates and enclosures, we had corralled and separated over thirty calves, saving three for ourselves (to expand the herd), hauling nine to the auction yard, and releasing the remaining younger ones back to the care of their mamas.  All done in less than two hours, it could not have gone smoother, or so we thought.

Gates, gates, and more gates

When Frank and I went out the next morning to fill the “creep feeders” we discovered, to my dismay, that there was a lone calf trapped in the chute from the previous day’s activity.  Not only was it trapped in the chute, but it’s hind quarters were draped over one of the rails we use to keep them from backing up once they are in the chute.  The poor thing couldn’t move forward or backward or to either side!  It just had to stand there all that day and night waiting for us to return.  Apparently, with all the bawling and caterwauling that was going on we failed to notice the calf and drove off, leaving her trapped.  When we finally got her loose, she made a beeline for the watering pond after which she literally ran to find her mama.  The entire episode was cause for some good natured ribbing at the “board meeting” where I was informed that mistakes such as that would not help to get me into the Cowboy Hall of Fame.

As I mentioned, we cut out three calves to expand our herd and this morning I went with Richard to haul them to the veterinarian.  The veterinarian wormed them and gave them shots for several different illnesses and then branded them with our JR brand and the number two representing the year of their birth, 2012.  The three of them are pictured below.

Freshly branded

We cut our 20 acre pasture a couple of weeks back and it has really helped the grass.  As you can see in the following photo, the new grass is already several inches high.

Our 20 acre pasture

This is where we will put our three new calves as soon as they are weaned from their mamas; about two more weeks.

As nice as the weather has been, we sure could use some rain.  It has been unusually warm and we have not had the summer thunder showers that are normal for the area.  In the following photo, the cows are getting relief from the sun in the shade of the wooded areas.

Looking for shade

We have 32 cows on the east pasture, 25 cows on the west pasture, and 10 cows that are normally kept on the 20 acre pasture.  Added to this, we have 3 bulls and 25 young calves remaining.  These animals are not as dumb as they act.  They seem to know what we are up to and look at me differently now that I have participated in kidnapping their young.  When I came back from the auction barn they seemed to look at me with that “we thought you were different from the others” look and I felt the guilt.  In retaliation they randomly lay land mines around the property like the one in the following photo.

Deadly pasture mines

Stepping on one of these is a constant danger and must be avoided at all costs.

Well, I’ve been here for almost two months now and I have to say, I think I’ve learned more than I thought I didn’t know.

Besides the room addition that turned out to be ten times as much work as I thought it would be, there has been hay mowing and baling, calf and cow tending, and machine maintenance to deal with.  All this had to be accomplished while learning a whole new language during the process.  If you’re getting ready to do something, you’re “fixin” to do it and that fence wire with the barbs on it is not called Barbed Wire, its called “Bob War.”  Also, the past tense for blow is blowed, not blown like I always thought.  A friend of ours has a truck with the engine blowed out of it.  There are many more words like these, but I think you get the idea.

We had a calf “down” a couple of weeks ago and I had to take food and water to it every day out in the woods where it had fallen.  Nobody is sure what happened to it except to speculate that one of the bulls had tried to mount it and broke its back.  The poor thing could not use its back legs.  I took care of it for a week but we eventually had to shoot it to end its misery.  Cousin Richard did the actual deed with a Winchester 30-30, but I went with him for moral support.  It was a sad affair.  We used a front loader on the tractor to haul the carcass to the bone yard.  All these ranches have a bone yard.

Last week I got my first chance to drive the tractor and mow the hayfield and promptly broke the mower.  The mower connects to the rear of the tractor and projects about 12 feet out to one side.  The maintenance shop couldn’t get to the repairs for over a week so, with the assurance of the mechanic on duty at the shop that it was not a complicated task, I offered to effect the repairs myself.  The mower has seven spinning heads and since only the first three were turning, he speculated that the drive shaft between the third and fourth head had twisted off.  “All you have to do,” he said, “is separate the connection between heads 3 and 4 and replace the drive shaft.  Oh” he added “don’t forget to synchronize all the heads so they are not interfering with each other.”  I feel proud that, with those instructions and some very large tools, I was able to repair a rather complicated machine in a couple of hours!

One of the daily tasks I have to do is something they call “creep feeding.”  I don’t know why they call it that but they do.  Apparently, when it comes time to catch all the calves for worming, shots, etc. or for hauling them to the auction barn, it would be a lot of work and is not cost effective to chase them around the pasture trying to rope them.  They get all excited and can run off a few pounds of weight during the process and at sale time, pounds are dollars.  Furthermore, if they get scared they pee and crap another few pounds away so it is more prudent to capture them quietly.  To do this, you place a feeder in a fenced off area and lure the calves inside with a daily supply of tasty morsels.  This gets them used to entering a confined area and also gets them used to seeing me.  To keep the big cows out of the feeding area (it would be too expensive to feed the big mommas) the opening in the gate is reduced so only the calves will fit through.  Once the calves are in the feeding area it is easy to close the gate on them and guide them into a chute for shots or into a trailer to take them to the auction.

I have met many interesting people since our arrival.  Just like in our court system where you are innocent until proven otherwise, here you are a friend until you prove yourself otherwise.  Everyone is helpful and wise with experience.  This is a small town and it sometimes seems like everyone is related or at least close friends with everyone else.  The people are very political, very very patriotic, and strongly religious.  I have coffee in the mornings with some people whose families have been in this area for over a hundred years and they have large ranches with thousands of cattle.  Some even have oil and gas wells that have been handed down through generations, but they all love working with the animals.  I have to admit that it is intoxicating and I already have grown very fond of a few of mine.