Cowboy Stories
8/29/07 - 4th Day - After Breakfast. Another beautiful day here at the ranch. We're sliding into the end of August and you can get just a slight hint of fall in the air early in the morning. The prognosticators are calling for a slight probability of rain over the next five days, so we are praying to receive some moisture for the land and for our catchwaters.
Yesterday evening some of the guys from the community came over to help me attempt to move Holga and her new calf down to our close pasture so we can start milking her soon. Holga is the cow we traded to the Ante's for the RV that is going to be used as an office. Since our new bull calf (Chico) is going to be on her for 6 months or so, we are going to start milking her here pretty soon. Holga is one of the two pure Longhorn cows we milked last year.
So our design was to somehow go to the top pasture (on David Sifford's land) and drive Holga and her calf down to my pasture. Moving cows is a very inexact science for we new cattlemen, because we don't have any horses, and our riding cow (Pita) is not big enough for me to ride yet, nor do I know if rounding up cows with another cow will ever work. So anyway, what we have done in the past (since none of us are good ropers) is we have chased the cows with the truck and cut the one we want out of the herd. Then we tire her out or get out and jump on her and tackle her. This probably will not work with a full grown 700 lb. Longhorn cow like Holga. So I tried the next best thing... the food lure. I lured her away with range cubes (cows LOVE range cubes... they are like cow candy) while Danielle and Tracy tried to capture the calf. I succeeded in getting her out of David's pasture, and about 100 feet from the fence to my pasture where I wanted her to go when she changed her mind and bolted. Now she was in the "no man's land" between the two pastures. We put her on hold for awhile and went to go try to help Danielle and Tracy capture Chico. Well, Chico was under the protection of Maria. Maria is a HUGE 1/2 Longhorn, 1/2 Watusi cow with a horn spread of probably close to 5 or 6 feet. For those of you who have seen her, you know that you do not want to mess with Maria. Well, when I get up to the pasture, Danielle has cornered Maria (who is protecting Chico) and is actually bluffing a charge at Maria in order to get her to back off. Maria calls Danielle's bluff and charges Danielle with a LONG and pointy horn coming right at her. I'm screaming my head off to get Danielle to stop what she is doing, but I don't think she can hear me. At the last second, Danielle realizes that Maria is not playing around and she pulls up short of getting gored and thrown into the next county. I rounded up all the people into the truck and we went to plan "B" (or is it plan "C"?). We used the truck to cut Chico from the herd and then we all jumped out and cornered him next to a barbed wire fence. Chris Woods grabbed him as he made an attempt to go through the fence, and we loaded him into the back of the truck. Our plan now (which is called the Lindbergh plan) was to hold the calf hostage and entice Holga down to the other pasture with the threat of dire danger to the calf. So we went and found Holga and taunted her with the fact that we were holding her calf. She really didn't seem to care much, since she had found some large stands of Johnson grass and she was busy eating greedily. So I got out with a bucket of sweet grains and lured her to the middle of the dirt road. Then, sneakily, while she was devouring the sweet grains, I put a lariat around her horns and tightened it. I had already tied the other end to the ball hitch on the truck, so now my intent was to pull her to where I wanted her to go. So far so good. I got in the truck and started driving slowly and pulling Holga like a reluctant water skier down the road. All went well until we got to the gate to my pasture when Holga went wide and took out a portion of my fence. That was easy enough to fix, the problem now was getting the rope off the horns of a big Longhorn cow who is really, really, really upset. So I walked up to her with a calm and soothing voice and gave her some range cubes, and while she (in a very confused way) ate the range cubes, I reached between the horns and pulled off the lariat. Ta DA! We released the calf and gloried in our old-timey cowboy victory.
So this morning I went and lured Holga down to the corral to get her used to the process of preparing to milk again. I got her into the corral, and into the right position and gave her a bucket of sweet grains. I'll do this for a day or two before I actually hitch her up and start putting my hands on her. Hopefully, a week from now we will be milking her. Stay tuned for that.
Enough for now cowpokes (happy trails playing softly in the background). See y'all next time.
Michael
Yesterday evening some of the guys from the community came over to help me attempt to move Holga and her new calf down to our close pasture so we can start milking her soon. Holga is the cow we traded to the Ante's for the RV that is going to be used as an office. Since our new bull calf (Chico) is going to be on her for 6 months or so, we are going to start milking her here pretty soon. Holga is one of the two pure Longhorn cows we milked last year.
So our design was to somehow go to the top pasture (on David Sifford's land) and drive Holga and her calf down to my pasture. Moving cows is a very inexact science for we new cattlemen, because we don't have any horses, and our riding cow (Pita) is not big enough for me to ride yet, nor do I know if rounding up cows with another cow will ever work. So anyway, what we have done in the past (since none of us are good ropers) is we have chased the cows with the truck and cut the one we want out of the herd. Then we tire her out or get out and jump on her and tackle her. This probably will not work with a full grown 700 lb. Longhorn cow like Holga. So I tried the next best thing... the food lure. I lured her away with range cubes (cows LOVE range cubes... they are like cow candy) while Danielle and Tracy tried to capture the calf. I succeeded in getting her out of David's pasture, and about 100 feet from the fence to my pasture where I wanted her to go when she changed her mind and bolted. Now she was in the "no man's land" between the two pastures. We put her on hold for awhile and went to go try to help Danielle and Tracy capture Chico. Well, Chico was under the protection of Maria. Maria is a HUGE 1/2 Longhorn, 1/2 Watusi cow with a horn spread of probably close to 5 or 6 feet. For those of you who have seen her, you know that you do not want to mess with Maria. Well, when I get up to the pasture, Danielle has cornered Maria (who is protecting Chico) and is actually bluffing a charge at Maria in order to get her to back off. Maria calls Danielle's bluff and charges Danielle with a LONG and pointy horn coming right at her. I'm screaming my head off to get Danielle to stop what she is doing, but I don't think she can hear me. At the last second, Danielle realizes that Maria is not playing around and she pulls up short of getting gored and thrown into the next county. I rounded up all the people into the truck and we went to plan "B" (or is it plan "C"?). We used the truck to cut Chico from the herd and then we all jumped out and cornered him next to a barbed wire fence. Chris Woods grabbed him as he made an attempt to go through the fence, and we loaded him into the back of the truck. Our plan now (which is called the Lindbergh plan) was to hold the calf hostage and entice Holga down to the other pasture with the threat of dire danger to the calf. So we went and found Holga and taunted her with the fact that we were holding her calf. She really didn't seem to care much, since she had found some large stands of Johnson grass and she was busy eating greedily. So I got out with a bucket of sweet grains and lured her to the middle of the dirt road. Then, sneakily, while she was devouring the sweet grains, I put a lariat around her horns and tightened it. I had already tied the other end to the ball hitch on the truck, so now my intent was to pull her to where I wanted her to go. So far so good. I got in the truck and started driving slowly and pulling Holga like a reluctant water skier down the road. All went well until we got to the gate to my pasture when Holga went wide and took out a portion of my fence. That was easy enough to fix, the problem now was getting the rope off the horns of a big Longhorn cow who is really, really, really upset. So I walked up to her with a calm and soothing voice and gave her some range cubes, and while she (in a very confused way) ate the range cubes, I reached between the horns and pulled off the lariat. Ta DA! We released the calf and gloried in our old-timey cowboy victory.
So this morning I went and lured Holga down to the corral to get her used to the process of preparing to milk again. I got her into the corral, and into the right position and gave her a bucket of sweet grains. I'll do this for a day or two before I actually hitch her up and start putting my hands on her. Hopefully, a week from now we will be milking her. Stay tuned for that.
Enough for now cowpokes (happy trails playing softly in the background). See y'all next time.
Michael
posted by Michael Bunker at 8/29/2007 06:11:00 AM
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