Last weekend we took our cows out west where I grew up. From here, it’s a four hour ride in a car…a six hour ride for a cattle pot and truck and trailer with seven people packed into the crew cab. Saturday was one long hectic day. But it was one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long time, because to me it meant going home.
A trucker took the cows. We headed out bright and early to sort the babies off from the mamas. Nothing worse than getting a calf trampled and lame for life because a cow sat on it the whole way. So we put the cows on the semi trailer and then loaded the babies in our gooseneck stock trailer. My brother in law’s pickup seats six comfortably, but it was Cowboy Dad, his brother and brother’s wife in the front, and three kids in the back, so I sat in between the kids’ seats and got along just fine. We packed the extra space around us with a cooler of drinks and a bunch of books for the kids to read, and we were ready to go.
Last week was full of cattle work. We branded calves, vaccinated everything, poured them for mange and lice, and tried to brand the new cows we had purchased this year. The squeeze chute wasn’t working properly, so after the first cow ended up with a stutter of four brands down her hip, we gave up on that idea. So we took the irons along to brand them when we got to our destination.
We had lunch at the Arby’s in Ord, Nebraska. I was born at Ord, so it always feels nostalgic. We lived a good hour away, growing up, but it was one of the closest towns to get groceries, tractor repairs, dental appointments, and a monthly library visit where the obliging staff allowed us to carry out a whole cardboard box of books. It was also the town where an eye doctor fitted me with glasses at the age of eight. I still remember thinking, “Wow, I didn’t know the wallpaper was flecked–I thought it was a solid cream color. Glasses are great!” Every place out in the Sandhills holds those kinds of memories for me.
So we finished our trip at the ranch yard of an old friend. Her husband passed away last January, and her son is helping her manage the ranch, and he agreed to lease us some pasture for the summer for our cows. She is almost eighty-five and has had part of a foot removed during a battle with infection, but she is still the same person I knew when I was a kid. She and her husband used to bring a five gallon bucket of milk to school every other day for us to take home. They milked the cow by hand and had more than they could use, so they shared it with us. Mom usually returned the bucket with some kind of cookies or baked rolls in it, but we could never keep up with their kindness. These are the same neighbors who gave my sister her first horse, and started off the wave of horse craziness in our family. We owe a lot to their generosity.
So we arrived at the ranch and unloaded the cattle. We let them pair up and nurse and settle down a little bit, and then started sorting off the ones that still needed branded. They had a couple of horses there, and they let me ride one, which was a real treat. I loved that feeling of riding a cowhorse again…like you’ve got the throttle ready, and there’s power there when you ask for it. I was re-living my cowgirl days, loping to turn back a cow, when I was jarred back to reality by my camera flying out of my pocket and landing in the cow-residue…that reminded me that I’m split between worlds of being a cowgirl and just writing about cowgirl things on a horse blog. But it still felt good.
This blog often presents a quandary when I am working. Like the day we branded calves. There I was, up to my elbows in manure, skinned arms, smoke curling about my eyes as I held a kicking calf to be branded, and I thought, “Where’s the camera? I should really get this on film!” No way. It was either help brand or stand around taking pictures. No in between. And since there were only three of us to do the job—my husband, brother in law, and myself—photos were out of the question. So the real cowgirl things often go unrecorded because if I stop to take pictures, I miss out on the work.
But this day on the ranch out west, I had a few moments to capture and preserve the wealth of feelings I get when I drive down those old familiar roads. Each blade of grass holds a memory, each run-down building pulls me in and says “you’re home”, and each friendly face reminds me that the best of life is found at the end of a dirt road somewhere out west.
This is our brand, Lazy C Lazy K, on the front of our stock trailer, hauling the calves.
This photo, looking north along the driveway to the ranch, reminded me of these lyrics.
Cowboy Dad giving the three kids a ride on the four wheeler.
One of the ranchers’ yearling heifers.
A close-up of the saddle I was riding.
My view from the saddle.
A ranch horse.
The horse I was riding.
Our daughter watching the cows unload from the cattle pot.
Cowboy Dad sorting cattle.
Branding a calf.
The cows looking for their calves.
The rancher applying his brand to one of their cows.
My husband waiting to put another cow in the chute.
The dirt road leading up to the ranch.
