My Weekend in Pictures

I feel like I haven’t talked about what’s going on here on the ranch in forever. And it’s because I haven’t. I’ve been really busy doing stuff; what stuff I can’t even begin to say. Handling horses, moving horses, sorting pairs, moving pairs, giving fall shots. Which reminds me- I have video to show y’all from a couple weeks ago. It was SO Windy the day we chose to give one of our herds some fall shots I had to film it so you could see!

I’ve digressed. This weekend we went out to our pasture up north- about 20 miles or so from the main ranch, to try and gather our missing pairs. A pair is a cow and her calf. We knew we were missing some because a week ago we gathered our family and friends to ride the pasture and trail the cows to the corral so we could give them fall shots and get a count on them. The count wasn’t even close to right, but we knew that in some places the gates had been rubbed open, and storms can push cows through fences, or a hunter can come through and let the fence down and not get it put back right; regardless we were missing some pairs.

Saturday brought us to a pasture I’d never been in before- a Pasture with Virgin Creek running through it. Virgin Creek is named for three virgins, that I believe were kidnapped, and reclaimed. I’ll have to ask Zach’s dad for the full story. I only know that there were three Virgins because I’m currently reading “Dakota Cowboy” which is a history of the reservation.

I took all these pictures with my iPhone, so they’re not all fantastic.

Here’s a couple views of the creek from one of the highest buttes:

It’s hard to tell but those dark spots- all trees. Getting across that creek was an adventure all in and of itself! There were very few places you could cross, even horseback. Lots of cut-banks and drop offs and if you could get down in one spot, you had to make sure you could get up the other side and that there was enough room between branches you wouldn’t take out your eye or something!

I have to say I was glad I donned my hair-on-hide chinks and the extra jacket because the weather decided to catch us in a quick sprinkle of shower- and Bob, just so you know, those hair-on-hide chinks, they shed water just fine!

We managed to find 19 of our cows in the neighbor’s pasture and our one missing bull. We got them back to the corral, and sorted his cows from ours.

Did I mention yet that it was a beautiful day, Saturday?

Gumpy looked handsome as usual, no?

I love his mane blowing in the breeze:

It got late in the day and we needed to be done in time to go play football with Ty, Zach’s son, so we left our cows corralled overnight.

On our way to the football game, we saw this:

And it was honestly as beautiful as the photograph!

Sunday brought another round of riding, because we needed to get our cows that were corralled, back to their own pasture!

And that is just what we did:

Zach rode a handsome horse named Dozer, I rode my loyal partner, Gump, and Wayne, Zach’s dad rode his horse, also known as, the Polaris Ranger. Our cousins, Earp and his son Scottie, rode their four-wheelers through another pasture to check for more missing pairs, as we were still short 25 or so after Saturday’s gather. Thanks to their help, we’re only missing about 20 pairs now! Slowly but surely we will get there.

And that, my friends is just another glimpse into a day in my life…

Happy Trails- and remember to smile and ride!

[ad#Google Adsense]