SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER

Breaking in tourists and city kin at the ranch

By Julie Carter

Every now and then the head honcho on the outfit, while he’s in town for supplies, will run into some adoring fan of American cowboy life.

The boss man will be picking up a new belt for the pump jack at the parts store, fueling up the pickup at the filling station or stocking up on ice at the grocery store and some total stranger will strike up a “gee I’ve always admired cowboys” kind of conversation.

And without knowing any better, the fan will suggest that perhaps he and his family could come out to the ranch as they are having a slow day in their vacation time. Overburdened with politeness, the boss man will tell them “Sure, come on out.”

This same type of “invite yourself” that happens most often with shirt tail relatives who want a place to play cowboy, get a good meal and have some tall tales to tell back at the office on Monday. They will insist on coming to “help” during a branding, shipping, or any other fair weather activity that might be going on at the ranch.

They never understand the amount of extra work they require just by showing up. Beside the room and board and necessary shepherding around the ranch, it’s not unusual to have to call out a search party for one or more of them before the day is over.

An entire family will arrive, pour out of the mini-van and sometimes they will even offer up a bag of Fritos to add to the meal to be served later in the day.

Since the gentle horses usually belong to the little woman of the ranch, it is her horses that get assigned to the city kinfolk. These gentle beasts of burden are the only ones on the ranch safe enough for the dudes to fall off and not get walked on and kicked.

The boss won’t cut Momma any slack when it comes pulling her share of the work, so she’ll get to ride the green-broke colt and take the outside circle. “That colt’s been needin’ some miles anyway,” he’ll convincingly tell her.

After getting lunch for 30 cooking in the slow cookers, Momma will assure everyone the day can begin.

During one of these kinfolk invasion days, the young colt objected to getting pushed a little too hard when Momma was trying to be where she needed to be on time. The very physical form of objection, called “watch me buck you off woman!” landed Momma on her backside.

As you would imagine, the colt took off for home at a dead run and Momma had to limp in on foot with her wrist hanging at a funny angle.

Somewhat short on sympathy, the Boss mentioned that old women shouldn’t get bucked off. He even dared seem a little put out that he would now have to pick up the slack to cover for her lack of help.

After the branding was done and most of the Coors gone from the cooler, he got around to taking her to the emergency clinic.

For six weeks hundreds of bologna sandwiches were eaten by the masses. Amazingly, it kept the kinfolk head count to a minimum. The boss, all the ranch hands and the kids swore they would never loan Momma’s horses to the city kin again.

Not long after the cast came off, another crop of tourists showed up for another working. Momma got to ride her own horses that day. It wasn’t Mother’s Day but it well could have been.

May every day be Mother’s Day.

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net

© Julie Carter 2005

Do we take them for granted?

by Larry Gabriel

One of the things I frequently see in long drives across our state is something we almost never think about, even though we have more than a thousand of them.

If you drive much our state, you have seen them too. In the middle of a sea of brown grass, you will see a rectangular block of well-trimmed green, fenced in, and marked by a large gate, often of wrought iron spelling out a name…a small rural cemetery.

Some have had no new residents for many years, but few are rundown or overgrown with weeds.

Near a city or town, volunteers of a civic group or the local 4-H club may keep them looking nice.

On the prairie it is different. Frequently they are at the top of a windswept hill and the nearby town is long since gone from the landscape. Surviving relatives may not even know where the little cemetery is located. Some places were "part of the ranch" when the owner bought it.

In such places, it is often just one or two local ranch families who maintain it. No one asks them to do it. No one thanks them for doing it. They just do it because it "needs doing".

We should think about the South Dakotans who built this state. Other than what nature has provided, we owe everything to those who went before us.

Somewhere rests the first farmer to plant winter wheat east of the river, and the first to try sprinkler irrigation, and the first to try soybeans, and the first to try sunflowers, and the first to try organic farming or use various conservation practices.

Somewhere rests those who taught us that buffalo is a good food, and the first rancher to build a fence for rotational grazing, or raise registered cattle, or try a new cross breed of cattle, or try ear tags, or try direct marketing of a specialty product.

Somewhere lie the architects who designed our public works, the laborers who built them, the first entrepreneurs who bought land and platted town sites, built depots, and supplied water to the railroads and people.

It is not easy to be the first to try a new thing. The "safe thing" is to wait until others have failed or acceptance becomes general. South Dakotans have never been like that.

We have an insatiable desire to improve things and the faith to try it, even in the face of critics who claim it is foolish or not sustainable. We owe those traits and values to those who settled and developed this land. The kind of people who "don't believe" stayed "back East".

It is our tradition to remember and pay special honor to veterans and relatives on Memorial Day, and we should.

However, we also should remember the past builders and doers of our state. We have much to appreciate and much to pass to those who will follow.

Larry Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture

I welcome submissions for this feature of The Westerner.

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