Winter cowboying
by Julie Carter
It’s true. I’ll
confess. I was always a fair-weather cowgirl by preference. However, when
cattle needed tending, fair weather was not a given. Fact of life - if you have
cattle and live where winter is a force to contend with, you have to be
dedicated to the job. Being a little bit crazy doesn't hurt either.
The Texas
Panhandle, Amarillo particularly, claims some notoriety for its miserable winters.
Running yearlings on winter wheat is a tricky deal requiring good hard horses
and cowboys of the same ilk.
Darrell had a
big string of yearlings on winter wheat throughout most of a miserable
Panhandle winter. The wheat had gotten too short and the cattle needed to be
moved. Known for his penchant to always do things the hard way, Darrell called
for some help to come move the cattle.
Trucking them
would have cost about $100 dollars, but Darrell was determined to save the
expense for the guy that owned the herd. The morning that the cowboys showed up
to move the cattle, a cold, bitter east wind blew in, driving ice and sleet in
front of it, and into the faces of the cattle, horses and cowboys. Naturally,
east was the very direction they needed to go.
The cattle
fought to turn back, refusing to drive into the wind except by force. This kept
all but two of the riders at the back of the herd plenty busy. The two point
riders were needed mostly just to open the gates. No danger of the cattle
running off in that direction.
It took all the morning and a good part of the afternoon to drive the herd six
miles. The cowboys took turns thawing out in the pickups that followed behind.
The horses had
balls of ice and snow packed in their hooves and their eye lashes and nostrils
were iced over, same as the cowboys. There wasn't a creature, man or beast,
that wasn't chilled to the bone and hoping they'd live to see another warm day.
Nobody ever
heard if cattle owner appreciated all the misery and work that went into saving
him $100, but it was quite some time before Darrell was able to round up any
extra winter help again.
In times of
blizzards, a solid broke horse that will pull whatever you tie a rope onto is a
must. Yearlings are known to ball up in a corner of a wheat field and die out
of pure spite. Farmers seem to be irritable about it when they have to run over
bones to plow in the spring, so a fella needs to be able drag off the deads and
make them available to the used-cow dealer.
Many a wheat
pasture lord has become closely acquainted with the guy at the rendering
service. All part of winter wheat pasture cowboying.
Meanwhile, back
in the mountains where winter may not blow in quite the same as it does on the
plains, cold and snow are still the challenge.
It was late in
the fall and everything but a few strays had been gathered out of the mountain
pastures, but the search would continue as long as the hills were passable.
My brother and
I were quite young when we tagged along with my dad to track a few of the last
stragglers in the deep canyons fronting the Rocky Mountain range of home. With
our horses in single file, we trudged through the snow that had settled in the
bottom of the draws.
Often we had to
dismount and let the horses lunge their way to the top of a steep hill. We
would catch them at the top of the ridge after we first, and then they,
floundered our way through the belly deep drifts covering the north slopes in
the shade of the pines.
Wet boots and
wet gloves aided in fingers and toes turning to popsicles without feeling.
As the sun made
its way to setting behind the mountain range, the cold fell on us like a heavy
blanket, chilling us to the marrow. We were so cold by the time we headed home
that my brother, still small enough to not be able to reach his stirrups,
unknowingly lost one of his too big hand-me-down boots during the long
miserable jog-trot back to the barn.
As long as
there are horses that need ridden, cattle that need tended, cowboys will saddle
up in the chill of winter and do the job because it's there to be done, no
matter the conditions.
In their youth,
it comes more easily. A few decades later, justification for waiting for the
sun to shine comes even easier. "Why ride colts in a snowstorm? How can
you teach them to watch for rattlesnakes in this weather?"
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