Leavin’ your cows in good hands ... or so you thought!

After you’ve spent a lifetime putting a cow herd together that you’re kinda proud of, hauling them to town when you’re out of grass is about the last option most cowboys will pick. Most of us will hang on to the old girls a lot longer than is practical. Sometimes it works ... and then again, sometimes it doesn’t. The biggest problem with a long drought is if you don’t have any grass, chances are there isn’t anyone very close that has any extra either. That usually means you either lock ’em up and feed ’em a lot of high priced hay, or you put wheels under them and haul them someplace where it’s actually been raining. That’s more than likely quite a distance. Such were the rotten choices facing Gordon a few years ago. He just couldn’t stand the thought of selling his cows, and so he put his heart into finding them some grass ... no matter what it cost. He finally did. Perusing a farm paper one morning, he found a ranch with grass to lease in the west river country of North Dakota. He got right on the phone with Malcolm Weatherly, the man who’d placed the ad, and the deal didn’t sound too bad. The price was terribly high, but at least Malcolm assured him they’d have feed. It had been raining for a month and the Dakota rancher was badly under stocked for some reason. The guy appeared honest enough on the phone, so they made a deal right on the spot. Gordon wired the money to Malcolm’s bank in Dakota to tie up the deal, and immediately hired the Poodie brothers to haul a couple loads of cow-calf pairs to their new home. It was none too soon either. They were completely out of grass and the hay pile had long since disappeared. Unfortunately, sometimes things aren’t all they appear ... especially on the telephone...more