Colonial Bondage...

Weaning plans

Colonial Bondage

CAN’T

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            Lee Coker was a cowman.

            We have been dismantling an old set of corrals in order to rebuild another that fits into our rotation and business needs. Friday and Saturday were spent removing and moving gates and gate posts. Every one was a fortress. We had our backhoe and articulated loader down there trying to dig or pry everything out of the ground. Some of those posts were set four feet deep and had at least a yard of concrete poured around them.

Quite frankly, I am tired of hearing Leonard say, “Lee Coker sure knew what he was doing.”

            Lee, an old time cowman from Quemado or somewhere that direction came to the ranch when former owner, Weldon Burris’, health declined. He and his cadre of vaqueros built what infrastructure that was actually working when we arrived. From the broken chains and excavations into the depths of the ground, we know that working in pens that wouldn’t hold anything wasn’t on his list of favorite things.

            I would like to have met him. He must have had ample experience lifting and dragging gates, patching alley fences with discarded bed frames to get cattle loaded, and trying to wire a gate shut to hold a cow. He was as disgusted with that as I am. Digging to the maximum depth we can reach and then strapping the biggest chain around the post to pull with the loader are modern day testaments to his savvy.

            They must have tied a rope to the feet of the smallest vaquero to let him down head first to get the last coffee can of dirt out of the bottom of those holes.

            “How deep?” Lee likely responded. “Until you hit bed rock or run out of rope.”

            Rebuilding to wean

            If we just had more rain, it is that time of year when the quiet of the home stretch gives rise to stillness and shades of sentimental reflection. It is still too hot and every weatherman has earned our disdain, but, if one of those bureaucrats could actually come up with a real chance, we’d call it even. Three inches of rain would sure enough salvage our attitudes and we could smile for a few weeks. We would be ready for the big dance.

            That, of course, implies weaning.

            The absence of overall rain has altered our rotation and we are not in the pastures we’d like to be at this time of the year. As a result, the rebuilding of the corral has taken more significance with the likelihood of having to do most of the heavy cow work a distance from our headquarters and our bigger pens. So, we dig corner posts and break chains with a degree of urgency.

            Our plan is to do our renovation from inside out in the tightest areas so we can get equipment in before the rebuilt structures preclude entry. There is even a movement afoot to rename the corrals. Traditionally, structures take on the names of people, places, or things that imply historical significance. I like names that remind us of individuals who were there when it all started. There is so much green steel now hanging on these pens, though, “Green Pens” would have an immediate and universal familiarity. Time will tell.

            Labor savings doesn’t start or stop with construction equipment.

            We have split the water lot and reconfigured our sorting pen so we can run cattle from two directions. If we have to hold cattle overnight, we won’t have to resort. We will be able to stop everything and start afresh the next morning in the same place.

            We will have a pen dedicated to weaned calves and cull cows. We will be able to load cattle in the process of sorting so both jobs can continue without interruption, and we are going to refine our chute area by pouring a concrete pad to bolt the chutes in place. All gates will be cowboy friendly by being able to lock gates without bending over or getting off.

            A loading tub will help us meter cattle into the chutes without the dust, constant cowboy logic and sweat of the past 100 years.

 Talking about chutes, Lee Coker would approve of the fact we won’t have to keep moving a chute back into position after a cow or a bull hits the end of it as we try to load it. Our calf chute will be there in parallel, and Mother Mercy, we are planning on putting a shade over both chutes and the slab area! A work table and a dinner table will be constructed from salvaged wood from the old corrals.

Collectively, these improvements will adjust for the changing conditions of our cattle operation, but also carry forth the traditions created by all the cowboys who worked in these pens for the past century. Our respect for what they did remains a huge part of everything we do.

Just like Lee Coker, we are and will remain to the extent of our ability…cowmen.

Colonial Bondage

Our ability, however, may not hold sway in our intent to remain cowmen.

The corrals in this discussion are not located on federal land, but what we do with them is on its way to being a next federal nexus. In a recent discussion, we were told by a federal official we may not be able to remove an old loading chute because it was over 40 years old. As such, it is now considered historic. It didn’t matter that the chute was deteriorated to the point it was dangerous for cows and men alike. The point was made that, by dominion of federal presence in our checkerboard land ownership, the arbitrary federal historic status may become a next constraint to our managerial authority.

The official suggested we needed federal approval to remove the chute.

The ability to act on the simple matter of rebuilding a corral on our own volition is one of the thousands of evolving regulatory constraints federal lands ranchers face. It will not end with us, however. We are the proving ground for eventual universal regulatory suppression.

The casualties being accrued from the ranks of cattlemen relying on cattle income alone is appalling. Even if a truce was called today to halt the federal assaults on the industry, it would take years before the economic, social, and physical reconstruction and rehabilitation of federal lands stewardship was accomplished. Any relief would be measured against the terrible price already paid by the rural communities affected.

As was true of all states whose ranges were dominated by the federal landlord, ranchers first appreciated the promises of the Taylor Grazing Act, the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act, the National Forest Management Act, the Public Rangelands Improvement Act, and other legislation that the Founders would find constitutionally unrecognizable. As the occupation wore on, however, they became disillusioned with the proffered good intentions of the agencies finding them to be ruthless, tyrannical overlords bent on expanding an agenda that has every appearance of age-old colonial bondage.

As in the case of all bondage, most westerners with duties, responsibilities, and investments on these lands have experienced permanent estrangement from their government. Can’t has long been the operational byline. Rather than evolving our businesses based on free choice, stepwise reactions to constraints, we can’t make a single managerial shift without approval from an absentee provincial co-environmental sphere of influence. The can’t(s) are limited only by our imagination of the questions to ask.

Can’t adjust carrying capacities based on seasonal factors unless it is downward.

Can’t run a pipeline without environmental clearances and an updated Ranch Management Plan (RMP) … period.

Can’t build a new fence without environmental clearances, an updated RMP, and an interdisciplinary team approval.

Can’t replace an old fence or pipeline (regardless what contracts state) without consulting and getting approval from an official.

Can’t add new water sources without all of the above.

Can’t introduce complexity of grazing.

Can’t start a therapeutic fire without consulting and planning with at least five agencies and planning must take place at least a year ahead.

Can’t apply an herbicide on an invasive weed species without it being written into the RMP and undergoing mandated state training procedures.

Can’t remove a historic structure without approval even if it ours!

And, for those of us who find ourselves within national monuments created without congressional action, the horrors are worse. We are subject to public scoping that solicits absentee provincial co-environmental sphere approval on projects, and can’t proceed without it. There is not a business sector in the history of the world that can survive much less thrive under those conditions.

Colonial bondage indeed …

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “I was told by a BLM official a grandmother in Miami Beach has as much authority over the management plan for my federal lands ranch as I do ...”