No Spacing

June’s over

No Spacing

Benadryl Works

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            We lost a neighbor this week.

            The details are sketchy. He had been sick, and we heard only occasionally about progress or decline, but the loss of a Westerner is always a signal for pause. There just aren’t that many. Any loss is akin to the departure of a member of an endangered species.

            We understand the implications.

            C. J. attempts to chronicle our stories and issues in her magazine. The original Westerner attempts to array the topics of the day for archiving, similarly. His intention is to create a body of evidence for a saner student of history to someday study and understand. Julie must be given credit for her ability to grasp and articulate the nuances of an existence that combines capital intensive demands with overwhelming physical effort. Ed has entered into a rare stratum of being able to convert lives into vivid script. Lee and Baxter have long achieved the gift of using humor to separate fact from fiction.

            Of course, the master of all was the great J.R. Williams.

            His mastery of describing a way of life, understood only by experiencing it. was simply breathtaking. His departure also reveals what so few will ever understand. When he found the old coyote dead he cried like a baby. When he was saddled and trying to eke out an existence on an Arizona rockpile, he had maintained a running battle with the old dog’s brethren. When his life was ending and he befriended the aged predator because he could, their true relationship was exposed. Both had been lumped into a mortal battle of attrition. In the end, they understood.

They had more in common than they had differences.

June’s over

If there is a single image that can possibly describe this way of life it is June. It is always hard. It is a challenge. It is a test of endurance. It is brutal.

It is a time when true limitations and weaknesses are exposed. Life and death are constant companions. When you stand over a cow that can’t continue and you have the tool of correction in your hand, a decision is both easy and hard. You know what you must do, but it is never easy.

If a calf simply cannot exist because its mama can’t support it, it is better to doggie it right there than to let both suffer. There are human hands that can make that baby’s life more bearable and taking it from its mother is the correct decision.

Water, water … water.

Everyday, we look at water. Leaks are fixed. Wells are pulled and money is spent in pump repairs. A $4000 day in pump repair is a fact of life.

Recently, we pulled four Booer troughs from Clint through the chaos of El Paso. At the 375 exchange, we lost a water pump in one of the ranch Rams. Jacob at Rush vacated a bay in the shop and worked on it. At 8:30 in the PM it was fixed for the continued journey. He understood the need and the implication.

His rope horses are proxies for what he’d really like to be doing.

Yesterday, the task was to attempt to finish repairs on the Howard trap so we can load it with pairs for next week’s work. We’ll brand up and transition the herd to the Apache Pasture in our planned rotation. We’ve got to make sure we don’t inadvertently doggie calves in moving them at this time. Tight bagged cows will be sought and turned back if we did miss a baby in the Trail Pasture.

Two bottles of children’s liquid Benadryl sit on the desk right in front of me.

They have to go into the medicine bag for emergency use for the branding. We brought a heifer calf back to life last year with a drenched dose of the product when she went into anaphylactic shock from an injection of 7-Way. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she was going away when we rushed and filled a syringe and shot it down her throat. Ten minutes later she was unsteady but was standing, leaning against us as we rubbed her like her mother would do with her tongue helping her get her senses.

She grew into a big beautiful calf.

I texted Skip to find an old recipe for tick control in the calves. Thinking about giving everybody a job in the works, the memory of long ago using an oil can to inject solution into ears as we processed comes to mind. It’s a job for a little cowboy who isn’t big enough to flank, but who needs to be in the pen just because. He needs to be there because he is needed for next year, next generation, and the next body of plans, dreams and hope for a future. He needs to be in full regalia of his surroundings. He needs his spurs on, leggings if they aren’t too heavy, and the biggest brimmed hat he can look out from under. He needs to have his own horse tied to the fence. There needs to be a rope tied to his saddle and he needs to be encouraged to use it with the caveat to use his head and keep his thumb up. He needs to know he is welcome.

Damn, he is important.

 No Spacing

Perhaps the recognition that this life is conditional on constraint and conflict is appropriate and truthful. There never has been nor will there ever be consistent tall grass and deep waters, but this is the life we live. Hence, when we lose one in our ranks, we need to pause and offer a prayer for his or her soul.

Indeed, each is a loss.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “In his small catechism, Luther said we don’t need to pray for a departed soul. Father, forgive me, for I will.”