Gathering Clouds

 

Gathering Clouds

Judgement

Into the Eye of the Storm

By Stephen L. Wilmeth 

            The Constitution is not a document for the government to restrain the people. It is an instrument for the people to restrain the government ~~ Patrick Henry

          Gathering Clouds

            For the past several weeks, we have been prepping for the shipment of the big end of our 2020 calf crop.

            The process is not without tension. The idea our business is filled with romance and strumming guitars is a charade. It is like any business. It demands your full devotion and sleepless nights are all too common.

            The steps are timeless in that the horses are fed before sunup. Horse trailers have long replaced long trots to a planned rodear somewhere over the horizon, but the smells and the sounds must be considered echoes of the past. Our crew this go round was mostly kids. The ages of that end of the crew included two eleven-year-olds, a twelve-year-old, a thirteen-year-old, two fourteen-year-olds (one of which turned fifteen in the process), and two nineteen-year-olds.

            Don’t be mistaken.

            Watching them make old men remember the words of that song (sung best by Ray Price), I wish I was 18 again. The energy, the aptitude to learn, the sharp senses, and the joy of being horseback are all so boundless.

If only that could be carried through life.

            The first day was a big gather. The herd was in the Coldiron Pasture with the far southeastern corner down against the highway fully 11 miles from the headquarters. We changed the normal approach of how we scattered and rode based on how the cattle were spread. Those of us who came from the west had a cold northwest wind at our backs, but the crew that came from the east didn't taste its bite until midday.

            The kid on the paint horse rode the big outside eastern circle. The old man on the dark grulla rode the outside circle from the west. When we all met at the Winston Tank the big end of the herd was ready to push northward.

            Two miles later the difficulty of driving a mixed herd was apparent. Separated pairs were bawling, holding things up, and given a chance, calves were trying to go back. Those first mixed herd drives coming from Texas must have been living nightmares.

            Across the brush treatments on the north end of the pasture, the herd was stretched out nearly a mile as the lead cows were leaving knowing what the move meant while the drags were being pushed every step. That many cows at one time is not seen as often as it used to be. All those kids saw and experienced it.

They will remember it forever.

            Into the Eye of the Storm

            The first day’s work was concluded as the last of the straggling calves were surrounded and pushed through new green gate which was open going into the Lazy E Pasture at the Three Way where three pastures meet.

            Shortly after sunup the next morning, the same drama was reenacted as riders unloaded horses on the south end of the Lazy E Pasture to start the stepwise gather into the headquarters. The morning was nearing its end when the regathered herd was started from the Electric Windmill and on up the draw toward the house. Dust hung heavy in the dry lot when that gate was shut, and the safety chain was snapped shut.

            After lunch, the sort began. The kids were all assigned a duty from keeping cows pushed up, to running gates, and even tagged to being horseback in the alley as the calves were sorted from the herd.

Cowboy they were in every case.

The weaners were run one way and the unbranded fall calves were sorted another. The cacophony of sound of separated pairs was constant. The work continued until late in the afternoon when everything was fed before the sun went down.

            Sunrise the third morning was different.

The crew was not as rambunctious. Conversations were more subdued. Horses used without a day off were not as fresh, but the crescendo of the sounds of a now separated herd hung in the air like the ever-present dust. It was time to finish the sort and brand the slicks.

Prompted by the branding fire, life returned to the crew. As the Tim Ryan song goes, there are still things old cowboys can do, but flanking calves is best left to the youth in our way of life and culture. Being around horses changes kids and having a real job at the same time fosters yet another layer of reactions, but the branding fire makes young people different. If they emerge with a fascination of our culture, the branding pen is what punctuates a lifelong attachment to this husbandry that is shared by an ever-diminishing segment of American society.

            There are consequences.

In the weeks thereafter, the herd was turned back into the Lazy E Pasture with the intension to work the cows in a month. The replacement heifers were selected, and the weaning process concluded. On Friday, the trucks arrived on time, loaded, and sent off into the cold of northeastern New Mexico. Little did we anticipate our scheduled process would be impacted by a freezing blizzard, but our hay supply dictated the outcome and this morning those red Butterfield calves are standing in front of feed bunks in below zero weather, but with good feed in their faces.

            Judgement

            Like our individual operations, our industry stands in a parallel juxtaposition with our nation.

            Mob rule is real. We understand fully the consequences of not being able to control and manage our edges and our boundaries. We understand, too, the mockery of the play on words for the purpose of affecting changes to our western world and its unique underpinnings.

            We live in a nation under leadership that uses words for effect not for us, but for an agenda foreign to us. We are judged not for our character or work ethic, but for something much more sinister.

We are judged increasingly for the color of our skin, our fundamental need for independence, and … our political party. 

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “God, bless our way of life.”