Riding for the Brand

Since my mom is a botanist, she gets contracts from the BLM to find, identify and document rare plants. This year, she got a job looking for a few species along a creek and a road. Its official name was Road Creek. That was the name on the signs.

I went with her on a similar project the year before and my data sheets and photos that I took of the rare plants she spotted were not bad. So she enlisted me again. I wanted to go not only because she would pay and I wanted to spend time in the hills, but because Road Creek was part of a large range where wild mustangs roamed.

I believe it was the second day that the real story begins. First off, I think its important to mention that the BLM had just completed a gather of the mustangs; most of the horses were being kept in the holding corrals back in the valley. They will do this every few years to manage the range. The horses can be adopted out, turned loose once again, or hauled off to another set of corrals.

There is a smaller stream that runs into Road Creek. The draw where the stream comes down broadens to form a basin, which, ironically, though I didn’t realize it then, is called Horse Basin. In the basin there is a cabin, a remnant of the Anderson Ranch Homestead. The meadows around the stream that flows there are filled with rare plants. We wanted to check it out.

The Horse Basin meadows.

We drove first to the cabin. It was an interesting structure. Though the roof was gone, the carefully hewn logs remained. I was amused by the door. Apparently the owners, long since moved on, had been short. My forehead brushes the top.

Finding nothing else of interest from our vehicle, and wanting to cover more ground, Mom decided to head off down the basin again. About halfway, we stop and she gets out, preparing to climb up a small hill in search of elusive species.

I notice something across the creek. “Look,” I say, pointing. I squint my eyes, trying to make out what it could be. “Is that a calf? Or a pig?” No kidding, it looked, for a split second, like a wild pig. But our hills are not home to wild pigs. “I think its a horse!” I say excitedly.

“I think so too.” Mom turns toward the hill again. “Go look and see why he’s out there.”

My superb tracking skills (yeah, right!) switch on high as I sneak across the meadow. Ducking out of view behind a screen of willows, I notice that the wind is blowing in my favor, down from the horse.

The ground under my feet turns mushy. Then one foot plunges down into the mire. I move quicker to avoid sinking.

Soon, my feet touch the solid ground. I drop to my hands and knees and crawl into the sagebrush. After some time, I run into a barbwire fence. This serves as cover for me. I ease myself into a standing position, and am surprised.

Not thirty feet off a little colt grazes. He’s black and matted looking. I can see every rib. Before this, we never had a foal, so I can’t age him, but I think he must be too young not to be on a dam. After watching him for a bit longer, I walk away.

Back in the truck, Mom listens as I tell her what little I know. “I can’t call the BLM now,” she tells me. “But I’ll call them when we’re done here today and see if they think they could catch him.”

The rest of the day I can’t stop thinking about that little critter. There must be coyotes and wolves up there. He wouldn’t die of thirst with the creek, at least.

A poor, hungry little guy

Mom calls the BLM.

For the next few days, I wait. We are all hoping that they call back and tell us if they got him. I jump for every phone call. Finally the one I am waiting for comes. Mom answers it. I listen. “There aren’t any strings?” Mom asks. “We’ll get a trailer up there in a few days when you’re sure he’s stable.”

“So we can have him? They’re going to let me raise him?”

Mom nods. “He needs round-the-clock care and his chances aren’t great. They thought he would have more likelihood of making it if he went with us.  But know that this is going to require a lot of care and time.”

That didn’t matter to me. The orphan was going to be mine to raise.

The wild mustang today.

During the summer, Alderspring beef cattle graze on green pasture. The yearlings and two-year-olds bound for the online market stay home on the ranch. Once the mother cows have “calved out”, we turn them out on the range.

Green pasture on Alderspring.

When the grass is growing two inches a minute during the hot months, the cattle are moved every one or two days. During past years, the job of hotwire has fallen to my younger sister, my friend who works during the summer, and I. It is pretty funny to be laying out a hotwire with two hundred head of hungry cows bawling across the fence at you.

I remember one time a year or two ago. My friend and I were working on the hotwire. The cattle hadn’t been moved for a while, and they were hungry. “Don’t make too much noise,” my friend told me, hoping not to rouse the critters, who were grazing up the pasture from us. She didn’t have to warn me; I knew that the smallest thing could capture their attention.

We set to work on the hotwire. Those fractious critters began to drift down toward us. We worked faster. The sun beat down on our backs.

I don’t know exactly what set them off. Maybe our worthless ranch dog Amos ran in front of them. Perhaps they thought the hotwire was down and they could go into the next pasture. Regardless of why, they began to run right toward the fence and us! There wasn’t any way that we could stop ‘em.

Nobody ever taught a cow patience.

As the two hundred cows approached the fence, they began to slam on the brakes, having seen the fence. About five head, pushed by the critters behind them, ran through the fence. Thankfully, the electric wire rebounded and the rest of the herd were slowed from their stampede.

From an incident that could have been a day in repairing to a small mishap. We were both pretty relieved. Finishing the fence that we were working on, we released the cattle into their new pasture. As we tied the last few pieces together and switched on the wire, we breathed sighs of relief. Then we jumped into the Toyota (some jobs just can’t be done on a ranch horse) and went off to the next task  for the day.

REAL ranch vehicle, the little Toy.

In spite of the work to get there, its really pretty satisfying to see all of those critters with their heads down in the alfalfa, grazing and gaining. Job well done.

Before we load the horses, we always tack them up instead of packing our saddles and headstalls along in the back of the truck. We have a stock trailer made for hauling cattle, so we don’t have a tack room built in. The horses are currently out in the big pasture behind our house, so someone’s gotta take the ATV out there and run them all into a smaller area where it makes it easier to catch one of them. Believe me, I’ve caught horses out in the big pasture, and unless you rope them, it’s a game.

“Missy” and “April” in the stock trailer during a range day.

We tack up and load the horses into the stock trailer. Our range is about an hour’s drive, or even two depending on the roads and where we want to unload the horses. Usually we unload them at Hat Creek Ranch, which is our ranch (700 acres; we’ve got a thousand in the valley) in the hills, and the reason that we got the range in the first place.

Dad on “Ginger” and “Gypsy” riding herd.

We ride out, and sometimes we have to ride for most of the day before we find any cows. There are a few days a year when we don’t find cows at all, and we just go on a rugged trail ride for the whole day. The cows are monitored to keep them off the creeks and other places we don’t want grazed. A lot of the day up there are just spent moving thirty head of cattle higher, or lower, and onto forest.

Moving cow-calf pairs on the forest land.

Dad will pay me for these days on the range, and if I remember to write it down, I make some pretty good money for riding. Most days up there are about five or six hours long, but sometimes you have a fluke. I remember when I was sick (oh, the irony) with a cold, we rode about twelve hours. Dad figured the mileage out, and that makes approximately forty miles that day. Then there have been a few days where you only ride two hours.

We stop for lunch about halfway through the day, and take a break by one of the range’s many springs and creeks. It isn’t green on the hills, of course, but there are a lot of draws that are filled with trees and brush, and a little water is running through them.

Stopping for a break in Big Hat Creek.

On a longer day, the cows will be moved, and we’ll be riding out at dusk. Sometimes it gets to the point where its dark all together. Hopefully we’re on a road heading back to truck, and not stuck on some mountain, but if that happens, the best thing to do is trust your horse. We walk when we get in rough country, but in the dark, the horse can see better than you anyway!

Driving back is either a time for conversation, or sitting there staring into space, too tired to open your mouth. A lot of times, it’s dark by then, and I wonder what people think, seeing those headlights coming off the hills!

We unsaddle the horses, and let them out, and then go up to the house to eat something, because by that hour, you’re hungry! My friend and I would joke that anything tastes good when you come off the range!

To start the year out, we had about fourteen horses. I think. Then, I found an orphan mustang colts in the hills, left behind after a round up. And we also found craigslist. So now we have twenty horses.

Since it’s winter in the Pahsimeroi and this valley makes snow look pretty good, I decided to take my camera out and snap some shots. Horses in the snow are fairly photogenic, so I tramped out to the remuda to get some photos.

This is Jassi, my sister’s old but very sweet Arabian mare. Sometime my sister will get on and ride this mare around with no headstall or saddle.

Bonny was a BLM mustang for the first part of her life, a pack horse for quite a few years, and finally a kids horse for some friends of ours. When we got a hold of her she was already old, but she logged many a patient hour with my sisters and I on her back, learning to ride. Now she takes the youngest kids in my family out on little rides around the ranch.

Jingle, one of two Belgian draft horses we have around.

The other half of the team, Belle. In spite of being blind in one eye, she pulls her own weight when it comes to a wagon.

My dad’s big mare Ginger had a rough start when she slipped off a trail on the range. After rolling ten or fifteen times down the side of a mountain (minus my dad, who managed to get off). She dislocated her front leg and was laid up for the winter. After a lot of prayer, we had a vet come out to look at her in the spring and he told us she was sound. She’s never taken a lame step since.

This little horse I got a few weeks ago from a breeder in Montana. She should grow up pretty athletic and really be able to cut a cow. I can’t wait to start her under saddle!

It would take me a while to get photos of all of ‘em, but I hope that you enjoy these few photos. Check back often for more news from Alderspring ranch!