Crossing Over

No, not to the dark side, though some ropers might think so at first glance. Or listen, as the case may be. This blog post is a companion piece to an interview I did with John Harrer over on the Whoa Podcast, where I mentioned that the fastest loop in breakaway roping is often in the cross-over. (Helpful hint: the podcast at the top of the page is not mine. Scroll down past all the blah-blah about me and find Episode #49). Yes, I see all of you tie down ropers shuddering at the thought of roping a calf as your horse is moving left. Hang on. I'll explain.

And now all of my non-rodeo, non-roper readers are scratching their heads and wondering if I'm going to repeat that in English. Yes I am. With diagrams. And photos. And video.

First off, for the real greenhorns, what the heck is breakaway roping? Well, it's a version of calf roping where the rider doesn't have to dismount and tie the calf. The rope is secured to the saddle horn with a piece of string. When the loop goes around the calf's neck the roper pitches their slack and lets the rope go. The calf hits the end of the rope, the string breaks away from the saddle horn, and time stops. Hence the name of the event. When all goes well, it looks like this:

Breakaway is the fastest event in rodeo, not counting those bullriders who get drilled into the ground on the first jump out of the chute. And contrary to what many people think, it is NOT just tie down roping without the flank and tie. The most important difference is where you throw your rope. For a breakaway roper, that's gotta be as soon as you're within reach, regardless of the position. When it takes a run of less than three seconds to even place in the money, there's no time to be picky. The best breakaway ropers master the art of catching as they're running up on the calf and have a horse that'll let them hang out and throw a long loop at a hard running critter.

By contrast, a tie down roper will take an extra swing to get his horse, the calf and his slack all lined out. The half second he sacrifices is more than made up by being smoother through the dismount, flank and tie. His horse is trained to run in closer to the calf then slam on the brakes when the loop goes past his head, leaving the roper time to manipulate the slack in the rope so the calf spins around but stays on its feet, ready to be flanked.

In a nutshell, a tie down roper can make up time on the ground. A breakaway roper's gotta get that loop out of her hand as fast as possible.

And that brings us to the crossover. That magic slot right out in front of the roping chute where your horse's trajectory crosses the calf's. Why a cross? Because the horse leaves the roping box traveling at an angle compared to the calf, like so:

This is the sweet spot, but it's also where you can get into a whole lot of trouble if you're not riding your horse properly. Throwing while your horse is moving left in comparison with the calf is fine and dandy on one condition--you can't let her keep going left. If you do, over time what started out as a winning throw will turn into a horse that drops its left shoulder and ducks out before you can get the loop out of your hand.

How do you keep a horse honest? Most of it happens in the practice pen. For every throw you take in the crossover, you make at least two or three runs where you take a couple of extra swings and make the horse move back to the right to line in straight behind the calf. Even on the quick throws, you keep pressure on your horse with your left foot, pushing them back to the right as they stop.

But what if your horse is bound and determined to duck left? After all, everything is set up to push them that direction. You're swinging and throwing with your right hand, pitching your slack on their right side. How do you persuade them to stay straight?

First off. look at how your horse is positioned in the roping box. You want them to run to the front corner of the roping chute because that's the shortest distance between you and the calf. Start with the horse's nose pointed at that spot, they'll break out of the box in the lead that's most comfortable for them. Start with their nose pointed at the middle of the box, they'll either run to that spot, or they'll start in their left-hand lead to move toward the chute. Start with the horse angled toward the back of the chute, they'll start in their right-hand lead to adjust.

Why is that important? Because, as master rope horse trainer Bub Tate pointed out, a horse can't duck left if they're in their right-hand lead. So whether it's leaving the box or running up behind the calf, if you can use leg pressure to put your horse in the right-hand lead, they won't go left when you throw your rope.

Tricky? You bet, considering you're also swinging a rope, operating a set of reins and trying to take steady aim at a calf.  But if you're a breakaway roper and you want to keep getting that money shot in the crossover, it's a trick you need to master.

If you'd like to see what it looks like done really well, here's some excellent footage from the Indian National Finals Rodeo (Take note of Megan Lunak at the 1:07 mark, that's our hometown girl from up here on the Blackfeet Reservation).
 

For more information and links to buy my latest novel visit:  KariLynnDell.com

Snow Job

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It is one of those lovely little ironies of life that when it's too wet or too snowy to rope outdoors, we move inside. And then it's too dusty so we have to dump water on the arena we're using because it's raining or snowing outside. Nothing like dragging hoses through the mud to make you question your intelligence. Winter makes the process more complicated because hoses and water trucks freeze up and are generally a pain in the patoot.If only there were a way to open up the roof and let just enough moisture fall inside.

Occasionally Mother Nature cooperates and dumps a foot of fluffy snow at an opportune moment, which was this Saturday except for the part where we drove through drifts and a near white-out to go to a Christmas concert. But Sunday, with the help of a tractor with a loader, Greg hauled in enough of the white stuff to do the trick. After another good drag with the arena tractor, it'll be just right.

Ranch Math

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Story problem:

You have two pastures with good shelter and water that doesn't freeze in the winter.

You have six horses. Two mares--Myla, who is approximately a hundred in horse years but can still kick an upstart gelding away from the hay pile, and Target, the fat Paint pony, who gets along with everything. Four geldings: Hollywood, Nico and Bailey, all of whom think they're studs and should be top dog in the herd, and Vegas, who is a total weenie and gets pushed around by the fat Paint pony.

Hollywood can't be turned in with the mares or he goes completely brain dead.

Bailey and Hollywood can be together, but only as long as there are no other horses in the pasture.

If Nico and Vegas are in the same pasture, Nico will run Vegas through the fence just for the fun of it.

Nico and Hollywood are sworn enemies.

Bailey, Vegas or Nico can be turned in with the mares, but no two at the same time.

Hollywood has to be in the pasture attached to the barn because you can't get a halter on him unless you lure him into a stall with a bucket of grain.

Divide the above horses into the two pastures. Please show your work.

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WARNING: Any person who suggests the mares are the problem gets a two week time-out to consider the error of their ways. My mares don't take no crap,


UPDATE: So I did the horse shuffle, splitting up Hollywood and Bailey so they didn't gang up on anyone. Nico, Hollywood and Vegas went in one pasture, figuring there was enough space that Hollywood and Nico won't kill each other and they'll be too busy fighting to pick on Vegas. Bailey was more than happy to go out with the mares. Everybody appeared to be safe, if not thrilled with the new arrangement. Until this morning, when we were doing chores and Bailey tried to come in the barn while we were bagging calf feed, and Max the Cowdog bit him on the nose and drew blood. 

*sigh* Horses and dogs. It's always something.  

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Scary Good Fun

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Today I saw something on Facebook that could possibly give me nightmares. No, not the abused puppy pictures. (Damn, why do people post those things without warning?) Anyway, what I saw was this (sorry, it wouldn't embed,you'll have to pop over to their page to watch it): 

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152194433561433&pnref=story

I have no idea what this event is even called, other than insane. In other words, it looks like a total blast, but only if they'd let me ride a real saddle. The scary part is while I watched this, I tried to picture myself doing it on the only trained jumping horse we've ever owned. And that, folks, was terrifying.

Her name was Betsy. She was a Roan Hancock mare, only fourteen hands tall (that's small, for you non-horse people) and had an attitude the size of King Kong. Some people we knew in southern Alberta had bought and trained her as a jumping horse for a junior competitor. She could clear five feet, but was too much for a kid to handle.

The one thing you could say about Betsy...she never bucked. She didn't need to. She could inflict all the damage she wanted before you ever got off the ground. You couldn't catch her, and if you tried to corner her she'd run you down. Once you did get a halter on her, she'd either drag you, step on you, or knock you cross-eyed with the side of her head. And to top it all off, she had a mouth like a rock, and wasn't above grabbing the bit between her teeth and taking off with or without you.

She was also, pound for pound, the best rope horse we've ever owned. She could fly and she had a killer stop. All you had to do was nod your head and rope. Betsy took care of the rest.

And because she was so athletic, we couldn't resist training her to run barrels.

May I say, I've done things that were more frightening than the time I ran Betsy in the big Choteau arena, but I'll have to think for a bit to remember any of them. Her finest moment, though, happened at a jackpot up in Alberta, with my sister Lola aboard.

The fence around the arena was woven wire topped by a wooden rail. I have no recollection what kind of run they made. They flew home from the third barrel and Lola pulled up at the scoreline. Instead of slowing and circling, Betsy ran straight up to the fence, planted and launched.

She would've cleared it, too, if she hadn't clipped that one hind leg on the top pole.

I can totally see Betsy in the competition in the video I posted. She would have either blown all their doors off, or it would have been a complete runaway with four or five laps at full speed around the arena and then she would've lawn-darted me into the water hazard. Either way, those people in the crowd would have remembered her.

I guarantee, none of the people who knew her will ever forget.

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Enjoy this story? Want more? Sign up for my newsletter and get a story in your inbox a couple times a month. Plus prizes and stuff if show even a vague interest in my upcoming book, The Long Ride Home, due out from Samhain Publishing on Feb 3, 2015. http://montanaforreal.blogspot.com/p/sign-up-for-tales-from-frozen-north.html

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Happy Equinox

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We're in the process of moving cows to fall pasture, which for the most part includes hay and grain fields where they can fatten up nicely on the leavings. We are straight dryland farming, only one cutting of hay, so whatever grass and alfalfa grows back after swathing and baling becomes feed for the cows. This year we had a hail storm that came through and knocked a lot of heads off of the grain, which then sprouted and grew, leaving behind what looks like a lush lawn as the combine passes. We're gonna have some very happy cows when they come in from the south lease next week. 

Unlike our poor, abused ranch horses, who are apparently unable to survive on acres of green pasture. They have to climb the manure pile and pick used oats out of the straw.

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Lazy Cowgirl's Guide to Trailer Training

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Most people realize that competing on the rodeo circuit requires a great deal of travel. They might give passing thought to what it's like for the horse, riding along back there in the trailer, but I suspect most of you haven't considered what it took to persuade the horse to hop into that box on wheels to begin with. Horses aren't exactly geared for walking into confined spaces with no apparent exit. After all, they are prey animals, and what better way to end up as lunch than to get cornered?

Trailer training is one of those things that usually just sort of happens on our ranch, after the horse is reasonably well broke. The day will come when we need to circle the far south lease and riding three miles just to get to the starting point doesn't make much sense, so we'll hook up the big stock trailer and haul the horses out. The stock trailer is wide, long, and has open slats at the top, so it's minimally threatening. Load the older, more experienced horses first and the newbie will usually follow after only a moment or two of hesitation. Once they're accustomed to the stock trailer, it's just a matter of progression to the more confined spaces of our rodeo trailers.

This week was different. We have a two year old colt that needs breaking and a brother-in-law willing to take on the challenge. Unfortunately, said brother-in-law lives on the opposite side of the state, near Bozeman. And, as part of his payment for taking on the colt, he and my sister get use of my parents' good horse trailer, which has been standing idle since we're all taking a summer off from the rodeo trail. So here I am, with an unbroke, skittish two year old and the most challenging of our trailers, and somehow I have to persuade him to hop on in.

If you pay any attention to horse training, you'll know that the current trend is to do a ton of ground work with colts, all different kinds of exercises in the round pen and arena until they will not only follow you into a bar just because you asked, but also know what kind of drinks to order. This is great. Really. A lot of horses are living better lives and so are their owners, but if you've ever watched this kind of training, you'll notice one thing right away.

It is a crapload of freaking work.

I mean, running around the round pen, sucking air kind of work. I am really not a fan of sweating. So today I present the Lazy Cowgirl's Guide to Trailer Training, aka How My Grandpa Did It. If you want to try this at home, you'll have to start by acquiring a horse that's never been in a trailer, in this case a two year old Quarter Horse gelding named Captain (whose baby pictures you can see here, if you're inclined).

Day One, Sunday:

Begin with the least threatening of the horse trailers, our rodeo trailer, which has no stall dividers or mangers inside. Park it in the lot where the horse is confined and tie the door open. For the first day, back the trailer into those big tractor ruts just behind where it is in this picture, which brings the floor to ground level and eliminates the step up to get in.

Place the horse's grain and hay inside the horse trailer. Walk away. He'll either go in there to eat, or he's gonna get very hungry. In Captain's case, it took about half an hour and he was in there munching hay. 

Day Two, Monday:

Pull the horse trailer forward out of the tractor ruts so he now has to step up and down to get in and out. Put feed in trailer. Walk away. Come back for evening feeding to find all of morning's hay and grain cleaned up. Catch horse and lead him into the trailer as you put grain in the bucket. Try not to let him smash you in his eagerness to jump in and chow down.

Day Three, Tuesday morning:

Park the fancy, schmancy trailer in one of the horse lots. Tie open back doors. Put feed in manger. Walk away.

Come back for evening feeding. Find all of hay and grain from morning cleaned up, meaning the colt has been in the trailer. Catch ol' standby rope horse and load in front stall, with grain. Put grain and hay in the second manger for the colt. Lead him up to the back of the trailer and let him contemplate the situation for a few moments. Then tap him on the butt and watch him jump in for supper. Ease divider shut behind him. Voila! One colt loaded in the horse trailer for the first time, and happy to be there. 

I am well aware that this hands off method is unlikely to earn me a feature show on RFDTV and a my own line of training aids for sale online. On the flip side, as you're reading this Captain is most likely enroute to the Gallatin Valley, his first ever road trip, and we probably didn't have a near marital meltdown in the process of trying to load him.

Besides, if it worked for my Grandpa Mel....

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Scary Stuff

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Per an impromptu poll taken in our roping arena, the five scariest sounds in the world in the ears of  a horse:

1.  A hissing rattlesnake.

2.  A lightning strike within fifty yards.

3.  Velcro.

4.  The crinkling of a Walmart bag.

5.  Cannon fire.

Now if you'll excuse me, gotta go patch some bridle reins.


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The Last Cruise

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Hunkerin' In

Back in the pioneer days, before radio and television or even telephones, the first warning a rancher had of an approaching storm was the front rolling over the Milk River ridge. One look at a cloud like this sends everyone in our area scurrying around, feeding and sheltering and tying down anything that can blow away or get buried. Once the cloud gets this close, you know you've got, at best, an hour or two before the snow starts. I took this picture at lunch time.

Ember, Julie and Roo must have seen the cloud rolling in too. They were hanging around the gate all day, waiting for someone to let them in. They're under the lean to now, nibbling hay.

By three o'clock, it looked like this.

Now it looks like this out my living room window. As the snow piles up, the visibility gets worse with the wind gusting up to forty miles an hour. They're telling us it's going to last most of the day tomorrow, and the temperatures are going to drop well below zero before it's all done.

Looks like we're getting a White Christmas this year.

Horse Races

At any given time, we have at least six or eight horses 'in'. This does not mean they are lounging around neat paddocks behind white railed fences. It means they are out in the coulee but close enough that with a bucket of grain and that funky whistle only my dad can do, you probably won't have to hike more than a quarter of mile to find them, then persuade them to follow you back to the barn. Unless it's rainy, or snowy. Then they'll be waiting at the back door because it's dry inside the barn, and because when it's rainy or snowy you probably aren't going to ride them anyway.


Technically, all of the horses around here belong to my dad, except one. That would be Roo. He belongs to me. It says so on his registration papers, so I have to claim him. The rest are pretty much up for grabs. (Actually, so is Roo, but if he were a car I'm pretty sure I could leave him parked in a ghetto with the keys in the ignition and even if someone did take him, they'd go about six blocks, turn around and bring him right back.)


So today is the day we gather the big herd, for whatever reason. It's going to take every family member of useful age to accomplish the task. When I was in high school that meant all six of us. To help you put yourself more firmly in our boots, imagine the horses are bicycles and you and your parents and your brother and sisters are going out for a long ride. Out in the garage there are six bikes.


One is ancient and rusty and you have to work your butt off just to keep it moving. The instant you stop pedaling it stops dead and reaches for a bite of grass. No matter how hard you yank on the reins and kick, it ain't moving until it darn well feels like it. (Yeah, yeah, a bike doesn't eat grass. Work with me here, folks.)


Two are high performance racing bikes that are awesome when you're competing, but this ride is all about smooth and easy and they're stuck in high gear and you know you're going to spend the entire day reefing on the brakes and skidding sideways down the hills and bouncing through the holes and over the rocks at a rate of speed that makes those mountain bike racers look like wussy boys. And girls. (Had to add that or Sue would kick my butt.)


One is a brand new model. They forgot to put the instructions in the box and you're still figuring out how to get it adjusted right. The steering is a little loose so it has a tendency to wander rather than track in a straight line. The brakes don't always work. And if something unexpected were to happen, (Say, a rabbit leaps up out of the brush. Or a grouse. Or a fly.) you are fairly certain it will come completely unglued and parts of both of you will end up flying through the air.


One is last year's model. The gears all work. The steering is pretty well adjusted and the brakes are reliable. Inexplicably, though, the designer neglected to include shock absorbers. In low gear you lurch and roll down the trail like a robot with one leg sawed off above the ankle. In high gear, it's like being aboard a deer as it bounds stiff-legged through the brush. By the end of the day you'll have decided you really need a new career. Something that isn't quite so hard on your body. Like maybe a punching bag.


And there, over in the corner, is the last bike. You salivate at the very thought of riding that bike. It glides along so easy you barely have to move your feet. Turns before you touch the handlebars, anticipating your every desire. Stops when you want to stop and stays motionless until you want to go. You don't even have to engage the parking brake. It is the perfect bike.


Forget that bike. That's your mother's bike and even you are not foolish enough to throw a leg over it. You're going to have to scrap it out with your siblings for the rest of the bikes.


So now you get the general idea. Back to my family. Dad announces it's time for the big gather and everybody has to help. I'm assuming quite a few of you have kids. Or were kids. Or are kids. (If you don't fall into any of those categories, I'm curious. How are cattle prices this year in your galaxy?) It's not easy to get kids moving, especially if there's work involved. So you would be astonished at the speed at which we all dashed to the porch, donned our riding gear and sprinted to the barn. 

Last one there gets the old rusty bike.

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PS to Cyndi: This is sorrel.

 

The Ranch Rodeo

For those who aren't familiar, a ranch rodeo is a competition between teams of riders, in events that mimic the type of work traditionally done on ranches. Stuff like team doctoring, team branding, and trailer loading (according to our friend Scotty, this last event gave his team an unfair advantage, as they not only have more practice at roping random cattle and throwing them in trailers than most people, but are generally doing it in the dark). There were no bucking horses--at least, not intentionally. Unfortunately, my cheap digital camera isn't much use for action shots, but here are a few other things I saw.

Pretty easy to tell that this is true family entertainment.

Captain of the Cramer team, 2019

Our version of training wheels.

The lineup.

A little cowboy romancin' between events?

This is the grandstand. Note the number of people. Note that

yes, you can see right through the bleachers to the area under

the grandstand. Which means every one of those people who

happened to look down had an excellent view of the child who

dropped his Wranglers and pooped right there.

Yes, we were proud.

We Got Skillz

When you live in rugged country like ours, ranching and farming, you develop a very particular set of skills. Around here, these are the techniques that make life easier. Or at least survivable: 1. The Knee Buckle--the fields around here are littered with rocks and holes. Big holes. Holes six inches around and three feet deep, dug by industrious badgers in pursuit of juicy gophers. In summer, the grass grows up and hides these ankle-breaking booby traps. Which is why your knees develop the instinctive ability to buckle when your brain realizes that you've just stepped in the wrong place, pitching you onto your face but saving your ankle from sure destruction. Skinned up knees and hands are painful, but rarely require casting or reconstructive surgery. 2. The Quick Feet Shuffle--primarily implemented around hooved animals, especially those with evil intentions. It involves keeping your feet in constant motion, thereby making it more difficult for said hooves to smash tender toes. 3. The Grunt-Heave--a cold weather special, the grunt-heave is an integral part of mounting a horse while wearing five layers of insulated clothing and packing that extra ten pounds you put on between Thanksgiving and Easter. Pretty self explanatory: lever leg up and into stirrup, grunt, and heave with all your might to drag yourself into the saddle. 4. Synchronized Door Opening--we get some wind. Okay, a lot of wind. On breezy days, opening both doors of the pickup at the same time is an excellent way to rid the cab of excess clutter. Like the mail. And your paycheck. After a few mad scrambles across the grocery store parking lot culminating in a flying tackle of your bank statement, you learn to take turns getting out of the car. 5. The Reverse Pysch and Snag--a homegrown technique developed in response to a herd of roan Hancock horses too ornery and too wise for our own good. The procedure involves a bucket of grain and a halter cannily concealed inside your coat. Hold out the bucket of grain. Shake it a few times. Stand like a statue while the horse you are attempting to capture sidles up, stops a few feet short, and stretches its nose as far as possible to get a bite. Implement the quick foot shuffle as the two other horses that you have no interest in catching walk right up, shove you aside and bury their heads in the bucket. Wrestle the bucket away from them. Turn your back on the target horse. Maybe throw in a casual whistle. Not interested in catching you. Nope. Not one bit. Wait for the horse to give in, ease up and stick his head in the bucket. Make a premature grab, at which the horse will bolt, spill the grain, and run to other side of the pasture. Retrieve the bucket, go back to the barn for more grain. Repeat all steps above, but force yourself to wait until the perfect moment to make your move. Throw an arm around the horse's neck, yank the halter from under your coat, and slap it on. Pray that one of the other horses don't bite him on the butt just as you're about to fasten the buckle. There are, of course, dozens of other special skills and techniques we've developed over the years. But it's Sunday, and there's fresh huckleberry pie calling my name from the kitchen. I'm sure the rest of you have skills of your own. Feel free to share. Especially if you've got a better way to catch a Hancock.

Hangin' Out

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The mare was a she-devil in buckskin clothes. Built like a linebacker on steroids, bulging with muscle right to the tips of her ears—which were generally pinned to her head. She didn’t like people. She wasn’t particularly fond of other horses. But she loved to rope calves. She could break so hard from the roping box that she’d leave you spinning in mid air. Then stop like she slammed into a brick wall, and make a quick suck-back move that practically laid the calf in the roper’s lap to be flanked and tied.

Calf roping is hard. The dismount alone takes years to perfect. Imagine climbing on your bike, cranking it up to about twenty miles an hour. Then slam on the brakes and step off while it’s skidding. Now picture doing all of that while roping a calf, with your rope coils in one hand and a set of bridle reins in the other. You can see why watching my brother learn to rope calves was so entertaining.

Dad wasn’t rodeoing much one summer, so he lent the buckskin mare to my brother-in-law. Richard had roped on her enough to get used to the deadly stop and suck-back. He knew you wanted get out of the saddle quick. If you paused halfway off, she'd slam you on the back of your head in the dirt. Then stand there and laugh while you sucked air.

Richard's traveling partner hadn’t been planning to ride the mare. But after the first two rodeos, it became clear that Arnie’s mount wasn’t getting the job done. He was way too free. And I don’t mean ‘free’ as in without cost. In fact, he’d probably cost Arnie several hundred dollars in winnings by refusing to stop when the loop went around the calf’s neck. Arnie would rope, swing his leg over the saddle, then hang there in the right hand stirrup reefing on the bridle reins until 0l’ Sorrely finally decided to put on some brakes. That’s what a calf roper calls ‘free’.

 But come to think of it, a person probably could have had him pretty cheap. Arnie might’ve even paid you to take him after that second rodeo. Richard suggested maybe Arnie should ride the buckskin mare at the third rodeo. There was definitely nothing wrong with her stop.

“But don’t forget,” Richard said. “You can’t hang out in the right stirrup on this mare like you do on your horse.”

“No problem,” Arnie said.

 As luck would have it, Arnie drew the best calf in the herd. He timed the start perfectly, roped quick, pulled his slack, and started to step off. He was fixin’ to be in the money. But old habits die hard. He paused in the right stirrup and jerked on the reins.

Later, while shaking the dirt clods out of his shorts, he recalled that as he cartwheeled down the arena in a ball of dust, he managed one coherent thought. “You know, Arnie, you really shouldn’t hang out on that mare.”

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The Will to Die

When I was six years old, we got a pair of lambs. We made them a special shelter. I petted them, bottle fed them, put on little collars and broke them to lead. I would have slept with them if I could have gotten them past my mother and into the bedroom.

And then they died.

 For years afterward I blamed myself. Too much dragging around on the leash. Not enough milk. Too much petting and hugging. It wasn't until I married a man who raised sheep that I realized their passing had nothing to do with me.

Sheep just live to die. Which is true of all living things, I guess. But most of us don't go around looking for ways to expedite the process. Or simply lie down one day and decide, "Oh, heck, why bother getting up? It's just eat and poop, eat and poop. Who needs the hassle?"

How they manage to go lights out at will is a mystery. Not all sheep possess the ability. Which is why they resort to suicide. A portion of our pasture had fences made of smooth wire woven into six inch squares. The sheep weren't allowed in that section, after the first two stuck their heads through the squares and hung themselves. We also had to keep a sharp eye out for any gate rope or piece of twine with a loop in it big enough to form a noose, lest we find a sheep dangling from it.

And then there were the water tanks. My husband set out a thousand gallon tank, ten feet in diameter and two feet deep. The next morning there were two floaters. He assumed that, tempted by the stretch of open water, they had climbed over the side and been unable to get out again. He could fix that. He dragged sheets of plywood out to the tank and built a cover, leaving only an eighteen inch hole where they could put their noses in to drink.

The next day, he found a dead sheep stuck head first in the hole. He pulled it out. There was another sheep underneath. He yanked that soggy mass of wool out of the hole, only to find a third at the bottom of the tank. He was fairly sure the last one in must have had to jump up and down on his buddies in order to create enough space to get his own head under water.

At some point, you become resigned to the fact that if a sheep isn't dead, it's only because he hasn't got around to it yet. And once they're down, they rarely get up. A friend's young son once came running into the house in a panic after seeing his ancient horse stretched out, soaking up the sun. "Mom! Arm is down!" (Yes, the horse's name was Arm. They can't all be Trigger and Midnight.) He didn't buy her explanation that the horse was sleeping. In his short experience as a sheep owner, 'down' was a fatal condition. Nothing would calm Rex short of dragging his mother out to the pasture, where she nudged Arm awake.

Arm was seriously annoyed at having his nap disturbed. And Rex was mightily relieved to learn that, unlike a sheep, a flat horse isn't necessarily a dead horse.

**ADDENDUM

Almost three years later this continues to be the most popular post I've even done. and by far the best part is the stories the readers added in the comments. And when you've read all the ones here, go here and read the stories from literary agent Janet Reid's crowd. My favorite is the one from Fawn, whose lamb had to 'go back to it's mother'.

The Hog Days of Summer

Back when a small operator could still make money at it, we raised pigs. Pigs are cool—intelligent, entertaining, and often sociable. And the coolest pig on our block was a boar named Arnold. Those of you who are of an age to remember the TV show Green Acres, or who’ve run across it on Nickelodeon, will recognize the name. On the show, Arnold was their house pig. Our Arnold would have been happy to be a house pig, if he hadn’t been bigger than the house. We bought Arnold from someone who thought he was the pick of the litter, and treated him accordingly. Arnold loved people. He especially loved people who scratched behind his ears. Considering that Arnold weighed half a ton, stood over three feet tall at the shoulders, and wasn’t shy about asking for attention, the people who didn’t scratch Arnold were a brave minority. After the first time my fingertips cracked, I figured out that scratching Arnold with my bare hand was not the best idea. His tough, scaly hide and wiry hair ground away the thickest calluses. I kept a short, pointy stick handy to take along when I headed into Arnold’s realm. Scratching Arnold was as satisfying as petting a purring cat. He would tip his nose skyward, half close his eyes and grunt in utter pleasure. Through a combination of personality and persistence, Arnold convinced the management that he could be trusted to roam the lot around the barns, cordoned off from the sows by two sturdy fences during those times when his services were not required. It was there that he encountered his nemesis. At the time, my dad was roping on a sorrel gelding he called Doc, which he had obtained, oddly enough, from the local physician, Doc West. After many extended negotiating sessions, Doc the horse had been persuaded to tolerate people. He rarely even curled his lip and cocked a hind leg when we walked in the barn anymore. But there was no way he was putting up with a pig in his pasture. Doc made no secret of his antipathy. He stalked Arnold, sneaking around the corner of the granary and launching covert attacks on the unsuspecting hog. Arnold was quick for a big pig, though, and his thick hide protected him from nipping teeth. Not that you could tell by the way he shrieked in protest. With a contrariness that would make a Siamese proud, Arnold set out to irritate Doc at every opportunity. He’d sidle up just close enough to invade the horse’s space, delighted when Doc obliged by shaking his head, pinning his ears, stomping his feet. Bonus points if he could make the horse squeal his displeasure. The two of them whiled away hours irritating each other. One hot summer afternoon, Arnold made the fateful decision to take a nap in shade. Unfortunately, the patch of shade he chose was under the chore pick-up. Unaware of the snoozing pig, our hired man jumped in and roared away…right over Arnold. He was never the same pig after that. We weren’t sure if the greater insult was to his body or his dignity, although he showed no sign of physical damage. His sunny disposition turned surly. He no longer greeted us at the gate with a porcine grin, eager for scratches. I guess I can’t blame him. I’d have trust issues too, if someone up and ran me over in the middle of a really good nap.

Sure He Can Run...But Can He Walk?

We raise rodeo horses. Therefore, we breed for speed. Speed is important in the arena. On the ranch, however, speed is optional, and generally hazardous to your health. There are rocks. There are holes. Coulees, washouts and bogs. Slick green grass. Bottomless mud pots called soap holes. All of which are best encountered at a moderate pace. When it's time to work cattle, nobody cares too much whether a horse can run. But we’ll elbow each other out of the way and even throw a good trip on the way to the barn to get our hands on the one that can walk. Why fight for a horse than can walk fast? Because cows are best moved along in a leisurely manner. Especially cows with a calf by their side, if you’d like mother and child to end up somewhere in the same county. The cowboy rides along behind, shouting encouragement as needed, zig-zagging this way and that to keep the herd moving. Over to the right there’s a calf who just realized that he’s starving and he must eat right now. Hard for a cow to walk when there’s a kid latched on to that particular body part. Off the left is that old red cow that tries to peel off and head west every fifty yards. In the middle, three calves have lost track of their mothers and are convinced that they must go back to where they last saw her. Mostly it all happens in slow motion. Walk over here. Walk over there. Walk over here again. It can go on for miles. This is when you truly appreciate a horse with a smooth, ground-eating stride. It’s also when a horse that can’t or won’t walk becomes a four-legged torture device. Climb aboard a lazy horse, and at the end of the day you'll feel like you pedaled a tricycle over the Rocky Mountains. Worse, though, is one that does everything but walk. They jog. They paw the ground if you try to stand still. They run sideways, jerk at the bridle, perform gymnastics akin to the leaps of the famous Lipizzaner stallions, all the while grinding your butt and knees into a saddle that has no appreciable padding. A good fast walk isn’t automatic. It has to be learned. And it seems to come unlearned when a colt makes the move from pasture work to the arena. Suddenly, they discover speed, and it’s addictive. Who wants to plod when you can fly? The more aggressive the rope horse or barrel horse, the less likely that they’ll be a pleasure to ride anywhere else. Betsy was one of the worst. At barely fourteen hands, she was only a size larger than the average Shetland pony. A classic, well built roan, she was a pretty little thing…from a distance. She wasn’t quite so cute after she ran full length of you when you tried to corner her in the corral. And stepped on your foot at least once—with deliberate malice—while you were saddling her. Once aboard, she had a mouth like granite, a head to match, and roan Hancock attitude coming out her ears. But man, was she fun to rope on. Anywhere but the arena, Betsy was punishment from hell. Getting her to walk away from the barn was like pushing a canoe upstream with one hand. She veered left, then right, then left, and if you let your guard down for even an instant, she’d swap ends and head for home. Finally, after hours of kicking and wrestling her every step of the way, you’d dump the cows into the target pasture and turn toward the barn. What a relief. Not. The instant you turned around, Betsy would grab the bit in her teeth and blast off. Given her size, it should have been easy to stop her. Wrong. You’d brace both feet in the stirrups and haul back on the reins with both hands and all your might. She’d bow her neck, set her jaw and keep going. Assuming you’d eaten your spinach and picked a good stiff bit, you could keep her to a bone-rattling, side-stepping, nose-rooting trot. Forget stopping. If you tried, she’d flip around and run backwards. It would have been easier to get off and walk home if it hadn’t been for that trick where she ran a circle around you, over at least one set of toes, then tried to bolt while she had you tangled in the reins. Ember is Betsy’s child. She’s only half as obnoxious as her mother, and not near as tough. And she can’t walk a lick. It’s not her fault—she never grew out of the chubby little girl phase. She has the stride length of a gopher. Her short legs churn as fast as they can, and still the others leave her in the dust. Every fifty yards she has to break into a jog to catch up. I know just how she feels. At cattle moving time, you want to grab Vegas or Scotchman or Pocket or Julie. Nico if he hasn’t been roped on a lot lately and isn’t too fresh. Bailey as long you remember not to wave your left hand, or are prepared for the consequences. He can jump sideways a fair distance for a big horse. At some point, we will end up riding side-by-side. It looks casual. Reins slack, conversation idle, horses strolling along. Except I’m pretty sure Pocket can out walk Vegas, with a little extra squeeze of my heels. Greg is pretty sure she can't. And no way is Dad going to let us make his horse look bad. The race is on. First to the barn without breaking into a trot wins. ‘Cuz out here, horses that can run are thick on the ground. But one that can really walk—that’s something to brag about.

I said Whoa!

Last night the bulls got out. Luckily, I had to go over to the stack to get hay for the horses, and I found the flattened gate before the bulls had time to scatter. Strutting around, doing as they please, bulls can create some serious havoc on a ranch. Fences smashed in pursuit of frisky heifers. Calves born in the bitterest cold of February instead of the slightly less bitter cold of April. Or the pride of the registered Angus cows sporting a gaudy, spotted Longhorn calf. Worse yet if it’s the neighbor’s prized purebred cow. Back in the sixties, when Rod’s shorthorn bull got out and headed down Milk River coulee, he had to get him back, pronto. He and his wife saddled up a pair of horses and took off in pursuit. They got him slowed down and turned around, and were able to push him to the base of the big hill below their pasture. Then he sulled up in a patch of chokecherry trees. Neck bowed, muscles quivering, he rumbled a low, bovine invitation to go ahead and try to make him move. Even if Rod and Joyce had been willing to accept his challenge, the horses were smart enough to decline. But they couldn’t leave him to run amuck with the neighbor cows. So Rod roped him. With the rope snug around the horns, he attempted to pull. The bull locked up and dug in. The horse leaned hard into the rope, hooves scrabbling on the rocky hillside. The bull didn’t budge. Which was when someone got the bright idea to get the pick-up. Rod snubbed up the rope to the stoutest tree and they high-tailed it home. The plan was to tie the rope to the bumper, then tow the bull up the hill. For safety’s sake, Rod would ride in the back, knife at ready to cut the rope if the bull should get tangled. They returned to find the bull still sulking in the trees like a fourth grader in time out. The transfer of the rope from the tree to the bumper went smoothly. The bull was tied off on about fifteen feet of rope, nice and short for optimum control. Joyce climbed behind the wheel. Rod climbed into the back. Like most feed pick-ups, it had no tailgate to get in the way of loading and unloading hay. The muffler was rusting in the sun beside a particularly large badger hole over in Fox Coulee. If the rearview mirrors hadn’t long ago been scraped off on a gate post or smashed by a cow, they were too muddy to be of any use. No problem. Voice commands would suffice. Joyce stuck the pick-up in low gear. Rod settled in, butt on the rear edge of the pickup bed, feet firmly planted on the bumper. The bull glared and huffed and yanked at the rope. “Go!” Rod yelled. Joyce released the clutch. The pickup eased forward. The bull reared back. She gave it some more gas. The bull skidded up the hill like a four legged water skier in slow motion. After the first twenty yards, the bull realized the futility of resistance and began to lead along pretty well. The plan was working perfectly. And then they hit the really big bump. The wheel of the pickup slammed into a badger hole so wide and so deep that the impact launched Rod right out of the pickup. He landed on hands and knees—face to face with the bull. It snorted and shook its head. Rod swapped ends and scrambled on all fours under the rear of the pickup, which Joyce had stopped when she saw him fall out. Or so he thought. In truth, ramming into the hole had bounced her head off the ceiling and her foot off the accelerator, and kicked the old pickup out of gear. She stuck it back in low and started off again. “Whoa!” Rod shouted. Over the roar of the unmuffled engine, Joyce thought he said Go! She hit the gas. The pickup bounced ahead, leaving Rod cowering in front of the irate bull dragging along behind. He scrambled after the pickup like a panicked hermit crab. Joyce glanced over her shoulder, through the dusty rear window. Wait a second. Rod wasn’t sitting where she’d last seen him. She slowed. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Rod screamed. Well, geez! she fumed. One Go! would have sufficed. He didn’t need to be so rude. Annoyed, she hit the gas a little harder. The pickup shot forward. So did the bull. He blew snot into the rear pockets of Rod’s jeans as the mad scramble for the safety of the pickup resumed. Every time she slowed, he yelled “Whoa!”, and she heard “Go!”. They lurched and scrambled through the brush and the wild rose brambles and the rocks, and were almost to the top of the hill before he managed to cut the rope. The pickup jumped forward. The bull stumbled back, surprised by the sudden release. He and Rod stared at each other for a long moment. Then the bull shrugged as if to say, “Too easy, dude,” and sauntered back to his patch of trees, dragging the severed rope behind. Joyce jumped out of the pickup. “What did you do that for? Now we have to start all over!” Rod flopped onto his back in the dirt, panting. The knees of his jeans were shredded. So were his hands. He looked up at his wife. “Next time,” he said, “how ‘bout I drive?”

Lazy Summer Weekends

Gorgeous day to brand a few calves.

Gathering done, just hanging around waiting. Aren't they cute little buggers? Hmm, maybe not so little when you're pushing them up the chute. Stylish, as always. And no...that's not mud on my shirt and jeans. Turns out their butts are just about waist high.

Fifty down, only a couple hundred more to go.

The Last Roan

Osage Roan, owned by Cap and Smitty Overstreet

Photo courtesy of http://www.jimoverstreet.com/

The last roan horse on our ranch will be twenty-nine years old next month. It is, for us, very much the ending of an era. For over forty years our herd was sprinkled with those distinctive salt and pepper coats, and the remarkably hard heads that came with the package.

The first roan was a gelding named Little Ben Bailey. Like all the others to come, he was a descendant of Roan Hancock. And like many of them, he came from the Overstreet Ranch in Ennis, via their stud Osage Roan. The original roan Hancocks were rangy, tough horses, better known for athletic ability and cow sense than looks. Ben had all three. A well-made, compact body and a classy quarterhorse head, filled to the brim with more brains and cunning than any horse needs.

The next roan, a mare named Little Vixen, was just as bad. As were most of the rest. It takes a certain mindset to train roan Hancocks. I was at a rodeo in Idaho once, waiting to rope on a mare named Betsy. A old guy sitting on the fence asked me how she was bred. I told him.

He flashed a sly smile. "Buck much?"

Surprisingly, the answer was no. But Betsy was the one and only exception to the rule, and she made up for that oversight in so many evil ways. As for the others, well, let me just say that I didn't realize until I was fifteen years old that there were people who didn't saddle their rope horses before they were loaded in the trailer to drive to the rodeo. And not everyone arrived two hours early to start 'getting the hump out'.

A sane person might wonder why we continued to buy and raise these creatures--close to thirty at our best count--when there are so many nice horses out there. The answer is simple. In the calf roping, nice horses rarely finish first. It is the most mentally challenging event in rodeo for a horse. They must stand quiet in the box, break and run hard, stop hard when the calf is roped. Then the cowboy jumps off and leaves them to do the rest on their own. It takes a horse with unshakeable confidence and a strong desire to be in charge to stay on the end of the rope, keep it tight, keep the calf under control while the roper ties it.

All that aggressiveness is great in the arena. Not so much in the process of getting there. Through the battles and bruises and long days in the saddle it takes to persuade them to let you pretend to be the boss, there are times when you wonder if it's worth the fight. But one day it all comes together and the answer is a resounding yes.

Roans have faded from our herd for a number of reasons. We came across another foundation bloodline that produced some outstanding rope horses. Maybe we got older and not quite as tough. Mostly, though, it's because roan coloring is a recessive gene. We raised colts from roan mares and roan studs and got a long line of solid bays and sorrels. At this very moment I can look out my window at Pocket and Ember and Bailey: roans in sheep's clothing, one and all. Forget those recessive genes at your peril.

The last true roan is a mare named Tararound Vegas. By rights, she shouldn't still belong to us. Dad had her sold once, to a guy in Canada looking for a roan hazing horse to match the bulldogging horse we'd sold him a couple years earlier. The deal was pretty much done, until Dad entered the team roping at Pincher Creek, Alberta. In those days, every rodeo started with a grand entry that featured all of the mounted cowboys circling the arena behind the flag bearers, usually at full speed. It was windy, rainy, on the cool side. Halfway around the loop, Tara bogged her head and proceeded to put most of the saddle bronc horses to shame.

Oddly, the buyer developed cold feet. Must have been the weather.

Last week I went out to the south pasture and brought Tara in.The spring storms were hard on her, and she's embarassingly thin. I put her in the barn, filled the manger with hay, left the door open so she could come and go as she pleased. The grass around the barns and shops will soon be knee high. There's water, grain, other horses right across the fence. The ideal equine retirement home.

The first time someone left the yard gate open, Tara was gone, straight back to the pasture she came from. You gotta admire the tough old broad. She's gonna do it her way, right down to the end. Typical Hancock.

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Now that's more like it

Finally, things are starting to look more like this instead of a scene out of A Christmas Story.