The Rancher's Remote Control

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I thought I had heard it all. I was wrong. Today I met a person online who has never seen a dirt clod. Think about that for a minute. A life without dirt. It’s stupefying. And sort of depressing, because people who grew up like this get elected to Congress and become, say, Speaker of the House, and they can’t even find Montana on a map but they get to decide farm policy. (Yeah, I know. That’s almost like political commentary. And Lord knows you get enough of that everywhere else so I’ll hush up.)

I have to confess, though, I too have lived in a world without dirt clods. The north end of Hermiston, Oregon is located on what is essentially a gigantic sand dune thrown up by the Columbia River during the floods at the end of the last ice age. For ten years, I had an arena that was incapable of mud. I thought I had found heaven.

 

Then one day my husband’s rope horse decided he didn’t really need to back up and keep the rope tight while the calf was flanked and tied. I reached for an all occasion horse training device to give him a little reminder smack in the chest…and came up with a handful of sand.

I was stunned. My entire philosophy of animal training had to be re-envisioned. Dirt clods are the remote control of ranch work. Any time you can’t or don’t want to get close enough for laying on of hands, a dirt clod comes to the rescue.

Dog getting carried away and about to run a bunch of yearlings through the fence? Explode a dirt clod on the ground in front of him, he’ll weaken. Got a pair of bulls that refuse to quit fighting and move along? Unload the double-barreled dirt clods on their butts. Rocks will do in a pinch, but they just sort of plunk and drop, without that satisfactory poof! of dust that makes a direct dirt clod hit so satisfying and effective.

Like all training devices, dirt clods require practice, and should be implemented with care. One year at the Glendive college rodeo, the boys from Western Montana College were having a problem with their bulldogging horse. Just as they started to slide from the saddle and grab the steer by the horns, the horse would duck off to the left and drop them on their head. So after the rodeo, they ran a few practice steers to address the issue.

Rooster picked a spot out in the middle of arena, selected a couple of prime dirt clods, and said, “Go ahead. Run a steer and jump him right here in front of me. I’ll nail the horse in the shoulder with one of these clods when he tries to duck out.”

His teammate’s eyes got big. “But you might hit me instead.”

“Not if you get your butt out of the saddle and down on the steer.”

(This is probably where I should put the Don’t Try This At Home disclaimer, right?)

As it turned out, the dirt clod approach did not prove to be effective in this particular case. Mostly because the steer wrestler kept bailing off before they got within range of Rooster’s throwing arm, whether the steer was in a position to jump onto or not. I would like to say I wouldn’t have been dumb enough to get on that horse in the first place. I would be lying.

The horse in question wasn’t ours; we’d taken him in to train. They called him Bear. He was prone to sulling up and refusing to move. One afternoon, my mom and my sister were up at the indoor arena with Bear and another horse or two. I was enjoying the fact that there was no one around to notice I was stretched out on the couch in the middle of the day until the phone rang.

“We can’t get Bear to move,” my mother said.

“Uh-huh,” I said, unsure why this was my problem.

“If we smack him on the butt, he kicks up,” she said.

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re brave,” she said. “We need you to come up here and get on him.”

“Uh-what?”

She hung up on me.

I gave my couch one last, longing look and went up to the arena. “What exactly is it you want me to do?”

“You ride him. I’ll smack him on the butt when he stalls,” my sister said.

Hmm. That didn’t sound so bad. It wasn’t like he was serious about bucking. I climbed on. Eased him into a trot. He made it half a circle before locking up all four and stopping dead. My sister sidled up and swatted him. He snorted, bucked, and kicked straight in the air with both hind feet.

Luckily, my sister is not very tall. Especially when she’s flat on her belly in the dirt. He kicked right over her head. She crawled to her feet, dusted herself off and stepped back. Way back. Then she said, “Okay, new plan. How ‘bout I just hit him with this dirt clod instead?”

If there’s ever a time you hope your sister throws like a girl, this would be it.
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Open Range

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The first of November signals the countdown to the holiday season for most people. The beginning of cool weather and windblown leaves and big gatherings during which we attempt to eat plates full of food the size of our heads, which has an adverse affect on the size of our butts and the fit of our jeans. Ah, tradition. Gotta love it.

For most ranchers in our area, late October and early November are weaning and shipping time, otherwise known as Pay Day for your year's hard work.

Steers and cull heifers are trucked off to feedlots. Replacement heifers are weaned and put somewhere they can't crawl out of and head straight back to Mom. In our case, they're penned up next to the indoor arena and fed buckets of oats by hand, which makes them a whole lot easier to handle once they become mothers themselves.

Weaning is also the time the cows are kicked out on fall pasture, including the previously harvested grain fields, where they clean up anything the combines left behind. Many of these fields flank the highways and gravel roads. 

Driver beware. This is an open range area, meaning if you hit a cow, you're at fault. If a farmer doesn't want cows in his crop, he has to fence them out. Ranchers have no legal obligation to fence their cows in, though most do because we like to know where to find them and are less likely to end up in fisticuffs with the neighbor because our herd is camped out around the water hole he spent a few thousand dollars excavating so his cows would have a place to drink.

I commute fifty five miles to work every morning, and fifty five miles home every night. Several sections of this road are populated by cows. Mostly black cows. And within another week or so, I will mostly be driving in the dark. It can be downright thrilling at times.

Since the subject is on my mind and I missed doing a Wednesday Back Up, today seemed like a good day to wander back almost a year, when we discussed How NOT to Catch a Cow.

Here's hoping all the ranchers out there have a little something left over from their calf check after all the bills are paid, and plenty of hay laid up for the winter. And that good old Mother Nature holds off on the snow for a while, so we don't have to start feeding it to those cows just yet. 

*

Of Kings and Clowns and Kevlar

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As some of you may recall, a couple of weeks ago I had a little contest, in which the winner was awarded her very own souvenir Bullrider Koozie Vest from the Pendleton Round Up. The beverage coolers are designed to look just like the protective vests worn by cowboys in the roughstock events of rodeo--bullriding, saddle bronc riding and bareback riding. There is a very touching and sad story behind the development of these Kevlar vests, but it turns out I'm not in the mood for that kind of thing today, so we're going to talk about beer vests instead.

I moved to Pendleton in 1997, which happened to coincide with the height of the career of a cowboy by the name of Ty Murray. The King of Cowboys, as he was known then. And still is, although Trevor Brazile will break his record of seven World Champion All Around Cowboy titles this year. Some people will tell you Ty did it the hard way, competing in the three roughstock events, versus the three roping events Trevor enters. Go ahead and jump into that debate. I'll stand back and watch the fur fly as the roughstock aficionados and the timed event fans go at each other on the subject of what makes a 'real' cowboy.

Because of course, being a roper and all, I have no opinion on the fact that those wimpy roughies get re-rides when they draw a piece of crap animal to compete on, while us timies take our lumps and head on down the road.

Anyway, back when I blundered into my first Round Up as part of the sports medicine crew, Ty Murray was as much of a pop star as his future wife Jewel, who he had yet to hook up with. Being single and famous, Ty attracted a lot of attention from the female segment of the population. Especially the inebriated segment. And since there is no area behind the bucking chutes for the cowboys to lurk, they end up hanging out on these benches behind the North Grandstand, right out in the main flow of traffic between the beer stand and the restrooms. Handy, no?

There was no way Ty could warm up there. He was swarmed by fans every time he showed his face. It was like the rodeo version of the Beatles. He had no choice but to hide out in the Justin Sportsmedicine trailer parked right across the road.

Which is how my job description suddenly went from athletic trainer to bouncer. When Ty was in the trailer, someone had to man the door at all times to keep people from barging in and asking for an autograph while he was kicked back on a treatment table in his underwear icing his knee (actually happened, by the way). And that's why I ended up spending quite a bit of time in his company, and if you spend any time at all around Ty, you will hear some really good stories.

Two of his best mates at the time were Adam and Gilbert Carrillo, identical twin bullriders who stood about five feet tall, with round, baby faces and non-stop grins. I felt like a gorilla next to them. When Gilbert propped his feet up on the table, Ty asked him if his mommy still had his little booties bronzed when he grew out of them.

The three of them had recently been at another rodeo somewhere and gone down to the bar afterward to blow off some steam. As the evening wore on and everyone got good and loosened up, Gilbert got into a scuffle. His friends were smart enough to haul him away before he got creamed because the guy was, of course, much larger than Gilbert. Pretty much everybody is.

Meanwhile, Adam was behaving himself elsewhere in the bar. Unaware that his brother had been antagonizing  the locals, he wandered into the restroom, where some guy he'd never seen before took one look at him, called him a not-very-nice name, and knocked him on his butt.

The next day, Ty found a shop that produced custom-made lapel pins. He chose a pair that were about four inches in diameter, bright yellow, and had them printed to his specifications. One said, Hi, I'm Gilbert. And the other? It said, Hi, I'm NOT Gilbert. 

Next time you're wondering what kind of a warped person would ride bulls for a living...well, now you know. As it turns out, it's also the kind of person who designs a protective vest for his beer bottle:

The Bullrider Koozie Vest by Adam Carrillo


Ty Murray's Home Page

Mail Disorder

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Working in a doctor’s office, it is not unusual to encounter patients who have scheduled an appointment for what they delicately refer to as ‘female problems’. I assume they are not referring to the fact that laundry, left in a dark closet, can and will breed like mosquitoes, doubling its volume overnight. Or that pants sold in the women’s section of clothing stores do not seem to be designed for people who have thighs. Or butts.

Those are problems I’m sure any female can relate to. Me, I have mail problems. 

Yes, I do mean mail, as in the U.S. Postal service, although I am outnumbered by Y chromosomes in my household two to one, so I occasionally have problems of the male variety, too.

It’s not a complicated process, mailing a letter. People have been doing it successfully for centuries. You put something in an envelope, seal the flap, scribble an address on the front, apply postage, and deposit it into an approved mail receptacle. And yet…

First, there’s the stuff you put inside. Like the phone bill. Which requires that you not only write a check in the proper amount, but also put the check into the envelope before you seal the flap. And position the invoice so the address actually shows through the window. Or remember to copy the address from the invoice onto the envelope, again before sealing that pesky flap.

I use a lot of Scotch tape.

Next, there is the postage. You have to have some. Preferably in the current approved amount, and applied before you drop the envelope into the mail slot. Especially if you are six hundred miles from home when you mail your car payment, meaning the letter won’t bounce back to you the next day in the hand of a mail carrier with a pained expression.

I’m fairly sure my picture is on a dartboard somewhere down at the post office. You could probably go there tomorrow, drop a blank, sealed envelope into the slot, and they would bring it to my office on the assumption it must be mine. I am, after all, the person who managed to mail a letter that was not only not addressed or stamped—it wasn’t even in an envelope.

And that’s only run of mill stuff. Add the pressure of mailing something that’s time sensitive and I really fall apart. Don’t even talk to me about Next Day Air, or FedEx and UPS and their convoluted packing slips. I have to have a telephone number for the recipient? A physical address, instead of that handy P.O. Box number? Aiiggh!

And there are deadlines.

We sold our house in Oregon on a contract for deed. This required much faxing, reviewing and signing of documents, which the title company requested that we return to them ASAP, so they could close the deal before the end of the month. We dashed into town on Friday afternoon to have the paperwork notarized and copied. Carefully filled out the FedEx slip. Checked and double checked that all of the required documents were included before sealing the envelope.

“You’re sure we’ve got time?” my husband asked. “We could take it to UPS this afternoon.”

“Nah. We’ve got another ten minutes before they pick up packages from the Fed Ex box.”

I walked the block down to the box. Carefully slid the envelope into the hatch. And just as it slipped from my fingers and beyond retrieval, I saw the little sign.

Today’s pick up complete. Next scheduled pickup…Monday.

I stared at the box. Stared at the sign. May have muttered a few bad words. Then I walked back to the car.

“Good to go?” my husband asked.

“Yep,” I said.

Because it turns out those women’s magazines are right. Some secrets are good for a marriage. 


*

In The Can

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No, no that kind of can, although this may be one of my favorite cartoons of all time:

(If any of you can read the signature, post it in the comments. I'd love to give the cartoonist full credit)

Anyway, what I'm talking about are rope cans. Go to any rodeo and you will find a spot where the calf ropers park their horses and their gear, and it will look something like this:

Rope cans are mostly fiberglass these days, though we still have an old tin one up in our tack room. (We also have harness collars for work horses. We don't use those anymore, either.) Rope cans have two purposes: to keep the rope clean and dry, and to keep it kink free. The poly and poly grass ropes used by calf ropers are much higher maintenance than the stiffer nylon ropes used by team ropers. (For more on the subject of how ropes are made see A Rope by Any Other Name.) Rope cans keep them in a flat position, nicely coiled, and seal out moisture. Even if you hang the can in the tack room, the rope stays put:

That flat round top just begs to be decorated and personalized. Some of the most gorgeous leather and silver you see at rodeos is on the top of rope cans:

Rope cans are also very popular awards. I believe this one was made by Shane Crossley from Hermiston, Oregon, who made most of the Nationals Finals and World Champion awards last time I checked:

Since I brought a few souvenirs home from the Pendleton Round Up, I think it's time we had a little contest. Study the photo below. The guy on the left is a Cooper. Either Clif or Clint, I'm not sure. Your assignment is to identify the cowboy on the right. Even those of you who aren't rodeo fans should be able to figure it out, with a little help from an online search engine. Your clue: It's in the can, of course. 

And for the winner: In keeping with today's theme, your very own Pendleton Round Up can cozy, designed to look like the Kevlar vests worn by bucking horse and bull riders. We'll talk more about these vests and the story behind their origin when I announce the contest winner. And since this particular prize will fit in a standard mailing envelope, I'd like to give a special shout out to my international readers to be sure and enter. 

You can post your entry as a comment below or email it to me at the link up at the top left of the blog, or even DM me on twitter. I ain't picky. The contest runs until next Wednesday at noon Mountain Time. I will draw a winner from all the correct answers.  In order to make it fair, I'm going to hold the comments so you can't see anyone else's answer. (I'll make all the comments visible at the end of the contest, if you've got anything else you want to add.)  So as we say in rodeo land...enter up!

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Hay Haulers Shape Up Plan

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Thanks to the overwhelming response to last spring’s Ranch Wife’s Swimsuit Diet, we have decided to offer a fall session: The Hay Hauler’s Holiday Shape Up. We know all of you rural ladies will be needing to shimmy into the perfect cocktail dress for your endless round of glamorous holiday parties, and that sexy down-filled witch’s costume you’ve got picked out for Halloween.

Or at least fit into last year’s Carhartt coveralls.

The secret to our program is in our exercise equipment. After decades of exhaustive research, we have determined that nothing can match our device for overall strengthening and rapid weight loss. Ladies, we give you…the 1963 International Harvestor grain truck.

We have had to make a few key modifications to ol’ Yeller in order to maximize the calorie-burning potential of this amazing machine. First off, we had to beat the suspension to death over hundreds of miles of rocks and washboards. The resulting lack of shock absorption allows the operator to experience the full benefits of every badger hole and boulder, blasting those fat cells right off your thighs. (Note to clients: the more well-endowed amongst you will want to bring along your extra super support garments.)

Of course, to achieve those totally ripped arms, the power steering had to go. The clutch and brake have been adjusted to increase resistance which, combined with the extended arc of motion in the pedals on this particular vehicle, provides an experience very similar to the leg press machines you’ll find in those fancy health clubs. The knobs that must be pulled and pushed to operate the hoist are the perfect tool for increasing grip strength and targeting those flabby wrists.

You will begin each workout session at the hay yard. One of our assistants will apply the exact combination of ether, jumper cables and prayer needed to get ol’ Yeller up and running, stick you behind the wheel and point you in the right direction. Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to master the controls as you rattle across half a mile of bone-jarring alfalfa field in first gear. The tractor will be waiting to load eight one ton round hay bales, after which you’ll crank ol’ Yeller around and rattle back again.

Round bales, being round, have a tendency to roll. To curb this tendency, each load must be dumped right next to the last load, so you don’t end up with a hay yard that looks like someone blew up a bag of mega-marshmallows. To add that extra level of difficulty, we’ve designed the hay rack so the line of sight through the rearview mirrors is completely blocked by the bales. Shouldn’t take you more than three or four tries per load to get it wrestled into position, back up until the rear of the truck bounces off the stack, and pull forward a couple of feet. 

Then comes the good part.                                                                                                       

Raising the hoist is a simple procedure, requiring only that you push in the clutch with your left foot, shift the truck into neutral and pull out and hold the PTO** knob while simultaneously pulling out and holding the hoist knob. You may also need to rev the truck a little with your right foot while letting the clutch out with your left. Watch carefully as the hoist rises. At the exact instant gravity overcomes friction and the bales begin to slide, slam the clutch to the floor. The weight of the sliding bales will propel the truck out from under them, depositing the bales neatly in place.

You will get used to that ‘shot out of a slingshot’ sensation after fifteen or twenty loads (complimentary cervical collars and ibuprofen are available from the concierge), and the big ker-bang when the truck bed slams back down. Until then, the burst of adrenaline will give your metabolism a nice boost. And feel free to pump the brakes. It’s excellent for quadriceps development, even if it does nothing in the way of slowing the truck.

As an added bonus, after the first load or two the floorboards of the truck will begin to heat up, emitting a unique blend of baked grease and essence de toasted mouse turd guaranteed to squelch those pesky snack cravings. And since the heater knob has been stuck in the ‘On’ position for approximately twenty years, the cab will soon become your own private sauna. Don’t be surprised to find you’ve melted off a pound or two in just the first afternoon, especially if it’s a bright sunny day.

We guarantee after a few days on this regimen, that party dress will fit like never before. Demand will be high for this special program, though, so sign up now. We’ve only got 247 more loads to haul.  

NOW AVAILABLE: The home video version of the Hay Hauler's Shape Up, only $9.99! Equipment plus shipping and handling are extra.

Music by Bill Hammond

**PTO stands for Power Take Off. Pulling out the knob engages the gear that connects to the shaft that spins around and raises the hoist on the truck. Or something like that. 

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Here Come Da Judge

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There are a lot of things that claim to be the ultimate American experience. Apple pie. Baseball. Hot dogs. Tackle football. But for my money, nothing strikes a deeper chord in my nostalgic little hometown heart than the Homecoming parade.

For those of you from other countries, Homecoming is a fall event staged by high schools and colleges, generally linked to football. The original intent was to provide a designated home football game and a few surrounding activities to which alumni of the school could come and mingle with other alumni. Now it's mostly a week long frenzy of school spirit activities. The level of frenzy varies depending on the attitude of the school administration toward sports and the level of fanaticism amongst the followers of the school and team in question. But for most small towns, it includes a parade, in which each of the four high school grade levels enter a float of their own construction.

My class stunk at floats. We are the only class in memory that DIDN'T win as seniors. As juniors, we had a little mishap with the extension hose on the tailpipe and gassed our driver. We are probably the reason the floats are now built on trailers instead of directly over the chassis of the vehicle. That was, of course, the best float we ever constructed, but we were disqualified because it failed to finish the parade. A little harsh, we thought, considering the driver didn't even bash in any parked cars when he passed out.

Given all that, it makes perfect sense that I was asked to judge this year's floats.

It turned out to be a relatively painless and not particularly difficult task. And yes, I voted for the seniors. Hey, they had Axel Rose singing Welcome to the Jungle, monkeys in hammocks, and boa constrictors made out of ventilation hoses. Hard to beat.

 Kudos to the sophomores, though, for their sandy beach, cityscape, and an killer sound system blasting Paradise City. (No, the theme wasn't Guns and Roses, just seemed like it).

The freshman did a decent job with Surfin' USA. That blue thing on the front is a wave. There's a wolf (our mascot) on a surf board on top of it. 

Mostly, though, kudos to the weatherman. I don't recall a single year in high school when the candidates for Homecoming Queen and the cheerleaders didn't have to wear thermal underwear under their dresses. Or down-filled jackets over them. 

*I had to do my judging and get back to work, so all pictures are pre-parade. And unlike the old days when we started our float construction early in the week, this year's classes started at 8:45 am this morning and had only until noon to finish. Not bad for three and half hours' work.