Spring Has Sprung

It has been pretty wild and crazy here at El Rancho de Loco.  I think I have actually sat down to write this post 4 times so far and have not finished it yet – at least until tonight. Cross my heart, I promise I will not leave this computer until it’s done.

There is always lots of work to do on a ranch and spring is always the busiest time of the whole year.  We’ve been buying cattle, branding cattle, sorting cattle and moving cattle to summer pasture.  And we’ve been doing a lot of riding.

That’s Hubby’s new horse Smokey and my sweet new Pistol.  We’ve gotten along really well considering we have been working our butts off.  Just once I would like to be able to get to know a horse without having a herd of crazy cows going in 50 different directions to contend with.  But Pistol did just fine!  She definitely loves to work cattle and she is QUICK! 

We finally pushed the last of the pairs out onto the Forest Service permit last week where they will spend the summer eating lush grass and basically hiding out from us pesky ranchers.  Now all that’s left is to brand the last load of yearlings and move them to the beautiful pasture near Crazy Horse Mt.  Of course I keep forgetting to grab my camera so I  have very few photos to show. 

There’s this one of Pistol who is saying “OK, I’m ready to go”.  Notice the bare spot on her backside – I’m not real sure what happened – she either rubbed it off in the horse trailer coming home or one of the other horses and her had ‘words’.  Any time you bring home a new horse they have to establish the pecking order.  Thankfully, Pistol has settled in very well with the other horses and I know her backside will grow hair again.

We’ve been going pretty steady every night after work and even a few early mornings so the last night of sorting I opted to give Pistol the night off and I rode a horse of a different color…

I guess you could call her a Red Roan.

This horse isn’t near as good as Pistol.  It doesn’t corner as well, it likes to find prairie dog holes and it will, on occasion, wander off if you don’t set the brake which I didn’t and it did.  I stepped off for just a second to shake my favorite ‘rattle paddle’ at one wild-eyed cow and when I turned back to get on my trusty steed it had rear ended the pickup.  Won’t you know – it was the only thing parked in the whole corral and the 4 wheeler hit it.  Don’t worry – there wasn’t any damage I just had to back it off the tailgate.   No sweat.

This ‘fake’ horse also doesn’t have a nice fuzzy nose that gives velvety kisses either.  If fact it’s a rather poor substitute. 

The only good thing about this ‘horse’ is that it is very easy to step on and off of and that makes it really easy to pick up things you find along the way.  And then it has this really nice box on the back too so it’s easy to carry home all kinds of crap – I mean treasures.  That night I actually found 2 treasures. 

The first was a  jawbone of an antelope.  I’m not sure what killed it but by the way the hide appeared to be ‘balled up’ I would guess it possibly could have been a lion kill.

The second one was this piece of history…

Please ignore the dirty kitchen floor.  Can you tell what it is?  Here’s some clues:

1.  I would guess it is around 60 to 120  years old.

 2.  The small hooks on either end were hand forged. 

3.  The wood was oak and originally it was straight across – not nearly bent in half.

This has probably laid out in the grass (near the road to Elk Mountain) ever since it broke years and yeas ago.  Dan didn’t remember ever seeing it before and I’m sure everyone driving by on the road was moving too fast to even notice it. 

Got any guesses?

No, it’s not an antique Pioneer Thigh Master.  Good guess, thought.

It is actually a ‘tug’ which is part of a harness for a horse.  This piece would have hitched on behind the horse and would have hooked onto either a wagon, a piece of equipment or even been used to hook onto what ever needed to be moved.  Here’s a photo from last years Custer Co Fair showing some harness being put  to work.  This isn’t the same as the piece I found but it gives you the general idea.

 It always amazes me how much ‘stuff’ we find in the grass.

Well, it’s off to bed for me so we can get up early and have more fun tomorrow.  Yipee!