Cows and Horses Go Together by Allen Huseby
Cows and horses go together. Wherever there is grassland for raising beef, horses are used for handling cattle. I was raised on a dairy farm so horses weren’t required for working our registered Holstein herd. Dad grew up in the latter days of the horse drawn era when farm horses were for work, not pleasure. He didn’t feel cows and horses would mix. I always liked horses, but having one of my own on a dairy farm never crossed my mind. I was surprised when Dad thought we should get a horse. I think I was eleven years old and the idea maybe originated with my sister, Shirley. Little girls love horses, and dads are pushovers. My great uncle, Louis (Doc) Huseby, was the horseman of our family. He was a veterinarian who served in the Veterinary Corps in France in the Great War. He found a brown and white spotted mare (we called them pintos back then) for sale near Austin. She was foundered in front, but not bad enough for a kid to ride. The price was $85.00 and she became ours. I named her Scout, like Tonto’s horse on the Lone Ranger show.
Shirley didn’t get into riding like I did so I had Scout to myself. We didn’t have a saddle, but riding bareback was the best way to learn. Later on I got Doc’s old Mc Clellan Army saddle and I would throw a saddle blanket over it like the Indians in the movies. My Indian days were over when I got a subscription to “Western Horseman” magazine. The cheapest western saddle advertised in the magazine was called the Poco Bueno for $49.00, and I ordered it. It was a pretty saddle, California style, single rig nicely tooled. The only problem- it had a canvas covered tree, and real cowboy saddles had to have rawhide trees to withstand roping and hard use. So I eventually moved up to a stock saddle from Lebman’s in San Antonio. It was a Crosby roper, had a cowboy look and I figured it was a bargain at $99.00.
When I was a young teenager I acquired Uncle Doc’s two remaining horses, old gentlemen in their twenties. Pat was a tall half Thoroughbred, and Dick was a brown and a bit of an outlaw. Then, Grandpa B.J. bought me a bay mare from Roy Smith for $225.00. Dixie was a good little horse and I began to look for ways to “cowboy”. I had an opportunity when a calf was born at the east end of our farm by the big woods. Why walk out there and tail mom and newborn home when I could ride out and load the calf on Dixie, just like the cowboys. Easier said than done. Hoist a good sized slippery Holstein calf to the saddle, and then climb aboard without losing it. We made it back to the barn and Dixie was becoming a good cow horse.
Some of our bull calves were sold for breeding and the rest became hamburger. They began life in the north calf barn on the home place, and we moved them up to Uncle Byron’s creek pasture when they were older. With Dad, Byron, and a hired man on foot, and me on Dixie, we headed them north. Cows and heifers seemed to herd well, but young bulls tended to scatter, so I had to ride hard to keep them together. That reminds me of an old cowman’s response when asked if one cow could stampede. He replied “I reckon one cow can stampede. But one cow can’t scatter”.
We didn’t usually run our bull with the cows, but during the busy haying season Dad sometimes turned the bull out to breed cows in heat. At milking time the bull had to be put back in the bullpen so he wouldn’t follow the cows into the barn, so I saddled Dixie to move him. He was in the corner at the south end of the barn by the gutter cleaner chute. When I tried to get him out he turned on us, got his head under Dixie’s belly and lifted us off the ground. Bulls are powerful, dangerous animals, but fortunately we got him penned without being hurt.
Sometimes it’s easier and quicker to do things on foot, but that’s not the cowboy way. Our old chicken house was converted to a calf barn for our young stock. One day a bull calf got out, and since I was the only one around, I saddled Pat. I intended to rope the calf so I’m not sure why I picked a horse that was blind in one eye, and likely knew less about roping than I did. I roped the calf, got off to halter it, and Pat took off at a dead run, the poor critter tied hard and fast to the saddle. The calf skidded on his feet, plowing furrows across the wet north lawn, jerked down as they hit the ditch, across County 7 and headed north. Fortunately Pat stopped, and when I caught up with them the calf was still breathing, but pretty well skinned up on one side. I got the calf back in the pen and made sure I cared for those calves myself until his hair grew back. Mom asked me later about the skid marks in the lawn and I told her I rode the horse across the lawn, which had a grain of truth. Well, not really. She said I should know better and I had to agree with her.
Roy Smith wanted me to put some miles on a half Shetland pony he brought to the farm. With a cut down bridle and the Army saddle cinched as tight as I could, I rode up to Byron’s to check on the bulls. On the way back the saddle began to slip so I got off to tighten the cinch and the pony bucked out of the saddle. I was holding the reins and he slipped the bridle too. It was embarrassing to stand in the ditch holding saddle and bridle while my pint- sized mount galloped home.
Most of my riding was for pleasure, but whenever I could work with the cows or check fence I felt I was accomplishing something. My lifelong knee pain began in my junior year. I was foolishly loping Dixie that winter in the ditch south of Byron’s. She slipped on a patch of ice and fell down on my left leg. I never regret my horses, just the stupid things I did with them. I did some riding during my college years. I was breaking Dixie’s colt shortly before I went in the Army. He jumped out from under me and I banged up my ribs pretty bad. I was sore throughout basic training.
My cowboying was over during the Army years and the first few years of marriage. Then Bernice bought a buckskin horse from Johanna Russell for my birthday in 1972- the best $125.00 ever spent. Satanta became the horse of a lifetime. Had I been a better horseman he would have been even more of a horse. I trained him and he became a do everything and go everywhere partner, spirited, but gentle with kids and greenhorns. I received a $600.00 Minnesota Vietnam Veterans bonus and used part of it to buy my dream saddle. I had always admired the Fallis Balanced Ride saddles and I wasn’t disappointed and even bought another one a bit later. Now I had a good horse and a good saddle.
Satanta was even better when he be became Jenny’s horse. They were a team beginning when she’d halter him, move him to a stump, climb aboard and ride around the pasture. She took him for a 4H project and trained him for arena work where he was best at poles and barrels. She took him to the State Show in pole bending where she had a good run. I was working the arena gate at the Olmsted County Fair during the 4H show. The on-deck barrel horses had gag bits, tie downs, all the latest equipment. The riders would get them all juiced up, ready to fly into the arena, spurs and bats ready. Jenny quietly waited her turn- no tie down and an old work snaffle bit on Satanta. The guy working the gate with me smiled and said “Kinda overbitted isn’t he ?” Satanta did real well for a barefoot pasture horse and I was always proud of Jenny and that horse.
My favorite thing was working cattle and Jenny and Jim joined in on some of the drives as well as trail rides. Any time you get people, horses, and cattle together something exciting or funny is bound to happen. You will also meet some great folks. Bud and Dorothy Burnap, Jim and Carolyn, their son and daughter in law, are the finest people you could find. They farm a valley of the Root River by Cummingsville that could pass for the Old West. They milked Guernseys, had a beef herd, horses, mules, donkeys, geese, ducks, chickens and more. They summer pastured cattle in different locations, requiring cattle drives back to the farm in the fall. This was a great time for friends and neighbors to pitch in as cattle were herded down the backroads. A pickup pulling a wagon with hay would lead the drive, enticing the herd to follow. Riders would contain the herd and keep it going straight. This was late fall, usually a good time of year, but I recall one drive, a freezing, windy blizzard with frostbitten ears and fingers and tears frozen to our eyes. Of course it was worth it when we gathered for good hot food and fellowship when we were done.
Bud rode a mule. He had cowboyed out west when he was younger and rode a nice old fashioned late 30’s or early 40’s stock saddle. In later years he rode a beautiful hand tooled Wade buckaroo saddle, the finest I’d seen. (I have a great picture of Bud in this saddle on a mule crossing the Root River where Kinney Creek empties in.) Bud was rightfully proud of his mules. We were in a neighbor’s yard waiting to start a drive when one of their dogs made the mistake of walking behind the mule Bud was sitting on. A horse will kick, but a mule will hit what it’s aiming for. The mule kicked that dog and sent him whining with his tail between his legs. You don’t apologize for a mule so Bud simply said “Damn dog oughta know better than to walk behind a mule.”
Bud was always cheerful and had a quite a sense of humor. He loved the Old West, and decided to have one of his big Longhorn steers lead our cattle drive, just like Old Blue led eight big cattle drives from Texas to Kansas City. The Longhorn was herded to the summer pasture, no easy task, and we headed them home. That steer went right down the middle of the road, a step slower than the cows, so they had to pass him while trying to avoid his 6 foot horn spread. He disrupted the whole drive, with cows spilling out into the ditches. Bud wasn’t upset, but thought of a better way to make use of his Longhorn. “By god, we’ll have that old Longhorn mounted and put on wheels so we can tow him with a pickup ahead of the herd. Sure, and we’ll park him in the shed for the winter and throw a tarp over him so the sparrows don’t crap on him.” Of course this didn’t happen, but there was a Longhorn head mount in Jim and Carolyn’s house, and I imagined the rest of the animal on the other side of the wall, mounted on wheels.
I’ve always believed that the best way to handle cattle is quietly and slowly. All the whooping and hollering and racing around works only in the movies. In real life it is better to anticipate- think like a cow-so you can walk, not run, to head them off. Don’t push them if they will go on their own. We were trying to move a bunch of heifers through a gate at a summer pasture. No matter how many riders were pushing them they would refuse to go through, spill out behind us, and head for the woods. Repeating this a number of times only reinforced their fear of going through the gate. The solution- scatter a little hay by the gate, back off and let them decide to walk through.
Lee Hrstka lived up the hill from Burnaps, an old timer who still did some farming with horses. He was a good hand and went out to the Big Valley by Wisdom, Montana some summers to work on the hay crews. Hay was still put up in stacks with beaver slides using only men and horses. I’m sure they enjoyed him as much as we did. He came back with a wide brimmed Stetson and thought he could ride anything until he piled off a bronc. Lee lived in an old house that had settled, shifted, and deteriorated some. He didn’t have running water but said he used to have a bathtub until it fell through the floor into the basement. His door off the front porch didn’t close well, so he had an old glove hung on a string to wedge in the door jamb to keep it closed. He lived in one room in the winter-the kitchen with a wood burning stove and an army cot. He had a late litter of pigs that he brought in the house, and they slept under his cot. I was with Larry Predmore when he operated on a lamb on the kitchen table. Afterwards, Lee offered us instant coffee and store bought cookies. The water was heated on the wood stove and Lee strained the limestone sediment out for Larry and me, but he took his straight. I suppose it’s a good source of calcium. Lee smoked meat and carp in a little wooden structure. Visitors would sometimes tell him his outhouse was on fire. Lee was a one of a kind character, fun on the cattle drives and just a joy to be around.
Hallorans had a pasture right across the road from the home place, and one late fall day we went down to move the cows and calves home. It sounded like a simple task, but these pairs were wild. A couple jumped the fence like deer and spent part of the winter in the Root River valley before they returned. Larry Predmore was riding Satanta and I was mounted on Charlie. I got behind a cow that sulled up and would not move, but would turn and charge me. This was scary because the ground was a bit frozen with light snow on top- real slippery. I figured if she wanted to charge I’d get in front of her and she could charge her way down to the gate. She came after us hard, and I think Charlie felt her gaining on us. Then he did something I couldn’t believe. He was going at a full canter when he kicked back and caught that cow directly in the head. I heard the thud on that thick skull and hoped that knocked some sense in her. All it did was make her slobbering mad, and she just stood there shaking and would not move. We left her there, someone else’s problem some other day.
There are two ways of roping from a saddle. One developed mainly in brushy country where the rope is tied to the saddle horn with a clove hitch. A fairly short rope, 35 feet or less is used and when you’ve tied on to a critter, you’ve got it or it’s got you. My experience as a kid, seeing that poor calf dragged down the road, made me more enthusiastic for the other method. A longer rope, 50 feet or more, is not tied on, but rather dallied around the horn when the animal is caught. This method originated with the Spanish in the open grasslands of California and elsewhere. Dally is the Anglicized version of the Spanish “dale (dah-leh) vuelta” which translates to “give it a turn”. Braided rawhide reatas were used, often 80 feet or longer. They were not real strong and would snap easily, so wraps were taken around the horn and the roped animal was played out like a big fish on a line, letting the dallies slide. Both types required skills I did not have, but when you have a rope in your hand there’s a strong desire to use it. Catching is the easy part. What you do when you’ve caught something is the hard part.
Verle Predmore’s Angus bull came over to visit. Our pasture fence ran right up to the box culvert under Highway 52. When we had cattle they enjoyed standing in the cool culvert on a hot summer day. There was a drop off downstream on Verle’s side but somehow the bull came through. The simple solution- saddle up and push the bull back through the culvert. The cowboy solution- rope him first. Fortunately he was a docile bull and when I drove him to the culvert I was able to remove my rope and push him back home.
Our Rochester Riders trail ride took us through Harlan Moreharts cow pasture. A small calf was stuck in the clay mud of a watering pond, his mother frantic; and everyone rode on by. Of course I had a rope tied to my saddle, so I roped him and pulled him out. He was already weak, but his mother took care of him. This was one of the few times a rope was really needed.
Bud Burnap adopted a BLM burro, Ronald Reagan was president at the time so the donkey was named Ronald. I was down there with Satanta when Bud wanted Ronald in the barn. The BLM didn’t halter break their burros so I hooked on to him and rode Satanta right into the barn. Bud was impressed. We had to cross Highway 52 on one of the Burnap cattle drives. His donkeys were pastured with the cows, and one of them refused to cross the blacktop. I roped him and dragged him across. Bud said we should have had the Post Bulletin out to take pictures of me dragging my ass across the road. There are so many things that can go wrong when you rope something, so I decided to do as little of it as possible.
Corliss Peters was an Iowa farmer who tired of driving his tractor up and down his fields, so he bought a ranch in Wyoming. He was not a young man when he did this, so it was quite a challenge. Located near Alcova, Wyoming, the ranch was eleven miles from the road. His brand looked a little like a bug, so it was called the bug ranch. Corliss had problems with the Wyoming cowboys he hired for his roundups, so he came up with an alternative plan- hire Minnesotans. Doc Predmore was hired to pregnancy check up to 600 cows. Most of the crew, 12 to 15, were from the Rochester area. Hired doesn’t mean paid, so we were there for the adventure. We had a carpenter, mechanics, electric linemen, so we were able to handle a lot of problems- even repairing a truck. This was sagebrush country and Corliss had some deeded land as well as BLM, government, and school allotments. Bunch grass was scarce and the cows had to do a lot of travelling to raise a calf. Some days they didn’t even go to water. I commented on a nice big cow we ran through the chute and Corliss said it was no good- couldn’t raise a calf out here. His cows were small, scrawny, and tough, but they could put on the miles and raise calves.
The roundup crew gathered cows in some rough, rocky country. We tried to catch them when they came to water, but a lot of it was just finding scattered bunches. My knees and hips bothered me, so I was limited in what I could do. I was surprised when the cow boss, Al Supalla, picked me to go on a long two man gather to the end of the ranch. I rode a Missouri Fox Trotter so it was a nice smooth ride. (Al had been a neighbor to Corliss in Iowa, and now boasted he was the biggest farmer in Houston County- well over 300 pounds.)
When gathered, the calves were cut out, and the cows were pushed through a squeeze chute to be pregnancy checked, wormed, vaccinated, and dehorned if necessary. I was the recorder so I wrote down ear tag number, color description, pregnant or not, how far along, and keep or cull. Barren cows or late pregnancies were usually culled unless Corliss wanted to keep them another year. Most of the cows were dehorned, but sometimes the horn grew back and curled towards the skull. These had to be tipped so they wouldn’t grow into the skull. Larry was doing a good job with a dehorning saw, but Corliss said that was too slow, so went to get his circular saw and extension cord. Scared everybody as we could imagine what would happen when he got close to a frightened, fighting cow locked in a squeeze chute. Happily, Corliss sawed through the cord on the saw before he got close to the cow, so no bloodshed.
Corliss could be hard to deal with, but I got along well with him, perhaps because I was close to his age. When three of us rode in his truck to check on things at the far end of the ranch, he saw I was smart enough to sit in the middle. The guy riding shotgun had to get out and open and close all the gates, and there were a bunch of them. I slept in an unheated bunkhouse and about froze the first year. There was a heated building with a kitchen and shower but few bunks. Some slept in their campers, and Sue and Larry slept in the Peters’ log ranch house. Corliss slept in his lounge chair in the living room because his back bothered him. He woke up one night and stepped on a big glue board he had set out to catch packrats, which were everywhere. Never a dull moment.
I made two roundups at the Bug Ranch and took trips to Casper and Independence Rock . It was fun and exciting but the knees and hips made it too difficult to return. Although I don’t ride now, I have wonderful memories of my cow and horse days.
Shirley didn’t get into riding like I did so I had Scout to myself. We didn’t have a saddle, but riding bareback was the best way to learn. Later on I got Doc’s old Mc Clellan Army saddle and I would throw a saddle blanket over it like the Indians in the movies. My Indian days were over when I got a subscription to “Western Horseman” magazine. The cheapest western saddle advertised in the magazine was called the Poco Bueno for $49.00, and I ordered it. It was a pretty saddle, California style, single rig nicely tooled. The only problem- it had a canvas covered tree, and real cowboy saddles had to have rawhide trees to withstand roping and hard use. So I eventually moved up to a stock saddle from Lebman’s in San Antonio. It was a Crosby roper, had a cowboy look and I figured it was a bargain at $99.00.
When I was a young teenager I acquired Uncle Doc’s two remaining horses, old gentlemen in their twenties. Pat was a tall half Thoroughbred, and Dick was a brown and a bit of an outlaw. Then, Grandpa B.J. bought me a bay mare from Roy Smith for $225.00. Dixie was a good little horse and I began to look for ways to “cowboy”. I had an opportunity when a calf was born at the east end of our farm by the big woods. Why walk out there and tail mom and newborn home when I could ride out and load the calf on Dixie, just like the cowboys. Easier said than done. Hoist a good sized slippery Holstein calf to the saddle, and then climb aboard without losing it. We made it back to the barn and Dixie was becoming a good cow horse.
Some of our bull calves were sold for breeding and the rest became hamburger. They began life in the north calf barn on the home place, and we moved them up to Uncle Byron’s creek pasture when they were older. With Dad, Byron, and a hired man on foot, and me on Dixie, we headed them north. Cows and heifers seemed to herd well, but young bulls tended to scatter, so I had to ride hard to keep them together. That reminds me of an old cowman’s response when asked if one cow could stampede. He replied “I reckon one cow can stampede. But one cow can’t scatter”.
We didn’t usually run our bull with the cows, but during the busy haying season Dad sometimes turned the bull out to breed cows in heat. At milking time the bull had to be put back in the bullpen so he wouldn’t follow the cows into the barn, so I saddled Dixie to move him. He was in the corner at the south end of the barn by the gutter cleaner chute. When I tried to get him out he turned on us, got his head under Dixie’s belly and lifted us off the ground. Bulls are powerful, dangerous animals, but fortunately we got him penned without being hurt.
Sometimes it’s easier and quicker to do things on foot, but that’s not the cowboy way. Our old chicken house was converted to a calf barn for our young stock. One day a bull calf got out, and since I was the only one around, I saddled Pat. I intended to rope the calf so I’m not sure why I picked a horse that was blind in one eye, and likely knew less about roping than I did. I roped the calf, got off to halter it, and Pat took off at a dead run, the poor critter tied hard and fast to the saddle. The calf skidded on his feet, plowing furrows across the wet north lawn, jerked down as they hit the ditch, across County 7 and headed north. Fortunately Pat stopped, and when I caught up with them the calf was still breathing, but pretty well skinned up on one side. I got the calf back in the pen and made sure I cared for those calves myself until his hair grew back. Mom asked me later about the skid marks in the lawn and I told her I rode the horse across the lawn, which had a grain of truth. Well, not really. She said I should know better and I had to agree with her.
Roy Smith wanted me to put some miles on a half Shetland pony he brought to the farm. With a cut down bridle and the Army saddle cinched as tight as I could, I rode up to Byron’s to check on the bulls. On the way back the saddle began to slip so I got off to tighten the cinch and the pony bucked out of the saddle. I was holding the reins and he slipped the bridle too. It was embarrassing to stand in the ditch holding saddle and bridle while my pint- sized mount galloped home.
Most of my riding was for pleasure, but whenever I could work with the cows or check fence I felt I was accomplishing something. My lifelong knee pain began in my junior year. I was foolishly loping Dixie that winter in the ditch south of Byron’s. She slipped on a patch of ice and fell down on my left leg. I never regret my horses, just the stupid things I did with them. I did some riding during my college years. I was breaking Dixie’s colt shortly before I went in the Army. He jumped out from under me and I banged up my ribs pretty bad. I was sore throughout basic training.
My cowboying was over during the Army years and the first few years of marriage. Then Bernice bought a buckskin horse from Johanna Russell for my birthday in 1972- the best $125.00 ever spent. Satanta became the horse of a lifetime. Had I been a better horseman he would have been even more of a horse. I trained him and he became a do everything and go everywhere partner, spirited, but gentle with kids and greenhorns. I received a $600.00 Minnesota Vietnam Veterans bonus and used part of it to buy my dream saddle. I had always admired the Fallis Balanced Ride saddles and I wasn’t disappointed and even bought another one a bit later. Now I had a good horse and a good saddle.
Satanta was even better when he be became Jenny’s horse. They were a team beginning when she’d halter him, move him to a stump, climb aboard and ride around the pasture. She took him for a 4H project and trained him for arena work where he was best at poles and barrels. She took him to the State Show in pole bending where she had a good run. I was working the arena gate at the Olmsted County Fair during the 4H show. The on-deck barrel horses had gag bits, tie downs, all the latest equipment. The riders would get them all juiced up, ready to fly into the arena, spurs and bats ready. Jenny quietly waited her turn- no tie down and an old work snaffle bit on Satanta. The guy working the gate with me smiled and said “Kinda overbitted isn’t he ?” Satanta did real well for a barefoot pasture horse and I was always proud of Jenny and that horse.
My favorite thing was working cattle and Jenny and Jim joined in on some of the drives as well as trail rides. Any time you get people, horses, and cattle together something exciting or funny is bound to happen. You will also meet some great folks. Bud and Dorothy Burnap, Jim and Carolyn, their son and daughter in law, are the finest people you could find. They farm a valley of the Root River by Cummingsville that could pass for the Old West. They milked Guernseys, had a beef herd, horses, mules, donkeys, geese, ducks, chickens and more. They summer pastured cattle in different locations, requiring cattle drives back to the farm in the fall. This was a great time for friends and neighbors to pitch in as cattle were herded down the backroads. A pickup pulling a wagon with hay would lead the drive, enticing the herd to follow. Riders would contain the herd and keep it going straight. This was late fall, usually a good time of year, but I recall one drive, a freezing, windy blizzard with frostbitten ears and fingers and tears frozen to our eyes. Of course it was worth it when we gathered for good hot food and fellowship when we were done.
Bud rode a mule. He had cowboyed out west when he was younger and rode a nice old fashioned late 30’s or early 40’s stock saddle. In later years he rode a beautiful hand tooled Wade buckaroo saddle, the finest I’d seen. (I have a great picture of Bud in this saddle on a mule crossing the Root River where Kinney Creek empties in.) Bud was rightfully proud of his mules. We were in a neighbor’s yard waiting to start a drive when one of their dogs made the mistake of walking behind the mule Bud was sitting on. A horse will kick, but a mule will hit what it’s aiming for. The mule kicked that dog and sent him whining with his tail between his legs. You don’t apologize for a mule so Bud simply said “Damn dog oughta know better than to walk behind a mule.”
Bud was always cheerful and had a quite a sense of humor. He loved the Old West, and decided to have one of his big Longhorn steers lead our cattle drive, just like Old Blue led eight big cattle drives from Texas to Kansas City. The Longhorn was herded to the summer pasture, no easy task, and we headed them home. That steer went right down the middle of the road, a step slower than the cows, so they had to pass him while trying to avoid his 6 foot horn spread. He disrupted the whole drive, with cows spilling out into the ditches. Bud wasn’t upset, but thought of a better way to make use of his Longhorn. “By god, we’ll have that old Longhorn mounted and put on wheels so we can tow him with a pickup ahead of the herd. Sure, and we’ll park him in the shed for the winter and throw a tarp over him so the sparrows don’t crap on him.” Of course this didn’t happen, but there was a Longhorn head mount in Jim and Carolyn’s house, and I imagined the rest of the animal on the other side of the wall, mounted on wheels.
I’ve always believed that the best way to handle cattle is quietly and slowly. All the whooping and hollering and racing around works only in the movies. In real life it is better to anticipate- think like a cow-so you can walk, not run, to head them off. Don’t push them if they will go on their own. We were trying to move a bunch of heifers through a gate at a summer pasture. No matter how many riders were pushing them they would refuse to go through, spill out behind us, and head for the woods. Repeating this a number of times only reinforced their fear of going through the gate. The solution- scatter a little hay by the gate, back off and let them decide to walk through.
Lee Hrstka lived up the hill from Burnaps, an old timer who still did some farming with horses. He was a good hand and went out to the Big Valley by Wisdom, Montana some summers to work on the hay crews. Hay was still put up in stacks with beaver slides using only men and horses. I’m sure they enjoyed him as much as we did. He came back with a wide brimmed Stetson and thought he could ride anything until he piled off a bronc. Lee lived in an old house that had settled, shifted, and deteriorated some. He didn’t have running water but said he used to have a bathtub until it fell through the floor into the basement. His door off the front porch didn’t close well, so he had an old glove hung on a string to wedge in the door jamb to keep it closed. He lived in one room in the winter-the kitchen with a wood burning stove and an army cot. He had a late litter of pigs that he brought in the house, and they slept under his cot. I was with Larry Predmore when he operated on a lamb on the kitchen table. Afterwards, Lee offered us instant coffee and store bought cookies. The water was heated on the wood stove and Lee strained the limestone sediment out for Larry and me, but he took his straight. I suppose it’s a good source of calcium. Lee smoked meat and carp in a little wooden structure. Visitors would sometimes tell him his outhouse was on fire. Lee was a one of a kind character, fun on the cattle drives and just a joy to be around.
Hallorans had a pasture right across the road from the home place, and one late fall day we went down to move the cows and calves home. It sounded like a simple task, but these pairs were wild. A couple jumped the fence like deer and spent part of the winter in the Root River valley before they returned. Larry Predmore was riding Satanta and I was mounted on Charlie. I got behind a cow that sulled up and would not move, but would turn and charge me. This was scary because the ground was a bit frozen with light snow on top- real slippery. I figured if she wanted to charge I’d get in front of her and she could charge her way down to the gate. She came after us hard, and I think Charlie felt her gaining on us. Then he did something I couldn’t believe. He was going at a full canter when he kicked back and caught that cow directly in the head. I heard the thud on that thick skull and hoped that knocked some sense in her. All it did was make her slobbering mad, and she just stood there shaking and would not move. We left her there, someone else’s problem some other day.
There are two ways of roping from a saddle. One developed mainly in brushy country where the rope is tied to the saddle horn with a clove hitch. A fairly short rope, 35 feet or less is used and when you’ve tied on to a critter, you’ve got it or it’s got you. My experience as a kid, seeing that poor calf dragged down the road, made me more enthusiastic for the other method. A longer rope, 50 feet or more, is not tied on, but rather dallied around the horn when the animal is caught. This method originated with the Spanish in the open grasslands of California and elsewhere. Dally is the Anglicized version of the Spanish “dale (dah-leh) vuelta” which translates to “give it a turn”. Braided rawhide reatas were used, often 80 feet or longer. They were not real strong and would snap easily, so wraps were taken around the horn and the roped animal was played out like a big fish on a line, letting the dallies slide. Both types required skills I did not have, but when you have a rope in your hand there’s a strong desire to use it. Catching is the easy part. What you do when you’ve caught something is the hard part.
Verle Predmore’s Angus bull came over to visit. Our pasture fence ran right up to the box culvert under Highway 52. When we had cattle they enjoyed standing in the cool culvert on a hot summer day. There was a drop off downstream on Verle’s side but somehow the bull came through. The simple solution- saddle up and push the bull back through the culvert. The cowboy solution- rope him first. Fortunately he was a docile bull and when I drove him to the culvert I was able to remove my rope and push him back home.
Our Rochester Riders trail ride took us through Harlan Moreharts cow pasture. A small calf was stuck in the clay mud of a watering pond, his mother frantic; and everyone rode on by. Of course I had a rope tied to my saddle, so I roped him and pulled him out. He was already weak, but his mother took care of him. This was one of the few times a rope was really needed.
Bud Burnap adopted a BLM burro, Ronald Reagan was president at the time so the donkey was named Ronald. I was down there with Satanta when Bud wanted Ronald in the barn. The BLM didn’t halter break their burros so I hooked on to him and rode Satanta right into the barn. Bud was impressed. We had to cross Highway 52 on one of the Burnap cattle drives. His donkeys were pastured with the cows, and one of them refused to cross the blacktop. I roped him and dragged him across. Bud said we should have had the Post Bulletin out to take pictures of me dragging my ass across the road. There are so many things that can go wrong when you rope something, so I decided to do as little of it as possible.
Corliss Peters was an Iowa farmer who tired of driving his tractor up and down his fields, so he bought a ranch in Wyoming. He was not a young man when he did this, so it was quite a challenge. Located near Alcova, Wyoming, the ranch was eleven miles from the road. His brand looked a little like a bug, so it was called the bug ranch. Corliss had problems with the Wyoming cowboys he hired for his roundups, so he came up with an alternative plan- hire Minnesotans. Doc Predmore was hired to pregnancy check up to 600 cows. Most of the crew, 12 to 15, were from the Rochester area. Hired doesn’t mean paid, so we were there for the adventure. We had a carpenter, mechanics, electric linemen, so we were able to handle a lot of problems- even repairing a truck. This was sagebrush country and Corliss had some deeded land as well as BLM, government, and school allotments. Bunch grass was scarce and the cows had to do a lot of travelling to raise a calf. Some days they didn’t even go to water. I commented on a nice big cow we ran through the chute and Corliss said it was no good- couldn’t raise a calf out here. His cows were small, scrawny, and tough, but they could put on the miles and raise calves.
The roundup crew gathered cows in some rough, rocky country. We tried to catch them when they came to water, but a lot of it was just finding scattered bunches. My knees and hips bothered me, so I was limited in what I could do. I was surprised when the cow boss, Al Supalla, picked me to go on a long two man gather to the end of the ranch. I rode a Missouri Fox Trotter so it was a nice smooth ride. (Al had been a neighbor to Corliss in Iowa, and now boasted he was the biggest farmer in Houston County- well over 300 pounds.)
When gathered, the calves were cut out, and the cows were pushed through a squeeze chute to be pregnancy checked, wormed, vaccinated, and dehorned if necessary. I was the recorder so I wrote down ear tag number, color description, pregnant or not, how far along, and keep or cull. Barren cows or late pregnancies were usually culled unless Corliss wanted to keep them another year. Most of the cows were dehorned, but sometimes the horn grew back and curled towards the skull. These had to be tipped so they wouldn’t grow into the skull. Larry was doing a good job with a dehorning saw, but Corliss said that was too slow, so went to get his circular saw and extension cord. Scared everybody as we could imagine what would happen when he got close to a frightened, fighting cow locked in a squeeze chute. Happily, Corliss sawed through the cord on the saw before he got close to the cow, so no bloodshed.
Corliss could be hard to deal with, but I got along well with him, perhaps because I was close to his age. When three of us rode in his truck to check on things at the far end of the ranch, he saw I was smart enough to sit in the middle. The guy riding shotgun had to get out and open and close all the gates, and there were a bunch of them. I slept in an unheated bunkhouse and about froze the first year. There was a heated building with a kitchen and shower but few bunks. Some slept in their campers, and Sue and Larry slept in the Peters’ log ranch house. Corliss slept in his lounge chair in the living room because his back bothered him. He woke up one night and stepped on a big glue board he had set out to catch packrats, which were everywhere. Never a dull moment.
I made two roundups at the Bug Ranch and took trips to Casper and Independence Rock . It was fun and exciting but the knees and hips made it too difficult to return. Although I don’t ride now, I have wonderful memories of my cow and horse days.