RIDIN' HERD ON THE INTERNET

By Julie Carter The era has arrived where only an aging few cowboys haven’t figured out how to hunt and peck around on a computer keyboard. They fought the trend valiantly but in spite of those efforts, their rural isolated world became boxed up on the internet. Feed programs, breeding programs, market watch and cattle sales are just a few on a long list of things in the cow business that have gone computerized. It is a fact that there are just some things a computer can’t do, will never do, and a cowboy who knows nothing about a computer will quickly tell you exactly what those things are. However, technology has persevered even in the pasture. Implanted computer chips with the animal’s complete data imbedded in them are in use and making themselves handy in controlled situations. As a need to track cattle origins from the pasture to the meat counter tops a priority list, “data based cowboying” is on the rise. In all this, what happens to the everyday run-of-the mill, denim-garbed leather-shod, felt hat-wearing, colt-riding cowboy? A few years ago Dan Roberts, a Texas cowboy, singer and song writer wrote and released an album and song called Cowhand.Com. The title cut takes a humorous look at the adventures of a cowboy who hires onto an outfit that is basically run by computers, not seasoned cowboys. The misadventures of this technologically challenged cowboy who longs for the old days tell a story that was perhaps more prophetic than Roberts ever dreamed it would be. His intention was a witty take on the concept but the result was an outline of the real dilemma of crossing a cowboy with a computer. The lyrics point out that no machine ever shod a horse, pulled a calf or broke a bronc to ride. The laptop in his saddle bags got dusty riding drag and all that talk about menus, a mouse and booting up had the cowboy telling his boss to stick that Pentium right in his AOL and pointing out that the megabyte-ram-thing sounded inbred. Book learnin’, as they would call it, isn’t foreign to cowboys, it just comes from books and takes place after dark when the work is done. My cowboy dad was a fiend for learning and was an easy mark for the encyclopedia salesman that somehow found us at the head of Muddy Creek where not many strangers trod. We had not one, but several sets of encyclopedias just in case we four children needed to look something up. He also bought every update published for years after and several sets of assorted “how to” encyclopedias. He learned taxidermy, beer making, electronics, mechanics, veterinary skills and many other useful things from his “how to” books. I often wonder what he would have done with the wealth of knowledge offered in today’s world with the touch of keyboard. Computerizing the cowboy way will only go so far. Technology has extended to providing data for the genetic, nutritional and medicinal history of a cow as well as her history of residence for her lifetime. The good news for the cowboy is it still takes man to bring the cows to the corral. The statistical information can be downloaded from computer to computer, from hard drive to cd or even sent to the printer. But the paper trail through the office will never completely replace the cow trail through the pasture. And that cow? She is going to download her own nutritional history into the same green pile she always did.

A HORSE AND A KID

By Julie Carter When C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe became a movie, it brought a wonderful old story to a new generation. It even rekindled the imaginations of the generations that had read the story in its printed version. I know my dad would have found it hard to believe, but there was a time I rode winged horses high over tree tops and brandished a sword to fight off the evil invaders of my kingdom while waiting for a prince to come fight by my side. Although my horses never talked, they did plenty of listening. Every morning just after daylight but before the school bus arrives; a boy whistles up the saddle horses and feeds them their token of grain. That simple chore puts a smile on his face and a spring in his step that sets the tone for the day ahead. Smart old saddle horses know when it’s feeding time and who is going to feed them. At the sight of the boy and the sound of his whistle, they came at a high lope, offering up a couple nickers and head tosses, and even the occasional obligatory buck as they ducked through the gate to the feed bunk. There was a time that the act of a morning chore tending to horses was the norm, not the exception. This chore captivated the magnetism that is created when a child and horse are put together in a partnership. Lewis’s third book in The Chronicles of Narnia series, A Horse and His Boy, captivated imaginations of many youngsters because they could take the story into their own life and relate to it. The mythical elements of the story are quickly transposed forward in time and place to a stocking-legged bald-faced sorrel horse with the finely honed ability to beg for grain and look good while doing it. Most ranch kids experience that special relationship with the horses they own while growing up. Long before a horse is simply functional equipment for the business, he is a friend, a confidant, and absolutely the best thing a kid could own. I don’t have the exact equation, but I believe that relationship builds something into the character of the child--a foundation of love and trust that makes some sort of difference in his adult world. No matter where life takes him, those hours, days and years of having that unconditional love from a horse (well okay, unconditional except for oats) seals something in his heart that no one can take away. And my own personal winged horse? He was one of several very regular ranch horses I rode during my formative years. My sword? Read that “branch” -- torn from the nearest tree. And the evil invaders of my kingdom? Those, of course were my younger brothers. They were so very gullible. The secret to my kingdom was to always ride faster horses and learn to duck flying objects. Those evil invaders were also not so very forgiving when they found out they had been duped by the princess on the flying horse. Julie can be reached just inside the border of Narnia at jcarternm@gmail.com

THE THIRD TOUGHEST ROPING

By Julie Carter Fishing stories don’t hold a candle to roping tales. The big one always gets away and there is always some windy explanation about how it happened and what the result would be if it hadn’t. This past weekend there was a sizable high class roping, and yes, I know, there will be some that will holler “oxymoron” over that description. I will argue that where team roping is concerned, the scales will most generally tip toward the moron than the high class, but I digress. High dollar prizes and prestigious titles were at stake and the “big boys” of roping were there wearing the names of their corporate sponsors embroidered all over their shirts. A plethora of dinner plate-sized belt buckles (sometimes referred to as gut shot prevention) were flashing proof of the skill level gathered at this event. These ropers had made the sport not a hobby, but their livelihood, their only interest in life and their passion. As the roping progressed, so did the usual discussion about the cattle they were roping. The general consensus was that they were dirty, heavy and exceptionally fast. That summation led to remembrances of other ropings and the comparisons. The pro-boys spoke of how the cattle were at Cheyenne last year, followed by remembrances of Reno, Calgary and even Las Vegas was given a good cussing. Standing quietly among these roping legends was a cowboy that had come up the hard way in ranch country and now masqueraded as a full time team roper. He commented that indeed this was a “plenty tough roping.” However, he believed it was just his third toughest roping. “It was branding time and we’d spent some long days gathering a bunch of wild crossbred cattle, mostly Brahma, that had never seen man or horse,” he explained. “We finally got most of them to the pens and they weren’t real friendly. “We muscled them through the chute to brand them. There was one high-headed heifer that kept pushing her way to the back of the line. We finally got her worked up toward the front but when she got almost to the chute, she started pushing backward as far as she could, then took a run at the head gate and kept on going.” With the head gate shut firmly around her neck, she tore it loose from the squeeze chute and took off like greased lightning across a six section rocky, rough pasture. The cowboys scrambled for their horses, pulled their cinches, and in a single motion put their foot in their stirrup and left in hot pursuit with loops ready. It took a while. A good number of the hands were riding green colts who were not about to get anywhere close to that monster scary thing wearing a head gate on her neck. That was the toughest roping, he said. Intrigued, someone asked about the second toughest roping. “We were working cattle through the chute –shots, branding and fly-ban pour on down their backs. One of the hands poured the chemical on a steer just before the branding iron hit the hide and that long winter hair burst into flames,” he recalled. The chute operator thought the thing to do was let the steer out. When he did, the steer left like a scalded dog, jumped the fence, and raced through a dry grass pasture, lighting the prairie on fire as he went. Cowboys ran for their horses only to find their trusty mounts were decidedly reluctant to get within roping distance of a flaming steer running through flaming grass. That was the second toughest roping. It was a glaring example of the adage “first liar doesn’t stand a chance.” But you have to know those ropers who had never made their living punching cattle had that visual “burned” into their minds. In the quiet hours of the night going down the road, they’d think again about the new measure for “the toughest roping.”

PEARLS OF WISDOM

By Welda Grider

April 20, 2008

Pearls of wisdom

Filed under: General — Julie @ 8:38 pm

 ”Mama, when I grow up, I’m gonna be a cowboy.”
“Make up your mind son, because you can’t do both.”

Comments (0)

April 19, 2008

Reasons not to assault a ranch woman

Filed under: General — Julie @ 10:56 am

This story was written by a friend of mine, Welda Grider, published in a local newspaper and has quickly made the rounds of the internet. It’s too good not to continue its path around the world. Julie Carter
*************************
Reasons not to assault a ranch woman
By Welda McKinley Grider
Violence does not scare us. We ride 1,500 pound horses and stare down an alley full of mad, snot-slinging cows that weigh over 800 pounds. We’ve held down calves that outweigh you by four times.
Don’t try to intimidate us. Most of our husbands stand a head and shoulders taller,outweigh us by 100 pounds and we aren’t scared of them.
Why would be we be frightened by someone who can’t keep their pants up?
Every time we work cows, our husbands threaten us if we don’t get out of the gate. They threaten us if we don’t stay in the gate.We are pretty much not impressed by threats.
Plus, if you get much closer we may give you some threats of our own to consider and be able to back it up.
Don’t wave that knife at me, boy. I castrate when we brand, throw the “mountain oysters” on the fire AND eat them, dirt and all. You probably don’t want to go there.
Don’t threaten to steal my pickup. I work for a living, so have insurance. The chances of you being able to drive a standard are next to none and there is no spare.
I’ve walked home from the back side of the ranch, I can walk from here.
You want my purse? Take my purse. It has little money in it because, as I mentioned, I work for a living.
You will find various receipts for feed and vet supplies, some dried up gum and the notice for my next teeth cleaning.
The only “drugs” you will find is something that is either aspirin or a calf scours pill but its been in there so long I’ve forgotten which it is.
Don’t threaten to hurt me. I may look old and fragile to you, but I can ride horseback for 12 hours, with nothing to eat or drink. I have been kicked, bucked off, run over and mucked out.
I’ve had worse things happen to me in the corrals than you have experienced in the little gang wars you’ve been through, and still cooked supper for a crew.
You may whip me, son, but you’ll be a tired, sore S.O.B. in the morning and yes, I will remember your face because I am used to knowing which calf belongs to which cow.
I’ll also remember which direction you went and what you were wearing because I’ve tracked many a cow with less information than you’ve given me.
You are not going to scare me with that little “Saturday Night Special” when I have a .38 in my boot.
You need not think I won’t shoot you. I’ve shot several coyotes and numerous rattlesnakes. I put down my horse when he broke his leg and shot my pet dog when he killed some sheep.
Don’t think I won’t consider you a rabid dog and go on my way.
Welda McKinley Grider was raised by a ranch woman, knows many and would pity the thug that tried to rob them.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE COWBOY

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy By Julie Carter

Language ranks among the most visible, audible, extensive, and useful cultural evidence that human societies create. Undeniably, it is one of the more important parts of any culture.

Anyone looking into ranch life and cowboy history will find that the culture of the American West has a language all its own. Yankees don’t understand it and rarely recognize it as a real language.

I know that my personal dialect is that of a direct plain-spoken Westerner. I use words that others don’t recognize as words and I leave out words (that) others would place in the thought process I’m expressing. See parenthesis. They might call it correct grammar, I call it unnecessary.

While I possess in the recesses of my upbringing a full vocabulary of “range vernacular,” some very skilled mentors managed to round off the edges of my speech.

As a young girl my mother came to the West from the civilized world bringing with her a refined vocabulary. I was also blessed with teachers that were able to guide me to hold my own in polite company when it came to conversation.

I’m not embarrassed that I often have to look up the meaning of words used casually and easily by my fellow scribes. Given the opportunity, I could give them a few they would have to investigate, not because they are unlearned but because it’s a foreign language to them. And those words won’t be in ordinary dictionaries.

In the language called cowboy, jingle isn’t the sound that a bell makes or a rhyme. It is a verb that means to gather the horses.

By definition, hooley-ann isn’t a country girl but a type of loop thrown to catch a horse. Hoolihan is something completely different. While dew claw is a part of bovine anatomy, the labels for saddle horses from the remuda could include crow-hopper, craw-fisher or the blind bucker.

The early cowboy was generally not highly educated but he never lacked for expression. The sharp directness of his speech seemed novel and strange to conventional people but no one could accuse him of being boring. His ability to turn a picturesque phrase was as refreshing as it was unexpected and often showed his keen sense of humor.

His figures of speech are descriptive and clearly accurate. Trying to accomplish the impossible is “like tryin’ to scratch your ear with your elbow.” When expressing his idea of prominence he might say it “stuck out like a new saloon in a church district.”

Pretty is “prettier than a spotted dog under a red wagon,”and ugly is expressed in colorful descriptions like “so narrow between the eyes he could look through a keyhole with both eyes.” Chouse is chase -- cows or girls and sometimes both.

Today’s cowboy is quite often very educated, but you will find that the book learnin’ never takes away his ability to employ his words in a way that suits him. He will arrange them in a manner that best expresses his idea and be completely unrestricted by tradition.

That cowboy slang, twang and verbal saunter is often worn like the camouflage of a chameleon. It is not unusual for a cowboy to use it to beguile his listener, lulling them into a false sense of superiority.

The dumb-ol’-boy trick has made many a cowboy a pile of money. Their theory is to not ever tamper with the natural ignorance of a greenhorn.

Whatever their dialect, phraseology, and vernacular, the cowboy has always had a way of expressing a big thought in a few words.“Success is the size of the hole a man leaves after he dies.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Julie knows a cowchip is paradise for a fly. She can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com.

THE DAYS OF KOOL-AID SUMMERS

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy by Julie Carter

It was about now, in the middle of a long hot summer, that I would start to miss school. Not school for the education, but school for the friends and the activities.

Rural living for us as kids was defined by isolation at the ranch in the southern Colorado Mountains.

No one "went to town" once school was out in May, except maybe Mom who made her once a month trek to the grocery store. Our return to civilization didn't happen until after Labor Day when the school bell rang once again.

The decade of the '60s took me from 8 to 18 and was jammed with life lessons and foundational principles. All the things I had but didn't know were important would not become apparent to me until I was old enough to mourn their loss, value their existence, and understand the lessons that came with them.

It was before we knew sugar wasn't good for us and Kool-Aid was our year-round beverage of choice either in the liquid form or frozen into popsicles in the summer. The alternative was the gallons of fresh raw milk that completely filled the top shelf of our refrigerator.

Summer days ran together in an endless manner that changed only in the way I changed. As a pre-teen, I began each day with figuring out what to do to keep me busy so the chore list from my mom wasn't increased. Saying "I'm bored" was a sure way to win half a day of weeding the gigantic garden, cleaning stalls or some like sentence.

Hay meadows and a nearby cold, mountain creek provided an enchanted play world for all of us -- three brothers, two summer resident kids and the occasional visiting cousin or two.

When I reached the age that I knew boys didn't really have cooties and that being a teenager made everyone else so very hard to communicate with, I was still in isolation.

I found solace in spending the days wandering the hills on my horse, talking to my faithful Australian-shepherd sidekick and daydreaming of a more romantic world that had no real definition. I spent hours reading books and writing long letters, both of which took me to an outside world I didn't really know.

I'd only heard about the "hippies" and all that went with what most people recall of that decade. Vietnam was on the news and a world away. A stamp was five cents and so was a Hershey bar. I am vague on where I was when the Beatles hit the scene, but I remember where I was when JFK was shot.

Civilization in the form of the nearest town of a few hundred people offered lessons in what it was to be draggin' main and the finer details of a Chinese Fire Drill. An icy Coca-Cola and a basket of French fries in town was the height of delight.

Duck tail haircuts, beehive hair, hip-hugger pants and mini-skirts were about as "with it" as any of us at school got. Go-go boots and shoulder-length hair with that perfect flip made you "cool." The way-out kids wore Nero-collared shirts and sported peace sign necklaces.

"Gunsmoke and Rawhide", (yes, in black and white) were favorites but we didn't get that channel and had to settle for "Wagon Train" and "Bonanza" on the one we did receive. "Big Valley" made its debut mid-decade, as did "Days of our Lives", back when a half-hour sufficed for soap opera drama.

There isn't a '60s memory that doesn't include late night radio from Oklahoma City. KOMA brought the latest and greatest in the world of Rock and Roll to every country kid in several states between there and the Rocky Mountains. The Beach Boys, Righteous Brothers, Mamas and Papas, the Supremes, Simon and Garfunkel and so many more. And, of course a few slow dances with Bobby Vinton.

The window to a world I was yet to know was as simple as a nine-volt battery in a transistor radio.

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com

'COWBOY' IS A PROCESS

 

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy by Julie Carter

“Riding for the brand” and “making a hand” are two expressions that are short on words but big on meaning, which seems appropriate for the Western genre they represent. Much like the word “cowboy,” there is a lifetime of components built into it.

Every cowboy kid grows up hearing these phrases - knowing it is part of what and who he is destined to be. How he gets there is just part of everyday living.

Ranch kids are given big responsibilities at a young age. It might start with simple chores like daily taking out the ashes from the wood stove, filling the wood box, bringing in the milk cow every evening, and gathering the eggs from the chicken house which includes eluding the rooster that is always waiting to attack.

Right around that same age, the youngster will unassumingly be given some responsibilities in the pasture beyond the usual seemingly permanent position of riding drag behind the herd.

As his dad rides off one direction, he’ll tell the young button to ride down a long draw as he points to it, bring along any cattle he finds and meet the cowboys at the gate at the end of the canyon.

With some pride filling his heart, the button will sit a little taller in the saddle as he rides off.

As his horse picks his way through the quakies, a few head of cattle lift their heads from their grazing and start moving down the draw ahead of him.

The lad pulls off a small branch from a sapling as he rides by it and pops it on his leather chaps in a rhythm that matches the gait of the trotting cattle. He doesn’t know it yet, but those moments will be remembered by him as some of his happiest.

He keeps an eye on the ridge above him, hoping he’s not ahead of the rider coming that way or not too far behind the ones he is to meet. A few times a little worry eases its way into his gut. What if he wasn’t in the right canyon or not going the right way?

When he rode out of the end of the draw and no one was at the gate, he again gave thought to the possibility he wasn’t where he was supposed to be or maybe they’d forgotten about him.

The few head of cattle he’d pushed out hit the fence line. He trotted ahead of them, got them stopped and then sat quietly while they settled down.

He knew he should just wait. At least he had some cattle to show for his efforts.

He slouched in the saddle and began, one by one, stripping the leaves off the branch he’d brought along. He chewed on one and tossed the rest at a make-believe target a few feet away. Then he began peeling off the bark, keeping one eye on the cattle, and keeping his hands busy and mind occupied. Killing time he wasn’t sure he had to kill.

He stood in his saddle and looked in every direction for signs of anyone, anything.

He listened for the sounds of cracking branches and horse shoes striking rocks, or the sounds of cattle moving through the trees. Still nothing. Knowing he needed to trust his raising and for sure better be where his dad told him to be, he waited it out.

Finally, in a far distance he could hear an occasional “whoop” and “h’yah” as the cowboys moved a big herd down the fence line from the backside of the pasture. The button grinned, again sitting tall in the saddle, looking every bit the cowboy he wanted to be.

His dad rode by him and gave him a nod. It said all he needed to “hear.” In that gesture was “Good job son. You made a hand.”

Those times are the confidence builders that build a foundation for a life and it plants seeds for loyalty and pride in a job well done.

"It was probably a step in the making of a cowhand when he learned that what would pass for heroics in a softer world was only chores around here." Wallace Stegner, Wolf Willow: A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com