At the beginning of October I was sitting at the computer and Dan came in and said, "You're missing some real Wyoming culture outside." I grabbed my camera, headed outside and spied a huge herd of cattle walking down Main Street. There were tons of guys on 4 wheelers and kids on bikes trying to push the cows down Main Street and get past the railroad crossing.
There was a great hum, cows mooing, ranchers whistling and hollering, hooves clattering down the pavement.
Those cows caused a traffic jam, not unlike the 15 or 20 trains that go through in a 24 hour period, but with the cattle crossing, people knew they were in for the long haul and some got out to chat with the ranchers while they waited.
The amazing thing is that not two minutes after all the cows were across, a train came through. What luck! There are no schedules or anything so those ranchers were just chancing it. I guess that's why they had so many guys on 4 wheelers hovering by the crossing, so they could split the herd if a train came.Fast forward a month...
Amelia got to tag along with Daddy while he was moving some cows with Brian & Keith. I drove to the pasture where they were pushing the cows so I could take some pictures.
"Are YOU lookin' at ME?" Half of these cows were practically on my bumper before they moved out of the way.
This calf totally looked like it had a milk mustache.
"You snooze, you lose!" All the cattle rushing the feed wagon.
Coming in at the rear was Amelia, riding with Brian since Daddy's horse was a little squirrelly. When she saw me she broke out in a huge smile; she was cold and snotty and ready to get off the horse after her 30 minute ride. My favorite part of this picture is puppy Merle, bounding forward in complete exultation. "I'm a ranch dog!" Merle's only been going out on the ranch for about a month, but Millie is a seasoned veteran and can chase those cows like nobody's business!
Dan rounding up a few stragglers, whoopin' and hawin' with the best of 'em.
Minus the cowboy hat, Dan is getting to be a pretty authentic ranch hand. He got his own pair of custom made leather chaps from Argyle Ranches (between Cokeville and Randolph), and if you look closely, you can see he has properly initiated them by getting elk blood on the right thigh. There's definitely something sexy about a man in chaps!
When I first tried to put Amelia in the car, she threw a holy fit and screamed, "No Mama! I want tows (cows)!" But once I forced her into her car seat and turned the heater on, she decided it wasn't so bad in the car. Rosy nosed and looking a little wind chapped, Amelia fell asleep within about 3 minutes of leaving the ranch.
Just a little something for my artsy-fartsy side. I got a real kick out of this old broken down piece of ranch equipment, so long neglected that the sagebrush had grown all around it.
5 comments:
Sue, what a fun informative posting. As always your pictures are the story. How's Dan's leg doing? I guess okay cause he's out there riding a horse and doing all that cowboy work. Isn't that every boys dream, to ride a horse and herd cattle/cows whatever....?
Giddy up little doggy is all I can think to say...yeehaw!
Moo. That actually looks amazing to live like that.
Hmm, maybe I WILL make it to the country after all!
Man, ... here I am blogging about deliciously handsome vampires and you blog about cows and snotty nosed kids, I am soooo jealous, "I want me some of them chaps"!
How rural of you. I hate to break it to you but I think that the cow would win against your car. I can only imagine the smell, hay, animals and cow pies, nice.
I'll be headed there soon, myself, and hopefully permanently set up house less than an hour away. It's already cool that we both live in Wyoming. I figured that life would take us states away from each other in the long run, but maybe we'll be just a stone's throw away some day...
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