Sly

We’ve been hauling hay. The first days were hot, miserable and sticky. The final day was perfect, with wonderful clouds rolling by and a brisk breeze. It felt almost cool. Mark called it a vacation.

We haul hay to the stackyard in hot air, and haul it back to the cows in cold air. Ranching is nothing if not living in extremes.     

I’m on a cleaning and organizing jag. I hit my pantry then went on to bigger projects. I’ve made attempts at grandpa’s big steel shop in the past, but finally made some real headway last week. And I got help! It was grand: Seth was sweeping, Mark was running the Hotsy on his horse trailer, Amy was cleaning grease guns and Alan was hauling the mega sorting bin out of doors to clean it up. I know there’s a ton of other stuff that needs done, but creating a clean and organized work space sure feels good.    

Our veteran Sly spent a few days with long time family friends who needed a gentle horse for their grandson to ride. Max is only three and fell in love with Sly when his Mom brought him up for an afternoon ride while we were moving cattle two springs ago. Anita got some good photos of the two of them. Look at the expression on Max's face!

Sly is a one-in-a-million horse. Mark would just as soon saddle him up for any job he has in mind, but knows the other horses in our remuda need the experience. Sly is as “cowy” as any of them, but he’s also just lazy enough to be “dog gentle” and can tend the most inexperienced rider. He’s big and tall and has a long lumbering stride. He’s a looker too, with horseshow-quality confirmation and should be on the cover of Quarter Horse magazine.

We got him when he was six years old. He was so spoiled that when he got tired of hauling someone around, he would drop to his knees and try to roll! Mark got him over that in a hurry. Our kids 4-H’d on him. He squared up nicely in halter class, but didn’t lead very well. The kids would pull and he would stretch his neck waaaay out before moving his feet ahead. His gentle way kept them safe, and his disposition taught the kids to be active riders, cuing correctly with determination or he would fall asleep!

Sly is getting up in years. We’re not sure what we’ll do without him. Besides Max, he also tended Clara and Clancy, my neice and nephew, on their cattle drive, and sponsored a couple of out-of-town visitors this year as well. Ash from England and Bud from upstate New York got along well with Sly. And today Mark loaded him up to carry a rider on the Governor’s Trail Ride. The call went out for “bomb proof” horses and Sly fits the bill.

I still remember the feeling that winter day when Anna was a little girl and we needed to gather the Brush Creek field. We legged her up on Sly and away we went, knowing he would take good care of her. He’ll go down in the ranch history book as one of the greats.    

one happy kid

he makes a pretty picture

Always Something

My Great Aunt Elsie said it: “There’s always something to take the joy out of living.” I never knew her, but my Mom repeated the saying quite often. I don’t think she was referring to the really big tragedies, death, divorce, disability, but common place miseries, a leaky roof, a failed crop, a body’s aches and pains - and weeds. For Mom and Dad, it was their twin nemeses, quack grass and gophers. Mom was a fastidious gardener and quack was always lurking at her shoulder, ready to invade her beauty spots. Dad was a farmer and rancher, so gopher hills in the hay crop were a constant annoyance.

Mark cusses gophers and I battle quack grass, but their threats pale compared to the hardy invasives pounding on the door to our ranch in the twenty-first century. Houndstongue, burdock, puncturevine, knapweed and musk thistle top our list.  

I picked up 1,000 tiny gall wasps from the local weed supervisor to put on Russian knapweed. The bug isn’t proven yet, but the hope is that it weakens the weed allowing other plants to compete and bring balance back into an ecosystem. The fly lays eggs on the plant, and a gall forms around the larvae. It’s not a quick fix, but offers hope over time.

So we’ve added biocontrol to our list of weapons: mowing, spraying, cutting with a shovel, grazing, mulching, and, I might add, coexisting, which in the end might be our only option.

We visited our mountain property to cut houndstongue and check fences. The diversity of life made me so happy! Butterflies flitting about and a constant hum of insects greeted us. Golden cinquefoil and pink veined sticky geranium dominate the wildflower scene with lupine, potentilla, buckwheat, and the delicate violets and blues of penstemon rounding out the colorful meadows and sagebrush uplands.

A nighthawk screeched above us, dive bombing and booming for our benefit. We found a nest of baby doves and lay spots in the deep grass where deer had spent time. We saw a dozen cow elk and their calves. And the morning was filled with birdsong. A wren had nested under the eve of the cabin and we watched a tree swallow sort through debris to shore up his nest.     

And the grass! Mark said he’d roll in it if his nose could stand it.

So, yes, we cut a million houndstongue burrs, but we soaked in all the rest of it. All the strange and wonderful organisms that call our mountain ground home.

It’s kind of like this blog. I look over and past the messy parts, to see the joy in the expanse around me. Or move aside an annoyance and look really close, to the delicate folds of a penstemon blossom.   

And Mark? He’s a guy and all about cows. He gets excited about wildlife and can spot houndstongue almost as good as me, but he kept saying over and over, “have I told you how happy I am that the fence is hot?”  

Mark found the mourning doves

sticky geranium, buckwheat and lupine 

gall wasp flies 

the villainous Russian knapweed