Bob M honored at Tri-State Oldtime Cowboys breakfast

[Jinglebob]

[Bob M]

Thankyou, Jingle Bob. My only problem was that I was looking at the August calendar. The first comes on Monday if you don't turn the page! Talking about calendars, have you seen the LIL BUCKAROOS 2006 calendar? The photographer is David R. Stoeckllein. He has taken pictures of ranch kids in most of the states in Ranch Country. My 8 year old grandson, Terrel Vineyard, is on the July month. His dad, Shawn, helps Haythorne's brand and takes Tori who is 10 and Terrel. A cook comes from Texas and photographers from various places. That may have been where he took Terrel's picture. Tori and Terrel were here visiting right after they helped with the Haythorne branding in 2003. They were excited and told me about it. I typed while they talked:

We got upo 4:30 and loaded our horses and then we took off. We got to Craig's in time for breakfast. We ate breakfast at the chuckwagon where we were going to camp. We unloaded our horses and rounded up one pasture. That day we rounded up and branded six bunches.

The next day we got the work horses in and pulled the chuck wagon and bed wagon to Red House Camp. The chuck wagon had two horses and two mules. The mules were in front with the horses on the tongue. The bed wagon had two horses. Three riders rode in front and one behind and one on each side of the herd of horses when we moved to the Red House Camp.

There are 21 riders, one cook, and two photographers. Those of us that didn't help drive horses to the new camp rode in our pickups pulliing horses in the trailers. We borrowed Aunt Sybil's tent. There were about seven tents. A trailer had two sets of bunk beds and a bed roll. The cook had a big stove in one tent. We had a campfire outside the tent. The tent where the cook made the meals was big enough for every one to eat in if it rained.

We had biscuits and gravy for breakfast each morning. We had water, iced tea and coffee. For dinners we had spaghetti, potatoes, garlic bread. We had pasta one day. For suppers we had corn on the cob, watermelon, hamburgers, steak, hashbrowns and rolls.

On the third day we got up at 5:00 o'clock, caught and saddled our horses and had breaifast at 6:00. We gathered the first bunch of 350 pairs. We branded those calves in the morning. In the afternoon we branded a bunch of 45. We came back to the camp and ate supper. After supper we took our tent down, loaded our horses and went home.

Both of us vaccinated part of the time and got to wrestle part time. We don't know if the photographers got us in any pictures or not.
We are going back to the branding next week for two more days. Haythorns brand 4000 calves in three weeks. They branded at the Buckhorn last week before we helped them.

Tori and Terrel are getting lots of experience!

BobM

[the real jake]

Hey, that was very interesting Bob M. Thanks again for taking time to document this stuff and share!

Brought to mind something that I enjoyed two years ago.

A friend and neighbor, that has quite a bit of ground out on the gumbo between here and Belle Fourche, had taken most of his cowherd to a ranch north of Kildeer ND in 2002. Years of drought had forced him to relocate his herd in the middle of that summer, because of a grass and water shortage. That country has no wells to speak of, and they rely on runoff for stockwater, so he had to do something with his cattle.

He wintered the herd up there that next winter, and decided to calve and pasture them there another year. So in June he and his hired help, his friend (a former world champion bareback rider from Belle F.), myself, our hired hand, and three other neighbors made the trip up to brand the calves.

We took off from my place here one morning, and after we arrived there we spent the rest of the day trying to gather the cattle into a smaller pasture for the next mornings branding gather. This ranch was fair sized, but the fences were such that cattle were able to stray about wherever they wanted to go. It is a very rough badlands and hardwood tree filled country with scattered cedar thrown in for good mix. Hence the trees were so dense and leafed out that it was hard to find the cattle without riding most of the country well. You could highpoint them to some extent, but still had to ride hard to head them in the right direction. These cattle were plains cattle the year before, but it was easy to see that they liked their new environment and were using it to their advantage.

Fortunately for us a lot of the herd was in the general area where we wanted them for the next day, but about 1/4 had free rein of the ranch. We rode hard and fast, and had 95% of the cattle gathered up by dark that night. Everyone sat around after supper and related the days work between each other as everyone had some kind of a story to tell.

We slept in the big house that night that had belonged to the previous ranch owner, and the next morning as we ate breakfast we thought we were forgetting something. It turned out that we had forgot to wake the guy that was the bareback champ, until it was about time to get to work. One guy thought that was pretty funny, that only one of us in the whole bunch had any great noteriety, and he was the one we had forgotten about. Anyway, he was good natured about it.

Next, while most of the crew went to gather the branding pasture, I and our closest neighbor, along with the "native" ranch manager went back to the big country to find a few strays that the manager had seen that morning. When we spotted a few of these elusive critters, the manager stopped the pickup jumped out, and was gone on his horse before a lot of arena ropers would have had time to find their tie downs in the tack box. (sorry, had to throw that in, as tie downs are my pet peeve)

We followed him in a jiffy, but I was on the heels of a bunch of my own, and I didn't see anyone for a long time after that, though I was probably very close to either guy several times, and didn't know it as thick as the country was. Loping and trotting after these cattle through creek bottoms and over steep hills, I held my bunch together long enough to get them in the vicinity of the branding corrals so I could hollar for someone to come and open the gate for me so I didn't lose the cattle I had gathered.

We had a great time roping and gathering that day, and with all the local calf wrestlers they had there, I think I either roped calves or cut bulls till we finished.

Then it was time to head back south at the end of a fun couple of days in new country with great friends and neighbors.

[Jinglebob]

Two good stories!

I've been up in that country Jake and it sure can be interesting. One year when we got done branding, we were going to take a tour of a high butte off to the west. The guy who lives there led the way and we didn't get on the right trail and never did get on top! Rough ol' country, but sure fun to ride and cowboy in. My son spent a month up there one summer, riding out of a moveable camp. Teepee and chuckwagon. He learned a lot and had quite a few interesting experiences.

[Bob M]

Real Jake, That sounded like a hard couple of days and an interesting and a very well written experience. If you haven't already, you need to write a book!

Bob M

[the real jake]

BobM, I would love to be able to put a good story to paper, as that is one of my "goals in life", but don't know if I am up to the task.

I have a rather large amount of good books, and I wish I could write one worthy of a place next to them. Maybe someday.

[Cal]

Congratulation Bob! I don't believe anyone is more deserving. Keep those weekly columns and all coming!