Tag Archives: herd

Cowboys

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Moving the herd down from the high country somewhere in Wyoming

One day while browsing thru the local flea market looking for that perfect western artifact to put in the office to keep me inspired and connected to that period I’m most attached to, I found something special. I was in one of those booths that immediately draw you in because of the type of objects there. That collection of old and retired things that resonates with your idea of what’s cool and represents that era that completes you and satisfied that nostalgia for a way of life that may never even have existed in reality, but sure feels good to think about.

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The item found was a pair of old saddle bags. They were stained, the leather so dry and cracked that picking them up risked pieces falling off. The straps were mostly missing and the one that was still attached so brittle that moving it to get the bag open risked its disintegration. Inside was a notebook, the pages lined with those faded blue horizontal lines and the vertical red ones setting the margin. The kind of notebook you practiced your cursive writing in.

Many of the pages were torn out but the ones that were left held treasures more valuable than gold. Sketches drawn with colored pencils and ink faded almost past recognition. Of scenes real or imagined, covered with stories of a life lived long ago. It didn’t matter if they were true or not. A person’s dreams and memories can be whatever they want. Whoever created these pages left a legacy of their own life that were destined to be private but needed to be shared with the world. To take us back to a time that was less complicated, less buffeted by our current events that leave us stressed and disappointed with how life seems to be playing out now. A time when wanting to be a cowboy seemed a pretty noble ideal.

The Mob

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Immature Bald Eagle and Ravens – Elk Cracass – Yellowstone National Park

The Cascade wolf pack dropped a cow elk out on the meadow floor last night. The herd was hurrying to cross the open space under the light of a full moon, nervous as they sunk to their knees in the snow because they knew they were vulnerable out here. The young cow wasn’t paying close enough attention and had gotten too far out from the herd and the pack made quick work of her. The snow wasn’t all that deep but it was deep enough to hinder her flight. They fed for a while then headed back to the den area with the promise that they’d be back in the morning to make a proper job of it.

But secrets don’t keep long amongst the neighbors when it’s cold and blustery and everybody’s got to eat. As always the first to visit the carcass are the Ravens. They have a sixth sense about the dead and dying so they are on the scene almost as soon as it happens. Even with their terrible sharp bills they have a tough time cracking into the frozen hide and unless the wolves left them a good entry point they don’t make much progress getting started.

It takes a real powerhouse to get the ball rolling and an immature Bald Eagle can easily do it. With its formidable hooked beak and powerful muscles in its neck and legs, all it needs to do is get settled by sinking its long talons into the carcass and using the leverage of its body to start slicing open the hide as if it were a surgeon wielding his scalpel. In just moments it has opened up a sizable fissure in the hide and can commence feeding.

This comes as both good news and bad news for the ravens. The good news being now they can start feeding. The bad news however, is the eagle doesn’t like to share. It won’t allow any other bird to join in until it is has fed until it can hardly hop. Ravens are incredibly intelligent creatures while the eagle has the IQ of a four slice toaster. As eagles get along perfectly well with the intellect nature has given them, they’re just not in the same league as the ravens when it comes to subterfuge. Consequently the ravens have to come up with a good plan to outsmart and drive the eagle off if they want to eat before the wolves come back. They can’t physically attack the eagle with brute strength as they’re about 1/5th the size of the eagle, and if the eagle ever gets a talon into one of the ravens it’s all over for the raven. But as a mob they can use their avian cunning to confront the eagle by mock challenging it face to face while the others sneak in and grab its tail feathers or its primary feathers and try and jerk them out. Or use their own sharp bills to strike the eagle anywhere it’s undefended. This makes the eagle absolutely nuts. The eagle will swirl and turn and lash out in an attempt to the grab a raven but they’re just too nimble and before long the eagle is driven to a frenzy and takes off. The ravens prevail.

Having vanquished the eagle they feed as quickly as possibly keeping a keen eye out for the wolves. Even tho a lot of crows are called a “Murder” of crows they’re still a mob and they act like one, using the strength of numbers to get their way. This strategy doesn’t work with the wolves. They will eat ravens as well as elk if they can catch them and often they do.

Approaching The Kill

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Yellowstone National Park

Down in the valley where you can’t quite see it is the remains of a cow elk the Cascade pack brought down two days ago. This meadow is a prime crossing point for the herds to use to get down to the little creeks that feed into the Yellowstone river. The thirstier they get the better the pickings for the Cascade wolf pack.

Success doesn’t go unnoticed however as the scent of a fresh kill or even one several days old travels for miles. Grizzly’s have as keen a nose as the wolves and will quickly track down the spot where food is at. They’ve been known to run off a whole wolf pack to get at the carcass. Even the Cascade wolves old nemesis, the Norris pack, aren’t that far away and will occasionally come over to raid in their territory.

With that in mind each of the wolves of the Cascade pack will cautiously approach the kill site, especially if they’re alone, to make sure they don’t get caught by another predator by surprise. It’s best to use all of their senses when approaching the kill.

Night Terrors

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The herd had moved back into the low rolling hills surrounding the shallow water hole keeping just below the ridgeline and bunching up with the foals inside the outer ring for safety. They didn’t have many enemies but once in awhile a grey wolf down out of the McCullough Peaks range just to the North would take a run at a new foal so they were constantly on the alert. The wolves were over from the Yellowstone area to the West and although the pickings were good there once in a while an outcast or a young male looking for a mate would find his way over and young horse flesh was a real treat if he could manage it.

The herd stallions and there were three with this bunch were nervous, constantly checking the sky and smelling the air. Their ears forward, nostrils flared, seeking any sign of danger, constantly shifting and circling the mares who were bunched as tight as they could be, keeping them as centered as they could in case they had to be moved suddenly.

The skies had that leaden gray look, the clouds filled to the brim with water and pent up energy. Dry lightning had been flashing off in the distance and that made the herd nervous and skittish. Prairie fires racing along ahead of the wind had caught an unwary horse or colt before and the mares were concerned for the new foals who didn’t have the stamina to keep up if they had to run.

The storm had held off throughout the afternoon but suddenly broke with a furious violence right after darkness had set in. A lightning strike in the center of the herd was all it took for the herd to ignite into movement and scatter to the four corners, mares racing off into the darkness in all directions with their foals in tow, the stallions frantically trying to keep the group together, but it was a lost cause for the moment. Total fear and self preservation taking over all thoughts of herd discipline were gone. In its place was only the thought of getting away from the nearest dangers, a reaction to the night terrors that were a constant part of their lives on the open plains.

Cowboys At Work Team Roping

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This post has been moved to OpenChutes.com. All future postings of Powwows, Indian Relay Races, Rodeos and Rendezvous will be posted there from now on exclusively. So if you’re looking for new images and posts for all those events attended this year, plus all the old posts posted on BigShotsNow.com check out OpenChutes.com. See you there!

TeamRoping6032click to enlarge

Team Roping, this is a rodeo event based on real life cowboy work, as are all the events in the rodeo except maybe bull riding. That event is just something cowboys thought up for fun, something to do on a Friday night instead of going to the Punch Up, a shot and a beer and a fist fight establishment out on the county line.

Team roping was particularly important as it was the way cowboys completed the arduous task of handling calves during spring round-up so they could be collected, branded and other necessary activities performed on them. Calves being calves they had some idea of what that all entailed so they would do their best to avoid participating and run away. Especially the little bull calves. Cowboys having to get all this work accomplished had to come up with a way to capture the calf so it could be processed. That’s where team roping came in.

Cowboys on their horses would be hanging around the outside of the herd as it milled around inside the corral and when they saw a calf making a break for it, ride after it to catch it. Two cowboys usually worked together to do this. One cowboy, called a header, would rope the runaway calf or young steer around his horns, and the other cowboy called a heeler, would rope the calves hind feet. The calf unable to run would be secured by the two horses carefully backing up, until the calf was in the position it needed to be for the branding team to run up and tip the calf on its side, so the branding could take place. This was also the time that other necessary things would happen, inoculations, horn trimming if necessary, a short brief instruction session on how to be a proper productive member of the herd, normally delivered by one of the older cowboys, and the calf would be released back to the care of its mother or other proper guardian.

Today things are stilled handled pretty much the way they were 100 years ago. The cows and calves are rounded up, herded into a corral where the cowboys have built a small fire to heat up the branding irons and they go to work. It worked good back then and it still works good today. But we’ve heard that changes may be on the way.

It’s the middle of the second decade of the twenty-first century and some things have changed from the 1800’s. We have iPads now, and cell phones, freeze-dried potatoes that you can just mix with hot water and have for lunch right there at the corral, and that and other digital stuff, changed everything. The word on the range is that soon drones will be flying in with their calf-seeking radar, picking up these calves, hauling them to an area where they are marked with organic recycled ink in place of the old style brand, be subcutaneously inoculated with growth hormones that will double the calves weight every 96 hours, make them mellow and not mean, and lastly, be injected with a personalized  “chip” that will give its location, weight gain over the past 96 hours, its current mood and disposition, whether it is currently being rustled, and provide it with all the necessary information it needs to be a calf in the 21st century.

Now we don’t know if any of that is true or not, it’s just some of the stuff cowboys talk about around the campfire at supper. It makes the time go by and the beans taste better. We do know that the Amalgamated Brotherhood of International Cowboys, (ABIC) the union most cowboys belong to, are definitely against it. We’ll just have to wait and see how all this plays out. For now though it’s business as usual out on the range and the team ropers have their work cut out for them and they’re hard at it.

If you want to see how real cowboys do their work then come down to the rodeo, and the Greeley Stampede is a good one to come to, and watch Team Roping. It’s very cool.

Don’t Hate me Because I’m Beautiful

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DontHateMe5757

It’s been said, mostly by people that aren’t, that being beautiful is a curse. If this is so and who are we to doubt it, then it must cross species and affect all manners of creatures.

Horses are particularly vain. On a recent windy trip across the plains of Wyoming these members of the local herd were pushed up tight against the fence reveling in the way the breeze swept back their manes.

Suddenly this pinto mare began loudly proclaiming to her companions and any other passersby that would listen, that she knew she was beautiful and couldn’t help it, so please don’t hate her because of it. The other members of her group took in this information with mixed reactions.

After a certain interminable amount of this behavior the others began nodding their heads up and down in an agreeable way until she finally quit. Apparently having heard all this before they had figured out that this was best way to shut her up.

Some of the other horses were seen in the background whispering to each other that “She needed to get over herself,” or they might just run her into the fence. It’s refreshing in a way to know that we aren’t the only ones with problems. Even if we too, are beautiful. So please don’t hate us.

CowLick

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CowLick6583click to enlarge

Socializing young elk is a full-time job for elk moms. Its late afternoon the kids are home from school and after snacks and some sprucing up its time to rejoin the herd for the evening get together. During the day the herd goes about its business with the cows finding out where the best new grass is, where the lazy no account bulls might be, and watching over the kids while they’re in school. There’s been some comments made about the length the recesses have stretched to since the cutbacks. It seems like they’ve been doing a lot more playing and a lot less studying, but since they’re only young once and for not very long at that, it’s ok. Mom will pick up the slack. Right now she wants to know how he got milkweed that far into his ear. His brother is taking full advantage of his siblings discomfort to get more than his share of the afternoon pick me up and it seems as if their daily activities aren’t much different from ours. I know my sister used to get milkweed in her ear and she turned out alright.