Boots on the Ground

Finally...a chance to share with you pictures and memories from the Bar LL Ranch and Lutheran Ladies' Academy.

I mentioned heading up into the hills to bring cattle down. This is necessary for sorting and branding them, which went on later in the week. No, city boys, sorting is not done by color. (Except for those stupid red cattle that the Rancher despises.) They're sorted by age and sex; cows, heifers (females who haven't had calves yet) steers and calves. Then they are processed in different ways, depending on...age and sex.

So, to begin with, heading up into the hills to collect cows (they're all called cows for short) involves getting out of bed, caffeinating oneself, saddling a horse, and mounting up. So, let's start by...no, I won't show you pictures of anyone getting out of bed or getting caffeinated. That would be too scary. How about some pictures of my friend Wendi's backyard?






Yeah. Her backyard.

So we rode back up into the hills; actually, you're looking backwards, over some of the terrain through which we rode. Looking forward looked something like this;




After a while, we stopped to cross a creek. This is where we had the tough spot I mentioned a few days ago. You know, the time we had a horse that wouldn't cross the creek (the palomino in the above picture,) a broken saddle, and an embarrassed young lady. Some of us turned back and headed homeward; the rest continued on to gather cattle.

Later in the day, 4/5 of us who returned home headed back out to help. We rode on until our fearless leader, Ranchwife Wendi, encountered a rattlesnake. She ventured forth, ready to dispatch the reptile.




Alas, the offending beast was not to be found. One less rattle in Wendi's collection. We were late for the gathering, but watched as the Rancher, Mary and a local cowhand brought them in.




That's our delicate little flower, high on the hill, in the blue shirt, on the chestnut horse. We brought the cattle down a little closer to the house. As we finished our day, I got a nice picture of the Rancher and Ranchwife.



And they got one of me.





Yes, Matthew, that's your Iraq boonie. And, yes, Ethan, that's Sebastian. He's not the PITA you told me he was. We got along fine.

More to come.