Moore Longhorn Ranch

Joe and Laramie left the house yesterday with the intentions of building more electric fence around two more circles of cornstalks.  Because of my recent surgery, I was left at home to do bookwork on the computer with one hand at the keyboard and the other dangling in a sling.  To my surprise, the guys came rolling back in the yard two hours later.  A cow had prolapsed out in the pasture.  They switched gears from fence posts and wire to hurriedly catching horses and hooking up the trailer.

Your question at this point is probably, “You said a cow prolapsed?   What exactly is that?”  As you can see from the facial expression on my horse Newt, (a gelding or a male horse) he is a bit embarrased by your question and would rather not be present as I explain the answer.  On the other hand, July who is a mare, is quite practical and would be quite forthright if she were doing the responding.

Let me begin as delicately as I can.  It has something to do with the behind end of this poor cow.  After Laramie and Joe had caught and saddled Newt and July, they all took a ride in the truck and trailer up to the cornstalks about 30 miles away.  Laramie then roped the cow around the horns.  He made sure he was the one who made the catch so that he didn’t have to be the fella doing the ground work at the behind end of the cow.

The lucky guy for that job was Joe.  Some of the inards of the cow had forced their way out the cows back side.  This happens rarely, but when it does the cow often feels the urge to keep pushing her insides to the outside.  Even though she is uncomfortable, she will continue to strain.  I suppose it is like having an itch that you can’t resist from scratching.  Since a cow can’t be reasoned with and asked to stop the behavior for her own sake, the tissues are manually put back where they belong. 

Most times the animal contines to strain and will automatically prolapse after your rope is off the cow and you ride away.  To prevent this, Joe used special suture tape and a special stitch to hold everthing in place. 

The whole event was a success.  The cow was not very pleased afterwards.  The report was that there was much tripping over cornstalks to get out of the cows way after the rope was removed.  The prognosis in this case looks very good.  Outpatient surgery successful.

I never have to look at the internet weather to tell if it has been a chilly night.  When I walk down to do the morning chores, Spongy, our only cat will be sitting in the chicken house window.  He likes to curl up and sleep in one of the hen’s nests on cold nights. We usually don’t let the chickens out until around noon.  Spongy is content to lay in the window and wait.  This morning he was hoping I would open the door and let him out early.  That must mean it is going to warm up quickly this morning.

The guys have been busy building electric fence around cornstalk fields.  Before the cattle get one field cleaned up, another one has to be fenced and ready when they are out of feed.  Joe has been tearing down electric fence from fields already grazed and erecting new fences around fields.  The longhorns have been moved to their third set of cornstalks so far.  Last week the fence was ready, so we moved Pat’s cattle to another field.

Joe, and Laramie and I got to the pasture a little early.  The weather forecast was predicting 30-40 mph winds by 2:00 p.m.   I was ready to have the whole thing completed by then and beat the wind. We began sorting the bulls off of the cows. 

After a few were sorted off, I stayed near the bulls to keep them separated as Joe and Laramie went out and peeled more bulls out of the herd.

Today my job was not very challenging.  The bulls were not interested in any of the cows, which means they are probably all bred.  They were content to stand around a stare at me.  I used my free time to work on a self-portrait.

Before long, Shane arrived with his rig and his horse Deuce.

The bulls sorted off very easily.  We left them in the northeast part of the pasture and started off with the cows.

So far, the day was pleasant.  The sun was nice and shiny  and the wind was tolerable.  The wind was from the south which was the direction we were moving the cattle.  Cattle always move much easier when they walk into the wind. 

There were just remnants of snow left from the last storm.  Some of the fields were very wet and boggy.  Joe’s young horse was glad when Joe got back out on the road with him.  At one point Buddy, my mount, sunk in past his knees. 
Ahh mud!  What a relief after a summer drought.

The day went well.  We had gone about 4 miles or so when the wind changed directions.  It was tolerable although it got cooler in an instant.  Out of nowhere, the tumbleweeds started rolling briskly across the fields.  They were fun to watch and created a little recreation.  Once in a while a horse would suddenly see one moving past him out of the corner of his eye and spook just a bit.  Joe was lazily riding in the front of the herd when his horse threw his head up and bumped Joe in the head.  The day was going so well, the excitement didn’t hurt anything. 

Within about a mile of reaching the pasture we had something much more exciting.  I could see the new pasture and thought we had everything licked.  As we passed a wheat field with calves on it, the calves ran up to the fence to check out all the commotion.  The calves were behind an electric fence and since the cows run behind a hot fence, none of us had much of a concern about what would happen next. 

The calves decided to leave at a run and one brangus cow in the herd put her head up and decided she had an innate desire to follow them.  She left the herd and went through the fence.  We were in a narrow lane and had a hard time holding a few other cows who suddenly thought the brangus cow had a novel ideal which they should duplicate. That was all it took.  We watched as the whole herd plowed through the fence and ran off lickety split.  It was a bit of a set back, but not too bad of a disaster.  Joe and Shane loped off around the cows and easily sorted most of the calves off.  We did end up with two calves in the cow herd, but we were able to let the cows drift by and sort the calves off and put them back in their pasture. 

 There is no photo of these happenings as I was busy riding and sorting cattle.  To take out my camera at that point might have gotten me fired, or I would have at least been given several awful looks by everyone else who was trying to fix the problem.

Joe stayed behind to fix the fence and we drove the cows on to their new cornstalks.  We went to eat a late lunch at 2:00.  When we returned, we moved the bulls about a mile to another set of cows.  The wind was blowing about 20 mph, but amazingly, it wasn’t until we were done at about 4:00 when it started whipping up a storm at 30 mph or more.  We were all grateful to be finished before that.

The last few months it has been painful to look out across the landscape.  There was no green grass all summer, there was no rain, there was no grass growth.  I usually enjoy riding through the pastures and monitoring the range plants.  From the saddle I can look down and see which plants the cattle are eating, how much forage is left behind and how much each type of grass has grown from week to week.  This summer there was no joy in looking down into the grass when riding.  The only change was the slow browning and crumbling of the crisp grasses under the horses hooves.

I rode to the mailbox yesterday, and greatly appreciated the colors of fall across the prairie, even if the background of grass is short and virtually non-existent.

We did receive just enough raindrops a couple of weeks ago to allow the cheat grass to sprout under the trees.  It is comforting to see a cast of green under the trees.  The horses have been nipping at it in the afternoons.   It is light, thin and fluffy and will only last a few more days until a freeze comes.  Dispite its briefness and near uselessness as forage, it does lighten the heart during the middle of a relentless drought.

The lack of cover and growth does help a few things show up.  The buffalo gourds did well through the drought.  Is see them only as a temporarly decoration, but the native Indians to the area would have seen them as a valuable food source, especially in a drought.  The few seeds inside would have been ground for flour, which they would have been thankful for.

The hedge apples have nearly all fallen out of the trees and can be seen everywhere on the ground.  Notice the trail on the back side of the tree.  This is a trail used by deer.  It has been beaten down quite a bit this summer and fall as the wildlife have been seen out in the daytime as well as the nighttime searching for something to eat. 

Tomorrow I think I will take my bicycle out and enjoy the uplift of the autumn colors while they last.

Molly, Whiskey, and Popcorn are our three cattle dogs.  Molly and Whiskey are red heelers, mother and daughter respectively.  Popcorn is the oddball, being the only blue heeler on the ranch.  Each one is an integral part of our ranch in getting the ranch work done. 

Whiskey meets me at the door every morning to go and do the barnyard chores.  She longs for one of us to give her just the slightest nod indicating a horse or a cow needs a nip at the heels to go through a gate or down an alleyway.

Molly is a senior citizen, so she joins us later in the morning and quite often takes a rest smack dab in the middle of the front steps.  However, if she thinks she hears something overly interesting such as a trailer being hooked up to a pickup, she trotts right on down to make sure she doesn’t miss out on action. 

Popcorn is unpredictable.  She is truly schitzo.  She may lay under the house for hours on end and slink off the other direction if you gaze her way.  Suddenly her mood will change and she will beg for attention with a depth of enthusiasm in her eyes which can’t be overlooked. 

Despite their individual personalities, they are all three professional when on the job and are worth their weight in gold when gathering cattle or putting a stray calf back into the corral.  If a horse is left saddled and tied to the hitching rail, the dogs will not budge.  They know they have already clocked in for the work day and wait patiently for the real work to begin.  Without one of these dogs, we would definitely have to hire an employee or a dayworker once in a while.

Even after a hard day’s work, the dogs can never resist a good tassle with the tire swing.

Popcorn is the driving force.  She grabs the rope and swings the tire as high as she can.  Molly and Whiskey wait until it is swinging and attack at will.

 Even after accompanying me all day in the pasture, these dogs still have the will, drive and energy to invest in some great recreation.  It always makes me smile to see them so happy.  Perhaps one day I will train them to leisurely give me a push on the swing at the end of the day.

We drove our cows nearly 85 miles to Medicine Lodge, Kansas.  This was the year to be part in the Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty Pageant which is a historical re-enactment of the not only the signing of a peace treaty between the U.S. government and five Indian tribes, but also the history and traditions of the exploration and settlement of the west.  Our longhorns were used to re-enact the cattle drive era of the 1880′s. 

The cattle drive took us six days to get to Medicine Lodge.  It was a lot of fun with just a little bit or rain and lots of great people.  The following photos were taken from the guests’ perspective. 

David and I are headed out from the ranch.  Notice the only green grass is in the bottom right hand corner.  There is a windmill there, and the runover from the windmill has produced the only green grass in miles.

This is the same pasture.  We rode 11 miles to where the cattle were located, in slightly greener pastures.  From there we drove them another 13 miles to the first campsite.  It was a long day.

We were slowed down a bit along the way when Matt’s two year old refused to cross the first creek we came to.  After some encouragement, the cowboys finally resorted to roping him and pulling him across.  Several more days and miles down the trail, he had no more problems crossing water.

The horses were unsaddled for the day.  I scampered around as fast as I could before dark to get a fire started and supper ready.  Most everyone else found a place for their bedroll that night and spent the evening relaxing.

We did venture into one city along the way.  Wilmore, population of perhaps 15, has a grain elevator, a bank and of course the Wilmore Opry. 

The cattle grazed at the Wilmore City Park as we ate lunch from the chuckwagon.

The cattle grazed, we ate, and those lucky enough not to be holding the cattle horseback did this.

The chuckwagon is waiting on the cattle to drink.  Menno and David are holding the cattle until all the younger cows have wandered into drink.

Paula caught me during the middle of starting supper.  I had just completely gone through the chuckwagon looking for the ingredients for supper that night to make stew, cornbread and peach cobbler.

There was always one more hill to go over, one more gate to go through and one more creek to cross before the day was over.

So when evening came, we were all tired and ready for relaxing around the campfire;

Until the rain came at 4:00 am and tore everyone out of their bedrolls.  Both man and beast were looking for the shelter of this teepee.

It was still a little misty the next day when we made into Medicine Lodge at the ranch rodeo grounds, the end of the trail.

Everyone managed to survive with smiles.  The smiles were either due to a healthy six day existence in the fresh air, or more likely, the visions of the hot shower we were all dreaming about at the time.