Carolyn Dufurrena

Frenchy Montero, Leonard Creek Ranch photo Montero family files

We lost two of our own recently, and as it happened, the funerals were just two days apart.

Frenchy Montero was an old friend, a lifelong rancher who grew up with the country. He leaves behind a big family, a lot of cattle, and some great memories. The school district even rescheduled the kids' rural basketball tournament for later in the afternoon today, because they knew that everybody'd be in town for his funeral anyway.
Hundreds of people went, including a retired San Francisco 49ers coach. People said you couldn't get anywhere near the actual service, so lots of 'em stood outside in the cold sunshine and told stories about Frenchy instead. The Kretschmer girls sang cowboy songs like angels in the Catholic church, and somebody played 'Taps' at the end. The family had to hold the reception at the convention center. We'll miss him, but the halls of heaven will be a louder and more raucous place with Frenchy up there.

It's one thing when an old friend dies, but when it's a kid who meets death on a gravel road at night, it makes you wonder who's in charge of things up there. Sammye Jo Edwards was 20, a shining freckled cowgirl star in the southern Oregon desert. Gone too soon, and too suddenly. It was a different kind of funeral, in the community hall in Denio where she played basketball just a few years ago. Friends flew in from as far away as Florida, and none of them were really talking much after. Our prayers go with her folks, Sis and Nolan; that ought to be about enough pain for them by now.

Rest easy, friends.
May the loved ones
who have gone before
meet you there,
just on the other side
of the road.

Frenchy Montero, Leonard Creek Ranch, age 74.
Sammye Jo Edwards, Colony Ranch, Fields Oregon, age 20.

Posted by Carolyn Dufurrena at 9:59 AM | Permalink

Calving Heifers

The first cow’s calf hit the ground this year on New Year’s Day, but thankfully the heifers waited until February to begin their journey into motherhood. Now all at once, it seems, calves are everywhere. Four birthing mothers this morning seek the brushy corners of the calving pasture, laboring in relative privacy, where they can stand over their newborn for awhile, till he’s dried off, hopefully fed and sleeping.
Overnight, it seems, almost, thirty of them have arrived, curled up tight against the six-degree dawn, hunkered in an east-facing swale or a sunny niche under a frozen sagebrush. How do they know, the first night of their lives, to tuck themselves against a tumbleweed-drifted fence, where they will soak up the paltry warmth of a winter sun on their second full day on Earth?
In a day or two, we’ll gather them up. After they’ve had a chance to get used to each other without the interference of men, the cowboys will gently urge the new babies and their frequently goofy mothers out of the brush and toward the corral. There they’ll be relatively protected from coyotes and the worst of the north wind.
In the morning these calves will wake up with a score of their newborn cousins, and by 9:30, when the air warms to a comparatively balmy 25 degrees, they’ll have someone to play with. Moms will be head-down in the drifts of fresh hay scattered by the feed truck, except for the designated babysitter. She will wait her turn, keeping the children occupied in the far corner of the corral while their new mothers refuel, gathering up the young, in a pattern as old as time.

Babysitting
Photo by Carolyn Dufurrena

Posted by Carolyn Dufurrena at 5:22 PM | Permalink

Barb Wire Heart by Susan Glaser Church

Valentine's Day on the ranch generally isn't the romantic fantasy it's cracked up to be. Still, working side by side in difficult circumstances forges its own bonds... I'd love to hear some other examples from you all out there...

Friday Night C-Section: Valentine?s Day

Holiday weekend
He's done what he can. The cowboy
Comes to the door, holding bloody gloves,
Defeat on his face.

Hook up the trailer, 6:00 Friday night
And the roads not so damn peachy either

Too small to believe she's calving,
Trying to die besides.
Load that damn heifer up
Head for town.

Freezing rain whips our faces in the dark,
One of those marital planning conferences
that takes 30 seconds.
"You go get groceries, as long as we're here,"
He says, unhooking behind the vet's concrete operating room.
"This is going to take awhile."

I take my time, staring at paint in the hardware store,
Not thinking about the salmon pink
Of the bedroom walls.
I was going to fix the place up
Last week
For our anniversary.

At 7 pm, I push open the door to the
Bright-lit room.
Red heifer's still standing,
The vet, long dark hair and girlish smile
Wiping her face with her sleeve
Pools of blood at her feet.
She's getting there.

The steel chute holds the patient steady
So she doesn't kick the doctor.

Imagine standing, conscious, for a C-section.

"Hold this suture for me?"
I sit down on the stool next to her, watch
Her strong, quick hands twist
The curved needle, layer by layer,
Long fingers catching the cat's cradle of tissue
Spin, twist, tie,
spin, twist, tie
through the tough hide.

"I'm getting slower." She shakes her head.
"Hands are getting tired."

Both of us cut sutures,
Helping her finish.
She might as well have her Friday night.

I don't ask about the calf.

Home late
Weather's no better on the way out.
We park the trailer in front of the house
Leave that heifer in it overnight,

Eat sandwiches I picked up in town.
Watch TV without talking
For our anniversary dinner.

Posted by Carolyn Dufurrena at 5:19 PM | Permalink

Aussie Bush Poet Milton Taylor coaches two rural school students in a traditional Australian poem, "There's Only Two of Us Here"

It has become our habit, after the Cowboy Poetry Gathering winds down, to have a smaller gathering up in Denio for the rural school kids who can't make it to Elko. This year our dear friend Milton Taylor and several of his admittedly northern hemispheric pals stopped over at Quinn River Ranch for the night to catch up with the regulars on the Dufurrena sheep outfit. The next day students, parents and preschool siblings gathered from around Humboldt County at the Denio Community Hall to hear Australian classics such as Banjo Patterson's "Man From Ironbark". They sang with Washington poet Dick Warwick, and learned the basics of clogging from Milton's pal Dr. Pat Davidson of Spokane. A fine potluck lunch was served by the ladies of the community, contributed to by the travelling students, and a good time was had by all.

Pat Davidson of Spokane, Washington, teaches the assembled multitudes the finer points of clogging.

Posted by Carolyn Dufurrena at 5:11 PM | Permalink