summer '06
For the last few years the big question around here is where will you have water from June-August. We have several dirt tanks on the mesas and lots of live water (springs and creeks) which is fine when it rains but can get pretty scary when it doesn't. It got pretty dry here from 2000 - 2002 and it was real scary. This year we got no rain from October05 - March06. None. We'd had a good summer last year though and there was still some tank water up on the mesa where the cows were this spring, but not much and towards the middle of June I got nervous as usual, and started to move off the mesa down into Cottonwood, where this year there was plenty of water in the creek.
Frank Begay and his son Dustin came to help and one day I sent Frank and Dustin around towards Trail tank and I went the other way. I got to Smith tank around 10:30 with about 20 cows and their calves and here comes Frank and Dustin bouncing down a really rough road in the pickup, which I had left at the holding trap about 3 miles away with a little hay. They've got a young black cow bogged down in the last little puddle of mud left in the bottom of Trail tank. Looks like she'd been there a while, but she's still alive and has some try left. They couldn't pull her out with their horses, they tried digging her out, throwing rocks in there, no go. Frank thinks he maybe can drive across about a mile and a half of malapai boulder strewn cedared up roadless mesa and get her out. I say ok, I'll take this bunch to the trap and trot back and see if I can help. When I get there sure enough, they've made it in and got her out and on her feet even though she keeps falling over every time she charges them. Her little red calf isn't helping her any but he's hungry and he doesn't really care that mom's had a hard time the last couple of days.. I drive her over to the trap where there's a tank with some water left and she makes it ok but it wasn't easy for her. I'm proud of Frank, really impressed that he figured out how to get in there and bounced that truck all the way in and got her out. I wouldn't want to drive through there, even if it was in a company vehicle.
We got all but a few cattle I'd left on purpose way up high where there was lots of old dry feed, and drove them off of there into Cottonwood. We cut Frank's cow and her calf back as we figured she was still too weak to make the drive.
The evening Frank and Dustin pulled out we had to go to a wedding. I was kinda wore out as we'd been getting up at 3 to beat the heat and I was looking forward to sleeping in. We had a great time at the wedding but Juanita had to drive home and when we got here at 1:30 am I learned from my neighbor on our answering machine that lightning had started a fire right where I'd left those cows.
I staggered out of bed the next morning and trotted about 5 miles up there and found the fire. It had struck a ridge right below the top of the ranch, burned up a big steep bowl and rimmed out right where the cattle had been, then pretty much laid down and gone to sleep. There were just 2 little trees with visible flames about a foot high. The cows that were there had pulled out. I got behind one old bull that was leaving anyway and started him off towards a tank about 500ft and a quarter mile below. When I got there I found him in a kinda stand-off with 3 firefighters they'd helicoptered in the evening before. We had a good visit. The team leader had been gung ho the night before. He said things really got going for awhile there and he had wanted to call in the air-tankers and the whole nine yards. Fortunately we have a Ranger who is willing to let a fire burn when conditions are right and she had told them to let it go for awhile. All us professionals on the ground there decided it was pretty much out anyway. I told the crew to have the dispatcher call me if they needed me and started for home. The wind picked up a little and it warmed up a lot. I stopped to water my horse down the country a couple of miles and looked back up there. There was smoke all the way across the top of the ridge and in places the flames were probably 20 ft high. The fire would crackle around a big juniper tree and then whoosh, up she'd go. Amazing.
It rained a little that evening and things pretty much quit but we almost had a hell of a fire.
A few days later I went up there to see what was going on and I picked up a little bunch of cows with an extra calf. I started them over to Trail tank and tried to remember where I'd seen that calf before. As we got to the tank it dawned on me. Damn! That's the calf that was following Frank's cow. There she was. Again. Stuck up to her chin.
I probably would have just shot her if Frank hadn't already showed me the way to get her out. This time though, the pickup was about 8 miles away and it was about 3 pm when I found her. I trotted home, got the truck and got her out of there one more time. It rained again and those tanks caught enough water to cover up the bad mud so she'll be allright next time she goes by there.
