Working in Cottonwood - fall 06
Last month I had to move some cattle down the country into our Smith Canyon pasture, according to the annual operating plan we'd agreed on with the Forest.
looking down into Smith Canyon
I camped by myself at a set of corrals and a little holding trap we have in the middle of our Cottonwood Pasture.
camp at Cottonwood
The second night I was there I'd just gone to sleep when my horses got into a fight and an ORO mare tried to escape by jumping over the barb-wire fence, but she didn't quite make it. I had to cut her out of there and drive the 3.5 hours home to doctor on her and catch a replacement.
The next couple of days went pretty good. The cattle were fat and there was a lot of feed left. If I owned the whole place I might have left them there a while longer, but I figured I better stick to the plan. They were really scattered and the biggest bunch I trailed up only had about 5 cows and their calves in it. On the 4th day I started out of the little holding trap with about 40 cows and their calves and a few bulls (about 80 head, total).
heading for Smith Canyon
They left the holding trap in fine style and strung out about 1/4 mile as they traveled up the road. I was pretty proud of them as at the rate we were traveling I figured to make the 4 mile drive by noon and still have plenty of time to brand the handfull of late long-eared calves in the bunch. That was when I snapped the picture above.
If I had been up on the point where I should have been instead of back there farting around with my little camera patting myself on the back, I probably could have kept the leaders from turning up Mud Spring canyon to get a drink instead of staying on the road like I wanted em to. But I wasn't and they did and when I ran up there to turn em around another little bunch went down the canyon and pretty soon I had cattle scattered all over the place. This was when I began to re-think my idea about how efficient it would be to just work this pasture by myself.
After many bad words and a lot of effort by my little mexican horse Noriega ( Frank Begay re-named him "Osama" because he's hard to catch), I finally got em lined out and up the road to where I was gonna brand the calves and put em through the gate. Which I would have done if I hadn't figured out when I counted them that I was short 4 cows and had split 2 pairs - a red steer and a black heifer hadn't mothered up and were looking back down the road.
I went back to Mud Springs where I'd spilled them and cut for sign around the outside of where I'd been and sure enough there went their tracks back down the canyon towards camp. I overhauled them about 45 minutes later and we turned around and made the drive again. The red steer got tired of waiting, crawled through the fence and came trotting down the road to meet us. He and his mom were pretty glad to see each other.
When I quit for the week I was still short about 35 cows, but I found a hole in the fence between us and the neighbors. Frank and I will go over there when they work and then we'll try to find whatever is left in Cottonwood. Job security.
