More Branding from 2004

Clayton starting 3-yr. old in branding trap.

June is always a busy month for ranchers. We're hardly in the house long enough to eat and sleep. Besides branding, there's also shipping, sorting and putting bulls out. Some years heifers are artificially inseminated. There's farming and yardwork. And, all this is done while working around the rain and mud. Not complaining though. We talked to a friend in Oklahoma today. He had to ship all his cattle 250 miles away. The drought down there has devasted the country.

This year it's even wilder since Ray retired this month after 37 years on the same ranch. I really don't have time to sort photos. I need to be sorting everything we own since we are in the moving process. We're not going far. This is home.



I still have a brace on my right hand, but hopefully that will be gone next week. I only wear it now when I'm working, so at least I can type now. Next week is the 18th annual camp meeting at church. It goes all week, and is a great time, but very busy since the ladies feed 3 meals a day, and Ray and I always help clean up after the late evening meals. At  least this year I don't have to get up at 5 a.m to brand!



Using nordforks.

Here's some of my favorite branding photos from a few years back. Not a whole lot has changed. One thing I look forward to with our new freedom is being able to get out and get cowboy photos from other places. I doubt that we'll be retired long. Ray's already looking forward to new opportunities. Only at a little lower stress level.

That's good. I'm not ready for "driving Miss Daisy"!

Vernon heeling on Little Brown Jug.









Cowcamp Summers

1986 - "Let's Do Lunch" This was a fun way to pack a lunch during cowcamp summers. It's still a fun way!

"...feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord?"

Cowcamp Cooks, pt. 2



1986 Branding Crew at Cowcamp Cookhouse

Virginia left me with lots of story material. I need to get them written down before they fade away. Ray always says those are things he'd just as soon forget.

Ray ended up hauling Virginia to town before she ended up killing someone with the .45 she'd use to threaten the cowboys with, until they'd finally gotten a belly-full and told the Cowboss (Ray) what was going on. He tried to get some backup, but the Manager told Ray he'd have to handle that one on his own. He'd seen enough guns in Korea.

The night Virginia left her mark in the wall,  (part 1), Harold managed to get her bullets away after the fight, and escaped out the door. The cowboy wasn't so lucky. He'd been visiting in the cookhouse after they'd come home from the laundromat in town. He was sitting at the backside of the table against the wall.

When Harold escaped, Virginia picked up a big butcher knife. The cowboy told us she stood there shaking that knife at him while yelling about what a rotten s.o.b. Harold was. He said he just sat there, shook his head up and down, and agreed with her. As soon as she turned around for a minute, he escaped out the window.

She couldn't cook anyway. She used cream of chicken soup for everything. To cook eggs in the morning, she'd just break a dozen eggs into a cake pan, and bake them in the oven.

One poor young fellow who was away from home for his first big adventure, couldn't handle those eggs in the morning. That ticked Virginia off to the point that she stuck that .45 in his face and said, "you little s.o.b., you will eat those eggs!". He did. But he never went in for breakfast after that. I think she ruined it for him. The romance of cowcamp life wore off real quick. He only lasted a few months.

She was the first. We never did find a good cook that year. From February to November we went through five cooks. Including me since I was usually the back-up between cooks. I never really minded, except for having to haul and heat water for dishes. Once I'd get the place cleaned up, it was actually kind of cozy.

I missed the old cookhouse on branding days though. We all got to eat at the long old table and benches out front. In 1990 everyone was provided with their own cooking facilities, and the cookhouses were shut down. Since then the crew either packed a lunch or waited until they got home.

One cowboy who later had a horseback wedding in summer cowcamp, liked the spring camp so much he took his bride to the old cookhouse for their wedding night.

They're not together anymore.

Cowcamp Cooks, part 1

The best cook in the world!  No one could cook like Tom.

I guess I'll have to do this in parts. And I haven't even really got to the stories yet...

Up until 1990 we used a cowcamp that consisted of an old homestead cabin that doubled as a cookhouse and cook's quarters, a couple of outhouses that were full of bullet holes, an ancient long, low rambling so-called barn (full of rats), pole pens, a tiny little old bunkhouse, and a quonset shed. Six single cowboys would live there from mid-February to the first part of July when they would move to another cowcamp until November. We would also park a couple of little camp trailers there so the cowboys could spread out a little.

There was no electricity, and the water came from a pump in front of the cookhouse. We had propane refrigerators on the rickety porch. One had to be cranked up to use for a freezer. There was a propane cookstove inside, a barrel wood stove for heat, and propane lights. The original settlers must have been pretty small, because the cupboards and sink were back-breaking low. There was also a little old set of kitchen cabinets that good cooks would clean the mouse droppings out of prior to filling.

Cowboys were pretty easy to come by then, but finding a good cook to work under those conditions was a little trickier. A cook set the tone for the entire spring. A good cook that was easy to get along with meant we'd have a pretty content crew. A bad cook could lead to disaster. Obviously we tried to avoid young single women. Usually we'd try to have a married cowboy whose wife would cook. More often than not we'd end up with some guy who was half crazy, or a drunk who needed a job for awhile to dry out--or a combination: A half-crazy drunk.

The "living quarters" consisted of a cramped little room in back with an old double boxspring and mattress that mice always lived in the rest of the year. There's a head and shoulders hole in the bare wallboard where Harold tried to put Virginia through after she'd put away most of a bottle of whiskey--which they weren't supposed to have in camp in the first place...

To be continued...

*Between part 1 & part 2, on 6.7.11, Ray retired after 37 years. It was time.*