PART I

APRIL 9

Horses amaze me. Always. Their level of sensitivity. Every time I visit them in the pasture, I feel it as if for the first time. Their noses are their fingers, and my mare Shark uses hers to explore my face and head. Her twitching lips and nose move around my ears, eyes, and hair. She especially does a lot of breathing into my mustache. Drawing me in and out with each breath, getting a full taste.

APRIL 10

After our meeting with Jessica, the BLM agent, today, we decided that the herd of yearling cattle will go into the Red Wall pastures and allotment, make a big circle through the pastures, and from there come back by headquarters and up the canyon trail into the US Forest Service allotment in the Bighorn Mountains where they will spend the summer. May through June will be spent in the BLM land adjoining headquarters, going up into the hills, then July to September in the US Forest Service allotment way up in the mountains.

It will be the first time we’ve grazed cattle in the BLM Red Wall allotment, which will mean a whole new route. We have to start thinking logistics now. I think we’ll leave the cows behind in the field, and just take the 750 steers into the Red Wall country and pick up the cows on the way through into the canyon. Spending that extra time in the irrigated fields is an excellent idea, if I say so myself, since the cows are three-year-olds with their first calf at side, new to the country, and they need to increase their condition for betting a good breed up in the upcoming season. Besides, I love looking at them, so even better… I will see them every day.

APRIL 18

We looked through the steers today. They are picking up weight now since their arrival, one semi at a time, from Texas, New Mexico and Colorado. They are the most even group to date. And framey! They are going to do well here in Wyoming. 

I can’t believe all the noise the geese are making. I sat by the Medicine Lodge Creek this morning listening to the loud racket coming from everywhere at once. Quite a contrast to the cool steady running water gurgling of the creek beside me. Mating season is here, wildlife everywhere is coming alive as if a bright light was suddenly switched on. Whitetail, mule deer, turkeys, eagles, coyotes still in their gangs. A huge murder of crows was flying down the canyon this morning in a long, long string lasting 20 minutes or longer. So weird how they do that. Where in the hell are they going? Where do they all come from? How come so many?

APRIL 21 

The crew and I  dropped camp off in the Red Wall pasture this morning where we’ll be placing the cattle, put the wall tent up, and built a fence around it to keep the cattle out. Ava is in her first year of an apprenticeship and will be in charge of the cattle this summer. Myles has moved up from Texas where he was working with Mike, and will also spend the summer with the cattle. Both of them will stay with the cattle from the moment we drop them off, so they can place them in the pasture and keep them from walking back. Placing cattle involves moving the herd slowly, slowing them down so they stop to graze and eventually lay down–basically lowering the energy in the herd so they are “placed” where needed, and stay put. Cattle will actually locate in that area, going to water a mile or two away, and return. This is important for yearlings because they like to amble, just take off on an exploratory hike to work off their pent up “teenage” energy. 

We are sorting cattle tomorrow and will then stage the herd that we are taking out in the field next to the gate we will drift them through into the pasture. We’ll be bringing in 952 head to sort the 750 head out of.

APRIL 22

I love working cattle more than anything. Especially these animals that we have raised. They haven’t been spoiled, no bad habits. We get along well because we respect each other and know each other’s tendencies. All I have to do is think ahead of them and then get out of their way. Getting our young people to understand that is my job, which is easier said than done. Unfortunately, handling cattle takes a long time to learn; it is a feel that is gained by experience and practice over a long time, like learning a language. It’s not like learning how to operate a machine, or building a fence, so it doesn’t come easy to our young people. 

I like to think of a herd of cattle as a moving river with eddies, fast currents, slow currents, deep pools, tributaries, waterfalls–all dynamic, different all the time. How can I communicate all this to someone who has spent little or no time with animals, or even outside in the elements? Highly challenging, but one of the things I love doing. From the time someone starts on the ranch, I wait for that moment when the shift happens–a spark that wasn’t there before, a lighter step, a certain way of moving that tells me he or she now has a specific picture in mind that wasn’t there before. It makes me stand back watching and smile. 

We’ll be moving the herd the first of the month, trotting out of headquarters in the dark to arrive in the pasture at first daylight. That way we’ll have the entire day in front of us.

MAY 1

The walk out was amazing. I never tire of seeing a large herd strung out over a mile, curving with the sloping terrain, heads bobbing in rhythm to their walk, one after the other following the lead. The whole time as I rode in front with the lead following right behind my horse, nose almost touching my horse’s tail, I thought how natural the herd seemed, flowing, part of the land. I can’t think of anything in the world that I’d rather be doing.

We arrived at the watering and held them on it so they’d all know the whereabouts of the water. Then because they had tension from walking so far, wanting to keep moving, we pointed them to the Red Wall about a mile away and as they began moving, several of us in front tried to keep them from just walking full stride, trying to get them to put their heads down and graze, or better yet, lay down. The trick is not to try to stop them, but to ease them into grazing, lower the energy in the herd by circling the lead back into the herd, pushing them against steep ravines, anything to get them to slow down. Finally after a couple of hours of work, we had the entire herd laying down at peace. 

This is one of the things I love doing. Once located like this, a herd will (most of the time) maintain this location, going miles to water and returning back.

MAY 2

The whole damn herd was back in the field this morning. Shit-o-dear. Ava forgot to bring personal belongings so she and Myles did not spend the night with the cattle as we had planned. And so they walked back along where they came from, wanting back to familiar ground. Yearling cattle are such teenagers–wacky, temperamental, with a thoughtless follow the leader mentality. It will be one extreme to the other between yesterday and tomorrow; instead of pulling a string like we did yesterday, we will be pushing an anvil through the dirt tomorrow.

I asked Ava to meet with me to talk about this. She feels terrible about it, saying “I didn’t realize that they’d walk all the way back like that.” I explained – that’s why we planned for you to spend the night so you could stay on top of the situation at its most critical point. She has just become an apprentice, and in her new role she is in charge of this major cattle move, including being organized so as to enact the plans we make. Not only was she not ready, but she did not communicate to me that she was behind until the very last moment, when it was too late to make camp. But… that’s the way it works. Our apprenticeship program is founded on young people being in a position of responsibility with a license to make mistakes, true learning experiences. Yes, it was costly in time and opportunity, but she will remember this day, this lesson, for the rest of her life.

MAY 28

The green rolls of land wash up against the Red Wall with antelope, mule deer and cattle spread over it like specks of pepper on a salad. The cattle are gaining, now acclimated to their new home. My bike ride today through the yearlings was an interlude between gaining insight into the waning forage for the season and sheer wonder at this place I live in. How transitory this moment of bright green is against the flat top bright red wall of rock and dirt. My bike ride burned the sight into my mind, planting it like a root–the marvel of nature reminds me of how the work of preserving it goes even beyond my love for our cattle. I can’t believe that I just said that. But it is true and it becomes more so as time passes.

JUNE 15

We are bringing the yearlings back closer to headquarters now, staging them for the big move soon to come. They are fattening, in a steady routine, walking in single files to the back of the pasture for the good feed that’s still left. The cow herd that we are going to mix them with for the next grazing unit is waiting in the Verling pasture for D day, also fat and gaining weight, ready for the bulls that go in today. Lucky boys. Lucky mamas. Breed ups, one of the most important variables we manage, will be good with the good condition they are in.

JUNE 25

Meredith, Jonathan and I went up into the first mountain pasture we’ll be going into with the FJ40 this morning to set up camp, so it will be ready for when we move the cattle in. We set it by the creek with plenty of grazing for the horses close by. The lean-to has a small table at the high end of the tarp, with the kitchen under it, and the back of the lean-to has all our gear, where we’ll keep it and our saddles protected from rain. We will sleep in small backpacking tents away from the lean-to and the fire that we’ll make every evening and morning. It is close to the country where the cattle will be grazing, so we’ll be able to more easily be in the cattle, keeping them located away from the creek and riparian areas. Myles and our intern Rob have never camped like this or done this kind of work before. By the end of the summer, they will have learned more than they can imagine now. The daily routine will be checking for health issues, moving cattle away from riparian bottoms into high ground with good grass, scouting the next place and moving them forward along the route we have planned to the top of the mountain and back down again.

JULY 12

My cows have no idea of where they are going–the beauty, the richness of the land, the pure, dancing water that sustains their lives. And ours. As I rode through them today, spending time just stopping and watching them graze, it was as if the earth stopped turning–that was the feeling that came over me. It reminded me of my friend Chris in Australia many years ago, looking over to me as we trotted along saying with a smile across his whole face, “Good to be kings, huh mate,” turning to look ahead, intently in sync with his horse. Indeed it felt like that in the grass surrounded by the cows. Licking themselves, arching their backs, swishing their tails as they stood as close as they dared, curiously watching me. It’s a marvel how uncomplicated their lives are. Never thinking about the beauty of their surroundings, unless it’s cold or hot or wet or dry, and then it's only about adjusting for comfort and eating. Never even considering insignificant things that plague my mind, like what I’m going to eat tonight or where I’m going tomorrow, or the dream I had last night about the move just ahead of me. 

JULY 13

Tomorrow is the big day up the canyon. I’m a bit nervous and don’t know what to expect.

JULY 15

Moving the herd up the canyon was something I won’t forget. After getting the herd to the trail, I walked through the herd to the very front of it and pushed about 15 head up the trail before me, and began up the trail with them ahead of me, slowly walking, the 735 head behind me. The closest ones behind me followed as they saw their companions moving away from them, and the ones behind them followed them and behind them... and the whole herd behind them. We’d get to a steep part and they’d stop or slow down and I’d barely ease them up and over, the whole herd following strung out who knows how far. It was a walk in the park. 

The creek was almost at its fullest level, roaring past me on its way down, echoing against the walls going straight up a couple thousand feet. There were deep pools and rapids all along the trail. I saw so many pools and runs I want to come back and fish. The trees gradually changed from juniper to thickets of pine and willow, with springs oozing out of the rocks all along the trail. I thought about how a kayaker would be supremely challenged by how fast the water fell, but if you were good, how fun it would be. I’m fascinated by all this water crashing out of mountains, night and day after day, week after week, month after month, hundreds of thousands of years after millions upon millions of years. So hard to get my head around that. Where does it all come from? Rivers always make me wonder about time and life and the infiniteness of nature. 

As we reached the final gate that opened into the pasture we were moving into, I stopped and stood in the shade and watched the long string of cattle slowly trickle through the gate and begin grazing into the fresh pasture. It was an hour before, finally, Myles and Rob and Meredith arrived behind the last bunch. We all looked at one another and smiled, all of us feeling simultaneously a deep satisfaction at having accomplished something that we’d never done before and had been planning for a long time. In three months, we will be back, having made the big circle to the top of the mountain and back down through this same gate, but with fat calves and yearlings, pregnant cows, and the beginning of fall. We sat for a long while chit-chatting, resting our horses, and then separated, going our different ways. Myles and Rob up to the camp we had set up to keep eyes on the herd, Meredith and I back down the canyon.