🔵 By Matthew Boivin. Photo by lauragrafie.
One of the busiest times of a year for a cowboy is the roundup. Here on the prison ranch, it’s no different. We keep a winter herd so our calves are usually on the ground by April with the first roundup happening in May. This year’s May roundup passed without a page in the Tales, but in May, we round up all the cows for vaccination and got to work on the calves-castrating, tagging, vaccinating, worming, and taking inventory. The roundup in this issue is the most adventurous – we wean the calves off their mommas and anything can (and does) happen! The October 2021 weaning roundup was no exception and went on for more than a week. We wound up with 433 calves in the corral, bawling for their mommas on the other side of the fence, bawling right back!
The calves were crying, “Momma!”, and some cows answered, “I’m here baby”, while other cows answered, “You’ll be alright!”, as they walked away to graze. It’s fascinating to see the level of devotion a cow has for her calf. That level of devotion varies from cow to cow even among the same age groups. I’d figure a first-year cow would be more attached to her calf than a veteran cow after five or six calves, but it doesn’t work that way. Some of the veteran cows have charged my horse, protecting her calf while some first-year cows leave their babies orphans to be bottle-fed. We could argue love versus instinct or nature versus nurture until we’re out of breath, but the fact remains that some cows are better mommas than others. Hard to imagine hamburger meat with a personality, but watching the same cows for years shows each has distinctive traits different from the next.
The roundup started on a Monday with plans to push a herd of cows off their grazing pasture to another beside the corral as we gathered nearly 1.000 cows and calves. I pulled Bow out of the stable after a breakfast of oats grown here on the farm last year, leading him out of the barn and patting his neck. I told him, “Put your head down”. After months of making him lower his head to take the bit and bridle, he’ll respond to a verbal cue. Every once in a while, he feels ornery and only drops his head a little. “You know better”, I say. “Put you head down”. Then he’ll drop his nose to the ground with a silent horse-snicker. “He-he-he. Down here?”
His mouth is open and ready when I give him the bit, and he lifts his head happy with himself for his little joke. I drop his reins on the ground with a “Stand there”, and get the brush to groom him for the saddle. In the summer, he shines like new copper and swells his muscled chest, proud of his sorrel coat. I brush his forelocks out of his eyes and saddle him up.
“Let’s go to work,” I say, and he follows me to the trailer, loyal as a puppy. A soft “Load up,” and he walks right in, ready to spend a day doing his favorite thing – pushing cows around.
We make it to the pasture and unload the horses. Bow’s still a little scared of unloading backwards, but he’s learning. He backs up slowly, keeping his croup against the side of the trailer, touching the floor twice with his back feet, feeling gingerly before making the next step. Once his butt feels the opening, he stretches out a back leg, reaching for the ground, trying not to lose his balance. He fell once and is still trailer-shy from it, but he gets better every time he unloads.
I tighten his latigo and mount up, sliding my boots in the stirrup and settling into my saddle. I cross the split reins over his neck and slide my hand forward, shifting my weight to let him know it’s time to go to work. A common misconception lingers that a horse has to be kicked to go, but not so with Bow. He feels every move I make on the saddle and responds to a twist of the reins held in my left hand. I drag my thumb toward the right, and he steps right. A drop of my pinkie to the left, and he steps left. A touch of the spur rowel to either shoulder as he turns sends him to a hard snap in that direction. At a walk while looking for cows, I drape the rains over the saddle horn and point right or left, shifting my weight and delighting in the way he shifts direction just on the shift of my weight and pointed finger.
I know Bow has found the cows when his ears perk forward and his step quickens. He’s ready to work and shifts into a jog trot, anxious to herd cows. For months, we’ve been training just this way, and this big gelding isn’t afraid to work. I post the trot with the reins still over the saddle horn, letting bow decide where to go. We take a smooth two-beat trot across 120-acres of pasture to where the cows have pushed the fence down into a wooded area being logged to make more pasture. I feel more comfortable guiding him through the pulpwood, limbs, and stumps still scattered across the ground, but we push the cows back into the hay pasture they broke out of. Of course, there was a deer stand owned by one of the prison staff near the downed fence, so the cows probably had a little help with the fence. I have yet to see a cow that knows how to cut barbed wire (they usually just run through it), but Bow wasn’t worried about anything but moving cows.
Once we were out of the woods, literally, I draped the reins back over the saddle horn and let Bow do what he knows to do. He has an extended walk as fast as a trot and uses it as he paces behind the herd, pushing them where they need to go. I touch him with a spur every now and then to keep him in the area he needs to cover, but mostly I let him have his head. Occasionally, a cow will lag behind, trying to be the drag, but Bow’s on her. He turns his head first, judging the distance, then his body follows if she doesn’t get in line with just a look. Bow doesn’t like a cow behind him and won’t let one fall back on a drive unless I tell him to leave her behind.
I spot a lone calf at the woodline and tell my supervisor I’m headed after him. The other five cowboys can handle the herd. Besides, the cows are following an old Army issue Hummer I attached a feeder and siren to, so the herd’s under that siren’s song, hoping for a taste of grain. While the others are keeping the herd following the feed truck, Bow and I make our way to the woodline. The calf isn’t more than three months old and scared being alone. We cut into the woods to push the calf into the hay pasture after the herd. Calves are tricky. They know two things: run, and run the other way. The calf tried his tricks, but Bow’s a cow-horse too wise for a green calf. Before that calf knows it, Bow has him slowly running toward the rest of the herd. The calf realizes he’s been beat and slows down to a trot, but keeps looking behind him to see where Bow is. He’s looking for a way out, but Bow has the calf in his sight and shifts to keep the calf in check. The calf gets tired and tried to stop, but Bow drops his nose and nudges the calf forward. If the calf doesn’t get the message, Bow reaches out and bites the calf gently on the neck. We get the calf back to the herd and move them to the staging pasture without any real action. I’m a little disappointed because I’m still young enough to enjoy a rodeo, but there’ll be time for that soon enough. I’m more proud of the way Bow handled that calf than anything. I felt a little left out – all I had to do was sit in the saddle; Bow did all the work.
Tuesday came early, and we were in the saddle before sunrise. The Hummer was riding point singing that mechanical siren’s call to the feed it carried, drawing the cows surely as a magnet draws iron. Bow and I stayed in a trot to push the herd into something we could control. Bow loves covering ground and bullying cows around, so we really made quick work of driving the cows and calves into the corral. We left one cow with a swollen ankle behind, but once the cows got corralled, the bawling started. The cows know the corral means something’s going to happen and Bow was dancing around, stomping his feat, anxious to go after a cow. He knows it’s time to work, too. I tied Bow and worked a gate on foot for a while, letting the first-time supervisor get his feet wet. It wasn’t long before Bow and I got called to the sorting pen, where the fun really is. It was our job to help bring a handful of cows and calves to the gate for the cut. Cows get cut out, and the calves get cut back into the sorting pen, separating them from their mothers. Bow fell right in, keeping a group of cows pressured against the corral wall as he walked sideways, escorting them to the gate without taking his eyes off the group. A calf slips by without a reaction, but let a cow try to shoot out of group – Bow puts a stop to that right quick.
It took some hours, but we finally got all the calves separated and the cows pushed out of the pen. The work was far from over, though. During the sort, we found two cows needing medical attention and ran the first cow into the head chute giving her shots for foot rot and dose of antibiotic. The swampy bogs and rocky terrain keep foot problems in the herd. The second cow had an abscess the size of a soccer ball on her left hip. After I gave her a healthy dose of antibiotic, I drew a syringe-full of the abscess to see what I was dealing with. The syringe filled with pus, and I knew it had to be lanced. When I have my own ranch, I’ll use a microscope to identify the bacteria, but for now it has to come out. I showed the supervisor, and he used his buck knife to lance her. Fluid shot out at least 6 feet before draining like a faucet when he pulled his knife out. We spent then minutes squeezing the infection out of her before shooting syringe-fulls of water into the hole to rinse and clean. The last syringe was 50% dilated antibiotic to fight the infection at the site. The poor cow is only four years old with six good calving years ahead of her. She had to get medicine.
Wednesday was off to a running start when we were told first thing to saddle up – the calves pushed through a fence panel, pulling the staples out of the post after breaking the support boards. We gathered up the calves, fixed the fence and got ready to sort the escapees off their mommas. Bow got to show out, holding the gate and cutting the cows out. He’d hop right or left, making that calf turn back and sending momma-cow packing. More than once he proved his mettle, making quick work of the cut. We had plenty of time left to put out hay for the calves before calling it a day.
When Thursday rolled in, the supervisors were groaning about another day in the saddle, but a prison cowboy like me would spend every day in the saddle if need be. A few calves managed to slip under (yes, under!) a fence panel, but Bow and I had them rounded up and sorted without even having to pen them. The real cowboy work came later in the day.
Nothing says cowboy like loading a wild cow into a trailed in the middle of an open pasture. No corrals, no loading chutes, nothing but ropes and horses. We uncoiled the ropes and went after the cow with a swollen ankle from Tuesday. Bow was where he needed to be, but I threw and missed. My supervisor caught her then, and the other supervisor backed the trailer to the cow. I handed my rope off and moved Bow beside the trailer. The rope was handed through the trailer, and I dallied, holding the cow while the other rope was put in place. With two ropes on her, the horses pulled the cow to the edge of the trailer like she wasn’t 1.100-pounds of “I-don’t-want-to-go!” She used the side of the trailer as a brace against the horses, but that only made it worse for her. The horses choked her down, and she fell trying to get some air. We reset the ropes and got her up before pulling her into the trailer. She didn’t put up nearly the fight this time, practically jumping into the trailer!
I should have seen it coming when Friday and Saturday passed without incident, because when we got called to work Sunday at 11 am, we paid for the two easy days. Overnight, something got the calves stirred up. Whether it was a pack of coyotes looking for supper or just one homesick calf working the others into a frenzy, those calves were REALLY motivated to get out of that pen. They pushed the front gate down flat, snapping the timber used as a gate post and busting out of the cage. It took us six hours to repair the damage they caused, and I burned at least 75 welding rods making sure that gate wouldn’t come down for more than 20 years.
We found a 24-inch irrigation pipe and used a Caterpillar Irac-Hoe as a 180.000 post-pounder, but we put the end of that pipe 8-feet into the ground. A calf pushing that down could go anywhere she pleased; I wouldn’t dare try stopping her! Of course, fixing that gate was only half the solution. That still left 300 cows to be sorted off the calves again. Their little prison break added two days of work just when we thought we had them whooped.
Monday, we had an unplanned day off. The calves at the other unit broke out of their corral, and our supervisor had to put their horses in the trailer to head that way. I spent Monday writing this journal, and Tuesday was chaotic for entirely different reasons. The calves are back with the cows, and all the sorting work we did last week is still waiting to be done again. A cowboy’s work is never really done, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Not only does it give me plenty of material to write about, it gives my life purpose right now.
Sure, I’m in prison and not a “free” man, but Bow doesn’t know or care that I’m a prisoner. We’re growing into a good team, and every day I hone the skills that will make it easier for me to be truly free once I make it to the other side of the fence separating me from society. Horses are part of me now, and as a Farrier, they’ll remain in my life until I’m too old to think. The coppery smell of horse in my nostrils and the feeling of peace sitting high on Bow’s back awakened something primal in me: an ancestral memory hidden in my soul letting me know it’s all going to work out exactly as it’s supposed to. Every day. I rest in cowboy’s peace and the comfort of knowing I’m in touch with an age-old relationship far greater than myself.