Finishin' the Job

~I'd be in for a long and uneasy ride if

something happened to my ranch.~

~Jolie Becker 1889~

Yesterday, I helped the 3J Ranch gather up and bring in the pairs that we had gathered last week. We had thrown them into a pasture above the ranch until they could figure out where the rest of the renegades had gone too (they were missing quite a few pairs because of open gates).

You might wonder how hard could it be to find missing cows...well, Harney County encompasses 10,288 square miles, has a total population of approx 7,000 of which approx 5,000 live in the only incorporated towns of Burns and Hines. The government owns approx 5 million acres and privately owned lands are a little over 1.5 million...and there are approx 15 head of cows per one person. So, when someone leaves a gate open from private land onto public land...it can take a while to figure out where they went!!!

Whoops...got side tracked!!

Anyhow, we had a bit of snow overnight, but nothin' too serious. The wind hadn't come up yet, but I was prepared just in case.

Colt's ready to ride! Jerry and some of the dogs are ready to go. I say "some" because I think there were seven!

We had trailered up above the pasture and rode in. There were quite a few pairs at the gate we went in at and we pushed them downhill.

Ty took the middle section and I took the south side and headed west. The only thing Ty and I found was one lone bull. All he wanted to do was follow the fence to the north. Colt and I had to work hard on gettin' him headin' down the draw to the creek trail that lead back to the ranch.

If you look closely in the center of the photo, you 'll see Ty making his way off the rim.

This gorge is awesome. I'm really zoomed in on it here (and it's spitin' snow on us so it's dark)...next time I'm up there, I'm going to ride to the edge for photos. The creek follows that gorge down to the ranch.

The trail around the gorge winds up the hill to the south. Three of the 5 bulls are seen makin' their way to the crest.

This is the gorge from the west side (with much better lighting as.it wasn't snowing on us).

Jerry rides up to close the gate. You can see the trail we took down on the right.

Two of the five bulls were someone else's, so we had to get their three separated and put into the winter bull pasture. The other two got put in with the cows...because there were pairs that belonged to someone else!!! See...everyone's missin' cows...and bulls! On horseback we sorted out the cows, calves and bulls that belonged to a neighbor.

Colt 'n his compadres are restin' after a hard work...the ground was pretty soft up on the hill and they had a good workout.

Using the pens pictured below, we sorted the cows from the calves...on foot...it's the easiest and we had it done in no time at all.

Old but well built in it's day, these pens are still being used today. Thousands of cows have gone through these workin' pens.

The forlorn calves...they'll get over it in a couple of days.

The cows? LOL...they seem to be relieved!

And what about Bella Jo the wanna be cow dog? I'm almost ready to say she IS a cow dog! She did great...every time we go for a day of work, she just keeps gettin' better and better...lots more training is needed, but she made me proud this day!

Bella Jo enjoyin' a piece of elk that was butchered from hunting season...one happy dog!

I need to get some pics of her with the cows...but I can't ride workin' cows, keep an eye on Bella Jo, and take pics at the same time!!!!  I'll bring out my ol' Fuji camera and give it a try next time. They wean calves in groups...and they've still got quite a few more. All righty...let's do it all again!!