Returning the favor

[Iggy]

Now to be honest, I ain't fed a cow critter in nearly 20 years. My family put me to managing a ranch near Medicine Bow, WY that is too barren and cold for cows in the winter.

It's on the other side of that mountain in the distance.


Five years ago I pretty much retired from that too.

But that ain't the point of this thread anyway. If you click on the word "ranch" at the start of the story you will see the ranch where I growed up and returned to after I left LE.

Just Returnin' The Favor

Merry Christmas from our outfit to yours..
Iggy and Itchy..

 

[Onomea]

Hadn't read that one before, Iggy. Good one!

 

[steelslaver]

I can relate.
As a kid, my summers were spend stacking hay and in the winter my weekend were spend loading it and cake onto trucks and feeding cows.

Now days the big round bales have changed the game. Stacking bales and hay hooks are uncommon. They pull under a hopper and load the cake into a box like deal that augers it out for the cows.

Cows can be interesting critters. Some seem to have had the light come on and figure stuff out.

It is funny when someone unfamiliar comes into the country and comes up on a bunch of cattle on a road. Many of them start honking the horn, LOL, To most Montana range cows your ringing the dinner bell and they really mob your rig then.

I go outside every morning and greet the deer that live here. They get a small scoop of either cracked corn or small pellets and a small slab of hay. You have me wondering if I do it for them or to relive a bit of my distant youth.

 

[steelslaver]

Oh, Rancher story.

Guy goes to town and buys himself a new 3/4 ton 4x4. While he is there he runs some Blue heeler pups and gets one. Life is good.

Back at the ranch the next morning he loads up the pup , his 22 and drives out to the hay stack, drops the tail gate and loads up some bales. Drives out to the winter pasture and puts the truck in low range, uses the 22 to prop the throttle to just right, hops out and sits on the tail gate and starts feeding hay. Cows all around and the Blue Heeler pup gets all excited, and hopping around and lands on the 22. Truck takes a big lurge and rancher falls off. Truck heads off across the country and finally slams into a dry creek bottom. Doors fly open and dog heads for the hills. New trucks mashed up, Dog Gone

 

[billwill]

You have an excellent site and wonderful stories. Hope all our members take a few minutes and read some of your site. It would be great to be sippin on two fingers of liquid happiness and readin you stories. Somebody put another log on the fire.

 

[CQB27]

Great Story!
I bookmarked your page, I'm going to read them all.

 

[Old Arkansawyer]

Iggy that certainly looks like the hard grass country to me. As a boy did
you have to feed with horses and sled on big snow days?

 

[Doug627]

Thank you. Merry Christmas.

 

[Fishslayer]

Oh, Rancher story.

Yeah... that sounds like a heeler!

 

[wyo-man]

Great story.
Merry Christmas.

wyo-man

 

[SAFireman]

Chip,

Thank you for sharing this again....and for all the time that you and your lovely wife put into educating all the young folks. I fear that y'all are a dying breed, no one thinks like that much any more. I sure wish they did...

Merry Christmas to you and yours, from our clan down Texas way

 

[Iggy]

Iggy that certainly looks like the hard grass country to me. As a boy did
you have to feed with horses and sled on big snow days?

Yup, when I was in Jr High I drove the team, my Dad and a hired man spread the hay.

When I got into High School, my Dad drove the horses.




When I moved back to the ranch, if we couldn't get around in pickups, we used small sleds that held 14 bales and pulled them with snowmobiles. It takes a few trips to feed 400 head of hungry cows that way.

 

[Mule Packer]

Chip, it's always a joy to read your stories. Wouldn't be the holidays without 'em.

The ol' thermometer out on the back porch is reading seven degrees. Gonna be a chilly Christmas Eve. The livestock got a little extra hay tonight. Went out to the woodshed and picked up a few more oak logs to put on the yule fire. Going to read a few chapters in a good book, throw an extra quilt on the old four-poster, and then head off to bed.

Wishing everybody a very Merry Christmas and a healthy and safe New Year from our outfit to yours.

 

[dodgecharger]

I have always wondered how you folks that wear cowboy hats keep your ears warm?

 

[Iggy]

LOL! Usually after the camera is gone something else appears if it’s really cold.

 

[Just another 22 shooter]

After a 40+ year absence from the farm I grew up on, I finally figured out something else. I remember every Christmas morning after opening presents and having breakfast, going out and doing the chores. Christmas morning always seemed more "upbeat". Thanks, Iggy, for the light bulb you turned on for me.