Tag: winter

Five days into the New Year and we are getting snow in Kansas. The nice wet stuff has covered the ground and is making the world look like a winter wonder land. Our first snow was on the 25th of November, so that means we are to get 25 snows, so hang on to your gloves! 

There is something clean about snow, if seems to refresh the land and make the mind wander. I remember back when I was cowboying, when we worked in snows like we are getting. That annoying gentle snow that makes everything wet because it is thirty-two degrees, making things slick and muddy. Yet that snow is needed moisture and as I would slop through the mess, I wouldn’t cuss the weather because I was young and I took adversity as a challenge.

Blizzards too were a challenge and I took them in stride as I had to keep my wits about me and make sure I didn’t get too cold or too far from a warm place. Riding pens in the feed yard meant getting every animal up to make sure they weren’t stuck to the ground or sick. I always felt bad for my horses as they had to walk through muck and snow. After every morning ride in the pens, we would hose down their legs to ensure the muck was all off so it wouldn’t irritate their skin and lose their hair. Doing chores always took twice as long and if we were shipping cattle in a blizzard, it was slow going because we didn’t want the cattle to slip and break a leg or split out and have to be put down.

I remember the aftermath of blizzards, where we were pushing snow for days, breaking ice in water tanks that had shorted out and hoping the pipes below hadn’t broken, when the heaters in them failed. I was glad I didn’t have any electrical experience because that meant I was the one pushing snow and muck in the pens with the payloader.

Nasty weather usually meant working in the shop on projects or cleaning things up. Even the tack room and medicine rooms were tidied up when the weather kept us from doing outdoor stuff. The working chute always had to be cleaned out and we would scoop it out and put the dried manure into the skid steer bucket to be hauled off to a manure pile in a pen. We drank a lot of coffee on those days and ate lots of snacks to keep our energy up but also to have something in our hand to keep us from having to do something else too quickly. I always had work to do on the payloader, either cleaning out the cab, washing windows or greasing it up, for the next job. The manure spreader truck was also one of my responsibilities and greasing it, washing windows and keeping cab clean in it also took time.

The work I did as a cowboy, at times was tough and mundane but it was important to the whole operation. When I was working for the cow-calf operation, I was running the feed truck or hauling bales of hay to the pastures to roll out hay for feed and bedding. Sometimes making sure I got hay to all the pastures was an all-day deal in blizzards while someone else ran the feed truck. Then, I was checking the cattle to see if they were close to calving. If I happened to find a calf, I had to make sure it was dried off and not too cold to get up and suckle. That may sound easy but most of those cattle were the type to kill you if you got close to their babies. Let’s say it made for some interesting days. I remember one calf that had fallen into the creek after it dropped of a 20 foot bank. I was able to get it on the edge of the bank and hold it there but I had to call for help to get it up the bank. I will never forget the boss’s son helping me and when he got the calf, he took off to the house with it, leaving me to wade through 3 feet of water to a place where it was easier to climb the bank. I went home for the rest of the day after that one.

I can sit at the window and watch the snow and remember my younger days and then I look out the window and see the retired horses and those goats waiting for their breakfast. Hmm, no rest for the wicked. I better put on my boots, coveralls and get those critters fed. Stay warm!