Californio Ranch Horse Association

est. 2006

Why do they ride?

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Winter in the Sierras. (To give you an idea of the depth of the snow, that horse is 17 hands tall...)

The reason we've added this page to the web site is because, in our travels, many of the people we've met have asked why we do what we do. To them, the life of a cowboy means long hours, very little pay, no vacation days, no personal days, and no benefits that they can understand. In spite of all that, we hope the following helps to explain why cowboys ride for their money.

Cowboy Humor

From Sheridan, Wyoming, to Birney, Montana, it's about 90 miles and anywhere along the road, you can run into people trailin' cattle. A friend of mine told me about trailin' down that road one Spring.

The boss told him to take the lead and go 10 miles down the roand and turn 'em in to a gate on the left. So off they wen. Four hundred cows were strung out, walkin' and noddin'. With a fence on each side, it was like a day off for the crew.

As I mentioned earlier, it was Spring. And what that means up north is that the weather can change real quick. Well, a squall blew in and now they were trailin' in a snow storn and nobody could see more than10 feet.

Finally, my friend reached the gate and he threw it open and bent the lead through the gate. As he sat there waiting on the rest of the herd, the cows started to ball up in the gate. He hooped and hollered but the cows just got more jammed up.

When the drag finally got there, it was a mess. Everybody was yellin' and mad. Well, that snow storm quit as fast as it had started. When the cowboys could finally see what was goin' on, they realized that the gate they were pushing the cattle through was the gate into the stack yard and not the pasture.

The moral to this story is you can't put 10 pounds of sugar in a 5 pound sack.

Branding Day at Cuyama, CA.

More Cowboy Humor

There is a word that can bring a cold sweat to some folks that have worked up north. It is pronounced "ca-vin-he-fers." In English, it's spelled "Calving Heifers."The wreck starts about the end of February and goes strong for about 60 days. Then, of course, you get to start on the cow herd.

The outfit I was on calved about 750 heifers every year. Since I was the Cow Boss, I was on call every other night in case there were probles or the need for a C-section. One of the night men named "Dan" was a conscientious lad. He did well until somebody would show up. Then, he would get nervous. He called me because he was having a hard time pulling a calf. By the time I got to the calvin' shed, he was on his knees right behind the heifer pokin' straw in the nose of the calf he'd just pulled. The first thing I noticed was how small the calf was. He was goin' on and on about how confusing it had been when he pulled the calf. I said, "Dan, did you check for a twin?" Before he could answer, that heifer beared down real hard and a second calf shot out and landed right smack on the back of Dan's neck along with about 2 gallons of embryonic fluid. He was drenched with the stinkin', sticky stuff and he was making noises I've never heard before or since. I was laughing so hard I couldn't speak! That only made him angrier. Now that's cowboy humor...

February in the Sierra Nevada

Vaqueros

I lived in Arivaca, Arizona, a small time just three miles from the Mexican border. The country was rock and cactus and the town was mainly miners, smugglers, and vaqueros. Riding with the vaqueros was fun. It's not uncommon when you head out to make a "vuelta" or circle that the vaqueros sing ballads about horses and women. You ride out at a fast walk instead of a trot because of the rock and the single-file trails. You usually ride together until you get to the back side. The point of this story is the respect the vaqueros have for each other but especially for the viejos. When you get where you're going to start the gather, the boss typically stops and asks the viejo where he would like to go. This means the viejo chooses whether to go on a big circle. The boss asks the viejo because he doesn't want to offend him. Sending him short might make it look like he's too old and sending him far might be too much for him. In Arivaca, the viejo I rode with was named "Eme" (e-mee) which was short for Emmanuel. He was 72 years old. At the end of each day, he was still straight as an arrow in the saddle. That's why we ride for our money...

Baja Vaqueros at Rancho La Mentada near La Mission, BC

Stock tank on the Reata Ranch in Cochise County, Arizona.

Left: Canyon trail on Reata Ranch; Jake Kartchner (left) leading the circle and Pat Puckett (right). Right: Reata Ranch water trough; Deb Puckett (foreground) and Jake Kartchner (background).

Pairing Out

Pairing out is a term used for putting a cow and her calf in another pasture separate from the cows who haven't calved yet. It's a lot of fun! When you're lucky enough to have a good crew, you relay them and take turns setting the gate. But the most fun can be had when you're by yourself and you just set your gate and go to work. The contest starts when some sinner that hasn't calved yet thinks she needs to join the pairs.

That's why we ride for our money...

Cindy Alleman works the herd at Rancho La Mentada

Shipping Day

Something that cannot be duplicated in town is shipping day. That's one reason I like it so much. If you've never been around it, I'm going to give you an example of a good day.

Before I start, you need to know that a good day of shipping with a good crew is better than a day off.

When I worked on the Little Horn Ranch on the Crow Reservation, we ran 6000 steers on the north end. In a good year, the steers would leave weighing 850 pounds average.

Here's how it works: A 6-man crew trot would out from the Sand Creek corrals in the dark and get to the 2000 acre beef trap about daylight. That's called catching them in bed. 1100 head had been thrown in there the day before. As you came into the corrals with the herd, you could see semi trucks parked about a mile away on the divide. They knew not to come down until they were told. Once inside the corrals, everyone knew his job. This is when the real symphony started. (Incidentally, you never rode a dink on shipping day.) A couple of guys would be sorting into the alley and splitting the herd into six corrals. One corral at a time would then be worked into an alley and 20 head at a time were put on the scales. While this is going on, someone is cutting out the cripples and the strays. The only sound you heard was the scale gate slamming and the call "Weigh 'em!" Needless to say, this entire operation was done horseback.

We need to slow down here for a minute and do the math. Generally speaking, a semi can haul 50,000 pounds of cattle. The average weight of each steer was 850 pounds so 59 head on each truck works out to 18 trucks total. As you can imagine, there are many variables to the math such as cattle shrink, distance to the truck scales, amount of fuel in the truck, weight of that fuel, weight of the truck empty, ...you get the picture. The brains in the scale shack took care of all that.

Anyway, after the steers cross edthe scale, they were put in pens in numbers that equalled the weight for a truck load. As the steers started coming off the scale, somebody would trot up and give the truckers the high sign. Now you had a crew loading and a crew weighing. The loading crew brought the steers in groups that fit into each of the many compartments in each truck. By 1:00 in the afternoon, 18 trucks had been loaded and were headed for Garden City, Kansas. The entire crew jerked their saddles and everybody relaxed for a little while, knowing that in 3 days they'd do it all over again.

That's why we ride for our money.

Pat Puckett, Ryan Cope, and Enrique Loperena at the Tejon Ranch. (photo courtesy of Patti Martin)

Feeding cows with a team

When you feed cattle, it usually means one of two things. Either you're short of grass or, if you live up north, everything has turned white. Since cattle are ruminants, once you start feeding hay you need to feed every day because the friendly bacteria in their gut has grown accustomed to digesting hay rather than grass.

Feeding with a team is like a day off when the weather is nice. It makes for a fun time. You don't have to listen to the sound of an engine. The only thing you hear is the creaking of the wagon and the jingling of the harness. For Deb and I, a typical day feeding begins with harnessing the team and driving out to the feed ground with our dog "Prize" whose job it is to keep the cattle out of the stack yard while we load the hay. In the photo above you can see "Barney" on the left and "Pete" on the right. You won't find a finer team of Belgians. An added bonus is inviting our friends, Ronnie Chandler and Kami Prater and their kids from Cabin Ranch in Janesville, CA, to help feed and share the day with us.

That's why we do what we do.

Prize doing her job

When you work on a ranch, you have to be able to not only ride for your money, but log for your money, build things for your money, basically do whatever is called for at the time. But it's all worth it so long as your office is wide open spaces and your commute is the walk between your house and your barn...

Night Rider’s Lament

One night while I was out ridin’
The graveyard shift, midnight ‘til dawn
The moon was bright as a readin’ light
For a letter from an old friend back home.

He asked me
Why do you ride for your money?
Why do you rope for short pay?
You ain’t gettin’ nowhere
And you’re losin’ your share.
Boy, you must have gone crazy out there.

But he's never seenthe northern lights.
He's never seen a hawk on the wing.
He's never seen Spring hit the great divide
And he's never heard ole' camp cookie sing.

He tells me last night I run onto Jenny.
She’s married and has a good life.
Boy, you sure missed the track
When you never come back.
She’s the perfect professional’s wife.

She asked me
Why does he ride for his money?
Why does he rope for short pay?
He ain’t gettin’ nowhere
And he’s losin’ his share.
Boy he must’ve gone crazy out there.

But she's never seen the northern lights.
She's never seen a hawk on the wing.
She's never seen Spring hit the great divide
And she's never heard ole' camp cookie sing.

Well I read up the last of my letter
And I tore off the stamp for Black Jim
And when Billy rode up to relieve me
He just looked at my letter and grinned.

He said now
Why do they ride for their money?
Tell me why do they rope for short pay?
They ain’t gettin’ nowhere
And they’re losin’ their share
Boy they must’ve gone crazy out there.
Son, they all must be crazy out there.