Life As Kaci Knows It: Weekend at the High Oaks Ranch: Day 2

Our alarm went off at the bright, bold hour of 5... AM!

Before I met Clint, I could sleep until noon or later. Now with his morning wake up calls and up-before-the-sun attitude, I'm lucky if I sleep until 7 on the weekends anymore. I have gotten used to the early mornings, but 5? Really? 6 sounds like a more round and even number to me. But for cowboys that have day work to do, the earlier they get up and get cattle gathered, the better.

After taking a shower in the living quarters trailer that we brought and getting ready for the day, I finally made it outside to the camp where some of the guys were making a delicious breakfast.

Let me interject for a moment and make a comment. The designers of living quarters trailers are obviously men. I say that because the showers are shaped more like the egg that Lady Gaga was camped out in at the Grammy's than a usable shower for a woman. Do you think they took into consideration that we have legs to shave and an abundance amount of hair to wash? I don't think they did. Something to think about trailer designers... something to think about...

Cooking must be in all of cowboy's genes because breakfast was so good. Is it cooking or self-suffiency that's in their genes? Whatever gene it is, it made delicious breakfast burritos with farm fresh eggs. Two words. Yum E!

Bolivar cooking breakfast

After everyone got up and made their way to the campsite and ate breakfast it was time to get to work.

Everyone getting ready to hit the trail

Clint brought my favorite horse at the ranch for me to ride, Paycheck. Paycheck usually gets most of my quality horse time when I make it out to the ranch so we are pretty tight. He is a stout and beautiful palamino horse with a blonde mane that makes me jealous. I wonder if Paycheck would be willing to donate his mane to me?

I heart Paycheck

Once everyone got their horses saddled, we made our way to where the cattle were hanging out. To get there, we had to cut across a beautiful pasture sprinkled with blue, purple, pink and yellow wild flowers. I do not ever remembering seeing this many wild flowers. Either I wasn't paying attention (which is very quite possible) or this is "The Year of the Wild Flower".

See all the wild flowers?

Speaking of, I want to know who thought of the bright idea for me to take pictures while riding my horse and gathering cattle?????? Oh yeah.. that was me... sorry... I'll shut up now.

Then we had to cross over a small creek. Good thing Paycheck was fine crossing water because I about had a heart attack thinking if something went wrong and my camera took a swim then I would bust out in to tears. That would be totally embarrassing since I was the only wife that went along that day. It was bad enough that I was stepping on the boys territory just going, but to dissolve into tears while stepping in their territory, I might not ever live that one down.

Once getting across the creek, we had another huge pasture to get across before meeting up with the cows. I kind of hung back so I could take pictures of everybody then I realized I was way behind because while everyone was trotting, Paycheck and me where just walking in la la land. So I decided to dig my spur into his side just a tad so we could catch up. I learned two things:

1. Sports bras while riding are not an option for girls like me. Total necessity.

2. It's kind of difficult to hold your camera in one hand, your reins in the other, and keep your hat from falling off while blazing through a pasture.

"There they are, boys!"

Good thing I stayed behind so my husband wouldn't be embarrassed of the mess that I was. Don't get me wrong, I USED to be a good rider, but that was a marriage, a full time job and a very busy one year old little boy ago. It's hard to find time to ride in the midst of all that. With riding, it's very easy for your riding skills to slip through your fingers if you don't stay at it.

I caught up with everyone just in time for all the brangus cattle to funnel into the working pens. I tried my very hardest to just stay in the background and not get in anybody's way, I really did.

You see, it is often that things don't go my way. I'd like to call myself "The 1 Percent Queen." If there is a one percent chance that something is to go arry, it is almost guaranteed that I fall in to that one percent.

As I am minding my own business and trying to take a few pictures, I notice that Paycheck and I are a few steps behind a gaping hole in our assembly line of cowboys to usher these cattle into their pens. So I take it upon myself to just step us up and fill that hole.

When you are dealing with cattle that are out to pasture and their only exposure is the daily rounds of the feed truck, they tend to operate on the "fight or flight" mode. This is natural instinct for any animal without constant human contact. All they know is that they have to survive. It's either fight like the devil to take care of their chitlins and themselves or get the hell out of Dodge. When anything threatens their survival or their chitlins, their brains flip that instinct switch and get on the defensive.

Of course cows do not understand that cowboys putting them in pens, separating their young to doctor and castrate where necessary is for their own good. It is the cowboy's job to make sure they are gathered and drove to where they need to be with as little disturbance as possible.

Some cattle take to this tender coaxing with ease and some do not. The ones that do not try their hardest to break from the herd and make it to freedom.

That being said...

When I stepped Paycheck up to fill the whole my one and only goal was just to fill a spot in the barrier.

That's it.

It wasn't to prove my cowgirl skills, because I don't have any. I lifted my view finder of my camera up to my eye about to snap a beautiful picture of a single file line of cattle making their way to the open gate when it happened. [Que the duh duh duh! music of something terrible about to happen.]

One heifer decided that she didn't want to be in that single file line anymore and she took it as her chance to forego all this nonsense and break free from the herd.

And do you think the first person in her cross hairs was an experienced cowboy?

Of course it wasn't.

I focused my camera just in time to see her heading full steam ahead... in MY direction!!

"Great! What am I going to do now?" I grumbled to myself.

I left my camera fall to my side and I picked up my reins and pressed the rowl of my spur into Paycheck's side to step to the right just enough to make her think that her idea was a bad idea, a very bad, naughty, and wrong idea.

Well she didn't think it was such a bad idea. She kept coming.

"Seriously!?! Out of all of these people, you picked ME to target!?! Seriously!?!" I said in my mind.

Yep she was serious.

"What the hell am I going to do now?" That was me again.

In a state of panic, I kept going right hoping that I could deter her from breaking out into the wide open pasture behind us.

That's when I heard it.

"Kaci!!! What are you doing?!? Get back behind me!" Coming from a long ways off and in a very disgusted tone I heard those words come from Clint's mouth.

I really just wanted to wave my magic wand and teleport myself to anywhere but this pasture doing anything but riding a horse gathering cattle.

I felt my cheeks flush red as I was successful in doing the one thing I tried hard, very hard, to avoid. Embarass myself or Clint.

I pulled the reins back on Paychecks bit as hard as I could to signal him to stop running. I sunk in my saddle with my head down so my hat covered my eyes and headed back behind Clint as the last of the cattle went through the gate.

I tied Paycheck up to the fence and I tried to disappear in to the landscape hoping that Clint would forget what just happened.

When all the guys went to work sorting the babies from their mothers, deworming and vaccinating the heifers, and dragging and working the babies I stepped back from the action to salvage my shitstorm of a day with some good photography.

When all of the calves were worked and they all were released into another pasture to live as a happy herd again, Clint came up to me and gave me a hug.

Whew!

At least I'm not in too much trouble.

I got back on Paycheck and was content with walking back to camp and staying out of the way.

Looking back at the pictures, it shows how embarrassed I was over what happened because I didn't take as many risks as I would have liked while taking pictures. On the second day though, I believe I was over it and more comfortable with everyone to get a little closer to the action. Here are a few pictures from the first day of working cattle....