Day 10 - Wednesday June 6

[SD] Powder River Wednesday 2007-06-06

(click on the album to see the pictures)

Today I woke up before anyone and took a shower. I stank and couldn't stand myself anymore. I spent some time writing this journal. It's 6 am now and Spencer and Philip are the only ones up. They are outside checking animals. Today we finish working the dry cows we brought over yesterday. Then I think we might be done. I guess we'll wait and see.
We went over to Lester Lake after breakfast. We saddled up the horses. Then we worked the dry cows through the chute. They were pregnancy checked, vaccinated if pregnant, or culled if they were open. We were done around 10:30 am. Then we mounted the horses and moved the cows that were to be kept and combined them with the cows and caves.

We are to move the cattle to another pasture, this will be our last cattle drive. We moved them to the Big West pasture. It took until 2:30 in the after noon. We had to drive them not only into the pasture, but then another 5 miles to water. We went through a big gap and the wind was blowing over 40 miles/hour. A couple of the girls lost their caps. We then rode back to headquarters for lunch and headed home.

We stopped at Casper, Wyoming at a cowboy store, but it closed at 5:30 pm and we arrived at 6 pm. Imagine stores closing in CT at 5:30 on a week day. They wouldn't get much business, but this shows the difference between the West and East. Agriculture based towns can take time during the day to get things they need. Any way we just headed for home. We got to Philips house around 9pm. I had supper with him and then headed to John and Margie's around 10pm. We talked for another hour, so it was close to 12:30 pm before we headed to bed. It was 275 miles to Powder River from John and Margie's house. The last 25 miles into the ranch was dirt road.

The Powder River Cattle Drive will be one for the ages in my life. I don't know if I'll ever be able to do something quiet like it. But I know that I shall never forget it. It reminded me of the wilderness that the Bible talks about, desolate, but beautiful, tempting but dangerous. Wow-it's Big Country.