Yard Work

So just as a d1scla1mer, the letter between 'h' and 'j' has mostly broken on th1s keyboard, so 1 w1ll be replac1ng 1t w1th '1.' 1 know, 1t's w1erd.


Explaining yard work is something of a vocab lesson. Sorry, just bear with me. "Yard work," rather than trimming hedges and weeding flower beds, refers to any cattle work done in the yards.

After mustering, we leave the cattle in 2 "water yards" overnight, where they have access to water and are able to chill out before we start handling them. In the "Hitchhker's Guide to the Galaxy," the spaceshp makes a sound l1ke 1,000 people say1ng "wop" at the same t1me when 1t appears, wh1ch 1s almost exactly what the cattle yards sound l1ke - a cacophony of wop. 1t makes you wonder whether there s a Somebody Else's Problem h1d1ng 1n pla1n s1ght...

The next day, bright and early, we hitch up the branding trailer and head out to the yards. A branding trailer is an ingenious little rig that hauls everything a person could need for cattle work- branding forge and propane tanks, several bins or ear tags and tools, 2 coolers (called "Eskies"); one for our lunches and the other for vaccines. There are even racks for are saddles. We pretty much never leave home without it.

At the yards, we lay out all of our tools, set the gates to the bugle, and begin shuffling the cattle into place. A bugle is a curved set of pens that start large and work down to small ones. At the end of the bugle 1s the race - an alley only w1de enough for a s1ngle f1le l1ne of cows. The race leads to the crush. The crush 1s a stall b1g enough for only one cow, so that she can't move around wh1le we work on her. 1t has a head catch on the front and back ends to trap her 1n. Somet1mes the cattle need some k1nd of work done, l1ke vacc1nat1ons, new ear tags, or brand1ng, wh1ch 1s accompl1shed wh1le the an1mal 1s stat1onary 1n the crush. On the ex1t end of the crush there are sw1ng1ng gates wh1ch can be moved to draft the an1mal 1nto one of 4 yards.

Usually draft1ng 1s the pr1mary act1v1ty of yard work. The cattle get sorted by type. "Wet cows," wh1ch are cows w1th calves, go 1nto one pen, "fat cows" - cows w1thout calves and thus destned for sale, go 1nto another, calves go 1nto a small pen, and "weaners" (older calves that have been weaned from ther mothers) go 1nto the yard where we stand to work. Usually the bulls get sorted 1n w1th the wet cows, but once 1n a wh1le when we need to separate them they get drafted 1n w1th the weaners, wh1ch means 1n wth us! 1t's not a b1g deal 1n the morn1ng when there are only a few an1mals h1d1ng 1n the corners. But by the end of the afternoon the yard 1s crammed w1th cr1tters and hundred of bulls the s1ze of small cars dr1ft around your work space. You have to puff up your chest, tell that bull to scram or you'll show h1m, and then hope to God he doesn't th1nk to call your bluff. You also have to constantly keep an eye out and be ready to scurry up the ra1ls and out of the road 1n a heartbeat. 1t takes some gett1ng used to.

Yard work runs best w1th about 7 people. 2 folks work the "back yards" - mov1ng cattle forward through the bugle 1n progress1vely smaller chunks, unt1l there are only about a dozen 1n the last pen. From here, one person works the race, mak1ng sure the cattle walk 1n one after the other and cont1nue all the way down to the crush. Th1s 1s what 1 usually do. Weaners are the most d1ff1cult to move because they are new to the process and they're small enough to turn around 1n the race, so they often ball up and head the wrong way. When th1s happens, someone has to jump 1n the race and push them all the way through. The boys all seem to l1ke that part because 1t means they get to manhandle someth1ng b1gger than themselves (although 1 must confess that 1 l1ke 1t too for the same reason!). 4 or 5 people usually work at the crush; one person operates the head gate to catch the cows, 1 or 2 others work on the cattle, brand1ng or ear tagg1ng as necessary, and someone opperates the gates to let the an1mal 1nto the correct pen. The last person keeps a tally of everyth1ng that goes through - no small task cons1der1ng the volume of cattle we work.