Back to the Big Hole

After leaving Steve and Jan's, we went north, drank a cup of coffee in Jackson Hole, hit up Idaho Falls for a cupcake, and were blazing a trail to Boise when we got a text from Zane Davis, an old friend/partner in crime of Zac's. He and his family were planning to take some horses to the Big Hole Valley the coming weekend and invited us to come along. It was too good a chance to pass up -- and where's the beauty of having no plans if you can't change your mind at the drop of a hat? -- so we pulled into Twin Falls during a windstorm and talked a woman into giving us a hotel room for half price because it was 101 degrees outside and the air-conditioning was broken.

The next morning, we drove back to Wisdom, Montana and made up our bed in The Daniels, an old ranchhouse where Zac, Zane, and Zane's wife, Holly, used to wrangle dudes. Zac showed me the arena they constructed with recycled boards and nails and took me around to the old bunkhouse where the porch he built still stands and where he and Zane used to have contests to see who could kill the most bats. He chinked the logs by hand with Holly and her grandpa, Milt.

On Saturday, we went to the cafe for breakfast and asked the waitress if she could tell us the way to the Dooling Ranch where Zane was supposed to be working his colts with Jess Kirkpatrick. She didn't even blink, just gave us directions to a place easily thirty miles away. When we got there, we watched Zane working his Futurity horses on Jess's cows and chatted with Holly and the kids.

Zane trains cowhorses, which means he teaches them to do reining (lead changes, spins, backing up, etc.), cutting (taking a cow from the herd and keeping it separate), and fence work (taking a cow down the fence at Mach 10, changing its direction, and gaining control of it). The things he can do on these horses are pretty incredible to watch.

We finished the night with dinner and a bonfire in the sunset light. Everyone tried to get Zac to recite some cowboy poetry, but no such luck. Maybe next time...

Ridin' with Dirty

When we left Ogden, we traveled to a small town outside Evanston, Wyoming to have dinner with Zac's friend Steve Wilson (a.k.a. Dirty) and his wife Jan. Then we stayed for three days. Let this serve as a warning to those of you we may be visiting in the next month or so.

I think before I tell you about our visit with the Wilsons, you should enjoy some pictures of their adorable children Josie and Jex.

Yes, they are that cute in real life, too.

Anyway, so we showed up and Steve and Jan made us feel right at home. We spent the first night catching up -- last time we'd all been together was in Alaska -- and enjoying some adult beverages on the back porch.

In the morning, Steve took us on a scouting trip through the Uintahs to Marsh Lake to try to find one certain campsite where Zac's family took pictures ten and twenty years ago. We decided to try a new route home and even though we made it through the mud and rocks, eventually we ran into this...

  ...and had to turn our sheepish asses around.

But while we were out, Steve noticed that the cows of a rancher, Martin, he sometimes helps out were on the wrong side of the fence. He wanted to avoid the office, I wanted to pretend to be a cowgirl for a day, and Zac is game for anything, so the next morning we saddled up their three horses and headed out to chase cows.

At one point, Zac and Steve stopped to help Martin's one-handed cowhand, Ray, fix fences while I held the horses.

At this point, I met Martin. Martin is eighty-two years old, rides a big, mean, mule, and is pretty sure he broke his hip last week. But he wasn't about to go to the doctor, nor was he willing to sit back and let us move the cows alone, so up onto his mule he went with his cowdog by his side.  

By the time we had herded the cows into the pasture where they were supposed to stay, we had another job to do. Steve had noticed that one of Martin's bulls was suffering from foot rot. Since we didn't have any penicillin on hand, he needed to be loaded into the horse trailer and taken back to town for doctoring. Martin was sure we could just back the trailer up to the fence and coax the bull to step inside.

After three hours, two more broken fences, and one really sore ass (mine), we changed the plan and Steve roped the bull around his neck. We were going to drag that s.o.b.

No, not really, as much as I wanted to at that point. Instead, Zac went galloping off to get the horse trailer that was now several miles away, and we made sure the bull didn't move too much until it got there. Then we still had to get him into the trailer, which isn't as easy as you would think with a rope around his neck. 

But in the end, and with much yelling, we got him in the trailer. God help the ones who had to get him out.

With that, we bade adieu to Martin and just beat the rain back to Jan, the kids, and another wonderful home-cooked meal.