Bunching From 5…4…3…2…1…

Well hello again my friends!

It was an exciting night when Doug called recently and asked for our help bunching up cattle on a Friday. Our mom encouraged us to take the opportunity to work and miss school this time. We gathered our gear together to prepare for 35-degree weather. With our bags loaded and our boots on, we left Tulsa early Friday morning. Upon arriving at the ranch at 7:30 we said hey to the cowboys and hopped on our lovely, already saddled horses. Here’s a shout-out to the amazing cowboys who saddled our horses for us!

The goal of our day was to bunch up five different pastures of mom and baby pairs into one large pasture in preparation for shipping in a week.

With two trucks and a group of twelve cowboys and cowgirls, three pastures were gathered in good time.

With the truck ahead of us we attempted to keep the cattle in line to their new stomping ground.

When all three pastures of pairs came together as one herd, one truck led the way across the highway in route to their new pasture. Thankfully, this process went rather smoothly. Once all of the cows were delivered to their new pasture, all the cowboys were rewarded with donuts and sausage rolls.

One Cowboy, Henry, had is own way of staying warm.

After a quick break to warm up, we trekked to gather another pasture. This pasture is known to be rather tricky to maneuver. However, to the cowboys’ relief, the wildest mama cow in the pasture has been suffering a limp. This severely limited the chase time of the cowboys. Once gathered, a few momma cows decided they wanted to run a little… so they did. The cowboys kept them under control and managed to get all of them to the pens. Unfortunately, we were two cows and three calves short, so back to the pasture we trekked to find those missing-in-action. After some walking, then trotting, and then galloping, the lost were found.

Trekking through the tall grass we walked and occasionally trotted to keep up with the cows.

Can you make out the cows in the picture??

This earned everyone a lunch break. Once lunch was finished the last bunch was herded to their new home ground, and that concluded this fun fall day on the ranch.

Later that night, I realized that it had been quite a while since I had been in a saddle. Sitting in a desk chair doing schoolwork is very different than galloping across a pasture! “Saddle-sore” was my self-proclaimed new middle name that weekend. It was worth it though to be out in the country again with our cowboy friends.