greybeard
Well-known member
Yep. Around here, that is pretty much a thing of the past tho, ever since the county opted out of open range, but when I was young there were thousands of head of cattle & domestic hogs running the national forest in this county. Dogs, ropes and horses were an absolute necessity back then. The old time cowboys are about gone from this county now. It took special kind of horse too, to plunge right thru tangles of briers, honey locust, and vines and the riders wore lots of leather protection and as I remember it, they used more than just a regular saddle blanket and saddle on their horses. Long leather 'apron' looking gear to protect the horses.Cowboys, horses, and dogs. Sounds like mainly the dogs
Roundup was a sight to see tho. They cut and built temporary catch pens and funnels runs out in the forest and pushed everything into the pens for sorting, branding and loading. Dozens of trucks and and trailers lined the FM road that runs in front of my property (and elsewhere) and sometimes the county sheriff dept would close the road to normal traffic.
The sounds and the smell of burning hair was thick in the air and it was really something for a young 12-13-14 year old boy like me to watch.
(the forest service and dept of ag had also installed concrete dip vats thru out the national forest to run the cows thru for tick control. Some are still there today but most have filled in and lost to history)