Idaman":20vvm7h8 said:Northern Rancher":20vvm7h8 said:I remember my Dad talking about those deals too. Most of the hay was fed up in the meadow it was made in. Some ranches went straight from loose hay to round bales-skipped the whole idiot cube deal.
We went from stacks to small square bales to Hesston stacks to mid=size big bales. Almost all these transitions had sales in mind. The Hesston stacks were kind of an anti-sale move as we were trying to stop some hay theft which plagued us because we were so spread out in Colorado and fairly close to some pretty horsey towns. We moved the Hesston to BC and it fit right in as there was already lots in the area. AT Empire we had a small baler too to feed the horses at the barn and to use whenever the stack feeder broke down. I tried feeding those stacks by hand once but only once. The hay was so layered that you needed to peal off a whole layer while standing on it.
One time at Empire Sophie had left an old baler there in the repossession deal and I believe it was a John Deere 24T. It was truly worthless. I was taking it to town to trade off one day and as I was passing Jack Kosters fields I noticed a brand new John Deere baler in the field hooked to one of his tractors. I decided it might be fun to hook my worthless old baler up to his tractor and then pull his new baler around behind the stack to hide it. I could just envision the look on Jacks' face when he said " It sure looks like that this fellow has made himself quite a nice trade."
Idaman
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VanC
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Idaman":3l7pli91 said:
Man, that sure brings back memories. Back in my youth I handled thousands of bales spit out by a 24T, and before that an old 14T. Pretty good balers in their time.
VanC":2iy861d1 said:
If I remember correctly they put out bales to the side with the plunger going sideways. Don't get me started on balers. The first one we used that picked up windrows from the field was a Minneapolis Moline that was pulled by a Cletrac crawler and had seats for two men who tied the wire in the back. This baler was so heavy that it was always stuck or rutting our soft meadows. The pickup was a series of small two pronged forks that pushed the hay up a slick steel ramp and into the plunger. The next baler was the first in the country and was a New Holland 76. It had self tying knotters but still had a seat for an observer to marvel at the knotters. It was pulled with a Ford 9N that was not nearly big enough and getting stuck was a real threat. My dad used to ride on the seat on the back and just shake his head because he couldn't see how the knotters worked so quickly. I drove the tractor countless hours and I was 9 at the time. Next came a MF 19 baler that was truly a piece of junk in our thick often damp grass hay. I was finishing up baling a small bog patch before we were to go bighorn sheep hunting and the baler just broke in half in the middle of the chamber. We welded up the chamber and sold the baler to a relative of Ned JRS, Chuck Kidder.
I wrote this post earlier but failed to copy it and lost the two hours' work.
After we had overnighted the steers at the River we trailed them up the mountain for 5 miles to the winter pasture and scattered them out. There was little snow on the ground then in late November but by years end the snow had gotten deep enough to force us to bring them home. The water had also frozen up and they were beginning to shrink. WE wanted to keep the inputs into them low but we didn't want to lose any.
The first day we gathered 377 so we were short 23. We looked for several days and found most of them drifted out of the pasture in some higher ground. In the higher area they could just go from tree to tree and eat the grass that was exposed because of the overhang of the tree. We got 20 there but were still looking for 3. We rode the pasture for several days to no avail when Bob Muncey from the Gang offered to fly us around and look from the air. It was a beautiful flight even at -15. We saw two of the largest Mule deer bucks that either of us had ever seen and that has been quite a few between the two of us.
We also found some steers and that made the day. Later I decided to make another swing through the rough country and have yet another looksee. I used a tractor that we had chained up for that trip so I could cover more ground and not wear a horse out. Back at the far end of the pasture I spotted a line of tracks in the snow about 200 yards away. I knew that no horse had gotten farther than me that morning although they looked like horse tracks. When I get close I discovered that they were large dog like tracks.
The only thing that made tracks that large out there was a lone wolf. They were as large as the tracks of a large horse. People have told me that they had just seen a large coyote or a wolf but they weren't sure. I have always said after that that if you ever see a wolf you won't wonder which it is in the least.
Later we rebuilt the fence along the winter pasture and the crew foreman had to drive roofing nails through the soles of the boots of the crew to keep them from sliding down the steep hillside and out of the pasture. The foreman was a laid off worker as this was a government make work project. He had been a manager at the local Caterpillar store but since he had been recently promoted he could be fired but the lower workers could not because they had a union contract.
i looked over one very steep hill and saw several steers eating the grass that some Bighorn sheep had just uncovered by pawing the snow aside. The steers would eat until the grass was gone and then butt the sheep away from the freshly uncovered grass and eat there. It was almost as if the sheep were helping the steers because they could have left the area at any time and the steers would have starved.
I will never forget driving those first steers up the road to the hay fields and watching the steam come off of them and form a little cloud right over them. Fairly cool.
At one time i dropped some salt blocks from a plane into those steep basins to coax the steers into there to utilize the good grass. You needed to have your seat belt fastened and be prepared for wind with one door of the plane removed. Later I learned that it was much easier to just roll the blocks off of the steep hill and see that no steers or sheep were in the way.
Soon after this we knew that we had to find a cowherd for Empire. We went to several dispersions but couldn't connect with the BC subsidy being in the way. At one of these sales a young cow buyer approached me and said that he had a nice herd of cows for sale just down the road 4 miles. We went immediately to look at them and we really liked what we saw. We bought 400 cows aged from 3 to 8 that were as even as you could ever hope for. The only regret I had is that I didn't buy every cow and bull on the place that day to start our herd. They were for sale because the ranch owner had sold the ranch to BC Hydro and then leased it back but the lease was running out. These were the TJ cows and they were absolutely the finest bunch of commercial cows that I have ever owned.
When we unloaded them at the suspension bridge one old hide dove off of the road and went right down to the river. Our foreman went right after her. When she got to the river she just trotted right across the ice to the other side. The foreman went after her and brought her back. I would have never let him do that had I seen what he was doing because he could have broken through the ice at any time. We then had to take hay down to that cow every day because she wouldn't come back up to the road. One day I was carrying some hay down to where the cow was to feed her and she started up the trail to do us harm. When she got to the hay she stopped to eat and we escaped. Before when I was going down the trail and the foreman was following me I heard him stop, turn around and then hoof it up the hill away from the charging cow. I figured that she would stop at the hay so I just stayed where I was, later when I caught up with the other man he said "I wanted to stay but my feet wanted to leave."
The river ice was formed by freezing upstream in thick places and then this ice would break loose and float downstream until it hit another frozen spot and then the floating ice chunks would turn up and freeze in place standing on edge. This made the ice cover very thick and very rough but with many weak unfrozen spots. Very dangerous.
Gang Ranch had a pasture across the river from our house that I really wanted. It could winter 800 cows out every winter all winter long. The only drawback was that you had to keep a man down there in the river to chop the ice and gravel the banks of the river so that the cattle could water. This man had to live in a gold miners dugout in the bank over 20 miles from anyone. That job could only satisfy a rare few that were publicly pretty disagreeable anyway.
After we had overnighted the steers at the River we trailed them up the mountain for 5 miles to the winter pasture and scattered them out. There was little snow on the ground then in late November but by years end the snow had gotten deep enough to force us to bring them home. The water had also frozen up and they were beginning to shrink. WE wanted to keep the inputs into them low but we didn't want to lose any.
The first day we gathered 377 so we were short 23. We looked for several days and found most of them drifted out of the pasture in some higher ground. In the higher area they could just go from tree to tree and eat the grass that was exposed because of the overhang of the tree. We got 20 there but were still looking for 3. We rode the pasture for several days to no avail when Bob Muncey from the Gang offered to fly us around and look from the air. It was a beautiful flight even at -15. We saw two of the largest Mule deer bucks that either of us had ever seen and that has been quite a few between the two of us.
We also found some steers and that made the day. Later I decided to make another swing through the rough country and have yet another looksee. I used a tractor that we had chained up for that trip so I could cover more ground and not wear a horse out. Back at the far end of the pasture I spotted a line of tracks in the snow about 200 yards away. I knew that no horse had gotten farther than me that morning although they looked like horse tracks. When I get close I discovered that they were large dog like tracks.
The only thing that made tracks that large out there was a lone wolf. They were as large as the tracks of a large horse. People have told me that they had just seen a large coyote or a wolf but they weren't sure. I have always said after that that if you ever see a wolf you won't wonder which it is in the least.
Later we rebuilt the fence along the winter pasture and the crew foreman had to drive roofing nails through the soles of the boots of the crew to keep them from sliding down the steep hillside and out of the pasture. The foreman was a laid off worker as this was a government make work project. He had been a manager at the local Caterpillar store but since he had been recently promoted he could be fired but the lower workers could not because they had a union contract.
i looked over one very steep hill and saw several steers eating the grass that some Bighorn sheep had just uncovered by pawing the snow aside. The steers would eat until the grass was gone and then butt the sheep away from the freshly uncovered grass and eat there. It was almost as if the sheep were helping the steers because they could have left the area at any time and the steers would have starved.
I will never forget driving those first steers up the road to the hay fields and watching the steam come off of them and form a little cloud right over them. Fairly cool.
At one time i dropped some salt blocks from a plane into those steep basins to coax the steers into there to utilize the good grass. You needed to have your seat belt fastened and be prepared for wind with one door of the plane removed. Later I learned that it was much easier to just roll the blocks off of the steep hill and see that no steers or sheep were in the way.
Soon after this we knew that we had to find a cowherd for Empire. We went to several dispersions but couldn't connect with the BC subsidy being in the way. At one of these sales a young cow buyer approached me and said that he had a nice herd of cows for sale just down the road 4 miles. We went immediately to look at them and we really liked what we saw. We bought 400 cows aged from 3 to 8 that were as even as you could ever hope for. The only regret I had is that I didn't buy every cow and bull on the place that day to start our herd. They were for sale because the ranch owner had sold the ranch to BC Hydro and then leased it back but the lease was running out. These were the TJ cows and they were absolutely the finest bunch of commercial cows that I have ever owned.
When we unloaded them at the suspension bridge one old hide dove off of the road and went right down to the river. Our foreman went right after her. When she got to the river she just trotted right across the ice to the other side. The foreman went after her and brought her back. I would have never let him do that had I seen what he was doing because he could have broken through the ice at any time. We then had to take hay down to that cow every day because she wouldn't come back up to the road. One day I was carrying some hay down to where the cow was to feed her and she started up the trail to do us harm. When she got to the hay she stopped to eat and we escaped. Before when I was going down the trail and the foreman was following me I heard him stop, turn around and then hoof it up the hill away from the charging cow. I figured that she would stop at the hay so I just stayed where I was, later when I caught up with the other man he said "I wanted to stay but my feet wanted to leave."
The river ice was formed by freezing upstream in thick places and then this ice would break loose and float downstream until it hit another frozen spot and then the floating ice chunks would turn up and freeze in place standing on edge. This made the ice cover very thick and very rough but with many weak unfrozen spots. Very dangerous.
Gang Ranch had a pasture across the river from our house that I really wanted. It could winter 800 cows out every winter all winter long. The only drawback was that you had to keep a man down there in the river to chop the ice and gravel the banks of the river so that the cattle could water. This man had to live in a gold miners dugout in the bank over 20 miles from anyone. That job could only satisfy a rare few that were publicly pretty disagreeable anyway.
Idaman":1er5uzik said:
You sold my Grandpa a piece of junk baler? That wasn't very nice of you.
Just for everyone's information Kidder is not the K's Idaman referred about earlier.Still enjoying your posts Idaman. The man that said "I wanted to stay but my feet wanted to leave" reminded me of something Grandpa Kidder use to say. He'd say "I'm not lost tee-pee lost".
Ned Jr.":3mrsbjob said:Idaman":3mrsbjob said:
You sold my Grandpa a piece of junk baler? That wasn't very nice of you.
Still enjoying your posts Idaman. The man that said "I wanted to stay but my feet wanted to leave" reminded me of something Grandpa Kidder use to say. He'd say "I'm not lost tee-pee lost".
We traded the baler to Tom McCrory from Canon and he had it repaired and I demonstrated it to your grandpa. I will never forget making that demonstraion. The only tractor he had was a old John Deere 80 wheatland model that did not have a live pto. So when you pulled the hand clutch in the tractor started moving and the baler baling at the same time. The field was right along the creek and the hay was very uneven. It seemed as though every time a heavy clump hit the baler the old 2 cylinder John Deere would jerk and push a bale out about 18 inches. That really made me nervous and I pointed that out to your grandpa but he was thrilled with the baler.
Do you remember the story about your grandpa being over in the San Luis Valley and driving along a road over there when some hippies tried to stop him. One of them swung a short piece of chain at his truck when he went by. He went right on but when he got back to Canon City he noticed a thumb and a piece of chain hanging from the rack on his pickup. He hadn't seen the hippie running along side for a short ways.
Ouch!! that had to hurt. This valley sure wasn't very hippie friendly when i was a kid. If one tried hitchhiking across the valley no one would pick him up and the phones would ring off the hook. Everyone in the valley would be warned about him and the doors would be locked. Some would get a hair cut and a bath before they left too.
stockman12
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So if I'm ever around Alamosa and see a gray haired guy with a pony tail and no THUMB we know what happened to him. Wouldn't it be fun to go up to him and say "let me guess"
stockman12":3kdqdhed said:
Sounds good to me. Some time soon I am going to tell the story of a hippie that lived near our home at Empire. He was a card carrying Communist here in the US but dodged the draft by going to Canada in the early seventies. He was without a doubt the most disagreeable person I ever met as he was to many others. Everytime he went to town he came home all beat up from shooting off his mouth.
I believe he now has a little bunch of cows Idaman. Would that now classify him as a "Long Haired Country Boy" that Charlie Daniels sang about.
My guess on the origin of the yearling steers you purchased needs to be fine tuned. Were they all one-iron?
My guess on the origin of the yearling steers you purchased needs to be fine tuned. Were they all one-iron?
gcreekrch":2c9ewoub said:I believe he now has a little bunch of cows Idaman. Would that now classify him as a "Long Haired Country Boy" that Charlie Daniels sang about.
My guess on the origin of the yearling steers you purchased needs to be fine tuned. Were they all one-iron?
I heard from a very reliable source that Ron had been working on the Sonny Reynolds ranch and in the deal he was allowed to acquire some cows. But as usual he got crosswise with the people there and had to leave. Since there wasn't room for his cows back down at his cabin he had to move them to Alberta.
Over there he lost the cows, under what circumstances I do not know. That was three years ago so he may have reaquired some.
The steers were a very uniform group of Herefords but I don't remember them being one-iron. However they could have been.
I guess that this chapter will have to be titled "Hippies and Empire" or "The Pits For Sure".
Soon after we arrived at Empire we realized that we weren't actually at the end of the road as there was a hippie who had a cabin 5 miles further on. The cabin was located along Lone Cabin Creek which was very apporpriate. There was no road to this cabin, only a narrow trail that passed the cabin , crossed the creek, and went on south along the river. The hippie that lived there was named "Ron the Hip" Cable.
He told me that one time when he was staying there in the winter one of those silver thaws came in and everything was so covered with ice that he had to crawl nearly four miles to get near the basket that would take him across the river so he could go to town and get beat up again.
That trail was along a very steep hillside and dropped straight off for several hundred feet into Lone Cabin. In the early days it had been used as the main transportation link between Vancouver and the gold mines in the upper interior. In the winter the pack strings would stop and winter their horses on a flat topped mountain near the house at Empire. That mountain rarely had snow deep enough that a horse could not paw through it. The only time was in a silver thaw( wintertime rain on snow and then a hard following freeze that caused crusting) came on top of a foot or more of snow and the snow would crust so that the horses couldn't dig anymore. Then the horses would have to be brought in and fed hay or moved to pastures where the sun had melted the ice crust. When we had to ride up there and gather the horses we had to put leggings on our horses' front legs. For this we could cut an inner tube to the proper length and then slip it up over the horses leg. We would attach a piece of twine over the horses' shoulder to hold the inner tubs up and run another down and through the shoes to hold it down. This arrangement worked very well. When we were at Empire of course the pack trains were long gone but we wintered pack strings for several of the guides that hunted on Empire range. These guides were some of the finest men we worked with in BC. After wintering these horses for years we got the feel of what had gone on so long ago. One of the historical experiences we missed was when some packer got the bright idea of using camels instead of horses. Needless to say that when a camel came upon a horse pack string all hell would break loose.
Most winters Ron the Hip would winter out and work for a local ranch. Usually he stayed down at the Gang pasture along the river. One night at about 2 in the morning a car raced through our yard at Empire and headed out along the road to Rons' cabin. I usually didn't allow anybody in there so I was a bit surprised at their brazenness. I was far too sleepy to give chase so I decided to wait until daylight before investigating. In a couple hours the car came back out and went on through and out the main road. I remember it being an older Volvo but I didn't recognize the car. The next day Ron came in to the headquarters, looking rather badly, and wanted for us to take him to town to see a doctor. He said that what had happened was that he was over at his girl friends' house at Big Bar and after they had gotten high on happy weed they got into a fight and he broke up all of their musical instruments. For this they beat him up and decided to throw him into the trunk and take him down to the suspension bridge, throw him off and drown him. When they got in the middle of this project they were out on the middle of the bridge and ready to throw him over the rail, some indians came along so they had to put him back in the trunk and take him home through our yard. After they got him over near enough to his house so that he walk the rest of the way, they beat him up again, hit his head against the side of the car until one of his ear drums was broken, removed his pants, and left him lying at the end of the road. They also removed all his guns except a .22.
Another time we heard on the radio about a murder the night before in Clinton, Ron was out there so we suspected if there was any strange things happening he would be involved. The next day he hurriedly rode through the yard and stopped long enough to tell us that there had been a fight the night before that he had been involved in. The outcome was that one of the participants had become angry at his own wife and when she was out in the outhouse he shot through it and killed her. Ron was not directly in anything but the fight.
Another time as I was working in the field below the house a man came walking in from the direction of Rons' cabin. It was hot and he was holding a light jacket up against his throat. He walked on up to the house and summoned my wife. He had a bad cut across his throat and you could see all the veins and trachea. The hole was about 1 inch wide and 3 inches long. He wanted her to sew it up for him. Connie did not want to tackle that job so close to his vital veins. So they summoned me to come to see wether I would attempt to repair the wound since I had had a lot of experience sewing up cows from cesearian etc. I declined and suggested they head in to town for a doctor to do the job. He refused but didn't give any reason. He went down to the bunkhouse after we had disinfected the wound and waited for Ron to come in from work. Ron came up to the house later and said that the reason the other man did not want to go to town was that he had jumped bail and was being sought by the RCMP. Later that night they decided to take the chance and head into town but they needed to borrow a pickup to get them there. I let them use a small Scout pickup and they headed out at about 9 at night. The next day I got a call that the pickup had been stolen in town but that it had been found but with the motor not working. Later that day gbrumbelow hauled the two out to Dog Creek to meet me to take them back to Empire. I remember that their necks and back of their heads were absolutely covered with dust from the dirt roads and the leaking rear window of the car. I think gbrumbelow has a different car now. I had to take a truck into town and haul the Scout back to Empire. Crazy Ron, the other man, said that the truck engine thing was his fault and that he wanted to stay around long enough to repair it. He pulled the engine out and I took it back into town to be rebuilt. While that was happening a range specialist from the forestry department came to visit for a weekend. He heard the story and thought he should report Crazy Rons' whereabouts to the RCMP so he did. Crazy Ron found out about it and ran away into the mountains to hide. He said that every little plane that went over was surely looking for him and it bothered him so much he came back to the headquarters to give himself up. Next, before he turn himself in the RCMP called me and asked that since they now knew where he was would we mind keeping him until his trial date. They said that he had been so obnoxious while they were holding him that they just wanted rid of him. I finally agreed and he stayed around and worked for us. Later I found out that the charges against him were for attempted murder. He had forced two Korean men out of their blazer and then drove it over a cliff and forced them to walk back to town about 30 miles in their street clothes. The problem was it was 30 degrees below zero and they nearly died from exposure and had a huge amount of frost bite.
Another time Ron the Hip stopped in our yard with a billy goat in the back of his truck with no racks. That bille stunk so bad that our yard reeked for several hours after they had left. Man did it ever stink. The next day I was out in the area above his cabin where he parked his truck and I found the goat dead beside his truck. Maybe the goat smelled of death as well as essence of billy goat.
Ron the Hips' wife was a very attractive French speaking girl that liked to ride around the place with only chaps and boots on. She was quite an attraction for the cowboys and farm workers alike. She would come over to our house to buy milk as Connie and our foremans wife, Nancy Oswald, milked a cow. After she purchased the milk she would put it in a jar, tye it behind her saddle and then head home the 5 miles. The action of the horse would churn the cream and by the time she got home she had butter. They also ate a lot of nettle. Connie really felt that she should come to our house with more clothes on as so little work would get done while she was there. Yeah, right! They ended up with six or seven kids all raised in that cabin. Ron had actually built a rather nice log home at about that time on Lone Cabin.
He had a system hooked up that included a 2 inch black plastic pipe running along a south facing hillside that gathered heat from the sun and then down into a shower for summer use. I guess in the winter they just went without. Which was fairly typical of the hippies.
Soon after we arrived at Empire we realized that we weren't actually at the end of the road as there was a hippie who had a cabin 5 miles further on. The cabin was located along Lone Cabin Creek which was very apporpriate. There was no road to this cabin, only a narrow trail that passed the cabin , crossed the creek, and went on south along the river. The hippie that lived there was named "Ron the Hip" Cable.
He told me that one time when he was staying there in the winter one of those silver thaws came in and everything was so covered with ice that he had to crawl nearly four miles to get near the basket that would take him across the river so he could go to town and get beat up again.
That trail was along a very steep hillside and dropped straight off for several hundred feet into Lone Cabin. In the early days it had been used as the main transportation link between Vancouver and the gold mines in the upper interior. In the winter the pack strings would stop and winter their horses on a flat topped mountain near the house at Empire. That mountain rarely had snow deep enough that a horse could not paw through it. The only time was in a silver thaw( wintertime rain on snow and then a hard following freeze that caused crusting) came on top of a foot or more of snow and the snow would crust so that the horses couldn't dig anymore. Then the horses would have to be brought in and fed hay or moved to pastures where the sun had melted the ice crust. When we had to ride up there and gather the horses we had to put leggings on our horses' front legs. For this we could cut an inner tube to the proper length and then slip it up over the horses leg. We would attach a piece of twine over the horses' shoulder to hold the inner tubs up and run another down and through the shoes to hold it down. This arrangement worked very well. When we were at Empire of course the pack trains were long gone but we wintered pack strings for several of the guides that hunted on Empire range. These guides were some of the finest men we worked with in BC. After wintering these horses for years we got the feel of what had gone on so long ago. One of the historical experiences we missed was when some packer got the bright idea of using camels instead of horses. Needless to say that when a camel came upon a horse pack string all hell would break loose.
Most winters Ron the Hip would winter out and work for a local ranch. Usually he stayed down at the Gang pasture along the river. One night at about 2 in the morning a car raced through our yard at Empire and headed out along the road to Rons' cabin. I usually didn't allow anybody in there so I was a bit surprised at their brazenness. I was far too sleepy to give chase so I decided to wait until daylight before investigating. In a couple hours the car came back out and went on through and out the main road. I remember it being an older Volvo but I didn't recognize the car. The next day Ron came in to the headquarters, looking rather badly, and wanted for us to take him to town to see a doctor. He said that what had happened was that he was over at his girl friends' house at Big Bar and after they had gotten high on happy weed they got into a fight and he broke up all of their musical instruments. For this they beat him up and decided to throw him into the trunk and take him down to the suspension bridge, throw him off and drown him. When they got in the middle of this project they were out on the middle of the bridge and ready to throw him over the rail, some indians came along so they had to put him back in the trunk and take him home through our yard. After they got him over near enough to his house so that he walk the rest of the way, they beat him up again, hit his head against the side of the car until one of his ear drums was broken, removed his pants, and left him lying at the end of the road. They also removed all his guns except a .22.
Another time we heard on the radio about a murder the night before in Clinton, Ron was out there so we suspected if there was any strange things happening he would be involved. The next day he hurriedly rode through the yard and stopped long enough to tell us that there had been a fight the night before that he had been involved in. The outcome was that one of the participants had become angry at his own wife and when she was out in the outhouse he shot through it and killed her. Ron was not directly in anything but the fight.
Another time as I was working in the field below the house a man came walking in from the direction of Rons' cabin. It was hot and he was holding a light jacket up against his throat. He walked on up to the house and summoned my wife. He had a bad cut across his throat and you could see all the veins and trachea. The hole was about 1 inch wide and 3 inches long. He wanted her to sew it up for him. Connie did not want to tackle that job so close to his vital veins. So they summoned me to come to see wether I would attempt to repair the wound since I had had a lot of experience sewing up cows from cesearian etc. I declined and suggested they head in to town for a doctor to do the job. He refused but didn't give any reason. He went down to the bunkhouse after we had disinfected the wound and waited for Ron to come in from work. Ron came up to the house later and said that the reason the other man did not want to go to town was that he had jumped bail and was being sought by the RCMP. Later that night they decided to take the chance and head into town but they needed to borrow a pickup to get them there. I let them use a small Scout pickup and they headed out at about 9 at night. The next day I got a call that the pickup had been stolen in town but that it had been found but with the motor not working. Later that day gbrumbelow hauled the two out to Dog Creek to meet me to take them back to Empire. I remember that their necks and back of their heads were absolutely covered with dust from the dirt roads and the leaking rear window of the car. I think gbrumbelow has a different car now. I had to take a truck into town and haul the Scout back to Empire. Crazy Ron, the other man, said that the truck engine thing was his fault and that he wanted to stay around long enough to repair it. He pulled the engine out and I took it back into town to be rebuilt. While that was happening a range specialist from the forestry department came to visit for a weekend. He heard the story and thought he should report Crazy Rons' whereabouts to the RCMP so he did. Crazy Ron found out about it and ran away into the mountains to hide. He said that every little plane that went over was surely looking for him and it bothered him so much he came back to the headquarters to give himself up. Next, before he turn himself in the RCMP called me and asked that since they now knew where he was would we mind keeping him until his trial date. They said that he had been so obnoxious while they were holding him that they just wanted rid of him. I finally agreed and he stayed around and worked for us. Later I found out that the charges against him were for attempted murder. He had forced two Korean men out of their blazer and then drove it over a cliff and forced them to walk back to town about 30 miles in their street clothes. The problem was it was 30 degrees below zero and they nearly died from exposure and had a huge amount of frost bite.
Another time Ron the Hip stopped in our yard with a billy goat in the back of his truck with no racks. That bille stunk so bad that our yard reeked for several hours after they had left. Man did it ever stink. The next day I was out in the area above his cabin where he parked his truck and I found the goat dead beside his truck. Maybe the goat smelled of death as well as essence of billy goat.
Ron the Hips' wife was a very attractive French speaking girl that liked to ride around the place with only chaps and boots on. She was quite an attraction for the cowboys and farm workers alike. She would come over to our house to buy milk as Connie and our foremans wife, Nancy Oswald, milked a cow. After she purchased the milk she would put it in a jar, tye it behind her saddle and then head home the 5 miles. The action of the horse would churn the cream and by the time she got home she had butter. They also ate a lot of nettle. Connie really felt that she should come to our house with more clothes on as so little work would get done while she was there. Yeah, right! They ended up with six or seven kids all raised in that cabin. Ron had actually built a rather nice log home at about that time on Lone Cabin.
He had a system hooked up that included a 2 inch black plastic pipe running along a south facing hillside that gathered heat from the sun and then down into a shower for summer use. I guess in the winter they just went without. Which was fairly typical of the hippies.
TinsleyHerefords
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Hello, I'm JC's son. Sorry to have to report this but JC passed away on 4-30-10. He was buried in Kaufman next his dad Wesley Keller Tinsley. JC has loved Herefords for 60+ years of his 68 year life. I found ribbons from showing herefords at the Houston Livestock show ( and all over Texas) as far back as 1959.
I have been trying to sort out the cows he left me. I think I know which one you are speaking of she is about 12 years old.
Hopefully my next post will be more upbeat.
Also to all of the cattle people I have spoken to about my dad, Thanks for sharing all of the good memories
Jason
F350
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He hasn't moved to Tennessee perhaps?[/quote]
Now that's funny....
Now that's funny....
gbrumbelow
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I remember that trip. I thought that was a clergy collar and he was coming out to perform a wedding! ;-)
Guides.
Each fall in November three guides from the area would trail their horses to Empire for us to winter them up on the top of Clyde Mountain. The pack strings from long ago picked that spot to winter back then. Most of those pack strings were made up of Clydesdale horses, so that is how the mountain got its' name.
The three guides were Pete Coldwell from Jesmond BC, Gordon Menhenick from Gold Bridge BC, and Pat Girard from Goldbridge.
Pete wanted to pay his pasture bill by trading a one week bear hunt, guided by him. I took him up on his offer and had a really great time with him on those hunts. He had hunted that territory for nearly forty years and just had a wealth of stories and experiences to tell. These hunts were always in May after the mountain trail passes would melt out. We would move from camp to camp and scout out the south facing slopes where there could be an early spring growth of dandelions that the bears just loved. We were really hunting for a grizzley but instead got lots of black bears. Often we would bait the bears by putting down an ancient pack horse and then waiting the ten days for the bears to be drawn to the carcass. This really worked and we got most of the bears in this way. You had to chain the horses leg to a tree or a grizzley would move it to where you couldn't see to shoot. Pete had seen a grizzley grab a 1200 lb. horse from the top of the shoulders and just sling it over like turning a blanket. At one point in time the entire horse was in the air. That really opened the eyes of the hunter that he was guiding and made him very conscious of the need to shoot straight. I rode through aspen groves in the Tyaughton Valley(Indian name for "good little things from the ground". ) where a group of indians were trapped for the winter and they ate the ground hogs after they dug them up. In those aspen groves you could ride up to a tree and reach as high as you could while still on the horse and just reach the scratch marks of a large grizzley.
Another hunter who was with Pete wounded a big grizzley and the bear charged. The hunter was carrying a .375 magnum but instead of firing at the bear he threw the gun up into the air and ran. Pete shot and killed the bear with a 12 gauge shotgun with a slug in it and the bear dropped before he reached Pete. When the hunter stopped running and came back to the scene he said to Pete "Boy O Boy, it sure is good nobody got excited or someone could have been hurt."
We were trying to find a grizzley that habitually killed a cow just before he went into hybernation. Kind of like a midnight snack. The bear would bury the cow but when we got there in the spring the buried cow had long since been dug up and consumed. That same bear in almost exactly the same spot killed a black baldie that I had been driving up a steep and narrow trail out of a canyon named Starvation. The cow showed signs of weed poisoning as she was bleeding from the mouth as I drove her. In a very steep spot on the trail she decided to stop so I took the rest of the cattle on up to Yodel camp and started them towards home. The next morning I drove the two hour trip home. Later that day I got a call from Pete and he said that he , his sheep hunters and his pack string had been attacked by this grizzley right at the spot where I left the cow. He said if it hadn't been for his little border collie they all might have been injured. He was calling from a mine camp that he had to ride two hours to get to so I knew he was serious. I left immediately and went back to where the cow had been. The bear had been eating on her when Petes' party happened by and then had charged them. When I got to the cow she had been completely consumed and only the hide was remaining. Talk about your hair standing up on the back of your neck. It was nearly dark in a patch of tall Spruce trees that made a cathedral effect. No sign of the bear and I was almost relieved.
One time Alec our indian cow foreman was staying at that Yodel camp and sitting near a calf that a bear had killed down along the creek. That spot also had an erie cathedral effect with high rock cliffs on both sides and the tall spruces. As he was sitting there just before dark with his old rifle and his back against a tree a squirrel ran up the tree and scowlded at him. Alec just started running for the camp which was about a mile away. He said that he told himself that it had just been a squirrel but he couldn't convince himself to slow down until he had slammed and bolted the door on the Yodel cabin
Each fall in November three guides from the area would trail their horses to Empire for us to winter them up on the top of Clyde Mountain. The pack strings from long ago picked that spot to winter back then. Most of those pack strings were made up of Clydesdale horses, so that is how the mountain got its' name.
The three guides were Pete Coldwell from Jesmond BC, Gordon Menhenick from Gold Bridge BC, and Pat Girard from Goldbridge.
Pete wanted to pay his pasture bill by trading a one week bear hunt, guided by him. I took him up on his offer and had a really great time with him on those hunts. He had hunted that territory for nearly forty years and just had a wealth of stories and experiences to tell. These hunts were always in May after the mountain trail passes would melt out. We would move from camp to camp and scout out the south facing slopes where there could be an early spring growth of dandelions that the bears just loved. We were really hunting for a grizzley but instead got lots of black bears. Often we would bait the bears by putting down an ancient pack horse and then waiting the ten days for the bears to be drawn to the carcass. This really worked and we got most of the bears in this way. You had to chain the horses leg to a tree or a grizzley would move it to where you couldn't see to shoot. Pete had seen a grizzley grab a 1200 lb. horse from the top of the shoulders and just sling it over like turning a blanket. At one point in time the entire horse was in the air. That really opened the eyes of the hunter that he was guiding and made him very conscious of the need to shoot straight. I rode through aspen groves in the Tyaughton Valley(Indian name for "good little things from the ground". ) where a group of indians were trapped for the winter and they ate the ground hogs after they dug them up. In those aspen groves you could ride up to a tree and reach as high as you could while still on the horse and just reach the scratch marks of a large grizzley.
Another hunter who was with Pete wounded a big grizzley and the bear charged. The hunter was carrying a .375 magnum but instead of firing at the bear he threw the gun up into the air and ran. Pete shot and killed the bear with a 12 gauge shotgun with a slug in it and the bear dropped before he reached Pete. When the hunter stopped running and came back to the scene he said to Pete "Boy O Boy, it sure is good nobody got excited or someone could have been hurt."
We were trying to find a grizzley that habitually killed a cow just before he went into hybernation. Kind of like a midnight snack. The bear would bury the cow but when we got there in the spring the buried cow had long since been dug up and consumed. That same bear in almost exactly the same spot killed a black baldie that I had been driving up a steep and narrow trail out of a canyon named Starvation. The cow showed signs of weed poisoning as she was bleeding from the mouth as I drove her. In a very steep spot on the trail she decided to stop so I took the rest of the cattle on up to Yodel camp and started them towards home. The next morning I drove the two hour trip home. Later that day I got a call from Pete and he said that he , his sheep hunters and his pack string had been attacked by this grizzley right at the spot where I left the cow. He said if it hadn't been for his little border collie they all might have been injured. He was calling from a mine camp that he had to ride two hours to get to so I knew he was serious. I left immediately and went back to where the cow had been. The bear had been eating on her when Petes' party happened by and then had charged them. When I got to the cow she had been completely consumed and only the hide was remaining. Talk about your hair standing up on the back of your neck. It was nearly dark in a patch of tall Spruce trees that made a cathedral effect. No sign of the bear and I was almost relieved.
One time Alec our indian cow foreman was staying at that Yodel camp and sitting near a calf that a bear had killed down along the creek. That spot also had an erie cathedral effect with high rock cliffs on both sides and the tall spruces. As he was sitting there just before dark with his old rifle and his back against a tree a squirrel ran up the tree and scowlded at him. Alec just started running for the camp which was about a mile away. He said that he told himself that it had just been a squirrel but he couldn't convince himself to slow down until he had slammed and bolted the door on the Yodel cabin
