For the last 6 years, I have told myself that I was going to take it easy next year....slow down....downsize... semi-retire. But I have come to realize, that you you really can't in certain businesses and life styles. I have done more business in my insurance consulting firm the last 2 years than I have since 2008. I have increased the number of concerts and events I put on. I have done more recording and producing (
@gman4691 , we plan omn starting on yours in 2 weeks) the last 2 years since I "quit the music business" than I have in the last decade. In my prime I limited the number of horses I took in for training to 4 at a time...this year I have already finished 6. Lately, I can no longer go 24-38 hours, working til I drop, and get over it with one good night's sleep. The past 3 days in the hay field ,has about done me in. 5 years ago, I would put my truck in 1st gear in 4 Low, and let it creep down the hay fields while I got up 600 bales alone. Once your body says " I am done",, you just can't power throuigh it anymore. You can't run cows, grow hay, train horses, catch cattle for people, etc., j
ust a little bit. Or
part time. Saturday I almost killed my best horse..my companion and partner in crime for 20 years, sorting and roping calves to be weaned..14 hours in 90 degree heat and 95% humidity. He went down on me and thought he'd never get up. He always lasted longer than any of the others on the job...and any other younger horses I had. It wasn;t that he had super strength or super stamina...he would go on pure "heart". When I'd call on him he'd reach down and get more. Well Saturday I called on him one time too many., He reached down to pull out a little more effort, and he had nothing left to give me. I worked in a blind panic to do everything I could to save him, and when I was finally beginning to accept that I had killed him, I layed down, put my arms around his necl, and whispered" You go on to sleep now, Smoke I am sorry boy. Close your eyes and rest." He did. He closed his eyes, sighed, ,then stood up! Shaky on his legs, but he reached way down and pulled through for me just one more time. I lead him about 5 steps toward the trailer, then I went down. I had no energy or strength at all left in me. I was barely able to fight them to keep from getting in an ambulance. But I did realize, I have been doing to myself what I had done to my horse, I was going on pure heart....adrenaline, maybe...and I finally ran out. I haven't fully recovered yet. But I have had to face the fact that I am old, my body is done. It sucks, but it is what it is.
Today I sold the last 14 remaining cows in the Corriente herd. The 14 half-Corr/half Mexican fighting cattle with the 3/4 MFB calves on their side. They got the ones with heifer calves this past weekend and gonna pick the rest of them up at the Labor Day dove shoot. Just the cows, ..they didnt want the steer calves and the bull calf. I will bring them home with me after the shoot to go in our practice pen. Scott won't ever be able to ride enough to work cattle any more. His goal is to be able to ride the gaited horses come quail season, but his cowboy days are over, and I can;t do it by myself. None of his family or mine can ride good enough to handle those cattle on that terrain. The Kudzu-Corriente Saga is over. Me and Smoke will go to Tuesday night team roping ad Friday night team pennings/sortings, and to Sunday afternoon cowboy mounted shootings, and that is it. No more working cattle for folks. No more running halfway across the country and back, buying cattle for folks. Not taking any more horses to train.....I will take
you and your horse, and teach you how to train them,. but only 1 or 2 a year. I have a greaty -grandson that was a year old last month, lives 25 miles away, and I have seen him 5 times since he was born. That is about to change. Scott is lettig his grandson and nephew use his equipment to row crop his 400 acres across the road, and they will plant the 50 acre dove field for us. He and I are gonna use the Kudzu place just for what we bought it for 45 years ago...our quail and rabbit hunting preserve.
I am gonna miss that herd of Corrientes, and the money it has made me the last few decades. Gonna miss working cattle on a fine horse. But, like I said, you can't do it a little bit. You can't almost retire. Nearly killing myself and my horse, gave me a wake up call, I don;t want to be no 100 years old..5 or 10 more years and I am good,. But I got to outlive Smoke, to make sure he dies here at home. If I was to kick the bucket, my bunch would sell him for dog food before the flowers wilted on my grave!

I want to be the one to put him down when the time comes. Getting soft in my old age, I guess.