October in Texas...

You'll drink what they give you.

While procrastinating about shoeing horses in the new spring heat, I began to reminisce on all of the other things I'd like to be doing instead. I found this picture on my phone and that day came flooding back to me immediately.

It was October and it was cold and dark at 6am so I grabbed my felt hat and I loaded up Tulsa for her second day of work. Tulsa is race bred and she is tall and no bovine can outrun her. The day before we had gathered a big brushy pasture. She has lots of try and enough grit to make me proud but the miles had made her sore, I could tell because she quivered when the girth touched her belly. I barely got my foot in the stirrup before she humped up and spun a few circles with her head between her knees. I caught my other pedal as she spun into me and I gathered enough rein to be able to feel her head. The guys were watching from the door of the medicine room so I asked her for more, they laughed when she didn't have anymore to give. I was secretly glad she didn't have more to give.

By the time we were done riding pens I had already shed my wild rag and gloves and was wiping sweat that ran down a wrinkled trail between my eyes. My boss was the only one smart enough to not give up on his straw hat yet, this is west Texas after all.

My first loop from a new rope drug a sick heifer out of a tank she had run down into while trying to evade our horses. I spent the rest of the day peeling mud off of my leggings. The yearlings were straightening out so we didn't have too many to tend to. That's too bad because Tulsa was just starting to get good at working a rope.

Late in the afternoon we wasted cotton pads and casting material to attempt a vet's job on a calf that broke his leg. He shouldn't have tried to jump that pipe fence. Or he should've made it. The break was in a bad spot, that steer was on the hook and our work didn't hold. I don't know for sure but he probably didn't make it. 

We helped ourselves to a Miller Light as the sun began to set. I don't even like Miller Light but I did right then; it really doesn't matter what you prefer when you're hot and tired and frustrated. I wanted another when I finished the first.

I got lucky, that wasn't the last beer I was offered. We processed three loads of bulls that night; cutting and doctoring and tagging. I do believe it was past my bedtime when we made a beer run. That's when I was educated; never work for a man who has lights in his barn. Lesson learned.

Tulsa got the next day off. I did not.