Cooking At the Bartlett Ranch Colt Clinic

June 3-11, 2008, Mary, Whitney and I cooked over the campfire for 45-55 people. Each year in June, Bill Smith comes to the Bartlett
Ranch in Wyoming and works our two-year-old horses. Young cowboys from
various states come in to start and ride these colts for Bill and Dr. Woody
Bartlett. It is a very busy, fun week.

As chuckwagon cooks, we have never had time to watch the action but we hear all about it when the guys come in for a meal! This is our 4th year of
cooking and was the best yet. We are learning as we go, how to do things better, and what meals are too labor intensive to be practical. As far as I know nobody has gotten sick from our cookin' and we are hired for next year!

We use dutch ovens and cook over coals or the open fire. Our "kitchen"
is a remodeled contractors trailer where we have two refrigerators and a
freezer, steel work table and stove. Mary and I did not have the first clue
what we were getting into the first year we agreed to cook. Now, four years
later, we really enjoy it.

It rained a lot, making it a challenge to keep the fires going, and a bull snake decided to join us for lunch one day! Mary just about stepped on him. We found a rattlesnake in the woodpile and our sugar got wet. But, those are just things that happen when you're cooking out!

The Cowboy

The Cowboy

As long as there's one cow left in the country, there'll have to be a cowboy to take her where she don't want to go and to bring her back when she don't want to come.
He'll have to cut her loose when she gets hung up in a fence, or rope and drag her out of a swamp when he can't figure out why in the heck she wandered out there in the first place.
Every now and then, the cowboy will have to try to get a cow's calf back to her after it has crawled through the fence. He'll cut the fence and run the calf back and forth past the hole until his horse is played out chasing the little fella, who is now half-deer and half-antelope. In the meantime, the cow jumps the fence, mothers the calf and they both calmly stroll back through the hole the cowboy cut.
He has to act as a midwife when the cow is having trouble calving, but he'll grin from ear to ear when he pulls the calf and it's alive and finally stands up to get that first drink of milk. On occasion, the cowboy will swear to his wife, "By God, come next spring we're gonna sell this darn ranch, 'cuz I'm tired of freezin' my butt off n the winter and fryin' my brains in the summer. We'll move to town and get a job that pays better than the starvation wages we make here!" Yet, when the first calf is born that next spring, the cowboy will grin at his wife kinda sheepishly and say, "Aw shucks, maw, let's try it another year."

--Bonnie Yeo from Out Montana Way

Greeting Cards

On the front page we now are featuring sets of greeting cards, with pictures taken by Melissa Rosengreen, a longtime friend and neighbor. Of course there are plenty of stories that go on behind the scenes of a ranch. This is one of them.

Bronc in the Branding Pen

Cowboy Up! Wesley roped a calf and his colt went to bucking! Wes is riding
it well! The cowboy you see standing is Sam keeping the colt from bucking
over three wrestling teams holding calves on the ground. In a small corral,
this is not what you want to happen. This colt's show was nice for a picture

but made for some pretty tense minutes in the branding pen.

Every spring, we have a month or more of brandings. We neighbor, meaning,
the ranchers in the area help each other with branding the calves born that
spring. So, every spring, we go to lots of brandings at ranches in the area.
In turn, when we have to brand, they come in and help us. It is a good way
to get a great crew, but it is also a social time. For some of us, it is the
only time of year we see each other. As neighbors, we catch up on the past
year, renew old friendships and enjoy a lot of joking and tall stories.

We start early in the morning, shortly after sun up gathering the cattle
herd and bringing them to the branding corral. Many times the air is nippy
and the horses are full of ginger. Some ranchers choose to sort all the
mother cows out of the herd of calves that will be branded while others sort
about half of the cows off. It seems to settle the calves to have at least a
few old cows in with them. The corral boss then asks certain men to rope.
There are a code of ethics in the branding corral. One is to rope when you
are asked and NOT to rope when you are not asked. Wait to be asked! Usually
the older men are asked to brand the calves because they are steady, not
easily spooked and know their way around a branding pen. When the calves are
all branded, we all sit down together to a very nice meal provided by the
ladies of the ranch. Swapping tales and visiting is a cowboy's favorite
pastime..........but only after the work is done.

Story Search!

Everyone DOES have stories to tell, and we're interested in yours. Help us keep the West alive. Short stories should be no longer than 7-8 paragraphs of regular size. Email your short stories to dontfencemein1979@yahoo.com. Upon aproval from our editors, we'll inform you if your story will be featured and when. More information will be given upon receiving your submission.
Thanks for your help and START WRITING!

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"For those who live it, and those who love it!"