Madame Motley

    Madame Motley 

                                                                             By

                                                                     Mike Capron

I was feeling pretty good about the progress me and the puppies were making. We had all the country below the rim cleaned. At least the best I could tell with all my comings and goings to the HQ and back to my camp at the rock house. I had seen no sign below the rim. We had cleaned the north pasture since we got Shaq. At least we hadn’t seen any sign in the north pasture since we split up that bunch and roped the four bulls and met Shaq. We hadn’t seen any sign of the small bunch of cows that was with the four bulls we caught since we tracked them to where they crossed the fence going to the neighbors.   We still lacked the south pasture, the Chico and the Rock House pasture.  The Rock House was clean for the most part. With all my comings and goings I had either run all the cattle out of that pasture or penned them and cut the culls to sell and moved the keepers to the middle pasture. I wanted to find the cattle we left in the North Pasture. I wasn’t sure where to look, but that didn’t worry me too much, I loved to ride and see the country. 

Things were changing fast down at the HQ. Anne had created a new ranch business. She was caring for geologist. The boss had opened the ranch to full access to the geologist from all over the world, with access fees of course. And Anne was housing and feeding them for a handsome fee of course.  I needed to go help when they showed up. All good, but more projects to tend too.  The wind tower project was under full swing also, which was a good deal,  as they had to build a good road up the Delaware Rim, in order to get towers and equipment on top of the rim.  With all that was going on I had less time to prowl but I though I could change the routine and start motorizing my operation.  I got some panels and a good small trailer and thought I would try feeding some cattle into a small pen behind the truck and trailer.  It worked very well as long as the groups weren’t to big.  For the most part cows went to the back burner and I was on full call to help Anne. But I was in pretty good shape as far as cleaning the ranch of spoiled unproductive cattle. I could keep a good eye on my keeper cattle and at the same time check for any new cull cattle to show up in the South pasture and Chico. I could make a different circle every time I had to report to Anne.  I was able to keep an eye out for fresh sign. My new motorized plan was working very well and I was pecking away at the South pasture and I was very pleased with the country I had to travel through from Rock House to the HQ.  I was keeping in the middle pasture and the surrounding edges of the rock house, and north pastures.  The country was in good shape and the cattle were comfortable locating here. I was taking bigger circles from Rock house to the HQ down below. I had wandered down the rim road to the Chico headed to HQ without my trailer and panels . I had the puppies and plenty of feed. But it was a long ways to any corrals. I was bumping along and turned a corner high on the rim road. I ran smack dab into a nice bunch of cows and calfs, maybe fifteen to twenty staring at me from the middle of the road. I stopped and stared back while plans were running through my head.  I wanted to feed them, but was afraid to make a move. The puppies were watching and waiting for clue or a cue………. The cattle were also on watch.  There was a black baldy cow that look like the herd matriarch, she was branded 6- but I didn’t know her. These could have been the cattle that were with the bulls we roped in the north pasture.  I tried to slip out of the truck and get a sack of feed. The old black baldy wanted to stick around and check out the routine, but the rest of the herd wasn’t interested and they broke and ran. All I could do was put the puppies on them. They had their hands full for a short run, but they managed to hold them and convince them the feed sack was a good deal. It took some doing to get their heads down and smell the feed. The black baldy was the only one that knew how to eat on the ground.  After getting them settled with plenty of feed on the ground and some of them eating. I loaded the dogs and we drove away with them comfortable.  We turned around and headed to HQ.  While I was driving to help Anne, I was thinking how to corral these little darlings. I did come up with a name for the bunch, but that was about all I could come up with………….Madame Motley’s Bunch got to be a common occurrence…!!!!!!!!!!