Head ‘em Up, Move ‘em Out!

OK…so it wasn’t the old TV western “Rawhide.”

No Rowdy Yates, the young impulsive cowboy played by Clint Eastwood, or Gil Favor, the trail boss played by Eric Fleming.

Instead of driving hundreds of cattle along the Chisholm Trail from Texas to a rail head in Abilene, Kansas, where they were sold and herded onto an eastbound train, we drove a herd of 31 yearling steers from a rented pasture…

along a mile of gravel road…

through a left-hand turn at an intersection…

Bill shakes a bucket of grain to lead the steers into the turn.

Quad Squad on ATVs block two roads at the intersection.

through a gate into a hay field…

where the lush green regrowth invited a quick snack and was too tempting to pass up...

then through another gate into a pasture...

and into a large holding pen in the owner’s corral…

to be loaded into trailers and driven to an area feedlot the next day.

Our cattle drive was led by Bill in his pickup holding open the driver’s side door, rattling a plastic bucket with grain and yelling, “S’calf! S’calf!” The farm paparazza, me, leaned out the tailgate and documented the event, snapping digital pics, not tintypes.

The land owner rode drag—brought up the rear—on his ATV, shagged strays and kept those little dogies movin’.

Instead of cowboy drovers on horseback, we had the “Quad Squad” – the land owner’s neighbors on ATVs.

They blocked two roads at an intersection and rode the flanks when we turned into the pasture and headed for the corral.

One of the Quad Squad drovers, Neil, brought along his granddaughter, Kinsley. She likes the “moos.” 

After the gate swung shut behind them, the steers were treated to a generous portion of grain in feed bunks.

At trail's end, instead of carousing in a local saloon, tossing down shots of watered down rotgut whiskey, we relaxed with beers.

Yippee ki yay o! Git along little dogies!