October 2022
This month, the poets answer a seasonal question and explain why fall is all the rage for the ranch literati. After all, cowboy poetry has eloquently expressed an autumn mood long before (and, we wager, will do so long after) pumpkin spice memes began circulating as cultural shorthand for the turn of the seasons. Prompted by an anonymous townie, the poets confirm that their “feelin’s and the weather seem to sorta go together.”
"Tell us how this time of year on the ranch reflects in your poetry? or in your favorite poems?
- City Slicker
The panel moves from the page to the stage for a live Ask a Cowboy Poet show on Fri, Feb. 3, 2023 at the 38th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. Submit your questions for consideration in the monthly column, and possibly the live show!
Virginia Bennett:
Howdy, City Slicker!
Certain occupations that take place in nature are greatly influenced by the natural occurrences that control how business is conducted, and ranching and farming are definitely two of those occupations and ways of life. Weather and changes of seasons are the forces that control everything that is done on a ranch–from the time to put the bulls in with the cows in the spring so that calving will happen at the most opportune times, to raising hay for horse and cattle feed which can only be done successfully if the rancher has the knowledge and ability to foresee the upcoming seasons and needs of his/her livestock. Since each day’s work is dominated by past, present, and future seasons, it stands to reason that these significant factors are prevalent in cowboy poetry. Seasons are so important, in fact, that it helps tremendously if the poet sets the stage for their tale by describing the season in which the story takes place.
My favorite poems often demonstrate this and, in fact, certain seasons will naturally bring to mind those poems I admire or ones I’ve written that are set in a particular time of year. Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” tells us everything we need to know about winter, how the main subject in the poem is driving a horse-drawn sleigh instead of a buggy or wagon. How the evening comes early during the shorter days of winter. Frost’s choice of words such as “downy flake” and “to watch his woods fill up with snow” depict the season about which he is writing and, in my mind, this poem could not have happened in any other season than winter. The season is the prime subject of the poem, in fact.
Linda Hasselstrom’s poem, “Seasons in South Dakota” (Dakota: Bones, Grass and Sky, collected and new poems, 2017), does the job so well of concisely, yet poignantly, touching on each season on the ranch as each stands out in their own way with jobs that fill the rancher’s time. Winter: feeding. Spring: calving and branding. Summer: grazing cattle on summer pastures while raising the hay necessary to feed them all winter. Autumn: Harvesting hay, firewood, calves. Rounding up, sorting, and shipping cattle to buyers producing the rancher’s “once-a-year paycheck.” The upcoming season most likely is never far from the cowboy’s thoughts, it is that important. Here is an excerpt from that poem and her observances of winter in one of the coldest areas on earth:
Despite the feeding, pitching hay to
Black cows with frost-rimmed eyes,
Cutting ice on the dam under the eyes
Of sky and one antelope,
There’s still time to sit before the fire,
Curse the dead cold outside,
The other empty chair.
Today, we are facing winter’s arrival, and my thoughts turn to poetry that reflects the season I am experiencing. Vern Mortensen’s “Range Cow In Winter” is a wonderful example:
Have you listened still on a desert hill
At the close of a bitter day,
When the orange sun in wispy clouds
Was set in a greenish haze?
In a cold white world of deepening drifts
That cover the land like a pall,
Then the plaintive bawl of a hungry cow
Is the loneliest sound of all!
In my own poem, “The Lion,” I wanted to paint with words the wintry season when I spied a cougar’s track in the middle of a trail I was following:
She waits in the deep, dense forest
Lurking in the shadows where the sun is defied
Lapping water from an ice-encrusted stream,
She is Stealth, wrapped up in a tawny hide.
Listen and watch for the seasons of the year you will find in almost every cowboy poem!
Yvonne Hollenbeck:
Dear City Slicker,
Autumn on the ranch is possibly the busiest time of the year. We operate a cow-calf operation. Calves are born in the spring (another very busy time), usually beginning toward the end of March; then, after being branded and castrated, the babies and their mothers are placed in summer pastures, usually around the middle of May or whenever the grass is sufficient for grazing. In the fall, these cattle are gathered. The mama cows are preg-checked and the ones who are not pregnant are sorted off; the cows are checked over where some that are old and not in excellent shape are also sorted off (these are called “culls”); the calves are weaned and that is a huge job that can create stressful situations especially if the calves break out of their holding pen and scatter for miles. Some folks sell their calves at this time. On our ranch, we do what they call “winter” them. After the calves have settled down after the weaning process, they are put into a feed lot where they are fed twice a day and sold just before calving time the following spring, thus going full circle.
As you might imagine, there are a lot of incidents that are fuel for poetry, but all the sorting and moving cattle in the fall has created some of my most memorable poetry, which is often humorous about things that are not humorous at the time. The poor old ranchwife (that’s me) also has extra hands to cook for; a garden to clean up and canning to finish; and she (that’s me) also is called upon at all times to run a gate at the sorting pen or haul a load of cattle here or there with a truck and trailer. She also has to watch the gate into the feedlot as the feed outfit goes in and out, because those freshly weaned calves want out of there. Probably half of the poems I write and perform are based around incidents that have taken place this time of the year.
Dick Gibford:
Dear City Slicker:
The question you ask right away put me in mind of the Bruce Kiskaddon poem, “When They’ve Finished Shipping Cattle in the Fall.” Don’t know if you were alluding to that poem, or are familiar with that wonderful poem of his, but, it is very true that the seasons when they are in transition definitely can change a fellar’s mood, and I get more introspective this time of year. Fall marks a time when things start to slow down, especially after the roundup of cattle. And on this outfit, trailing the stragglers down out of the mountains, getting ready for winter, cutting firewood up, weaning big calves, and reflecting on the many things that took place over the spring and summer. To quote from Kiskaddon,
Though you’re not exactly blue,
Yet you don't feel like you do,
In the winter or the long hot summer days,
For your feelings and the weather, seem to sorta go together,
and you’re quiet in the dreamy autumn haze.
I believe I have written more of my best poems in the fall. The mild, balmy weather and the change from summer always gets a new one to percolating up in my ol’ brain pan. Great question! Thanks so much,
D.G.
Waddie Mitchell:
Autumn for most ranches in the Great Basin is more or less the end of the fiscal year. It's when you find out if your labors bore fruit or not. The Earth is slowing down in preparation for winter. Shorter days, cooler weather, hours that don't demand as much productivity, and the beauty of the changing colors all inspire time to ponder. When a poet has time to ponder is when a poet has time to write. When a poet's time to ponder and write happens to be at the culmination of year’s toil, there are feelings, mostly good, that coax reflection, appreciation and pride of a job well done. Cattle have been gathered, calves have been weaned and shipped, horseshoes are pulled off most the horses and teams and/or machines are readied for hay feeding season. All in all, fall is many ranchers’ and poets’ favorite season.
DW Groethe:
Dear City Slicker,
Short and to the point. You can't write about one without considering the other. Ranch work and the weather are inextricably linked. Three of my books of poetry are laid out by the seasons, starting with Spring and ending up with the Winter Solstice. Most everything we do is outdoors so, yes, weather and the seasons are always a consideration. And I'm glad it works out that way because where else would you be able to see somebody trying to dodge a momma cow only to slip face first into the muck and mire of a sloppy corral because we finally got a good rain. I mean, THAT'S FUNNY!...and you get to write a poem about it. Ta daa.
Thanks for asking,
dw
Bill Lowman:
Yes, good question. We consistently record daily historic events, year-around of noteworthy happenings in and around our lives. The toughest part would be to pick out a poem. I have written and published six books of my musings and visual art, but yes, the fall season of round-ups, calf weaning and shipping, cattle herd pregnancy checking and health shots, herd calling, and so on gives birth to many unusual situations that are worthy of a poem as neighbors gather to help work your cattle and you travel to return the labor. Some are serious, while many others, all true events, have that traditional cowboy flavor of ending in "dry humor."
A couple of my favorite serious ones are:
"The Devil's Death Trap" (Walk Ah Mile In My Bones, 1988). While on round-up during a miserable fall day of wind, freezing rain, and sleet, I came across three cows that fell through the thin ice at a large earthfill reservoir, deep in the "outback" country of rugged badlands. Waving my brother down from a nearby plateau, we were able to finally pull them to safety by tying two lariats together, snubbed to our saddle horns.
"The Gates Of Hell—When Things Got Ugly" (Spook'in The Wolf, 2006). Old herd bulls get pretty cantankerous and become "hermits" in the fall. This one is of a long-running battle where my favorite mount, "Badger," and I escaped with our lives, just barely.
But a couple of my favorites are published in my latest book, And The Freight Trains Roll (2018), and have that traditional dry humor. One is "Saddle Horn Math" and the other "Pert Near Had Twins” goes like this:
Several generations of the Brown family ranched up on the “Big Plateau,” which now bears their family name. It was 1927 when the Canadian immigrants left Dickinson to ranch in the remote badlands on the Golden Valley/Billings County line north of Sentinel Butte, which would continue for three fourths of a century. It was then purchased by a father/son combination that had a large farming operation in central North Dakota up around the Garrison Dam area. They also ran some very top quality Red Angus cattle and needed some pasture room to get them out of boggy calving pens in the spring and better summer pasture. I was one of the first neighbors to befriend them so I got suckered into taking care of their cow herd and the ranch on a calf share agreement, as if I wasn’t busy enough already.
We always weaned and sold calves in mid-October and chute worked the cows for health, pg and culls to be ready for an early winter. Dave and Krist were always swamped with their grain harvest and goose hunt guiding service that it was always pushing Turkey Day before the cattle were worked. I’d secure a date with our local vet and they’d bring a crew out with them. This one year it turned nasty. A cold strong wind, freezing rain, sleet and snow. Most times the fall cattle working season is a great social event of visiting, joking and pulling pranks as you work, but this one didn’t qualify. Not a word was being said as each one did their assigned duties in a hurried manner, trying to keep warm. As the seriousness set in even deeper, I broke the silence saying, “Dave, this next cow pert near had twins,” but my statement echoed in silence. Then all at once it hit him as he blurted out with laughter. “How does a cow pert near have twins?’ my response was simple, I told him her ear tag number was 293 and the cow that had twins was 294.
