March 2023

Snowpack, drought, thaws, flooding, record-breaking temperatures…the weather is hitting many in ranch country along with nature’s usual spring moodiness, mud, and calves. This month, the cowboy poets share poems and firsthand accounts about the way the weather is impacting seasonal routines in their parts of the world.

How is the current weather situation affecting your spring chores on the ranch? Do you have a favorite spring poem to share?
–Fern from Ferndale

DW Groethe:

Fern,

It's been a while since I've worked a March calving season, but a glance out my window tells me things ain't changed much. Plenty wind and lotsa snow with the rare warm spring-like day that melts away the drifts some and lets you muddy up your muckers as you're trying to chouse a calving heifer into the barn and she doesn't want to go. Not complaining, mind you, it's all part of the deal...and as an added bonus, you'll probably get a poem out of it. Here's one of mine from twenty-some years back that kinda sorta tells it...

by DW Groethe

Dick Gibford:

Everything is lovely on the ranch now, because we have received an ample amount of that bad weather that they talk about on the TV and radio. No more feeding high-dollar hay to the cattle. There will be more than enough grazing for cattle all the rest of the year! Here is one of my favorite spring poems I wrote years ago called “Sunup.”

Sunup

When the sun comes up in the morning and my world springs to life again,
It is there without a warning, like the magic of a friend,
The woodpeckers, magpies and jays are seeking warmer heights,
Where the first sun rays, warm their feathers from the night,

With the backdrop of a navy blue sky, and the sparrows song in my ear,
I swing aboard my pony and ride, within the pureness of eden, so near.

I am young and I am old, at once I am reborn,
The joy of life runs thru my blood and soul, and the fleece from my sheep is shorn,
Many trails behind us lie, my tracks are vague, lost or gone.
No matter!
For here is where I live and die, with the coming of the sun, right after dawn.

by Dick Gibford

Yvonne Hollenbeck:

Oh my, the current weather situation has certainly had an effect on spring work and chores. For starters, our area in south central South Dakota underwent the driest year of record in 2022, only to receive the worst winter in recent history, far surpassing the record snowfalls in the past. It is now late March, when many ranchers are repairing and readying fences in summer pastures, harrowing cow chips on meadows where cattle were wintered, and of course, calving. Unfortunately, not here as we still have many fences heavily damaged and some still buried in frozen drifts. With over 100 inches of snow since December 12, 2022, there is still a great amount of ground covered, making it extremely difficult to get feeding done and expectant cows checked and cared for. After a calf is born, we usually “pair out” the mama and baby, when it is about two days old, tagged, and doing fine, but not this year. The areas where we usually pair out, which accommodate a hundred plus pairs each, are completely covered with at least two feet of snow, and fences, gates, and windmills not supportive of handling them, so they are basically confined to a fifty-acre calving lot. The deep snow has not been conducive or even safe for saddle horses, but fortunately we have large, front-wheel assist tractors with loaders to help get through the heavy snow and help with feeding. We also have a snowmobile, a Bobcat, and other handy equipment. After the drought and unusual winter weather, hay is not plentiful so that too has been a problem for everyone in this area. We are probably going to “make it to grass” but will certainly not go into a new year with carryover feed, so hoping for good rains…if summer ever comes. I could go on forever telling about problems caused by our recent weather, but love our ranch life such as it is.

Waddie Mitchell:

Nevada in Spring

The cows are turned out and the meadows been dragged
You picked up some eight-way in town
The cheat grass is now giving way to the blue bunch
The sun slowed its rush to go down

The range has changed into her Easter attire
Pup cyots are venturing out
Fawns buck and hover 'round mothers recov'ring
From winter and extended drought

The new and it's colors birth mem'ries and longings
Earth wreaks of renewal and light
Buds and bugs surface from sagebrush and dry turd
Cranes rest from their northerly flight

Nevada in Spring puts a spring in the soul
Resurgence has scented the air
Winter and darkness have ceased taking toll
And promise and hopes everywhere
And you recon it’s luck you live there

The neighbors are on plus yer friends too, from town
Wife's cooked up a branding day feast
You're to meet before dawn at the dipping corrals
So you'll gather the pairs from the East

The pick-ups been serviced, the horses are shod
You filled the ice chest and propane
The trailers hooked up and the irons are in
For tradition both grand and profane

Two weeks of preparing for each branding day
Every year it's become more a pain
Then you turn on the news when you get into bed
And the weathermans calling for rain

Nevada in Spring puts a spring in the soul
Renewal has scented the air
Winter and darkness have ceased taking toll
And promise and hope’s everywhere
And you recon it’s luck you live there

©️Waddie Mitchell

Bill Lowman:

Fern,

Good question, you're aware of it too!

Fear of an April 2022 repeat of calf (and cow) killing back-to-back blizzards. March (of this year) has been like our son Lusk says, "Like the middle of January with deep snow and bitter cold, day after day.”

Both of our "four-by-four, high wheel grapple tractors are broken down and two of our four feeding pickups ‘out.’" When I was growing up, it was patching broken harnesses late into the night, now it's shop mechanic work.

We've plowed massive, rock-hard drifts and constant, even, foot-and-a-half to two feet of solid snow cover over ridge tops and all for the cattle to follow a "canal" for several badlands pastures miles to move two cattle herds into closer to home calving pastures from their winter feeding grounds and still have two more bunches to "plow home."

Started the "round-the-clock" two-year-old heifer check at the home corrals. Most years it's just grab my hat, throw on a vest, and head for the calving pens at 2 am. This spring, it's the heavy winter coat, scotch cap and flaps, and knee high muck boots.

Oh–the mythical romance of ranching! But dry humor is our support crutch and a poem about a neighbor's trouble is always fair game.

poem and illustration by Bill Lowman

Virginia Bennett:

I wrote this years ago after turning the ranch team of Percheron geldings (which had been corralled all winter) into a large horse trap. Even though the grass in the rocky area was just cheat grass, the horses were moved by their sudden freedom and the pleasurable sensation of having space to run and green snacks to nibble on anytime they wanted. They were a well-trained, trustworthy team, and usually quite subdued in their demeanor. But, as any horseman knows, warmer days and the dizzying scent of growing grasses and leaves can turn even the most broke, middle-aged work horse into a fiery steed. It’s definitely a sight to see and I looked forward to it every year.

Turnin' Out Horses

There are some who buy drugs in dark alleys
And others who purchase alcohol's sting
Yet there's nothing as intoxicating
As turning the horses out in the Spring.

When the grass stands a couple of inches
And wild geese stop at the pond over-night
As halters slip from shedding polls
A metamorphosis takes place in your sight

Dull eyes brighten as the sunlight glints
On the water of the burgeoning crik
No longer captives of winter's corrals
With alfalfa-fed bodies as fat as a tick...

The graying, old fellows act like young colts,
They squeal and run in life's kicking dance.
Arched necks, flared nostrils and perked-up ears,
With the young fillies, they're takin' their chance.

Like knight-ridden chargers, they speed onward
And flow down into the valleys without fear
In one moment, their youth, they've recaptured
And life seems worth livin' just one more year.

It's a shame it doesn't happen more often,
But, I guess it's just part of Nature's courses.
For just once a year do our spirits find us
In Spring's pastures, turning out horses.