Cool crisp fall

This week is so much better! I can move, yesterday and today, so life is good. The weather has cooled off so nicely, it's been in the mid 80's, so lovely. Yesterday Gina helped me plant some things- we put in broccoli, cauliflower, collards and romaine lettuce plants, well Gina did the hard stuff. We also put in onion and garlic sets. Hopefully I can find someone to help me plant some spinach and beet seeds next week.

Fall always reminds me of roundup on the ranch. I remember getting up early, like 4:00 am, on the weekends, having a big breakfast and then driving to the section we were working that day. Mountainous, rough, brushy and not for the faint of heart. We had one horse- Rowdy, that started out the day by bucking off whoever rode him. It was always interesting to watch, but I decided early not to be 'the one'. The day was long enough without bouncing around on the rocks first thing in the morning. It didn't matter who rode him, they couldn't stay on. Once he had that out of his system though, he was the best ranch horse we had, outside of Dad's. He could work all day long, and still be prancing. My horses tended to be better mannered, if not as tough.
We each had a draw up the mountain to work- I took one, Debbie another, the parents would move to the tops of the mountains and work their way down. I'd ride to the top of the draw and start pushing cows down the mountain, first one side and then the other. It took hours, and often the cattle would crawl into a stand of scrub oak and not come out. Then we had to wade into the middle of it to push them out. I have more scars on my hands from pushing through oak brush! I never could hang on to a pair of gloves, so they took a beating.

After we had a small herd of from our area, we'd meet up in the creek at the bottom and push cows down to the gates and wait for Mom and Dad. Sometimes we'd be there for a long time, and we'd have to keep the cattle from wandering off, but otherwise we'd talk, nap, eat or wish we had our lunch. Once we all met up, we still had to push them on down to a large holding pasture before we could call it a day and go home. It was crisp, sometimes downright cold in the mornings, but the days usually warmed up. The trees were turning color, even the oak brush could be beautiful. The pines smelled so good, the breeze would waft it around us. Sometimes Debbie and I would build a little fire to keep warm. After a long day, we would fall asleep in the truck on the way home. There is something amazing about the day to day life on a ranch, and even though it was hard work, tough and gritty, there is a lot of nostalgia for those days.