When Uncle Loren Taylor and his fence crew finished
fencing the ranch Dad told me that it was ready to build a house for
the ranch cowboy to live in. I contracted the Adobes to be made with a
couple of the boys that had been making Adobes for the mill. There
names were Emilio Hernandez and Agustin Saldivar. I took
them out and showed them where we wanted to build the house. They set
up there little camp began to dig the dirt for the adobes. I could see
that they were having a hard time digging up the dirt so I went to the
farm on the flat and brought a plow on the wagon and with our little
team of mules Chata and Mischief we ploughed up enough dirt to
make all of the adobes we would need. We hauled the water in 50 gallon
drums from the lake. I bought the straw and took it out to them and
they started to make adobes. Back then the regular size adobe was 12
inches wide by 18 inches long by 4 inches thick. Now days to get that
kind of adobes you would have to order them special. Now they make
them 8 inches wide by 14 inches long by 3 inches thick. The big adobes
make a much better wall for stability and insulation.
I went out one day to see how the boys were doing
on the adobes. They were in their little camp preparing to cook a Jack
Rabbit someone had given them. I suggested that they didn't want to
eat a Jack Rabbit and they asked, "why". I told them to skin the
rabbit and they would see why. They skinned out the rabbit and found
several grub worms embedded in its loin. They through the rabbit away
in disgust. They saw a big Blue Heron walking along the shore and
asked me to shoot it for their meat. I shot the Heron and they
retrieved it and skinned it and put it on to boil in a five gallon can
they had for that purpose. The next day when I went out again they
still had that old bird boiling in their can. I asked why they were
still boiling it and they said that they tried to eat it but it was so
tough that they couldn't eat it so they were boiling it to see
if that would make it more eatable. They were accusing each other of
not knowing how to cook by saying, "My Comadre hasn't learned to cook
yet." From then on we playfully called them "Los Comadres". I went out
and killed a Cotton Tail Rabbit for them to eat and solved their
Problem of some good meat. I would take them a Cotton Tail about every
other day which they really appreciated.
We hauled the dirt for the roof from a special clay
bank that is called "Barrial" that packs hard and the water doesn't
penetrate. We installed the windows and the doors and the house was
ready for occupation.
When Glen Whetten finished drilling the well for the
house we bought a little Pumping Jack and installed a 3 inch windmill
cylinder and installed the pipe and the sucker rods. We installed the
pumping jack on a platform about six feet off the ground so as to be
out of the way of the animals. When Uncle Harvey Taylor bought a bunch
of cattle from the Salazar brothers a young man from the Salazar ranch
came to help drive the cattle up. He heard about the new Ranch and
applied for the Job of taking care of it. His name was Carlos
Quintana. He had been raised on the Salazar Ranch where he and his
brother worked for many years and he knew cattle and how to take care
of them. He was especially good with a rope and had been roping all of
his working life, He had just recently married Lupe Alvarez and they
moved into the new house on the ranch and went to work. We built the
corrals and fenced the little horse pasture around the house
area..
Carlos asked me to come out and help him doctor the
cattle for screw worms and pink eye. He could not do the big heavy
cows alone. That is where I learned to rope. When I was a boy I was
fascinated with learning to twirl the rope did a fare job of that but
I never had much chance to practice roping animals.
Don Panchito Peña had given me a six strand rawhide
Riata that was only ¼ inch in diameter but it had just the right
weight and was strong enough to hold a big fat cow. I learned to dally
it around the horn and let it slide a little so as to ease the pull
and not snap my Riata. Carlos used the Chavinda which was a rope made
in the south of Mexico out of a special cactus fiber. Those Chavindas
were what the Charros used to show their skill at twirling and
handling the rope,. for which they are famous. When my Riata wore out
I switched to the Chavinda. I had to use a thin buckskin glove because
when you dally with a Chavinda it is necessary to let it slide a few
feet so as not to break the rope with a solid jerk. I burned my hand a
few times before I learned how to do it right. Those Chavindas were
just right for roping the head or for catching both hind feet. They
were strong enough to hold those big fat cows stretched out when
snubbed up close while we doctored the cow.
In the summer time the heat of the sun and the
reflection from the lake caused many of the cows to get Pink Eye. This
disease started by making the eye water and turn pink. If not doctored
many times the eye would become cloudy and the eye ball would come to
a point and rupture. After that cancer would set in. Before the screw
worm campaign we would let the screw worms eat out the cancer then
kill the screw worms and generally the cow could get well but after
the screw worm campaign the cancer would slowly kill the cow. If we
could catch the pink eye in time and doctor it with pink eye medicine
we could usually clear up the eye and prevent the cancer.
About this time LaSelle Taylor, Chato Bluth and I were
into roping in the rodeos held here in Nvo. Casas Grandes. I told them
about our Pink Eye problem and they were very happy to come and help
us rope the cows with pink eye and doctor them. We would corner a
little bunch of cattle down against the lake then cut out the ones
with Pink Eye one by one and take turns roping them and then while two
doctored the cow two would hold the bunch until we were through then
go and find another little group of Cattle. We took care of a lot of
cows and had a lot of good practice roping which we enjoyed very
much.
Chato had a pretty bay horse with a white blaze in his
face that he brought out to the ranch to rope on. LaSelle liked to
ride Coral one of the good rope horses we had on the ranch. I liked to
ride my horse Indio that I had broke and trained. He had a very good
light reign and was very good on the end of rope. One day while we
were roping down by the lake Chato took his turn after a fast heifer
and was just going to rope her when she turned off and his horse
turned right with her. As the horse turned his front hoof hit a rock
about as big as your fist. Their was a loud crack and Chato's horse
nearly went down with a broken front leg. Chato got off and found that
the leg was broken just above the ankle and was flopping around loose.
With a heavy heart Chato took his saddle off and borrowed my pistol
and shot his beautiful horse to relieve him from his great pain and
suffering. That ended our roping for that day we all felt very bad
about that good bay horse.
Another problem that developed for Carlos and I was
that our neighbors the Carrillos had some big corriente bulls. The
bulls were Brahma cross and had big horns sticking up in Brahma style
and they could jump the fence with ease. After the round up we
separated the heifers and put them in the heifer pasture by
themselves. These bulls would jump the fence over into the heifer
pasture. We did not want the heifers bred so young and especially we
didn't want them bred by those big ugly bulls.
Carlos and I went over to get them out. When we first
approached the bull he would shake his head and threaten to charge. We
continued to worry him and soon he started to run. Not out of the
pasture but down toward the Lake. Carlos and I had practiced throwing
a big turned loop over the animals shoulder to land with the top part
of the loop across the shoulders of the animal and the bottom part of
the loop would whirl under and catch the two front feet. I was riding
Indio that day and I ran up past the rear end of the bull and threw
that turned loop over the bulls shoulder catching his two front feet.
I dallied hard and turned Indio of at a full run and turned that bull
for a loop. Indio turned and sat back on the rope and held the bull on
his back until Carlos could slap his rope on the bulls two hind feet.
We snubbed up close and had our horses hold the bull while we got off
to give the bull a good scare. I hit him on the nose a few times with
a Mesquite limb then shot into the base of his horns with my pistol.
We both got back on our horses loosened the ropes and got ready to get
out of the way of the bull in case he charged. That bull Jumped up and
took off fast with his tail in the air straight back to his own
pasture and jumped the fence. One down and two to go. After doing the
other two bulls the same way we were not bothered any more with them
jumping into our heifer pasture.
Another problem was the wild mares of the Ejido. When
the Carrillos rented all of the Ejido land south of the ranch they
fenced the pasture and wanted to get rid of all of the wild mares that
had accumulated in the Ejido pasture. They made some big drives and
caught a lot of the mares by driving them up a canyon into a natural
boxed place with only one entrance. Some of the mares were so wild
that they would not go into their natural trap. Next they tried to
corner them against our south fence. When the mares and their
offspring saw they were being cornered they went over and through our
fence into our pasture.
Carlos reported to me about the mares so we decided to
go rope them and put them in the corral. We saddled up and got ready
to go have some fun. I was riding Massai because he was very fast and
loved to work on the end of a rope. Carlos was riding Cariño who was
not very fast but one of the best we had on the end of a rope.
We went up into the southeast corner where the mares
were waiting to go back into their favorite hills. Carlos waited down
along the fence line to intercept them as I drove them down the fence
line. I started them down the fence at a trot through the washes and
rough places in the corner. As soon as they came into the level ground
they broke into a run. I came out of the last wash and let Massai out.
He took off so fast that it felt like the back of my saddle was
slapping me in the seat of my pants. We very soon overtook the mares
who began to ring their tails in panic trying to out run Massai. As I
saw Carlos come out to intercept us I easily put my rope on the big
mare in the rear. Carlos threw a beautiful loop on the
lead mare. When my mare felt the rope tighten on her neck she began to
squeal and buck. Massai sat back on the rope and brought her to
a stop. She hung back on the rope until she began to sway back and
forth and fell on her side gasping for air. I gave the slack she
needed to breathe until she got up and broke away again only to be
brought to a whirling stop again. She started to hang back again but
decided that she didn't like to be choked down. Soon both Carlos and I
had our mares leading reluctantly toward the corral. The rest of the
bunch followed behind because they were the offspring of the
mares.
We got in the van and went to tell the Carrillos to
come and get their mares. The Cowboy at the Carrillo ranch said that
he would tell the owners of the mares to come and get them.
Back at the ranch we decided to teach the mares to
respect the rope. We went into the corral on foot with our ropes to
have some fun. As the mare wildly ran past us we would whirl a loop
onto the two front feet of the nearest mare and sit back on the rope
and turn those mares fizzle end up. After throwing each one two or
three times they would not run any more so we had to quit our sport.
The mares now would always respect the rope and would not run when
they could see the rope.
THE FAMILY INVOLVEMENT
Right from the start Naoma and our children were
involved in the ranch work. Naoma had ridden the range and worked with
her father on their ranch in Oaxaca, Sonora before we were married.
When Dad Haynie left the Ranch in Oaxaca he gave us a bunch of horses.
Among them were Chanate, Coffee, the Mule Chihuhua, Chango, and
Palomino. Naoma loved to ride and loved ranch work so whenever
possible she would bring all of the older kids that were old enough to
ride and we would all go out to ride the range and doctor the cattle.
Especially when it was time to round up and brand they were all
mounted on good horses and did the work of a cowboy in the gathering
and holding the cattle while we cut out the mother cows with their
calves. Naoma was constantly keeping the kids on the alert telling
them to watch the cows and head them before they had a chance to break
out of the herd. That was the hardest job for the kids to hold the
cattle in the hot sun down by the lake hour after hour while the
cutting was going on.
All of our kids learned to love the horses and to ride
very well. The girls as well as the boys. As I remember Susann was the
only one that ever got thrown off her horse. She thought the horse was
going to go around the Mesquite one way but suddenly turned and went
around the other way and our little Susie took a bad tumble. Years
later she told us that she always hurt in her back and hips when she
rode and thought that it was part of riding. I guess that is why she
didn't enjoy it as much as the rest of the family. In spite of that
Susie became a good help on the ranch. I remember we gave her a nice
Sorrel horse with a blaze in his face for her very own. She loved
riding him . One day Uncle Harvey Taylor saw him and said that he
wanted him for his special rope horse. I had been raised all my life
with the idea that Uncle Harvey's wish was my command so I gave him
the horse. I told him that it belonged to Susie but he said that he
needed him more than Susie did. I felt very bad about it and I know
Susie was hurt. I hope she has forgiven me.
Mary, Jenene and Claudia each became very good
with horses and could handle even the most spirited of the horses and
do any of the ranch work. The boys, Kiko, Sam, Tracy, Karl and
Anthony, as they grew up doing the ranch work, each had his turn being
the main stay and help through the years of ranch work. Our working on
the ranch together was fun for all of us and it really helped unite
our family Each one of the kids felt that their contribution was
valued that they were helping run the ranch. They were always much
better than any hired help that we could get.
After cutting the dry cows out and leaving only the
mother cows and their calves the big job was to take them to the
corral. The calves had never been in the corral and the cows hadn't
been in since last year and they were anxious to get back to their
feeding grounds. When you try to put 150 mother cows and their
calves into a corral when they don't want to go then you really have a
job. For years it would take about ten good cowboys mounted on good
horses to corral the pairs after cutting.
For the round up day I would hire five men to help us.
We had some good friends up in Colonia Madero that were good cowboys
and loved to come and help us. We would go by for them before
daylight and go on to the ranch and Carlos would have the horses in
the corral ready to be saddled. We had plenty of good horses and
saddles so everyone was well mounted and we would be riding out before
sun up. We would ride together to the south end of the ranch then fan
out and drive all of the cattle down to the lake. By noon we would
have them cut out, divided and put into the corral to begin the work.
We would cut out the cows and leave only the calves in the corral to
be worked.
For the Heifers we would brand them, Vaccinate them
with a triple vaccine, dehorn them and cut a swallow fork in the right
ear. The steer calves would be branded Vaccinated dehorned and
castrated, but no ear mark. The steer calves would all be shipped to
the US and the buyers preferred not to have them ear marked.
The roper on a good steady horse would catch a calf by
the two hind feet and drag him out of the bunch and two strong boys
would tail it down on it's right side. One would jump astride the calf
and hold the left front foot while the other would get down behind the
calf and brace both feet on the bottom leg of the calf and hold back
on the top leg with both hands and release the rope so the roper could
catch another calf for the next pair of holders. Then the brander
would brand the calf. One of the girls was usually given the job to
vaccinate. She would inject 5 cc of the vaccine under the skin usually
under the front leg that was being held. Another of the girls would
doctor the calf's eyes if needed. The castration and the earmark were
both done by the same person with a sharp knife. The dehorner came
last so that the calf could be released before too much
blood could spurt on the holders.
For years we always had a blood bath until we learned
to cut and dehorn in the waning of the moon. We went to talk to Don
Tomas Azumendi about sheep once when we thought about looking into
raising sheep. He gave us his history of herding sheep in the US for
many years until he could buy his own flock and come to Mexico. His
advice was castrate the lambs in the waning of the moon or else they
will bleed to death. The next round up we put the round up time right
in the middle of the waning of the moon and the animals hardly
bled at all. After that our roundups were no problem at all as
far as blood was concerned and the calves didn't lose hardly any
blood. Before we had used lots of blood stopper and still bathed the
corrals with blood. One year we forgot to schedule our roundup in the
waning of the moon and when we started to dehorn and cut the blood
started spurting all over us and we stopped after the first two calves
and waited for the waning of the moon.
One year the calves were extra big and the holders were
having a hard time so I put Carlos on the roping horse and went to
work throwing them down and holding them. Near the end of the day I
was tired and tailed down a big calf. I jumped down on him holding him
down with my weight across his body holding his left front leg. I was
lying across him with my feet stretched out on the ground. Suddenly he
swung his head around and hit me in the lower back. I felt a sharp
pain in my back but held on until the calf was finished then I had
difficulty getting to the van. The next few days I seemed to get along
pretty well and we started on a trip to Utah by way of Mesa. When we
got to Mesa we went to stay with Naoma's cousin Marion Peterson.
I was in plenty of pain by then and Marion laid me on
the floor a couple of days to see if the pain would subside. Marion
was a specialist in back surgery so after a couple of days he put me
in the hospital. He operated on my back and removed a piece of the
ruptured disk. After a few days Naoma drove us home and took over
teaching my Seminary classes for about a month. I was soon back to my
regular work and have not had any trouble from the operation.
Kiko came back from his training course in a vet school
with a lot of very good ideas that revolutionized our ranch work. He
told me of a calf squeeze chute that would catch the calf and squeeze
it and then swivel down and lay it on it's side holding the calf ready
to brand and do all of the other work with the calf conveniently on a
table as it were. I went to Rodolfo Macias' shop and told him what we
needed and supervised the making of our calf chute that we used for
many years. We still have it up at the ranch in Pacheco.
Kiko also did some very good operations on cancer eye
cows that healed up the cows eye and we were able to sell every one of
the cows that he operated on. He also learned to do C sections on the
cows that could not have a natural birth with their
calves.
Kiko advised us to start using Artificial Insemination
to upgrade the cattle. He figured out the way to handle the cattle by
putting a lane from the corral all the way around the lake with gates
at intervals for the cattle to go down to water. This provided a way
to handle one cow at a time or even the whole herd if we wanted to
with one or two cowboys. From then on we used only the family to round
up the cattle and put them in the corral. We built a cutting chute in
the corral so we could cut three ways and divide the cattle any way we
wanted to. We did Artificial Inseminating a few years which entailed a
lot of work and constant watching for the cows to come into heat. Also
we had to go to Chihuahua City to refill our Semen tanks with liquid
Nitrogen. Finally we decided that it wasn't worth the trouble and we
had accomplished our purpose and gotten some very good stock.
After that each round up all of the family that were
here and even grandchildren that came for the round up would do all of
the work. We would drive the cattle down to the lake and close the
outside gates of the lane then easily drive the cattle through the
lane into the corral. Some times some of the calves would go through
the lane fence but after putting the cattle in the corral we would go
rope the calves and put them in the trailer and haul them back to the
corral. At Noon Naoma would arrive with a very welcome hot dinner for
all of us. I remember looking forward to those good hot dinners. Many
times I heard some of the kids say I wish Mom would get here I'm
hungry. It made a welcome break and prepared us to go back to finish
up with the branding work.
Some of our fondest memories are of all of the family
working together on the ranch. Even though some times we had to work
in disagreeable weather. It only served to unite us more. Like the
time when we were required to dip the cattle. The dipping vat had been
built in the new meat packing plant in Nvo. Casas Grandes. We started
very early in the morning and gathered the cattle and drove them in
and got them through the dipping vat. We were driving them back to the
ranch in the evening after working all day. The sky became dark and it
began to rain. Wow!! It really came down and the cattle didn't want to
go into the driving rain instead they kept turning to drift with the
wind and the rain. I remember that all of us were wet and cold trying
to get the cattle to move along toward the ranch. I remember seeing
Susie wet and shivering with cold bravely trying to push the cows with
her horse. We finally got the cattle through the ranch gate and ran
our horses to the ranch house. We all piled into the van and hurried
home to a warm shower and a good hot supper.
We worked together on the ranch and we also played
together on the ranch. Many times in August and September when the
lakes were filling up with fresh water we would all go out to the
ranch. We would get our horses out of the corral and ride them down to
the lake. After riding around and looking at the cattle we would all
come back and get our swimming suits on. We would take off the
saddles and ride our horses out into the lake. We would ride out
deeper and deeper until our horses were swimming then we would let
them turn back and race back to our camp by the lake. After repeating
this until the horses began to tire we would all come back and build a
fire and fry the hamburgers and make the herb tea. We all enjoyed this
fun together. After the swim the hamburgers tasted very good washed
down with the warm herb tea. Some times we would stay over
night. We always camped on the Bermuda grass near the lake as a
precaution against the Rattle Snakes.
It seems that when it would rain hard in the mountains
some of the big Rattlers would be washed down with the flood water and
end up in the lake where they could finally swim out. Many times we
encountered those big snakes coming out of the lake. Instead of
crawling away from us they would rattle and come straight toward us. I
guess they were plenty riled up after being washed down from their
mountain home.
We lost quite number of good horses from Snake
bite. We bought a beautiful, young Palomino Stallion from D.S.
Brown. He was enjoying his freedom on the ranch. I went out to check
on him because I had not seen him for a couple of days. When I found
him he was down by the lake trying to drink but couldn't. His head was
so swollen that he couldn't drink. We could see where a snake had
bitten him on the jaw. We tried to bathe the affected parts with coal
oil but he was too far gone. The next morning he was dead.
One day most of the family were riding along in the
tall grass when I saw the Pinto hit a Big Rattle Snake with his front
hoof as he was walking along. We got off and killed the snake. I
noticed two blood spot at the edge of the pinto's hoof, so we went and
doctored him with coal oil. He seemed to be all right for a few days
then his upper leg began to swell and he began to limp on it. We
thought for sure that he would get over it but about two weeks later
we found him dead up in the pasture.
We gave Anthony a pretty black three year old colt so
that he could train him to his own liking. He was doing a good job and
the colt was learning fast and promised to be a very good cow
horse. One Saturday we went out so that Anthony could work his colt
and Yagui our Cowboy at the time said that he had found him dead from
snake bite.
There were others, one was Claudius' Pinto that
he had out on the ranch. Well I won't dwell on the others.
Our memories of the ranch are mixed with our memories
of family togetherness. Not just our family but Uncle Donn's
family as well. Because of the length of this narrative I will not be
able to include that side of the story. That will have to be another
time and another story.