by Wendy Dudley
First of all, let's start with snow. We need plenty of it. And then a good spring rain, whatever it takes to end the drought cycle. But don't forget to turn the taps off. We don't want flooding. And we need enough warmth to get things growing by May.
May the sloughs be full, and the dugouts and water wells deep. May every colt and calf be born healthy on lush spring grass, and every field of grain or hay be kissed ripe by golden rays. May your horse never throw a shoe or a bucking tantrum. May your saddle tree never break and your cinch stay tight. May your stock never taste larkspur or water hemlock. May your cow not choose a badger hole or steep riverbank as a calving site. May good ranch horses and faithful working dogs never be replaced by all-terrain vehicles. May your combine never suffer a broken axle or loose bolt. May you find the missing tools beneath the seat of your pickup truck. May the mice never nest in your glove compartment. May your hay not go moldy. May your calves and crops fetch top prices. May there always be a place for the family farm.
I feel a bunt against my shoulder, then Lucy's warm breath blowing down my neck.
"What's that you say, of girl? A few wishes for you? I'll see what I can do."
Bless my mule with a set of withers, so the saddle doesn't sneak up and pinch her neck when she goes down hills.
Lucy, the greedy critter that she is, nudges me again.
"No, you can't have a sandpile to roll in. With our luck, you'd get sand colic. But I will ask that the mosquitoes, gnats, and face flies be few."
Well, if wishes were stars, I've made enough to add another constellation to the night sky. But, because I am sometimes as greedy as my mule, I have just one more wish.
When it seems like nothing is going your way, may you be blessed with three gifts: binder twine to fix everything that's coming undone; duct tape to repair everything that's falling apart; and a sense of humour to keep it all together. So, from my outfit to yours, a very hearty muletide greeting!
Chapter Thirty-Six
Skunked
Early settlers often referred to skunks as polecats, a European animal that looks more like a weasel than a skunk. Like skunks, polecats have musk glands that leave a heavy odour around their burrowed homes
I dedicate this story to Bucky, a pet skunk my brother and I used to walk on a red leather harness. Bucky came to us "de-skunked," so both people and pets were safe in his company. He would dig for slugs in the bush at the back of our house, and sometimes we strolled down the street, Bucky at the end of one leash and Jan, our Irish setter, pulling at the end of another. Interesting were the nights when the wild raccoon that frequently visited joined us in the living room with the skunk and the dog. Our family was considered unique, if not downright strange, but we were always the first stop for any injured or orphaned wildlife.
Bucky stayed with us for several years, sleeping at nights in a huge wooden barrel that we converted into a cage and bedded with heaps of straw. One night he escaped, venturing into the wilds on his own. Dad was convinced he was living beneath our cabin, a fine dark place for him to burrow. We left him alone, and I chose to believe that the skunk we occasionally saw roaming our yard was Bucky, even if he didn't respond when I called his name. One day I forgot that all skunks, with the exception of Bucky, had scent glands. Hoping it was him, I ran towards the striped animal I saw rooting in the soil.
"Bucky, Bucky, come here, I know it's you. Oh, Bucky, you're still alive."
Yuck! I was hit dead centre, skunk spray dripping down my red woollen sweater. My eyes watered from the putrid smell, as the rank perfume misted my body. Before I was allowed into the house, I had to strip down, from my sweater to my socks. Into the bath I went, and into the garbage the sweater went. It would be another forty years before I found myself that close to a skunk again.
The cats at Burro Alley were getting out of hand. The place had come with a feral calico queen in the barn. An excellent mouser, she was as smart as a crow and as cunning as the red fox that skirts the edge of our meadow. Never did we worry about mice nesting in our hay. We kept a plate full of cat kibble in one of the barn stalls, where we also put a wicker basket lined with straw and an old tattered grey sweater. She seemed grateful, rewarding us with several litters of kittens a year. Several times we tried catching her in a live-trap so we could spay her, but she was too wise for such an old trick. But something had to be done when our tally of barn cats hit the bad-luck number of thirteen! None of the kittens was approachable. All were born between the barn walls, and by the time they showed their cute faces, they were as snarly and wild as their mother. Occasionally a kitten would disappear, most likely killed by a hawk, weasel, or coyote. The light-coloured ones vanished first, their white and orange coats not blending well in the deep-green orchard grass. But I was amazed at how many did survive, and I began to worry about an outbreak of disease. Mamma cat was also starting to look worn out, dragged down by so many mouths to feed.
"We've got to put a stop to this," I said to Mom one morning. "I'm going to try using the trap again."
Waiting until Mamma left for her daily hunt down along the creek, I then planted the trap deep in the hay bales, where she sometimes snuggled at night. At the far back of the cage, I placed an open tin of sardines. How could she not be seduced by the rich, oily smell of fish? I snickered as I turned out the light and left the barn. I knew she was foxy, but surely I had outwitted her this time.
The next morning I hurried to the barn to see if I had taken any prisoners. The mule and donkeys were still in the field grazing, so the barn was quiet. Real quiet. Darn. I had hoped to hear her rattling about in the cage. Opening the stall door, I still heard nothing. But as I approached the cave in the hay where I had put the trap, I detected movement and the soft sound of fur brushing against mesh. I couldn't believe it. Not only did I have Mamma cat, but she wasn't putting up a fight. She must be in worse shape that I thought, or else those sardines were worth giving up freedom for. I stepped closer, now bending over to peer into the cage. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I sensed something wasn't quite right. The animal inside the cage was black and white; I knew Mamma cat to be a spotted patchwork of buff white, orange, and grey.
My hopes sank like a rock to the bottom of a lake. Now I had trouble. Big trouble. My captive was a skunk, a real beauty, mind you, with a thick double stripe running down his back. But still a skunk. The cage didn't have solid walls, so we were stuck trying to remove the cage without being blasted by spray.
Mom was still sleeping when I left the barn, and I dreaded breaking the morning news. She had warned me that the stinky fish might attract the skunk we had recently spotted exploring our woodpiles. Unwisely, I ignored her. Opening her bedroom door, I heard her roll over.
"Been out to the barn yet?" she asked.
"Yep," I answered.
"Well, did you get her?"
"No, not really," I said, finding it difficult to mask the truth. "I got something else."
"Not the skunk?!" she groaned, suddenly wide awake. "Now what are you going to do?"
"I don't know," I muttered. "Maybe if we cover ourselves in plastic bags, we can get him out of there without getting our clothes sprayed."
Half an hour later, we headed to the barn, two silly fools draped in enormous green garbage bags with thumbtack-sized eyeholes. What we hadn't counted on were the mule and donkeys coming in from the fields for their morning hay. Crossing the paddock, a gust of wind crept under the bags, billowing them out so we looked like green ghosts. Lucy bolted, followed by Raven and Peso, who kicked out and ran, braying and bellowing as they tore down the valley. Something told me this was going to be a long morning, if not a long day.
The skunk was now wide awake, and one look at us was enough to put him on high alert. Stamping his front feet, he did a little dance, the warm-up act for a performance I knew all too well. We may have been wearing protective gear, but our hay was in danger of being ruined. Making a quick retreat to the house, we pondered our dilemma over breakfast. Most peo
ple consider skunks to be pests, so I knew it would be tough finding a sympathetic ear. I phoned the local conservation office.
"You want to do what?" the woman asked, almost choking on her morning coffee.
"I want to know how to get a skunk out of a cage without getting sprayed," I said.
"Just take it to the creek and drown it," she suggested.
"No, you don't understand. I don't want to kill it. I want to let it go. You see, I used to have a pet skunk. His name was Bucky. So I can't kill him."
There was a long pause and then an abrupt end to our conversation.
"I don't think I can help you," she said.
Crazy woman, I thought. Even if I did want to drown him, it didn't solve the problem of how to carry him out of the barn in a mesh cage without being sprayed. I flipped through the yellow pages until I found a list of exterminators for cockroaches, mice, bats, ants, wasps, silverfish, bedbugs, and pack rats. But not one mentioned skunks. Well, what the heck, I thought, I'll call anyway. All they can do is laugh, be rude, hang up, or all of the above.
"Sure, we can do a skunk," the polite man said. "Great, but can you get him out alive?" I asked, placing a lot of emphasis on the word alive.
"No problem. We've done it before. It's not that hard, really. Just go out there and cover yourself in a sheet so he can't see your eyes. If he can't see you, he won't spray." Gee, my plastic bag idea wasn't so dumb after all!
Unfortunately, I had an appointment in the city, and I didn't fancy leaving my mom to contend with this problem alone. So I dug deep into my pocket and offered to pay the kind man a fee to come out and do the deed. When I arrived home, I could hardly wait to hear the full story, but Mom's report wasn't exactly a high-adventure thriller.
"He just walked in with a sheet, put it over the cage, picked it up, and took it outside." The drama was
over before it started. When the cage door opened, the skunk hightailed it down the hill, while Mom and the pest-buster ran up the hill. The trap was put away in the garage, where it still sits today.
As for Mamma cat, she never had another litter in our barn. One morning she was gone, her plate of food untouched. Her youngsters stuck around, until one by one most of them vanished, leaving a lonely queen to take over the hay-bale throne. She had three kittens, and two of them died. The third one, a gorgeous black and white one with dark stockings, was the first kitten born in the barn that I could touch. Hoping to adopt him as another house cat, I held him every day, waiting for him to be old enough to wean. But before that happened, Georgie dog found him wandering outside the paddock, hidden in the long grass next to a log. I heard the screams, then the deathly silence. To George, the kitten was just a spotted gopher. In seconds, she had snapped his tiny neck.
We buried the kitten in the forest, where filtered light warmed the fresh mound of dirt. Apologizing over and over, I blamed myself for teaching him it was safe to trust. I never saw the mother cat again, but within days a smoky tomcat moved in, and two years later he still rules the roost. And out in the fields, beneath a lodge of deadfall and rotting debris, there lives a double-striped skunk. May we all live in peace—but far apart!
Chapter Thirty-Seven
They Make Them Tough
On the inside, Renie Blades is as tough as cowhide, but on the outside, she's all lady. When I think of the classic ranch woman, I tip my hat to Renie.
Living off the land is a gambler's game, each day unpredictable, every decision a roll of the dice. Hail can crush a year's harvest in less than ten minutes, a wild grass ire can destroy haystacks and homes, and a late blast of snow can freeze newborn calves. But most ranchers and farmers wouldn't trade their lives for anything. They are wedded to the land, their vows woven on the wind. There is something about land, that sense of place, that seeps into one's blood and soul and becomes the marrow of existence. It is a devotion that makes for a tough life and tough people.
My ranching neighbours, many of them third-generation cowboys, are portraits of a life spent leaning into the wind end sweating under a strong sun. The land is etched on their faces and on the backs of their hands: creases running like dry riverbeds; scars as craggy as an outcrop; cheekbones as prominent as the grand of Rockies; and eyes reddened by the wind and sun. Their faces are maps of their lives, lives that breed legends bigger than the open skies. Legends like Harrold and Maurice King, two bachelor brothers who owned land worth millions but chose to live a humble life in a primitive log shack along Sharples Creek deep in southern Alberta's Porcupine Hills. Their story—which began in 1925 when they left home and settled on the other side of the hill from where their parents lived—speaks of a time when there were few roads and even fewer fences, when ambling cattle set the pace and the weather was the only boss worth listening to. The brothers lived together for sixty years, handcrafting their own tools and building their own barn and home with each corner perfectly dovetailed. They never viewed the world from an airplane, took a holiday, or wore a watch. They lived off what they grew in their garden and hunted in the hills, and on one occasion Harrold even crawled into a bear's den, hoping to snare the hibernating animal. They slept in sleeping bags, cooked on a wood stove, read under a single light bulb, bucketed water from a nearby spring, preferred horses to cars, and watched the stars through holes in their roof For much of ninety years, this is how they lived, running seven hundred head of cattle on thousands of acres of range and backcountry. Neighbours remember Maurice riding across the plains, his wild and white hair blowing from beneath his hat, with his pants held up and his saddle held together with baling twine.
I never met Harrold and Maurice, but I'm sure I heard their discouraging words when, after their deaths in 1995 and 1996, I climbed through a broken window to explore their rustic log cabin hidden in a coulee. Shelves were crammed with hunting and travel magazines, the pages curled from years of winter dampness. Faded calendars dating back more than thirty years were suspended from nails hammered into the log walls. Dish towels and a mackinaw work shirt still hung from a rope strung across the loft. For all their roughness, the brothers were no hillbilly hicks. They knew the cattle business and they knew all about buying low and selling high. From their initial quarter section, purchased in 1926 for less than $6 an acre, they expanded their cattle kingdom into five thousand acres land worth $6.3 million when it was auctioned off seven decades later.
Harrold and Maurice may have left us, but there are still working cowboys who prefer a good saddle horse and stock dog to the horsepower of an all-terrain vehicle. And there are others who hang onto tradition, moving their cattle overland between summer and winter pastures instead of trucking them down a blacktop highway.
Art and Betty Webster have been trailing their cattle for more than half a century, moving them in summer from the flat fields around Stavely to the high mountain pastures along the south fork of Willow Creek. Their son, Tony, and his wife, Debbie, now help out, as determined as a west wind to keep their family's history alive in this valley shadowed by the peaks of Buffalo, Saddle, and Coffin Mountains. Telephones are no longer connected by a barbed wire fence and the wagon-rutted trails have long since been overgrown, but the rivers still run high, threatening to sweep calves to their death. Art may curse the busy highways that now interrupt the tradition, but he still smiles with pride when he sees the trailing cattle coming home.
A few valleys away, there are women like Renie Blades of the Rocking P Ranch who can swing a rope, catch a calf, and brand a critter within minutes. She's even faster at castrating the young bulls, performing field surgery with her pocket knife within seconds. She's just doing what has to be done and what comes naturally. Her husband Mac's grandmother and mother were no different, riding the range sidesaddle in split skirts. The women were saddle-tough, handing out orders to the hired men. Today, the Bladeses' daughters are keeping up the tradition, with daughter Monica recently retiring from her work as a stuntwoman. She taught Brad Pitt how to ride like a seasoned cowboy in the movie Legend
s of the Fall, but she was the one who rode like the wind and fell off horses, feats too dangerous for the tender-skinned stars. Her own children now slip their boots into stirrups, having already spent a year in the saddle, in front of Mom, by age three.
And how about Iris Glass, the matriarch of four generations of chuckwagon racing. Born in 1924, Iris, also an accomplished horsewoman, has spent fifty years on the circuit, going down the road with her husband, sons, and grandsons, working the outriding horses, checking the equipment, and always cheering on the family's trademark black-and-white checkered wagon. As tough as wagon reins, she's the backbone of the family, staying strong even when the daredevil sport killed her youngest son, Rod, and her son-in-law, Richard Cosgrave.
Then there's my friend Marilyn Halvorson, who runs an outfit of cattle on land homesteaded by her father in 1930. An only child, she grew up hitching Bud and Bill, her father's team of horses. Together they would rake the fields and haul the hay. She learned to drive the tractor when her feet could barely reach the pedals, and in winter months she tended to the home's three wood stoves. Now on her own, with no hired help, Marilyn still splits her own wood, lives sleepless nights in spring when the cows are calving, brings in the hay, mends the fences, pursues escaped bulls, rounds up strays on horseback, and nurtures vegetable and flower gardens. Her land is her sanctuary, and she never plans to leave.
There's Ed Pugh, who, despite his eighty-plus years, rode like a youngster, as lean and nimble as when he began trailing bucking horses to the Calgary Stampede in 1946. Ed and his buddies would drive more than three hundred wide-eyed broncs to the city, fording rivers, stirring up coulee dust, sleeping beneath a chuckwagon, and braving summer thunderstorms. His face was flushed by years under a hot sun and driving wind, and his smile was honest, that of someone who lived the only life he ever knew or wanted. Ed rode the short-grass hills around his Bar X7 Ranch in Dorothy his family makes up half the population of this abandoned town southeast of Drumheller since he and his wife, Edna, traded cattle for their house. That was in 1935. Until his death this spring, he was still working the rodeo chutes, sorting broncs and flagging gates, and running a herd of cattle. May his spurs jingle forever in those back draws and bleached hills.