Colorado - Here We Are!

Monday, April 2.

Monday arrived early, and while we slept in, Mick was busy doing the morning chores.  When he came back in around 8:30 we had a spot of breakfast (the food was great Dawna!) and then it was out the door for Geoff and Mick.  It was cold Monday - mid 30's - so for the day's duties of sorting cows, Geoff had his first experience with chaps (to keep warmer) and spurs (it's amazing how much more responsive the horses were to gentle nudges). 

The funny story to all this was a professional local photographer - Robin - was on hand to get some pictures of cowboys working their cows.  Geoff responded by telling Robin, "don't take any of me, I don't know what I'm doing!"  She didn't listen, but in the process got some real good and flattering pictures of Matt, Mick and Geoff (The next five are Robin's pictures).  The amazing thing about Robin's pictures was that the closest shot (the one in the alley) was still taken from around 100 yds away, with most probably over 200 yds.

Riding out (down the alley-way) in the morning.

For those of you green (like Geoff) on your ranch knowledge, sorting pairs involves the following.  The ranch herd (around 325 cows) was in the midst of calving (app. 180 had calved by Monday morning) in the pasture next to the barn.  We were in charge with finding pairs (momma & calf), cutting them from the herd (sometimes not an easy endeavor) and then pushing them to the other corner of the pasture.  There we put them in the alley-way (like what it sounds - an alley between pastures) while we went to sort another pair.  Geoff soon figured out that not all cows are created equal, especially the Texas Cows (cows Matt bought from Texas because of their drought).

Geoff trying to figure out where the pair is...notice the snow!

Aah, there the pair is...now to push them to the alley.

Mick pushing a Texas cow...once they were cut, they would take off on a dead run...in the opposite direction you wanted them to go!

Lunch came and went quickly, followed by an afternoon of sorting, and then pushing the cows (from the afternoon) in the alley into another pasture, trying to keep them paired up.  Jocelyn brought Aislyn in the car into the pasture above and took some fun pictures of the afternoon sorting.

Sometimes, cows without a calf would want to go up the alley (bottom left corner of above picture) so this is Geoff pushing them out of the way.

 

Mick & Geoff taking a short photo break!

As you can tell, Geoff was having the time of his life...

Aislyn enjoying watching her Daddy & Papa working the cows.

 Funny story:  as Mick and Geoff were pushing the cows down the alley at the end of the day, all of a sudden, Geoff's horse Hoss stopped dead and shook...it suprised Geoff, who was just relaxing, so much he just about went head over tea-kettle!...Mick had a great laugh, as did Geoff after he got his breath back!  In Mick's words, "You didn't get bucked off, but you near did get shook-off!!!!"   Mick and Geoff rode clear up to dinner, Geoff enjoying the whole bit. 

Before dinner, Mick had to do the evening feeding (Mick has his own herd of around 50 pairs) so Jocelyn went with him to help.  When they came back, Jocelyn was getting a crash-refresher-course on driving the tractor (a big-green one!) so that Mick could then move the hay wherever.  Aislyn & Geoff came to take pictures, which eventually led to Aislyn going for a ride w/ Papa and Mommy - 3 generations of Cotten blood on a big-green tractor!

Aislyn is turning into a real outdoors girl - anytime someone went outside, she HAD to go.  This is Papa's dog Blue.

Blue played with Aislyn real well - Aislyn has a definite love of dogs and horses...At one point, Aislyn had her entire hand in Blue's mouth...Blue had great patience!

Jocelyn driving the tractor.  Abby had a blast - she thought she was a cow dog - although all she did was run wild and bark at everything...thank goodness Papa has lots of patience!!!!

Did we also mention that Aislyn loves tractors????

This is Jocelyn's cow from when she was at home...

Then it was dinner, followed by much-needed sleep!

Tuesday, April 3.

Tuesday was a rest/recovery day, so we decided to visit Loy & Jared.  We spent the morning with Loy at her place of work.  She works at a beautiful Dog Training/Kennel/Boarding Center just outside of Crawford.  She introduced us to the over 35 dogs currently at the facility, showed us a little of their training, and took us on an impressive tour.

After our visit with Loy, we drove the 5 minutes over to Jared's house where we had lunch, listened to great hunting stores (Jared has a guiding business) and watching his hounds do their thing!  It's quite the thrill to listen to 9 (I think) hounds barking/howling/bawling as they "chase" the coon - especially when it's in Jared's backyard!  Aislyn slept through the whole thing, although were not sure how.  Thanks for the fun Jared & Brylan!

Then it was back home where we enjoyed a quiet evening.

Wednesday, April 4.

Wednesday found us going over to Grandpa Danny and Gramma Nola's property (The Hotchkiss Convention Grounds) where Geoff was to help Dawna put out the irrigation pipes.  The morning didn't see much work get done - too many reasons to put on the blog - but lunch at Zac's was great!  The afternoon went a little better, then it was dinner and our Bible-study, followed by a tired Geoff entertaining (if you can call him being a mite-bit-weird entertaining) us until bed-time.

Cute Story:  Aislyn was with Jocelyn in the fields as Geoff and Dawna were working on the pipe, but Aislyn started getting fussy.  Geoff had to take the 4-wheeler up to the barn to get some pipe gates, so he took Aislyn with him.  In the 5 minutes it took for the ride, Aislyn was out...did we mention we think Aislyn likes anything that moves and vibrates???

Thursday, April 5.

Geoff and Dawna met Alex (Loy's boyfriend) over at Grandpa's place and laid pipe all morning.  Thanks to Alex, a lot more pipe got laid!  Jocelyn stayed at the house and brought us all lunch with Mick.  They were a little late (we were starting to wonder) but they suprised us by bringing several pictures that Robin had taken on Monday.  They went out to her house and Mick bought some pictures so that in his words, "Everybody can see that Geoff really is the cowhand from the Rio Grande!" 

The afternoon was spent laying pipe (Geoff) and getting ready for a big shindig (Jocelyn) over at Grandpa Danny's that night.  We enjoyed great food, laughter, stories and music at the shin-dig...Thanks Grandpa and Gramma for hosting and preparing chicken and noodles!