My first good dose of cold weather in Montana while out pushing cattle across tall hills was cold enough. Everything was covered in ice. That day I was out on a 4 wheeler and had to gather a good part of the herd alone that had separated and was out of sight. Just one other guy and myself had pushed the entire herd several miles from the north a day or two before to get them closer to headquarters for shipping.
The coldest experience goes to when we were pushing a different herd of cattle on horseback in North Dakota. I have no idea what the air temperature was. The wind was so brutal and unforgiving! I had already been thrown from the saddle once and my head was sure feeling it after being slammed into the ground. All the horses were sure acting up that morning, as were the calves. A group of calves took off running together back to the ranch we had brought them from. That was several miles and many pastures earlier. They took shortcuts through barbed wire fences and across cattle guards.
It took a good while to catch up to them on horseback. When we finally made it back to near the headquarters of that ND ranch, the calves were headed north along a gravel county road. One rider tried to cut them off but they just squeezed under the fence and cut across a section. Myself and another guy caught up to them way out in the middle. All we could do was try to hold them there until others could make it back in a dually pickup and long cattle trailer to get some panels set up in a distant corner. The wind was still blowing so hard. My body shivered over and over while stuck in the saddle. All that exposure caused my lips to crack and bleed. I obviously wasn’t used to those extremes. There’s nowhere to go to get out of the wind. You just sit there and take it. Then later in the day we were about three fourths of the way to the grazing association HQ still pushing the entire herd. A heavy rain started blowing horizontally. That was the day our horses were feeling about as miserable as their riders.
The coldest experience goes to when we were pushing a different herd of cattle on horseback in North Dakota. I have no idea what the air temperature was. The wind was so brutal and unforgiving! I had already been thrown from the saddle once and my head was sure feeling it after being slammed into the ground. All the horses were sure acting up that morning, as were the calves. A group of calves took off running together back to the ranch we had brought them from. That was several miles and many pastures earlier. They took shortcuts through barbed wire fences and across cattle guards.
It took a good while to catch up to them on horseback. When we finally made it back to near the headquarters of that ND ranch, the calves were headed north along a gravel county road. One rider tried to cut them off but they just squeezed under the fence and cut across a section. Myself and another guy caught up to them way out in the middle. All we could do was try to hold them there until others could make it back in a dually pickup and long cattle trailer to get some panels set up in a distant corner. The wind was still blowing so hard. My body shivered over and over while stuck in the saddle. All that exposure caused my lips to crack and bleed. I obviously wasn’t used to those extremes. There’s nowhere to go to get out of the wind. You just sit there and take it. Then later in the day we were about three fourths of the way to the grazing association HQ still pushing the entire herd. A heavy rain started blowing horizontally. That was the day our horses were feeling about as miserable as their riders.
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