Mike has pretty well recovered from his bout with pneumonia earlier this summer. We had some good family time when Prairie and Jon and Harlan came home for a friend's wedding, and everybody chipped in to help with chores to give Mike some rest.
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| Mike enjoys the hammock at Hope's wedding |
The wedding was classic Wallowa County. A lovely summer evening, too hot until the sunset, loads of delicious homemade food, kids running in packs in willow thickets around a pond, beautiful bride and handsome groom, rowdy band on a flatbed trailer, portable dance floor in the middle of a pasture, cold beer and plenty of revelrous guests of all ages.
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| Harlan, Prairie, Jon - photo booth! |
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| Harlan, Sara and Abby 'the hat stealer' |
The morning after the wedding, Harlan and Prairie and I got up early to go check on the cow herd out on the Zumwalt. Prairie scooped Harlan out of bed and into the truck, along with a big to-go bowl of oatmeal with dried apricots and pears which he greatly enjoyed, once he was awake.
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| Are we there yet? |
We couldn't have timed it better. As we drove through the gate at Alder Creek, we heard the first voices of the cows coming down to water. Several mother cows came right to the truck, where Harlan could check them out up close and personal.
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| Harlan calling in the herd |
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| One of our older mother cows |
Soon there was a chorus of calves calling for their mothers, and mothers calling back, as more cows and calves wandered up the draw, their strong voices reverberating through the trees. I told Harlan they were talking to each other. "Where are you? I'm over here." "Here I am. Where are you?"
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| Calves finding their mothers |
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| A very gentle red cow. |
I was taking a picture of Prairie and Harlan when I caught a glimpse of our big blonde bull coming up fast behind me. I smacked my shin on the trailer hitch as I scrambled onto the flatbed. The bull wasn't really coming after me, he was just making a bee-line toward a group of cows in front of the truck, but I had Mike's admonition in mind as I made my hasty exit,"Never turn your back on a bull."
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| Blonde bull |
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| Snack time in the back of the truck |
The morning was cool and pleasant, but we could feel the heat building quickly. We took looked over the herd as they began to graze back through the trees and concluded that all was well. Plenty of grass, plenty of water, all the critters where they should be, including the bulls.
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| Ruby, Bell, Prairie and Harlan headed for the gate and home |
It was good to get Harlan out with the cows. Someday he'll be big enough to make a hand and like his mother before him, he'll have a hankering for the prairie, for the smell of the tarweed and the Ponderosa pine, for the call of the meadowlark at dawn, for the creak of the saddle and the ramble of a sure-footed horse beneath him.
From Sara at Magpie Ranch, Home of Bunchgrass Beef
