On the Road Again with Merle

[Horsewright]

Well I am loving Merle's last hurrah. I am also learning some good tips for knife building. I've done a little bit of knife work and leatherwork, but nothing like HorseWright and other makers here do. Thanks for sharing! Horsewright

Ya bet! And thanks!

Agreed. I am thinking of trying to get Dave to bring me out for a couple weeks and show me around ... heck even put me to work. I think it would be worth it to see the knives and leather ... guns and horses. I've done more than one day of that type work for nothing more than meals and beer ... I enjoy it so it wouldn't be a bad trade.

But does that mean I have to go through a whole pass around?

Yep all 73 pages!

So I'd said something bout big doings in my last post but never got around to it. Time sometimes gets in the way. Hadn't been able to post the last couple of days because they keep scheduling us for days with power outages for the whole day. They've been replacing all the power poles around here with fire resistant poles. But when they work on your line that means no power at all for the day. Anyhoo:

Merle was fascinated by the work our farrier, Alberto was doing. So I found him a perch up on a fence post so he could watch.

This horse is Hatari and she is one of my wife's horses. We'll have Alberto shoe all four horses today and trim Mitchy the yearling colt.

Alberto has a full shoeing shop on wheels:

Forge, grinders, drill presses, anvil, hand tools supplies, all fold up and store neatly in his truck.

Bout that time Nichole starts jumping up and down. She's on the phone with our daughter, Alyssa. Alyssa had finally been accepted into nursing school! It'd been a terrible ordeal. The school was impacted and had been for years. Biggest problem was getting them tied down to what classes she needed to take prior to be accepted. Take this class and ya need this class. So she would and then they would say why did ya take this class you don't need that class. Well cause ya told me too. Well things change now ya need this class. So one of the biggest problems was that many if not most of the classes that she needed/didn't need were hard to almost impossible to get. They even required a class they didn't offer. She had to drive to a college in a neighboring town for that one. It was the epitome of ask 5 different councillors and get 12 different answers. They even had her apply one time to the nursing school saying she'd met all the requirements when she hadn't. However Alyssa is tenacious and she'd been working on this since high school. She has always wanted to be an RN. She is a CNA and has worked as an ER Tech for years and with recommendations ya wouldn't believe it took her along time to get in. She finally made it! So big doings! I was outside when Alyssa pulled in and met her with one of her favorite beers. She'd been coming up to help out with profiling some knives anyways:

She loved meeting Merle and thought his world travels was a pretty cool thing!

Bout that time mom and grandma showed up. They'd run off to the store to make sure that we had enough stuff for the doings.

So we had a couple of hours to work before the doings so Alyssa got started profiling some blades and I was working on handle materials for the current batch. The ones Alyssa was working on are getting ready to head off to heat treat. Merle and I were working on flattening some scales, some Turkish walnut there by Merle:

Then Alyssa started in on the flat disc:

And the small wheel:

Then she went to get cleaned up after she got this batch of 37 blades finished up. She cleans up pretty good:

With her husband:

With the crew. If ya look close the glasses are empty. They'd done the shots before I had my phone ready so I asked everybody to raise their empty glasses. They did.

We'd ordered pizza for the crew and Nichole and Mary were practicing on the roping dummy:

Other folks was visiting:

Steve our ranching partner met Merle:

Big Doings!

 

[waynorth]

Big Doings!

Thanks for posting all those portraits, Dave!! Looks like joyful times!!!
My oldest grand got her nursing degree 3 years ago after some hard work!!
And got married last year!!

 

[btb01]

Merle was fascinated by the work our farrier, Alberto was doing. So I found him a perch up on a fence post so he could watch.

This horse is Hatari and she is one of my wife's horses. We'll have Alberto shoe all four horses today and trim Mitchy the yearling colt.

Alberto has a full shoeing shop on wheels:

Forge, grinders, drill presses, anvil, hand tools supplies, all fold up and store neatly in his truck.

Really interesting work, and quite a set-up Alberto has on the truck there!

Bout that time Nichole starts jumping up and down. She's on the phone with our daughter, Alyssa. Alyssa had finally been accepted into nursing school! It'd been a terrible ordeal. The school was impacted and had been for years. Biggest problem was getting them tied down to what classes she needed to take prior to be accepted. Take this class and ya need this class. So she would and then they would say why did ya take this class you don't need that class. Well cause ya told me too. Well things change now ya need this class. So one of the biggest problems was that many if not most of the classes that she needed/didn't need were hard to almost impossible to get. They even required a class they didn't offer. She had to drive to a college in a neighboring town for that one. It was the epitome of ask 5 different councillors and get 12 different answers. They even had her apply one time to the nursing school saying she'd met all the requirements when she hadn't. However Alyssa is tenacious and she'd been working on this since high school. She has always wanted to be an RN. She is a CNA and has worked as an ER Tech for years and with recommendations ya wouldn't believe it took her along time to get in. She finally made it! So big doings! I was outside when Alyssa pulled in and met her with one of her favorite beers. She'd been coming up to help out with profiling some knives anyways:

She loved meeting Merle and thought his world travels was a pretty cool thing!

Congrats to your daughter, Dave! Some of the hoops you have to jump through when it comes to higher education are ridiculous, but it sounds like she’s determined and a hard worker. Best of luck to her in nursing school!

So we had a couple of hours to work before the doings so Alyssa got started profiling some blades and I was working on handle materials for the current batch. The ones Alyssa was working on are getting ready to head off to heat treat. Merle and I were working on flattening some scales, some Turkish walnut there by Merle:

Then Alyssa started in on the flat disc:

And the small wheel:

Cool to see more if the knife-making operation. I like that the whole family is involved!

Then she went to get cleaned up after she got this batch of 37 blades finished up. She cleans up pretty good:

With her husband:

With the crew. If ya look close the glasses are empty. They'd done the shots before I had my phone ready so I asked everybody to raise their empty glasses. They did.

We'd ordered pizza for the crew and Nichole and Mary were practicing on the roping dummy:

Other folks was visiting:

Steve our ranching partner met Merle:

Big Doings!

Looks like quite a party! I hope Merle behaved himself!

 

[cbach8tw]

Congrats to her and thanks for all the nice photos, learned a little about how bolsters are put on. Merle looked tickled to be there.

 

[Horsewright]

Thanks guys! Yep she toughed it out and got er done. Yep we're proud of her. She's working today in the ER, (Thursday) but will join us Fri and Saturday cowboying.

 

[Jack Black]

Fantastic posts, as always Dave, Merle is a lucky dawg! Congratulations to Alyssa, heart-warming pics buddy

 

[Horsewright]

Thanks Jack, my friend.

So Saturday we went out to the ranch to make sure the corrals were ready to go. They are in need of some major overhauling but we didn't have time. The wild weather this year had caused quite a bit of damage but it had also kept us from getting after it too much as access has been difficult due to flooding etc. Anyhoo so our job Saturday was to "band aid" the corrals. I put Merle to work running a weed whacker. Trimming the weeds in the corral area is a safety deal for us. Takes a way the hideouts for rattlesnakes. So the areas around the corrals where folks are gonna be walking and working get trimmed down. Merle did a great job.

Here he's taking a break.

Once we had the corrals band aided as best we could we headed back home. It was a nice day weather wise and we were going to ride our horses. We need to get them "legged up." This is simply getting them in shape for the strenuous work they'll be doing later. We ride them as often as possible but this year....again the weather has really hampered us.

This is Spudnik or Spud for short.

I boosted Merle up in my saddle:

Later as we were riding he rested on the saddle horn a bit:

He was also interested in the amount of engraving there is on some of our gear and tack. Here he was checking out a pair of my spurs.

As an engraved person himself he was proud to make the acquaintance of three of our bits. Thats Spud's in the rear and Merle is shaking hands with Lil Man's bit and down to the bottom right in the pic is Josie's.

Nichole is showing David Eugene, Alyssa's husband how to tie up the get down rope. In our Californio style of horsemanship the reins are never taken off over the horse's head to lead the horse or tie the horse up. We have a "get down" rope for that and its tied with a bowline knot around the horses neck or chest. So If I needed to get down and lead my horse for whatever reason the reins would stay on the horse and wrapped around the horn and I would get down and lead my horse with the get down rope.

David Eugene down't ride much but he's wanting to learn more and had the time here so was gonna go out with us for a ride. We were gonna do some hill climbing to help get their wind good. We always try to do some work with Mitchy the yearling colt too. Sometimes I'll pony him from Spur or Lil Man and he'll trot alongside. Other times we'll just lead him around on foot. We try to introduce new things to him as we can. Like the day before he was hanging out on the The Porch like folks do here:

Or a stroll in the backyard:

He says it kinda looks like dinner to him:

Mitchy's father is a very famous horse, Call Me Mitch. A few weeks back he won The World's Greatest Horseman contest. This is a big event in the National Reined Cowhorse Association or NRCHA. Here Mitchy was watching his dad win the deal:

Mitchy's registered name is Mitchy The Kid. Take a few minutes to watch this lil vid of what his dad can do:

We've got big hopes for Mitchy but right now he's just a kid.

 

[RLB0414]

Dave, thanks for sharing all the great photos. Congratulations to you daughter on her accomplishments

 

[beezwax]

I had a lot of catching up to do here, but this is still the best thread in all of BladeForums. Giddyup Merle!

 

[Horsewright]

Thanks guys! Well our Spring Works at the ranch are all done. Been trying to get the pictures all whittled down to make a semblance of order to Merle's intro to cowboyin'. He took to it well by the way, like an old hand and turned out to be pretty handy in the branding pen. I've whittled down about a 1,000 pics to approx 150 so have some more whittling to do. Meanwhile the Sunday before our works we went over to my brother's for dinner:

 

[Horsewright]

So we were scheduled with our crew to start gathering on thursday morning. We use the term gathering to go out and find the cattle. I've never heard the term "roundup" used outside of a movie or TV. Now we might make several "circles" while gathering but we don't roundup.

Steve, our ranching partner, Nichole, Merle and myself met out at the ranch to unload hay for the works. We buy half and Steve buys half, but we help him unload and stack it well because its his birthday on Friday and he'll be 79. We try to buy as an exact amount as we'll need because we don't want to store it there too long. Wild pigs will find it and wreak industrial sized havoc with it. So we get just what we need as close as we can. As luck would have it there was a large group of cattle down on the flats near the corrals and we could see more over by "the bowl" as we were coming into the ranch. We made a quick judgement call and ran home to get the horses, calling our friend Mary Kay to saddle up too. She's always on standby for such an emergency. We are strongly of the opinion that cattle in the hand sure beats cattle in the bush ro whatever that saying is.

We got back out to the ranch and mounted up, the four of us. Mary Kay and Nichole and Merle and I. Our plan was to climb up and over into the bowl from the west, come around the cattle there and push them out onto the flat. Then Merle and I would go long around the south east and get around some cattle we could see there on the flats and push em all towards the corrals. All hail the plans of mice and men and cow critters too. Merel and I were first into the bowl as we have the furthest to go. Looking to the north and a super bloom:

Now it might look like a nice spring day in these pics but you'd be surprised. There was a strong wind blowing and the felt like temperature was down right frigid. It was COLD! I had on long john top, a wool Pendleton shirt, a double layered wool vest and an insulated windproof jacket on top of that. My legs were ok under my leggings but my feet were ice blocks. Heavy insulate gloves rounded out the ensemble.

Nichole and Mark K coming down into the bowl:

They're spreading out:

We're nudging em out onto the flats:

Got a big group once we combined those from the bowl with those that were already out on the flats:

And we get them into the corrals:

More to come on Merle's cowboyin' adventure.

 

[Will Power]

Always a treat to see your pictures Horsewright : stunning outdoors, fine horses and healthy looking men&women plus some good eating&drinking from time to time

You mention Wildpigs being a pest, can't you shoot some of them down with a nice Lever gun? In Europe, Wildboar can offer good eating but a dangerous opponent but your version could be Feral pigs, still might make a good meal though ?

Thanks, Will

 

[Jack Black]

Great prose and pics Dave Very interesting to hear that about the term 'roundup'

 

[Horsewright]

Always a treat to see your pictures Horsewright : stunning outdoors, fine horses and healthy looking men&women plus some good eating&drinking from time to time

You mention Wildpigs being a pest, can't you shoot some of them down with a nice Lever gun? In Europe, Wildboar can offer good eating but a dangerous opponent but your version could be Feral pigs, still might make a good meal though ?

Thanks, Will

Here's a quick lil post bout an adventure with a boar and a lever gun:

Yes indeed got a brick of em currently. Also got about 250 CCI Stingers I've been hoarding for years. Love those Stingers! We keep back a steer every year for our own use. Well thats a mis nomer cause we've kept him back for two years. a two year old is what ya want to slaughter. Anyhoo, we have a slaughter company that comes to the ranch and drops the steer, hoist him up gets him skinned and gutted and quartered. They then hang the quarters in their refrigerated truck and deliver him to the butcher for us. They use a .22 magnum and they drop like a rock. These aren't tamed steers or anything so he's shooting across a pen say 20-30 yds sometimes and he takes his time for the right shot but its an instant drop even on a 1,100 lb steer.

I have used a friends .17HMR to kill a boar. He was on the fight and was fixing to charge and the .17 Henry was the only long gun with us. Figured it was better than the lil 9mm Glock 43 I had on my belt! We kept playing peek a boo around a water storage tank. I'd shot him a couple of times right between the eyes and the lil .17 didn't penetrate the skull. Then I was able to put one right behind the ear and that was that. Dropped like a rock. Was out fixing fence horseback and came by one of our storage tanks that holds water out of a spring. This boar was laying down on the dirt on the other side of the tank. I thought he was dead cause it was mid day and he's just laying down still on a flat, no cover no shade. Handed my horse to the wife and got the Henry .17 that our friend Mary K had on her saddle. As I got closer I could see him twitch some and he got up laboriously. His left front leg was hugely swollen and he couldn't put any weight on it. He was probably really fevered and that was why he'd laid down, maybe more of a passed out deal. Made the decision to put him out of his misery. I moved to the other side of this 10,000 gal storage tank and there he was facing me. So snuck to the other side trying for that shot behind the ear and dang if he wasn't there facing me again. So I popped him between the eyes and nothing. Snuck to the other side of the tank and dang if he wasn't facing me again. Popped him again and snuck to the other side of the tank. This time he was still looking for me where I had been. Was able to put that round just behind the ear and he dropped. Went up behind him and put a 9mm in the back of his head from a couple of inches just to make sure. Hate to see an animal suffer. He'd of gotten worse and worse and then been eaten alive by coyotes or his own kind. Couple of weeks later there were hardly even any bones left there, it'd been scavenged so well. These days I carry my big 10mm that I call my belt rifle when we go back there. Here's Mary K's .17 Henry:

Well heck we better mention the other end of the spectrum. This is a .700 Nitro Express. It was made by my friend Butch Searcy of The All American Double Rifle Co. Butch is like the only guy in the world that can make the whole double rifle. At the European gun houses that specialize in these things there is a guy that makes the barrels, another guy that regulates the barrels, another guy that makes the action, another guy that tunes the action, another guy that makes the stock, another guy that finishes the stock and ya get the idea. Butch does it all except the engraving. This rifle was back in his shop for another set of barrels. Butch asked me to hold it while he set up the photo. Ya see that empty case near the end of the tusk? Then ya see the two knives I'd made for my friend that was taking the pics and doing an article on Butch for Sporting Classics magazine The knives were kinda featured as I used Butch's stock cut offs for the scales. Each of those knives are over 9"long so that gives ya a decent size comparison on that empty from a .700 Nitro Express case. I asked what that rifle cost and when he told me I handed it back cause I didn't want to hold it anymore at $125,000! It was dang heavy too and Butch said it was about 25 pounds in weight. Anyhoo the other end of the spectrum:

Anyhoo yes ya can hunt them in fact its highly encouraged. The Spanish brought pigs to the US in the 1500s and they've been running wild since. They say it takes two generations for a feral pig to go completely wild. Those that we have on the ranch are pure black in color and don't demonstrate any other domestic tendencies. We do hunt them on occasion but its tricky. They're here and then they're gone, very transitory. We won't see any for a while and then we see em and then it'll be months. While we were having dinner Friday night there at the ranch we saw three come down to water. Fletch went up to have a look see but he tracked em up a creek over to a neighboring ranch and they were gone.

Thanks for the kind words Will.

Great prose and pics Dave Very interesting to hear that about the term 'roundup'

Thanks Jack!

 

[Horsewright]

So once we had those cattle in on Wednesday evening we took attendance. Each cow is identified by a numbered ear tag. Ours are purple in the left ear and Steve's are yellow.

The younger calves that have not been processed are called "slicks". So while figuring out who we have in the pen we're also trying to identify which calf goes to what cow.

We separate the two bulls and put one in an adjacent pen so they don't fight. We put some heifers in with him to keep him company but make sure that those that we put in there with him don't have calves. We don't want to separate a calf from its mom for too long.

Steve had mentioned that the water lines to the corrals were frozen so he had hauled water over to the corrals in a 1,000 gal water trailer we have. So we pumped the water over the corral fence to fill up the stock tanks in the corrals.

We'd figured we'd take a ride up to the storage tanks to see what was up with the water. These are the same storage tanks that are mentioned in the boar story above. There is a 10,000 gal storage tank that is spring fed. When that fills up it flows into an 8,000 gal storage tank. It then runs down a canyon to a pond. The tanks are piped down to the corrals and then out to camp and past that to a trough out on the flats. Its not uncommon for that pipe at the bottom of the canyon to stay frozen for long periods of time. During the winter it only gets daylight down in the bottom of that canyon for short periods. When we rode up both tanks were overflowing and water was running down the canyon. Sometimes the cows will knock something loose and then the tanks are empty. So when we saw all the water flowing figured Steve was right and they were frozen. We rode back to camp tied up the horses and took off our riding boots and fed the cattle. It was time my feet were froze!

Following the canyon back down from the tanks:

Merle and I (having a Scottish connection), took the high road:

Looking down on the corrals and camp:

After feeding the cattle we ran home and dropped off our horses and fed that crew and then met Mary K and her family along with Steve at a local sushi restuarant. Merle met Fletch Mary K's husband. Fletch was impressed with Merle's edge and thats saying something cause ol Fletch is an edge snob.

The ranch picked up the tab cause ya always take care of your crew.

 

[Will Power]

Horsewright Many thanks for the absorbing tale about guns. In some ways I'm not too surprised, friends who used to hunt in Germany were very wary of Wildboar, their skulls are legendary tough front on and they're a cunning & skilled adversary, as fearsome as Bear in many ways because more intelligent. Their meat is an acquired taste but I like it. The Feral Pig it seems has similar characteristics and not to be underestimated.

Many respects to GEC for making this Forum Knife and its interesting journey, your 'leg' as it were Dave, has been mesmerising & informative.

Regards, Will

 

[Horsewright]

After cussing and discussing and counting cattle and tags and slicks too, twice on Wednesday we figured we were at about 60 percent of the total herd in the corrals. Come Thursday morning we had a larger crew scheduled to help out. First thing we did was drop our stock trailer and then Nichole and Mary K hopped in the truck and went scouting. They were looking for the rest of the cattle. Problem is there are only roads on the front half of the ranch so its somewhat limiting where they can scout but they can also give ya an idea of where not to ride to, looking for the rest of the cattle. Some of the roads were pretty tore up from all the weather we'd had:

No cows here:

But more bad roads:

They did find a large group in a canyon off to the west of The Bowl. But, the group wasn't large enough to account for everything. So dividing my forces, I sent Nichole and the ladies after that group and I took the guys up into the high country.

Looking down on the town of Tehachapi:

Lots of steep climbing for us:

I don't remember how we cowboyed before cell phones. Nichole called and said they had a group of 25 or so that they were taking to the corrals. I told her that Brett and I had just jumped a group and we'd be in too. Brett and I had been sitting on a high ridge. Looking down to the west to a little saddle between two ridges I could see a cow standing and she was looking intently to the west where Don and Fletch would be coming along. I sent Brett down to knock that cow to the east and down into the Upper Bowl. I later told him he was hired cause I send him down after a cow and he brought back eleven! Bout that time Don and Fletch had made it to me on the high up and we headed down a very steep descent into the Upper Bowl. I kind of had to keep track of my guys cause most of them had never been back there before. Once we got all my cowboys down into the Upper Bowl we trailed those eleven cows down to the water in the Bowl and then out to the flats and back to the corrals. We took attendance again and were very happy. We had a 100 percent and Steve was missing two. Now thats pretty darn good. Steve's records are notoriously bad so him just missing two was yeah we're pretty much a hundred percent. I have in the past had a crew out looking for five for Steve and it turned out he'd sold em and forgot to write it down. I have also gathered in cattle that his records said he sold last year and they weren't on the ranch! After lunch we did take a ride out and had a look see. But Thursday was a much more pleasant day than Wednesday and it was pretty much just an enjoyable trail ride. Nichole and Misty:

Nichole and Don:

Brett and Don and Tehachapi Hospital in the background. Probably the only hospital in California surrounded on three sides by cattle ranches!

Didn't find those two cows. But now were getting ready ofr the work to start!

 

[RLB0414]

Horsewright , thank you Dave for the tales of your pig adventures. Thank you for sharing the photos of some awesome country

 

[Horsewright]

Horsewright , thank you Dave for the tales of your pig adventures. Thank you for sharing the photos of some awesome country

You bet!

 

[Jack Black]

Beautiful photos Dave When I was on vacation last Christmas, I could have gone horse-riding for a day, but at my age, (having only spent 10 minutes on a horse in my entire life), I figured that would likely lay me out for the rest of my holiday!