By Alexia McCulloch, reporter for Bluebonnet News
I was raised in the country, but I would say I wasn’t raised “country.” The most that my parents had under their agricultural belts were chickens up until a few years ago, and I didn’t have much to do with them either.
But sometimes when someone gets older, they gain an appreciation for the people who have a little grit – dirt under their nails and blood on their jeans. I now have more respect for all the hard-working, sweat-dripping folks that make life easier for the rest of us. That’s how I’ve felt more and more in the past few years as I’ve also become more interested in what life would be like if I were more in touch with the land and livestock that make Texas the beautiful place that it is.
I can say from my morning with Tarkington rancher Chance Ward and his family that once you get a taste of what a day is like on horseback in a pasture, having a greater understanding of your place in this world, it’s hard to look the other way.
I had the pleasure of working with Chance, who also owns Last Chance Feed & More on FM 2025 in Cleveland, on Saturday, May 27, at his property in Tarkington. Chance is a generational rancher who started riding horses even before he learned to walk.
“It’s one of them things that it’s in your blood. Ranching becomes a passion of your heart to do. Sometimes I swear it’s genetics. You can learn to love it if you’ve never been involved in it, but being born into it, it’s a different breed of its own,” Chance said.
When I arrived that Saturday morning, a group of experienced cattle-workers were already in the corral with 15-20 large calves. I talked to Chance for a few moments and he told me what I was in for: tagging ears, vaccinating cattle, removing horns and castrating when necessary. Only one of those things really made my eyes go wide, and it’s pretty easy to guess which one it was.
Doing something with your own hands is when you really learn, so I joined the group in the corral, and got to it. I was assured I didn’t have to castrate any males or dehorn any calves this early in my “ranching career,” so I was left with tagging, which I felt I could handle. There were quite a few times I had to ask again which ear to tag for the female calves. I was terrified of doing something that would later cause confusion for the nice people that let inexperienced me in the pen. One of Chance’s daughters, who was in the pen and close by my side while I was tagging, said that the best way to remember was ‘Women are always right’. I didn’t need directional double-checking for the rest of my time tagging thanks to that saying.
Chance explained the reasons why calves are castrated and dehorned at an early age, understanding that the process might be a little hard to watch for someone with no ranching experience. Castration is necessary for the marbling of the meat that we like here in the United States, which is how much fat is in the meat. Dehorning is so that the cows don’t hurt each other, or force the other cows off of shared troughs. He also explained that this is the way people have been ranching in our area for hundreds of years and that they found it was still the best way to do it.
After we finished with that lot of calves, they were returned to their mothers who had been bellowing outside the pen, and it was time to get the next lot into the corral. These cows were in a neighboring pasture, so we got on horses, making this my first day ever riding a horse! I will say that I’m determined to get one of my own now after riding a sweet horse named Hazard.
Even though you’re on the back of this huge beast that could very easily kill you, there’s something incredibly calming about riding through the lush greenery of a Southeast Texas summer on horseback. Tending to animals is what humans have been doing since we were put on this planet, so getting out of your own sphere and putting the needs of an animal before your own comfort felt like it was just right.
Tending the fresh lot of cows was easier due to their size, but their mothers were not any easier. At one point, some of the guys were in part of the corral with the mothers, and while they were trying to get them funneled into a chute for their deworming, one cow kicked one of the wranglers right where it hurts the most. There was a “You okay?” and then as soon as everyone knew he was all right, there were jokes about how they hoped he wasn’t planning on having any more kids. He got out of the pen, hobbled to the house and came out a few minutes later. We asked if he was okay and he said, “I threw up, so I’m better now.” With no complaints, he simply went back to work.
This was the event, although funny at face-value, that gave me the most respect for the men and women who do this job and take all of the kicks and punches from nature. The ability to just get on with it – get back in the ring with a little more knowledge and a couple more scars, but not a bad attitude – is a trait that is criminally undervalued. Taking on your responsibilities and duties headfirst without any complaints. Knowing that life is hard, but you’d be a lot worse off if you were unwilling to add anything good to the world. Chance told us about how he’s been seriously wounded doing this job, but that he just gets on with it and rolls with the punches, which we all should strive to do.
“I’ve played poker with Mother Nature all my life and I’ve never won a hand.”
Chance Ward
But this lifestyle is disappearing, and in a hurry, too. With rising prices of land, taxes, feed and cattle, and government regulations, ranching has become incredibly difficult to start from the ground up. The people who were dedicated to this lifestyle are selling their land due to it not being sustainable, or they were folks of a bygone era and have passed away. The ranching landscape is very quickly changing in Liberty County.
The silver lining is that it’s not impossible. Chance recommends that if you have an itch for this type of life, there are options. He says that if you are trying to get started, “Find your local day-working cowboy, and bring him in. Actually pay him for his knowledge of consulting. If you’d hire a painter to do your house, you find a real full day-working cowboy, pay him for his knowledge. Basically he becomes your consultant.”
Lastly, the doors are open at Last Chance Feed & More if you have questions about starting up even a small amount of cattle.
Note: Next time in “A Day in a Life,” Alexia McCulloch will be accompanying some Liberty County employees with Pct. 1 Road and Bridge as they perform their jobs. Do you have an interesting occupation to suggest for this series? If so, we would like to hear from you. Drop an email to editor@bluebonnetnews.com.
Alexia, congrats on an excellent Day-In-the-Life essay. You did a great job highlighting all the little things a newhand sees, thinks, and feels.
Sixty-five years ago, I was a newhand, too, working cattle with my grandfather, Charlie Blake of Devers. Techniques were different then, but, as you noted, hundreds of years of successful ranching hasn’t changed much.
For me, nothing can replace the thrill and memories of riding herds from one pasture to another with a bunch of old-timers who were still some of the best cowboys of their day. They may have moved slower than in their prime, but there was nothing those men hadn’t seen or done. And they loved to talk about it.
Thank you for capturing a slice of modern ranching. Someday, it will be history, too. Hopefully, the cattle bidness won’t disappear too soon and the TVE will still celebrate rodeo and ranching for a few more generations.
Alexia, I enjoyed your writing style! You might become interested and give Kyle some competition in his quest to take over your Mom’s business some day!!
I spent the day in the Colo Rockies at a ski high ranch a couple of years back. Your use if the word “bellowing” was right on! as I could still hear those echos in my mind.
And(!), frkm you, I learned that different ears are used for gender diferentiation! Good write-up!
Did you get to try the calf fries after the castration?
If not, you missed a treat.