2008 Branding Weekend

It was an eventful branding weekend this year. We had lots of family and lots of help. 10 riders (Don Nicoll, Ginny Baker, Cody Weagant, Chris Nicoll, Matt Garner, Ryan Garner, Scott Ray, Steve Nicoll & 2 of his friends)rounded up Jenny's pasture on the 4th of July. Guy designated Chris Nicoll as ride boss since he had been working with Guy for the last 3 months. It was really just an honorary title because most of the Nicoll's didn't pay him too much attention and did what we each wanted anyways.

Roundup went well and soon the cattle were back at the ranch. Details are important as we found out the next morning when we returned to the ranch to separate and brand the cattle and discovered that we had left the gate open in the holding pasture and the cattle had got out into the "horse pasture". Luckily, this was a rather small pasture, but amazingly none of us had ever ridden it. We got the horses in, saddled up and rounded up the cattle again, putting us a few hours behind.

The day started out warm but clouds moved in, dropped a little rain during lunch and cooled it down for the afternoon branding. We branded 76 calves, the last five the old fashioned way with Chris Nicoll roping from horseback and the rest of us holding the calf down and branding, castrating, dehorning, ear marking and inoculating in the dirt. This was a first for many of us at the Nicoll Roundup. We know of at least 5 other calves that weren't branded because they were too young or got back on us and some cows still had to calve- a decent crop this year.

Other interesting happenings include Kevin Nicoll and his 4 boys coming down for nearly a month from Utah and spending multiple nights staying in a trailer at the ranch. Kevin took it upon himself to begin cleaning the ranch house, was assisted by Don and later by Steve, Cody & Scott. It was a wonderful event to see the ranch cleaned up for the first time in years. Kevin also painted the window frames a cowboy orange color that gives it that "lived in" look. A highlight for Kevin was to spend his final night sleeping in the ranch house with his boys. See his blog for more about his experience: http://web.mac.com/klnic55/NIC/THE_NICOLL_BOYS.html

The day before roundup several of us performed a repair on the Knoll's Mill. The drinker had been leaking for a while so Guy had researched how we might repair it. He came upon a plastic liner that could be glued inside the tank and supposedly would stand up to cold, heat, and cattle hoofs. We glued it in and he has since filled it with water and reports that it appears to be holding water. We'll have to see how it goes??

While we were branding it was discovered that the Mill at the ranch was no longer working. The water was very low, enough for our horses, but the neighbor rancher had to haul in water to keep his cattle going. Problem turned out to be the pump had gone bad as well as some sucker rod and one length of casing. Guy says the pump lasted 10-15 years so that's good to know. Cost was $3600 split half with the neighbor cattleman.

Last of all is Cecil's mill. Guy and Chris drove by last week, found the mill turning but no water so they put a call in to the repair person. A few days later Guy went by again and it appeared to be working fine. Repairman is on hold.

One final item: Rusty, the colt we've had for nearly 2 years, whose leg was broken at one time during an incident of trying to load him in a trailer, was finally old enough to be broke. Chris Nicoll has been working with him for several months and after branding it was time to see what he would do. Chris got on, Rusty bucked a bit, ran around the corral and settled down amazingly fast. We now have to keep working with him and see if we can make another riding horse out of him.