The Blithe Traveler: Christmas Day Roundup

And a Happy Christmas to you! Those of you who have been around for a while may well recognize our Wee Tree from last year's Christmas travels. Same tree, different continent.

But enough about that. I promised cows, didn't I?

The plan for the Christmas day was a bit o' fun with cattle. For those of you who have ever spent time on a dude ranch, this is standard operating procedure.

Step 1, Saddle up the dudes.

Step 2, Ride to place where tame cattle hang out

Step 3, Have dudes dash about a bit behind the cattle, while professional cowboy (in this case gaucho) carefully diffuses the chaos the dudes are creating and actually moves the cattle - generally making strategic use of fencing along the way to facilitate maintaining some semblance of a herd.

Step 4, Put cattle in large pen and let dudes race around a bit

Step 5, When everyone is good and tired, reverse Step 3 and return tame cattle to original resting place.

I stayed at a guest ranch in Wyoming once where I swear two neighboring ranches just swapped cattle every few days. We moved them over to the Lazee Cow Timez on Tuesday and the Lazee Cow Timez dudes brought them back on Thursday. Anyway, moving cattle = good times for the paying customer, so that's what we did on Christmas.

Although "we," as in Jeff, me, Tom and Hope, were not signed up for an actual riding holiday on the estancia, so we were the audience for the cow movers (except Hope, who got a bit of a bonus ride, as you will soon see). If you are wondering what that is all about, we're still a bit puzzled ourselves. The best I can come up with is that when you book time on the ranch, you have to book the riding part of your holiday separately. I didn't quite get that, so it was a bit confusing there for a while.

And here's where I remind you never to ask me for help arranging your holiday. Amazing what kinds of details escape me.

Net net, Tom wanted no part of the horses (allergies), but the rest of us all got in enough ad hoc riding time to be satisfied that we saw the countryside on horseback. We just didn't get to move cattle. This was fine with me. As you can see from the above, I'm pretty clear on what it's all really about, and was happy enough watching other people give it a go.

The basic game was that once the cattle had been moved to the pens, the gang were meant to shift the mommas to a second pen, leaving the babies in the larger pen.

This is how the amateurs do it. Slow motion, not much happening on the cow separation front.

And the pro. It's really beautiful to watch a pair (because the horse is doing as much as the rider is) who can really work cattle.

And if you are really good, you can round up cattle while hanging on to a small child.

Yes, she loved it.

After the round up, there was some serious fun as the guests tried to rope the babies. Much harder than it looks (and, frankly, I don't think it looks at all easy). Generally people get a lesson or two on how to throw a lasso first at a stationary object, like a tree stump. Then at a moving target. This crowd went right for the calves and consequently didn't have a whole lot of luck snagging one.

This is Miguel demonstrating. I think even he took a couple of shots at the thing before he managed to catch it. Roping the babies is done regularly as part of ranch work, of course, when cattle require vaccinations, branding or castration.

For Christmas fun, I think it's over the top, but I suppose the cattle have a pretty cushy life most of the year, so, c'est la vie if you are a cow on a guest estancia.

It was hot, we were tired, and there was a roasted goat waiting for us back at the estancia, so, it was time to bring the cattle back together again and return them to their original resting place.

Beware, cute goats, here come the bovines! That baby was just darling. Alas, it may well be Christmas lunch next year, but please don't mention that to Hope. Also, note the strategic use of fencing in moving the cattle back to their original position: told you.