The old days - Aboard the Apollo - 1973

[Mark A. Baker]

I have two comments: On the Indian killing me in a past life, I just have a mental picture of me and another guy putting up some fencing out on the range. ...

There was a time not so long ago when a large number of people, not just native americans, considered that alone was a killing offense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasant_Valley_War


Mark A. Baker

[afaceinthecrowd]

I didn't listen to the song before I replied...I thought you were describing something you recalled.

At the end of a Bovines tail there is a tassel of hair. In the old days during roundups calves were sorted in to various groups after inspection. Snipping some hair from their tail tassel was a quick means of identify those calves that had been inspected form those that had not. Like the hair on your head, it grows back. After inspection and sorting the calves were branded and separated from their mothers for weaning.

Before the calves were separated and branded they were "mammy'd up" with their mothers so that you knew which momma cow had produced which calf. Any momma cow without a calf was marked (usually by notching the right ear) and if she didn't have a calf the following spring was cut from the herd.

A "dogie" was a calf that had not "mammy'd up" (gone to their mother when separated out for the "mammy up" process). They were rounded up and moved to the group of momma cows that didn't have a "mammy'd up" calf and then they'd all "Mammy up".

Sometimes a momma cow's calf died during the winter and that's why you gave her another chance before cutting her from the herd...especially if she had a history of raising calves and/or was an anatomically sound animal . Sometimes a calf's momma would die and they'd wind up being "adopted" by a momma that lost her calf and if no momma cow adopted it, it didn't live to spring. An "open" momma cow (one that had not conceived or gone full term) would be of no help to a "winter dogie" as her milk would not have "come in".

Face

[afaceinthecrowd]

http://parkerranch.com/Parker-Ranch/




One man's 'renegade' is another man's Freedom Fighter.


Mark A. Baker

I've been on the Parker Ranch...and the King Ranch, as well...very, very cool!

[afaceinthecrowd]

delete...double post.

[lkwdblds]

I didn't listen to the song before I replied...I thought you were describing something you recalled.

At the end of a Bovines tail there is a tassel of hair. In the old days during roundups calves were sorted in to various groups after inspection. Snipping some hair from their tail tassel was a quick means of identify those calves that had been inspected form those that had not. Like the hair on your head, it grows back. After inspection and sorting the calves were branded and separated from their mothers for weaning.

Before the calves were separated and branded they were "mammy'd up" with their mothers so that you knew which momma cow had produced which calf. Any momma cow without a calf was marked (usually by notching the right ear) and if she didn't have a calf the following spring was cut from the herd.

A "dogie" was a calf that had not "mammy'd up" (gone to their mother when separated out for the "mammy up" process). They were rounded up and moved to the group of momma cows that didn't have a "mammy'd up" calf and then they'd all "Mammy up".

Sometimes a momma cow's calf died during the winter and that's why you gave her another chance before cutting her from the herd...especially if she had a history of raising calves and/or was an anatomically sound animal . Sometimes a calf's momma would die and they'd wind up being "adopted" by a momma that lost her calf and if no momma cow adopted it, it didn't live to spring. An "open" momma cow (one that had not conceived or gone full term) would be of no help to a "winter dogie" as her milk would not have "come in".

Face

Thanks a lot for your post Face. It is very informative. While I was waiting for you to reply, I googled the topic and found the following article:

Many legacies remain from the days of the cattle drives. One such legacy is the songs of the cowboy. It has been reported that singing to the herds at night helped calm the cattle. More likely it pacified the bored cowboy who had been in the saddle all day. Nonetheless, many cowboy songs have been passed down to us from those times. One such song is "Git Along Little Dogies."

This song tells about moving a herd to new ranges in Wyoming and thus probably originated some time after the late 1870s. The first verse describes a cow puncher (another name for a cowboy) whose "spurs was a jingling." The cowboy wore spurs on the back of his boots to direct his horse. Although they were pointed, he did not use the spurs to torture or punish his horse.

The second verse describes rounding up the "dogies" (pronounced "doe-gies"), a term the cowboys used for a motherless calf. [B]The cowboys would "mark 'em and brand 'em and bob off their tails".[/B ]Marking cattle was a temporary way of identifying cattle for separation purposes. Sometimes this meant clipping the ears but a less painful way of marking was to "bob off their tails." This was a process of cutting the tassel from the bottom of the tail. A more permanent form of identification was branding. This entailed heating a metal rod called a branding iron formed into a set of symbols t one end. The hot branding iron was applied to a spot near the rear of the calf. This burnt the brand, the symbol on the branding iron, into the hide of the calf. After this was done, one could identify that cow as belonging to a certain ranch.

The second verse also mentions the chuck wagon that went along with the drive. This was a kitchen on wheels. The man who drove the chuck wagon was responsible for feeding the fifteen or so men required to move the herd north.

Although the time span of the great cattle drives was short (less than twenty years), it played a major role in the development of Kansas and the history of the West. Our dependency on beef and our love of the hamburger got their beginnings in the long drive north to Abilene and other
Kansas cowtowns.

This article is also pretty good. It states that cattle drives started around 1867 and lasted only for about 20 years. The early cattle drives had to do with going through Kansas to get to Texas. It fills in some info on the operation of the chuck wagon.
Lakey

[afaceinthecrowd]

BTW Lakey,

Cattle are a herding and social animal...it's their instinct...especially calves and cows. "Rounding up" cattle is just that...using their natural instinct to work them into a round, compact grouping so that they are easier to process, sort and move from one place to another.


Face

[afaceinthecrowd]

The cattle drives ended back then but cattle roundups and mini-drives still go on to this day on large ranches and ranches that have grazing leases on Public Lands.


Face

[afaceinthecrowd]

I am somewhat sorry that I did not find out about this guy until he was gone.

From wiki: [Bolded text is mine. That bolded memo is some distinction!]

Throughout his life, Kamakawiwoʻole was obese and at one point weighed 757 pounds (343 kg; 54.1 st) standing 6-foot-2-inch (1.88 m) tall (BMI = 97.05 kg/m²).[7] He endured several hospitalizations because of problems caused by his weight.[7] Beset with respiratory and other medical problems, he died in Queen's Medical Center at 12:18 a.m. on June 26, 1997.[7] Kamakawiwoʻole is survived by his wife, Marlene Kamakawiwoʻole, and their daughter, Ceslie-Ann "Wehi".[8]

The Hawaii state flag flew at half-mast on July 10, 1997, the day of Kamakawiwoʻole's funeral. His koa wood coffin lay in state at the state capitol building in Honolulu. He was the third person in Hawaiian history to be awarded this honor, and the only one who was not a government official.

Approximately ten thousand people attended the funeral. Thousands of fans gathered as his ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean at Mākua Beach on July 12, 1997.[8] The funeral and the scattering of Kamakawiwoʻole's ashes were featured in the official music video of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" released posthumously by Mountain Apple Company; as of the end of 2011, the video as featured on YouTube had garnered over 60 million views.[9]

On September 20, 2003, hundreds paid tribute to Kamakawiwoʻole as a bronze bust of the revered singer was unveiled at the Waianae Neighborhood Community Center on Oʻahu. The singer's widow, Marlene Kamakawiwoʻole, and sculptor Jan-Michelle Sawyer were present for the dedication ceremony.[10]

Ive got a couple of his albums...absolutely fabulous!!!

[Ted]

[afaceinthecrowd]

. The early cattle drives had to do with going through Kansas to get to Texas. It fills in some info on the operation of the chuck wagon.
Lakey

The drives were from Texas to the Kansas rail heads...not the other way around. There were no drives to Idaho as there were too many mountains and too much desert land surrounding it with nothing for the cattle to graze on. However, there were mini-drives within Idaho to move cattle back and forth from winter and summer pastures.

Face