Yesterday's Weapons Forums

Dad took these back in the day. SW

This is a hay stacker. A "sweep" would push bunches of hay which were tossed over a frame. A down-n-out kind of guy - often a wino - would stand in the frame and tramp the hay down - move it around to make a solid hay stack.

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Dad told me this scene was a camp for the cowpokes who were to ride out a large tract of timber and buttes and bring all the cattle in to a corrall where the calves were separated and sold.

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"The genuine article". Dad is on the right.

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Another shot of an old school hay stacker

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Branding. I can clearly recall the punget smells of burning hair. And a lunch of fried 'nads the next day!

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This is a "sweep" seen here pushing a bunch of prairie hay up to the stacker.

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The man indicated is one of my uncles in the Marines, 1940. I never met the man.

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Fixing fence out in the middle o' nowhere.

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After the hay was stacked, it was fed to cattle the following winter from horse-drawn sleds shown here. Did a bunch of that, I did!

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Dad is on the left here. Notice the sturdy fence around the house. This was to keep cattle from getting in & rubbing against the house. And the nags from eating the flowers. Cattle and horses ALWAYS itch!

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Slava Ukraini!!

GREAT pics! The old ranches I worked up in WY had a few weathered remains of those old hay stackers and few old sleds slowly rotting away. Round bales put those things out of business.

I was noticing on the picture of your dad and the hand in the derby hat on horseback. Your dad appears to use his stirrups like I was taught, whilst the other gent uses his like I saw all the boyos up in Wyoming used theirs. I was taught to use the front part of my feet in the stirrups rather than sticking your foot all the way to the heel. Personal preference I guess, but it was a heck of lot easier to kick out and get loose if you got in a storm if your foot wasn't halfway in the stirrup.

If it had paid anything, I'd have stayed on the ranch, but I didn't look forward to being broke the rest of my life. LOL The cowhands up in Wyoming were making $400 a month, had a clapped out trailer to live in, and got three beef calves a year to eat. I couldn't see that, but I sure enjoyed the work when I stayed over during hay season and kept the equipment running for the hammer heads to tear up. LOL

A couple of the ranches up there still "roped and dragged" when it was time to work the calvies. We'd go help. THAT WAS FUN! You could rope til you missed three, then it was get off, and get dirty til it was your turn again. They had a few hands up there that just never missed. Guess they didn't like gettin dirty. :)

Here's a pic of my uncle A. L. Lansford. Pictures were taken in South Texas in 1941. Allie (Al-E) was tougher than wet leather. I've got that Mod95 SRC that he's holding in one of the pics. It's down at Dad's in his gun safe. It's chambered for 30 US Gov't 1903. It'll shoot '06 stuff no problem. It's a hard kicking SOB, I'll tell ya that.

Allie shot it out with more than one bunch of Mexican bandits as his ranch was close to the Mexican border between Carrizo Springs and Freer, TX. Rough damn country. EVERYTHING sticks, bites, stings, or scratches in that country.

Allie wore a brush jacket like he has on and khaki pants 365 days a year. Never saw him with his pants outside his boots either. He died when I was a kid. He was a neat old buzzard.

Something you learn first day of branding... keep a boot over the calf's bung hole or your jeans will quickly become green. And smelly. That and when pushing cattle up to the squeeze chute, stay close. You don't get kicked as hard that way. Don't ask me how I know.

Ranch life is either in your blood or it isn't. I came back from beautiful SE Asia and nobody had gotten around to inventing a saddle heater. After 2 or 3 weeks of freezing my butt off, I left for college. Dad said it was the only smart thing I ever did. SW

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Slava Ukraini!!

Back in the 80's when I was hauling cattle for the 7L, I brought a load of kids out of Texas up to WY and it was FUGGIN COLD! I spent the night at the ranch and we decided the next morning we's saddle up an push the kids out to the meadow, which was actually what was left of Lake Ione after it was drained. Looked like a huge crater, but it made a great wind break for the new kids. the ranch foreman was from OK, I was from TX and one other hand was from TX. Most all the rest of the help was from the Laramie area. We were saddled and ready to ride at daylight. Temp was -5°F. No wind. Smoke from a cigarette went straight up. Unusual for Wyoming, bit it wasn't really all that bad. We waited a bit for the rest of bunch to show. The foreman went to the house and called the clowns and they told him IT WAS TOO COLD TO WORK! We shrugged it off, had a good laugh, and took the kids to the meadow.

Later on in the summer, it commenced to heating up a bit. It got to 95° about lunch and all the Wyoming hands headed for the house. Asked 'em WTF? They replied IT WAS TOO HOT TO WORK!

I looked at the foreman and said, "Well shit Joe, when it's too tough for the natives, it's just right for us." Joe about peed himself laughing and the Wyoming hands asses flapped open like a two dollar suit case! They didn't appreciate that at all. The story got out by jack rabbit telegraph I guess, and those SOB's never did live that one down.

Back around 1950 I had a neighbor that used horses to farm. When it was hay time he had an elevator type thing that put the hay up over the wagon and we would pull it to be back and stack it. Had a lift in the barn pulled by the horses till he got a small tractor. The hay was stacked loose in the loft. I'm thinking after he got the tractor the mower was converted to be used with it. My brother and I and his grand kids usually worked the wagon and the loft.

Rad

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great old photos , you can almost smell the land [and of coarse the critters]