Musings of a Would-be Rennaisance Cowboy

By Paul G Marchant and Rachael Wilkinson

Paul Marchant is an Idaho cowboy and rancher whose writing is well-known in the world of American agriculture. His column, Irons in the Fire, is published in several national and regional farming and ranching publications. The stories and pictures portrayed in Musings of a Would-Be Renaissance Cowboy are sure to touch the heart of anyone who app

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anna Smith
• Release date: May 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781087967714

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Copyright © 2020 by Paul Marchant

ISBN: 978-1-0879677-1-4 (e-book)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any other information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover art and design by Rachael Wilkinson.

Interior Design: Creative Publishing Book Design.

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

Contents

Acknowledgements

One Millimeter at a Time

Lost and Least of Them

Be Thankful for the Good Things

Voices from the Other Side

Blackbirds and Bones

Convictions of Honor and Good Sense

The Road Less Traveled

Him, her and us

I’ll Bid on That

‘May We All’

The Light is Still There

Just Let Go

Trust in Goodness

Rural Arrogance

Nowhere but Here

Mourn with Those that Mourn

A Ranch Family’s Math

Understanding Through Education

Soldiers, Farmers and Cowboys

Ralph and Claude

Doubt not in Fred

It’s a Dog’s (Short) Life

God’s Tender Mercies

Keep Scars, Leave Wounds Behind

Hoosiers and Pea Eye

Don’t Forget your Rope

My Heifer is the Centerfold

Could I Have Been Wrong?

The Lessons of Zebra Dun

Live for the Moments

I’m a Rural Snob

Reap what you Sow, and Feed what you Bale

The Economics of Goodwill

Does it Matter who Left the Gate Open?

Ranch Driving Lessons

The Walmart Parking Lot

The Farmer Way

Home Means Nevada?

No Payment Necessary

Don’t Use all the Post-it-Notes

The Best of Times

Thank God, Time and Winston

Wake em’ up and Brand em’

Son, you’re no Quitter

Acknowledgements

To offer proper gratitude to my family for their help in bringing this book to reality is a task to which I could never be equal. Not only are they so often the subject and inspiration for my writing, but their encouragement and belief in me are the waters from the ever-flowing well that constantly replenishes my mind and soul.

To Anna Marchant Smith, the dreamer and driver of this project, thank you for understanding the value of getting back up at least one more time than you get knocked down.

Thank you to David Cooper and Lynn Jaynes for their Job-like patience and their expectations for excellence, which when coupled with their visionary and naïve belief in me, allowed me a cliff from which to leap and a breeze just strong enough to lift me.

Rachael Smith Wilkinson, your extraordinary artistic talents and eye for beauty and style are matched only by your generous and selfless heart.

Mike Dixon, your innocent and uncanny ability to appreciate goodness and harsh beauty and subsequently reflect it through a lens so the rest of us can sneak a peek is inspiring.

To anyone who has been moved or inspired or entertained or uplifted by Irons in the Fire, I thank you for allowing me into your life. I hope the words and images in this book will help cast a ray of light into your life and disperse some of the unwanted shadows that may be keeping you from its warmth.

One Millimeter at a Time

It was shaping up to be a good spring day. The snow was pretty much gone, and the mud was drying up. It was one of the first days of the year that dared me to attack it without the aid of muck boots or snow packs on my feet.

The light gray clouds in the sky danced with the wind and the sun, a ballet that enticed me to leave my coat in the pickup if not in the closet back at the house.

We were a couple of weeks into calving and were getting several calves a day. For the most part, luck had been on my side. Apart from a couple of bitter cold nights to start things off, we’d survived to that point without anything I’d classify as a wreck. I’d doctored a few for scours, so I was a little on edge, but we weren’t losing them.

I stopped in at the house for a quick lunch before we set back out to string up a hot wire around a corner of the southwest pivot where we were keeping a little bunch of heifers. Before we started with the project, I figured we should make a quick trip through the biggest herd of cows just to see if we needed to tag one or two new calves.

As the old pickup bounced across the ruts and brush, my eye was drawn to the far corner of the field, where an ominous scene was unfolding. I’d noticed the big old Simmy-cross cow earlier in the day. I expected her to calve that day. What I didn’t expect was what I found. She was one of the marker cows: big, black, white-faced with the old traditional Simmental markings you don’t see much of any more. She never raised much of a calf, but I kept her around, thinking she may someday produce a show-worthy 4-H calf.

As we approached, I could see my anticipated yet unwelcomed wreck had arrived. The old cow lay there on her left side, legs outstretched and a 120-pound calf shivering behind her. What distressed me was the full uterine prolapse that accompanied the calf. My heart sank as I beheld the scene.

Do you want to call the vet? my dad asked.

I answered in the negative. It was Saturday afternoon, and I figured Trevor, the ever-patient vet, would be at a roping in Pocatello or anywhere else where he could catch his breath and a break from his country vet dream life. As much as I wanted to outsource this burdensome project, I figured I could at least save a dollar or two, since I figured she’d die anyway.

There is no metaphor or simile or analogy to properly describe a full-blown bovine uterine prolapse and its treatment. It’s what you use to describe some other unfathomable task. When Sir Edmund Hillary asked what ascending Everest would be like, his Sherpa guide no doubt told him it was akin to fixing a prolapsed cow. I raced back to the barn to fetch the umbilical tape and a needle. I had nothing to give for a spinal block, so I could only hope the old girl wouldn’t fight too much. I needed a little fight in her but not so much it made the job more impossible than it already seemed. She did indeed have enough fight in her to stand up and try to trot away. I roped her, got a halter on her and tied her to the back of the pickup. At least she could stand. I’d have a little bit of gravity to help me.

Two hands are hardly enough to start the job, so my 82-year-old father gloved up and dove into the fray with me. All you can do is start the job and practice a little faith and trust in what you’re doing. You just keep working, a millimeter at a time, and amid the doubts, anxiety and fear, you eventually see some progress. Really, though, it doesn’t seem like you see any progress until somehow, miraculously, everything is back in place.

The clock said 35 minutes had passed. It was an eternally long half-hour, but we got the job done. The working conditions were just slightly less than sterile, so I loaded the cow up with antibiotics and stitched her up, all the while praying everything didn’t go inside out again. I wouldn’t have bet the farm on it, but the old girl survived. So did the calf. As desperate as the situation seemed, we all came through it.

I couldn’t help but think of this miniature personal struggle as I’ve watched the massive and tragic devastation in the wake of Mother Nature’s powerful theatrics in Australia and America’s Heartland these past months. I’ve been hesitant to mention it in my insignificant prose because I am vastly underqualified and overwhelmed. My finite ability to comprehend the tragedy of it all hardly allows me to lend any commentary at all.

Yet I hear of and see people who have been ravaged and deeply impacted by these catastrophic events rise up and take their own brand of fight to the battle before they’ve even had a chance to put on a pair of dry socks. It gives me hope. Hope in not only their recovery but in all of us and our ability to overcome devastation, weakness and pettiness. They’re fighting on, one millimeter at a time.

Lost and Least of Them

Iwas checking heifers one dark, freezing cold night in late February a few years back, when I came upon a hapless tiny newborn calf shivering all alone under some sagebrush, with no mama in sight.

I loaded the poor little creature in the cab of the pickup and, after half an hour of amateur detective work, determined the heifer with the new calf a hundred yards down the draw had given birth to twins. The new mother was in no disposition to accept both babies, and I was in no disposition or position to convince her otherwise. So, I took the scraggly, unwanted little calf to the house where we kept her for a few days before she eventually made it to my sister’s place where her young daughters raised her as a pet and christened her with the name Lilly.

Lilly is now back in the herd where she is a mediocre cow, at best. But she breeds back at least every other year, and when my nieces visit, Lilly always gets some sort of special treatment. From a practical standpoint, the argument could be made that Lilly is hardly worth the trouble. In that regard, I may have been better off if I’d never even found her that night. Yet, when I see that unremarkable black cow, because I know her story, I’m somehow reminded of the most remarkable of events.

I’m by no means a biblical scholar, but pardon me if I wax biblical for a minute. Besides, if I’m going to pretend to be something, it’s probably appropriate this time of year to pretend I’m at least a fair to middling student of the Good Book. I’m also not a sheep herder, but being a keeper of critters of various forms, I’ve always felt sort of a kinship with those who are spoken of in such high and reverent regard in the New Testament. Of course, the most renowned were those who, at the time, probably figured they drew