The Round Up

We started before daylight. There were always things to do before we ever left the house. I would hear my dad up first, moving around in the dark, and not long after, my mom in the kitchen frying bacon or sausage, putting together a huge breakfast along with breakfast fold over sandwiches wrapped up for later, the kind you could shove in your jacket pocket and eat once you were out on a horse. The house stayed dark and quiet except for the kitchen light and a single light over the kitchen table, and the sound of the skillet frying whatever was really the only sound in the house that early.

It wasn’t long before Dad came down the hall and stuck his head into our bedrooms to tell us it was time to get up. Today was not a normal day. This was round up day, the first of about three or four days in a row.

The ride to the ranch was quiet. Nobody talked much. Dad had the radio on for the farm market report, which came on at five in the morning and repeated at 6:30AM, followed by the weather. The ranch sat about two miles up the road, so it was a short ride in the dark with my dad and my siblings, listening to grain prices and cattle futures before the sun was even up.

Our southern ranch was about six thousand acres, and we ran around three thousand head of crossbred steers during fall and winter. Our mid-west ranch was around 11,000 acres and ran about 6500 head of steers in the summer months. This was our southern roundup. Neighbors would come from nearby ranches to help us gather cattle from the back pastures when it was our turn to ship, and when it was their turn, we went and did the same for them. That was just how it worked. Everyone helped everyone.