12/24/08 Christmas Eve ride

The Christmas holiday always brings memories of holidays past. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be back in one minute with a little different remembrance of one Christmas Eve. On the day before Christmas I always remember a cow gather on that same day almost forty years ago. Some pretty big storms had rolled in leaving plenty of snow and cold temperatures. Like everyone else our good friend and neighbor, Mike still had his cows out on the lower part of his mountain pasture since the weather had been good. The county crews got the roads plowed so Mike decided he better get the cows moved while the moving was possible. Only trouble was he was short of riders so he called Dad and I to help. Hey, what better way to spend the day before Christmas than moving cows home to winter-feed? We gathered the first pasture and moved those cows toward the next cattle in good time, but the day went south about then. The second bunch of cows weren't where they were left the day before and had drifted away from home. This second gather made us lose a lot of time and the short winter days brought dark and fog while we were still miles out with a nasty, narrow trail that dropped into the home coulee. We sure could have used Rudolph, but he had a prior commitment. We got the next best thing  two more neighbors rode up to help. They had salted that nasty trail to keep the snow from forming ice and the older cows didn't hesitate to head down, but the younger cows gave us some trouble. We did get to Mike's place in time to still call the night, Christmas Eve. I'm Jeff Keane.