Had some great times working for the 7L. Summer time after we'd hauled 10K head up to the high country, things would slow down for the truckers. I was single so I'd stay on up there and fix machinery that the "cowboys" tore up, work on wind mills, ride pastures, or whatever. Up there the neighbor ranches would all band together and work their cattle. We had a steer operation so there wasn't much "working cattle" done on our ranches. We'd load up and go the neighbor ranches just for fun. All of 'em were rope and drag deals. We'd gather all the mother's and calves and then the games would begin.
You could rope till you missed three, then it was off on the ground in the mud and the blood. Cookin' fresh nuts, beans, and taters on the branding fire for lunch. Work your butt off till about dark. After things settled down a bit, there was always a bottle gettin passed as the sun went down. Standing there listening to the cattle bawling, a horse stamping its foot every now then, and watching the world get quiet is one of the things I'll never forget.
I guess that's the closest to time travel I'll ever see.
Then there was the time we drove 2K head across 35 miles of some wooly damn country horseback. THAT was an adventure. Reason we did it that was was that it would have taken too long to truck 'em. It was 70 miles one way across dirt roads or 35 straight across. We decided to drive 'em. Bear in mind that the cattle were all crossbred mutt steers of every color you could think of that had been pretty much on their own for a couple of months on some good grass. They weighed about a 1,000lbs apiece. Lots of brahma ancestry mixed in that bunch. The boys were pretty full of themselves and damn sure snuffy. Once we got 'em strung out, there were four lanky SOB's that wanted to be out front. No big deal, they were settin a good pace and all we had to do was just keep em pointed in the right direction. They were strung out nicely and coming off a hill. It was a sight to behold. One of the cowboy's had his airhead wife out there and she decided that would make a GREAT picture. It would have under most conditions. Connie whipped and spurred out ahead of the herd, spun her horse around and snapped a picture WITH THE DAMN FLASH!
The flash went off the the four lead steers took off at a dead run to different compass points. Cattle being cattle, followed whoever was in front of 'em. It was an explosion of memorable proportions. Connie got roundly and soundly cussed and 6 hours later we thought had the bunch put back together.
Connie got sent home in tears. The rest of us camped out and did the night watch stuff. The boss brought enough food for a small army and conveniently forgot the whiskey. LOL Those of that had a bottle in our saddle bags shared it around and it didn't last long.
We got 'em to where we wanted 'em in a couple of days and were only 40 head shy. Took four of us a week of hard riding in really rough country to find those crazy bastards and get them with the rest of the bunch. They weren't all together. We'd find two here and three there and one somewhere else. It was fun.
I'd do it again in a heart beat.