The Bull Pen

Bev

On the ranch there was a pen back of all the other corrals we called the bull pen because all the new bulls were put there to become accustomed to the ranch. In the pen was a lean-to shed with an open front and a hay crib three-fourths of the way around it. The roof was sloped and covered with aluminum and was a great place to slide down into the hay that was stacked in the crib for the bulls. Mom and daddy told all of us kids repeatedly to stay away from the bull pen because you couldn't trust a bull. They are unpredictable and could easily hurt a little kid. Of course, we didn't listen to them and spent many hours sliding and rolling off that roof.
One time nobody wanted to go to the shed, so I went by myself. I thought I would slide and roll for a time and get out before the bulls came back to eat. Boy, was I ever wrong. After hours of playing, I finally decided it was time to leave. When I looked around, all the bulls were standing around the crib eating. They chewed and looked at me and chewed some more. Boy, was I scared. It looked like every bull in the world was there. How was I going to get out of there without a bull chasing and trampling me? I crept over to the south side so that when I was ready I could climb out of the crib and run as fast as I could to the corral fence and over into the lane. It took me several tries to work up the courage. I finally steeled myself and then before I knew it I was out of the crib and running like the wind. I scrambled up over the corral fence and into the lane where I stood panting and shaky. I looked at the bulls. A few of them were looking at me curiously but the rest were still eating. I guess they were more interested in filling their bellies than trampling a naughty little girl who wouldn't mind her parents. I never went to that bull pen alone again.

The First House: The Beginning

Note: This is 90% fact, 10% fiction because, of course, I cannot remember all of the details now. This was first published to Gather.com in 2007. Pat

Image courtesy morguefile,com

Uninvited Guests


I was the oldest of eight kids, growing up on a ranch in Wyoming. In those long ago days, we carried water to bathe in and wash with and to drink, and we hauled wood and coal and burned trash in a barrel and used an outhouse. We lived in log houses, picked wild greens, ate deer meat and played with frogs.. simple, every day things for kids growing up at that time.

I decided to write a few stories about how it was. This is the first one.

In the Beginning

We were scared to death. We'd taken a small picnic lunch down to the footbridge behind the house, probably to get out of Mom's hair more than anything. We had spread our cloth on the boards of the footbridge and neatly laid out the sandwiches, Jim and Bev and I, and we poured iced tea from a jar. We were getting ready to eat and take a look at our new home.

And then they came. Big, monstrous things, with snorting noses and feet that sucked with every step at the muddy stream that wandered along under the footbridge. I said we were scared, but we were terrified.

We'd never seen a real live horse before, much less the nose of one poked over a pole handrail, wiggling and sniffing at us and our food. Would he step up onto the bridge? Did he want our lunch? Would he bite? What should we do?

We did what all smart kids do when they don't know what else to do. We yelled for Mom. No, we screamed. The horse threw up his head and snorted and, spinning around, he jumped two great heaving paces, splattering us and our lunch with cold, muddy water. Then he calmly trotted off, twitching his heavy black tail as if to say, "I really don't care, you know... "

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That was our introduction to horses, and the freedom, the fun and the pain, of living, growing up and learning on a ranch in Wyoming well over a half century ago.

We were the oldest of what would eventually be eight kids and we had moved into a four room log house on the Lewis Ranch outside of Laramie Wyoming. Daddy had become a "ranch hand," and we had become the newest members of a community that was made up of people who had been there since the beginning of time. We were the "new folks," and were always the "new folks," for all the years we lived there. 
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