D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
July
2008
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Voice of a Ranch Woman Eighth in a Series |
If You're Moving, You're Okay
Why ranch women worry, and ranchers just get up and dust themselves off.
By Linda McDonald, as told to Victoria Tester
This first-person reminiscence is excerpted from recordings of Linda Nielson McDonald at her home on the McDonald Ranch. Established in 1903, the McDonald Ranch is among the five oldest continuously working ranches in Grant County. Linda McDonald, born in Moab, Utah, in 1942, is the wife of Jerry McDonald, the son of Jonnie McDonald and Evelyn McCauley. These recordings are a collaboration between McDonald and author Victoria Tester, whose book Miracles of Sainted Earth (University of New Mexico Press) won the nationally recognized Willa Cather Literary Award. Their efforts mark the beginning of a project by the two women to record and publish a book of oral histories of ranch women in southern New Mexico.
Yesterday they brought the cattle in and branded 'em. Jerry didn't feel like our grandson little Andy, who's nearly eight, was up to riding as fast as they were riding to gather these cattle. Andy didn't get to go. But he really wanted to go.
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Jonnie (left) and brother Taylor
McDonald in 1921. |
So we looked up, and they were taking the cattle back to the pasture and they had the horses driving the cattle here fairly close to the house. And there was Andy runnin' just as fast as he could run behind those men who were taking those cattle back, because he wanted to be with them so bad.
Children are expected to go out and help, but sometimes they can't. That's what happens when kids grow up on a ranch. They have to go through some hard things. They are not pampered.
When my husband Jerry was a little boy, seven or eight years old, his dad Jonnie McDonald took him out to help all day long, and kept him out all day without a drink of water. Jerry came in just dying of thirst. Granny Evelyn got so mad at her husband Jonnie she said, "If you kill my son, I will never forgive you."
Grandpa Jonnie said, "Well, I don't know how else to prepare him for life." I've heard this story all these years I've lived on this ranch.
Recently, someone told me about asking General Robert E. Lee what he thought was the most important thing to teach children as they were growing up. He said, "Teach them to deny themselves." That's such a profound statement in this day and time. We're raising children in an era where they think they deserve everything, because their parents are giving them everything. And it ruins them.
But back when Grandpa Jonnie McDonald was a little boy, his dad taught him the same principle: You get a big drink when you're going to leave because you don't know when you're going to get another. But Grandpa was out with his dad working cattle, and he did drink out of a stock tank, and he got typhoid fever. So that's why you just do without water.
Later when Grandpa was dying of stomach cancer, they told him they wanted him to drink more water, and he said, "I spent my whole life learning how to go without water, and now you're telling me to drink water!"
When one of our children was born, the nurse said, "Give that baby water. Because all animals need water to exist." An animal can't live without water, and we human beings need water, too. But we really depend on the rain for our way of life. We wouldn't be here if we didn't have the rain.
If you don't have rain, there's no water. If you don't have any water, there's no feed for the cattle. If you don't have any calves to sell, or they're light, you don't get any money. Then you don't have any money, you don't have any food. And pretty soon, you're not here anymore.
Jerry's grandmother, Mitchel Gordon McDonald, was scared of the cows, because she was milking range cows. So one time she was milking, and when she'd milk, because she was afraid of the cows, she'd put one hand up on the cow and milk with only one hand. Her other hand was up on the flank of that cow so in case it kicked, she could get away from it fast. Her husband, Grandpa Jerry McDonald, came up and said, "You don't have to be afraid of that cow. She's not going to hurt you. Here, let me show you." So he got the bucket and he stuck his head in the cow's flank, and he started milkin', and that range cow kicked that bucket sky high. Then she chased him up the windmill!
He was sittin' perched up on the windmill, and after things had kind of calmed down a little bit he was still up on the windmill. Mitchel came over and said, "Is my milking lesson over yet?"
There were times, a lot of times, when Grandma Mitchel McDonald would be left here on the ranch by herself to take care of the place and to take care of the animals. She had to milk the cows and chop the kindling, and her husband would be gone for months at a time, trying to make some extra money so they could expand the ranch. She'd stay home and take care of the chores and do the milking and sometimes she'd have to guard their waters, because they'd only have enough water for their own cattle to water. At that time the ranges weren't fenced, so she'd have to keep the other neighbors' cattle away from their waters. She'd be out there, I guess with a stick, to try to keep them away.
There were some ranchers' wives who went out and helped their husbands work cattle. Even in Jerry's own family, there were ranchers' wives who would take their very small children on the saddle with them and take them out riding like that. Others told about being out riding with their babies in the saddle, and sometimes they'd just put 'em under a tree or something. That was kind of scary, but the children were protected by the Lord, I guess, because the mothers had to go out and help their husbands.
You don't really get taught by cowboys; you just go through experiences with them, and then you learn, oh, you don't do that.
One time I was going out riding with Jerry. He'd asked me to go riding with him, but I looked up and he wasn't anywhere. I looked down at the corral and he wasn't down there. Well, I hadn't gotten ready quick enough! He went off and left me!
So I went down to the corral and he'd turned out my horse, Manoso, and Manoso was going out into the pasture right along the side of the barn there. The hill was real rocky and it came right into the corral there. So I got Manoso saddled up and got on him and then I went out to go find Jerry. Well, I went out there and I never did find him. Because, guess what, I was in the wrong pasture, number one, and number two, Jerry was hiding from me! He was bird-dogging me and watching me! I don't know what he went out to do and I don't know if he got what he wanted done out there or not, but I know he was just watching me and seeing what I was doing out there. I guess it was a test. I don't know if he thought I'd catch that horse. But he was just trying to teach me a lesson. He taught me lots of lessons!
When I got pregnant with our first child, our daughter, Jerry wanted me to go out riding with him. And I've heard of some women that have ridden all during their pregnancies. But when I went out there, my stomach just started hurting. I didn't really ride much after that, after we started having a family, until all our six children were gone, off married, going to college and on missions, and so forth. Then Jerry no longer had any help, so he'd roll his eyes and look at me and go, "What are you doing today?" And I'd go, "Do you need some help?"
Anyway, I became some of his help then and I started riding with him more. I remembered some of those skills he'd taught me early in our marriage. Of course, about that time he also started saddling my horse and all I had to do was unsaddle it, because I guess I was getting old and I wasn't strong enough to throw the saddle up on the horse anymore! And then he was always sayin', "Get him off in this ditch, and then you can get on easier!"
But one day we'd rounded up a pasture and brought the cattle in, and he was trying to sort 'em out and decide what he was going to do with them. I'd let one cow get over in a corral it wasn't supposed to be in, so I was really pushing on those cattle to get over there and correct my mistake. And this cow just reached up with her hind leg and kicked me right in the chest and knocked me on the ground. Jerry saw me fall and he came over there and kind of looked at me. Well, I got up and I guess he figured I felt fine, I don't know. Because we finished doing what we were doing, and then he came up here to the house and sat in this chair while I fixed him dinner. He didn't ask, "Are you feelin' okay?" or nothing. I guess he figured if I was up walking, I was okay. But that's the way these cowboys do. At least the way he's done, and I've kind of seen it with other cowboys, too. They don't pamper you much. They just figure if you're movin' you're okay.