Plum Creek

Dcn. Joe Sandrini and I had been wanting to ride the country around his place for some time. Well, Friday was the day. Joe and his family live on Plum Creek, north of Newcastle WY. Great day for a ride, even if they were forecasting rain. 

Chief and Joe hit it off right away. After all, Chief's halter was an ordination gift to us from Joe back in 18. 

Cool country. Our end mission was to round up this bunch of cows in order to doctor a sick steer. 

Plenty of elk in these parts. Joe's day job is as a biologist for the Wyoming Game and Fish. He says that this trial we're on is not made by cattle, but by elk. 

Over this ridge is Big Plum Creek. In the back ground the storms clouds are building. 

Giddy up. 

After our site seeing, the skies opened up. 

Back to work. We gathered their herd of red, and a couple black, angus cows and headed for the corrals. 

A good fence is worth 10 cowboys. 

This particular place that the cattle are on has some cool old buildings.

Nice.

This is what they call a broadax cabin. From my understanding, they would chip away at the log, while it was on the ground, with the ax part of the tool, then turn it and flatten the log with the broad part of it. Why they went to this much work for a flat inside and outside wall, I still don't know. Some say that the old way was round logs. The new way, at that time, was broadax. Guess you could stucco the outside or something, and make it look like you were a high-class homesteader. 

Eventually Hank showed up. He seems to only come out when the sun is shinning. Fair weather cowboy. 

Good stuff.

Nice ride. 

Sandrini beef. 

Fun time. If there's one thing I enjoy, it is seeing new country. If it's on horseback, all the better. Combine that with a good Catholic Cowboy compadre, then we're ranchin. I suppose we could have put this outing off to another day when the forecast seemed more favorable. But where's the adventure in that? Life is about riding out storms. Sure we can sit indoors and passively wait for tough times to pass. Or we can saddle up and take them head on. Cowboys choose the latter.  The storms in life will come. But Jesus says, Behold, I am with you always (Matthew 28:20). It's through storms that we get stories. Don't be afraid of what might come. Sit tall in the saddle with what is. That's where Christ can be found.