H. Alan Day's Blog, page 4

Yuma Sun

Read the Yuma Sun article featuring Alan Day

February 21, 2014

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Idaho Agribusiness Today

Listen to the Idaho Agribusiness Today interview with Alan Day

February 19, 2014

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Buckmaster Show

Listen to the Buckmaster Show interview with Alan Day

February 17, 2014

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WHOApodcast

Listen to the WHOApodcast interview with Alan Day

February 11, 2014

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Kirkus Review

With the assistance of literary publicist and author Sneyd, rancher Day (co-author, with sister Sandra Day O’Connor: Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest, 2002, etc.) delivers a lively report of his four years tending 1,500 unadoptable wild mustangs.

When Day embarked on a project to release a large herd of wild mustangs that had been rounded up by the Bureau of Land Management, it was uncharted territory. The author had recently acquired 35,000 acres of undulating grassland prairie in southern South Dakota that he felt was ideal for turning out the horses to roam. In a warm, salt-of-the-earth manner—“Good luck had stuffed itself in my pocket long ago, and adventure had been my friend since I was old enough to scramble on the back of Chico…trying my five-year-old darnedest to keep up with the big cowboys”—Day recounts how he was able to get the BLM, the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Congress to support the program. Soon, he found himself with a rambunctious collection of mustang rejects. Day passionately explains what it is like to learn ranching in the Sand Hills and how to tame the wild horses, which, under their normal conditions, would prefer to have little to do with humans—e.g., when Kevin Costner dropped by to see if Mustang Meadow Ranch would be suitable for filming part of Dances with Wolves, upsetting the horses in the process: “A few horses started pawing the ground. They began to vibrate like a hive of irritated bees, their heads now alert, their tails swishing….Within a minute, the herd was stampeding.” There was an ugly finale to the project but not before Day brought to life the ranch and its wild array of flora and fauna.

A fresh, occasionally biting report from the early days of a mustang sanctuary.

Originally posted on Kirkus Reviews.

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Booklist Review

Day already co-owned and managed two ranches, so the last thing he needed was yet another ranch. But when he saw the lush grasses and broad expanses of the 35,000-acre Arnold Ranch in South Dakota, he fell for its charms and purchased it. When he met Dayton Hyde, rancher and mustang preservationist, a wild scheme was hatched—maybe they could use the new ranch as a mustang sanctuary. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management had thousands of unadoptable mustangs warehoused in corrals, and if the bureau could be persuaded that caring for these horses on a ranch would not only be cheaper but better for the horses, then it would be a winning situation all the way around.

What follows is the wonderful story of a cowboy rancher taking on the care and management of 1,500 wild horses. Along the way, we are treated to Day’s reminiscences of his ranching upbringing, stories of some of his favorite cow horses, and tidbits such as the time Kevin Costner came calling while looking to film a little movie called Dances with Wolves. With coauthor Sneyd’s expert assistance, Day’s authentic western voice, coupled with his deep understanding of the nature of horses, makes for an instant classic. — Nancy Bent

Originally posted on Booklist.

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Chico and the Dog

The time had come to retire Chico. He was my first horse, a little wild mustang captured by a local cowboy in the flanks of Steeple Rock Mountain, just north of Lazy B. Somehow my dad ended up with him before I was born, so my sisters Sandra and Ann also claim him as their first horse.

Chico became my best friend almost as soon as I could walk. A pretty bay color with a star on his forehead, he was a small horse, too small for a cowboy, but just right for a child. Chico and I lived many adventures together while he stood patiently in the corral and let me clamber over him like a jungle gym. One day I would be the cowboy chasing and catching wild cattle to the amazement of the other cowboys. The next day I was an Indian stalking game and evading the cavalry. The fact Chico came from a wild horse herd enamored me. When I was old enough to ride, Chico would go at a speed I was capable of handling and no faster. When I fell off and cried and grew angry with him, he would stand still and patiently wait for me to collect myself and get back on. He took care of me more hours than my mother did and at least as well.

But now Chico was in his late twenties. It was time for him to roam freely in the pasture and enjoy the taste of fresh grass.

Chico had made friends with a boxer we had on the ranch named Chap. I swear that dog loved Chico as much as I did. Chico would amble through the corral, Chap trotting right next to him. The two would saunter out to pasture together. This best buddy relationship had to be tough on Chap because dogs need water every few hours and Lazy B’s desert pasture had no freestanding water. When the duo returned to headquarters, Chap would plunge into the water trough, roll around like an otter in a pond and drink enough water until you thought it would spout from his ears. Since he wasn’t a hunter, he’d fill up on food at the back of the ranch house. Chico patiently waited for a few hours while the refueling took place. Then back out to the pasture the two would go, coming and going as freely as they wanted.

One day I saw Chap trotting past the corrals toward the barn, alone. Right then, I knew Chico had passed. I quickly saddled up and rode out to the pasture and found him. The coyotes hadn’t gotten to him yet. I knelt down and stroked his weathered hide, saw the peaceful look on his face. I knew he was old and it was his time, but still. You think you’re prepared but when someone you love dies, the loss comes as a shock.

My horse and I walked back to headquarters, tears wetting my face. Underneath the immediate grief glowed the permanent joy of having known Chico and having him in my life for so long. He not only was my first horse, he was my first lesson in the meaning of loyalty, patience and friendship. And even through tears and pain, how can you not be grateful for that?

This article was first posted on Boomer-Living Plus.

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Where Wild Horses and Prisoners Meet

The horse corrals and puddles from the recent rain could have been on any southwestern ranch. But the handful of men pitching hay weren’t wearing cowboy hats or boots or chaps. They wore bright orange jumpsuits, the uniform required of prisoners at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence, Arizona, where I just arrived having driven an hour from Tucson. The horses in the corrals weren’t just any ranch horses. They were government-owned wild mustangs, and I had come to pay them a visit.

I talk a last sip of cold coffee and hopped out of the pickup. A vehicle hurrying up the road turned into the parking lot and pulled in next to me.

 “Nice to see you again, Al,” said Randy Helm, settling a Stetson on his head and extending a hand. Randy supervises the Wild Horse Inmate Program (WHIP) started last year. When the program was in the talking stages, he had called on me for input on the design of the corrals. Born and raised on an Arizona ranch, Randy is a cowboy deluxe, a horse whisperer with extensive experience in law enforcement, including that of chaplin.

We crunched across the gravel toward the corrals. A forklift was parked by a pile of long metal tubing that eventually would be used to build more corrals.

“Right now we have 400 horses, but eventually we hope to get that number closer to 2000,” said Randy. “We also have a couple hundred burros.”

I knew from my experience managing a wild horse sanctuary that the Bureau of Land Management removes the horses from federal lands when the animals start overpopulating. The wild horses remain in BLM holding pens around the country either for life or until they are put up for adoption and sold. Randy indicated that many of these horses were shipped from Nevada.

We headed toward a motorized cart. “Hey Justin,” said Randy to a bald-headed inmate who looked to be in his thirties. “How’s that new group doing? Is that mare still being friendly to you?”

“They’re doing real good, Mr. Helm. She came up right close to me this morning.”

“Nice job. Maybe she’ll be one we can saddle up soon.”

Justin grinned.

Another prison approached. “Mr. Helm, sir, if you need any extra help over Thanksgiving, I’d be glad to come out here.” Randy said he appreciated the offer and would keep him in mind. We climbed in the cart and headed along the outside of the corrals.

“If you treat them with respect, they respect you,” said Randy, perhaps referring to both man and beast.

In order for an inmate to work with the horses, he must be held in minimum security, which means he has less than five years to serve on a sentence, and pass a lengthy interview with Randy. Twenty inmates currently work with the horses and the waiting list for WHIP jobs is quite long. The program seeks to build the men’s self-confidence, patience, respect for living things and sense of purpose, as well as provide them with skills they can use upon release. The BLM benefits too. Prisoners gentle and train the horses that are then sold to the public at a reasonable price.

 Randy stopped the cart near horses poking their noses between the corral tubes. As we started to get out, they jumped back almost in unison, snorts and grunts reverberating. They were a fairly handsome, healthy looking bunch. A palomino, couple of blue roans, and some darker, chestnut colored horses. They jostled against each other, then realizing we did not pose a threat, returned their nose to the feed. Randy explained that the state also grows feed for the horses – alfalfa and sudan grass on 800 acres of farmland near the prison.

We toured the rest of the grounds. Two inmates were saddling horses preparing to ride them around an obstacle course. In a small corral, an inmate brushed the feet of bay with a soft rope getting her accustomed to being touched. Yet another inmate lead burros around the corrals. He had given each of them a biblical name. These were activities common to many a working ranch, but this “ranch” was unique – it was part of a prison system.

By the time I climbed back in my pick-up, the sun sat high in the bright blue sky and the puddles in the corral had begun to dry. The men in their orange jumpsuits were engaged with the horses or busy working on the corrals. A healthy, good feeling pervaded.

I drove out the lot and down the road for a mile, followed its curve, then passed the main prison buildings painted in a grey-blue and surrounded by yards and yards of razor wire coiled atop chain-link fencing. Bodies in bright orange jumpsuits milled around or sat in front of rounded huts.

Randy had said that he received inquiries about WHIP from other correctional facilities in the West. I drove out of Florence with the hope they wouldfollow his lead and offer this same opportunity to man and animal.

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Beef Jerky: A Holiday Staple in the Cowboy Life

“Hey, Uncle Al, you’re making some of your holiday beef jerky, aren’t you?”

My nephew Jay looked at me from across the table. I swallowed my mouthful of Thanksgiving Day turkey, but before I could respond, his brothers chimed in with their perennial requests for the cowboy delicacy.

“Guess I better get on that,” I said. Of course I wouldn’t have said anything else. I’ve been making jerky for way too long to admit. I learned the trade in middle school from one of the Lazy B cowboys. He had a rudimentary process: slice the beef with a sharp knife, season it with salt and pepper and loop the long, thin slices over the clothesline to dry in the Arizona sun for three or four days.

The flies would find it, of course, so when the strips came off the line, you were never sure if you were eating pepper or flyspecks but no one much cared. The finished product ended up in a pillowcase propped up on a chair in the bunkhouse and no one could pass by without sticking a hand into that grab bag. The salty leathery beef tasted especially good on horseback while out on the range driving cattle. If you’re supposed to chew your food thirty times, you had to chew that jerky at least three times longer.

After that cowboy left, I took over the reigns of jerky making. The main house had an oil stove, so rather than hanging the meat on a clothesline, I put it on tray underneath the stove to dry. I started experimenting with different seasonings – teriyaki, then habanera chilies and hot sauce. I’d throw the seasonings in a pot and let them simmer into a mouthwatering concoction. Every year the concoction got a little tastier. I’d put the jerky in baggies for the crew and during the month of December, we’d all keep a stash in our chaps.

When I moved to Tucson, I convinced the meat lab at the University of Arizona, my alma mater, to slice and dry the meat for me. I’d bring the sweet-n-salty hot sauce down and the interns would dip the meat in it and put the slices in the dehydrator. I started selling the jerky commercially, but after a few years, the endeavor required more time than I wanted to devote to it, so I purchased a commercial slice and a dehydrator that holds a dozen or so trays.

Now I’m a one-stop, beef-jerky-making shop but only during the Christmas season. It’s a gift that I make with my own hands and no one can duplicate it because I’ve never given away the secret ingredients in the sauce.

 

For those who want to venture into jerky making, here’s what you do.

 

Buy big chunks of top inside round beef. I get mine at Costco. I freeze the meat first, then slice it when it’s semi-frozen to about 1/8 inch thick.
Dip the slices in the sauce. Sorry, but you’re gonna have to figure out that one yourself. I have a file with a recipe in it, but that’s only to be opened after I turn to cowboy dust.
Dry in the dehydrator at 135 degrees for about 8 hours. During the process, I move the trays around once or twice since the hot air isn’t uniform.
Bag the jerky and give it away. But save some for yourself!

 

And be prepared. Next year folks will clamor for jerky and you’ll discover you have more friends than ever before.

 

Happy Holidays!

 

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Javelinas: Unlikely But Loyal Pets

 

This article was first posted on Boomer-Living Plus on November 11, 2013.

            The southwest Sonoran desert antes up some pretty unique creatures. One that tops my list of favorites is the javelina, commonly referred to as a wild pig. Actually it’s part of the peccary family – hoofed mammals with South American roots. Should you ever live in the central to southwest part of Arizona, you’ll likely see javelinas in open spaces that have cacti and other plants, their main source of food, though they readily will graze on garbage.

They aren’t dangerous, in fact they have very bad eyesight, but will act aggressive when protecting their young or when threatened by a dog or coyote, their only natural predators. Javelinas boast a bristly coat, grow to about fifty pounds, and will never be contenders in the cute-and-cuddly category. They do, however, make nice pets as I discovered in my cattle ranching days.

I was managing Lazy B at the time, the family ranch straddling Arizona and New Mexico. I had taken the jeep out to check on water levels in the holding tanks and leave some fresh salt licks for the cows. While squatting on the ground next to one of the tanks, I heard a chorus of squeaks. Just inches in front of my boot, nestled in a clump of grass, were two baby javelinas, their eyes not yet open. Their pitiful cries indicated they were eager for mama to return with some milk. I scoped the area for hoof prints or a carcass, but there was no sign of mama.

I scooped up one of the babies. It fit perfectly in my palm. The early summer morning still had a chill, so I grabbed a work glove from my back pocket and gently slid the baby inside it. Its sibling went into the other glove. I settled the pair on the jeep floor and continued on my weekly rounds.

Back at headquarters, the first thing I did was wrangle up a bottle and nipple. We always kept them in stock to feed doggies and other orphans, though it took me a bit to find one small enough for these tiny tots. I had one of the babies in my hand and was urging it to take the bottle when Cole Webb, the ranch foreman, came up.

“They’re starving, but they won’t eat,” I said.

Cole frowned. “You’d think they’d like that warm milk.”

We found a box and blanket, made a nest for the babies, and left them in the screened-in back porch of my house. We checked on them after lunch. Again, those little dickens refused the bottle.

“I don’t know if they’ll make it another twenty-four hours,” I said. Cole and I sat looking at the box. Neither of us wanted to give up on their lives.

“Well, maybe they don’t like the nipple,” Cole said. “Let’s try a cup.”

I had never seen an orphan animal drink from a cup. But I fetched one from the kitchen. Cole poured milk into it and held it up to the baby’s mouth. The baby started slurping. After a long drink, it turned its head and for the first time all day, no cry escaped its tiny lungs.

From that point on, Cole and I became parents to the two javelinas. They were funny little creatures with habits I never anticipated. Within a few weeks, they would jump on our laps looking for attention and a warm hand after being fed. We expanded their diet to table scraps and they grew quickly. When I walked out the back door of the house, they would start following me, grunting and trotting around headquarters. They were as loyal as dogs.

I named them Sandra and Ann after my sisters, but they looked so much alike that I never could tell which was Sandra and which was Ann. One would bump the other, trying to get in the lead. They would snort at each other and play like they were going to fight, but they never did. Their bristly hair came in and pretty soon petting them was like petting a wire brush.

Six months later, they took their first solo field trip. I walked out the house and only a handful of cats were milling around. For a moment, I couldn’t put my finger on what was missing. Then I realized Sandra and Ann weren’t there. I went about my business half expecting them to show up, but it wasn’t until the shadows had lengthened on the ground that they returned.

They trotted up to me and bumped my legs, eager for attention. They hung around for a few more weeks, then disappeared. By the third day, I thought they had gone for good. But there they were, trotting across the grounds, back from some adventure. The duration of their visits shortened. Finally they left never to return.

I suspected that would happen. Still, I missed them – missed their antics, their loyalty, their affection. I liked to imagine they found some wild cousins and joined them in their travels.

Sometimes people step into your life for a while, sometimes animals. Whether those beings you call friends have two legs or four legs, whether they are pretty or pretty ugly, when they leave, there’s always a space that remains empty and a memory that lingers.

 

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