maybe not the best buckaroos...

So, if you're one of my Facebook people, you saw the post last night saying how my horse Shylah and I would be helping out with a cattle roundup today, helping look for and gather 8 or 9 stray yearlings on one of the neighboring properties.  Seeing as how this is totally unlike anything I've ever done, I was a little apprehensive.  And if you know Shylah at all, you're probably thinking "hmm, she's not so much into things that involve moving quickly."  Yeah...

Actually it was fun, although it showed how EXTREMELY out of shape Shylah is.  The experienced horses were running all over the place, and by the end of 4+ hours going up and down hills and over creeks and around trees (And seemingly trying to scrape me off on oak trees?  Or was she just trying to get close enough to eat the trees?  Jury's out on that one, but I lean toward the former...) she was just flat out of gas and had nothing left to give.

We actually only saw two cows.  See, these strays are Limousin, a breed my family used to raise when I was a kid.  So when the cow folks say "those cows are nuts" I have to chuckle... oh yes, how well I know this!  Had some experiences with them in my younger years...  The non-Limousin cows are ever so much better behaved.  They managed to corral one of them, the other got away.

At any rate, I had absolutely no idea what to do, and just followed Jen, but our horses were kinda feeding off each other's slowness.  I have to say though that Shylah did get kinda amped up a few times, and did really get into the spirit of the chase at one point and covered some serious ground at a pretty good clip.  I was impressed, maybe there's hope for her.  I also don't know the lay of the land at all, and get TOTALLY turned around out there, so I don't have a real good concept of where the cows might be and where we are supposed to herd them.  All in due time, I guess...

That might be the last of the roundups here this season, I'm not sure.  I think the strays are getting left behind at this point.  They took all the other cows in May and June before I was moved up here.

Bottom line, Shylah needs some serious conditioning to be good at that, but maybe in time she and I could end up useful.  I was afraid we'd screw things up today.  Good news is we didn't mess anything up, but we certainly didn't manage to be any help either!  It was a lovely trail ride though!