Corrals full of cows — that’s what you might notice if driving past ranches in the area right now.

Calving season is underway at present, although some ranchers choose to start closer to spring, hoping for warmer weather.

I don’t remember many particulars about February when I was growing up on the ranch except that there was always a lot of snow piled up — for months and months. I’m sure that we had some warm periods, as we did here recently, but at the ranch winter was almost guaranteed to last way up into May.

No matter, calving was well underway in February.

Today it is common practice to use 4-wheelers and similar vehicles to move cows around, but when I was growing up everything was done on horseback. Dad gathered up cows that were getting ready to calve and put them in the corral.

Then each late afternoon he saddled up the horse and put cows that were likely to calve in the “springer barn,” a long log barn with several stalls and back and front doors. The cows were left in the barn overnight and turned out in the morning.

Dad’s horses were “cutting horses,” capable of cutting off a cow when he was putting her in the barn and she tried to cut back at the door. That’s how he “barned” the cows. Believe it or not, the horse knew what was going on and would do the cutting by himself, without Dad’s reining.

Dad checked the cows in the barn during the night. If a cow was having calving problems, he handled it himself or got one of his brothers to help. I can remember the veterinarian coming out once in awhile, but it was during the daytime.

However, in those early days it was not proper for a woman to help with calving.

The cows were not as gentle then as later on, when Lyle and I and the boys had our little herd, because they weren’t handled as much. When I was a kid, cows such as “Spot on the Hip” and “Old Lined Back” were downright ornery when they calved, trying to protect their babies.

They didn’t bother Dad much, possibly because they trusted him. Anyway, when I did chores I stayed close to the corral fence and barn and carried a long bar with me. It was so heavy that I couldn’t have lifted it very far, but I felt safe packing it. I walked back to the house with Dad so that he could protect me from the cows.

I remember one time when a cow did get after Dad. He was inside the barn tending to a calf, and for some reason the cow got on the fight. I was outside the barn with the door open. Dad yelled at me to close the door because the cow was headed that way. I closed it just in time. The very thought makes my hair stand up. Dad was up on a partition. I don’t remember how he got out.

More about calving season next week.