A couple of weeks back, we wrote about the thrill of growing up and getting to pretend to be cowboys. With only 10 breeders and a bull, we were hardly the real deal.

A couple of weeks ago I got the call to go out to Pope Valley to see some real cowboys.

Many don’t realize that the Napa Valley wasn’t always about grapes. As late as 1967 Cattle was the biggest crop. When we arrived in 1957, grapes were a poor third behind cattle, and prunes, just a hair ahead of walnuts.

Call it a round up. Call it a branding. It’s a winter ritual that has been performed each year since the second white man followed George Yount into the Valley back in 1834.

The “KY” (Kentucky) brand goes back to 1852 (maybe further). It’s the longest continuous brand in Napa County. You can find it out on the Hardin Ranch, where two weekends ago, a bunch of Cal Poly Alumni and their friends were demonstrating poetry in motion—engaging in a complex ballet of roping, branding, inoculating, tagging and castrating this year’s new calves.

Some ranchers “round up cattle” by putting bale of hay in a trailer behind a tractor—ride the hills until a lead cow finds them, and then drive slowly back to the corral with the hungry herd following. They then put them single file into a narrow chute. At the end of the chute is a “cattle squeeze”—a steel framed structure which “squeezes” the bull calf, holding him motionless while the duties are performed upon him—shots, branding, tagging and castration.

Nothing wrong with that. But these cowboys are the real McCoy. Like characters in an Ayn Rand novel, they know only one way to do it: Right. They do it for love.

They don’t lure the cattle in with hay. A month before branding day, Matt goes out daily with Border Collies to round up the heard and bring ‘em in out of the hills. One good Border Collie is worth three cowboys.

On the appointed day, kids from all over the state appear (Ok. In their 20’s they’re hardly kids, but you get the drift). They work the big ranches, The Hearst Ranch, Huasna in Arroyo Grande, IL Ranch in Nevada, Donati in Gridley—the list goes on.

They are a select fraternity. Many of them went to Cal Poly and know one another. Others know each other from the rodeo circuit. They are keepers of the flame. A long and noble tradition. They are keenly aware of their responsibility (if not their place in history).

No chutes or “squeezes” for them. They team rope. One lasso’s around the neck, the other (an impossible shot) around the back hooves. Well trained roping horses (bearing roping saddles with huge saddle horns), back gently up at the appropriate time, that the roped calves might be inoculated, ear tagged, branded (and yes) properly castrated.
There are 15 to 20 kids in the corral, keeping order and making sure it’s professional in every way. Most are on foot, keeping the calves out of corners and “keeping them in play” for the ropers. The gals (former St. Helena Ag students, studying to be vets) have the shots ready, and despite the danger, swoop in and do their duty.

Occasionally, Roger doesn’t wait for a roper. He likes to wrestle a 250 pound calf to the ground by himself. That time a hoof caught him in the face and he had to go to the emergency room was a rarity.

Make no mistake. This is dangerous work, and every kid has to keep his head on a swivel to avoid being stepped on by a horse, or kicked in the head like Roger.
Russ, like Cookie on Rawhide, is bar-b-queuing tri-tips while the kids in the corral and gawkers like me, behind the safety of the fence, sip Coors.

We’re in the modern era, even out in Pope Valley. Each calf is tagged with an electronic (think bar code) gizmo, which lets importers (like the Japanese) know the date of birth, number of shots, and ranch the calf comes from.

Almost 150 calves will be cared for. After the “branding” the Gen-Yer’s will gather for a huge bon fire (exposing themselves to dangerous particulate matter, no doubt), down more beers, feast on tri-tips, and devour “calf fries”, a rare delicacy (not for everybody, and available only on this particular day).

These guys and gals are America’s finest. If you’re looking for piercings and tattoos, they’re not readily apparent. In high school they wore cowboy hats and called themselves red necks.

Certain administrators thought they were “bad boys.” We knew differently.
They were (and are) the greatest products that America manufactures. Honest kids. Polite--shake your hand--look you in the eye kids who grew up in rural environments where they were force fed solid values and learned basic life skills. They can hunt, fish, rope, and weld a blade on the front of an American tank, should someone get caught in hedge rows in France.

These days, certain dead souls want to put down cattle and ranching in general. There is a movement against beef--an attack on Ag. Those folks don’t get it. The finest kids this nation has ever produced were weaned on farms and ranches.
Curtail farming and you kill the culture these kids were raised in.

We should promote Ag, if for nothing else, than the kind of children it produces. You can’t bottle character and sell it. Its home grown. Like the cattle they raise. How ‘bout them Cowboys?