Idle Horses, Mud and First Dates
- April 28, 2025
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- Jan Swan Wood
Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life
The teenage years are fraught with anxiety for most kids, and mine were no exception. My folks had finally decided to let me have a date with a boy who had been asking, so, I was on edge despite the boy
being a longtime friend. My folks had to be gone, so I had a lot to get done before Stewart picked me up.
It was the end of April and calving was in full swing. The sheep were still in the wool, heavy with lamb and would get on their backs when their wool was wet. My job when I got home from school was to go ride through the springers, then head up to another pasture and ride through the sheep and get any back on their feet that were down. I had made my circle and headed back toward the house to gather the springers on the way, then do the chores, which included feeding stock in the corrals, and milking the cow.
As I came over a rise and looked down into the meadows below the place, I saw a complete wreck in
progress. One of the horses was a gate opening thing and had gotten a gate open by the corrals and turned all the dreaded “idle horses” out into the pasture with the cows who were not quite springers, but heavy bred. The meadows had been flooded off and on for a week and there was water standing on top of the gumbo. The cows were chasing the new green grass along the side hill above the meadows until the horses ran them onto the meadow. The horses were having a big time chousing those poor pregnant cows around in the mud, which was fetlock deep.
I had to get this mess fixed before a cow got hurt and the mess got worse. The horses, being idle and
full of vinegar, were sure this was a fun new sport and scattered in as many directions as there were
horses. I finally got them sorted out of the cows and then it was a race as they ran up the creek bottom
trying to get away from me, mud flying high in their wake.. I finally got ahead of them and got them turned about a half mile up the creek, then I had to get them back into the pasture they belonged in
without remixing with the cows. They weren’t cooperating at all, but I finally got them cornered up near a gate and got them put back. As I glanced toward the house in the distance, I saw Stewart’s car in the yard.
Gathering the springers on the way in, I knew I was very late for our date, but Stewart was a farm boy
and they ran a dairy, so I was hoping he would understand how things don’t always go as planned. As I
nervously rode around the corrals after locking the springers up, Stewart got up from where he’d been
sitting on the hood of his car, having watched the wild horse race and sorting that had taken place. He was smiling, so that was a good sign.
I told him I was sorry I was so late and explained that I still had chores to do and he said it was fine, then asked what he could do to help. I told him I still needed to feed hay at the bunks, milk the cow, put up my horse and finish chores. He said he could sure milk a cow, so he’d do that.
We got the chores done and headed into the house where I finally saw myself in a mirror. I was plastered with gumbo everywhere my skin was exposed and some had run down under my clothes. My eyeballs and teeth were the only things that weren’t. Even my braid was a blob of gumbo. I don’t know how Stewart kept from laughing when he saw me ride up. Good character and self control, apparently.
I went through the shower while Stewart watched TV. Hurrying every chance I got, I was finally ready but had to go with wet hair. At least I wasn’t a ball of gumbo anymore. We crawled in his car and drove on around the house to leave, and there, much to my mortification, the crown of the whole first date
scenario: Dad had been changing the storm windows out and putting up screens and had left the ladder
outside my window. Stewart saw it and started laughing about my folks setting us up to elope!
He later told his Dad, the biggest card in the country, and it was never forgotten and brought up
regularly until the man’s death a few years ago. Our Dads thought it was sure funny, but somehow, a
nervous, socially awkward teenage girl didn’t see the humor for a few years.
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Posted in: Featured, Ranch Life
About Jan Swan Wood
Jan was raised on a ranch in far western South Dakota. She grew up horseback working all descriptions of cattle, plus sheep and horses. After leaving home she pursued a post-graduate study of cowboying and dayworking in Nebraska, New Mexico, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota....