Paul Marchant

The unrelenting early spring wind continued on. It was well into its third day of mercilessly tormenting me. Oh, it had slowed to about 15 mph, but now the gusts were accompanied by flurries of snow that whipped my face like the tail of a nervous colt recklessly slapping at a deer fly.

Back a decade or three ago, I took my first post-college job on a ranch in the wilds of White Pine County, Nevada. I spent a couple years there, and although it was a bona fide big cow outfit, it never attracted the big-time buckaroo types who tend to bounce from one Great Basin ranch to the next.

My wife loves to garden. As a matter of fact, she is a dang fine gardener, and she works irrationally hard at it and gladly shares the bounty of her hard work and harvest.

As I was dutifully scrolling through my Facebook feed the other day, I came across a post from my daughter honoring her mother. It was kind of a long post, and there was no flashy picture accompanying it. Those are two factors that would normally dissuade me from taking the time to read a social media post. However, since it was family, I had to at least take a look, right?

My house sits not 50 yards from the corrals. Having the chute, the corrals and the cattle in such close proximity to my humble abode is not entirely without its advantages.

The fall gather almost always proves to be one of the most exhilarating, exasperating, rejuvenating, wearisome events of the entire year.