The Guerrieri kids await the day’s ranch assignments from their dad.
WHAT YOU MIGHT MISS FOUND IN THE OLD RANCH SHOP: A PIPE WRENCH, A FUNNY MEMORY AND A LITTLE LUMP IN THE THROAT. By Cara Guerrieri
Last spring I searched the ranch shop for a pipe wrench, trying to puzzle out what Dad meant when he told me, “It’s in them old shelves, up high, the ones your grandpa built, just below where I used to hang the calf pullers. You can’t miss it.” Well, all the shelves looked old and homemade as if Grandpa could’ve built them, and there were no obvious calf puller brackets. After 70 years on this Gunnison ranch, Dad knew the shop like the back of his hand, but I hadn’t been a full-time resident in the valley for decades. I went from tool bin to tool bin, looking above, below and inside, and saw no sign of a pipe wrench. I sat on a bench and looked around, remembering many days of this very type of confusion. Each morning when I was young, after Mom’s breakfasts, Dad gave five wide-eyed kids his you-can’t-miss-it instructions. “Saddle up yer horses,” he’d say. “Cara, you can ride that sorrel mare. Head up above the house to the bull pasture. Give that brocklefaced heifer with foul foot 50 CCs of penicillin.
She’s holed up in the willows by the creek. You can’t miss her.” While we mulled over his words, he’d slide his long legs into hip-wader irrigating boots and continue, “Then I suppose you better check them older cows, too. That red shorthorn was sure a-bawlin’ yesterday. Ride up there and see if you can find her calf. He’s the one that had bad pink-eye in the spring. Last I seen the cow she was up on that hillside in the quakies. You can’t miss her.” As he walked to get the freshly sharpened shovel leaning against the cabin, we’d trot along behind, trying to catch every word. “While you’re up that way, check on that lone bull. He’s been run off by the others. Might as well bring him on in. He might drive better with a couple pairs. Then just leave him in the corral and turn that other young bull out, the one I bought in Delta. You can’t miss him.” He’d head toward his John Deere tractor, still finishing his instructions. “Say, and before you unsaddle, ride up and fix the fence wires on the north end of the forty above the horse 99
