The summer before my freshman year my parents thought it would be a great idea for my sister and I to go work with my grandparents to make some money. They thought maybe it would teach me how to work hard better than doing chores in the house. My grandparents own a massive ranch outside of the little town of St. John’s, Arizona. The town was tiny and everyone knows everyone. Each family owns a different ranch and they all go to the same church. I lived there until I was 8 years old when my dad got a new job, I knew that everything would be different and I thought it would be a very enjoyable time.

Every weekend my grandpa would drive down the long windy road to the sandy ranch to drop of some hay for the cows to snack on. While he was there he would count the head of cattle and see how many pregnant cows they had. It just so happens to be that the week I got to Arizona was the week that the vast majority of the cows gave birth. Over 30 calves had been born within 2 weeks and that meant that a massive round up was needed. I knew that I would be doing a lot more work than I did when I was younger and I couldn’t decide if I was nervous or excited. I had seen a round up take place countless time, but i never had to participate, I was too young to be any real help. I would’ve gotten run over by the cows trying to protect their new calves while they were being branded. It would be different now, I was over 5 feet tall, quite the young athlete and my grandpa knew that I could do some good work if he needed me to.

I was putting on my boots for the ranch when I heard a big red ford diesel truck pull up the gravel driveway. I ran upstairs from the basement where I was staying and saw my uncles loading the horses into a trailer. I had honestly forgotten that they still help on the ranch and I felt a lot more comfortable with the roundup.

I helped then carry the saddles,horse bits and ropes to the trailer. As I was walking to the shed to grab more gear my uncle Mike comes out with the branding irons. My grandpa is a very old school man and doesn't like the modern way of doing things. We brand the cattle old school. We have a fire powered by propane burning in a metal cylinder which we place the branding irons in to get them hot. And we don't use a cattle cute, we grab and hold the calves down by hand while one of us brands them with my grandpas brand. My grandpas signature brand, a lazy D then an L. The lazy D is the a D but backwards, it of course stands for his name, David Lane.
The day was an average day in St, John's, not terribly hot, and very dusty. The sun is always on full blast during the day, so everyone who was going was caking on sunscreen. Especially myself, the pasty city boy I was. After everyone had put a thick coat of sunscreen on we all loaded up in the trucks and headed out. The road the ranch was in a valley of a small canyon type landscape. This part of Arizona is very unique, it’s half desert, and half mountains, with cedar trees everywhere. The road is bendy and flat, its almost like it was paved on an ancient river bed. The view while we drive is remarkable, I never appreciated it when I was younger, but the colors of the canyon walls and rolling sand dunes on the other side are breathtaking. It felt like no time at all before we reached the entrance to the ranch.

Once we got down the the main coral there was no time to waste. My uncles hopped out of their truck and backed the horses out the trailer. There were hardly any cows in the coral at that time so it was obvious my uncles were going on a huge round up and wanted to start right away. My uncle stewart handed me one of the leads and told me to tie it to the outside of the trailer. I had never prepared a horse to be ridden so I was clueless as to what I was doing, but at least the horse was beautiful. The horses name was cochise and was actually bred to be a racing horse. Cochise was all white with black patches and black mane, creating a very unique and pretty contrast. My uncles threw me a saddle and told me to put on him and honestly it took me three tries just to throw it up on top of the horse. Saddles are much heavier than I once thought. After I got it on the horse it wasn’t hard to strap it up, when i finished I asked Stewart who’s going to be riding Cochise.  Stewart looks at me and says, “what do you mean? You’re riding him.” I can only imagine what my face looked like when he told me that, I hadn’t ridden a horse in years. When i did ride I was on someone's lap. Now I was being told that I’m riding a racing horse! Not to mention that they had just bought the horse and broke it in over the winter so it isn’t totally tame. I of course played it off like I wasn’t worried what so ever.

Once all the horses had been geared up my uncles, grandpa and I got on them and headed out. While we were riding stewart gave me a rundown of how to ride a how horse and how to control it. Luckily, when horses are just trotting and in a group they follow the leader so I didn’t have to do anything while stewart was telling me these things. The mini lesson actually lasted until we reached what everyone calls the “bog”. It's a little valley where during the wet season it gets muddy and flourishes with grass. It's the perfect place for the cows to give birth and protect their calves until it's safe to move to the coral. The bog was completely covered in water and tall grass, almost like a little oasis in death valley. I couldn’t even see all the calves, and i counted 25 just while coming down the hill.

By the time we made it down the hill the cows knew what was going on and stood up reluctantly and started walking in the direction of the coral. I was directed to bring up the rear and put pressure on the cows that are getting a little lost the whole way. On the way back to the coral I had a lot of time to think and reminisce about being at the ranch when I was younger. The cows are very slow, I had tons of time. I thought about my old friends who would come out with my family, but instead of actually doing work, we would play games. I thought about the whole little town of St. John’s. It hadn’t changed hardly at all and it almost felt stagnant. The town didn’t seem to be going anywhere, everyone was content with the way their life was. Even everyone in my family who does the same thing practically everyday.

By the time we made it back to the coral with the herd of cows the sun was setting. Everyone that stayed behind had made us some dinner and we all sat down in a circle and just talked. We talking about anything funny that happened, or anything dangerous we encountered. The whole feeling of home and love was very abundant. That was only amplified by the sunset .I had always missed the Arizona sunsets, the colors that would form on the horizon are nothing like the one’s in Missouri. The oranges and purple give this warm homey feeling. I felt really good even after a long day's work and very satisfied with everything. That day taught me that maybe it doesn’t matter where or how you live, but as long as you enjoy what you do and who you’re with then you’re doing it right.