The Basin

When Ranch Hands Get Drunk

A Cautionary Tale

It started so innocently. Okay, somewhat innocently.

This weekend, we went into the Basin to gather and brand the calves. The Basin is a rough, 40 mile drive from ranch headquarters, takes about 2 hours in a jeep, about an hour more if you're pulling a trailer full of horses. Along with Number One, CowGirl and Ranch Hand, we took the new young Farmer. H-Bomb, Sawed Off and I went for the camping, hiking, and let's be honest, s'mores.

Number One.

Farmer.

The Basin branding was finished, with 126 calves branded the first day, and the remaining 20 or so branded the second day. The second day was obviously much easier than the first, and the work was finished earlier.

A few other guys came down to the ranch to help us too. Let me introduce you.

Whit used to work here on the ranch, and we miss having him around. He is an excellent hand, polite, responsible and funny. And single, ladies, FYI. Whit raises and sells horses.

CowGirl (CG) and Whit.

Whit brought his brother, whom we call Little Joe. He is also very polite, and an excellent cowboy. Seriously, Whit and Little Joe's parents need congratulating, because they did one hell of a job with their boys. I can only hope our boys will turn out so well.


And then there's Jed. He's relatively young and fearless, and man, can he stay on a horse. He worked down on the ranch one summer when he was still a teenager, and we could tell you some stories...Jed is also single, near as we can tell.



So at the end of the second day, someone got out the beer. Someone else got out the Jack Daniels. We loaded all the beer we had left into the last remaining cooler with ice. We put all the Coca-Cola we had in there too. Someone thought it would be a good idea to mix Jack with beer until the Coke was cold. That someone? RanchHand, of course. Here he is in all his Jack & beer-induced glory:


It all just went downhill from here. Whit, Jed and Little Joe decided to leave their horses saddled, "In case we need to rope somethin'!"


We were also joined by RanchHand's nephew, Stevie, and Stevie's friend Kyle. Theoretically they were going to help with the branding, but they took off all day on their mountain bikes. Funny, they did come back in time for the beer...

Despite the fact that Steve and Kyle were wearing shorts and tennis shoes, they hopped on Jed and Whit's horses and took off.



Here, Jed and Whit are watching the boys riding off. And all is well...for about two seconds.


It quickly turned into a bad scene when Stevie galloped back into the corral on Jed's horse and almost had a wreck with another horse. This is all we saw of him:

Jed was quickly reduced to this: a heart attack victim at the tender age of 25.

Those boys took off again, riding into the sunset. After they had been gone for a while, Whit said, "Jeez, I hope they're okay, my horse has only been ridden about 20 times." Come to find out, Kyle did get bucked off once, but he's fine.

Meanwhile, CG and Little Joe got on his horse, and CG got friendly with Little Joe...although it's my theory she just didn't want to fall off the horse!

CG told everyone "Min's a Spanish person!" To clarify, I said, "yes! I am Hispanic! No! I do have a degree in Spanish though, that's what she meant to say..."

Ironically, it was the old folks who got the worst of the Jack. You know, the incoherent mumbling, the stumbling, the, how can I say this nicely, "cleansing of the stomach," that comes with having too much to drink. All us "kids" were fine.

CG was escorted to her camper by two strapping young boys (she couldn't have made it there alone)...and I will spare you the rest of the details. Let's just say it wasn't pretty, and the two boys were (unfortunately or thankfully, take your pick) NOT involved.

But RanchHand was actually the first to go down for the count. He could hardly stay in his chair, and finally Whit helped him over to the hitching post to, um, cleanse his stomach.

Ranch Hand stayed in this position for about three hours. I'm not kidding.

Here is some classic video of Ranch Hand, who will NEVER EVER live this moment down. It is hilarious. And a good example of the reason you should never drink too much Jack Daniels. Know your limits!! Don't just take my word for it, watch and learn:

Right, RanchHand, right. You're "fine." That's why Farmer had to help you to the cabin to bed before the sun went down!

I just love the background commentary on this video too.

Good times.