Ranching Education
Many years ago, when I was working on the ranch, the boss came out and asked a few of us if we could run the backhoe. I said I could run the loader. He said, “That’ll work. The natives up at the reserve have dropped a plow in the irrigation ditch and are taking all the water. We need to fill it in.” He climbed on his horse and said, “Follow Me!” I followed his big bay horse up through the reserve and along the back side of the irrigation ditch. At one point there was a steep side-hill I needeed to cross. I swung the hoe boom out on the high side to cross it without tipping. Once past I put the boom back and continued until we came to the break. I started working with the loader to fill it in. He watched for a while then said he was heading back to the ranch. Last thing he said before he left was. Be careful and don’t be mucking with the backhoe! Just use the loader. I was about 17 at the time and I figured if he didn’t want me playing with it, He shouldn’t have mentioned it. I waited until he rode out of site plus about five minutes then I turned the machine around, put down the stabilizers, pulled the safety pin and started to figure things out. He may have been up in the bush watching but he never let on. I finished up filling in the hole and making things pretty. I was confident I could handle the backhoe with no problem so headed back to the ranch.
A few weeks later, we needed some ditching done. Again Marvin was asking if anyone could run the backhoe. I volunteered. Marvin just looked at me and grinned. He was an excellent boss! (Check out my song, Old Time Buckaroo)
Another feller that worked on the ranch, usually ran the backhoe and any other fun machinery, but he was off at the KCc learning how to cut hair. He became a pretty good barber. When he came back, he & I did quite a bit of riding and fishing together. Back in the day, that was a fun place to work!
FHP