Our April Meeting

We continue at our April meeting exploring our western heritage and keeping the west alive and wow, it was a really busy day. We actually started off the day before moving and setting up Mr. Carl Hawkins antique 1800's era chuck wagon to it's home away from home here at our Crossed Arrows Ranch. We began Sunday morning finishing up the set up. After the Pledge of Allegiance and the 4-H pledge we started with a lecture from Mr. Carl about the mother ship for trail drives that carried virtually everything a crew working cattle might need for an entire seasons cattle drive. We learned about the different parts of the chuck wagon and what those things were used for like the chuck box and boot the tool box and the wagon bed. We learned about chuck wagon protocol and yes, the very important chuck wagon etiquette and the role of the cook. We then broke down into small crews with one crew cutting the fresh buffalo meat, potatoes, carrots, onions and celery another crew turned to making the biscuits while our clover buds fashioned a pie crust peach cobbler and all this from scratch! By this time the coals were ready we all got to see dutch oven cookery first hand. Even our 4-H Home Economist Jacqueline Baca was impressed with our clubs ability to prepare such a great meal under such windy conditions. With everything on the fire we took our turns with our good friend Dr Bill Brainerd, DVM who came to instruct us in how to vaccinate our horses. We vaccinated almost 2 dozen of our horses and also drew blood for Coggins tests. Many of us can now do vaccinations and can give our own IM (intramuscular) injections and a few of us can draw blood when necessary. With all the horses taken care of we returned to the chuck wagon with Mr. Carl ringing us in for dinner. The dutch ovens were set out under the "fly" and the aroma of stew, biscuits and peach cobbler filled the air. When everyone had enjoyed even seconds we saddled up and headed into the arena where Miss Kathy Mueller was waiting to lead the fun with games on horseback. Everyone had the opportunity to run some pretty good patterns and show their horsemanship. We even got a chance to do some work in the arena with our cows, lessons learned from our March Working Cow Horse meeting. The day finished around the coals with some Cowboy coffee and with the wind finally dying down and the chuck wagon packed up. Another great meeting and great adventure for the Turquoise Trail Wranglers 4-H Club.
PS See you in May for our Stay in the Saddle Spring Tune up Horsemanship Clinic with working Oklahoma cowgirl, trainer, and clinician Janel Brookshire.