Roping Calves!

We were at the ranch Sunday when Deena asked her uncle Paul what he had going on. He said he was going to check on the cows. It's the middle of calving season out there, so Paul checks the cows two or three times during the day and three times during the night. This is done by driving a motorbike, four-wheeler, or truck through the pasture and looking for struggling cows, brand-new calves, and other sick or injured calves.

We told Paul we'd help him, so Deena drove, I rode shotgun, and Deena's mom, Linda, and Paul rode in the backseat. Paul had a carrying tray with ear tags, vaccine, and rubber castrating bands, as well as the tools and syringes to apply/inject everything. I had my 60', 5/16" lariat rope with a metal Brannaman honda from King Ropes in Sheridan, WY, because I like to travel prepared.

Soon we saw a young calf tottering along without an ear tag. Paul and I got out of the truck. Paul had a syringe in his mouth and an ear tag loaded in the tagger (like a pliers) in his hand. I left my rope. We followed next to the calf for a few feet. I didn't know what exactly I was supposed to do, so when I was close to the calf I stepped over and grabbed it around the waist and held it while Paul tagged and vaccinated it. Easy enough. We got back in the truck and kept going.

It soon came to my attention that there were several calves that, at three to fours days old, were too old to just walk up to and grab. I offered to rope them, by saying something like, "Why don't I just rope them?" I had practiced on a plastic roping dummy in the backyard for probably an hour total in the couple of weeks prior and felt pretty good about my abilities.

The next one we saw, I jumped out of the truck, pretty jazzed up about finally getting my chance to rope a calf. I built a loop by letting out some coils and flipping them over and, by the time I was ready, the calf had run away, so I got back in the truck. Deena said something along the lines of, "You're going to have to be faster than that, cowboy."

The next untagged calf we saw, I jumped out, quickly built a loop and, running toward it, threw my rope! And not only missed it, but tangled up my rope in a big mess. I had forgot to sort my coils in order to allow them to spool out easily.  I stood sorting out the mess and Deena slowly started driving away. Her mom suggested I ride in the back of the truck and try to throw it from there. It seemed like a good idea, so I climbed in back.

We drove right next to a calf laying on the ground, I probably could have jumped onto it. Thinking it was as good as done, I dropped my loop out and it landed across the calf's back as it leapt up and ran away. I recoiled my rope and thought, "They're never going to let me throw a rope again."

The next calf we saw, Deena yelled back to me, "I think Paul actually wants to catch this one, so maybe just leave your rope." Paul and I got out and walked towards it. As it started to get up, I jumped out and tackled it, laying on top of it as it worked its legs trying to get free. I didn't realize it, but it's mother was a little worked up at the sight and started bumping me with her head. Paul grabbed a rock and told me not to hit her with my hand or else she might bunt me. I still don't know for sure, but I assume "bunting" is the ranch equivalent of rodeo bull scrubbing a person into the dirt. Paul dropped the rock and proceeded to band the bull calf's testicles, tag, and vaccinate it as I tried to hold it flat on the ground.

Shortly after, another calf was laying facing away from us. I grabbed my rope and let a loop fly, clean and clear, but short. The loop landed across it's hindquarters. I dropped my rope on the ground, ran, and tackled the calf as it tried to stand up.

The next one, I missed. Deena drove up next to it as it ran and Paul jumped out and grabbed it's tail. I ran up, flipped it on it's side and held it while Paul got his supplies.

Linda said, "There are two black calves by the ditch! See if you can catch one!" I walked over with my coils sorted and loop built and when the calves got up, I let one fly! I thought I had missed, but Linda yelled, "You caught it! You caught it!" I pulled the rope tight and had a hind leg! I worked my way to it hand-over-hand and tackled it.

I decided I was better off walking than riding in the truck. It helped me stay more calm and organized. When a calf was laying in front of the truck, I dropped two coils, just like Buck Brannaman showed in his book RANCH ROPING, and sent my loop out. A perfect head catch! I pulled my way up to it and realized it had already been tagged, so I had to get my rope off and let it go.

The next calf stood perfectly still, but was a long throw away. My throw felt really good as it sailed out and landed perfectly open just to the left of the calf. A clean miss. The calf turned and ran.

I stood coiling my rope as Deena sped away with the truck. We were close to the farm site, so I didn't pay much attention as they parked near a grain bin. I was looking out to see if there was one last calf nearby I might catch, when I heard Deena yell, "Steve! It's coming for you!" I looked over my shoulder at a calf running just to my left! Without time to build a loop, I took a step out and stuck out my left arm, perfectly snaring the calf in the coils of my rope!

As we walked up to the house, Deena said, "It's a good thing you don't care at all about how you look, you just go for it!" Paul said, "That's the only way to get better, just keep trying! That one calf you caught that was already tagged was about a perfect throw!" And that's all I needed to know that I actually am as I good as I thought I was. Just not quite all the time yet!

Devereaux, D-Wade, and King James

Steven Devereaux laced up his Asics for a 10K race over Memorial Day weekend in Livingston, MT. He didn't win the race, but he did make page 10 of the Livingston Enterprise. During a phone interview following the photo's release, Devereaux credited his "victory over that guy behind me in the picture" to his "almost inappropriately short running shorts."

Devereaux declined to comment on whether or not the fact that he shared the same page as Dwayne Wade and LeBron James signals a possible return to playing basketball should the international sanctions against him be lifted (See "Showtime Devereaux Still Has It!" in Previous Posts).

15 Minutes in the Wild West

Shortly after three o’clock on a cold Thursday afternoon, I stood from my desk in the Maintenance office, tucked in the back of the General Store on the Crazy Mountain Ranch. I had put in a good couple of hours of work since lunch, attaching inventory “items” to “assets” on a computerized maintenance inventory system, and decided to take advantage of my Federally-granted right to a fifteen minute afternoon break.

I slipped past shelves lined with authentic late 1800’s period hardgoods out the side door of the Store and into the crisp, clear air of western Montana. I sauntered down the main street of this recreated one-horse Wild-West town with my company-issued, brand-new, too-tight Original Fit Cowboy Cut Wrangler jeans, black jacket, gloves, hat, and winter boots.

I headed east on the boardwalk past the swinging doors of the Saloon and Pool Hall, away from the Jail, Bank, and Stage-Coach Stop. Under the weathered wood awning of the Hotel, across the road, a couple of “guests,” who due to an on-line sweepstakes won an all-expenses-paid trip out West to promote brand-loyalty, wandered in a euphoric daze wearing new winter clothes, taking photos with new digital cameras, and smoking their preferred type of Marlboro’s. Gifts. Philip Morris’ way of saying “thank you” for choosing Marlboro.

Glancing up at the dazzling white of the snow-covered western slope of the Crazy Mountains, I hung a right past the Livery, down the open breezeway in the back and into the Ranch Staff Dining Room. Alone, I perused the available fresh-baked pastries, muffins, and cookies on the counter. As I selected a crumble-topped blueberry muffin, a fellow Ranch employee walked in. We were dressed identically and nodded to one another as I cut back to the beverage coolers for a Gatorade.

I stood there reading some corporate postings on the wall as the other guy sat down on the far end of the smallish room. As I turned toward a nearby bench, another man entered. He wore a broad rimmed off-white cowboy hat over his dark hair and deeply tanned skin, a white western cut snap-button shirt, blue jeans, and cowboy boots. He could have been any of the hundred or so, Tour Directors, wait-staff, or zip-line operators, who work on the Ranch every day, but for one distinctive feature. As he picked up a couple of chocolate-chip cookies with his right hand, he held a coiled lasso in his left.

A million thoughts flashed through my mind, dating from my boyhood obsession with horses to the YMCA wrangler job I turned down in college to the blurred picture above my desk at home of a rodeo cowboy running down a steer, lasso frozen in time above his head. Could he teach me to toss a loop? Not in this room, it’s too small. The breezeway is pretty tight too. And I’d probably get fired if someone saw me trying to learn on company time. I picked up a pamphlet about cold-weather safety from the table and scanned it as he walked past me to the cooler, grabbed a can of lemonade, and sat down at the table behind me.

I decided that I space and time enough only for talking with this man. Upon regaining my composure, I stepped over and asked if he had been teaching the guests to rope. He looked up and said, “Naw, just showing them some things, doing some tricks and such.”

Relieved that my question had been dignified with an answer, I asked another, “Where did you learn to rope?”

“My grandfather taught me,” he replied with an affirmative head bob.

“Did you grow up on a ranch?”

“A farm. In Oklahoma. You?” His eyebrows shot up as they did whenever I asked him a question.

“I grew up on a farm too. In Minnesota. But we just had crops and hogs. I never had to learn to rope the hogs,” I offered with a smile, which was graciously returned with a chuckle. The other employee looked over from across the room, obviously wishing he would have started this conversation.

“So,” I offered, knowing time was getting short, “do you perform a lot? Rodeos and stuff?”

“Mostly, I get hired as entertainment for big corporate events all around the country,” he trailed off a bit, “But, yeah, I’ve done a bunch of rodeos.”

My break was on its last legs, but I had to know one thing, “I saw a video of a guy who was out here. He did a trick where he stood on top of his horse on the saddle and started throwing a loop big enough to go all the way around himself and the horse,” I pantomimed as I spoke. “Then he took off down the road still throwing his lasso loop around the entire horse! Was that you?”

“Yeah,” he averted his eyes modestly as his face lit up. “It’s a good trick, if you have a horse that will stand it,” he looked up and said.

I wouldn’t have been more impressed if I had just caught Kirby Puckett’s home run ball in Game Six of the 1991 World Series. “Whoa, that’s pretty awesome! Do you still have that horse?”

“Yeah, back in Oklahoma.” As he said that, his eyes softened and voice drifted a bit. Back to Oklahoma and the horse, no doubt, but he seemed to go further. Back to the farm, to his grandpa, maybe a lost lover, or childhood dream.

I wondered then how far most people drift from their dreams or forget them altogether and to what consequence, if and when they realize it. “I better get back to the computer screen,” I said and offered my hand, “it was nice talking with you.”

He shook my hand firmly and, noticing my name tag, said, “Steven. Kalvin Cook, nice to meet you.”

Showtime Devereaux Still Has It!

From the Osakis Review Online, posted at 7:45am, Friday, Oct. 31, 2009

After not playing competitive basketball for the past 11 years, Steven "Showtime" Devereaux, made his debut return to the court this morning in the Osakis Elementary Gymnasium for some casual pick-up ball. Here is what he had to say about it after the games:

"Needless to say the only things dropping more than everyone's jaws were my shots. Ryan Maddock and I teamed up at least three times for fast-break trailer alley-oop finger-rolls. By the end of our first game to seven (scoring by one's and two's) I had Steve Tax screaming my name whenever I yelled, "WHO'S YOUR DADDY?!" On two separate occasions in the second game, I threaded my way downcourt untouched while singing, "Give 'Em The Old Razzle Dazzle". To win the last game 7-0, I took the ball across half-court, raised my fist, and screamed, "Clear out! Clear out!" My teammates gave me everything inside the arc, but the defense read my play call and sagged back in the lane. I charged straight up the gut and, when met with a wall, four people wide, drained a fade-away jumper from the free-throw line. I then proceeded to scream, "Get out of my house!" until the gym cleared."

Showtime Devereaux's basketball career was cut short during his sophomore year at Lakeveiw High School when his coach, Jeff DeBates, put him in for the last three minutes of what would prove to be a 52-37 loss to the Lincoln HI B-Squad. Devereaux put all of his then 6 foot 1 inch 140 pound frame into a moving pick at the top of the key, knocking his opponent to the ground. He then stood over the fallen Rebel waving his finger and shaking his head in a vague reference to Dikembe Mutombo. Coach DeBates promptly called a time-out for the sole purpose of giving Showtime a high-five and telling him, "just how totally badass that was!" Unfortunately for the game of basketball, both Devereaux and DeBates were soon suspended for life from ever playing or coaching basketball in any organized league anywhere in the world. Showtime is currently substitute teaching in the Alexandria area and has taken up coaching Nordic skiing. Debates is currently serving 10-15 years for his suggestive comments regarding the Lakeview High School Dance Team.

"Adventures In Sailing" by Eric Morken, Echo Press

Kenneth Grahame, a British writer in the early 20th century, wrote in his famous 1908 children’s book, The Wind in the Willows, “There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”
Such was my attitude when I set out on my first sailing adventure on Lake Sagatagan on the campus of St. John’s University this past Sunday.
It was a windy day – gusts of around 25 miles an hour – certainly not ideal conditions for beginning sailors like my friend Steve and I were. No matter. We met up at the St. John’s beach ready to conquer the seven seas.
“How will we ever learn how to sail in high winds if we never do it?” Steve asked. It seemed like a valid point. My only concern was that the boat was not ours. It does not even get rented out at St. John’s. Steve knew the owner but was not close – probably not close enough to take his sailboat without asking. We looked past this.
With our lifejackets securely fastened, we set sail with Steve as the captain and me as the deckhand. Captain Steve exuded little confidence with his facial expressions every time a strong gust of wind came up.
“It’s just a matter of time before we capsize this thing isn’t it?” I asked him.
After an hour of sailing, that proved to be the case. A strong gust of wind caught our mainsail and sent our boat perpendicular to the water. We shifted our weight, trying to avoid dumping the boat. We had avoided capsizing a few times already by doing this. It was no use this time, as we jumped out away from the hull.
Once in the water, we flew into action like a couple of seasoned seamen. With all our weight on the daggerboards, we righted the ship.
Steve climbed aboard before I pulled myself up on the stern. Before I could even get my footing, we began to lose it again. Both of us jumped away from the mast as the boat capsized for a second time.
Once in the water, we realized why. We had lost our rudder on the first fall. It was a discovery that really took the wind out of our sails.
The boat was now taking on water in the storage area after the platform came open on the second fall. We had no chance of righting the boat with all the water.
It did not take long for Dianne, the SJU lifeguard, to come to our aid. She came across the water in a 14-foot aluminum boat, equipped with a six-horsepower motor – not exactly built for dragging a sunken boat across a lake.
By now the bow was the only thing above the water. We hooked up the tow rope and went for the nearest shore. Pulling the submerged sailboat into the wind proved to be a lost cause. We were forced to go with the wind to a distant shoreline.
[Editors Note: Around this time Dianne nearly drove the boat over the mast, while pulling Eric through the water at the end of a rope, in a futile attempt to get the rope, boat, and near shore connected.]
We crossed the lake at a snail’s pace. Dianne drove and I sat in the motorboat as Steve rode on the daggerboards of the sailboat. More than an hour had passed since we capsized. Steve was complaining of the cold but was not about to leave his vessel – a noble move by the captain.
We finally reached shallow water and unrigged the boat. Dianne and I drove back to the boathouse at the SJU beach to get buckets for bailing out the water. Our only options were a three-gallon water cooler and a couple of sand buckets.
It took a while, but they did the job. Our boat was floating once again.
The tow back to the beach was slow but steady. We traveled into the sunset with our heads held high. After all, we entered the water that day as a couple of greenhorns. When we left, we had become sailors.

Life Goal Checkoff: "Adventurer"

On Thursday, January 1st, 2009, I officially checked "Be Referred To As An "Adventurer" By An Official News Source" off of my Life Goals List, when the article "By The Seat Of His Pants" was published on the website of the Alexandria Echo Press and came out in print on Friday, January 2nd, 2009.

By The Seat Of His Pants
Jo Colvin, Alexandria Echo Press, Published Thursday, January 01, 2009
Steve Devereaux has had the adventure of a lifetime. Twice. Probably because for Devereaux, life is an adventure.
Now a substitute teacher and cross country ski coach for Alexandria School District 206, Devereaux isn’t afraid to take off on a whim, with no plans and no itinerary.
Not one to shy away from a new experience, two years ago he jumped at the chance to join a friend in Europe for two weeks. With no reservations or concrete plans, the buddies knew they wanted to see the Eiffel Tower in Paris, go canyoning in Switzerland, and run with the bulls in Pamplona.
“We decided we would get a train ticket and just go,” Devereaux explained. “We started calling it Adventure of a Lifetime.”
The adventure didn’t get off to a great start. When Devereaux’s flight arrived in Amsterdam, his luggage wasn’t with it. For two days the friends waited for it to arrive. But with their wanderlust beckoning, and time slipping away, they decided to take off without it. With just a backpack full of toiletries and the clothes on his back, Steve and his friend took off for Switzerland, where their dreams of canyoning became a reality.
“It was the most in-your-face adventure,” Devereaux said of the sport that involves getting from the top of a canyon to the bottom by jumping off cliffs and rappelling off rocks. “I’m the kind of person who will try anything.”
Another stop on the adventure was Paris, where in their quest to walk to the Eiffel Tower from the train station, they got lost and wandered around for hours in the middle of the night. After catching a few z’s on the streets of Paris, they made it to the tower after sunrise. They were able to spend a few hours sightseeing, including a visit to the Louvre.
Unfortunately, lack of reservations kept the adventurers from making it to Pamplona for the running of the bulls.
“Part of the trip was to go by the seat of our pants,” Devereaux said. “So we looked at a map and said, ‘Let’s go to Luxembourg.’ ”
After other jaunts to a vineyard in Germany and on to the Frankfurt airport, Devereaux made it back to the U.S.
“That was the end of Adventure of a Lifetime,” he said.
But another adventure was soon on the horizon.
The following summer, 2007, it was off to Costa Rica, where he and his friend had landed research positions tagging sea turtles.
“We decided to do Adventure of a Lifetime II,” Devereaux said.
During his six weeks in “the most remote part of Costa Rica,” Devereaux lived in a “shack” – surrounded by the ocean on one side and the rain forest on the other.
“We landed in this tropical paradise, essentially,” he said. “It was the most remote part of Costa Rica you can be in – one of the most biologically diverse places on the planet.”
His job tagging sea turtles required him to walk up and down three miles of beach in the middle of the night – nesting time for the turtles. If he saw a turtle, he measured it, tagged it and marked where the nest was. During the day, he collected and recorded the data, which left ample free time to wander around the rain forest, swim, body surf and witness the amazing wildlife.
“There are infinite stories,” Devereux said of his adventures there. “It was a tropical paradise.”
Although he loved his time in paradise, when the six weeks were up, Devereaux was excited to get back to Alexandria to start his next adventure – teaching and working with kids. And he’s already thinking about the next adventure.
“We’ve talked about winter camping perhaps,” he contemplated, “or going to Isle Royale hiking. Maybe hop on the Greyhound and getting on the Baja Peninsula. Who knows?
“We’ve been talking about Adventure of a Lifetime III.”

Big Surprise? Not really.

Students excel on state tests.
courtesy of the Echo Press, Alexandria, MN

After substitute teaching for only one academic school year in District 206 of Alexandria, MN, the effects of Steven Devereaux's teaching are very apparent.

"According to School District 206 officials, students in the Alexandria school district exceeded statewide proficiency percentages at all grade levels in both math and reading."

Echo Press Sports Reporter, Eric Morken, upon seeing the quantifiable success of Steven Devereaux's substitute teaching, said, "Now if only District 206 would put two and two together and realize that you are the key to their future."