Putting ‘Em on the Arizona Desert
They crossed into the United States at the border town of Nogales, Arizona. Natives of Mexico, the 630-some head of steers were being taken to Van and Katy Jane Irvine’s newly acquired holdings northeast of Scottsdale, where they would be pastured. Van and his wife Katy Jane are Wyoming ranchers who added to their ranching interests recently by purchasing two old-time Arizona ranches — the X2 and Box Bar. They have combined them into one place, now known as the Pinnacle Peak Ranch, named after a local landmark and one-time stagecoach stop.
The border crossing was late in February, and it was a short haul to Pinnacle Peak Ranch where the steers were turned over to ranch manager Dick Barten. Dick and his wife Roberta had come from Wyoming to the ranch in December. As the saying goes, “Dick is no stranger to livestock,” having learned his lessons punching cows and ramrodding outfits in his native state of Wyoming. And when time permitted being away from ranch work, he picked up his share of prize money competing in roping and bulldogging events at rodeos and jackpots.
In a pickup and on horseback, he had been busy “ridin’ the ranch,” learning its boundaries and its potential for carrying livestock before the steers arrived. Helping him learn about the ranch was Buzz Davies, 69 years old, and employee of Foxworth and Galbraith Wholesale Forest Products, Phoenix, who relaxes on weekends by saddling a horse and riding fence or working cattle on the X2 just for the fun of it. Buzz is at home on the ranch, as his grandfather homesteaded the place in 1915. His grandfather was also a partner in ownership of the Box Bar Ranch in 1915.
Buzz Davies on his top horse in the yard at the X2 Ranch. The ranch was homesteaded by Buzz’s grandfather in 1915.
Tim Prosser cutting off a dab of steers to take to the branding chute.
When the steers arrived at the ranch they were held in a section pasture (640 acres) until they could be branded and kicked out into an 11-section pasture for the grazing season. Some were branded in a chute at the old X2 headquarters, while others were handy to a set of stock pens east of the headquarters; those were corralled, roped, and brought to the branding fire from horseback.
A stranger to the desert country might look out across it and wonder what it offers in the way of food for livestock. It can look like mighty sorry cattle country, yet when the desert is right, livestock thrive on it. A man who knows desert grazing is Arizona cowboy Claude Burson. Claude, who still throws a good head or heel loop at 74 years of age, was born in Wickenburg where his uncles ran cattle on the desert west of town in the 1890s and early 1900s. He can remember the “filaree” (alfilaria) so thick on the desert when he was a kid that a saddle horse would leave a path as he was ridden through it. The story goes that filaree seeds, native to Europe, were brought to Arizona in wool of sheep brought to the area by early day stockmen. It quickly spread and covered the range.
Claude says when the desert gets winter rain storms that fill the water tanks (man-made earthen ponds) and start the grass growing, that six-weeks grass, also known as poverty grass, comes early and leaves early. You’ll see it growing around the base of palo verde trees and brush. It will carry the cattle until the filaree and Indian wheat appear a little later. And this is when, according to Claude, you put the “cheap gain on steers.” He says they will gain from one pound to over two pounds a day, depending on the animal.
By the middle of May or June 1 at the latest, the desert heat will dry up the grazing, and it is time to move the steers to feedlots or other pasture. But Clause says that when the filaree and Indian wheat are plentiful, “it’s almost like having steers in a feedlot.” There’s also browse on the desert. A mesquite browse grows in the draws; and, to name a few others, there are cat claw, palo verde, and coffee brush, also called buck nut or bojava, the Indian name. When he was young, Claude remembers “careless weed, as tall as a man on horseback, but you don’t see much of it anymore.”
The six-weeks grass was thinning out and the filaree was coming on strong as Al Jarvis, Buzz Davis, Tim Prosser, Dick Braten, and I trailed the steers from the branding pens out tot he big pasture where we dropped them off at a water tank that recent rains had replenished. From there they were free to graze.
Mexican steers entering the branding chute at the X2 headquarters.
Ranch manager Dick Braten getting a count on the steers as they move out of one of their branding pens.
This article was originally published in the June 1978 issue of Western Horseman.
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