Workshop with Bob Rohm and Cowboy Jo

This is my second post today. Guess I had better get on the ball and get something up about this workshop with Bob Rohm. I saw him do a demo for the Austin Pastel Society a few years ago and liked his style, so I think this will be a great learning experience. He also juried in a couple of my paintings into the Austin Pastel Society's show that year so that gives him points as well. I'm going with Regina Burchett, my pastel buddy from Austin. We have great fun together painting. Our styles are different but we can critique, talk, have comfortable silences and enjoy the painting together.

We will be at the Bunkhouse in Cypress Mill near Marble Falls, Texas, in the beautiful hill country. We will not have internet service, except for emergency but hopefully our cell phones will work. I will not be posting all of next week, but I promise to take photos, notes and share the experience upon my return. This will be the first time I am without the internet for quite a few years ... I'm having withdrawals already.

I used to go to the ranch with my Dad and not see anyone or talk on the phone for a month at a time and loved that, so maybe the quiet there will be good for my soul/heart.

Dad on Orphan and his cowdog, Snip at the Criswell ranch in 1976. A few years after this story.

The first summer I went out to the Field Ranch with my Dad on our own must have been when I was a freshman in high school. I had ridden my half shetland pony and other horses at rodeos (not participating) and around, but had not been a working "cowboy". We left Magdalena in the ranch pickup with a cattle guard made of railroad rails on the back. I drove and as we went down into Corkscrew Canyon I proceeded carefully on the curvy dirt/gravel road. As I negotiated a sharp turn, the steering wheel turned and the wheels turned but the pickup did not. The weight on the back had the front lifted dangerously up and the pickup just went forward. Luckily it was toward the bank side. My dad got out and sat on the front of the pickup to hold it down and I backed up and we went on our way. Good thing that you couldn't get up any speed on that road! I don't remember about the installation of the cattle guard so it must have been later or some company came out and put it in.

My Dad always got up before daylight to get a jump on feeding the livestock, milking the cow and fixing breakfast (and having a drink). We usually had steak and biscuits and gravy as I was not an egg eater, another story. He had brought out my pet horse I had raised in town, Nieto, and I assumed that would be my mount. Well, the first day he said I needed a more experienced horse so I rode Helen Major's horse. Good thing for that, too. We got out a couple of hours from the house and my Dad said, " Follow that ridge down to the next canyon and when you come to the corner go through the gate and I will meet you over the next ridge. After you go through the gate, drive any cows you find along and we will get together there in about an hour."

I tried not to show any panic .. what was a ridge? a canyon? How do you "drive cows"? My mind was blank and racing. He took off and I did too. How fast should I go? How long is an hour? I knew that horses can find their way home, so I wasn't worried about that part, but I sure didn't want to mess up my first day as a cowboy. I kept the horse going at a good fast walk and found the gate after what seemed like several ridges and hours to me. Went through the gate, I did have experience at opening wire and post gates, and started down a trail. The horse knew the way and soon found a couple of cows and started them down the trail. I didn't have to do a thing, that is why Dad put me on that horse for my first day. He was waiting for me at a dirt tank with a few head of cattle and we carried on driving them back to the corral at the house. I had survived and with no yelling from him! My cowboy life had started of swell!

This saga will have to continue later. I'm off to buy supplies for the workshop and go to the Austin Pastel Society meeting in Austin.