The Last Woman...

Wow, this is my first ever blog about ranching and the cowboy/cowgirl way of life. I hope you enjoy it.

They are subdividing the section that borders me. Since the time of Spanish explorers introduced cattle into my valley in the 1600's, there have been livestock on that piece of ground.
Last week, I saddled up and rode that pasture again. It's mesquite arroyos and grassy ridges are speckled with prickly pear cactus. I was just looking to see how close to the canyon rim the houses were planned. Right to the edge.
The south fence was pushed over. Piles of uprooted mesquite huddled, feet to the sun. Dug up cacti squatted in rows, loose dirt kicked over their roots. Wooden stakes stood like skinny tombstones, crude numbers scrawled on their faces. The big mesquite shade tree where the cows gathered to gossip was trimmed lopsided like an old man with a stroke, its dignity lost.
My horse knew the old trail. I dismounted to stand upright a cactus that had been avalanched by the bulldozer. Back in the saddle, I gave the ground one last look; the mountains that it has known all it life, the creek in the valley that had received its runoff for thousands of years. They had kept each other company for a long time.
I had run cows up here for eight years. A very short time in its three or four hundred years as a ranch, but I would be the last woman to raise cattle on this sacred ground.
I had a spectacular hat trick one year when I got a speeding ticket here in Texas and for passing a policeman on a double yellow line in New Mexico, for going too slow in California too. Other than those sterling accomplishments, I've puttered along like most folks- head down, nose to the grindstone, shoulder to the wheel, workin' my way through life.
But my personal best to date, I realized, settin' on that pretty piece of rangeland that had been consecrated by cowboys, cows and yes, Coronado, is to be the last woman to work cows on its fertile, fragile skin. So, bring on the cement boys, paint her face, Botox her wrinkles and pave her veins till she pings like a floozy. I knew her when, and 'ya can't take that away from me.