Growing up on my grandpa's ranch, the kids were expected to help out.

During the hay season we (the girls)drove the scatter rake while the boys stacked. We (the kids) also rode around moving the cows back and forth between the ranch and the range or from one pasture to another. There were quite a few cows and, cows being as smart and accommodating as they are, multiple riders were needed.

Those days were long, and hard, and fantastically fun.

One day my grandpa told my cousin Kristin and I to ride up to "number three" and bring the bulls home. "Number three" was a large pasture a couple of miles away from the ranch.

On this day, there were only 2 bulls there. It was our job to bring them home.

Now mind you, my cousin Kristin and I were both 9 or 10 years old. We each had our own horse, but they were relatively young horses, probably about 4. They hadn't yet become wise old quarter horses who knew just how to handle bulls. (My grandpa must have been seriously short-handed that day to send us on such a mission.)

Have any of you ever driven bulls?

It's not like driving cows in any way. Bulls can have a lot of attitude and really do just what they want. They're stubborn and not afraid of anything. They walk right through fences. They're tough, herculean-like and sometimes even a little mean, which means that they're usually left alone which is exactly how they like it.

Why my grandpa thought us two kids would be able to bring the bulls home by ourselves I'll never know. I guess he thought that they were more amiable than they actually were. But, we were determined to bring them home on our own and felt very grown up for being given such a task.

We rode up, managed the gates, moved them out of number three and headed home.

We'd only gone a short ways before we had a problem. One of the bulls decided to walk through another ranchers fence and graze in his pasture. (This is the kind of stuff that bulls like to do.) With the two of us kids working together, it took about an hour to get the bull out of the pasture and back on the route home. (We left the fence.)

We went a little farther down the road with the bulls, feeling proud that it only took us an hour to get the bull straightened out, when it happened again. This time both bulls walked right through another fence and into someone's pasture. Only this time, the pasture was filled with cows. Now the bulls were worked up and causing all sorts of havoc in the pasture. (If there's one thing that bull's like, it's cows.)

Feeling a little overwhelmed, we began the task of cutting the bulls out from the rest of the herd, but as soon as we'd get one out and try to get the next one out the first bull would charge right back in. The bulls were mad that we weren't just leaving them alone to sweet talk all that lovely female cow-flesh.

Somehow, (and I'm still not sure how,) we managed it. Kristin and I got the bulls away from the herd and back on the road. And, since you asked, yes, we made it all the way home with those bulls... four hours late.

My grandpa never did ask us if we had any trouble or what had taken so long, he just gave us a nod when we got home and sent us out on a different task. He wasn't one for high praise, we'd just done what he told us to do. But, in thinking back on that day after all these years, I think that just may be the day that I became a real cowgirl!

I've yet to become a great fencer.