The Home Ranch - Book 34

If you like reading about cowboys and what they do all day, this book is for you.

The Home Ranch is the third (chronologically) in the Little Britches series by Ralph Moody.  In this story he goes back to the summer he worked as a cowhand at Mr. Batchlett's home ranch.  He touches on this briefly in a chapter in the second book, Man of the Family.  But in The Home Ranch he takes a whole book to talk about what he did that summer.  I enjoyed this book but perhaps not as much as the first two.  It turns out cattle ranching and working with horses gets pretty technical and I just couldn't get interested enough to really understand what was actually going on. How exactly did the horse 'cut' the calf from its mother cow?  I'm fuzzy on it.  Why exactly did they have to take the herd to some such destination over miles and miles of vast territory and through terrible weather?  I think they were finding traders on the way?  But the whole financial thing was hazy to me. 

Ralph meets a whole new slew of people living and working at the home ranch (which I gather is the opposite of the ranch closer to town)  Mr. Batchlett deals in milk cows who aren't currently producing.  But he's also got steers to trade as well.  We meet some character types, Cowboy Sid who loves Jenny, Hank the old braggart, Zeb, slow, quiet and competent, and the new cowhand, brutal Trinidad. And most importantly, Mr. Bendt, whose daughter Hazel becomes Ralph's best friend.  Moody does a wonderful job at sketching her character, smart, determined, bossy and overly sensitive.  Exactly like a 12 or 13 year old girl.  But they both loves horses and the ranch life and Hazel wants to learn those riding tricks that Ralph can do.  She knew about him before he arrived for she'd saved a clipping from the local paper from when Ralph and Hi won at the rodeo.

I thought the book didn't really get absorbing until about half way.  Then things started to pick up.  If you love horses, read this book.  There are several horses with personalities in this book.  One thing I noted though is that the women in this book are as hard working as the men and treated as equals.  It made me recall how those western states gave women the right to vote before the 19th Amendment made it constitutional law.  I can see why those western states were more advanced than the east coast.  Everyone absolutely had to pitch in to get things done.  I think the men truly appreciated the teamwork women offered.

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