Tana Gilbert

Born and raised around horses, cattle and dogs, this buckaroo prefers a saddle to a truck and solitude to the city.

Southwestern Idaho doesn’t offer much except dry desert country dotted with cattle, and that is the way Tana Gilbert likes it. The Oreanna, Idaho, buckaroo has never strayed far from her part of the state.

Though she grew up independent and always horseback, Gilbert spent 10 years married to a farmer before she divorced and went back to riding the range. She has worked for Scott Nichelson’s CCT land and Cattle for more than 14 years, running two cow camps on Cinnabar Mountain. Gilbert works alone, except for her pack of female cow dogs, and she doesn’t plan on changing anytime soon.

Horses were our toys. Mom and dad were busy with our custom feedlot, and it was all family working with us. I can remember being horseback and moving cows all the time. Mom would put jars of milk in our saddlebags. [My siblings and I] would ride so long and it would be so hot that we would have butter by the time we got back to the house.

There was a pile of horses to break one time, and [my older brother] Lance and Martin Black had us up at the camp with them. The older guys would rope one, tie it down to saddle it, and then throw one of us kids up there. At one time there was probably seven of us kids in a round corral running horses. We were hanging on for life and getting yelled at not to pull on the horses. It got interesting!

We grew up doing, you know? We would be all scraped up and cut from falling off. It didn’t matter to us if we didn’t go skating; we got to rope bulls and ride colts. When I was 13 or 14 years old, we were branding cattle for neighbors and working for wages.

Ray Hunt put clinics on, and all of us junior-high kids were his fill-ins. We got quite a bit of free advice. That was how we were raised. When an adult told you something, you took it in and tried to figure it out.

People wonder what I do at night. I read. Reading is a big deal to me. I went damn near through junior high with dyslexia and no one caught it. I was a horrible student because I couldn’t read! Why didn’t someone see that?

“People say I work too hard, but I haven’t fallen over dead yet.”

I guess I’m lazy because I don’t want to deal with the rat race out there. It makes me nuts to deal with people in town. I like cows and I like moving cows.

I like to shift gears on a horse. Walking behind cows, you can meander along, but once I’m on the country I was to get out and walk. If my horse won’t walk good, someone else needs to own him. A horse will either make it in my country or he won’t.

The more you ride, the better horse you are going to get. I use a lot of horses, and some days I ride 14 or 15 hours from butte to butte.

I go to the Elko [County] Fair every year in the mixed team branding. It’s an all-day affair, and you sit and watch guys working horses. My horses don’t slide and spin, but they will get down and dance with a cow. I like that. Once I get a horse to do that, I’ve got them broke and we can have fun.

My dogs are tough. I have a group of spayed females that are working good. The dogs go with me every day. I can trot all day, and my horse can trot all day, but I have to think about those four little hairy dogs with me. I would like to trot all the way home, but they are at a run to keep up with me. I need them, so I take care of them.

I’m all over this mountain horseback. I get to see the un-touristy part of this country. I’ll ride along and find part of a wagon or some old dishes. Most people wouldn’t take the time to ride and look at the land, but I’m on it every day.

It’s a constant fight to try and save this way of life. Someone always wants to stop you; they don’t want this land, but they don’t want us [ranchers] to have it.

Watching cows is my favorite part. When they come up as calves and I see them change from a little guy to a big, fat guy getting on the truck, I know I’ve accomplished something. I made my goal for that year.

I’m happy as I’ve ever been right now. I’ve got a damn-good-paying job, living where I want to and doing what I want to do. If anything, I would like to own a piece of dirt on this mountain. Something to fence off, stand on and say, “This is mine.”

This article was originally published in the November 2012 issue of Western Horseman.

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