TULLIBY LAKE, Alta. – At 83, Don Sidener still rides his horse every three hours during calving time to check on his herd.With a flashlight in hand at night and his horse, Buster, beneath a well-worn saddle, Sidener cuts out cows ready to calve and takes them to the barn for the big event.”That’s where you’ve got to have a good horse,” he said. “A horse soon learns and he’s watching that cow like you are.”His longtime horse, Buck, now runs with the cattle in retirement.Sidener has a lifetime of experience breaking horses, operating a commercial cow-calf herd and running a ranch near the Saskatchewan border with his wife, Doris.A gnarled partial finger attests to the dangers he has faced operating farm equipment, including a hay binder.”Someone went to find my finger and it was still in the glove…. Doris wouldn’t let it in the house and left it outside and the cat ate it.”He’s also been pushed around by rowdy cattle kicking gates and has fallen off his horse and been knocked unconscious.In one incident, Sidener recalled waking up on the ground after getting thrown while trying to cut out an expectant cow in the middle of the night.”I saw my horse standing in the alley and I walked and got up on the horse again,” he said.He and his son, Carson, found the errant cow and brought her into the yard to calve.At the barn, Carson noticed blood running down his father’s face and later learned his father had suffered a blood clot.Mixed medical advice ensued, with one doctor saying Sidener needed a hole drilled into his head to relieve the pressure. Others felt Sidener was in good health and the blood clot would be absorbed back into his body.The old cowboy chose to go home and let nature take its course. Two months later, the clot was gone.Inside a comfortably renovated home, evidence of the ranching lifestyle abounds from the rodeo and threshing photos to the regular neighing of a horse clock to their century old OXO brand.He and Doris married in 1959 and farmed here, just down the road from his father’s place. Stony and hilly, with only 20 acres broken, the land was best suited for raising cattle and growing feed.The $1 an acre price was too rich for the Sideners so they rented at first before eventually taking over his father’s farm after he was hurt in a car accident. His father was told he’d never walk again, but did and lived until 101.”This country here was nothing when my dad was here…. not even a road.”We pulled a teacherage up here and it was our first home together,” he said.Sidener wipes away a tear when asked about a tattered photo of his wife of 60 years beside her dad’s truck, one that’s been in his wallet for decades.The couple raised six children, including Carson, who lives nearby and farms with his father. Other children include Keith, Ken, Virginia, Sandra and Doreen.Sidener recalled working as soon as he was old enough to haul one small log.”When you came home from school, you had something to do.”Doris agreed ranch life was always labour intensive for Don. “Hard work, that’s all he’s being doing.”The diminutive man, who walks with a limp from a deteriorating knee, continues to feed, vaccinate, brand and move cattle and bale hay, seed and attend the local Lea Park cattle sale.Sidener doubts he’d have continued this long without modern machinery and labour saving devices, as he reflects on a photo of himself forking feed piled metres high on a flat bed wagon.”If I had to do that, I wouldn’t be in cattle,” he said.The Sideners recalled bringing newborn calves into the house to warm them. Today the family has switched to March calving and a calving barn with eight heaters.Sidener has broken and trained horses, preferring the “haltering and choking down” method to horse whispering techniques.”That’s where you get all spoiled horses,” he said.The BSE years were hard on the Sideners, who had to sell half their herd for half what it was worth. It was especially difficult, coming on the heels of successive drought years, where they had to buy feed for $105 per bale.”It took all those cows to pay for the hay to save the others we had left,” he said.Commenting on the drought, he said: “We never took the balers out.”Despite the ups and downs, both Sideners have enjoyed their ranch lifestyle.”If I had to live in town, I wouldn’t last a year,” said Sidener.
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