Team effort | Alberta rancher Ken Cox made dozens of rope halters during a wintertime hospital stay
Ken Cox has little time to think about his upcoming round of chemotherapy. Instead of dwelling on his troubles, the Angus breeder makes rope halters.
“If you have time to think, your mind goes negative,” said Cox, who farms near Armena, Alta.
It takes three minutes for Cox to twist and knot rope into a halter for leading cattle.
Cox spent 73 days in hospital this winter due to a combination of heart attacks and cancer. He picked up the rope again in February after transferring back to Camrose hospital from Edmonton.
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Cox made 101 halters in two days from his Camrose hospital bed.
The previous November, during a three-hour outing from the Camrose hospital, with help from his wife, Verny, and friend Allan Gordeyko, Cox cut and melted rope to make 35 halters. He also made another 36 ropes for a 4-H club to make into halters to fill a halter order.
“It was about -30 C and they worked like crazy,” said Verny.
It was during this time that Cox worried he was getting low on rope and ordered another 26,000 feet. It arrived on 22 large spools in January, and all but eight spools have been twisted and knotted into halters.
“I wanted to have the halters made if the cancer got bad. I wanted them made up,” said Cox, who has spent hours in the shop making halters in an effort to stay positive during his cancer recovery.
“I thought, ‘this guy is so sick, what is he going to do with all this rope,’ but he’s determined,” said Verny.
“With 26,000 feet of rope and him the way he was, I was quite worried.”
They turn the rope into halters together.
Verny helps package the orders and cut and melt the ropes, but being left handed, she has never learned how to tie the ropes into halters.
About 1,300 rope halters are tucked into boxes at the back of the farm shop. At the front are shelves of halters ready to be shipped. Cox also has shelves of neck ropes that are used to tie up calves at shows.
Cox has been producing the brightly coloured rope halters for almost 40 years.
He learned how to make rope halters while in 4-H.
This winter, Cox was made honourary president of the Alberta Angus Association for his work in the industry.
A neighbour calved out Cox’s 31 head of cattle while he was in hospital. The cows and calves are now back home.
