20%CHANCE OF FLURRIES Casper Wyoming rancher Vern Robinett modeled for my sculpture.20% Chance of Flurries

20%CHANCE OF FLURRIES Casper Wyoming rancher Vern Robinett modeled for my sculpture.20% Chance of Flurries is a sculpture that won a national competition and was commissioned as a 15-foot tall monument by the Colorado Department of Agriculture. Placed at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, the sculpture honors the dedication and hardships of the people who make their living ranching and farming. I was with Guy Robinett We were riding out in his pasture to catch a young calf to put across a saddle when he told me about a time a few years back when the weather forecast for that day was a “20% chance of flurries.” The seemingly small storm turned out to be a severe spring blizzard and killed more than half of their herd. As I depict him here, the rancher has his head down against the wind, calf across the saddle, with his horse pulling through deep snow in the middle of a blizzard.
For me, this image of a cowboy on a horse saving a young calf embodies the test of endurance that highlights the best qualities of the men who live in the West. They face hard conditions and take life as it comes.

20% Chance of Flurries
Poem by Jeff Anslinger
As we headed out to start the day
We noticed the sky was turnin' gray
A cold, north wind had started to blow
and we knew that by noon there'd be snow
Now I'll admit it’s early spring
And a man never knows what the weather will bring
But most of the calves are already born
And just last week the sheep were shorn
Then the blizzard blew in like a demon from hell
How much snow we'd get was hard to tell
So towards the shelter we pushed the stock
But the snow was a driftin' by two o'clock
Then the sheep went to millin' and the cattle bunched tight
But like mad men against nature we kept up the fight
We were yellin' and whippin' with our catch ropes
But as the blizzard raged on, there sank our hopes
Across our saddles we carried calves to the shed
And prayed to God that by morning they all wouldn't be dead
We made it to the house, but our hopes they were gone
Then the blizzard blew out just before dawn
For we knew the battle we had lost
But then first light showed us the cost
My heart was sinkin' while I was on the saddle
Countin' dead sheep and draggin' frozen cattle
But in my mind some words still remain
This weatherman's little rhyming refrain:
“Stockmen and ranchers, you have no worries
It's only a 20% chance of flurries.”