Ancients on the Range
Mammoth tusks. Images of ancient ivory filled my mind as I followed the mud and ice track in my pickup, meandering off the high ridgeline of the Continental Divide yesterday. It was a lovely day for the drive into our county from the Montana outback. I’d only passed one other…
Pregging Cows with Dr. Jeff
There’s bears in the bottoms. It’s been established by eyewitnesses that there’s definitely two individuals that are hungrily wandering around in the willows below our house; one looks like a large boar (male) and the other like a 2-year old or yearling cub. There’s several winter-kill elk and deer scattered…
Grass to Grain and Back Again
Thousands of cattle on a braided network of well-worn trails were weaving their way out of the high mountains of the Hat Creek country. Around 30 to 40 leather and flannel-clad dirt cowboys on horseback rode with them, and when their wide brimmed hats failed to block the setting sun, a pillar-cloud of volcanic ash…
Below the Feet of a Giant
At the foot of a giant, I dug a little soil test hole a few days ago. I was in a remote stand of massive coast redwoods—one of the most northern great groves of the magnificent trees in the southern reaches of coastal Oregon. Clouds drifted through the treetops, and whitewater cascades poured over the…
The Pine Contortionist
The surf is pounding hard against solid rock as I write this. February winds drive breakers that hammer the basaltic pillars and haystacks dotting the shoreline and send spray rocketing skyward. Caryl managed to score a super reasonable house on the bluffs perched precariously along the Oregon seacoast for a short getaway. Our 60s bodies,…