I took my grandbaby out for a walk today. It was a beautiful day; a gentle warm breeze rippling the waving and verdant grass, an occasional cloud scudding across an azure blue sky, and the windowpane clarity that betrayed the previously cloud-covered secret of snow streaked mountains. She's …
Ranching On the Deepest Lake.
The weird, pulsing vibration was something you could feel in your boots. It wasn't an earthquake, per se, but I wondered if it could bring one on. The contraption pulsed its way up and down our broad mountain valley on the main roads, piloted by one or two bored looking guys who likely were grad …
Orphan No More
I felt his eyes watching me before I spotted him. I quit fumbling with the padlock on the gate and looked into the brush along the valley bottom. Then, I heard the plaintive voice of a calf--by the sound, a few months old--emanating from the willows about 100 feet away. That call was what I …
When Baseball Reigned
“We all had baseball teams. We played each other at our schools and had home games and away games.” Neighbor Jim Martiny was telling me about when he grew up on his family ranch in May, Idaho. He’s in his 70s now and is 4th generation in Idaho’s remote Pahsimeroi Valley. His great-grandfather was …
The Storm of Flavor
There’s a storm on the range this year. The cow camp we are in right now was where the crew found their tents underwater 2 years ago after a cloudburst dumped buckets. But this year is one of the lowest precipitation years on record, so it isn’t rain. The storm is not hail, even though last week an …
From Under Water to Under Plow
The piles of rocks were what grabbed my attention. They had to be old piles; the stones had live bushes sticking out of them and were habitat for a healthy colony of lichens. I turned to Jim Baker, the owner of said rocks, and the land under them. "What's the story on those piles, Jim? When were …