Even though I only have one grandchild so far, I find myself fervently hoping my grandkids will like Honeycrisp apples. I swing the pick high overhead and bring it down, business end striking the soil like steel on flint. Daylight has long since faded as I have already planted 9 …
Work and Life on the Ranch
Respect for the Mystery of History
I yanked on the stubborn cheater bar to no avail in an attempt to open the rickety gate in the barbed wire fence. Caryl would just love this gate, I thought. The cobbled together fence marked our property line with the BLM; it was probably easily over 60 years old. Many hands had …
Counterfeit in the Country
As I step into our fulfillment warehouse, near Salmon, Idaho, I turn to check out the early morning light that bathes rugged peaks of the Continental Divide. A rosaceous predawn light outlines the snow-encrusted silhouettes of the Rocky Mountain uplift before me. I never get used …
When Economy of Scale becomes Loss
July heat levitated in visible waves from the black pavement and buffeted us through our wide open pickup windows. Caryl and I were in the outback now, up in the broad headwaters of the Lemhi, clipping along at 60 MPH, skimming across the wide open sagebrush ocean of high desert …
On Trusting the Horse…and Them Us
As I came across the deep swale and dry wash that we call Lawson Creek in the moonlight, I let the lines go lightly slack on the two tons of draft horse in front of me. I shouldn’t have. My timing was off, and it was my second mistake of the night. It was at that point that …