I stepped back in time today and met what the West used to be. Unfortunately the homogenization of culture through the ubiquitous nature of technology means that most of these "real west" icons tend to be quite old, and tech-adverse. They are out of place in this age of smartphones, smart cars and …
The Days are Short, the Time is Long
This week's story is from Abby, our second oldest daughter. She is a lover of plants and nurturing, of comfort and caring. You first notice the color change. Lush greens are fading to brown, the green color trickling down out of the tops of the grass and down into the roots. You can still see …
Fixing Flats and Food
It was last Saturday night in Boise, Idaho, and the city was hopping. It was a lovely cool evening, and it seemed everyone was turned out in their shiny late model SUVs and chrome-wheeled hybrids for a night on the town. Melanie and I just finished a very successful beef sampling at the Boise …
Fire and Morels
Dear Friends and Partners, It was an uneasy sleep that night. Despite the tumult just beyond cook tent, I tried to sleep on the ground in cow camp on the banks of the river, eyeing the sprinkling of stars through the latticework of bud-bursting cottonwood trees. Linnaea lay passed out beside me, …
You Must Have Gone Crazy
Snow blanketed the high country last night. I woke up at daybreak this morning to see a mantle of white across all of the Hat Creek ranges. It was perfect that we brought the beeves back from the mountains on Saturday. It was time. The cattle and horses would actually be fine continuing …
When Fall Rushes in Like a Lion
What had been a tempest of wind finally abated enough that I could hear again; it was no longer ripping through the treetops of the thick Douglas-fir forest we were herding 280 head of beeves in. The adrenaline rush that had driven me for the past two hours was finally ebbing—I took long …