I’m writing this while horseback on the breaks high above the flood waters of the snowmelt swollen Salmon River. My kids got me this cool folding keyboard that attaches to my phone and fits nicely in my saddle bag. The juxtaposition of tech with the old worn leather of my gear amuses me, but it’s […]
Life Underground Matters
I’ve seen grass roots carefully excavated in all their upside down long hair glory. Only 10% or so of their biomass is above ground. If we were grass, only our head would be above the soil layer. But like us with our heads above soil, there is much more to grass than the leaves of […]
A Grass of Velvet
It’s springtime in the Rockies. Nearly all the birds are back from their vacays on the Mexican Riviera, and our home place is green and teeming with the sounds and scents of life. Killdeers call and bait relentlessly trying to lure cows and calves from their camouflage nests (they do) and Sandhill crane calls echo […]
Restoration Ranching: How Cows Create Canyons
Despite the earth-moving events that would unfold later in the afternoon, this particular August day dawned like any other over the Hat Creek country. It was 1959, and the only witness to the devastation was one Dick McDaniel, who tended his sheep in the lower breaks of the range along the Salmon River. Dick shepherded […]
When Bovines Ruled
As the trapper climbed up through the thickly needled foliage of the stout fir tree, he couldn’t have known that his rear end would be parked there on that rough barked branch for nearly 4 days. Unfortunately, he couldn’t take his horses up there with him, and if they were swept away by the brown […]
A Near Barbeque of Cowboys and Cattle on Taylor Butte
The watercolor azure skies above our little band of cattle and riders were rapidly degenerating into a threatening black of charcoal on this particular August afternoon. Little did we know then what chain of events it would set in motion that would deepen in each of us cowboys a respect for the wild country in […]