Drowning wasn't a cause of death that I thought I'd ever have to deal with in beef cattle. I have had cows and calves go completely under water when sending the herd across the Salmon River at high water, but they all bobbed back up like corks, blowing snot out of their noses when they broke back to …
Baby Gets Brix
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 …