The Salmon River is running chocolate milk, and I think it saved us. I had been clattering on the rough cobble of the rocky shore, threading my way through downfall and impenetrable willow brush with my mare, Sunny, tracking a couple of steers in the early morning light as more rainclouds scudded across the short-lived sun. I scanned the steep bank …
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Beaver As Teacher
Beaver camp, July 2019. We call it that because there were at least two colonies of beavers there, thriving in the waters of upper Little Hat Creek, just a few hundred meters from where we were living as well, in a five tented temporary settlement of cowhands and horses, high in the backcountry at the foot of Table Mountain. They didn’t seem …
We Are Not Alone
They stealthed upon us suddenly in the silent black of night when we least expected it, as they often do. Ironically, we were just 5 minutes earlier taking about them. And it had been a while. We were all exhausted from a long day astride saddle horses in rough country. For icing on a fatigue cake, it was a late day coming into camp on …
Ode to Iron
Dear Friends and Partners: We have horseshoes. Lots of them. There are buckets and random piles around the shop, barn, and equipment sheds. And I’m not even counting the countless ones left up in the alpine goat-rocks of the Hat Creek Ranges. Often, we’ll find hand-forged ones up there, nearly a hundred years old, left by cowboys long gone …
Long Days and Lightning and Lantern Light
It’s been a rough week on the range, but all is well that ends well. The country—and this season’s climate simply got more difficult. The crew was thrust into thick forest, in a quest for the green grass of higher elevations. Meteorologists are saying that this is the driest, hottest spring and early summer we’ve had in 127 years. The abundant …
First ER Trip of the Season
Finally, I have a forced sit-down. I'm sitting in the Salmon, hospital ER, at 16-year-old daughter Maddy's bedside. She's reading a novel on her phone, waiting for the doc. I figured I might as well write a novel...to all of you. I think we might be here for a while. Her backcountry horseback herding crew found her afoot last evening, …
From Oak to Aspen
Three short weeks ago, we woke up to a coating of white on the ranch. Snow blanketed everything. The breaking buds on the willows and cottonwood trees looked hunched and bunched up from the cold, as if trying to stay warm. These species were both used to the maddening duel between winter and spring—no, summer. Last spring, we planted some new …
Why We’re at Home on the Range
Whew. It’s been a week. Last Saturday, we began the long trail for the summer. The 440 cattle and their horseback range rider crews commenced a summer journey that will take them over 600 miles through sagebrush grasslands, deep canyons, and up steep forest cloaked mountainsides. They will gain over 4000 feet of elevation through the summer, …