The Chemical Roundup
The field was curiously brown in the height of the green season. It was early August, and the stand of dead-looking meadow grass stood in grim contrast to the verdant fields all around it. Despite its tawny complexion, my neighbor Tom swung the gate open, and 96 head of his…
Unleashing a Genie
Soil agroecologist Nicole Masters, daughter Melanie and I were standing on the windswept shoulder of a peak high up on our Hat Creek grazing ranges that a precipitous and narrow jeep trail meandered over. Before and just below us was the sweep of Bear Basin, an unbroken 15 square mile…
In Beetle Business
The repulsive seething mass of beetles shimmered in the high-altitude sunlight. I found myself transfixed by the frenetic movement of their red-backed bodies. I had spotted a few of the shiny-winged standouts on top of the dried and crusty stud pile while hiking up to check on the flow of a spring in our low…
Ancients on the Range
Mammoth tusks. Images of ancient ivory filled my mind as I followed the mud and ice track in my pickup, meandering off the high ridgeline of the Continental Divide yesterday. It was a lovely day for the drive into our county from the Montana outback. I’d only passed one other pickup over the last hour…
Pregging Cows with Dr. Jeff
There’s bears in the bottoms. It’s been established by eyewitnesses that there’s definitely two individuals that are hungrily wandering around in the willows below our house; one looks like a large boar (male) and the other like a 2-year old or yearling cub. There’s several winter-kill elk and deer scattered throughout the dense birch and…