I stand in the backyard before anyone else is awake. It's just me and the big white dog, Allie. My hands find the thick ruff of her neck, and she likes it. And I have the sense that there is no atmosphere and that there is nothing that stands between the heavens and us. The rosaceous dawn …
Love on the Range
In retrospect, I know now that it was a love affair. Her name was Missy, and I believe it was mutual. I didn't even try to keep it a secret from Caryl. I knew that she figured it out early in my forays into distant rangelands with the then nineteen-year-old Missy. We had been discovered in our …
Big Dogs and Wild Protein
"Put your hands where they can see them, and FREEZE!" I brusquely commanded the man who stood in the lane in front of our ranch house in the frosty morning air. His fully camouflaged person stopped midstride, and froze, just as our two Great Pyrenees stock guardian dogs descended on him, circling …
2016 Inherding SARE Report
Abstract: The summer season of 2016 marked the second year of trialing "Inherding" as a viable way to meet the growing complexities of grazing cattle on public (and private) rangeland. In concept, "Inherding" is quite simple. Rather than managing cattle with a "keeping out" paradigm and working …
The Best Friend in Border Pups
The Salmon River was starting to swell with the first release of spring snow melt, and it flowed like a ribbon of liquid cold steel. Twelve-year old Melanie and I stood horseback, wordless, in the spitting rain on the rocky shoreline and eyed the 20 or so cattle on the opposite bank across the …
When Beef Goes Wrong
"Do you guys ever process cull dairy cows from big dairies for beef?" I waited patiently for Amber's answer. "No, we don't. We occasionally do a dairy type cow, usually like somebody's family milk cow that somebody fed out to fat for their own beef consumption, but we don't have any customers that …