I'm horseback on my buckskin mare as I write this, settling our beeves on a new meadow. It is a grassy sky island in a sea of high altitude coniferous forest, and even in late July, the grass is green. In addition, the air is thick with the fragrance of pine and fir, and a slight drizzle makes the …
This Week on the High Ranges
A huge cloudburst hit the high ranges today, and our cowboys and critters were right in the middle of it. We always can use the moisture, but it was the lightning that concerned me. From our home ranch, we can see right where the cattle are, 15 miles away in the Salmon River highlands, and the …
Ready for the Ranges
We've been working hard getting ready for the trip to high ranges. Today we go through the beeves and decide which ones stay at home, and which ones head up to the mountains. They'll walk and graze over 100 miles through of the summer in over 70 square miles of wilderness. Horses need shoes on their …
Taking Care of 70 Square Miles
There's more to springtime than the beauty of life regenerating. It's a real pleasure to be working outside with critters and grass. But the irony is that spring is also the time of many, many government meetings. The beeves, birds, and coyotes have it made! Of course, like everyone else, …
What’s in the Water?
It looks like Winter's threats may indeed be real. She has been shaking her cold fist at us now after we were spoiled by a few weeks of warmth and the promise of spring. As I write, icy winds that come straight off the Arctic are sweeping the ranch, snow included. Caryl was thinking about planting …
The Story of Shelter
This week a customer who used to live in the Netherlands contacted me. She was wondering if our beeves go inside a barn for part of the year. She was raised in dairy country, in one of the north provinces of the Netherlands, as were my parents. There, as in the much of the US, milk cows are kept …