It started with what sounded like the resounding crack of a high powered rifle as the base of the tree snapped to pieces like kindling. I didn't get to see which way the tree was going to fall because the sound of it breaking was enough to send my horse in a wild and blind gallop through the thick …
On Using Horses for Rock Climbing
My hands instinctively submitted to an innate survival urge to pull back on the reins. The cantankerous mustang mare I was riding certainly wanted to go on, but I had never, ever been down a precipice like this on the back of a horse. An older, wiry cowboy named Rex, with his ancient cowboy …
Old Cowboys, Ranching, and Making Choices
Casper, the hammered 1968 Ford four-wheel-drive pickup rattled across the expansive sagebrush of Eighteenmile flats. The blinding glint of the rising sun was just creeping over the Beaverhead range and shone brightly through the dirty windshield. I looked behind me in the cracked mirror at the dust …
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Alderspring and Crater Lake
The thought of the desperate terror the residents of the Salmon River Country must have endured made my hands tight around the reins of my mare after my eyes had wandered, stopped, and fixed on the exposed soil layer that told the grisly tale as plain as day. The fact was that Italy’s Mt Vesuvius …
Beeves Beat Iron in the Bitter Cold
Dear Friends I stepped outside to get some wood to the hungry maw of the woodstove (wood is our only source of heat), and each step of my boots squeaked in the dry, hard snow of the path. I can guess the temperature within 10 degrees just by the way the snow sounds. We have over 2 feet of snow …
Life at Thirty Below Zero
Dear Friends It is late on Saturday night, and we are pretty flat with exhaustion from our honest fight with an unusually cold winter. My creative juices are a little expired, so this tome is a short one. Tomorrow, Sunday, is usually a light day for us, but there are enough things that need …