I was the Forage Scout yesterday. What that entails is getting my 56 year old rear end fastened to a dirt bike for a rough and tumble journey of 140 miles across hill and dale and mountain and canyon and seeing what the grassland situation is across all of our wilderness range. There’s some old …
Comatose Cow Crew
The large lean-to tarp flapped in the cool night air and the Coleman lantern cast a warm orb over the cook tent. I eyed my crew as we sat quietly eating supper off the camp stove and grill. They were catatonic as they chewed dinner, and looking slightly stupefied. It was near midnight, and I’ve …
When Typical Tests
With the rain increasing in intensity, I gave my mare, Natalie, her head as she picked her way across the steep, slick and rocky mountainside, bent on catching 25 recalcitrant cattle that clambered high above us near the peak of the volcanic dome. They had cut from the main herd, in search of what …
The Summer Walk in the Wild Begins
The final sort is done, and now we are staged for the long walk to the mountain grasslands. We have 300 head in the low meadow; they’ve all been health screened, tag identified and weighed. We’ll let them eat their fills for a few days, meeting early spring grazing objectives on our home …
Junior Takes the Bus
The May sun was already down; it was going to be dark soon. We were running out of time. As Josh and I meandered and bounced the old pickup through the 200-acre hay meadow, our eyes scanned the verdant shag carpet of spring grass that was coming up with abandon. I was thankful it was early spring; …
How to Lose 100 Beeves
On this May 12, treachery is about. I wake this morning with the first light of dawn, and I see the telltale signs that winter has attempted a coup while we rested. She crept back with her weakened forces and attempted insurgence on our valley under cloak of darkness: a solid line of demarcation …