“The White Death is loose,†I said to the girls as I stepped in to our log home from the moonlit night. It was a nightly ritual. We turn Jackie, our seasoned veteran Great Pyrenees dog free from her run most nights. She and Allie Shacker, our young Pyr, have the run of the ranch after dark. They …
On Planting Apples
Even though I only have one grandchild so far, I find myself fervently hoping my grandkids will like Honeycrisp apples. I swing the pick high overhead and bring it down, business end striking the soil like steel on flint. Daylight has long since faded as I have already planted 9 starts in the …
Respect for the Mystery of History
I yanked on the stubborn cheater bar to no avail in an attempt to open the rickety gate in the barbed wire fence. Caryl would just love this gate, I thought. The cobbled together fence marked our property line with the BLM; it was probably easily over 60 years old. Many hands had fixed on it over …
When Economy of Scale becomes Loss
July heat levitated in visible waves from the black pavement and buffeted us through our wide open pickup windows. Caryl and I were in the outback now, up in the broad headwaters of the Lemhi, clipping along at 60 MPH, skimming across the wide open sagebrush ocean of high desert Idaho. Caspar’s 6 …
On Trusting the Horse…and Them Us
As I came across the deep swale and dry wash that we call Lawson Creek in the moonlight, I let the lines go lightly slack on the two tons of draft horse in front of me. I shouldn’t have. My timing was off, and it was my second mistake of the night. It was at that point that things began to unravel …
Life and Death at Cow College
The cows were dying; of that I was certain. All of them. As I stood in the low angle sunlight of this February morning, they huddled around me, silently. I could see their slack bellies and ribcages in the early morning light. The windrow of lovely and fragrant green alfalfa hay that I laid down the …