Let’s roll back the clock 34 years, and I’m still me. Instead of my 2021 gray, my hair is the dirty blonde that goes with my blue eyes of Dutch ancestry. I’m working in the forests in the steep and rocky mountains of Central Idaho. I’m in great shape from hiking up and down at elevations of …
The Range of Wisdom
After I lit the Coleman gas lantern in the cook-tent I stepped out through the open flaps and took one last look out in the fading light. The horse string was scattered out on their hillside night graze of bluebunch wheatgrass, and below them, over 400 head of yearling cattle bedded down contentedly …
Returning to Our Home on the Range
This piece was first featured on the On Land website. On Land is published by the Western Landowner's Alliance. The publication highlights voices and stories of stewardship in the West. Visit their website for more information, to subscribe, or to read more about the efforts of those who are …
Where Surf Meets Turf
The October moon had risen high enough to yield the dapple of breeze swayed luminescence over our camp under the tall cottonwoods on the banks of the Salmon River. Caryl and I were spiked out for a few days at the very lowest elevation of the Hat Creek ranges, where we summer cattle. Just a month …
The Arrowhead and the Pearl
Dear Friends and Partners: It was a hunter who first picked it up, and he probably was a resident of the Hat Creek country itself. The year is anyone’s guess, but it may be as early as when the last sheets of mountain ice left the Rockies—over 10,000 years ago. He may have been more recently …
Sheep in the Deep
Fresh out of the showroom, and on the way home from church, the 1972 red Pontiac Bonneville with a faux rag top cut a path through the early spring whiteout conditions on the high plains of Colorado. Sheepman Dave Jolly was behind the wheel, and his wife, Albertine, rode shotgun. She alone was …