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12/4/06
Like many of you winter blew in here with a vengeance this week. After a long sweet fall it was a bit of a shock. One evening I woke to the sound of wind rattling the windows and as the sun rode it was snowing at a temp of 30. As the day went along the temperature dropped every minute. At noon it was 19 and when we did chores it was –2. The wind blew all day making it feel even colder and forcing us too shut down the woodstove due to back drafting and the house filling with smoke. It snowed lightly most of the day but the wind just blew it all in the trees. Total accumulation was about four inches. I woke the next morning to a temperature of –12.
Over night we were in winter mode. Chopping Ice Sucks!
We have to cut hole snow for the heifers at the house tank, horses at June tank, the North Trap tank and 7HL tank.
12/8/06
For the past month or so we have had gates set so the four two year old colts could leave the barn lot and go out into the South trap. Sometimes they would not come in for a day or two, sometimes Wrangler my favorite would not come in when the other three did but would be with them the next time. He’s a bit of a free spirit.
The other three were in night before last, none came in yesterday, and the three came in this morning. I got worried and went out hunting Wrangler. I rode the South trap starting at the far side and worked my way back. Around the spring I found horse tracks and that made me feel better. They were just two days old. As I was just coming out of the tree line a few hundred yards from the main road I spotted an eagle. Seeing an eagle is a pretty sight, but it also means trouble. They are the vulgures of winter, something is dead.
I did a loop and saw ravens fly up from the ground and there I found Wrangler or what was left of him. He was right at the spot we usually have a winter feeder and leave salt, about 125 yards off the main road. I first checked for wolf tracks around him…none, just lots of coyotes.
Then I started looking him over. The coyotes and birds had done a big job on his belly section but the rest was intact. I saw right away that the upper joint of his front leg was broken, badly shattered. My first thought was that he’d been hit by a car or one of the logging trucks working the fire area.
I went out to the road and drove it looking for broken glass, skid marks or blood. None.
I did see where a truck had pulled off the side of the road and stopped.
I went back to the body and started the unpleasant task of skinning and dissecting. It is worse when it’s an animal you have known since the day he was born. It’s different with horses than cattle.
I found massive hemorrhaging in his shoulder first. The bone was shattered and fragments driven deep into the muscle. When I cut the skin back from his shoulder to his chest the cause of death became very apparent. I found a very small hole in the skin of his chest and followed a widening tract from there to his shoulder joint and from there into his chest cavity, which was full of blood. His heart was still there and I saw a small tear on the very tip of it. Using a stick I inserted it into the chest hole and it aligned perfectly through the shattered shoulder and on to the heart.
Some one had stopped on the road and shot him as he licked the old salt. There was a hunting season going on which ended day before yesterday, my estimated time of death. This horse didn’t look like an elk. He was a light tan and white spotted appaloosa. I guess someone was leaving the hunt after no luck and just really wanted to kill something.
12/12/06
The winter grind is well established now and with many months still to go. The heifers take a lot of time every day but they are getting easier. For a while we were feeding three times a day both hay and grain, hauling water twice a day. They were eating a ton of grain every six days and sixteen bales of hay every day at a cost of about $155.00 per day. After a couple weeks we moved them into the feedlot and were able to cut the grain out completely. Then a week ago we opened up the house lot for them giving them some graze to supplement the eight bales of hay we feed.
It takes about three hours to do chores in the mornings and two in the evenings. It’s the ice chopping that takes so much time. Every night is in the single digits or below zero and that sun is pretty weak so the ice really thickens up. While chopping the other morning I realized that when I die I’m sure it will be one frosty dawn swinging an axe into eight-inch ice.
We have spent several days gathering strays. There is a hole somewhere in the 7HL fence and they are getting out and going to the lake. With chores taking so much time and the days so short it doesn’t leave much day light for working. Just about every night we have been unsaddling in the dark. For a while it wasn’t bad with a good moon but now it is pitch black and cold as hell.
We have made several more trips to the sale with some little calves, old bulls and old cows. My total cull number is now up to 47. That’s a lot of cows out of the herd so next year we will have a short calf crop till the following year when all these heifers come on line.
Lots of time either in the saddle or on the road. Nate likes the truck driving best now. He has a new gal.
She is a cute thing and the daughter of the man that farms the Double H where we get our hay. So he is always more than happy to get a load of hay each time we come back from the sale.
It seems pretty serious too. She has two cute lil’ kids and Nate wants nothing more than a family.
Once again I apologize for my tardiness in getting Logs up. Much of the time our Internet was down having to buy a new dish due to a supposed lightning strike. But most of the reason is my evenings being taken up with end of the year number crunching and also getting prepared for a nasty lawsuit with the Forest Service.
According to congress every U.S.F.S. grazing allotment has to have a N.E.P.A. assessment done every ten years. Mine has been in the works for two years and is one year over due. It’s a long process of establishing grazing numbers based on field data. All allotments must be done by 2009, or any that are not done will be closed to grazing. The Forest Service is moving slow because of under funding and also the environmental groups know the 2009 date and appeal every assement and drag them into court to slow the process so more allotment will not get done.
The way around it is to file a Categorical Exclusion which only a few allotments qualify because you have to have no grazing issues and be passed as an upward tend range meaning since the permit holder has held management the range has improved. Basically meaning every thing is fine and no changes needed following past management history. That is the way we went with ours and but when it finally came out they cut my allotment by 30%. Saying since I have never been fully stocked it is based on my past numbers. I couldn’t go for that. One I had plans to keep growing my herd and two it cut the value of the ranch by over $250,000.
So I got with the Cattle Growers Assoc., got their lawyer and we prepared for a court case. The U.S.F.S. decided just last week that they would rescind the C.E. and start over with a regular N.E.P.A. Assessment. So we are right back to square one. It was a waste of a lot of nights of info gathering and evidence sorting but I guess my files needed it.
As I mentioned a lot of time has been spent number crunching P&E reports back to 2001, when I got my QuickBooks. It revealed a poor picture.
The guest business has never been a moneymaker. Oh sure it creates a lot of cash flow, it looks good on paper but the overhead is tremendous. There has been a loss every year. And it gets worse with each rise in insurance rates, fuel, user fees, hay, on and on.
So after much soul searching we have decided to shut down the guest business and concentrate on the cattle.
It is something that I should have done several years ago but the biggest part of it was I loved sharing the country and our lifestyle with folks and watching them enjoy it. It has been a good 12 year run, made loads of friends and had so many good times and laughs.
In 2007 we will only be taking folks who have been here previously, friends they bring with them and people referred by previous guests. You will be treated less like a guest than ever before. You will do what we have to do. We will not be trying to accommodate your wishes, needs or wants.
We will have no 2007 calendar so just give us a call with a time, which works for you, and we will work out the details. Those of you to whom we owe trips, we will honor our commitment.
Of course we will need help during spring branding in May and fall gather but also in the summer we will be out in camp watching our cattle, doing some branding. I will be able to give the approximate dates we will change pastures soon and those are times we need help gathering and moving.
In 2007 we will spend the month of May at Fence tank branding and moving into Loco Mtn. Pasture. There we will set a camp in Big Loco Meadow near Harleyville, with a small camp across the mountain in Loco Flats. If the water holds we will stay there until July when we move to Canyon Creek pasture and run our operation from the cabin there.
Then in September we will move to Pitchfork for just a few weeks and on into 7HL in October. We will be weaning the calves here at the H.Q. again this year.
I also hope to do a pack trip or two into the wilderness area and maybe a two or three person Pathfinder ride. Let me know if any one is interested and dates which would work for you. These could not be done in May or October.
Also if anyone wants to come for a winter week we can work that out too. Not like summer, less riding but a chance to see the country in snow and get a taste for winter cattle and ranch work. In March and April you might enjoy a week with Nate or I in camp riding and watching for early calving cows and getting them home.
We will have to start charging a pick up and drop off fee. It will be $175.00 per trip, not per person. It will be split between travelers but there will never be more than four people. |
