NEWS ROUNDUP

Ranchers, environmentalists, BLM come to terms It's not often that livestock producers, environmentalists and federal agency officials can agree on anything. Least of all policies for public lands grazing. But, Friday evening, that's just what happened in a lawsuit that could have brought an end to livestock grazing on 800,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management grounds in the Jarbidge area. Still, the Hailey-based Western Watersheds, the BLM, and affected ranchers, including J.R. Simplot, signed a settlement agreement on a suit filed in April by the environmental group. If approved by the district court judge, the settlement allows grazing to continue, at reduced levels, over the next four to five years while the BLM conducts a comprehensive study of the ecological health of the sagebrush landscape. The settlement outlines an eight year process that includes developing a new management plant and environmental impact statement and issuing new grazing permits, Lucas said. The interim grazing plan grants tighter protections for native habitat, he said....
Ranch road has rocky past, changing future A four-mile stretch of rocky, rolling road that runs through this spread is used mainly as a cow trail, or as a spot for sunning rattlesnakes. Yet it's been fussed over by folks for years. Soon, this road in North Dakota's western Badlands may be smoothed into a thoroughfare, linking two state highways, cutting commute times for locals and allowing better access to the region's oil fields. "Theodore Roosevelt used to run his cows through this land," said Norma Eberts, one of the owners of a 5,298-acre ranch. "He gained his conservation principles and ethics from the time he spent out here. I think he'd be really disturbed about what's happening now." The ranch, shrouded by towering buttes next to Roosevelt's Elkhorn Ranch site, is owned by brothers Kenneth, Allan and Dennis Eberts and their families. They have been trying unsuccessfully to sell the picturesque property to the state or the National Park Service for public use and preservation. Billings County wants to use the road north of Medora to connect state Highways 16 and 85. It would cut as much as 100 miles off the commutes of many who live in the area and encourage economic development in the region, county officials say. The state Supreme Court in May ruled in the county's favor, reversing a temporary injunction granted by a judge and ordering the dismissal of the Ebertses' lawsuit seeking to permanently halt the road....
Feds authorize wolf kill The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has authorized the killing of the remaining adult gray wolves in the Chesimia Pack near Dworshak Reservoir. The pack has repeatedly preyed on livestock and hunting dogs in the region, officials said, and investigators believe the pack may be responsible for the recent death of an adult cow. Investigators with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services agency have confirmed that the pack killed a calf recently. Rancher Tom Beale of Pomeroy said he thinks the cow was killed at the same time or a little earlier than the calf, but the carcass was found later. Wolves in most of Idaho are protected under the Endangered Species Act but their special designation allows animals that prey on livestock to be killed....
Plan puts water back underground Forget running it down the draw. Forget spilling it into half-sliced-tire tanks for the cows. Forget infiltration ponds, in-channel reservoirs, "atomizers," zeolite treatment, Higgins loop ion exchange or gypsum applications. Anadarko Petroleum Corp. is spending more than $50 million to do what many Powder River Basin residents hoped would have been the industry standard from the beginning: Re-inject coal-bed methane water back into the ground. "It eliminates a lot of problems," said Anadarko spokesman Rick Robitaille. Construction is set to begin on a 48-mile water pipeline from Anadarko's County Line field in eastern Johnson County to injection wells at the company's property near Midwest. The 24-inch diameter pipeline will flow as much as 400,000 barrels of coal-bed methane water per day to the Salt Creek Field area where it will be injected into the Madison aquifer....
Ringed by wolves In wild areas to the north and to the south of Colorado, the sound of howling wolves pierces the night air. Wolves haven’t moved into Colorado yet, but they are making plenty of noise here already. Wolves, gone from the mountains and valleys of Colorado for most of a century, are the subject of intensive studies of wildlife management, court cases and debates among such diverse groups as environmentalists and ranchers. And they are the stars of a symposium that runs through Tuesday at the Antlers Hilton in Colorado Springs. “Frontiers of Wolf Recovery” is the title of the fourth international wolf conference, sponsored by the International Wolf Center in collaboration with Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. The conference seeks to raise awareness of wolves and their place in the natural environment, said Walter Medwid, executive director of the sponsoring organization that is based in Minnesota....
Managers determine grizzly's mortality threshold Earlier this year, the Wyoming Legislature passed a bill mandating the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to notify the county sheriff and local media of the county to which a grizzly bear has been relocated. The point, supporters argued, was to warn local residents that a known "problem" bear -- it likely had killed livestock but wasn't a safety threat to people -- was in their area. Opponents of the bill feared it would generate more anti-grizzly sentiment, and might even draw grizzly hunters to a relocation area to kill it. But supporters, including Jim Magagna and all but two legislators who voted for the bill, say it simply helps people be aware of potential grizzly risks. "These are problem bears, at least with livestock, which are more like to be problems with people," Magagna said. He said he had not heard of anyone having a problem in the past after a bear was relocated and a rancher had not known....
Property rights gain traction in overhaul of Endangered Species Act Missourians in Congress bedeviled by a homely fish and two skittish shorebirds exacted revenge last week by voting to strip the Endangered Species Act of protections on the books since 1973. The new version of the law approved by the House is unlikely to pass muster in the Senate, at least right away. Critics worry especially about a murky provision that could pay landowners tens of millions of dollars in damages for property devalued by restrictions due to rare critters or plants. Nonetheless, sponsors' success in getting this far and winning bipartisan backing shows widespread recognition of problems in one of the nation's most venerable environmental laws. In a barometer of emotions flowing on the issue, no fewer than four Old Testament books (Genesis, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Isaiah) were quoted during the daylong debate on the House floor. Members pointed fingers at one another as they spoke with passion about their core beliefs, whether they be saving "God's creatures" or protecting private property....
Juniper gobbling up Oregon wilderness Seventy-five years ago, about 1.5 million acres of Oregon's wilderness was covered in Western juniper. Now it has grown to 6.5 million acres, or about 10 percent of the state's surface — and the plant is spreading fast. A new survey by the U.S. Forest Service shows that juniper is taking over grassland, alarming biologists who see it as a threat to native habitats. "Some juniper is a good thing,'' said Rick Miller, a professor at Oregon State University. "But you can have too much of a good thing.'' Junipers send their roots deep beneath the surface, soaking up water before it reaches any other plants. "Eventually as they dominate, then you lose the shrubs, the grass and then you get bare ground,'' Miller said. Water runs off, gullying the landscape. Too little food or open range remains to support much wildlife....
Oil riches just out of reach Out in sagebrush country, Kenneth Brown is standing over part of the world's most concentrated energy resource, land that holds up to 1 million barrels of oil per acre. Too bad it's locked up in layers of rock in some places hundreds of feet underground. Such is the dilemma presented by the West's oil shale reserves, believed to contain more than 1 trillion barrels of oil - four times the holdings of Saudi Arabia, according to government and industry estimates. The problem is extraction: Underground layers of shale are as thick as 1,000 feet and were deposited over millions of years by an algae-producing sea. The Green River formation is potentially the world's most bountiful energy source - enough in theory to meet U.S. energy needs for a century - but it is an expensive nut to crack for energy companies. Plus, it could use up a lot of water in an arid region....
Overrun by elk Colorado is struggling with too much of a good thing - elk. The state's most majestic animals are denuding vegetation in national parks, gobbling shrubbery in Estes Park, threatening to contaminate valuable potato crops in the San Luis Valley and destroying livestock feed on Western Slope ranchlands. Some of the conflict lies in sheer numbers. About 338,000 elk were in Colorado before last year's hunting season, in which 63,336 were killed. That still left Colorado with 275,000 - more elk than any other state or Canadian province. It also was 86,000 above the state Division of Wildlife's objective of 189,000 animals....
Conata Basin recovery disputed Conata Basin is at the center of a long-running, multi-sided argument over prairie dogs, grazing, black-footed ferrets and conservation. After years of drought and a proliferating prairie-dog population, much of the vegetation had disappeared from parts of the basin on Buffalo Gap National Grassland. Now, after a season with more rainfall, the basin has recovered — to a degree. To what degree it has recovered is also in dispute among principals in the long-running debate over the proper role of prairie dogs, black-footed ferrets and cattle in the basin, which lies south of Badlands National Park. In 2004 and before, ranchers said prairie dogs — and, to a lesser degree, drought — had denuded the basin of most vegetation and ruined it for grazing. A handful of ranchers lease federal pastures for their cattle in the basin....
Grazing regulations won’t be reintroduced The U.S. Forest Service does not plan to reintroduce new grazing management proposals that drew the ire of North Dakota ranchers this summer, the state’s congressional delegation said Friday. The new policies, including one that barred ranchers who lease land or livestock in the national grasslands from obtaining grazing permits, were withdrawn for more public comment after ranchers and North Dakota politicians protested. Sens. Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad and Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., said U.S. Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey told them the agency will not move forward with the controversial changes....
Playing and paying The teeth-jarring dirt road to Leon Creek turns into a snarl of ATVs on some summer and fall days when off-road enthusiasts head out to enjoy the far reaches of this 53-square-mile flattop mesa. The growling machines, loaded with coolers, kids, cameras and dogs, veer off from here on the many trails unfurling over rises and into the trees. It has been a little more than 25 years since the first little 50cc ATV - a miniature Honda farm implement - putt-putted up a Jeep road in the Grand Mesa National Forest. Now, at any given time, hundreds of the machines - with engines packing up to 700 cubic centimeters and sporting double seats and megashocks - regularly roam the Engelmann spruce and aspen woods. As the nation's public forests turn 100, there are many such playgrounds. All-terrain-vehicle riders account for more than 5 percent of all visits to the nation's forests and grasslands. In Colorado, an estimated 11,000 ATVs were prowling the backcountry a dozen years ago. Now, there are more than 90,000 of them registered in the state....
Column: Forest Service Mocks Public Involvement The concept of public involvement is not hard to understand, but many agencies, most recently the Forest Service, don’t get it—and definitely don’t like it. Instead, agencies all-too-often purposely thwart the legally mandated public involvement process to implement internal plans decided in advance, regardless of what the majority of their customers think should happen. Witness the news this week from the Bitterroot National Forest. The Forest Service had proposed a hazardous fuel timber sale near Sula in the southernmost Bitterroot Valley, Montana’s first project under the provisos of the 2003 Healthy Forest Restoration Act. The merits of this project are somewhat irrelevant to the point of this column. Good or bad, no matter. What matters is how the FS shammed the public involvement process—and gave us the proof of it, sort of like a bank robber dropping his business card during his getaway....
Forest Service applying letter of the law From cutting the Capitol Christmas tree to minor forest thinning, the U.S. Forest Service has put hundreds of small projects across the country on hold while it reviews a judge's ruling throwing out limits on the public's right to participate in forest decisions. However, a forest protection group that won the ruling contended Friday that the Forest Service has gone far beyond the intent of the ruling and appears to be intentionally holding up trivial projects. Among the projects the Forest Service put on hold is cutting an 80-foot spruce in New Mexico to serve as a holiday tree on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol. As long as no substantive objections are raised during a 30-day public comment period starting Monday, the tree could be cut and shipped to Washington in time, said James Payne, Forest Service southwest regional spokesman, from Phoenix. Matt Kenna, an attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center, said the plaintiffs have offered to work with the Forest Service to clarify what sorts of projects are covered by the ruling, but the Forest Service has refused....
Do You Remember the Last Time You Saw a Porcupine? One of the icons of our forests seems to be slipping away, virtually unnoticed, while wildlife managers scramble to find out what’s happening. Wildlife biologists know the porcupine population over most of the northern Rockies (USA and Canada) has declined sharply, but they don’t know why or how serious it is. Some wildlife biologists fear we might be witnessing a major extinction event—or I should say not witnessing it. “We know the porcupine population is declining, but we don’t know what’s going on,” notes Kerry Foresman, a professor of wildlife biology at the University of Montana and renown small mammal expert, “but we’re trying to get funding to find out.”....
Fish & Wildlife faces possible lawsuit on blue butterfly petition More than 17 months after submitting a petition to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to name the Sand Mountain blue butterfly an endangered species, the Center for Biological Diversity is tired of waiting for an answer. The Center, in accordance with the Xerces Society, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Nevada Outdoor Recreation Association, intend to file suit against the USFWS for violating the Endangered Species Act. Specifically, the Nevada division of the USFWS has taken longer than the required 90 days to answer a petition in favor of naming the blue butterfly an endangered species....
Groups defend relocating bears Nine grizzly bears have been relocated from the Upper Green River Valley this year after conflicts with livestock. But environmentalists and bear biologists defend the relocations, saying they're usually an effective way to prevent future run-ins. A case in point is a bear that was killed in a car crash near Moran this year - 12 years after it was tranquilized, captured and relocated because of conflicts with livestock. Louisa Willcox, wild bears project director with the Natural Resources Defense Council based in Livingston, Mont., said the bear had never again threatened livestock. That's typical, said Mark Bruscino, a bear management officer for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, who estimated that 70 percent of relocated bears never get in trouble with wildlife managers again. "Moving bears is an effective management tool the majority of the time," Bruscino said. "If we move them real quick, a lot of times they will go back to acting like a wild bear," he said....
Judge gives feds 1 year to create salmon plan Warning that threatened and endangered salmon are running out of time, a federal judge Friday gave federal agencies one year to come up with a new plan for protecting them from being killed by federal hydroelectric dams in the Columbia Basin. U.S. District Judge James Redden cut in half the time sought by NOAA Fisheries, the Bonneville Power Administration, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to revise a plan, known as a biological opinion, that the judge had ruled in violation of the Endangered Species Act in May. He said he will keep a close watch over the process and, if he sees substantial progress, could grant a little more time. The latest biological opinion will be the fifth since the federal government took over efforts to save dwindling runs of Columbia Basin salmon from extinction. The fish have suffered from the combined effects of dams, overfishing, logging, grazing, water withdrawals for irrigation and urban development....
Gas boom's effect on wildlife unknown Outfitter Jeff Mead feels a lot more comfortable with his feet in a set of stirrups, steering his horse into the rugged Colorado forest, than on an airplane 11,000 feet over his stomping grounds. Mead soon forgot his unease during a recent tour over his backcountry haven as he pointed to the natural gas wells springing up across the land where he has taken hunters for 15 years. "Elk and deer move out when rigs move in," said Mead, a lanky, mustachioed 50-year-old. "Up on the mountain during hunting season, if you sneeze, you can hear the elk running. So, don't tell me they like eating by a drilling rig." The debate over what energy development is doing to wildlife is raging throughout the Rockies, where some of the nation's richest gas deposits lie under prime wildlife habitat....
A Quest for Oil Collides With Nature in Alaska The 217,000 acres of windblown water and mottled tundra here on the North Slope of Alaska, separating Teshekpuk Lake from the Beaufort Sea, are home in summer to 50,000 to 90,000 migratory birds. This corner of Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve is also thought to be brimming with oil. From the presidencies of Ronald Reagan through Bill Clinton, federal officials put the bird habitat off limits to oil development. But after federal geologists in 2002 quadrupled their estimate of the oil available here in the northeast quadrant of the reserve, the Bush administration proposed putting the whole area up for lease to oil and gas companies. The move has touched off a fierce debate over whether new technologies can allow wildlife to coexist easily with oil exploration. Here, among the crazy-quilt pattern of land and water, the question is particularly keen, because this is where Pacific black brant, snow geese and other migratory birds annually shed their feathers, and for six flightless weeks have minimal disturbance and a clear line of sight against predators. How the dynamic of exploration, leasing and protest at Teshekpuk (pronounced teh-SHEK-puhk) and other parts of the oil patch plays out is seen by both sides in the debate as a harbinger of what awaits the Arctic shoreline - particularly as Congress prepares to vote this fall on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, east of Teshekpuk....
Column: R.S. 2477 means excess, not access, for Utah's public lands On Sept. 8, a federal appeals court overturned a Utah federal judge's decision that had, for four years, reined in a secretive, abusive and overreaching effort by Utah and county officials to claim that long-ignored dirt trails and other paths across federal public lands are actually "highways" under an 1866 law known as R.S. 2477. The new rule is that an R.S. 2477 claim is valid if the claimant can show 10 years of continuous use. The unfortunate response from Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s administration, which has partnered with long-time wilderness foes from certain county commissions, is a reinvigorated campaign to claim that faint tracks and hiking paths across federal public lands - lands cherished for their increasingly rare peace and quiet - are actually highways....
Column: Sell federal land The only thing about which Democrats and Republicans can agree these days, is the astronomical cost of rebuilding the storm-ravaged Gulf coast. Estimates, on either side of the political aisle, reach into the hundreds of billions of dollars. How to pay these costs is a question fueling heated debate inside both parties. Rep. Tom Tancredo has the best idea to date: sell excess federal land. Why should the federal government own more than 700 million acres - more than 30 per cent of the total land area? Even after exempting all the military bases, and the lands that contain "other needful buildings," and all the national parks, the federal government still owns nearly 600 million acres, for no legitimate reason. American taxpayers are shelling out money every year so the federal government can make "payments in lieu of taxes" to the state and local governments that have limited political jurisdiction over these lands. American taxpayers are shelling out money every year so armies of federal employees can make an effort to "manage" these lands. Why?....
Column: Bruce Babbitt's new vision for American land use My purpose, instead, is to show how we can prevent the loss of natural and cultural landscapes and watersheds through stronger federal leadership in land-use planning. It may come as something of a surprise to learn there is such a thing as "federal land-use planning." The notion that land use is a local matter has come to dominate the political rhetoric of our age, obscuring the historical reality that the national government has been involved in land-use planning since the early days of the republic. In fact, there is, by whatever name, a considerable body of law that can and, in my view, should be used toward enhanced federal leadership in land-use planning and preservation. After eight years of intense participation in these battles as secretary of the Interior and subsequent years of observing from the sidelines, I believe the time has come for an armistice followed by a peace conference to which not just Westerners, but all Americans, are invited. The outcome should be a new constitution for public lands, in the form of federal legislation that subordinates (but does not eliminate) mining, grazing and logging to an overriding public mandate for long-term biological diversity, abundant wildlife and fisheries, and the ecological integrity of our streams and watersheds....
Rio Grande water debt finally is paid in full A long-standing Rio Grande water debt that pitted drought-stricken South Texas farmers against Mexico appears resolved with Gov. Rick Perry announcing the debt has been paid in full. "Our farmers, ranchers and cities will have 100 percent of the water they are entitled to, not just for the rest of this year, but for all of 2006," Perry said in a statement. "Now that the debt is paid, both countries must continue to work in good faith to meet the water demands of citizens on both sides of the Rio Grande for years to come." A 1944 treaty dictates that Mexico allow a certain amount of water from the Rio Grande and its Mexican tributaries to reach South Texas. In return, the U.S. releases Colorado River water to Mexico. Mexico fell behind on its obligations in the 1990s, and at the height of a mutual drought owed the U.S. enough water to cover 1.5 million acres a foot deep. By 2002, some South Texas farmers were going under, seething as satellite photos showed lush green spots suggesting healthy Rio Grande irrigation in Mexico....
Erasing ‘squaw' names moves slowly After five years of work, only about 10 of the place names in Oregon containing the word "squaw" in them have been changed, with far more to go. The number of changed names could triple this month when the Oregon Geographic Names Board meets to consider new names for 18 more land features. The word, derived from the Algonquin word for "woman," is now considered a derogatory way to refer to an American Indian woman — and Oregon tribes have pushed to have the word changed. Under a state law passed in 2001, all of the roughly 150 peaks, rivers, buttes, meadows and other land formations in Oregon containing the word were meant to be rechristened by this year. But even if all 18 of the most recent recommendations are accepted by the Oregon board and then approved by a national board, less than 20 percent of the names will have been changed by the law's deadline....
Program helps disabled hunters Brock was among 14 sportsmen and women from across the country at this year's Helluva Hunt, an annual event pairing disabled hunters with volunteer guides on more than 30,000 acres of private land offered by a handful of ranchers. Hunters leave Wyoming with more than a cooler full of meat and a trophy head mount to look forward to; they are empowered in their ability to hunt, which for many, was a way of life before tragic accidents or illnesses left them disabled. In 1984, Outdoor Life magazine editor Jim Zumbo received a letter from a disabled reader wondering why there weren't more opportunities out there for people like him. Zumbo, in turn, wondered why a disabled person should have to stop hunting and found like-minded attitudes in Jane and Gary Stearns of Douglas. The Helluva Hunt was born, and the rest is 21 years of friendships that last like family, an amazing mountain of memories and laughs, and of course, the record books: the longest shot, the biggest horns, even the biggest hunt lie (after all, it is a hunt)....
In outlying communities change is marked in subtle differences Harold Veltkamp's lament sounds much like those escaping the lips of a lot of long-time Gallatin Valley residents. "It's not going to be a valley like we've seen it if all this development happens," Veltkamp said recently. The 80-year-old rancher has raised cattle, wheat and barley on the same 320-acre plot north of Penwell Bridge Road for 46 years. In that time, he has watched as sweeping changes have transformed Southwest Montana. Subdivisions of new homes have drawn people and cars to his neck of the woods in increasing numbers, he said. Now, he said, a new challenge threatens his agricultural way of life. It sits kitty-corner from his property just north of Belgrade's city limits: the proposed 170-acre Ryen Glenn Estates subdivision....
US Congress Fails To Extend Livestock Price Reports System A government program requiring packers to report prices they pay for cattle, hogs and lambs, will expire Friday because the U.S. Congress has failed to extend it. Although packers won't be mandated to file the reports to the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday, most will do so anyway, Agriculture Marketing Service Administrator Lloyd Day said Friday. Day said the USDA has reached out to packers and gotten good responses. "It's looking like it's going to be okay," he said. The Senate and House of Representatives each approved an extension earlier this month, but disagreements in how long the LMPR program should be extended resulted in a stalemate that won't be resolved this week now that the House has adjourned. On Sept. 13, the Senate approved a one-year extension for the program that has been helping livestock producers decide how to set their prices for six years. The next day, on Sept. 14, the House approved a five-year extension. Beyond the length of the extension, the two bodies of Congress also differed on whether or not to expand reporting on swine purchased by packers....
Phony beef cattle sales are alleged Federal regulators on Thursday charged that an Ohio broker created profits topping $1 million by conspiring with two large Nebraska feedlots to manipulate futures trading through sham sales of 4,500 beef cattle two years ago. The purportedly phony transactions were used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's closely watched weekly cash market report, causing futures contracts on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to increase by $2.85 per hundredweight, said Gregory Mocek, director of enforcement at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Todd J. Delay of Columbus turned profits of $1.1 million for himself and his co-conspirators, Mocek contends. Of this, about $250,000 was received directly by Delay and relatives, Mocek asserted....
John Wesley Hardin meets his end while shooting a game of dice The dice tumbled across the top of the bar, and the player growled out an invective directed at either the uncooperative cubes or the grocer named Brown with whom he was matching for drinks. "Shake again," said the grocer. "You've got four sixes to beat," said the player as the dice spilled out of the cup. Those were the last words John Wesley Hardin would utter before an explosion from behind sent a lead slug into the back of his brain. The bullet came out through his left eye, leaving a neat hole in the lid, and then smashed into the mirror behind the bar. Shards of broken glass powdered the air and fell tinkling to the floor. Twisting as he fell, Hardin lay face up as Old John Selman quickly stepped up to the body and fired three more times into its chest, one of the shots tearing off the tip of the little finger on the left hand. A man with a badge, Young John Selman, ran into the saloon and grabbed his father's arm. "Don't shoot anymore! He's dead!"....
On the Edge of Common Sense: Toby Keith's dishrag hat is a good fit for frequent flier When I'm in the airport, I always wave at a cowboy hat ... a real cowboy hat. Somehow you can spot 'em. They inevitably turn out to be some bull rider on the way to a rodeo, a state cattlemen's association representative on the way to Washington, D.C., or a consultant of some kind or farmer or rancher on the way to a funeral or a graduation. Hats take a pretty good beating in the overhead storage on the airplanes. I got off the plane in southern Colorado, grabbed my hat from above and it had been smashed by a suitcase. It looked like it had been rained on, then put in a lunchbox to dry! I drove into town and found a Western store and asked if I could borrow their steamer. "Of course," they said, "have at it." Junior ambled over to visit. He occupied the job of "old-timer" in the store. He looked at my hat and asked if I'd backed over it with a D-8 Cat. It reminded him of one time when he and his pardner were out lookin' for some cows....

===